There’s a new book out about the 2024 election. This one is called — appropriately — “2024” and was written by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf.
I will admit that I have not read it yet. But, I came across some of the excerpts in Axios today. And one line in particular really stood out to me.
Here’s the book on a call between President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump following the latter’s victory in the 2024 election (bolding is mine):
Biden called to congratulate Trump and invite him to visit the White House — the same customary courtesy that Trump had refused him four years earlier. Now Trump accepted amicably.”
“In another life,” Trump told Biden, “we would be friends and go golfing.”
That line might sound off to you — if you lived on Planet Earth during the 2024 campaign. Because, in that race, Trump savaged Biden as totally out of it. As a bad president and, worse, a bad person. As someone who was ruining the country.
So, how, given that, could Trump have told Biden that in another life they would have been golfing buddies??!?!?
Simple: Trump doesn’t mean most of what he says about his political opponents. I’ve documented this before with the whole “fake news” canard. Trump LOVES the media. He is the biggest consumer of media of any modern president. And, in person, he is incredibly solicitous of reporters.
He uses the whole “fake news” thing not because he really believes it but because it works. Period.
Ditto for his attacks on Biden. I am not saying that Trump thinks Biden was some great president. He doesn’t! But he also doesn’t think Biden is evil.
He said all that stuff because it worked! And, to be clear, he’d say it all again! But he doesn’t really believe it — as revealed by his golfing comment.
To be clear: The fact that Trump may not actually hate the media or Joe Biden doesn’t really make much difference. Because he will never admit to that fact in public. And his supporters are convinced that all of these things he says are deeply-held beliefs of his. And Trump will never dissuade them of that notion because to do so would be bad for him politically.
But, don’t fool yourself: The idea that Trump thinks the media or Joe Biden or even Nancy Pelosi is some sort of evil force is simply false.
