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Former President Donald Trump, unwilling to relinquish his baseless claims of election fraud, pressured then-Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks to publicly call for a special election to reinstate him as president, according to an excerpt reportedly from Bob Woodward’s explosive new book “WAR.” The account sheds fresh light on Trump’s relentless efforts to cling to power, even six months after Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president.
By June 2021, Trump was still pushing allies to support his delusional quest for reinstatement. His target? Mo Brooks, one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers. According to Woodward, Trump phoned Brooks directly, urging him to lead the charge for a special election — an unprecedented and legally baseless maneuver that would have violated the U.S. Constitution.
Woodward writes that Trump had latched onto August 2021 as his “return” date, a timeline echoed by QAnon conspiracy theorists. “He had an army. An army for Trump. He wants that back,” said Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager. “I don’t think he sees it as a comeback. He sees it as vengeance.”
“Brooks, who had supported the plan by Trump and conservative lawyer John Eastman to challenge the certification of Biden’s win, pointed out that Joe Biden was president,” Woodward writes. “Brooks said Biden’s victory had been certified and there was no legal pathway for Trump to rescind it. The Constitution provided no mechanism to reinstate a president.”
Brooks’ refusal enraged Trump, and shortly afterward, the former president turned on him, retracting his endorsement of Brooks in Alabama’s heated 2022 Senate race. Brooks, once a frontrunner, ultimately lost in the Republican primary.
The episode underscores just how far Trump was willing to go to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Despite securing 74 million votes — more than any incumbent in history — Trump could not accept his loss to Biden, who received 81 million votes and won the Electoral College by 306 to 232.
Woodward’s account serves as a stark reminder of the chaos that consumed the Republican Party after Trump’s defeat. His supporters, including Brooks, found themselves walking a precarious tightrope between loyalty to Trump and adherence to constitutional norms. For Brooks, the cost of stepping off that tightrope was political ruin.
Since those turbulent days, Trump has once again secured the Republican nomination for president and is now locked in a tight race with Vice President Kamala Harris, fighting to reclaim his place in the White House.
