- While arguing over the 2020 election recount, Trump lawyer Justin Clark called Rudy Giuliani a "fucking asshole."
- Trump asked Clark to apologize to Giuliani.
During a heated over-the-phone argument concerning the 2020 election ballot recount, Trump's top campaign lawyer, Justin Clark, told Rudy Giuliani he was a "fucking asshole," after Giuliani protested that the recount should be stopped.
According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman's book "Confidence Man," Giuliani had been criticizing Clark's approach to the recount in private.
"No it's all wrong," Giuliani reportedly told Clark. "We should stop the recount immediately."
Clark, who has testified before the House committee investigating the Capitol attack on January 6th, 2020, replied that the situation "is what it is" and the process was part of the secretary of state's authority.
"You're lying to the president," Giuliani yelled at Clark according to the book.
"You're a fucking asshole," Clark responded to Giuliani.
Trump then hung up the phone and asked Clark to call Giuliani "and make up," to which Clark agreed, Haberman wrote.
Clark began by apologizing to then-Vice President Mike Pence for swearing in front of him, but Pence said there was no need.
"There's no reason to apologize when it's the truth," Pence told Clark, according to Haberman. The next day, Trump granted Giuliani full charge of the legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election telling the former New York mayor to "go wild" because his "lawyers were terrible," according to the book.