Jonathan Karl's new book, "Tired of Winning," tells the story of former U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick, who narrowly lost to Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania primary after Donald Trump endorsed the TV doc and attacked McCormick.
The backstory of that is that McCormick hired several Trump loyalists for his campaign and went to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. But, when he arrived, he was asked about an interview he gave to Bloomberg after the Jan. 6 attack, Karl wrote.
McCormick, his wife Dina Powell and Trump adviser Hope Hicks sat down for the meeting and Trump brought up a video.
“I think what we have to not embrace is the divisiveness that’s characterized the last four years and the polarization,” McCormick said when asked if the GOP needed to abandon Trumpism, Karl's book says. “I think the president has some responsibility — a lot of responsibility — for that.”
“That’s very bad,” Trump said. “Why would you say bad things about me?”
Karl explained that McCormick, who is far from a moderate, didn't say anything that hadn't already been said by Republicans in Congress and the Senate after Jan. 6. The difference is that people like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) came crawling back, begging for forgiveness, he said.
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"Trump needed him to prove his loyalty — and to pay a price for what he’d said on Bloomberg more than a year earlier. But it was a price McCormick wasn’t willing to pay," wrote Karl.
“I know Pennsylvania,” Trump claimed, according to Karl. “You cannot win unless you say the election was stolen.”
“Mr. President,” McCormick said, “I cannot do that.”
Trump endorsed Oz, who lost in a humiliating defeat that also exposed several of his products and endorsements and questioned his medical advice and experience. But in his endorsement, Trump destroyed McCormick, saying he had made deals with China and was a "globalist" and member of the "Washington establishment."
McCormick told Karl he ran into Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Long Island after the loss. “Trump’s an idiot. You would’ve won," Schumer told him.
"But to those who went through the Mar-a-Lago circuit in 2022, that didn’t seem to be the former president’s top priority," wrote Karl.
“I don’t think he gave a s--t at all whether we won the Senate,” one Republican Senate candidate told Karl. “It was all about, ‘Who has the most allegiance to me?’ It was all who was going to be beholden to him.”
Republicans didn't win back the U.S. Senate in 2022 and the "red wave" they expected after redistricting House seats was more like a red puddle.
Read more from coverage of Karl's book here.
