Donald Trump ripped into Attorney General Bill Barr as a "phony" who "would have licked the floor if I won," after the former president unsuccessfully tried to get U.S. attorneys in swing states to open investigations into his false claims of election fraud, according to Landslide, a new book from journalist Michael Wolff.
The Daily Beast reports that it obtained a copy of Landslide in advance of its publication next week.
"'Trump had been personally calling around to various U.S. attorneys in swing state districts, among them his appointee William McSwain in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,' to try and convince them to open their own probes," the Daily Beast reports. "When they did not, Trump blamed his A.G., saying that 'if I had won, Barr would have licked the floor if I asked him to. What a phony!'"
Needless to say, Trump's fury wasn't reserved solely for Barr as he watched the presidency slipping away from him.
After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from Texas challenging election results in several states, Trump was angry at "his" three justices — particularly Brett Kavanaugh. "Where would he be be without me? I saved his life. He wouldn't even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him," Trump said.
The book also reveals that Trump blamed advisor Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who played Joe Biden in debate prep, for giving him COVID-19. Christie "had sat across from him at the debate prep table, and Trump had seen the spittle come out of his mouth and tried to duck from the droplets," Wolff writes.
Elsewhere, Wolff reports that it was Rupert Murdoch who personally signed off on the Fox News election desk's decision to call Arizona for Biden on Election Night, saying of Trump, "F*ck him."
"This account is completely false," Fox News said in a statement. "Arnon Mishkin who leads the FOX News Decision Desk made the Arizona call on election night and FOX News Media President Jay Wallace was then called in the control room. Any other version of the story is wildly inaccurate."
