Wonder Woman: Maggie Haberman

the Trump administration. This, by the way, is the first in a series of podcasts we're doing that we're calling wonder Women. We're going to be interviewing a bunch of female powerhouses and the weeks to come. We thought it was sort of something in the air about girl power right now and about women in general. And Maggie definitely qualifies as a wonder woman Brian, for sure. I mean, she arguably knows Donald Trump more and better than any

other reporter covering him. She started writing about him in two thousand six for the tabloids here in New York and through Politico and The New York Times. She's always

had Trump in her sight. She's a top White House correspondent for the New York Times, as many of you know, and she appears on CNN regularly as a political analyst, and over the past year she's really gotten scoop after scoop on the Trump administration, and in fact was doing some reporting on her phone as we were interviewing her. That's right, she was texting almost the entire time. She's

known as a huge multitasker. I think The New Yorker described her as a humming bird, effortlessly doing what she needs to do, which is everything at once. So do you remember the story, Katie about President Trump watching TV in his bathrobe with news that Trump told Russian officials he fired FBI director James Kummy because he was quote crazy, a real nut job. I certainly do, Brian, Well, Maggie

was behind both of those stories. In our conversation, we talked with Maggie about her first job in journalism, if anything about the Trump presidency has surprised her, and the challenges of covering this White House both professionally and personally. You were the original, really busy woman, So I feel like I'm only sort of following in your path. Well, I think you have me be You've been called a Trump whisper a West wing beat colossus and also maybe

the greatest political reporter working today. Mozele on that, Maggie, of course, the president calls you something different altogether on occasion, a purveyor of fake news at the failing New York Times one year in. How is Donald Trump been similar to or different from your expectations? Uh? The day he was sworn in, Not a single thing that has happened has surprised me. Literally, not a single thing that has happened.

The only thing that that surprised me, Uh, after I just said not a single thing, I was the only quasi single thing is And thank you for all the very kind words, but um, at least half of them are not true. Um, was that he fired call me because I thought if he was going to do what he would have done it on the first day. Um. But this has played out, if not in the precise ways in which I would have imagined, um, along the same contours and along the same lines. Um. He is

who he is. He has not changed. I mean, I think one of the one of the conversations that I find sort of head scratching right now is this idea that um, which I think is promulgated, primarily by Michael Wolf's book, that there's some kind of a deterioration. He's the same person who I was interviewing six years ago. Uh. If people wanted to believe during the campaign that there was a strategy, that's fine, But there wasn't a strategy. He did things because it felt good to him, or

because he liked it, or because it was fun. He you know, his axios had a story that he's now not getting into the to the west wing until eleven o'clock in the morning. That's about him keeping with what he did a Trump Tower. So I ask you, Maggie, did he run his company Trump Enterprises or whatever it's called organization Trump org, dot com organization may be generous, did he run it the same way that he's running the White House? Because it makes you wonder, how was

he ever able to be moderately successful? If so? So, I think the thing that people forget about him is that A he began his business with UM a hefty loan from his father. So this self made thing is not quite true. UM he was in real estate. He was never seen as one of the more successful developers around. He had four bankruptcies, not personal bankruptcies, but his businesses had had problems. Um. And then he went after the bankruptcies, he went into the licensing business, and he went into

reality television. Um. His business was essentially a mom and pop shop. It was not a fortune company, was not anything close to that. And he ran it by instantly making people play for his affections. And he despite you know, sort of constantly picking fights for interpersonal confrontation, he really tries to avoid it. Um. You know. For instance, when his campaign manager, Korey Lewandowski was fired in six it was Don Jr. And Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen who did it.

It was not Trump himself, and Trump in fact wanted Corey to know what a great guy he still thought he was. So yeah, this all is exactly who he was before. So he thrives in chaos. He creates chaos, and then he responds to the chaos he creates. It's all the cyclical feedback loop that you know, we're all on with him now and his approval writing is in the thirties and he seems to have polarized the country

more than any president I can really recall. But you know, him really well, at this point, what do you think are the biggest misconceptions about him among both his supporters and his detractors. That's an excellent question. I mean, I think that, Um, I think the most common misperception, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, in terms of him, is that there's a strategy at play, that he's doing it, that he has some some guidance, master plan.

