President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 10, 2020.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Trump wrote that he knew “nothing” about transition delays with Biden officials, per a forthcoming book.
In “Confidence Man,” NYT reporter Maggie Haberman remarked on Trump’s responses to myriad questions.
When Haberman asked Trump about the Biden transition holdup, he replied: “KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT.”
Former President Donald Trump wrote that he knew “nothing” about delays in the presidential transition from his administration to the incoming administration of Joe Biden after the 2020 election, according to a forthcoming book by New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman.
In the book, “Confidence Man,” Haberman wrote that she queried Trump about a range of topics, and he eventually responded to the questions by hand — and by writing in all capital letters using a marker.
When asked about the holdup in allowing Biden to proceed with critical aspects of his presidential transition, Trump replied: “KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT.”
Haberman added that the response to her question came “two weeks after the deadline had passed.”
The transition efforts for Biden officials started off in an usual manner, as virtually all White House incumbents who have lost reelection in the past have conceded the race and began talks with the soon-to-be successors.
After exceeding the threshold of 270 electoral votes to capture the presidency, Biden was declared the president-elect by Insider and Decision Desk HQ on Nov. 6, 2020, and by most of the other major news outlets — including CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the Associated Press, and Fox News — on Nov. 7.
But Trump immediately contested the results, deploying his legal team to challenge the returns in myriad of states — notably Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — all swing states that he won in 2016 but lost in 2020.
After weeks of delays, General Services Administration administrator Emily Murphy “ascertained” Biden as president-elect on November 23, which gave the Biden team millions of federal dollars to fund important presidential transition efforts.
Still, Trump continued to dispute the results, and on January 6, 2021, was the most prominent speaker at a rally at the Ellipse that preceded the riot at the United States Capitol.
Several pages containing Trump’s responses to Haberman were reproduced and included in the final pages of her book.
At the end of the book, Trump responded to a question by writing: “FAKE NEWS — GOOD NIGHT!”