Book Review

Donald Trump’s new photo book is a fantastical highlight reel
“Save America” is a breathless gallery of Trump’s presidency accompanied by occasional unhinged ramblings.


(Winning Team Publishing)

Review by Ron Charles
September 4, 2024 at 11:08 a.m. EDT

Reflecting on the glory of his new photobook, Donald Trump writes, “No other book compares to ‘Save America,’” which is an extraordinary claim from a man who just a few months ago was hawking copies of the Bible. … But “Save America” is, indeed, a singular production — literally a steal at $99 (plus $11 for shipping). Many of the hundreds of photos were drawn from the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, a federally funded oxymoron.

Part retrospection, part revenge, part fantasy, “Save America” was released Tuesday by Winning Team, a right-wing publishing house founded by Sergio Gor and Donald Trump Jr. to promote books by Trump and other literary luminaries such as Kari Lake and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Arriving just two months before the presidential election, “Save America” would seem well-positioned to serve as a visual campaign biography. But rather than argue for returning Trump to the White House, the book’s captions — written in Trump’s enthusiastic style of capitalization, like a fascist Emily Dickinson — suggest that he never really left. Indeed, this is a volume too pure to be sullied by campaign details. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are barely mentioned. I spotted JD Vance only once and without identification or comment. Hannibal Lecter gets more ink.

Oh yes, there are passing mentions of a strong military; the need to stop illegal immigration, which is “WRONG”; the importance of domestic manufacturing; and a fanciful reference to America’s oil and gas lasting into the future for “HUNDREDS OF YEARS.” But the overwhelming visual evidence of the book implies that what will really save America is Donald Trump in a blue suit.

{snip}

Ron Charles reviews books and writes the Book Club newsletter for The Washington Post. He is the book critic for “CBS Sunday Morning.”

Save America
By Donald J. Trump
Winning Team. 360 pp. $99

By Ron Charles
Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post. Before moving to Washington, he edited the books section of the Christian Science Monitor in Boston. follow on X @roncharles