And then the second um, and this is really I think um been interesting for Republicans and Democrats to deal with, is that he's got an ideology. There is no ideology. He's got a handful of it, like impulses, um, that have always animated him. But he is perfectly comfortable being inconsistent on policy. He is perfectly comfortable taking two conflicting positions. Consistency is not a hop goblin that gets to him particularly.

I think those are the main misconceptions about him. I also think that the I mean one that I think it's really hard for people to grasp again whether you like him or don't like him, but really for people who don't like him, is that the storminess of his personality, which clearly is pronounced and frequent, is not incessant. It's sort of rhythmic. It's whether it comes in and then it blows storm blows out, comes in and then it

blows out. And we wrote about this, Glen Thrush and Peter Baker and I did in December in a piece about how he functions as president. And what can be very darring for people who didn't know him for a long time is that he can scream at you and then be making small talk with you a few minutes later, because he's vinted, he's gotten an out of his system, and it doesn't occur to him how you might be

receiving it, and he doesn't really care. The only thing that is predictable about him is that he is unpredictable and his reactions can be original. So you've known Donald Trump a long time because he would tell you I hardly know him well. The facts suggests otherwise. But you were both a big part of the New York tabloid world. You as a trigger part of well you you wrote about him in the New York Posts and Daily News for many years. Um and you come from a media family.

Your your dad as a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter your mom's a big pr person. Um, so we'll just go back a little bit before we continue talking about Trump today. Obsessive lee, which is all anyone Maggie. God, you must get so tired of it. Thank you so much for doing it with us. You must be like, So let's just take a little interlude and talk about Maggie. Yes, let's talk about you. Okay, you said you never wanted

to be a reporter. How did that happen? I couldn't get a job working in a magazine out of college where I had studied fiction writing and child child psychology and turned out to be pretty relevant to your job today. Deal in fiction, but you do deal with children. I have three children, Um I now and some would argue for anyway. Anyway, I couldn't get a job, and so uh I got hired as a clerk at the new Post, which was not a glamorous job. But it was really

like fitching coffee, fitching facts is. But I loved the way the newsroom was. I loved the rhythm of it. I love the place and what they would do. I think they still do it there is they would, um, they would send reporter copy kids out. That's what we were called copy kids. Um out on assignment, you know, go to a fire or go let stick out of hospital, go whatever. Um. The height was getting assigned a day, so you know, you're the Tuesday copy kid who goes

out and goes out an assignment. And I got myself in the rotation and I really loved it. Uh. And that was that was it. But it was not what I planned for. What was it about reporting that really kind of floated your boat? Have you seen a movie The Paper, The Michael Paton movie. I mean that was the New York Post in the nineties. It was it was interesting, it was colorful. It was the adrenaline rush of a scoop of doing it well. And they're talking about being in a newsroom that I think it's so fun.

I agree, it's just fun. It is fun. And I mean the New York Post was the most pure fun job I ever had. Um and uh. And that that New York Post doesn't exist anymore. That New York Post does not exist in quite some time. But what's happened in the New York Post. There were editor changes and just sort of, um, it's just a different place now. Um. But what if you always feel comfort ble with like you know, headless body founded topless bar and stuff. I

didn't have a problem. I mean I was also a bartender, so like I might be the wrong the wrong target audience for that, But it wasn't a topless bar. It was not it was right, it wasn't well but so I mean again, so like, what's Donald Trump's favorite New York Post headline? It was the one supposedly quoting Marlin Maples sang best sex I ever had. It was No,

he didn't call it. He didn't know what happened. Was so Steve Cuzo, who is UM, does real estate coverage and I think some business are there's some business or page six coverage for the for the Post wrote a book called It's Alive, and it was all about how the Post almost died until Murdoch bought it back in

ninety three. And in the book he talks about how the reporter Bill Hoffman, who now works for Chris Ready at news Max Um and Bill Hofman said across from me for years because I was a dictationist and that was the way the newsroom was laid out. But Bill got a friend of Marla Maples on the phone and he said, you know, I thought the sex was pretty good, right, and the woman was like yeah, and he's like best she ever had, right, And the woman's like, I guess.

And that's how that headline came to base. So I was going to say, such great and I feel so much better in the New York Post. Hey, I love the ear Post. You're not gonna hear me say a bad word about it, but um, at least not right here. But but but that's the world that Trump comes from, too, right, feels true, is mostly true. I like the way that reads. And so And the first time, in fact, you quoted Donald Trump and a piece was in the New York Post.

