Trump mocked Ron DeSantis as ‘fat’,’whiny’ and denied watching Capitol riot on TV: New book

Donald Trump called Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential rival, “fat” and “nagging,” a new book excerpt revealed on Sunday.

According to New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, he called his former Republican ally of the House a “phony” and took credit for his narrow 2018 victory over ex-Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in the race of the Florida governor.

An excerpt from Haberman’s forthcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump And The Breaking of America,” was published in The Atlantic Ocean on Sunday.

It describes three separate meetings between the former president and the veteran New York journalist, who even covered him in front of the White House.

In the second, which took place in Mar-a-Lago in the spring of 2021, Trump denied watching television when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in January of that year.

He had been asked what exactly he was doing in the hours between when the mob broke in and when he finally told them to go home.

‘Normally I didn’t have the television on. I’d have it on if there was anything. I turned it on later and I saw what happened,” Trump said, according to Haberman.

‘I had heard that afterwards and actually too late. I had meetings. I was also with Mark Meadows and others. I wasn’t watching television.’

She wrote of hearing Trump called Florida governor Ron DeSantis a ‘fake’, among other insults

Since their meeting, multiple testimonies have been collected by the selected House committee investigating the January 6 attack, contradicting Trump’s version of events.

Commissioner Rep. Elaine Luria said at the eighth hearing of lawmakers in late July: “President Trump sat at his dinner table watching the attack on television as his top staff, close advisers and family members pleaded with him to do what is expected of him. every American president.”

The Sunday book excerpt also reveals that Trump mocked friends and rivals alike.

Apparently he said of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, “The Old Crow is a piece of shit.”

During their third meeting, which took place at Trump’s Bedminster golf course, Haberman asked him about comparisons to former 2016 rival Chris Christie. The ex-New Jersey governor became an ally of Trump before breaking up with him again after the Capitol riots.

‘I was compared to him? Why? I didn’t know I had such a big weight problem,” Trump is said to have replied.

He also denied seeing the Jan. 6 Capitol bombing on television — despite testimony contradicting that claim.

Also at their third meeting, Haberman described meeting South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham while the lawmaker was playing golf at Trump’s golf course in New Jersey.

Graham reportedly told her while gesturing to Trump, “The greatest comeback in American history!”

Trump then followed with, “You know why Lindsey kisses me on the ass?…So I support his friends.”

“Graham laughed profusely,” Haberman wrote in her report.

He also spoke venomously for former Vice President Mike Pence, whose refusal to go along with Trump and his allies’ plan to nullify the 2020 election results has met with bipartisan praise and GOP-led disdain.

“I said, ‘Mike, you have a chance to be Thomas Jefferson, or you can be Mike Pence,’ Trump said. “He chose to be Mike Pence.”

Looking back, Trump told Haberman he would take the bumpy ride again – but the author noted that his first joy was the fame it brought rather than any gratitude from public service.

“The question I am asked more than any other is, ‘If you had to do it again, would you have done it?’… The answer is yes, I think so,” Trump is said to have said. .

‘Because this is how I look at it. I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are.’

And more than a year before the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, he downplayed the thought that he had important files that, according to the book, should have stayed in Washington.

He objected when I asked if he had taken any important documents with him when he left the White House — ‘nothing of great urgency, no,’ he said, before mentioning the letters Kim Jong-un had sent him, letting him know. witnessed by so many visitors to the Oval Office that advisers were concerned that he was handling sensitive material carelessly,” Haberman wrote.

She asked if he could bring sensitive materials.

“No, I think that’s in the archives, but… Most of it is in the archives, but the Kim Jong-un letters… We have incredible things,” Trump apparently replied.