Former President Donald Trump referred to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as "that b****" and described Germans using the derogatory term "krauts," according to a new book due to be released on Tuesday.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker interviewed more than 140 sources for their book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, excerpts of which have been seen by CNN.
Leonnig and Rucker describe an incident where Trump was discussing Merkel, who has led Germany since 2005, and also mentioned his late father, Fred Trump, who had German ancestry.
Trump was reportedly speaking to advisers about NATO and the U.S.-German relationship at a meeting in the Oval Office when he called the German chancellor "That b**** Merkel."
The authors write: "'I know the f***ing krauts,' the president added, using a derogatory term for German soldiers from World War I and World War II.
"Trump then pointed to a framed photograph of his father, Fred Trump, displayed on the table behind the Resolute Desk and said, 'I was raised by the biggest kraut of them all.'"
A spokesperson for the former president told the authors that Trump denied making those remarks. Newsweek has asked former President Trump's office for further comment.
Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1885. The former president's father, Fred Trump, was born in the Bronx in New York City in 1905 and reportedly spoke English but no German.
Trump and Merkel had a consistently strained relationship. On the campaign trail in 2015, Trump said the German chancellor "should be ashamed of herself" for allowing more than a million Syrian refugees into her country. When Merkel was later named Time Person of the Year, he tweeted that she was "ruining Germany."
Merkel traveled to the U.S. on Wednesday for a farewell visit. She is due to leave office later this year, with the next German general election scheduled for September 26. She had already stepped down as leader of her party, the CDU, in 2018.
Merkel is due to meet with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other senior officials on Thursday. Biden is the fourth U.S. president Merkel has dealt with during her time in office.
Leonnig and Rucker's book also makes a number of other claims. They write that senior military officials, including General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were concerned that Trump might attempt a coup or other illegal measures following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and they discussed a plan to resign rather than carry out orders they considered illegal.
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About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
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