He was talking up Hillary Clinton for president in two thousand six. Yeah, yeah, um yeah. He once was a Democrat. Um. And you know in what he would when he started arguing as his explanation for why he was such a down or to Democrats for a long time was that he uh lived in New York, which is heavily democratic, and so you had to give it. That's that's not the real, the real main reason. Um. He was one of the only people who welcomed Bill Clinton to society

after the White House tenure. Ended right, Um, I think invited him to join his clubs, and because some clubs wouldn't accept him, because this was right after this, after this was right after Monica Lewinsky h and so uh, they were quite chummy. They were quite chummy. And and Trump really likes proximity to power and he likes feeling like somebody owes him a favor. I mean, those are always the two things. And so he believed that Bill Clinton owed him something, which is part of why he

got so angry when the Clintons were criticizing him. I know, in two thousand eleven you reported seriously on his presidential ambitions, but then I felt a great story that he was launching a campaign in two thousand fifteen. Well, I mean I would argue that, um, that might not have held up as the best call, but it was certainly defensible at the time because in two thousand eleven we did pay a lot of attention to him. He did dominate, you know, the air, and he sucked up all the

oxygen the way that he always does. And they didn't run, and he announced that he wasn't running in the most cynical way possible. During sweep sweek of The Apprentice after running the most racially cynical early platform we had ever seen, where he was effectively calling the first black president an illegitimate based on nothing other than based on an Internet rumor that Andrew Breitbart, who created the website Breitbart, denounced

Trump for in two thousand eleven. He thought birtherism was disgusting. And it is amazing the degree to which Trump mainstranda. In fact, he is really the granddaddy at the birth or movement, isn't he. I remember seeing him talking about it on the View and spreading that around and and how did that take such a hold on the public's imagination, Because it's crazy, It was funny. It started out as um.

It was it was a fringe issue. It was a fringe issue that most conservatives wouldn't touch for a very long time. And then he started talking about He talked about it on Fox, He talked about it where, you know, wherever, and he was making things up. You know, I have these investigators and they can't you believe what they're finding. Um. You know, people who worked with him at the time said that there was no such thing um. And it

was so raw and strange and so norms breaking. I hate to use the word that we have a phrase that we have used a lot, and it's gotten quite a workout in the last year and a half. But it was it was effective. It was impossible to look away. Basically, what is impossible to not cover? I think to me, though, you guys, that is classic Donald Trump. Yes, you say something enough, you know, whether it's Crooked Hillary or whatever, that is a that is a page from his playbook.

You repeat it. It's like a monstra petition is a huge part of it starts permeating your consciousness in a way that you don't even understand. But what does it say about it's absolutely true? What does it say about the base of the Republican Party that Birtherism is really

what bonded Trump to those people? Says that it is an aging, older, largely white basse um that had seen You know, this is not the first time that we've seen ever in history, and certainly in in u s history, of a small group of people, much more on the far right than on the far left. Uh, but who had a certain what was described by Housesetter as the paranoid style in American politics. Right, others are taking what

you have, and Obama represented that in Trump. Um my colleague Jonathan Martin, we were both the political at the time, but this really well and a piece in two thousand eleven that what the base saw Trump as was a neon stand in for somebody who would take the fight to Obama because the base didn't feel the party was fighting this president hard enough, which clearly is has proven otherwise in history. But that was the sentiment at the time.

Can we take a little can we take a little turn just for a second momentarily to talk about Roy kone because honestly, I think that people don't understand just how deeply influenced he was by Roy Kuhne. Can you explain quickly, Maggie, who Roy Cone was, the nature of his relationship with Trump and what he taught the Donald as we used to call him. Sure, So, I mean Roy Cohen was the legendary John McCarthy fixer and lawyer, you know, dirt peddler on his opponents. The whole playbook

was slimed the opposition, attack, attack, attack. Donald Trump and Roger Stone, Trump's longest serving political advisor, on and off, both shared Cone as a as a mentor. Michael Cruz at Politico had a great piece on Trump and Cone during the campaign where he unearthed this gem of a quote from Trump talking about Roy Cohne, which was Trump said, he brutalized, but he brutalized for you. And I think that that's so succinctly sums up both what what Trump

