Barr warned Trump that he would lose the election because suburban voters 'just think you're a fucking asshole,' book says
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
- Barr cautioned Trump in April 2020 that he was risking his reelection chances, a new book says.
- He told Trump suburban GOP voters thought he was an "asshole" and didn't care about his "fucking grievances."
- "The main problem," Barr reportedly added, "is you think you're a fucking genius, politically."
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Attorney General Bill Barr took a blunt approach with President Donald Trump in April 2020 while discussing his reelection chances.
The crux of the problem, Barr told Trump, was that most suburban Republican voters "just think you're a fucking asshole." That's according to a new book by authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
Insider obtained an early copy of "Peril," which is set to be released next week.
"In my opinion," Barr told Trump during a tense Oval Office meeting, according to the book, "this is not a base election. Your base is critical, and you'll get it out. And there are a lot of people out there, independents and Republicans in the suburbs of the critical states that think you're an asshole. They think you act like an asshole and you got to, you got to start taking that into account."
The attorney general went on to tell the president that he had become a Beltway "captive" and needed to appeal to a broader group of voters than just his diehard base, the book said.
He added that "the other basic theme" was that suburban GOP voters "don't give a shit" about Trump's vendetta against the so-called "deep state" or the senior FBI and Justice Department officials he felt had conspired to sink his presidency.
"Your base cares about seeing [former FBI director James Comey] and the rest of those guys held accountable, but these other people don't," Barr said, according to the book. "They don't care about your fucking grievances. And it just seems that every time you're out there, you're talking about your goddamn grievances."
Barr advised Trump to focus more on the US's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic recovery, "not all this other shit, not every grievance you have."
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