Trump's "tough cookie" call to Harris: New book "2024" on campaign aftermath
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Cover: Penguin Press
When Vice President Harris reached President Trump to concede the day after last year's election, her aides had trouble merging her into the call, political reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf write in their new book "2024," which draws on 350+ post-election interviews and is out Tuesday.
- "Phone service isn't what it used to be," Trump quipped.
- "Aides ended up holding two phones together on speaker so that the rivals could talk," the authors write. Trump told her: "You're a tough cookie."
Why it matters: "2024" is written by three top reporters who worked together at the Washington Post during the campaign. Dawsey is now at the Wall Street Journal and Pager is now at the New York Times.
Trump "complimented her husband," Douglas Emhoff, the book says in its account of the concession call. Trump "did not compliment her campaign, but he acknowledged she'd given him a run for his money."
- "Even her aides described him as gracious," the book continues. "Harris was professional but not warm. She had considered alluding to his failure to concede when things turned out the other way, but in the end she just said the country was too divided, and she hoped he would be a president for all Americans. Biden called to congratulate Trump and invite him to visit the White House — the same customary courtesy that Trump had refused him four years earlier. Now Trump accepted amicably."
- "In another life," Trump told Biden, "we would be friends and go golfing."
How it's going: Pager got hold of Biden's cellphone number and reached him on March 25, when he'd been out of office just over two months. Trump answers random incoming calls from reporters. It worked with Biden this one time.
- "Biden said he would be willing to speak for this book the next day," the authors write. "The next morning, he answered and said he was running late to catch a train. He said he had a 'very negative' view of Trump's second term ... 'I don't see anything he's done that's been productive,' he said. Asked if he had any regrets about dropping out of the presidential race, he said, 'No, not now. I don't spend a lot of time on regrets.' He quickly hung up to get on the train."
- "After the first call," the book continues, furious Biden aides "repeatedly called and texted [Pager]. After the brief second call, his aides blocked the reporter's calls to the former president. Two days later, a message from Verizon Wireless replaced Biden's voicemail: 'The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service.'"
Nugget to go: At former President Carter's funeral shortly before Trump's inauguration, he "sat next to Barack Obama and invited him to play golf, enticing him with descriptions of Trump's courses around the world."
