[4] Karl served as the Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News from December 2012 through the end of the Donald Trump administration in January 2021.

[11] Karl was named Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News in December 2012[3] and held that position through the end of the Trump administration in January 2021.

[12] In May 2013, Karl wrote an article about the reaction of Barack Obama's administration to the 2012 Benghazi attack in which he claimed to quote directly from an email sent by a White House advisor.

It debuted at number 3 on the April 19, 2020, New York Times Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction best seller list and spent 5 weeks in the top 15.

With a solid mixture of serious-minded factuality and good-humored prose, Karl provides an accessible understanding of the strangest White House in U.S. history.

"The book feels weightiest toward its end, when Karl addresses 'the president’s incessant telling of untruths' and Trump's dangerous relationship with the press.

'"[19] A review in The Guardian states that the "well-organized and respectfully written" book "conveys the chaos and the characters that inhabit the president’s universe," including "his preternatural disregard for the truth—'Trump was a serial exaggerator long before he ran for president'—and his curious soft spot for the Confederacy.

[20] It debuted at number 3 on the December 5, 2021, New York Times Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction best seller list and spent 3 weeks in the top 15.

[21][22][23] The Washington Post book review said, "Karl's sobering, solid, account of Trump's last year in office sheds new light on how the man who lost the presidency nearly succeeded in overthrowing the 2020 election.

"[24] In The Guardian, John S. Gardner wrote, "Jonathan Karl produced arguably the year’s most significant book in Betrayal, in which Trump cabinet members ‘paint a portrait of a wrath-filled president, untethered from reality, bent on revenge’.

"[26] An NPR review says, "The overarching theme of Betrayal is that the former president did not merely flirt with defying the 2020 election result, he focused on it obsessively and conducted a months-long campaign to make it possible.

The review adds:  "As a longtime TV reporter, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl brings an eye for life as presented on screen that is acutely appropriate for the Trump saga.

In the messages, McEntee insisted that vice president Mike Pence "had the authority to overturn the results of the November election" and that defense secretary Mark Esper should be fired.