While the presidential transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden was anything but smooth based on reports, an upcoming book revealed things were more chaotic than previously thought, according to excerpts seen by Politico.
The book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, revealed some petty ways in which members of the Trump administration tried to sabotage the incoming Biden administration. In one instance, John McEntee, Trump’s director of the Presidential Personnel Office, stuffed photos of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden into an air conditioning unit at the White House, causing it to break.
Members of Trump’s senior staff, including then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were also uncooperative despite him assuring Biden’s team that “we’ll get it worked out,” as Trump was claiming that he won the election.
The Biden team faced delays in getting information from the Pentagon and were obstructed in getting access to COVID-19 vaccines to make plans about a rollout, according to Politico. Meadows also refused to give members of President Biden’s team access to the computer system to begin working on his budget, telling them that they “just can’t expect us to endorse your spending plans.”
Meadows was also “dumbstruck” over Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain’s request that then-President-elect Biden get daily intelligence briefings.
“No president ever does that,” Meadows said according to the book. “That’s never happened.”
“It seemed so beyond Meadows’ own experience that he could not comprehend it,” Haberman wrote in the book, according to Politico.
The book is set to be released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Trump is attacking Haberman on his social media app,Truth Social, calling her a “Maggot” and a “bad writer with very bad sources,” even though he provided written answers to some of Haberman’s questions about the book.
