Trump 'abruptly hung up' on Lindsey Graham after he said the Capitol riots stained his presidency: Woodward book

Another excerpt from Bob Woodward and Bob Costa's new book Peril is being released by CNN.com, and it makes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) out to be a kind of counselor to a drug addict.

The book described the GOP considering Graham a "Trump Whisperer," who served the party by taking on a role "like an addiction counselor struggling to keep his patient from taking one more drink."

Around the time that Trump infuriated his own party, Graham was telling his party that the GOP needed Trump.

The former President, Graham said, "could make the Republican Party something that nobody else I know could make it. He could make it bigger. He could make it stronger. He could make it more diverse. And he also could destroy it."

Trump, Graham said, has both a "dark side" and some "magic" in him. "What I'm trying to do is just harness the magic."

"We can't do it without you, Mr. President," Graham told Trump in May, according to the book. "You have to help us. But you're going to have to focus on the future, not the past, to maximize our chance at success."

But after Jan. 6, Graham told him, "You f*cked your presidency up," because of the role the president had in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump then "abruptly hung up" on Graham, Woodward and Costa write.

The book goes on to say that the two men spoke again the following day and Graham said he didn't blame Trump for hanging up.

Trump said he would "lose my base" if he was any different. But Graham told him to look at 2024, to make it the "biggest comeback in American history."

Read the full piece at CNN.com.