But he and Haberman say it reminds them of New York politics; they see Trump's presidency more as a "national mayoraltyit's got that scale, it has that informality," Thrush says. She was, however, one of the most relentless and consistent. Haberman sees herself as a demystifier. The next day, I called himhe's an old family friend of the Habermans and has known Maggie since she was about three days oldto ask him to elaborate. When I speak to him, it's because he's trying to sell me," Haberman tells the audience at the 92nd Street Y. He's brought up the moment repeatedly over the past two years, including during Haberman's recent Oval Office interview with him. As Twitter blew up as Trump compounded the backlash against Comey's dismissal with an incredible series of missteps, Haberman shot out an exasperated tweet of her own: "What is amazing is capacity of people who watched the campaign to be surprised by what they are seeing. (The Police Athletic League, a cause beloved by the former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, profited handsomely from his shamelessness, Haberman writes.) ", Haberman is careful, even in the current free-for-all, to avoid the snide attitude many of the New York intelligentsia have taken toward Trump and his administration. Ppl don't change." Her multitasking and compartmentalizing, which the press has covered tirelessly, almost seem like necessary steps in the quarantining of orderindividual and psychic as well as shared and politicalfrom chaos. 2023 Cond Nast. Since 2015, Habermans career has revolved around the most untrustworthy man in national politics. Just as he didn't back down after being accused of sexual assault, she says he is unlikely to walk away from this fight or resign. It was a story about Mar-a-Lago." Brian Fallon, who was a campaign spokesperson for Clinton, says that Haberman was in touch with him and his staff so often that it was like she'd been assigned to cover them. Haberman was not the only reporter to see the underlying logic in the daily bedlam emanating from Washington. "So much of his approach is bending others to the way he sees things," she says. And so it is easy for people to convince him that something is true, when it is not. Maggie Lindsy Haberman (born October 30, 1973) is an American journalist, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and a political analyst for CNN. She suggested a colleague to go on TV in her stead. Maggie Haberman / New York Times: DeSantis to Visit Early Primary States, Selling His Florida Record . The shift by Mr. Lowell, one of Washingtons best-known scandal lawyers, highlights the blurry lines between self-promotion, access to power and the right to legal representation. Her son didn't have school after the ceremony, so Haberman brought him with her to a politics meeting at the Times. Its possible that all of the jurors votes recommended against indictment, but it isnt sounding like it. She is not a fan of SNL's impression of Kellyanne Conway as a psychopathic fame whore. Some passages unfold as groans of exhaustion: For all the intrigue that is part of the Trump mythos, Haberman writes, the irony, say those who have known him for years, is that he has had only a handful of moves throughout his entire adult life. Part of the work of Confidence Man is to source and taxonomize each of these moves, and to identify when Trump is drawing on any one of them. This past November, by the end of the candidates meandering, hour-long campaign announcement, she had tweeted about the speech more than twenty times. "The Triborough and Empire State view of Trump is very different from the national view of Trump," she points out. When I asked her about these conceptual scoops, she corrected me: Theyre contextual scoops. Context is key to Habermans project. Trump is 70. "His whole thing has always been to be accepted among the New York elites, whom he sort of preemptively sneers atthat thing that people do when they are not really sure if they will be completely validated, where they push away people whose approval they are seeking. Another evil eye was in her pocket. "Every moment cannot be, 'Wow! Haberman jumped to Politico in 2010, where she covered him full-bore for the first time; he was then flirting with the idea of joining the 2012 Republican primary and beginning to spread the lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. How do you explain it? Designed with adjustable nose pads for a custom fit. I think his niece is right. [8] She became a political analyst for CNN in 2014. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. [15] Haberman was criticized for applying a double standard in her reporting about the scandals involving the two presidential candidates of the 2016 election. And that's going to mean certain situations are fraught. After Trump rose to political prominence, Haberman became a player in the theatre of the Trump era: an avatar of journalisms promise, but also of its shortcomings. And it's very hard to know now whether he really believes this or whether it is just something he is saying. ", Her father, Clyde, says he likes to think that honest journalism is "hardwired" into her. Honestly, the first name that came to mind as you were asking that question was Richard Nixon, with whom who is obviously not alive anymore, with whom he had a huge fascination. Is this something he believes to be true, or what? Trump wants what she can give him access toa kind of status he's always craved in a newspaper that, she says, "holds an enormously large place in his imagination." She's out with a new book. 2023 Getty Images. And this is one of the things that makes establishing a baseline of discernible truth around him so incredibly hard. But, if he does, what do you think a second Donald Trump presidency term would look like? Her new book, "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America," chronicles where he came from and how his experiences in New York City impact our nation's politics today. How Should an Older President Think About a Second Term? She tried to get work in magazines, but