Transcription
This desire to be one of the great men, capital G, capital M, of history is what is driving him. And power and a willingness to use it is what is driving him. He's been something of a walking moral hazard his whole life, where he takes actions and somebody else holds the bag.
Emperors like to choose their successor. Is that what he's trying to do?
I'm not sure that he wants a successor. I think that if it was up to him, he would just be the last.
Hello and welcome to the forecast. Maggie Haberman occupies a unique place in the Trump story. Few reporters know him better and few have attracted as much attention from Trump himself. Her new book with Jonathan Swan, Regime Change, reveals what's really happening inside the White House now and how Trump has wielded power since his return. Maggie, thank you very much indeed for joining us. How surprised were you in a a sort of a White House that seems now to be ultra-loyal to Trump that people were prepared to talk to you?
So, that's actually one of the things that was so hard about this book. It really nearly killed us. And again, with the acknowledgement, as my colleague and co-author Jonathan Swan often says, you know, we're not in Fallujah, but we're we're covering the US presidency. We're not we're not covering a war, but this White House is so much tighter, so much better at keeping secrets. They make grand displays of saying how transparent they are, that President Trump is, you know, the most transparent president in history, which is something you hear Caroline Levitt say a lot. Actually, they're very good at keeping secrets when they want to. And because they are very loyal to him, this group, because they're very different than his first term, where he was surrounded by people he really didn't know in in a town he had never lived in, in a government he had never been part of before, and they want to see him succeed, they have kept uh, their disagreements as tightly under wraps as possible. And Jonathan and I both assume we're not being told the truth as the starting point. And it took us a very long time to feel as if we had an accurate account here. Uh, so were we surprised that there is still still a lot of anger and finger-pointing and and, you know, camps inside of Trump's Trump's orbit? No, because that is the consistent about Donald Trump's management style way before he became president. But it was, uh, surprising to us how hard it was to to get information. It is really, really hard.
Right. So, so do you think the people working in the administration are alarmed by him? Or are they all believers?
I think that two things can be true at once. And I think that the, uh, the people working in this administration are believers in him. They have his closest aides been through a great amount with him. They believe in his ability to hear things at frequencies that they don't hear. We write about this in the book that they have this almost mystical faith, many of the people closest to him, that he must know something they don't because he has survived four indictments, multiple civil cases, uh, two assassination attempts, and got reelected uh, pretty handily despite all of that. So, they tend to defer to his instincts. Uh, he is operating from pure gut in a way that we just didn't see in term one. That doesn't mean that everybody feels fine, uh, in his extended government about things that he is doing depending on what the thing is. But they do want to see him succeed.
And and do you think what's driving him, from what you've been able to glean, you know, is is the desire to be an emperor? You know, you call it an imperial presidency on the front of the book. Um, he clearly has this desire to be written down in history. You know, is is this desire to be an emperor what's driving him?
This desire to be one of the great men, capital G, capital M, of history is what is driving him. And power and a willingness to use it is what is driving him. That was put into such stark relief at this really remarkable moment when Jonathan and I went to the Oval Office on March 16th of this year to see him at the end of our reporting process. We we had been asking for an interview. We we we had fact-checking questions, but we didn't want to, you know, sort of have an open mic night with him. We wanted to ask specifics about our reporting and we did. But at one point we asked about power and how he was seeing himself in the context of power just based on things he had been saying to people in public and elsewhere. And it was an astonishing moment. He had his omnipresent advisor Natalie Harp and said, "Go Natalie, go get go get the thing from the historian." I'm I'm paraphrasing. She comes back with these two printouts that he says were were from a historian, words by a presidential historian. And she hands them to us and the start of the document says essentially Donald Trump is the most powerful person who has ever walked the face of the earth. And then he proceeds to tick off what he describes as the top 10: Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, the Caesars, you know, some of the great monsters and conquerors of history. And he was making no moral distinction at all between people who had had murdered and people who had conquered or people who had, you know, had built empires. It was that they had power and they were willing to use it and that was how he was seeing himself. The the punchline here was that it turned out that the person who wrote it was not a historian. It was uh Player's, the golfer's uh former caddy and business associate. Uh but that didn't matter a great deal.
I mean, the the key thing for the people around him is is, you know, is the advice he's getting. A A president has to have people who will tell him when he's wrong. And And if you look at his foreign policy record, it doesn't look like he's got that. You know, Iran from anywhere else in the world looks like a disaster. Um, you know, what is your insight into how that happened?
