Nicolai Haugsted
Trump dies on his birthday in provocative new novel from award-winning author.
Award-winning journalist and author Kurt Andersen is preparing to publish a novel that paints a bleak picture of America’s future, placing Donald Trump’s death at the centre of a chain of events that spirals into nationwide unrest.
Rather than writing a traditional political analysis, Andersen chose fiction to explore where he believes the country could be heading. His upcoming satirical novel, The Breakup, is set in 2035 and follows an America consumed by political violence after the fictional death of the president.
Trump dies during symbolic appearance
According to Andersen’s story, Trump celebrates his 89th birthday at Trump Tower before recreating one of the defining moments of his political career by descending the building’s famous golden escalator.
Moments later, the fictional president dies after suffering what the novel describes as a massive brain stroke.
Supporters gathered to mark both Trump’s birthday and the 20th anniversary of his 2015 presidential campaign launch immediately begin spreading conspiracy theories, claiming the death was the result of a so-called “deep-state assassination.”
Riots erupt across the country before the unrest eventually grows into a much larger extremist movement.
“It’s the first spectacular piece of violence, spontaneous violence that then results a year later in an uprising, in a, in a true right-wing uprising, terrorist uprising,” Andersen said on The Daily Beast Podcast.
Novel became darker as events unfolded
Andersen explained that he originally considered writing a nonfiction book about America’s future before deciding fiction would allow him to explore those ideas more freely.
Most of The Breakup had already been completed by the time Trump returned to the White House in 2025, but Andersen said he substantially revised the manuscript as the president’s second term progressed.
“[It] certainly required me to go through and darken the backstory… more horrible and nightmarish than I had had them in the earlier draft,” he said.
Podcast host Joanna Coles described the novel as a story about the “breakup of America,” with the country’s political collapse mirrored by the deterioration of a 23-year relationship at the centre of the book.
Fiction arrives amid renewed focus on Trump’s health
Publication of Andersen’s novel comes as renewed attention has been directed toward Trump’s health following claims made in the recently released book Regime Change, written by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
According to the authors, Trump spent much of his first year back in office moving almost exclusively between the White House and his private clubs after surviving two assassination attempts. They also claim he told aides he was “done with rallies, done with campaigning” after the 2024 election.
Haberman and Swan further write that White House staff privately noticed frequent bruising on Trump’s hands, episodes of afternoon drowsiness and signs of mild hearing loss. Their account also claims meetings with foreign leaders increasingly took place in the Oval Office instead of the East Room because the acoustics were better and the president did not have to remain standing for extended periods.
Speaking about how reality had evolved since he first began writing the novel, Andersen argued that recent political developments had made his fictional scenario feel less distant than when he first conceived it.
“In the last year and a half, in the last three years since I began writing this book, it has become much less far-fetched than it seemed when I began.”