believes people should be doing for him. But if you think about the thing that we've always talked about with the Clintons, especially Hillary Clinton, as they want people defending them, right, we always talked about this and covering the Clinton's Trump is that at times a gazillion you are supposed to go out and absorb whole bullets, give up your family for him. The professions of loyalty are and the need for it are huge, um and Cone and body that

and Cone taught him that. And then at the end of Cohn's life, when con Con who was a in the closet gay man who had AIDS, when he was dying of AIDS, according to Cone's assistant, Trump dropped him Um and she believes he dropped him because of the AIDS panic in the nineteen eighties. Trump does not like talking about Roy Khne particularly. I think he spoke about him a little bit to my colleagues Jonathan Muller and Matt Flagenheimer during the campaign, but it's not one of

his favorite topics. But he has really, even though he distanced himself, he's personified the tactics in the style I mean, very much so. And it's uh. You know, a friend of Trump's once said to me that, you know you've got Trump's got two people on either shoulder, and one is his father, Fred Trump, and the other is Roy Kone and and one of them is whispering in his

ear at all times. Yeah. A friend of mine set if he could go back in time, he'd kill baby Hitler and tell Fred Trump to be a little nicer to his kid. I think it. I think it would have required a little more than just being a little nicer. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, back to Maggy, Um, you joined the New York Times, and there's been some criticism of you. Um that, even amid all of these scoops. One colleague of yours, unnamed of course, is quoted in Vanity Fair saying you've brought

a tabloid twitterified sensibility to the Times. How do you react when you hear something like that. Um that it's not true that I'm not the first person to get hired from Politico to The Times. That. Um. And I'm not even sure that was meant as an insult, frankly, but UM, I think that the direction that The Times has taken on politics is not attributable to any one person. I think that we have an and on the White House coverage. Uh. And in terms of Trump, we are

covering a tabloid president. So if you cover him as a conventional president, you're actually going to mislead your readers into thinking that he is a conventional president. He's not. There are only so many ways to do something when it is in the written form versus say a TV interview or a live rally and a live television interview. UM,

I just don't agree with that assessment. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with more from the first in our Wonder Women's series, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times. And now back to our conversation with Maggie Haberman. Maggie talked about some of the challenges in covering a precedent like this. I mean, it's a it never ends it's literally it's like I feel like I did when I had newborns. It's like a

long day. You know, when you have a newborn. You sleep for two hours and you're up for three and then you, um, you don't have time to take a shower. You feel so nasty, have that like nasty green Vilora robe On and Liker and like you know, and so it's like, insteader the baby, it's your laptop. Um. I just cannot get away from that thing. Everybody, I think one of the big challenges. And again I thought that I had seen the zeno of this with the Clinton's,

but I really hadn't. Everybody has a really strong opinion about what you're doing. Everyone is a really strong opinion at you, at the reporter. Everyone is a really strong opinion about how you're doing your job. People who do not know anything about journalism or suddenly journalism experts, UM, People who do not understand that it is not a reporter's job to hold an impeachment trial, UM cannot do the things that they would like them to do in an interview. UM. I think that people are I think

that so I think a couple of things. I think that there has been this psychic experience, collective psych experience about this presidency. Um. And I think that that has been for most people. It has not been for his most ardent supporters, who do not really believe that he can do that much wrong. Although I do think that if you went and and interviewed a lot of them at this point, there are things they're going to be disappointed. Whether they would vote against him, I think it's a

different issue. But um, for other people, we've never really seen anything like this. We've never seen thinking about something you said at the very beginning about how he's divided the country, and the country is pretty divided before he came in. What he has done that is different is he's done zero to reach out to people who weren't with him already, and that we've never seen before. We have never seen somebody who has come in and said the rest of you, you know what, the hairs, the losers.

