Trump threw a crumpled newspaper article at Pence and accused him of being 'so disloyal.' Pence threw it back at him, book says

Oma Seddiq

Jul 9, 2021, 22:39 IST

Trump threw a crumpled newspaper article at Pence and accused him of being 'so disloyal.' Pence threw it back at him, book says

Vice President Mike Pence speaks as U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a signing ceremony and meeting with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic and the Prime Minister of Kosovo Avdullah Hoti in the Oval Office of the White House on September 4, 2020 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker-Pool/Getty Images

Trump got upset and threw a newspaper article at Pence, per a new book.
Pence threw the crumpled up paper back at Trump.
The episode was described in Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender's new book.

Former President Donald Trump got so upset at news of his campaign aide Corey Lewandowski heading over to work for Vice President Mike Pence's team that he crumpled up the newspaper article about it and chucked it at Pence, according to an excerpt of a new book by The Wall Street Journal's Michael Bender published in the outlet on Friday.

"So disloyal," Trump reportedly told Pence as he threw the newspaper article. The former president was concerned that the new hire "made him look weak," the book said.

Trump administration officials described the 2018 episode to Bender as one of the rare examples of Pence "confronting" Trump during their time together in office.

The former vice president told Trump that his senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner had asked him to bring Lewandowski on board and that he had lunch with Trump to discuss the move, per the book.

Pence then picked up the scrunched newspaper article and tossed it back at Trump. He also "leaned toward" the former president and "pointed a finger a few inches from his chest," Bender wrote.

"We walked you through every detail of this," Pence said. "We did this for you - as a favor. And this is how you respond? You need to get your facts straight."

Trump on Friday dismissed that the paper fight ever happened.

"The story written by third-rate reporter Michael Bender, that Mike Pence and I had a big fight over Corey Lewandowski, is totally false," Trump said in a statement. "No such fight ever happened, it is fiction as are so many others stories written in the vast number of books coming out about me."

Bender's forthcoming book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost," comes out on July 13.