So, a couple of things, and we report this at length in the book, but certainly, you know, Iran from all of the polling I've seen in the US also looks like a disaster. Uh it's it's it's a pretty common uh view at this point. Look, there were people telling him that this was a bad idea, or at least that this was a problematic idea. But the only person who really aggressively told him uh that he was against this was his vice president, J.D. Vance. A- And it it hurt Vance with with Trump. Trump was irritated by Vance's complaints about this. Trump was warned about the scenarios that could play out, munitions depletion, which the US is really facing right now, the possibility that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, which obviously happened. Trump wanted to move ahead. He He liked the sound of what Bibi Netanyahu was describing, but also the reality is Trump is much more hawkish about Iran. Iran really in particular, above anywhere else in this world, than he uh he's team realized he was or that his team wanted to acknowledge. Uh but that was true in term one, it's true now, and he's just been much more willing to take risks this time, enormous risks that he would not have taken in term one for a variety of reasons. But that is how uh this presidency has ended up in a situation in Iran that Trump absolutely wants to get out of, and he can't quite figure out how.
But do you think he actually believes it's gone well when he talks it up um and talks about his deal as if it's, you know, better than the Iran deal that Obama negotiated. What have you been able to glean about what he really thinks and what he just says?
Look, it's in this particular instance, and it's a good question about all matters, but in this particular issue in our reporting, he knows that this is not going well. Uh and he knows that it has it has led to consequences that he believed it would not. He believed this was going to be quick, it was going to be like going into Venezuela, uh and that the US would be able to have some form of a of a not puppet government necessarily, but a government it could work with in Iran. Iran is a theocracy of 90 million plus people. It's not Venezuela. So, I this was a certainly a misunderstanding. But Trump is so used to being able to bend events to his will and reality is to his will and saying things through repetition and getting the people around him to believe them. And the facts on the ground just won't bend on this one. So, have we any indication in our reporting that he actually thinks this is a good deal? No. But we do know that he wants to be done with this and he is always going to describe whatever he does as the best outcome.
What what difference do you think it's made in the second term that he is a lot less accountable than he was in the first term, legally and politically?
It it's been huge and we and we do talk about this in the book at length and our reporting shows it. So, on two fronts. Oh, actually, there's a couple of fronts. One is he this is not 2017. In 2017, he was under investigation. His his campaign was under investigation for possible conspiracy with Russians uh to uh uh affect the outcome of the 2016 election um against Hillary Clinton, which would have meant in Trump's Uh, he fired James Comey, the FBI director, uh, who who had been in that post for several years. That led to a special counsel investigation. So, that was a hot stove that he touched, and he really did not do that again or things like it until 2020 after he survived the impeachment, um, process, the first one. This time, uh, he has cowed business leaders. The media landscape is totally different. Congressional Republicans act as if they are supplicants to him. Uh, they have generally, uh, begged him for attention or endorsements, and his endorsement is still very powerful in Republican primaries. Then, we've really seen very little indication that it's falling off, some, but not a ton. He has a presidential immunity ruling from the Supreme Court. So, he knows that he is he is fairly untouchable for official acts, and he has made clear, and we talk about this in the book, uh, that he, you know, has told multiple people over many months that he's going to pardon anyone who comes within a certain radius of the Oval Office. Now, he has told that story with different radii. It's sometimes it's 25 ft, sometimes it's 200, sometimes it's 250, but he clearly is planning to make it that if there is a a changeover in terms of leadership of Congress, either, you know, at the House level or at the Senate level or both, oh, there's just no reason to think that this White House is going to willingly comply with congressional oversight because who's going to enforce contempt of Congress, uh, recommendations or referrals? The Trump attorney general? It's very hard to see. So, yes, the fact that that the consequences really don't impact him this time are absolutely giving him, in his mind, a freer hand.
Do you think he's that fearless?
I think that he is he has an enormous appetite for risk, always, uh, and it is greater than ever. I don't know that I can just say fearless. I think he is concerned about his public I think he's concerned about his physical safety. uh, Uh and you know, that's part of why you haven't seen him leave the White House as much. That is real. Uh but I I certainly don't think that he wants to uh be hurt. But uh in terms of how far he is willing to go on things, it's pretty far this term.
I mean, I suppose what I mean is, you know, in terms of the the bold things he's prepared to do like Iran and other foreign policy things, he doesn't seem worried by the idea that it'll it'll wreck his place in history by making a mess of it.
