According to a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Donald Trump told the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee on his final day as president that he was leaving the GOP and forming his own political party – and that he didn’t care if the move would destroy the Republican Party.
According to Karl’s new book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” Trump only backed down after Republican leaders threatened to take steps that would have cost him millions of dollars.
The book details Trump’s stated intention to reject the party that elected him president, as well as the aggressive measures taken by party leaders to force him to back down.
The confrontation began on Jan. 20, just after Trump boarded Air Force One for his last flight as president.

“[RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel] called to wish him farewell. It was a very unpleasant conversation,” Karl writes in “Betrayal,” set to be released on Nov. 16.
“Donald Trump was in no mood for small talk or nostalgic goodbyes,” Karl writes. “He got right to the point. He told her he was leaving the Republican Party and would be creating his own political party. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., was also on the phone. The younger Trump had been relentlessly denigrating the RNC for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. In fact, at the January 6 rally before the Capitol Riot, the younger Trump all but declared that the old Republican Party didn’t exist anymore.”

With only hours left in his presidency, Trump informed the Republican National Committee chairwoman that he was leaving the party entirely. The account of this conversation and the subsequent talks comes from two persons with firsthand knowledge of the events.
“I’m done,” Trump told McDaniel. “I’m starting my own party.”

“You cannot do that,” McDaniel told Trump. “If you do, we will lose forever.”
“Exactly. You lose forever without me,” Trump responded. “I don’t care.”
According to Karl, Trump’s mentality was that if he lost, he wanted everyone around him to suffer as well. According to a source who witnessed the conversation, Trump was speaking as if the Republican Party’s demise was a punishment for those party leaders who had betrayed him, including the few who voted to impeach him and the much larger group he believed did not fight hard enough to overturn the election in his favor.

According to the book, Trump told McDaniel, “This is what Republicans deserve for not sticking up for me.”
In response, McDaniel attempted to persuade Trump that forming his own party would not only ruin the Republican Party, but also him.
“This isn’t what the people who depended on you deserve, the people who believed in you,” McDaniel said. “You’ll ruin your legacy. You’ll be done.”

But Trump responded he didn’t care, according to Karl.
“[Trump] wasn’t simply floating an idea,” Karl writes in the book. “He was putting the party chairwoman on notice that he had decided to start his own party. It was a done deal. He had made up his mind. ‘He was very adamant that he was going to do it,’ a source who heard the president’s comments later told me.”

Following the contentious exchange, McDaniel told RNC leadership of Trump’s intentions, resulting in a four-day stalemate between Trump and his own party.
While Trump, “morose in defeat and eager for revenge, plotted the destruction of the Republican Party … the RNC played hardball,” according to the book.

“We told them there were a lot of things they still depended on the RNC for, and that if this were to move forward, all of it would go away,” an RNC official told Karl.
According to the book, “McDaniel and her leadership team made it clear that if Trump left, the party would immediately stop paying legal bills incurred during post-election challenges.”

“But, more significant, the RNC threatened to render Trump’s most valuable political asset worthless,” Karl writes, referring to “the campaign’s list of the email addresses of forty million Trump supporters.”
“It’s a list Trump had used to generate money by renting it to candidates at a steep cost,” says the book. “The list generated so much money that party officials estimated that it was worth about $100 million.”

Trump backed down five days after disclosing intentions that may have destroyed his own political party on his last ride aboard Air Force One, writes Karl, claiming he would stay a Republican after all.
When asked to comment on Karl’s book this week, both Trump and McDaniel rejected the report.

“This is false, I have never threatened President Trump with anything,” McDaniel told ABC News. “He and I have a great relationship. We have worked tirelessly together to elect Republicans up and down the ballot, and will continue to do so.”
“ABC Non News and 3rd rate reporter Jonathan Karl have been writing fake news about me from the beginning of my political career. Just look at what has now been revealed about the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It was a made up and totally fabricated scam and the lamestream media knew it. It just never ends,” Trump responded.

Trump has long called claims that he was considering forming his own political party “fake news.” In Karl’s last interview with Trump for his book, Trump claimed that he did not remember his discussion with McDaniel on Jan. 20, claiming that “a lot of people suggested a third party, many people” – but that he himself had never considered quitting the GOP.
“You mean I was going to form another party or something?” Incredulous, Trump inquired of Karl. “Oh, that’s bullshit. It never happened.”
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