New book on Trump’s ‘enemies’ arriving just in time | John Baer

The release this week of a book on President Trump seems perfectly timed to (a) counterbalance some of the president's looming and lingering problems and (b) set the stage for a two-year, full-bore reelection effort.

Trump's Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency, written by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, argues that an inbred, elite Washington bureaucracy packed with presidential enemies is working to prevent and/or derail the "winning" Trump agenda.

This is an early holiday gift for both anti-Trumpers and his loyal base.

Lefties can use the boldface title, "Trump's Enemies," for party riffs on how the 288-page offering is but the first of several volumes.

The base can brandish the book as proof that Trump is so rogue in fighting for the real America that denizens of privileged, pampered Washington can't allow pro-people programs to upset the establishment.

For Trump, it couldn't come at a better time.

It helps validate any post-midterms staff or cabinet shake-ups. It could help blunt expected year-end action by special counsel Robert Mueller (assuming he's still around). It offers an alternative to books such as Bob Woodward's Fear: Trump in the White House.

Because inside enemies explain a lot. They make Trump a victim, a crusader sacrificing to achieve American greatness stymied by a select, sullied few.

It's a perfect plot line. Expect a movie soon.

The Washington Post and the New York Times, based on advance copies, report the book tags Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, for trying to "cage" the president; calls former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn "the poster boy" for disloyal staff conspiring against Trump; rips former staff secretary Rob Porter and former press secretary Sean Spicer; and labels Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen a "rat."

It quotes Trump saying Mueller's Russia probe "makes my base stronger." And it reminds all of Trump's core belief, "The greatest enemy of this country is Fake News. I really mean it."

It also reprises Trump's assertion he was spied on at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign by President Obama. And it slams two potential 2020 Democratic opponents for Trump: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a "liberal wacko" and California Sen. Kamala Harris as "an enemy of President Trump."

So, it's a real table-setter.

As Trump approaches two years in, a time when even avid Trump backers might wonder where's the "big, beautiful wall," now they have an answer. Enemies in Congress and the White House obviously hold Trump back.

Same goes for any border woes. Embedded conspirators in his administration keep him from keeping the country safe.

Plus, now it's clear why the president disagrees with his own intelligence agencies about who's responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It's also plain why the president doesn't believe a new climate report from 13 agencies in his own administration predicting the dire economic consequences of not addressing global warming.

Why would Trump or any leader take the word of those who so very clearly are working so hard against him?

And that can play forward.

The holiday-season layoff announcement of 14,000 General Motors workers during a presidency built in part on a promise to keep U.S. manufacturing jobs and bring back those that left?

Can't possibly have anything to do with Trump's tariffs or trade wars. He's a self-graded "A+" president in "the best economy we've ever had." Gotta be those enemies, at it again.

The latest tracking numbers from Gallup showing the president's job-approval rating at 38 percent? Must be fake polls. Reported by fake news.

Finally, a book on the president's enemies helps put his reelection bid in a place from which he ran in 2016: Washington outsider battling a rigged system that works against real Americans.

A promo blurb says it all: "This book will expose the political and bureaucratic underbelly, its struggle to survive an unorthodox commander-in-chief, and its willingness to do almost anything to stop him."

It's vindication and rallying cry – all in one-stop shopping.