Former president Donald Trump has lashed out at ex-counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway for acknowledging that his 2020 election loss was legitimate in her new book.
In her recently released memoir, Here’s the Deal, Ms Conway — the manager of Mr Trump’s winning 2016 campaign — offers harsh truths regarding the ex-president’s failed re-election bid and the people around him who failed to push back on his delusions of having been cheated.
“The team had failed on November 3, and they failed again afterward. By not confronting the candidate with the grim reality of his situation, that the proof had not surfaced to support the claims, they denied him the evidence he sought and the respect he was due,” she wrote. “Instead supplicant after sycophant after showman genuflected in front of the Resolute Desk and promised the president goods they could not deliver”.
Ms Conway also wrote that she “may have been the first person” among Mr Trump’s confidantes “who told him that he had come up short this time”.
Mr Trump, who to this day continues to lie about having won the 2020 election, reacted to his former aide’s criticism on his own Truth Social platform by angrily denying that any such conversation took place.
“Kellyanne Conway never told me that she thought we lost the election. If she had I wouldn’t have dealt with her any longer - she would have been wrong - could go back to her crazy husband,” he wrote, referring to George Conway, the conservative attorney and Trump critic to whom she is still married.
Mr Trump then repeated his oft-told lie that the 2020 election was “rigged” and claimed Democrats “used Covid to cheat and steal”, citing “massive and indisputable” evidence put forth in a recent film by convicted felon and right-wing propagandist Dinesh D’Souza.
Mr D’Souza’s film, 2000 Mules, claims bulk mobile phone location data shows “mules” engaging in illegal ballot harvesting in swing states, but multiple legitimate news organisations have debunked the claims.
