"Maggie doesn't camouflage. What erodes that is very dangerous." Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent who joined The New York Times in 2015 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on Donald Trumps advisers and their connections to Russia. 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. 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. [20][21] A Guardian review of the book describes her as "the New York Times' Trump whisperer", and describes the book as "much more than 600 pages of context, scoop and drama.it gives Trump and those close to him plenty of voice and rope. "She came into the Page One conference room, and there was this huge round of applause," Parker says. Toward the end of our meeting, Haberman told me that she is superstitious. She's so well-sourced and so well-connected that she doesn't need to," Karni says. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Haberman did not let it slide. he asks, uncertainly. Haberman was learning the same arthow to "punch through" in a daily news cycle, as New York Times political reporter and frequent collaborator Alexander Burns puts it. How Should an Older President Think About a Second Term? "The news was something my dad did." He draws buildings. These words were spoken in 2008 by an unlikely film critic named Donald Trump. Ashley Parker, now a Washington Post White House correspondent but then one of Haberman's colleagues at the Times, says Haberman confirmed the tip and wrote the story on her phone during the graduation. When Trump gave an undisciplined press conference a few weeks into his presidency, the DC press and pols were comparing it to late-stage Nixon, Thrush says. Mostly, copy kids at the Post did errands and administrative work, but once a week they would be named "Josephine reporter" or "Joe reporter" of the day and sent out to learn the ropes. (Both her brother, Zach, and her husband, Dareh Gregorian, work at the New York Daily News.). Why it matters: Destroying records that should be preserved is potentially illegal. [2] They have three children and live in Brooklyn. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. She commutes to DC several times a week from her home in Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband and three young children. 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. penguinrandomhouse.com. A Conversation with Maggie Haberman, Trump's Favorite Foe And she clearly knows the family dynamic and knows him and all of these family stories very, very well, better than anyone. And he makes that very clear. Maggie Haberman is a tireless, keen-eyed example. She was wearing an evil-eye bracelet. 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. He has called you, essentially, like his psychiatrist, whether you agree with that term or not. She's e-mailed me from the NYPD tow pounda place she said she'd already visited twice that month. [9], Haberman was hired by The New York Times in early 2015 as a political correspondent for the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Maggie Haberman on Twitter I think his niece is right. As for the breaking part, Haberman is more . We see many compliments in your future with Maggie, a rectangular frame with a metal construction and vibrant violet hue. 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. [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. "She is literally always doing four things," says her friend and former New York Post colleague Annie Karni. "And yet Trump seems driven to connect with her.". ", While speaking on a New York Times Women in the World panel at Lincoln Center in April to a very Trump-unfriendly crowd (Nikki Haley, Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, was booed during her interview with Greta Van Susteren before Haberman came onstage), she kept repeating basic facts about Trumpthat he has been on both sides of most issues, that he's influenced by the last person he spoke toand getting huge laughs from the audience. [2] Haberman returned to the Post to cover the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign and other political races. COVID-19 at Three: Who Got the Pandemic Right? I think, to quote someone who knew him years ago who said this to me a couple of months back, a second Trump presidency would be very heavily driven by spite. Her tweets frequently numbered more than a hundred and forty in twenty-four hours. There's that Felix Sater character, who was arrested and, I think, did time, for shoving a broken Martini glass in someone's face . Is there anyone in political life he truly admires? The audience was, as always, hanging on her every word, hungry to have her translate Trump into someone they could understand. . Her reporting, much of it written with other Times staffers, mingled Pulitzer-winning discoveries (Trump told Russian officials that firing James Comey relieved great pressure on him), palace intrigue (John Kelly clashed with Corey Lewandowski), and bathetic details (Trump watching television in his bathrobe). The appointment of a special counsel Robert Mueller last week "took some of the air out of his tires" but he is still spoiling for a fight, Haberman says. Search instead in. Over the years, she has honed a stable interpretation of Trump, evoking not a strongman but a showman, an egomaniac with shrewd instincts and bad opinions. They're going to lose [their access] anyway," she says. births and plastic surgeries), and the funerals of firefighters and civic luminaries. 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. Stu Marques, then metro editor of the paper, hired Haberman and oversaw her early training. Maggie Haberman - The New York Times Do you think, at his core, that he is racist? Haberman was not the only reporter to see the underlying logic in the daily bedlam emanating from Washington. (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. Over time, however, as Haberman did not get beat, did not get beat, he realized she was for real. The aides and advisers who spoke to Haberman for the book - she writes that she interviewed more than 250 people - offer a damning portrait of a commander in chief who was uninterested in. Please check your inbox to confirm. Clyde and Nancy met at the tabloid New York PostClyde was a metro reporter there, and Nancy was a "copy boy" (what the Post called its entry-level cub reporters back then). Maggie Haberman reacts to Trump grand jury foreperson's remarks: 'I've But, for all Habermans reticence, she maintains a combative Twitter presence, and is quick to press her case in replies when she believes that shes been mischaracterized. Her coverage is often grounded in statements about Trumps characterthat he thrives on chaos but loves routine, or that he stirs up infighting among his cronies. I mean, what what how does he do this? Because she was literally talking to 16 people within our campaign at the same time.". These days, in her profession, the truth is a demanding god. I do not want you to come away with that impression. It's titled "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.". (Nancy worked on projects for Trump's business but says she never met him.). 