New book claims Trump thought Democrats would replace Biden with Michelle Obama

Former President Donald Trump spent much of 2020 believing in wild conspiracy theories, Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender writes in his forthcoming book, including that Democrats had crafted a secret plot to steal the nomination from Joe Biden and replace him with either Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama.

This tidbit is revealed in an excerpt in Vanity Fair from Bender's Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost. Bender interviewed more than 150 people for the book, including Trump. The idea that a switcheroo was set to take place at the Democratic National Convention came from Dick Morris, the former Clinton White House adviser, Bender writes. Morris spent last year "quietly advising Trump" and told him "Biden was too old and too prone to gaffes to be the nominee."

Not every member of Trump's team was on board with this theory. Bender writes that campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio addressed the matter in a memo, going over the delegate math and stating that there was "some concern (which I strenuously disagree with) that if we go after Biden too soon, we can collapse him, and the Dems will replace him at their convention. I know POTUS tends to share this opinion."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The book paints a picture of a preoccupied Trump who couldn't stop thinking about Biden. Bender writes that Trump used offensive language to refer to Biden, interrupting a policy meeting in the Oval Office to ask, "How am I losing in the polls to a mental retard?" Read more at Vanity Fair.