Max’s best-selling biography of Ronald Reagan, Reagan: His Life and Legend, will be released in paperback on October 20. It was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2024. It has also made best-of-the-year lists at The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Economist, and Air Mail. You can purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookstore. Also please follow Max's writing at "The Long View" on Substack.
|
See where Max is speaking in advance of the paperback release of Reagan: His Life and Legend
Wednesday, October 14, 6:30pm The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum
Grand Rapids, MI Thursday, October 15, 6:30pm The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library Ann Arbor, MI Saturday, October 17, 2:00pm
Southern Festival of Books, in conversation with Lamar Alexander Nashville, TN Monday, October 19, 6:00pm University Club of Chicago, in conversation with David French Chicago, IL |
Trump is discovering that ‘dollar diplomacy’ doesn’t work |
The administration’s pursuit of profit and peace blurs the line between public and private interests. By MAX BOOT
The Washington Post October 12, 2026
As President Donald Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they are also working with the Kremlin to sell $20 billion in international assets owned by the Russian oil company Lukoil to a group of investors that includes their own business partners.
According to the Financial Times and the New York Times, the U.S. government (via the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation) would get a 15 percent stake in the new company. Other stakeholders would include Trump donor Todd Boehly; an Emirati fund that also invested in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company co-founded by the Trump and Witkoff families (Witkoff says he has divested his interest); and two Syrian-born Qatari brothers who are partners with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, in a planned luxury resort in Albania.
While Witkoff and Kushner say they would not benefit from the Lukoil sale, the deal reeks of conflicts of interest at best and outright corruption at worst. But it is emblematic of the de facto Trump Doctrine — mixing private and public interests to an unprecedented degree.
Read more in The Washington Post |
Trump turns on Ukraine—again |
|
|
|
The Trump-Zelensky relationship is again in crisis mode, because of Trump’s pro-Putin bias. By MAX BOOT Substack
October 10, 2026 Boy, that went south fast.
It wasn’t long ago that President Trump was actually complimenting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and promising to let Ukraine build its own Patriot missiles. In fact, the Patriot decision was conveyed by Trump to Zelensky just two weeks ago on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Then on Friday, Trump announced that he would be waiving sanctions on Russian exports of diesel fuel, at least temporarily, so that the United States could buy Russian fuel. This was a bizarre decision on many levels, given that Russia refining capacity has been hit so hard by Ukraine that Russia does not have much, if any, diesel fuel it can export. Read more on Substack |
|
|
58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065 |
1777 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 |
|
|
|
|
