While many may have been hoping to continue their Trump-free summers in peace, the first wave of the post-Trump presidency era books have just been released. The list includes Frankly, We Did Win This Election from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender, Michael Wolff’s Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump White House, and I Alone Can Fix It co-authored by the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. All three books give detailed accounts of Trump’s final year in office and how he became the first incumbent president in thirty years to lose a second election.
Those are obviously too many Trump books to read, so here are nine juicy details that the books revealed about Trump, his staff, and supporters.
Trump believed that the Democratic Party would withdraw their nomination for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the last minute and replace them with Andrew Cuomo and Michelle Obama as the presidential and vice presidential nominees, respectively. According to Wolff, Trump heard this theory from Fox News personality Sean Hannity and believed that former president Barack Obama orchestrated the plan. Never mind that the New York governor insisted that he would not run for president or accept a spot as VP.
Trump suggested using the pandemic as an excuse for indefinitely postponing the 2020 election. It’s no secret that Trump wanted to delay the election due to his concerns over mail-in voting fraud. However, once that idea didn’t work, he brought up delaying the election because there was “too much virus” and “people can’t get to the polls,” according to Wolff. Fortunately, his then-chief of staff Mark Meadows stepped in to inform him that postponing the election wasn’t a constitutional possibility.
Trump said that he wanted the military to “beat the fuck” out of protesters for racial justice and “to crack their skulls,” Wolff reports. Unlike the rioters at the Capitol, Trump allegedly wanted a violent military response to Black Lives Matter demonstrators following the murder of George Floyd last year. Bender reports that aides pushed back on the order, so Trump softened his stance and request that soldiers “shoot them in the leg — or maybe the foot but be hard on them.”
Trump feels betrayed by all three Supreme Court justices that he nominated, but he”reserved particular bile for [Brett] Kavanaugh,” Wolff writes. The former president told Wolff that he was “very disappointed” in Kavanaugh’s votes, saying that “he just hasn’t had the courage you need to be a great justice.” He also claimed that he saved the Supreme Court justice’s life, despite “practically every senator” telling him to not go through with the nomination.
Trump allegedly told one of his many White House chief of staffs John Kelly that Adolf Hitler “did a lot of good things.” Bender recounts Kelly’s failed attempts to discourage Trump from praising Hitler, regardless of what economic success Germany may have had under the dictator’s rule. Kelly and Trump deny this anecdote, but it’s not the first time Trump’s alleged interest in the Nazi leader has come up. Over thirty years ago, Trump’s first wife, Ivana, alleged that he kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bed.
According to Bender, Trump thinks that Mitch McConnell is as “dumb as a rock.” The former President’s contempt for the Senate Minority Leader is well known, considering that Trump called him a “dumb son of a bitch” in front of Republic donors at Mar-a-Lago in April. McConnell’s failure to defend Trump during the impeachment trail after the Capitol riot caused a riff between the two. Apparently, Bender writes, McConnell dislikes Trump just as much, but he’s not so vocal about it.
Rudy Giuliani’s plan during election night was to urge Trump to say that he won, regardless of the truth. Rucker and Leonnig report that Giuliani came up with the idea in a drunken haze. However, members of Trump’s campaign team strongly disagreed with this and attempted to keep everyone calm and rational during election night.
Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol openly admitted that they were there to overthrow the government. One Capitol rioter that Bender spoke to claimed that those at the riot didn’t want to “steal things” or “do damage.” They just wanted to “overthrow the government.”
Trump’s notorious remarks before supporters stormed the Capitol were not in the speech that his staff had prepared. In his speech to the mob on January 6, Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol three different times, saying “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol.” However, Wolff revealed that the lines were ad-libbed by the former president.
This won’t be the last time you hear about Trump; He has reportedly given at least 22 book interviews.
Before becoming Research Editor, Damare Baker was an Editorial Fellow and Assistant Editor for Washingtonian. She has previously written for Voice of America and The Hill. She is a graduate of Georgetown University, where she studied international relations, Korean, and journalism.
