Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Donald Trump this summer that he 'f***ed your presidency up' with the false claims he lost the election due to mass voter fraud, a new book claims.
Trump, in response, hung up on Graham, his on-again, off-again ally on Capitol Hill.
In January, Trump's last White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to convince Graham and fellow conservative Senator Mike Lee that Trump really won the election.
Graham demanded more details and hard evidence if the White House wanted him and Lee to launch a Senate investigation of the election, according to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's new book Peril, out September 21.
Graham and Lee both got briefings on the claims being made by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, but Graham slammed the claims, saying they were suitable for 'third grade,' according to excerpts of the book published by The Washington Post.
Both senators ultimately voted to certify the election results. Graham denounced Trump on the Senate floor in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, which attempted to stop the certification.
'Trump and I, we've had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view he's been been a consequential president. But today, first thing you'll see. All I can say, is count me out, enough is enough," Graham at the time.
Lindsey Graham told Donald Trump this summer that he 'f***ed your presidency up' with the false claims he lost the election due to mass voter fraud
Trump and Graham have had an on and off relationship - above they golf together this summer at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida
But the two men have mended fences since then with Graham joining Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course this summer for a game.
Although the revelation that Graham told Trump he 'f***ed' up his presidency with his false claims he won the election shows they did not have a smooth path to reconciliation.
Woodward and Costa's highly anticipated book focuses on Trump's final days in the White House as he struggled to hold onto power.
Trump even urged Vice President Mike Pence to 'listen' to a conservative lawyer who drew up a 6-point for Pence to overturn the election results.
'Peril,' by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa will be released by Simon & Schuster on September 21
Trump made the pitch to Pence in a January 4th Oval Office meeting that included the lawyer, James Eastman, who was then the dean of the Chapman University Law School, and was among a group of figures pushing Trump's electoral fraud claims up until his final days in office.
'You really need to listen to John. He's a respected constitutional scholar. Hear him out,' Trump told Pence, according to Peril, by Woodward and journalist Robert Costa.
The authors write about a six-point memo that Eastman, who later spoke at the 'Stop the Steal Rally' near the White House Jan. 6th, drafted.
Pence was under heavy pressure from Trump to stop the certification of the