That is what he does. Um. Well, Ron Brownston wrote, I thought this was very savvy. The tax plan was not about redistributing so much as retribution. It was it was about punishing the blue state. It was a weaponized tax bill in a way that I don't think that as a as a friend of mine put in, I don't think that we have seen anything in front of mine who's a Republican. I don't think that we have

seen anything like that in quite some time. But Maggie goes beyond not reaching out to people who weren't it's it's but but even more than that, I think he you know, what, did you use the norm norm shuttering, norm shattering? Uh, and the lack of decorum and any kind of attempt to be civil and to have manner. Now he does. He's not interested in he is not interested in niceties, he's not interested in in norms as we have always defined them. And he's Um, everything is

an attack. If he doesn't like you, if you do anything that crosses he will. He will call you a great person in one breath and then the next breath call you the worst person in the world, which is he does the reporters as well, and which is both personally disorienting and then I think collectively disorienting. UM. I think that initially people wanted to believe that reporters were

hero People who didn't like Trump thought reporters were heroes. UM, because people sort of want a hero at the moment, and then reporters are reporters. Reporters, they have a job. And now I think people have gotten frustrated that reporters can't do more. But the more that they want done can be done by Congress. It's not the job of journalists to prosecute the president. And what everybody knows about this presidency and the Russia investigation and so forth, it's

all from reporters. I think reporter shif done a really good job collectively covering this president under very difficult circumstances. I agree with that. It's sort of your We're grateful honestly, Um, you know, I'm not reporting on the president on a daily basis, but for everyone who does it to say it's disorienting must be a massive understatement. It is. It's just it's a difficult. Um, it's a difficult thing to do. And where do you draw the line between news analysis

and commentary. So, for instance, we just interviewed Joe and Mika on our last podcast, and their criticism now is that reporters they think have gone too far in the anti Trump direction, that they're over their skish. Well, he didn't give specific I think they said even they were a little over their skis, you know, sort of media writ large and I think that included themselves. I mean, I was going to say they've called the president mentally unstable.

I don't understand who they think has gone further than what I think. They don't view themselves of a subjective reporters, and I think the evidence probably bears that out. But when you think about the sort of the quote mainstream media, New York Times, Washington Post, etcetera, do you think that the balance has been struck about right or do you think there's too much kind of reporters masquerading his calumnists on Twitter? Um? I think Twitter is a huge problem

in general. It certainly is a problem for me and a challenge for me. You tweet a hundred and forty times a day, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. Is that not true? I think I did. Then I think I've stopped a little bit. But mean, it's a it's toxic,

it's toxic, it's terrible. I also feel like it feeds the echo chamber because I feel like reporters tweet for other reporters to be cute and clever for other reporters and they're not really serving the public, They're serving their industry. I wonder if Twitter would still be in business, we're not for Donald Trump and reporters, it would be, but I don't think that it would be anywhere near as relevant as it is now, and I don't think it

would be as much of a cesspool. It's it's just it's just it's toxic and so um, and people assume the worst of everything they're reading. Um. I do think Twitter is a danger for reporters, myself included. UM, I do not resent myself in that. But have you thought about not tweeting? Yeah? And then I tweet, So I've thought about it. And then do you think more about what you tweet now? Yes? I do. And what about a policy at the New York Times? There was it

wasn't there a new policy? There was the Post or New York Times. The Times has The Times has um social media guidelines, and so these social media guidelines that have been instituted by The Times are relatively new. Yeah, it's in the last couple of months. I'm quoted in

the in the guidelines. I'm just sort of like, I mean, I think that the problem is is like the number The number of tweets that I compose and then delete are a lot, either because it will end up I think people will misread it, or because it's just what I want to say can't be said in that many characters, even to eighty um, or because it's just not worth it, or because it doesn't always need to be said right then. The mistake that I made recently was defending myself on

some criticism and like, don't go down. It's just not it's just about right. It's just it's it's it's you're through the looking last ones. You do that, it's a bad idea. So I didn't, so I've stopped. But um, but I do think that Twitter allows for a tone that straight news reporting does not, and I think that's I think that's dangerous. But I think the tone of Trump coverage generally is over the top that I do agree with them on. But I also think that, um,

