Politics

New Book Shares Details On Post-Election Phone Call Between Trump, Harris

Published

7 days ago

April 5, 2025

Former Vice President Harris and her staff were expecting then-President-elect Trump to rub it in when they called to concede the election and congratulate him on his victory, only to be caught “off-guard” by the president’s politeness, according to a new book.

According to author Chis Whipple’s new book “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” Trump was gracious in victory, going so far as to praise his opponent as a “tough cookie.”

“I’m calling to concede. It was a fair election. The peaceful transfer of power is important. It’s important to the country,” Harris reportedly told Trump on the phone the day after the election. Harris then opted to slip in a backhanded compliment, however, saying “I hope you’re president for all Americans.”

Instead of responding to the vice president’s jab, Trump took the high road and praised Harris for achieving the difficult task of running a presidential election campaign on less than four months notice.

“You’re a tough cookie. You were really great. And that Doug — what a character! I love that guy,” the now-president said, adding a compliment for Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff.

Los Angeles, CA – Jan. 20, 2025: Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff arrive at Burbank Airport after leaving office, heading to Altadena to meet with firefighters and volunteers

The call took Harris’ team by surprise, according to Whipple. One aide seemingly had a breakdown over the president’s cordial response, finding the deviation from Trump’s campaign rhetoric “odd and inappropriate.”

“I was like, what?” the unidentified aide said. “Honestly, I felt like, what is this? It’s so manipulative. He’s a sociopath.”

The traditional concession call almost never took place due to technical issues, however, according to the new excerpt published by the New York Post. Harris’ campaign Chief of Staff Sheila Nix and her White House Chief of Staff Lorraine Voles set up the call from Harris’ Naval Observatory home in Washington, D.C., though they were unable to connect between Trump and Harris’ phones when they first called.

Instead, Voles called Harris from her phone, and Nix “pressed the phones together,” Whipple wrote. The author further noted that upon hearing Trump’s voice on the phone, Harris “felt the weight of the crushing defeat.”

Whipple’s new book is slated to release this coming Tuesday.

According to an additional excerpt published by The Guardian, former President Biden’s debate team was well aware of his cognitive decline in the weeks leading up to his disastrous debate with President Trump back in June. Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff who played a lead role in debate prep, told Whipple that Biden appeared aloof and confused ahead of the pivotal debate.

The president would repeatedly leave debate prep early and at one point was caught dozing off next to a pool. Biden also reportedly told his team that he thought staring wide-eyed as Trump spoke would convince voters that Trump as “an idiot.”