by
Cnn
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Former President Donald Trump plans to release a book next year showcasing his private correspondence with past and present celebrities and international icons, CNN has learned.
Sources familiar with the matter said the project would mirror Trump’s first post-White House book, a collection of more than 300 photographs from Trump’s time in office, accompanied by captions he wrote himself. His latest book will contain reproductions of letters written to, or from, Trump in recent decades, providing readers with a more intimate insight into his private life and past social circles.
Trump’s correspondence with singer-songwriter Elton John, the late entertainer Michael Jackson and the late Diana, Princess of Wales is expected to be included, sources said. In a bawdy 1997 interview with shock jock Howard Stern that was unearthed during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Trump claimed to have received a “really nice” letter from the late Princess of Wales thanking him for a favor not disclosed.
“She wrote me a letter about a couple months before she died thanking me for doing her a favor for something,” Trump told Stern. “She wrote me a really nice letter.”
It is unclear whether the “book of letters,” as described by multiple sources, will contain any of the letters Trump exchanged with Kim Jong Un during his quest to denuclearize North Korea. Trump had previously bragged about his “love letters” to the foreign dictator, once declaring at a campaign rally that he and Kim Jong Un “fell in love” through their written correspondence.
The letters were part of a trove of government documents, including those that contained classified marks, stored in Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office, prompting the National Archives and Records Administration to demand their return. A Justice Department-appointed special counsel is currently investigating Trump for his possible mishandling of classified documents and presidential documents.
Trump’s second book since leaving office is expected to be published by Winning Team Publishing, an imprint launched by his oldest son Don Jr. and former campaign adviser Sergio Gor, who declined to comment on the project.
“We have nothing to announce yet,” Gor said.
The same publisher was behind “Our Journey Together,” the $75 hardcover photography collection that Trump released last December. CNN previously reported that the book grossed $20 million in less than two months after going on sale.
Trump’s aides have said they expect his next book to be just as profitable, particularly due to its overlap with his third presidential campaign.
“He definitely sounds like a money maker,” said one person close to Trump.
A second person close to the former president said he was unlikely to publish a memoir about his presidency in the foreseeable future, especially as he wants to wait for the 2024 cycle to play out. In May, however, Winning Team Publishing appeared to suggest that Trump was working on a book about the 2020 election, which the former president falsely insisted was stolen.
“NEW BOOK NOTICE: CRIME OF THE CENTURY by President Donald J. Trump! More details to come,” the publisher wrote in a tweets.
Several other 2024 Republican hopefuls have recently published books or plan to publish in the coming months. Among them are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has an autobiography coming in late February; Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, whose third book, “Decades of Decadence,” will be released in June 2023; and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is due to publish a book in January and has publicly acknowledged that he is mulling a primary challenge against Trump.
