According to Intelligencer, former United States President Donald Trump chose a unique way to commemorate his presidency: by publishing an overpriced coffee-table book called Our Journey Together. The book contained photos with captions written in Sharpie, which drew widespread ridicule upon its release last year. Despite this, the book sold well enough for Winning Team Publishing, a company co-founded by Donald Trump Jr., to release a sequel called Letters to Trump last week.
Unlike the first book, Letters to Trump was marketed as a coffee-table book out for revenge. Trump Jr. promised that the collection of his father’s correspondence with famous people would expose their hypocrisy. However, it turns out that the book contains no embarrassing letters for the writers, only cordial greetings and thank-you notes from before Trump became a threat to democracy. Instead, the book gives Trump a chance to formally catalogue his petty gripes against famous figures in politics and entertainment.
The book contains a typed, two-sentence note from former President Richard Nixon to Trump in 1987, which starts with “I did not see the program, but Mrs. Nixon told me that you were great on the Donahue Show.” In the accompanying caption, Trump expresses his admiration for Nixon and criticizes him for not fighting when urged to resign.
Trump’s primary gripe with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is that he wasn’t sufficiently loyal to Nixon. Trump writes that Kissinger was probably very disloyal to Nixon, but we’ll never know exactly what happened. He also says that Kissinger was smart like a fox, cunning as could be, and had friends on every side of the equation, but you never really understood or knew where he was coming from. Trump concludes by saying that as good as Kissinger was, and as intelligent as he was, he wouldn’t want him in a foxhole with him.
The book also includes a generic thank-you note from Mario Cuomo, which Trump trashes in the caption, suggesting that as a campaign donor, he was entitled to special treatment he didn’t receive. Trump recalls asking Cuomo for an unspecified favor in a 2004 book, then screaming at the former governor when he refused to comply with his demands. Trump says he was a big supporter of Mario Cuomo and never asked him for anything until he did, and he turned him down. Trump felt Cuomo was extremely disloyal and never spoke to him again.
I was a big supporter of Mario Cuomo, and never asked him for anything. But then, long after he left office, I did ask him for a favor — something very easy for him to have done — and he turned me down. I was furious with him and never spoke to him again. This would have been a positive event, nothing bad or daring. But I felt him to be extremely disloyal.
There are a few more Cuomo thank-you notes sprinkled throughout the book, including one from Mario’s wife, Matilda, and a two-page spread devoted to Mario’s son, Andrew Cuomo, also a former New York governor, but with no accompanying note. In the caption, Trump complains about Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic and says that his resignation over sexual misconduct allegations was a great surprise to him, and to get thrown out like a “dog” was unexpected.