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. Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump circa 1997, Jeff Greenfield interviews Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns at the 92nd Street Y. Wanna Know What Donald Trump Is Really Thinking? Maggie Haberman's forthcoming book about former President Trump will report that White House residence staff periodically found wads of paper clogging a toilet and believed the former president, a notorious destroyer of Oval Office documents, was the flusher. Sean Piccoli,Jonah E. Bromwich,Ben Protess. "Can I join you guys? And so it is easy for people to convince him that something is true, when it is not. Hutchinson had just finished her third deposition with the committee. Is Trump-Whisperer Maggie Haberman Changing - Vanity Fair Yes, I can! "Speak of the devil," she said into the phone. Since 2015, Habermans career has revolved around the most untrustworthy man in national politics. He admires autocrats in other countries. Habermans own confidence man, though overexposed, can seem similarly elusive. By Shane Goldmacher,Michael C. Bender and Maggie Haberman. Ad Choices. Theyre outraged by what were covering, and they dont understand why its not having the effect it should. Maggie Haberman - Wikipedia [19], In 2022, Haberman published a book on the Trump presidency called Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Trumps insistence on taking unnecessary flights kind of goes to what he will sublimate in the service of something else, Haberman said. Maggie grew up on the Upper West Side, attending P.S. 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). But I do think that he needs whatever he doesn't have, and whatever that might be in any given moment. Donald Trump reading The New York Times at his Greenwich, Connecticut home in 1987. I think that theres a misunderstanding among certain aspects of our readership about what it is we do, she said. And thank you for having me to talk about the book. Trump Might Not See Out 2024 Presidential Bid: Maggie Haberman The book is frank about Trumps cruelty. "What do they thinkthat it's going in a secret newspaper?". And I think, sometimes, he seems less clear. Confidence Man, which synthesizes years of reporting on Trump and his milieu, is, in some ways, a standard-issue Trump book. ", .css-5rg4gn{display:block;font-family:NeueHaasUnica,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0.3125rem;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-5rg4gn:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-5rg4gn{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.3;letter-spacing:-0.02em;margin:0.75rem 0 0;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-5rg4gn{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.3;letter-spacing:0.02rem;margin:0.9375rem 0 0;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-5rg4gn{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.4;margin:0.9375rem 0 0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-5rg4gn{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.4;}}The First Day Back Was Agonizing, Monterey Park Has Been a Safe Haven for My Family, How to Help Victims of the Turkey-Syria Earthquake, Iranians Are Fighting and Dying for Their Rights, This Black History Month, Im Angry as Hell, Jacinda Ardern Showed Moms How to Speak Up, My Chronic Illness Led Me to Get an Abortion, How Barnard Students Fought for Abortion Pills. But who he is is also why he won and why he tripled down after Access Hollywood," the political crisis which Haberman says is probably the yardstick Trump is using to measure his response to the current situation. Her daughter was home sick from school with a fever. Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, has been covering Donald Trump since the 1990s. But she also acknowledges Trumps seductiveness, recognizing that he was mesmerizing to watch, his speech fast and cocky and self-assured, with the ability to be both funny and cutting, both charming and derisive, often in the same sentence. Trumps gestures, Haberman insisted, have a metaphysical hollowness. "I'm just trying not to get beat," she says. And we clearly saw it continue in the White House, be it attacking Elijah Cummings in Baltimore, a city that is part of the United States, and Trump was supposed to be the president for all of the United States, whether he was attacking congresswomen of color, whether he was getting into various condemnations, or lack thereof, I should say, of white supremacists, whether he was flirting with the QAnon conspiracy theory. While the president and the reporter couldn't seem more differentTrump, the flamboyant tycoon and Manhattan establishment aspirant known for his devil- may-care mendacity; and Haberman, a political insider known for her straight-shooting truth tellingthe points at which their histories and personalities converge are revealing about both the media and the president himself. . I mean, how does he take in facts? Cruelty, pettiness and real estate: in Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman "Okay, wellfist bump?" But Confidence Man is among the first to seriously consider its subjects backstory, how he sprang from the overlapping scenes of New York real estate, city government, and media celebrity. All Rights Reserved. President Xi Jinping of China, he has been praising repeatedly since he left office. She's perfectly willing to walk like a redcoat into the middle of the field and let everyone know she's there because she's going to get [her story]," says Kevin Madden, a Republican communications veteran who has worked for John Boehner, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney. It was a story about Mar-a-Lago." Trump Tried to Get Maggie Haberman's Phone Records: Politico Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for the New York Times, stops midsentence to . He said that to me in one of our interviews. Oct 9, 2022. Haberman has spent a good part of the past seven years immersed in Trumps deranged fantasia of American life. Trump is 70. 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". "You're pretty!" newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. She wore an iteration of her usual uniform: black pants, black jacket, reddish-pink blouse, and an air of bone-crushing fatigue. When Haberman interviewed Trump in the Oval Office this April, he was making his usual complaint about how unfair her coverage is. 