Truthout is offering “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President” for a minimum one-time donation of $40, or a monthly commitment of $15 or more to Truthout.
An explosive new book that draws a searing portrait of the Obama administration’s failings, and early management of the economic crisis, has been met with sharp objections from officials within and outside of the White House. We speak with veteran journalist Ron Suskind, author of “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.” He writes that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ignored an order from President Obama to consider dissolving the debt-ridden banking giant Citigroup as part of a reconstruction of major banks in March 2009. Suskind argues that Citigroup was one of several incidents where President Obama’s authority was “systematically undermined or hedged by his seasoned advisers.” In the book based on interviews with more than 200 people, including former and current members of the Obama administration, as well as the President himself, Suskind also says the White House is a hostile workplace for women.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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