Former President Donald Trump hung up on Kim Kardashian during a 2021 phone call as she sought the former president’s assistance with a clemency case, according to a forthcoming book.
Kardashian met with Trump in the Oval Office in 2018 to advocate for the release of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense. Kardashian would go to the White House multiple times during Trump’s presidency to advocate for clemency, programs for formerly incarcerated people and other criminal justice reform projects.
But as Kardashian continued to call for additional commutations at the end of Trump’s term, he allegedly asked that she leverage her celebrity to bring football stars to the White House, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported in his book “Tired of Winning,” which is set to be released Tuesday. An excerpt was published by Axios on Monday.
After Trump’s presidency, Kardashian reached out to him at his Mar-a-Lago estate in hopes he would endorse another clemency plea. The former president refused because he believed she voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 race for the White House.
Kardashian has not confirmed who she voted for in the 2020 presidential election, but she did appear to support Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on social media after their victory.
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Kardashian and Trump for additional information.
Kardashian has publicly applauded Trump for working with her and the incarcerated people she has advocated for across the country. The reality TV star in 2019 admitted that she “did consider the fact that I would get a lot of backlash if I went to the White House.”
But, she added, “meeting all of the people that I’ve met behind bars, I guarantee you, they don’t care who signs that clemency paper.”