or challenge democratic norms for personal gain." The New York Times review called it an account chronicling the first three years of Trump's presidency. "The book feels weightiest toward its end, when Karl addresses 'the president’s incessant telling of untruths' and Trump's dangerous relationship with the press. Unspooling a distressing private Oval Office meeting with the president on the matter, he concludes, 'I fear President Trump's war on truth may do lasting damage to American democracy.'" The Washington Post review calls the book "chiefly a compilation of his encounters and interviews with Trump and members of his staff" with "far too much recounting, often in somewhat tedious detail, of Karl’s daily coverage of Trump." According to the reviewer, the account "lacks analysis of the larger issues Trump and his presidency represent," while acknowledging in the epilogue "that Trump is 'motivated only by an insatiable desire to promote himself, but his assault on truth is toxic and contagious.'" A review in The Guardian states that the "well-organized and respectfully written" book "conveys the chaos and the characters that inhabit the president’s universe," including "his preternatural disregard for the truth – 'Trump was a serial exaggerator long before he ran for president' – and his curious soft spot for the Confederacy." Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show Karl's next book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, mostly covers the last year of the Trump administration and was released in November 2021. It debuted at number 3 on the December 5, 2021, New York Times Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction best seller list and spent 3 weeks in the top 15. The Washington Post book review said, "Karl's sobering, solid, account of Trump's last year in office sheds new light on how the man who lost the presidency nearly succeeded in overthrowing the 2020 election. Anyone who thinks that 'it can’t happen here,' ought to read this book." In The Guardian, John S. Gardner wrote, "Jonathan Karl produced arguably the year’s most significant book in Betrayal, in which Trump cabinet members ‘paint a portrait of a wrath-filled president, untethered from reality, bent on revenge’." Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia named Betrayal the number one political book of 2021, saying, "Betrayal broke a lot of news but the reason I chose it is because it makes all the points that people need to know about what Karl calls