Dan Crenshaw Fought Tooth and Nail to Avoid Praising Trump at the RNC, According to New Book

An upcoming book on the 2020 election reveals that Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and his office fought the White House’s attempts to have him shower praise on former President Donald Trump during the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Wall Street Journal Senior White House reporter Mike Bender is scheduled to release his new book in August titled Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story Of How Trump Lost. The title is a reference to Trump’s false claims that he actually prevailed in the 2020 election.

The book has generated plenty of media buzz with several previewed anecdotes, and a new bit the author shared with Punchbowl News covers the saga of how Crenshaw went from Trump skeptic to Trump backer over the course of his political life. Crenshaw was asked to speak at the RNC convention last year, but the draft of his speech came reportedly under scrutiny when former White House aide Cliff Sims noticed that it didn’t make any direct mention to Trump at all.

This freaking guy, Trump advisor Cliff Sims though to himself after reading Crenshaw’s prepared remarks for the RNC Convention. Sims had read thousands of words of convention speeches at that point, and had written just as many. Surely his eyes must just be getting tired. He must’ve just missed it.

Sims pressed Command+F on his iMac and searched for the word “Trump.” Nothing. He erased that and searched for the word “president.” Nothing.

“The president is the biggest liability to our reelection.”

That’s how ⁦@DanCrenshawTX⁩’s office explained why he refused to mention Trump in his GOP convention speech.

Latest scoop from my new book—out in two weeks!—from ⁦@PunchbowlNews⁩: https://t.co/HFrDjlFOjm pic.twitter.com/OvYNApaT4Z

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) June 30, 2021

According to Bender, Sims edited Crenshaw’s speech by adding various embellishments of Trump before sending it back to the congressman’s office. Justin Discigil, Crenshaw’s communications director, responded with a defense of his boss’ original speech, and that’s when Sims called him with a reprimand.

“If you think your guy is going to speak at the president’s convention without mentioning him and no one is going to notice, you’re crazy,” Sims said.

The book goes on to report that Crenshaw was prepared to walk away from the convention if his speech was tampered with, and that Discigil was concerned that “The president is the biggest liability to our reelection.” Crenshaw did end up speaking at the RNC while giving a nod to “the president” over the military, though he was bumped out of his prime-time slot — and Sims reportedly tried to confront Discigil about the lack of Trump mentions afterward.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!