Former President Donald Trump was planning on quitting the Republican Party earlier this year to start his own party, until the RNC threatened retaliation that would have cost him millions of dollars.
“I’m done,” Trump reportedly told RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a phone call on Jan. 20, his last day in office. “I’m starting my own party.”
“You cannot do that,” McDaniel said. “If you do, we will lose forever.”
“Exactly,” Trump said. “You lose forever without me.”
Karl said Monday on “Good Morning America” that Trump “didn’t care if the move destroyed the party that brought him to the White House.”
The RNC responded by threatening to immediately stop paying legal bills Trump racked up while challenging election results, as well as giving his 40 million-strong email mailing list away to Republican candidates for free. Trump made money renting out the list to Republicans, and the list was estimated to be worth about $100 million. Trump changed his mind five days later, according to the book.
A source who witnessed the conversation between Trump and McDaniel said Trump spoke as if destroying the party was punishment for Republican leaders he didn’t believe fought hard enough to overturn the 2020 election, and Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach and convict him for incitement of insurrection following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.