Trump Seethes Over Kavanaugh in New Book

Former President Trump is in lots of headlines Tuesday, in part because of advance looks at two upcoming books. One is Landslide, the latest from Michael Wolff (a Newser co-founder). The other is I Alone Can Fix It from Washington Post reporters Carol Loennig and Philip Rucker. Coverage:

• In Landslide, one part getting attention comes via excerpts published by Axios in which Trump rails against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. "In retrospect, he just hasn't had the courage you need to be a great justice," says Trump of his nominee. "I'm basing this on more than just the election." As Axios notes, that Kavanaugh didn't vote to overturn the election must have been a "betrayal of the highest order" to Trump, who's big on loyalty.
• "Where would he be without me?" Trump asks in the book, a reference to his sticking by Kavanaugh during the latter's confirmation controversy. "I saved his life. He wouldn't even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him."

• In I Alone Can Fix It, the authors go inside the White House on Election Day and recount a defiant Trump refusing to accept that he lost to Joe Biden. “They’re stealing this from us,” Trump says, per a published excerpt. “We have this thing won. I won in a landslide and they’re taking it back.”
• Mediaite ticks off its favorite revelations from the Post book, including Rudy Giuliani's advice to top aides going on television the night of the election. "Just say we won," he told them in regard to key states still too close to call. "Giuliani’s grand plan was to just say Trump won, state after state, based on nothing," per the book. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows rejected the suggestion. "We can't do that," he responded, his voice rising. "We can't."
• Wolff tells Britain's Channel 4 that "virtually everyone around Trump—we're not talking Democrats here, we are talking Trump aides, intimates, and supporters—everyone believes he has gone off his rocker," per Insider. "Let's not put too fine a point [on it]: They believe he is crazy." But that doesn't mean Trump can't be elected again, says the author. "He commands a, if not a majority of the country, a very, very substantial minority [who] comes to believe that this election is stolen and whose support for him ever hardens." See the interview here.
• Not all the Trump news is book-related. Politico is out with an analysis on how he changed the political landscape by installing staunch allies as party leaders in key states. "They are emerging not just as guardians of the former president's political legacy, but as chief enforcers of Trumpism within the GOP," write David Siders and Stephanie Murray. Read the analysis in full here.

(More Donald Trump stories.)