Donald Trump is the leading candidate to become the Republican nominee for president – for the third election in a row – and he is also the subject of numerous criminal investigations. My colleague, Maggie Haberman, has defended him the whole time and has written a book about him, “The Confident Man,” to be published tomorrow. She regularly recounts stories in The Times that she discovered while reporting for the book.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Maggie about what she’s learned, about how much media coverage should be about Trump, and about what might happen next for him.
David: You’ve spent more time covering and interviewing Trump than most people, going back to the days when you observed him when you were a reporter for the New York Post in the 1990s. shown that he lie a lot. So I’m curious: How does interviewing him help you better grasp reality when he’s not limited by reality?
Maggie: He is a former president and a potential future candidate who has huge influence over the party. Among other things, interviewing him helps shed light on how he retains that influence: his obsession with the politics between us and them, with his sales skills, and with presenting a session. His self is often very different from his real self.
Also, there are his unwanted moments.
David: Yes, like his remarks to you about letters from Kim Jong-un that Trump seems to have kept after leaving the White House. (You can listen to the clip below).
Maggie: That’s a question I asked in a third interview for my book, held at his club in Bedminster, NJ, on September 16, 2021. I asked him. whether he took any “souvenir” documents from the White House, knowing how proud he was of items like his letters from authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un .
Trump’s immediate response was to deny having done anything important, saying, “Nothing urgent, no,” before – unsolicited – referring to Kim’s letters. Jong-un, seems to indicate that he already owns them. A few months later, we learned that he had a huge archive of documents about the White House, including dozens of individual documents that were classified.
David: When I listen to the clip, I feel like it’s part of a pattern with him. He’s definitely not outspoken. But he’s also so vague and confusing that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what he is to be sayings. As journalist Joe Klein Writtenreferring to this larger model, “He deploys the words with litigator accuracy – even when it sounds backwards.”
Maggie: Exactly, and one of the difficulties with interviewing him, or keeping track of what he has to say, is that he is usually all over the place and is somewhat careful not to cross certain boundaries. This is a hallmark of his business career, when he asks employees not to take notes, even though behind closed doors to employees he tends to be more explicit in his directives.
At his rally in Ellipse on January 6, he told people to be “peaceful and patriotic” but also directed them to the Capitol in apocalyptic language about the election. Usually, the people around him understand the implication of his words, even if he is not direct.
David: Our readers can also hear a clip of him telling you he didn’t watch the January 6 protest on television. There is no popular document to the contrary?
Maggie: His aides told The Times that day and days after that he was watching television, and a public hearing held by the House of Representatives investigative committee on January 6 recorded it. that he was watching television. I think it represents two things – his desire to build an alternate reality, and his particular sensitivity to anyone who suggests he watch a lot of television, which he associated with people who reduce his intelligence (although he watches a lot of television).
David: How do you approach an interview with Trump?
Maggie: I tried to get specific information, answers that only he could get, even with all the warnings about what to believe from his mouth. One example was when I asked him if he would face similar legal troubles if Robert Morgenthau, a former Manhattan district attorney, remained in the post. His answer is no, because Morgenthau is “a friend of mine.” That revealed Trump’s involvement with prosecutors, as he escaped investigation after investigation for years.
Maggie: I think the criticisms of too much coverage of Donald Trump are very real to his main opponents in 2016, and often to the Clinton campaign. But I argue that he is leading the polls in the primaries and that coverage is not usually what people call flattering.
What I think is a significant criticism of decades ago, when he built this image of himself, with each news story acting as a brick in the piece, as a self-made business tycoon. He’s certainly had his successes, but he depends on his father in ways the public doesn’t see and is in part thanks to The Times reported on his tax returns, learned about many years later. That’s something the industry needs to take into account.
Now, he is a former president with a huge following, as he undermines confidence in elections and acceptance of conspiracy theories. I’m not sure there’s a good reason to ignore him, because he’s still heard through other means. There is a good argument for defining his context.
David: What happens next? Does he want to be president again or just get revenge on Biden? And what do you think motivates him?
Maggie: I think Trump misses the legal and flashy protections that the presidency affords him. I also think he wants revenge on Biden, in the media, and on a whole lot of people. And he wants to be able to continue to raise money and attract attention, both of which will disappear if he doesn’t run. What I don’t know is that he actually wanted to do another campaign, partly because he was much older and partly because he seemed less engaged overall. But that will reveal itself in the next few weeks or months.
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SPORTS NEWS FROM ATHLETIC
A win statement: Kansas City clinched one of the best wins of the youth NFL season in Tampa Bay, 41-31. It’s an important data point in a brilliant weekend of football.
Pink voucher: After seven years, 67 victories and prolonging divisional dominance, Wisconsin fired Paul Chryst yesterday.
The remaining four games: Aaron Judge and the Yankees wraps up the regular in Texas this week, with Judge a running house embarrassed of an AL season record. This series runs from today to Wednesday with a dual channel on Tuesdays.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Goodbye, charcuterie.
Lately, you may have seen people smearing butter on different surfaces and posting them on social media platforms – all in the name of the butter board.
The butter board tutorial is simple: Get a cutting board. Rub more softened butter on top. Then customize it, with ingredients like honey, lemon zest, edible flowers, chili flakes, figs or radishes (as you can see in these pictures). “It’s simple, it’s fun, it’s art,” said one woodworker, whose board sales on Etsy have skyrocketed.
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
What to cook?
