Called "Disgraceful," "third-rate," and "not nice" by Donald Trump, NBC News Correspondent Katy Tur reported on-and took flak from-the most captivating and volatile presidential candidate in American history. Tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half, following Trump around the country, powered by packets of peanut butter and dry shampoo. She visited forty states with the candidate, made over 3,800 live television reports, and tried to endure a gazillion loops of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" -a Trump rally playlist staple.
From day one to day 500, Tur documented Trump's inconsistencies, fact-checked his falsities, and called him out on his lies. In return, Trump repeatedly singled Tur out. He tried to charm her, intimidate her, and shame her. At one point, he got a crowd so riled up against Tur, Secret Service had to walk her to her car.
None of it worked. Facts are stubborn. So was Tur. She was part of the first women-led politics team in the history of network news. The Boys on the Bus became the Girls on the Plane. But the circus remained. Through all the long nights, wild scoops, naked chauvinism, dodgy staffers, and fevered debates, no one had a better view than Tur.
When Trump became an unexpected presidential success story, Tur became NBC's unexpected darling of political journalism. Ripped from her expat life in London as a foreign correspondent, she lost a lifestyle (and a boyfriend) but joined a family tradition. Tur's parents were the helicopter journalists who filmed the LA riots and OJ Simpson's fleeing White Bronco. They helped invent the live-obsessed news industry that Trump used for his rise.
UNBELIEVABLE is Tur's darkly comic, fascinatingly bizarre, and often scary story of what it was like to be on the inside a no-rules world where reporters were spat on, demeaned, and discredited. "During the campaign, whenever anyone asked what it was like to cover Trump my go to answer was 'wild ride,'" she says. "Well, now I can tell you what I really thought. And what really happened when the cameras turned off."
Katy Tur is a correspondent for NBC News and an anchor for MSNBC. Tur is the recipient of a 2017 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. She lives in New York City.