According to excerpts from "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year" by the Washington Post's Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, former president Donald Trump grew so furious on election night 2020 over the state by state returns that showed he was going to lose that a close aide to the former president was forced to call former Bush administration White House chief of staff Karl Rove for help.
As the clock ticked past midnight in Washington, D.C., on election night, Trump grew angrier and angrier as key states he needed to remain in office slipped away. Already upset that his lead in Pennsylvania was rapidly shrinking, the president reportedly lost it when Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden.
According to an excerpt from the book, Fox News personality Laura Ingraham was on hand in Trump's election night war room, and she counseled him to give up on Arizona, informing him that it was unlikely the courts would help him overturn the election results -- to which Trump responded, "Fox shouldn't have called it."
The reports adds that an aide to Trump then put in a call to Rove -- a Fox News contributor -- asking for help.
"He's in a meltdown," the adviser reportedly told Rove. "Can you call him and tell him that all is not lost?"
According to the book, "Rove phoned the president and tried to give him a pep talk. 'Hang in there,' he told Trump. 'There's a lot of ballots to be counted and it's not going to be done for some time. You fought a good fight … You're not out yet.'"
Referring to the 2000 election when former president George W. Bush was able to claim victory after the networks awarded Florida to ex-Vice President Al Gore, Rove reportedly placated Trump by telling him, "I know premature calls. Hang in there. You gave it your all. You came down to the end. You upset them in 2016. You can do it again. Just hold on."
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