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Report: Trump Dumped Christie Over Phone Germs

Didn’t want to take Obama’s congratulatory call on Christie’s phone, a new book claims.

Chris Christie fell completely out of Donald Trump’s favor when the New Jersey governor arranged to have President Obama call Christie’s cellphone to congratulate Trump on election night, according to a just-released book about Trump, Steve Bannon, and the campaign. “‘Hey, Chris, you know my fucking phone number,” Trump told Christie, according to the book, Devil’s Bargain, by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Joshua Green. “Just give it to the president. I don’t want your fucking phone.” Trump, a germaphobe, was reportedly disgusted by the prospect of having Christie’s phone near his face. The interaction was, according to Green’s book, a critical error for Christie, a former Trump insider who was subsequently fired from his role as transition chief and received no role in the administration.

The Daily Beast has not yet been able to independently verify this version of events. However, the governor’s office is already bashing Green’s book as “fiction,” for which the author should be “ashamed.”

“The account in the book is complete fiction,” Christie’s spokesman Brian Murray told The Daily Beast in an email on Monday night. “Governor Christie never spoke to President Obama on election night nor did he make any arrangements for any phone call from The White House to be placed on his cell phone for the President-elect. Finally, he had no conversation on election night as was relayed in this book with the President-elect. The author should be ashamed of himself in passing off this account as true—it is fiction.”

—Asawin Suebsaeng