Martin, Burns extend scope of “This Will Not Pass” to cover two-year political crisis

The chaotic final year in office for President Trump inspired two New York Times national political correspondents to expand the scope of a book about the 2020 election to include an exploration of the end of the Trump presidency and the beginning of President Biden’s term.

“There was a cascade of extraordinary events, one after the other, that made us revisit our calculation for the book,” Jonathan Martin, co-author of “This Will Not Pass” said at a National Press Club Headliners Book Event on June 14. “It’s a two-year account of this period of crisis in American politics.”

That’s why he and co-author Alex Burns decided that rather than write a recap of the 2020 election to focus on the last year of the Trump presidency, the election, the hand off to Biden and Biden's first year in office.

Martin said it is likely that the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which is currently under investigation by the January 6 commission, will be studied for years to come.

It still is not clear whether Trump directed his supporters to attack and illegally enter the Capitol to stage a takeover the Congress, or whether it was a “delusional” hope, Burns said.

Both journalists said that in writing the book, they culled through sensational material, primarily outrageous remarks by Trump. When convincing sources to speak to them, they assured them they would draw a definitive line between immediate material for daily New York Times coverage and other revelations that would be saved for the book.

Although Biden has aimed to be as transformative a president as Lyndon Johnson, he has achieved numerous triumphs in his first 18 months that would be celebrated by most progressive Democrats, Martin said.

Under Trump, the Oval Office at times seemed like a Marx Brothers movie, Burns said. In contrast, Biden and his inner circle are serious about governing the nation through the multiple and unprecedented crises it and the American people now face.

Both Trump and Biden are well tuned into polling results. Trump was considering, in the very early days of the COVID pandemic, of deporting Chinese nationals, including university researchers, until polls showed that Americans did not like the idea, Martin said.

However, the Trump administration did not conduct a poll on internal bleaching as a way of protecting people from the coronavirus, Martin said, half jokingly.

Biden’s pollsters tried to warn him in early 2021 of rising inflation, Burns said. Unfortunately, Biden failed to heed those warnings, which is why inflation is now 8.6% in the United States and even higher in other nations around the world.

The book has been very well received, with a recent review in The Guardian calling it “essential reading” about “an enraged Republican party, besotted by and beholden to Donald Trump” and “a Democratic party led by Joe Biden as, in equal measure, inept and out of touch."