Retribution by Jonathan Karl Review: Scoops vs Familiarity

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By TRH Book Desk

Retribution by Jonathan Karl: a fast, well-sourced account of 2024, stronger on scoops than on surprise

New Delhi, November 10, 2026 — The best campaign books are written in the moment and still hold up afterward. Jonathan Karl’s Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America aims for that. Karl is ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent, and this is his fourth book on Trump, following Front Row at the Trump Show, Betrayal and Tired of Winning. Dutton published it on October 28, 2025.

The book traces the 2024 race from both sides: President Biden’s disastrous debate and withdrawal, Kamala Harris’s brief run, the assassination attempts on Trump, and the early phase of his second term. The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward is quoted on the jacket, but the key credential is access.

Kirkus’s news desk reported that Karl interviewed Trump throughout the 2024 campaign, and that Karl told Axios he never expected Trump to win. The book is partly about why he was wrong.

Karl has said “retribution” was his title from the day Trump was re-elected.

Kirkus calls the book “a new standard in presidential recklessness” and says Karl’s reporting fills in blanks left because last fall’s election results prevented a special counsel’s findings from reaching a courtroom. The scoops are vivid.

Kirkus highlights Biden’s July 2024 letter telling Democrats to stop trying to oust him as the nominee. It also notes that Hunter Biden told Karl he believed Barack Obama was behind George Clooney’s op-ed urging Biden to step aside.

Axios reported Hunter’s fury at Obama for leading his father off a Hollywood stage. Steve Bannon told Karl that, had he not been in prison when a would-be assassin shot at Trump, he would have tried to stoke unrest. Karl also quotes Pence’s contemporaneous notes from his January 6 call with Trump, which he calls an incredible historical document.

Familiarity is the risk. A Goodreads reader complained that the first part rehearses salient moments of the 2024 campaign while ignoring others, and another said there was nothing new, since Trump has not changed. A third compared it to Game Change for readability and to Michael Wolff’s insider books for its sources, with Bannon prominent in both. Others called it a good summary of the campaign and a view of what Trump is like behind closed doors. Karl’s access to Trump also creates a tension, because a reporter who needs the subject to keep talking may soften the edges.

The book is at its best when it stays with scenes that only a reporter with Karl’s rolodex could assemble: Biden’s inner circle, the Harris team’s improvisation, Trump’s private demeanour. Its argument, that this term is more consequential than the first, is stated plainly but is more assertion than analysis. A reader hoping for a theory of why America moved may find a collection of anecdotes instead.

Published one year ago, the book now reads as an early draft of a story still being written.

Readers who followed 2024 closely will find fresh detail rather than a fresh thesis. Newer readers will find a readable, fast-moving guide to how the campaign unfolded. Both should weigh the access against the author’s closeness to the story.