By Katelyn Caralle, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com
14:12 13 Nov 2023, updated 15:07 13 Nov 2023
- Trump hung up Kim Kardashian when she called months after he left office to ask for his high-profile endorsement of another clemency plea
- He granted a clemency in 2018 at Kardashian’s request – even though he wanted her to use her celebrity to get more football players to visit the White House
- New book details Trump had some not nice works for the socialite after claiming she voted for Joe Biden in 2020
Donald Trump apparently hung up on Kim Kardashian when she called him after he left the White House requesting he back her attempts to get more clemencies for those she believes were unjustly jailed.
A new book hitting shelves on Tuesday details the call where Trump said ‘hell no’ to the powerful socialite because he assumed she voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
Kardashian famously met with Trump in the Oval Office in 2018 where she pushed for the pardon of Alice Johnson, a woman jailed for life on drug charges.
ABC News’ Johnathan Karl writes in his upcoming book Tired of Winning that Trump wanted Kardashian to use her influence to get more football stars to visit the White House – something she was apparently unsuccessful at attracting.
‘A source familiar with the conversations tells me Trump listened to her requests [for clemency] and demanded a straight-up quid pro quo,’ Karl writes, according to excerpts of the book obtained by Axios.
‘He would grant the commutations, he told Kardashian, if she leveraged her celebrity connections to get football stars who were friends of hers to come visit him at the White House.’
‘Kardashian actually tried to do what Trump demanded, seeing it as a small price to pay to get justice for people she believed were serving unjust sentences. But all the players she approached declined,’ he writes. ‘Trump had become too toxic.’
‘In the final two weeks of his presidency, nobody wanted to be anywhere near him.’
Trump did, however, commuted Alice Johnson’s sentence in 2018 after she had served more than 20 years in prison following a lifetime sentence for a first-time drug offense. Later, the then-president granted and signed a full pardon of the Tennessee woman in August 2020.
A few months after Trump left office in 2021, Kardashian called-up the ex-president to request his backing in another case she took up to grant a prisoner clemency – even though Biden was now president.
This time, Trump was less inviting of the celebrity media personality.
Kardashian, reaching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago team, was hoping for a high-profile endorsement of a clemency plea.
She ‘quickly received a call back from Trump,’ Karl writes.
‘Hell no, the former president told her. He wouldn’t do it. ‘You voted for Biden and now you come asking me for a favor?’ Trump told her,’ he adds in the new book.
While Kardashian has never publicly said who she cast her ballot for in 2020, she did posted a tweet with an image of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with three blue heart emojis.
‘After a few more choice words, the line went dead. Trump had hung up on her,’ Karl wrote of the short interaction.
Also of note – while president, Trump famously met with Kardashian’s husband-at-the-time Kanye West.
A spokesperson for Trump responded to the book’s contents obtained by Axios with: ‘Disgraceful and talentless John Carl [sic] is a back-bencher who could never get his own show for obvious reasons. Excerpts previously released from this ‘book’ have already been thoroughly debunked.’
‘This filth either belongs in the discount bargain bin in the fiction section of the bookstore or should be repurposed as toilet paper,’ they added.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
