Book on US presidency reveals stunning facts

Kamala Harris gaslit by her own campaign team. Makeup before internal aide meetings and fluorescent tape to guide an aging Joe Biden. Donald Trump's 180 from an early-voting skeptic to an early-voting evangelist. A tearful, pre-assassination premonition from Trump's chief of staff.

These are among the revelations from "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House," where journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes uncover never-before-seen details and strategies that shaped the 2024 presidential elections. USA TODAY spoke with the authors about the most surprising takeaways and reactions since the book was published on 1st April 2025.

Perhaps the most revelatory insight from "Fight" is the lead-up and aftermath to Harris' succession as the Democratic nominee. Nancy Pelosi's involvement was paramount for the switch, with the authors telling USA TODAY it felt "Shakespearean," like a "knifing," or "a real Brutus moment." Allen and Parnes outline the chaos that followed Biden stepping down, including Barack Obama scrambling to set up an open convention to "circumvent" Harris and Biden insisting there be "no daylight" between them, even as the White House staff gave the go-ahead to push for her victory. While Harris felt loyalty to Biden, he did not feel the same to her, the authors say.

"I think a lot of people who will read this book will be surprised and, on the left, be saddened at the degree to which Joe Biden put himself above the interests of his party and ultimately … from the Democratic point of view, the interests of the country," Allen says.The authors anticipate "Fight" could be a "playbook" for the 2028 presidential election, as Democrats (but also Republicans) learn from the chaos of the 2024 election. One of the really cool things about this book so far is that everybody who reads it has a different kind of like, "Oh my God" moment. Some of them were common, but the reaction that we have gotten has been just overwhelming in terms of how many surprises there are for readers.

Whether you're talking about Biden or Harris or Trump or Susie Wiles, the Trump campaign manager who has sort of a premonition about him being shot that we report for the first time, or you're talking about Pelosi or Obama. I mean, all of these - I was going to say characters, but they're real. They're real people who have these very sort of dramatic motivations.