she ended up bartending at Cleopatra's Needle, a jazz club on the Upper West Side frequented by Columbia University students, before eventually landing a job at the Post as a "copy kid" (the new politically correct term at the paper). And while there are still hard feelings toward the Times from Hillary Clinton operatives and votersthey complain that the paper obsessed over Clinton's e-mail scandal but failed to give commensurate ink to Trump's ties to Russia and potential conflicts of interest, among other subjectsmultiple people I spoke to who worked for Clinton are careful to draw a distinction between Haberman and the institution of the Times. (One of her refrains is I was shocked but not surprised.) She mounts a similar argument about Trump in her recent book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. The book presents Trump as a bullshit artist whose grand theme is his own greatness. He clearly, in my reporting and I describe this in the first few days after the November 2020 election, he seemed aware that he had lost in his conversations with a number of aides. Many of the juiciest Trump pieces have been broken by her: That story about him spending his evenings alone in a bathrobe, watching cable news? ", Trump has also sent her his famous press clippings with Sharpie notes on them, mostly with criticisms, but at least once with praise. But his campaign is preparing for an ugly, protracted primary fight for the nomination. And I think, sometimes, he seems less clear. "She is literally always doing four things," says her friend and former New York Post colleague Annie Karni. As a construction tycoon, Trump sought out unsavory accomplices, partnering on one project with a Soviet-born investor whod been convicted for both first-degree assault (shoving a broken margarita glass into a mans face) and fraud (a pump-and-dump penny stock scheme involving the Genovese crime family). He donated heavily to politicians who could grease the wheels of his business machinations. They're going to lose [their access] anyway," she says. According to Hutchinson, Passantinos phone rangit was the Times reporter Maggie Haberman. "I love being with her," he says. Sensitive subject, but we know there are a number of incidents that happened during his presidency that led people to say he is racist. "And it's not just any mayoralty; it's a late-'80s, early '90s New York mayoralty." "No, that's not all I care about. He treats everyone like they're his psychiatrist, because he's working everything out in real time. . Her tweets frequently numbered more than a hundred and forty in twenty-four hours. She glanced at it, then apologized. She was texting, taking calls, e-mailing, and Gchatting with colleagues and sources. In those days, the future president was a fixture in Page Six, the Post's gossip column. ", [youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMj21lPeAEk&t=345s[/youtube], It was at City Hall that she met Thrush, who was working at the New York tabloid Newsday. Its the gesture of a writer who knows that her unsentimental view of the President anchors her credibility. [28], Journalists and authors criticized Haberman for allegedly choosing to withhold information about Donald Trump for the sake of her book, despite being aware of it ahead of the January 6 United States Capitol attack, although they presented no evidence of when she had learned of Trump's statements. Haberman has what can only be described as a wildly expressive poker face: her slender, Clara Bow-ish eyebrows lifting, her tired eyes widening behind her smudged glasses, a tiny pinpoint of a mole on her upper lip emphasizing the thin line she's pressed her mouth into, the dimple in her chin appearing and disappearing as her jaw muscles shift. Haberman, who's known for her extensive contacts in Trump's circle, revealed behind-the-scenes details of Trump's political career in her book, such as that Trump considered refusing to leave the. Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman: 9780593297346 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books. And I want to start with, I think, the question a question that is all about what keeps him in the news, and that is his denial of the result of the 2020 election, insisting that he actually won. There was a lot of duking it out, she said. Donald Trump will be basking in affection from activists at CPAC on Saturday. "She came into the Page One conference room, and there was this huge round of applause," Parker says. [5] In 1999, the Post assigned her to cover City Hall, where she became "hooked" on political reporting. Haberman says her mirth had to do with the ridiculousness of talking momentum so early in the campaign; Trump took it as her mocking his chances of winning the Republican nomination. Mediagazer Must-read media news. You're going to see if people were killed," Marques says. He gives off a hint of reality TVwith his mirages, his come-ons, his brazenness, his feintsand a dash of the Devil. [29][21], Haberman married Dareh Ardashes Gregorian, a reporter for the New York Daily News, formerly of the New York Post, and son of Vartan Gregorian, in a November 2003 ceremony at the Tribeca Rooftop in Manhattan. Further introspection on the subject of stifling her emotions did not seem to interest her, perhaps because she sees no alternative. Whereas most of the country knows Trump foremost as a reality-TV star from his time on The Apprentice, Haberman remembers that he was a New York institution before he became a national figure. None of this is to say that the Habermans and Trumps were showing up at the same dinner parties, but Manhattan can be a provincial place, among a certain inside crowd. I was shaped by understanding what sold in a tabloid, Haberman told me. Kellyanne Conway defended Haberman last April in an interview, calling her "a very hard-working, honest journalist who happens to be a very good person." Organize, control, distribute and measure all of your digital content. "Maggie doesn't camouflage. A lot of Rudy Giuliani. These days, in her profession, the truth is a demanding god. Please check your inbox to confirm. newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. Lately he's gone digital (sort of): He'll write the note on the clip, and then have White House Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks take a picture of the note and e-mail it to her. She's so well-sourced and so well-connected that she doesn't need to," Karni says. "I'm just trying not to get beat," she says. In interviews, she has often invoked the childrens book Harold and the Purple Crayon to illustrate Trumps peculiar blurring of fact and fantasy. For the next decade, she worked for both the Post and the other tab in town, the New York Daily News, covering Hillary Clinton's senate campaign, Michael Bloomberg's mayoralty, and Clinton's first presidential campaign. Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for the New York Times, stops midsentence to . Sister Sites: Techmeme Tech news essentials. [10], Her reporting style as a member of the White House staff of the Times features in the Liz Garbus documentary series The Fourth Estate. One colleague says she didn't realize there was a limit to how many Gchats you could have going at one time until she saw Haberman hit the maximum. "It's like she's in the building, but she's not even in the city. As an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence, Haberman studied creative writing and child psychology. Guy Cecil has led Priorities USA since 2015 and will leave at the end of March, as outside political groups begin to make plans for the 2024 races. One communications staffer after another told me that they appreciate the fact that she never blindsides them. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. Haberman heard rumors of colleagues fielding calls from the magnate during which hed dangle gossip items. I mean, what what how does he do this? . "You're going to bring this up every time, aren't you?" Search instead in. "But I also know he can't allow himself to ever quit." And, as I write, it was meant to flatter and it's a meaningless lie. There are briefing-room tantrums, incredulous generals, and off-color mutterings. She was wearing an evil-eye bracelet. In a December 19th front-page article, she portrayed the candidate as a shrunken presence on the political landscape. Yet, if a single overarching lesson emerges from the body of work that Haberman has assembled over the past half decade, its that the press and the American public discount Trump at our peril. He views the truth as something that's transactional. Meanwhile, Trump, still revelling in his defeat of Hillary Clinton, cast her as another antagonist, the embodiment of the Failing New York Times. She and the President invited doppelgnger comparisons: the flashy fabulist and the buttoned-down institutionalist locked in each others sights. The man with the orange hair is making a scene. "If you're going to come at her," says a Democratic operative, "you've got to come correct. Habermans assessment was grimmer. Thats what people have really struggled to understand., Articles about Haberman like to say that the mother of three, who will turn fifty this October, desperately needs a break. [2] Haberman returned to the Post to cover the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign and other political races. She wrote about Donald Trump for those publications and rose to prominence covering his campaign, presidency, and post-presidency for the Times. Haberman, a White House correspondent for . Other commentators, reacting to Rupert Murdochs withdrawal of support and the strong Democratic showing in the midterms, were beginning to treat Trump like a political has-been. And thank you for having me to talk about the book. His behavior is really what matters on this front. Stu Marques, then metro editor of the paper, hired Haberman and oversaw her early training. "And so he will take this chair and say to you, 'This is actually a table.' And she's got a BlackBerry and a flip phone going at the same time. Not true, says Risa Heller, a spokesperson for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner: "She speaks to 100 people a day." Her. "What you're seeing with Maggie Haberman is, you're watching one of the greatest people to ever do this job, giving a maximum effort. He is behaving in a racist way. He's called him a weakling. She never hedges her angle to try to protect her access, only to give politicians an unwelcome surprise when they read the story in the morninga practice some journalists follow that Haberman calls "the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. So Is Maggie Haberman's Wild Ride", "Transcript: Donald Trump Expounds on His Foreign Policy Views", "EXCLUSIVE: New Email Leak Reveals Clinton Campaign's Cozy Press Relationship", "Nate Silver and Maggie Haberman Duke it Out on Twitter Over Clinton Email Coverage", "Why the medias coverage of Hillary Clinton's emails still matters", "New York Times reporter just demonstrated some astonishing false equivalency", "Maggie Haberman and the never-ending Trump story", "Exclusive: 'I'm just not going to leave': New book reveals Trump vowed to stay in White House", "Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down Trump", "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction - Best Sellers", "CovCath students file 5 lawsuits over Lincoln Memorial incident", "NY Times' Maggie Haberman Criticized for Saving Trump Quote About Not Leaving White House for Her Book", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maggie_Haberman&oldid=1139756504, This page was last edited on 16 February 2023, at 19:13. [11], According to an analysis by British digital strategist Rob Blackie, Haberman was one of the most commonly followed political writers among Biden administration staff on Twitter. [9], Haberman was hired by The New York Times in early 2015 as a political correspondent for the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Habermans own sense of Trumps spooky potency continues to shape her coverage. What Trump tries to do, Haberman told me, is create realities for himself and everyone else. But his conjuring is notshe searched for the right wordfriendly; theres a malevolence to it. He confesses that he is drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. Hutchinson asked her counsel not to take the call. Would she tell the man to "stop screaming"? