Donald Trump maintained a MAGA gift shop at the White House to give away campaign swag.
According to the upcoming book "This Will Not Pass," by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, the former president kept a room next to the Oval Office filled with MAGA merchandise that he gave away to visitors -- regardless of their political affiliation, reported the Huffington Post.
“They literally hand you a shopping bag," said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, "and you took anything you’d like.”
Murphy visited the White House early in the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when Trump showed him the swag stash, and the governor was among several who said the former president told him he wanted "reciprocity" for offering federal help to their state as the virus surged.
“There’s something you want to ask me about FEMA?” Trump said in August 2020, according to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat. “Well, ask me nicely.”
The authors gained press for their book release earlier this week when it was reported they asked Trump why Kevin McCarthy would tell others that he had clashed with the president in what he described as an expletive-laced phone call, and the former president expressed contempt for the GOP leader.
"Inferiority complex," Trump said.
But Trump says the call never happened and that McCarthy didn't challenge him over the insurrection.
