Disgraced former President Trump in 2018 told King Abdullah II of Jordan he could have the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Washington Post reports on an excerpt from “The Divider” by New York Times reporter Peter Baker and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser. “I thought I was having a heart attack,” Abdullah II told a friend in 2018. “I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over.” It should go without saying the United States does not control the West Bank and Trump was in no position to offer it to the monarch. Plus the Palestinians kind of hate the Jordanian leadership.
The book also recounts Trump not ignoring Melania’s early 2020 pleas to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously. “You’re blowing this. This is serious. It’s going to be really bad, and you need to take it more seriously than you’re taking it.” Donald “just dismissed her,” Glasser and Baker write.