The Fifth Risk

Michael Lewis is an American author and financial journalist. A contributing author to Vanity Fair, he is also the author of several previous books, and The Fifth Risk continues his behind-the-scenes tours of different industries, including sports, the financial sector, and now, the government. His presence in The Fifth Risk is mostly as a plot device. He offers some narration and discusses his travels to each department as well as his meetings with former government staffers. Additionally, Lewis plays the role that he argues members of the Trump transition team should have played: He learns about the top priorities of each department and the biggest risks they each face. His approach is not meant to be partisan, though he includes some jabs at the Trump administration. For example, as he begins his conversation with John MacWilliams to simulate what a possible transition meeting could have looked like, he writes, “I assume the tone and manner befitting a self-important, mistrustful person newly arrived from some right-wing think tank” (57). This less-than-objective comment betrays what Lewis thinks of those whose work he is examining.

However, Lewis generally stays out of his own