Donald Trump thinks Mark Meadows’ book is ‘damn stupid’

sign Meadow really, really think Donald Trump Will love his new book.

In the weeks leading up to the release of his upcoming memoir about serving President then trumpet, the former GOP congressman and former White House chief of staff spoke to others privately about how Trump would enjoy the book, according to two people familiar with the matter. Meadows, who remains a particularly loyal Trump loyalist and a good adviser to the post-Trump presidency, is counting on his former boss, as well as other MAGA celebrities, to enthusiastically promote Promote and endorse books to help sell juice.

“He thinks Trump will like it,” one of these sources attests.

Well, Mark Meadows was wrong.

On Wednesday, Guardians publish an excerpt Meadows’ upcoming book, Manager. The former top Trump staffer wrote that the president tested positive for COVID-19 shortly before the October 2020 debate with Joe Biden, and then went on to appear on the debate stage because Trump had interprets a negative follow-up test as his own. initial positive.

In this week sprint for damage control, Meadows tried to phrase it as a mere detail – an innocent and amusing coincidence! — in which he hopes will be a best-selling Trump memoir.

But in his attempt to write a best-selling book, Meadows doesn’t seem to fully understand that what he’s confessed to is a giant cover-up, led by Trump and himself, that unnecessarily endangers the lives of employees, their families, military families and various White House guests, as well as now President Joe Biden. Whether Meadows realizes it or not, it’s an unbelievable story. Meadows and Trump have kept the positive test a secret not only from the public, but also from several other prominent officials and senior aides in the administration, some of whom are now expressing their displeasure. , if not outright disgust, with Meadows’ approval.

“I don’t know — as the First Lady’s chief of staff,” said Stephanie Grisham, a former top Trump official who has publicly break up with the former president and his family, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “My staff helped with… White House Events, putting them at risk along with others. It’s disappointing but not surprising [Melania Trump’s] chief of staff… I never heard of the president’s positive test at the time. I don’t know if Mrs. Trump was told, but I hope not because East Wing staff helped work on some of the events in the White House during that time.”

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Andrew Caballero-Reynolds

Publicly, the two-time impeached former president played “HearsayCard” this week. Meadows, a little confused, tried to play the same card, focusing on how the media can strange focused on a “false positive” less than a week before Trump was hospitalized with severe COVID symptoms.

But behind the scenes, although Meadows seemed to find a way to thread the needle and agree with the former president, Trump’s displeasure with Meadows this week turned volcanic.

According to two sources with knowledge of the matter and another person close to Trump, the former president has spent a significant amount of money in the past few days against Meadows, revealed in the memoir, and of course, all mass media. scope of the problem.

Both in conversations with confidants, social friends over the phone or in person, Trump has been aggressive and verbally abusive behind his former chief of staff’s back this week. For example, the former president has said he did not know in advance that Meadows had given that “junk” about the positive test result in his memoir, the two said.

It’s a face from warm praise Trump bulk on Meadows’ book in an October statement. At the time, Trump called Manager “A great book” on “politics, truth, our great government and the interesting achievements that have happened in government” – adding that it “would make a great Christmas present” .”

Sources close to the former president said that, at one point in the past few days, Trump had complained that Meadows had been – in Trump’s succinct words – “dumb” with his book.

On Friday, Meadows declined to comment for this story. A spokesman for Trump was also unavailable for comment.

While Trump dumped Meadows backstage, Meadows continued to try to clean up his shame for Trump.

Meadows started damage control same day Guardians piece has been published — same day Trump has openly denied information from the memoir pro-Trump implicitly.

“Yes, presidential authority, it’s fake news,” Meadows told Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt of the statement. in his own book. The former White House chief of staff claims his account of the coronavirus scare before Trump’s debate has been taken out amid Trump’s subsequent negative testing.

But the appearance of Newsmax doesn’t seem to be enough to stop the damage. Meadows, who has been a favorite as Trump’s 2024 campaign manager until this episode, has now spent the past week swirling anecdotes, including his little-known online appearance “Voice of America” ​​where he admits efforts to prevent negative headlines are not working. “We tried to fix the recording, but I appreciate you allowing me to edit the recording with you today,” he told an America Voice host.

Yet despite Meadows’ best efforts, it’s not entirely clear that Trump’s second negative test on the day of the debate was accurate. His negative results seem to have come from an antibody test, which the Centers for Disease Control”do not recommend“To diagnose an existing infection. Antibody tests detect previous infections due to the presence of antibodies that were developed to fight the infection and may not be present in the early stages of COVID-19.

In his book, Meadows describes Trump looking bleak and wobbly on debate day, “moving slower than usual” and having recently fallen out “gravel in his voice.”

Days later, Trump was taken to Walter Reed Medical Center with a confirmed case of COVID-19. And after Trump was hospitalized, the moderator of the debate Chris Wallace says The narrow window between the debate and the diagnosis made him “think [Trump] there’s coronavirus in the debate. “

And if Meadows’ book wasn’t bad enough for him, there are signs it could influence his legal case to avoid having to testify before the Commission on January 6, thereby complicating it further. his relationship with Trump.

Politico reported on Wednesday that Democrats in the Jan. 6 investigation believe his book undermines Meadows’ efforts to avoid testifying before the committee on executive privilege. The book’s discussion of the events surrounding the January 6 uprising, Congressman Adam Schiff told Politico, could constitute a waiver of executive privilege.