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. By Jim Rutenberg, Jo Becker, Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin, Matthew Rosenberg and Michael S. Schmidt Published Jan. 31, 2021 Updated June 14, 2022 She was on her phone. Maggie Haberman, political corespondent for The New York Times, reporting at a Bernie Sanders rally at Hunter's Point South Park in New York, April 18, 2016. Haberman joined Judy Woodruff to discuss the book. "I have respect for you, sir, but you have called me to thank me about my coverage over the past year and a half at different points," she told him. This past November, by the end of the candidates meandering, hour-long campaign announcement, she had tweeted about the speech more than twenty times. He was shaped by how to attract those stories.. 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. She was thinking aloud about her scheduleshe doesn't keep an actual calendar, not on paper, not on her phone; it's all in her head. Hope you'll take a moment to order CONFIDENCE MAN here. And, early on, he figured out how to neutralize threats by hiring them, as when he lured Anthony Gliedman, the housing commissioner who denied his request for a tax break on Trump Tower, and whom Trump subsequently threatened and sued, to come work for him several years later. 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. "This is a president who is always selling. Because he is the same person he was during the campaign.". It would look like him. By Kenneth P. Vogel,Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt. The New York Times reporter may be the greatest political reporter working today. But that's what he said. So it must be that were doing it wrong. I noted that the idea of silver-bullet journalismof the one article that levels the Trump White Houseis deeply bewitching. Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent who joined The New York Times in 2015 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on Donald Trump's advisers and . We encounter all the usual suspects: Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and Paul Manafort and Hope Hicks. Grow your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the internets creators. It narrates how he and his siblings cut off medical funding for his brothers infant grandson, who was born with a disorder that led to cerebral palsy, in order to punish some of his relatives during an estate dispute. There are briefing-room tantrums, incredulous generals, and off-color mutterings. Tweets with replies by Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) / Twitter He mentioned Nixon unprompted in one of our interviews. 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. Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman: 9780593297346 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books. Photograph by Jeanette Spicer for The New Yorker, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. 77 Days: Trump's Campaign to Subvert the Election What he needs his attention. When I asked her about these conceptual scoops, she corrected me: Theyre contextual scoops. Context is key to Habermans project. I just have totems, she said, hoarsely, because her press tour had already begun and she was losing her voice. ", Trump has also sent her his famous press clippings with Sharpie notes on them, mostly with criticisms, but at least once with praise. And she's got a BlackBerry and a flip phone going at the same time. She's called me as she was drivingswearing and running latebetween an errand at the American Girl doll store and a dinner party. I dont want this out there, she remembers saying. The first time I met Haberman, we were in the airy, modern cafeteria of the New York Times building in Manhattan. Or is she simply good at her joba job that requires her, at times, to win the trust of the untrustworthy? A reader wondering whether to be surprised by such carelessness, such corruption, gets her answer: yes and no. 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. Because Haberman has known Trump for so long she has been derided as a schill. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. "Part of it was for her son graduating kindergarten, and part of it was for Maggie for breaking this awesome scoop. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Hutchinson asked her counsel not to take the call. When Their Book Deal Blew Up After Sexual Misconduct Allegations, Glenn he says, holding out his fist. He is behaving in a racist way. He noticed right away that Haberman had talent. As she regards the man with the orange hair, it's like watching a predator decide whether or not to go in for the kill. There's a malevolence around how he does this a lot of the time, but he treats facts as if they are things that can be either discarded or invented or created or augmented, but facts are an ongoing, fluid thing with him. Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for the New York Times, stops midsentence to stare at his back as he gesticulates broadly and shouts at his dinner companions over the already considerable din at BLT Steak in Washington, DC, downstairs from the offices of the Times' bureau. 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. This article appears in the July 2017 issue of ELLE. Further introspection on the subject of stifling her emotions did not seem to interest her, perhaps because she sees no alternative. The man with the orange hair is making a scene. Designed with adjustable nose pads for a custom fit. Haberman graduated in 1996 from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied creative writing and psychology. Trump Said NYT's Maggie Haberman Is Like His 'Psychiatrist': Book [4], Haberman's career began in 1996 when she was hired by the New York Post. The phone rang, and she started laughing when she looked at her iPhone display. Maggie Haberman, the Confidence Man's Chronicler | The New Yorker During the Trump era, Haberman became an avatar of journalisms promise as well as of its failures. He views the truth as something that's transactional. 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. A number of news reporters have tried and are still trying to understand former President Donald Trump and his influence on our nation's politics today. [19] She has also been accused "from certain corners of the left as a supposed water carrier for the 45th president". It was like watching someone juggle fire while standing on a tightrope. A revelation in Maggie Haberman's new book stirs debate about reporters As an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence, Haberman studied creative writing and child psychology. 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. One attendee chastised another for looking at her phone, saying that its light was distracting, as though we were all at a cliffhanger movie. As we were talking, her phone buzzed. Born to a publicist and a newspaperman, she grew up in the kind of privileged Manhattan set that Trump spent his early days envying.