Trump claimed Republican leaders wanted Pelosi and Schiff sued — but it never happened: new book

The new book "Betrayal" by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl revealed that on many occasions Trump would lie about what others said or did just to manufacture the outcome he desired.

In one case, Trump lied that Vice President Mike Pence had been visiting with COVID-19 patients, urging reporters not to shake his hand.

In another incident that Karl documented, Trump lied to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone about Republican leadership's demands that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) be sued by the White House.

Karl described the GOP leadership meeting with Trump for lunch at the White House. As Cipollone stopped by the dining room to give Trump a message, the president began "berating him in front of McCarthy and the others."

"Pat, I'm here with the top Republican leaders and they are furious," Trump said. "They are demanding to know why you haven't moved on the lawsuits against Pelosi and Schiff. They are really upset. It's all they want to talk about."

Karl noted that it "was bizarre" because "nobody at lunch had said anything at all about lawsuits or, for that matter, about Pat Cipollone," wrote Karl. "The idea of suing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was something Trump had floated months earlier, but nobody took it seriously. Trump was lying through his teeth. McCarthy, Scalise, and Cheney knew it. Trump knew they knew it. But Trump also knew he could lie with impunity. Nobody in that room would dare to contradict him."

It was typical Trump behavior, Karl wrote, saying that the president "routinely humiliated senior aides in front of other people. He seemed to especially relish humiliating Cipollone, an earnest, straitlaced lawyer and a devout Catholic who often had to tell Trump things he didn't want to hear."

Trump assumed that Cipollone was his personal lawyer paid for at taxpayer expense. He never fully appeared to understand the White House counsel is there to serve as the lawyer for the Office of the Presidency.

Karl's book Betrayal is on sale now.