Among the tales of palace intrigue in the Trump administration is a new story about how former VP Mike Pence "lost it" on then-President Trump over his former adviser Corey Lewandowski getting hired by Pence's political committee. The drama is reported in a new book by The Wall Street Journal's Michael Bender titled, "'Frankly, We Did Win This Election': The Inside Story of How Trump Lost."
The alleged incident between the two happened after the author claims Trump threw a crumpled newspaper article at Pence about the Lewandowski story, upset it "made him look weak."
By January, Mr. Trump’s attention had turned to his vice president, who was responsible for presiding over the Jan. 6 congressional certification of the election. The two men had debated for weeks whether Mr. Pence could reject the results.
But the vice president wasn’t practiced in confronting Mr. Trump. The only example some administration officials could remember was in 2018, when Mr. Pence’s political committee hired Corey Lewandowski, the president’s ubiquitous adviser. Mr. Trump was holding a newspaper article about the hiring and said it made him look weak, like his team was abandoning him as he was probed for his campaign’s role in Russian election meddling. He crumpled the article and threw it at his vice president. “So disloyal,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Pence lost it. Mr. Kushner had asked him to hire Mr. Lewandowski, and he had discussed the plan with Mr. Trump over lunch. Mr. Pence picked up the article and threw it back at Mr. Trump. He leaned toward the president and pointed a finger a few inches from his chest. “We walked you through every detail of this,” Mr. Pence snarled. “We did this for you—as a favor. And this is how you respond? You need to get your facts straight.” (WSJ)
In an emailed statement to supporters, Trump pushed back on the book's claim.
"The story written by third-rate reporter Michael Bender, that Mike Pence and I had a big fight over Corey Lewandowski, is totally false," he said. "No such fight ever happened, it is fiction as are so many other stories written in the vast number of books coming out about me."
In a follow-up email, Trump said it was a "total waste of time" to even meet with authors writing about him or his administration.
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"They write whatever they want to write anyway without sources, fact-checking, or asking whether or not an event is true or false," he claimed. "Frankly, so many stories are made-up, or pure fiction. These writers are often bad people who write whatever comes to their mind or fits their agenda. It has nothing to do with facts or reality.
"So when reading the garbage that the Fake News Media puts out, please remember this and take everything with a 'grain of salt,'" he added.
Bender's book is set to be released next week.
