There’s a lot to be said for being gracious in victory, so the news that Donald Trump was friendly to Kamala Harris when she called to congratulate him on his win certainly does show good sportsmanship. That said, we aren’t super convinced that good old-fashioned politeness was his only motive.
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Harris and Trump’s call was detailed in Chris Whipple’s “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.” Whipple wrote that Harris’ team had initiated the call, and that she’d been heartbroken to have to make it. Even so, she was said to have told the president-elect, “I’m calling to concede. It was a fair election. The peaceful transfer of power is important. It’s important to the country” (via the Daily Mail).
Suffice it to say, Trump was thrilled to have gotten the call. According to Whipple, he began complimenting Harris and her husband right away. “You’re a tough cookie. You were really great. And that Doug — what a character! I love that guy,” he was said to have gushed. Condescension (because “tough cookie”? Really?) aside, Whipple added that an aide present for the phone call told him they’d found the glowing commentary out of place, referring to it as “odd and inappropriate.” Of course, responding to Harris by blowing a raspberry would have been more inappropriate (but a little more on-brand, TBH) … but we can’t say we disagree. In fact, we’re of the mind that he was likely fishing for a compliment. After all, Trump was similarly genial towards Hillary Clinton after she conceded to him back in 2016 — but that certainly didn’t stop him from taunting her over her loss in a 2018 “Conversation with Women of America” event, making wild and unsubstantiated claims about how her victory would have impacted the economy.
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Donald Trump wasn’t as warm and fuzzy when he lost
In his 2024 interview on the “Will Cain Show,” Donald Trump shared a pearl of wisdom that sums up pretty accurately his response to winning elections versus losing them. While referring to his softened stance on Hillary Clinton after winning the 2016 election, he mused, “It’s easier when you win.” We’ll bet. Case in point: his less-than-sporting response when he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
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Trump didn’t have the same warm-and-fuzzy phone call when he lost because, well, he refused to admit defeat despite people in his camp urging him to. In fact, it was only the day after the January 6 attacks on the Capitol (and several months after Biden said Trump’s refusal could have devastating consequences) that he officially (kinda, not really) conceded. In a video posted to his X (then known as Twitter) account, Trump didn’t acknowledge losing, per se, but called for calm and acknowledged the fact that Biden’s administration would be sworn in. He also stated his commitment to a smooth transition. However, four years on, he made it clear that he still didn’t believe he’d lost. Asked during a 2024 NBC News interview if he would concede the previous election, even if only for the sake of national unity, he didn’t skip a beat. “No. No. Why would I do that?” he shrugged.
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With that said, we’re going to go out on a limb and say if Trump had lost to Kamala Harris, there’s a good chance his reaction would have been much the same as it was back in 2020. As for his bizarre kindness towards her and Clinton, while there are plenty of weird things about Trump, we’re not attributing that to anything other than an ego trip.