So, there's two There's two things that we found as we were reporting this book. One is the degree to which he has become so invested in the idea that uh that things always work out for him. Uh you know, and and that's been clear to us for some time, but it is truer than ever. And in fact, as he was getting ready to head to war, he said to an adviser who was very concerned about this, "You know, it's going to be I'm paraphrasing, but it's going to be okay. Uh you know how I know? Because it always is." Or something to that effect. And he does believe that's true for him. Part of why he believes that's true for him is because as we describe it, he's been you know, something of a walking moral hazard his whole life, where he takes actions and somebody else holds the bag, whether it was the banks when he was running casinos that were in in dire peril, uh whether it was his legal bills, which his political action committee ended up paying over the course of the last several years, uh whether it was the fallout from what happened on January 6th, 2021, which members of his party uh faced. And and he did to some extent in terms of investigations. Uh but again, uh he was able to uh survive those uh the indictments there. And now the immunity decision. Uh with Iran, the bill is the taxpayers'. The the bill is service members for the US, but uh he doesn't seem to be responsive to domestic politics the way that he was in term one.
Well, what about the money that flows into the Trump brand or business or family in different ways, whether it's, you know, in compensation payments, investments, deals with the Middle East, planes. Um, what is the most sort of jaw-dropping thing do you think that you discovered?
And so, I I look, there is There is so much still to learn about this. We we really did scratch the surface uh on on on what is there, but there's a couple of things and lots of our colleagues have just done incredible work on this at the Wall Street Journal, at the New York Times, at the Washington Post, elsewhere uh on on how much money is flowing into the either Trump's companies, you know, or or Trump adjacent companies or work his sons are doing. Uh but it's it's just vast. There's the crypto deal. There is um a separate uh Bitcoin venture that that Eric Trump was involved with. Uh a company that Don Jr. works with has a bunch of investments uh in companies. Uh at least at least one that has a contract with the US government. Uh they have all said they have nothing to do with it, that, you know, they are not involved in this. Uh but any other president uh would would be concerned about the appearances. Now, I should note that Hunter Biden obviously was a a constant source of problems uh for the Biden White House. But Biden's advisers were concerned about it. There are people in Trump's orbit who have been concerned about what they call the family finances uh and that means the Trump family. Uh but the president doesn't care and and he has made very clear that he he felt like his family suffered. Uh Eric Trump has been quite open that he believes that uh his family suffered and the business suffered because of the investigations and uh they are very unapologetic about the amount of money that they are making right now.
Yeah, and I I guess after the retribution uh around people who've gone after him in the past, people will be afraid to go for him now in the in in the present. I mean, ultimately, you know, you you've covered him over a long period of time. You spent a lot of time talking to him. Is he a genius or a madman or or what? What What What is he?
He has an unbelievable feral sense for people's weaknesses. And he has, as he made very clear to us, and and we can see this, a willingness to use power in a way that that previous American presidents just have not been willing to. He either is claiming he has powers that, you know, he doesn't based on Congress or that various lower courts have said he does not. Or he is He has He took the country to war without even talking to Congress. You know, I mean, George W. Bush went through a process for a deeply unpopular war after 9/11. Uh but he went through a a congressional process. Uh this this administration is blowing up boats and saying uh that that they're coming up um uh from uh uh Central and South America saying that that these are these are terrorists. These are narco-terrorists. Just blowing them up. Again, no congressional authorization. Uh some people have said these are these are extrajudicial killings. Um He They are unapologetic and don't care. They are all about projecting strength. And that is all he cares about. Now, that doesn't mean that everything he does is a an act of political genius. Uh sometimes he he tends to act on impulse or things that he likes and that other people don't. And sometimes that overlaps with good politics and sometimes it doesn't. Uh but he has a tremendous ability to press on other people's weak points and exploit them.
And and what do you think your relationship with him is? I mean, you know, he he will attack you and insult you and then give you an interview. Um is it a symbiotic relationship?
I don't have a relationship with him. He's somebody who I cover and I'm not the only person who he does this with. He does this with John Carl at ABC all the time and and John Carl writes plenty of stories who Trump doesn't like Trump that Trump doesn't like Trump attacks him in person. He is uniquely obsessed with the New York Times and that is a lot of what this is about. But he also He never fully closes a door on almost any relationship that very rare exceptions that he does or any you know person or anything that he thinks might be a door he wants to walk through at some point and and and that's just my experience with it. But look he's been unable to control he's been able to cow a lot of the media. He's obviously gone on these bullying campaigns against ABC against CBS and on and on and on. He you know he has complained about the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal repeatedly but he has no levers from the government over the New York Times the way he does ABC and CBS and my opinion is that frustrates him.
Just finally I mean emperors like to choose their successor. Is that what he's trying to do?
I I'm not sure that this particular um self-described you know comparing with the top 10 as he put it from that list he read us wants a successor. I think that if it was up to him he would just be the last but we'll see.
Maggie Haberman thank you very much indeed. That's the forecast for now. Bye-bye.