Craig Shirley, conservative-minded author who has written biographies of Ronald Reagan and tomes about World War II, is penning a book about President-elect Donald Trump’s stunning political revival: “Comeback,” The Post has learned.
“I’m going to go back four years to the end of the 2020 campaign and detail his revival and comeback,” Shirley, who was also a history consultant on the 2024 film “Reagan,” about the former president.
“I’m going to try to explain how and why he won, something the elites didn’t grasp,” Shirley told The Post of Trump.
Only a positive book can be written on the merits about Trump’s historic political revival — not a negative screed, he said.
“My books were favorable to Reagan because the facts were favorable to Reagan. This book will be favorable to Trump because the facts are favorable to Trump,” Shirley, 68, said.
The book will be laid out chronologically because every day of Trump’s comeback bid was “an exciting day,” he said.
Shirley said he will also examine cultural wars that benefitted Trump, such as the fight over transgender rights.
He pointed to the conservative backlash and boycott against Budweiser’s “Bud Light” beer after it had transgender actress and TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney promote its brand as a turning point.
Trump’s 2024 campaign aides have already indicated they will work with Shirley.
“The remarkable history of the 2024 Donald Trump campaign is too important to be left to rank amateurs and leftists with an agenda. That is why we are working with the consummate historian and Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, who we know will record the facts as they are in his book, ‘Comeback,’” said one of Trump’s campaign pollsters, John McLaughlin.
“As Shirley has proven time and time again, he is dedicated to facts and not biases, rumors and conjecture.”
It comes after senior campaign staffers issued a joint statement Wednesday saying they will refuse to work with author Michael Wolff on his book about Trump’s re-election.
“A number of us have received inquiries from the disgraced author Michael Wolff, whose previous work can only be described as fiction. He is a known peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations, and conclusions that never happened,” the statement said.
“As a group, we have decided not to respond to his bad faith inquiries, and we encourage others to completely disregard whatever nonsense he eventually publishes. Consider this our blanket response to whatever he writes.”
Shirley has long been active in Republican and conservative causes.
His father, Edward, was a founding member of the New York Conservative Party.
