Donald Trump struck back at claims from yet another supposedly tell-all book about the latter days of his administration, denying he ever planned a coup of the U.S. government.
The book — “I Alone Can Fix It” by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker — claims to detail Trump’s attempt to cling to power after last year’s election. CNN published excerpts from the book on Wednesday. The book says Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley and other top military officials feared Trump was planning a coup after his defeat and discussed resigning if they were given illegal or dangerous orders.
According to excerpts, Milley and other officials, who were not named, discussed resigning one by one rather than carrying out illegal orders, according to Business Insider.
Trump struck back at such notions in a Thursday social media statement.
Trump weighs in with a lengthy statement about General Milley: “Sorry to inform you, but an Election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley” pic.twitter.com/FYAixNygA6
— davidshepardson (@davidshepardson) July 15, 2021
On Wednesday, CNN reported on author Michael Bender’s “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.” That book claims Trump, wife Melania and son Barron were taken to the bunker over several days in May 2020 during the protests over the killing of George Floyd. Bender writes Trump held a tense meeting with top military, law enforcement and West Wing advisers, and said whoever leaked information about that stay had committed treason and should be executed for sharing details with the press.
Another new book about Trump’s White House provides alleged details into the weekly lunches he held with Vice President Mike Pence.
“The lunches were specifically meant to be an opportunity for Pence to tell the president exactly how hard he was working for him,” journalist and author Michael Wolff wrote in an excerpt of the book “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency.” “He usually got 10 minutes to do this before Trump snapped on the television and launched into his current list of grievances.”
Trump was the keynote speaker this past weekend in Dallas at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which wrapped up Sunday.
Trump continued to insist on his unsubstantiated claims of a rigged 2020 presidential election. “No evidence? There’s so much evidence,” he insisted, during chants of “four more years” from thousands of activists who want him to make a comeback.
Whipping the crowd to a frenzy, he vowed that once Republicans take back Congress in the 2022 midterms, “We will take back that glorious White House that sits so majestically in our nation’s capital.”
Trump’s appearance at the Hilton Anatole was part of a reemergence since Jan. 20, when he retreated to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in the final hours of his presidency.
Trump topped the CPAC straw poll for the 2024 GOP nomination, besting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 70-21. If Trump opts not to run, DeSantis would be the top pick for 68% of attendees.
Trump’s approval rating among conservatives: 98%. President Joe Biden’s disapproval rating among conservatives, for comparison: 97%.
“We have a much different party than we had five years ago,” said Trump, who snubbed CPAC in March 2016, when conservative activists were clamoring for anyone but him as the GOP nominee.
Trump was in Orlando for another CPAC event in late February and began holding his own rallies last month, starting June 26 near Cleveland. He had a second rally last weekend in Sarasota, Florida. Both drew tens of thousands of supporters. CPAC drew about 3,000 attendees, plus vendors, media and others.
On June 30, Trump joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the Rio Grande Valley to tout the border wall whose construction Biden halted.
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