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/maggie-habermans-new-book-confidence-man-details-trumps-rise-to-prominence, Donald Trump asks Supreme Court to intervene in Mar-a-Lago dispute, Rex Tillerson testifies at corruption trial of Trump adviser, Trumps embrace of QAnon raising concerns about future political violence, How Trump may have violated the Presidential Records Act, "confidence man: the making of donald trump and the breaking of america". I can't think of anyone whose behavior in typical U.S. political fashion he admires right now. "There's an enormous personal price that she pays, that people pay when they devote so much of themselves to this," Thrush says. [4], Haberman's career began in 1996 when she was hired by the New York Post. "She grew up in an environment where journalism that was as accurate as humanly possible was practically a religion," he says. With a tentative tour that would include stops in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire, the Florida governor is paving the way for a presidential run. I mean, does he just create a different factual universe? "You can change her mind," Madden says. The one who has undoubtedly spent more time covering him than any other is New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, who has been covering Mr. Trump since the 1990s. Collect, curate and comment on your files. Some of his aides laughed. To cover Trump is almost definitionally to repeat yourself: its a clich-ridden beat, strewn with familiar caveats and rehearsals of his rehearsals of what people are saying. In the book, Trump tells Haberman that he makes the same point over and over to drum it into your beautiful brain. Haberman told me that she does it because she has to. Pictures of the incident show Haberman talking nonstop as an uncharacteristically silent Koch stares at her, slightly astonished. It was simply desperation for a job other than bartending that led her to newspapers. "There has been a very protracted shocked stage in Washington, and I think people have to move past that. The profiles sometimes suggest that she is addicted to her job, yet it might be equally accurate to say that she is enthralled by it: she made an initial choice and then lost the agency to decide. Parts of Confidence Man seem to wrestle with its authors role in amplifying Trumps lies. By Sean Piccoli,Jonah E. Bromwich,Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum. He draws roads. Greenfield introduced Haberman by saying that he couldn't remember a reporter having established a relationship with a president quite like hers with Trump. "Part of the reason" Haberman is so read in the Times "is because she is writing about Donald Trump. I know a lot of people have been waiting to see this. ", "Maggie's magic is that she's the dominant reporter on the [White House] beat, and she doesn't even live in Washington. She almost never turns her phone off. Haberman told me that she believed a number of people from the Trump era remain newsworthy, either because they illuminate something about Trump himself or because they are the subjects of or witnesses in investigations. She wore an iteration of her usual uniform: black pants, black jacket, reddish-pink blouse, and an air of bone-crushing fatigue. "You can offer perspective, you can offer insight, you can offer details, but they've got to be locked down. "And yet Trump seems driven to connect with her.". [7] According to one commentator, Haberman "formed a potent journalistic tag team with Glenn Thrush". Even those of us who had covered Trump for years struggled with how to handle the gush of falsehoods that dotted his sentences. But, in person, Haberman appeared nonplussed when I asked how she negotiates the gray areas in which her duty to break news aligns uncomfortably with Trumps interests. Like, Maggies friendly to us. Yet her emphasis on her own unspecialness feels more canny than sincere, animated by the need to convey that she is immune to Trumps games. He stands looking down at her, swaying a little, slightly walleyed, but he still has a big-man swagger. he asks, pointing at the recorder between us. And I'm like, This is total bullshit, this is not a real person, nobody is this way," Thrush recalls. From Eisenhower to Biden, questions of age have persisted. Haberman and Thrush again, with their colleague Matthew Rosenberg. Part of what makes Haberman one of Trumps foremost contextualizers is her fluency in the worlds that formed him. She is a native New Yorker, a competitive advantage given her subject. In the epilogue, Haberman describes a post-Presidential interview in which Trump cracked to his aides, I love being with her, shes like my psychiatrist. The next sentence reflexively brushes his statement aside, insisting, It was a meaningless line, almost certainly intended to flatter. Habermans point is that Trump rarely changes from context to context; he treats everyone like his psychiatrist. She was a correspondent for Politico with roots in city tabloids, and while I didn't know much about politics or the media, I knew that when she reported. Subscribe to Here's the Deal, our politics newsletter. Maggie Haberman during a screening of The Fourth Estate at TheTimesCenter on May 9, 2018, in New York City. Trump frequently complains about Haberman's coverage. I was somewhat surprised to see that, Haberman said when I asked her about the conversation, characterizing her call as routine. Shortly after Hutchinsons deposition, she notes, the Times published a story on the January 6th committees progress that included the news that at least one witness was willing to testify that Trump had approved of rioters chanting Hang Mike Pence and that Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, had burned documents in a fireplace.