Former President Donald Trump never formally conceded the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden and continues to insist that the race was rife with widespread voting fraud.
Peril, a forthcoming book by veteran reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, details how aides and confidants pleaded with Trump to concede the race and move on.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy reportedly put more pressure on Trump than anybody else, and at one point begged him to concede and congratulate Biden.
Read more below.
Kevin McCarthy Begs Trump
Kevin McCarthy urged Trump for weeks to write a personal letter to Biden, as part of a longstanding presidential tradition, according to the book.
On January 19, Trump told McCarthy that he’d just finished writing a letter to his successor, as reported by Business Insider.
McCarthy, Woodward and Costa write, was happy to hear that the president had finally taken his advice. But McCarthy also wanted Trump to go one step further and help with the transition process.
That did not go too well either, according to Peril.
Kevin McCarthy Calls Trump
Kevin McCarthy reportedly called Trump and said, "I don’t know what happened to you in the last two months. You’re not the same as you were for the last four years."
The top House Republican than pleaded with the president to talk to Biden.
"Do it for me. You’ve got to call him. Call Joe Biden," he said.
But Trump said no, even as McCarthy kept pushing him to make the call, according to Woodward and Costa, who write that this behavior was not unusual for Trump.
Hope Hicks
Woodward and Costa write that, at one point in November, Trump told communications director Hope Hicks that it was simply not an option for him to concede the race to Biden.
"It’s not who I am to give up. It’s not in me to do that," the president reportedly said, as Hicks warned him that he might "squander" all of his political capital and ruin his legacy by refusing to concede.
"I don’t care about my legacy. My legacy doesn’t matter. If I lose, that will be my legacy," Trump told Hicks, according to the book.
McCarthy Vs. Trump
As CNN reported, Woodward and Costa also write in their book that Trump is still angry with McCarthy, despite meeting with him several times since leaving office.
McCarthy was a close Trump ally, but he criticized the former president after the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, blaming him for the violence.
"This guy called me every single day, pretended to be my best friend, and then, he f**ked me. He’s not a good guy. Kevin came down to kiss my a*s and wants my help to win the House back," Trump reportedly said of McCarthy.
