According to a new book by ABC reporters Jon Karl, former President Trump backed down from a threat from Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel during his final days as president. According to Karl, after Trump lost the 2020 election he threatened to leave the GOP and start his own political party.

The Hill reports:

“Donald Trump was in no mood for small talk or nostalgic goodbyes,” Karl writes. “He got right to the point. He told her he was leaving the Republican Party and would be creating his own political party. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., was also on the phone. The younger Trump had been relentlessly denigrating the RNC for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. In fact, at the January 6 rally before the Capitol Riot, the younger Trump all but declared that the old Republican Party didn’t exist anymore.”

After Trump told McDaniel he was “done” with the RNC, she implored him to stay, saying “if you do, we will lose forever,” Karl writes.

“Exactly. You lose forever without me,” Trump replied, Karl added. “I don’t care.”

An official at the RNC told Karl that the organization made it clear to Trump that if he did indeed leave the party to start his own, it would “stop paying legal bills incurred during post-election challenges” and withhold its list of more than 40 million Trump supporters used for fundraising.

Both Trump and McDaniel have refuted Karl’s story as an outright lie saying the two have always worked closely up elected Republicans and remain committed to doing so now.

Newsmax reports:

“It’s a totally made up and fabricated story, it’s Fake News. Jonathan Karl is a third-rate reporter working for ABC Non-News,” Trump said in a statement tweeted by spokeswoman Liz Harrington.

“ABC Non-News and 3rd rate reporter Jonathan Karl have been writing Fake News about me from the beginning of my political career. Just look at what has now been revealed about the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It was a made up and totally fabricated scam and…”