Fight

Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House

By: Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes

Narrated by: Joe Knezevich

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER

""Brutal."" —Huffington Post

""Scathing."" —New York Post

""[D]epicts Biden's decline in vivid detail."" —Politico

“So many revelations.” —Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe

""Bombshell."" —Jesse Watters, host of FOX’s Jesse Watters Primetime

The authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Shattered provide a revelatory, inside look at the Biden, Harris, and Trump camps during the 2024 battle for the White House, arguably the most consequential contest in American history.

The ride was so wild that it forced a sitting president to drop his re-election bid, a once and future president to survive felony convictions and a would-be assassin’s bullet, and a vice president, unexpectedly thrust into the arena, to mount an unprecedented 107-day campaign to lead the free world.

Fight is the backstage story of bloodsport politics in its rawest form—the clawing, backstabbing, and rabble-rousing that drove Donald Trump into the White House and Democrats into the wilderness. At every turn, the combatants went for the jugular, whether they were facing down rivals in the other party or their own.

Bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes give readers their first graphic view of the characters, their motivations, and their innermost thoughts as they battled to claim the ultimate prize and define a political era. Based on real-time interviews with more than 150 insiders—from the Trump, Harris, and Biden inner circles, as well as party leaders and operatives—Fight delivers the vivid and stunning tale of an election unlike any other.

In the end, Trump overcame voters’ concerns about his personal flaws by tapping into a deep vein of dissatisfaction with the direction of the country. At the same time, Democrats struggled to connect with an electorate that felt gaslit by Biden’s insistence that he had delivered economic prosperity—and his pledge to be a “bridge” president. He tore his party asunder, leaving destroyed personal relationships in his wake, as he clung to power. And when he gave it up, he kneecapped Harris by demanding unprecedented loyalty from her.

As Allen and Parnes have done in the #1 New York Times bestseller Shattered and Lucky, they provide readers with a skeleton key to the rooms where it all happened, revealing a story more shocking than previously reported.

a balanced look back

I saw an interview about this book on Fox News just the other day and immediately purchased it. Perhaps better than any other book on American politics I have ever read, this book humanizes the election that, as I write this in April 2025 we all remember very clearly. It humanizes the people involved, it makes you feel like you are literally there with them, it is an incredible piece of literature and a wonderful time capsule.

Good read, very interesting.

The authors did well to write without sounding overly partisan. But the foul language is overwhelming at some points. Story would have been great without the vulgar language.

2024 History

I was excited to listen to this production, because I'd been hearing so much about "Fight" in the news. While it's certainly engaging and kept my interest throughout, I walked away a little disappointed.
"Fight" does a good job with a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that serves as a companion to what we all watched play out in the news over the summer and fall of 2024. The book captures the impressions of political operatives of various levels on both sides of the aisle, from unnamed staffers to the candidates themselves. These diverse voices offer intriguing insights into why the election turned out the way it did.
However, the authors also depict the inner thoughts of various figures, including the candidates. While some of these recollections may come from interviews with the book's subjects, some of them, including the private thoughts of Trump, Biden, Harris & Pelosi (among others), can't be anything other than pure conjecture on the authors' part.
I was disappointed also by the lack of real insights in the book, a task made harder, admittedly, by the recency of the events depicted in "fight." I didn't feel I learned anything new, but rather got confirmation on things that I'd already suspected, or got to see the behind-the-scenes events that inspired them.
Lastly, while the people discussed in this book are generally portrayed with something like objectivity (or at least a game attempt to be objective) regardless of their political affiliation, the authors are unable (or unwilling) to depict Kamala Harris as anything more than as a kind of genial cipher, a well-intentioned biographical blurb, possessed of some generic virtues and no real faults except perhaps naivete, and entirely lacking in agency. With a couple notable exceptions, she seems to drift through this narrative, completely at the mercy of forces not of her making and beyond her control.
I'm glad I read this book, and if the subject interests you, it's a fair bet you'll enjoy it, too. Having said that, I expect that when the dust clears and the passage of years gives historians a chance to draw fresh insights from this election, we'll see more a more incisive analysis of this period. Until then, this is probably the best we've got.

Interesting Insights

A fast paced inside look into both political camps of an incredible cacampaign season. Will definitely listen a couple more times

Exciting

Couldn’t stand the lying and deceit . Trying to keep a demented President “alive” when they knew he was sick