Former President Donald Trump claimed during a podcast Wednesday with former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs that he was unable to get the necessary supplies to print his book due to supply chain issues.
While the former president never mentioned a book by name, Trump appeared to be referring to his new publication Our Journey Together. The book contains over 300 images of Trump’s time as president, and the publisher called it his “first official book since leaving the White House.”
“I just did a book, which is very successful, they sold 240,000 copies and we just ordered another 240,000, I guess, or more,” Trump told Dobbs. “The publisher, the printer, who is one of the biggest in the country, I think he said he has eight plants, he said, well we have one problem—we can’t get paper, we can’t get ink.”
“We can’t get glue,” Trump added. “We can’t get leather for the covers. [The publisher] said, ‘I’ve been doing this for 40 years, I’ve never had a problem getting anything.'”
Hardcover copies of Our Journey Together are listed on Amazon for $160 and on Trump’s official bookselling website for $75. A signed copy of the book is also listed on the former president’s website for $230.
However, no version of the book with a leather-bound cover appeared to exist online, as Trump claimed.
The books have not begun to ship, but the former president’s website is advertising a February delivery for current orders.
The publisher that Trump is apparently referring to, Winning Team Publishing, was co-founded in 2021 by his son, Donald Trump Jr. It calls itself “the nation’s premier conservative publishing house.”
Our Journey Together is currently the only book listed for sale by the publishing house. It is unclear when more titles will become available.
Beyond speaking about his book, Trump talked to Dobbs about the state of the economy. He notably claimed that the economic supply chain was something that most people didn’t know about before President Joe Biden took office.
“Well, nobody ever even heard the term supply chain,” Trump told Dobbs. “The supply chain, it was automatic. It just was embedded. It was embedded in a free country, in a democracy. It was embedded in our country.”
“We didn’t sit around talking about the supply chain,” Trump continued. “Now, that’s all of a sudden, that’s all, the two words people are using most because you can’t get anything.”
This is despite the fact that significant supply chain issues did affect the economy during the beginning of the pandemic, when Trump was still in office, according to Business Insider. This included reported issues with the production of medical supplies and equipment.
As the podcast went on, Trump spoke to Dobbs about the current issues with groceries in the United States.
“Big grocery stores, big chains, they have empty shelves. Sixty, 70 percent of their shelves are empty in some cases,” Trump claimed. “In some cases more than that. They can’t get food, they can’t get clothing.”
However, Geoff Freeman, the president and CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, told the Associated Press on January 11 that the rate of unavailable goods for grocers was around 15 percent. Under normal, pre-pandemic conditions, Freeman stated that that number was typically from 5 to 10 percent.
Newsweek has reached out to former President Trump’s team for comment.
