President Trump said he rescued the Republican Party with his stunning 2016 win over Hillary Clinton, according to a new book.
”The Republican Party was in big trouble,” Trump says in “American Carnage,” according to an excerpt obtained by Axios and published Wednesday. “I brought the party back. The Republican Party is strong. The Republican Party is strong.”
Trump, who bested a field of 16 GOP hopefuls to win the nomination, now wants to use his “freakish if not fluky” victory to redefine the Republican Party, Tim Alberta, chief political reporter for Politico, writes in the book.
“Nobody gave them hope,” Trump said in an interview for the book. “I gave them hope.”
And now, Trump said, the party that once followed President Ronald Reagan is his and they owe him.
”They’ve got to remain faithful,” he said. “And loyal.”
In the interview, Trump also trashed his Republican predecessor in the White House.
George W. Bush “caused tremendous division … tremendous death, and tremendous monetary loss” because he became involved in nation-building during two wars instead of focusing on the domestic economy.
Under Bush’s watch, the US launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He also presided over the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 and 2008.
Trump also went after his old nemesis, GOP Sen. John McCain, who died in August 2018 from brain cancer.
He said the Arizona lawmaker screwed up his 2008 presidential bid by telling laid-off workers in Midwestern states that some of their jobs would never come back.
“I gave him money — believe it or not, because I wasn’t a huge fan, then or now, but I raised money for him,” Trump said of McCain. “And then he just gave up on an entire section of the country.”
McCain drew Trump’s ire when he cast the deciding vote in July 2017 ending the GOP-controlled Senate’s attempt to repeal ObamaCare.
“American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump” hits bookstores on July 16.