I think they've contributed to it. So I'm sorry, Brian, go ahead. I was gonna, yeah, go ahead, Okay, you brought you brought up this is fun. I know you brought up. You brought up Maggie. Trump's instability, or at least the factor and his irrationality. Joe and Meek, as

you mentioned, called Donald Trump mentally unstable and frequently. Pete Winner, a longtime Republican strategists who worked for the last three Republican presidents, said Mr Trump's recent twitter storm slash interviews are more evidence we've been watching an American president psychologically, emotionally and cognitively decompose. That sounds very right. I mean,

it's it's unflattering. It's also diagnosing from the couch. I think that my issue with this is that these same people and I and I respect Petee are a lot so I don't want to sound like I'm not um, but they've been saying that he was cognitively declining since the campaign. So you tell me where the bottom is and what we're hitting. I've been interviewing this man since two thousand eleven on a pretty consistent basis, uh, year

to year. He's the same person I've been talking to you this whole time, and you don't see any evidence of it. I see evidence of somebody who is in an enormously stressful situation and a job that I do not think he loves and probably brings out the worst in him. I think that certain qualities get exacerbated. But do you think the president is mentally fit to govern? I don't know what that means. I don't know. In other words, like I hear the words coming out of

your mouth, I understand the sentence. But I'm not a psychiatrist, and I do not think that reporters diagnosing people is a good idea. You know, his state of mind. Let me just try to phrase this in a different way. And I know you don't want to reach a sort of an opinion. I'm not going to reach that. Yeah, I'm not gonna answer that question. What I am going to say is that I have I have covered his asiveness.

I have covered in detail the types of things that he bores in on times of stress, his perseveration over slights, um, his self absorption, and on and on. So I think that if people can't decide for them, so I mean, this is the thing that I find a little drawing, is the degree to which everybody needs to have some kind of you know, U s d a stamp unfit, like, look at what's in front of you and decide what

you think. Um, But none of us is a psychiatrist, and I don't think that we have been putting a gloss any of us on his moods or how he deals with things. But doesn't the amendment kind of require some kind of stamp. Well, that's in Congress again, and that's the that's thee and that's the cabinet. I was going to say, and that's the cabinet, but that's not the that's not reporters tell us about a day in the life of Donald Trump, Maggie, because you spend a

lot of time following his every move. Does he eat as many uh and fish of filet o fish as my mom used to call them, and drink as many diet cokes as we've been told? And as many diet cokeses? How many? A dozen? It's a it's a dozen a day. That is just insane, Maggie. He's not a healthy eater and he never has beend tell us about his eating habits, is drinking habits, is sleeping habits, and his TV habits.

He doesn't sleep very much. He watches anywhere between four and eight to ten hours of TV a day, and the TV habits have been increasing, I'm told by several White White House staff, especially since he got back from our lago on the holiday break. He drinks about a dozen diet cooks a day. He loves to eat McDonald's Kentucky Fried Chicken, Um, burger king Um. These are his favorite meal. Let's just go to McDonald's. But I'm not

sure the answer. There's one that he sent Keeach Keith Schiller to when Keith was still in the White Now to go to McDonald's. Item o his item God, I think it was a big math, but I don't remember. Honestly, I'm guessing he was fattening though. I'm just gonna go with that. But it's not the grilled chickens. It's not the it's not the healthy items. But the report that he doesn't get into the Oval office until eleven in

the morning, that's true. That's true. And that's basically how he conducted himself a Trump Tower, like wouldn't roll in until about ten or eleven. Now was this always the case or is this more recent? It's gotten it's gotten more like that in the last decade or so. So he watches TV in his bathroom. Basically he watches TV. Um. Remember he doesn't own a bathroom. Didn't you read that? And I did? Um, that is true, and and he was, Um,

what do you think of Michael Wolfs book? I'm curious because they say he doesn't read, he is semi literate, he doesn't prepare, he knows almost nothing about policy or politics. He's extremely moody, thin skin. Um does this sound right? Well, it's what I've been reporting for two years. Yeah, it sounds right. I just couldn't help. But wonder how he

got that much access? Um, Steve Bannon walked him in, and um, some folks in the comm shop decided to play some level of ball with him, not fully, but enough. He talked to Donald Trump for three hours. I think an aggregate on three of three hours short. Three hours is not out of time. So what I think an hour and a half of that was the interview he

did in Beverly Hill. I do not think that they spent much time together since Trump spent on the White House now, but he had written some pretty pro Trump columns. He spent years criticizing all of the Trump covering media, and he spent the first year of the White House, UH and the transition saying that all of our coverage that things were a mess was wrong. Um, that we were all too negative about Trump. UM. I think he described my beat as the barrant presidency of Donald Trump

UM in a very derisive way. So I don't understand how he makes that comport with his book if he considers that a negative, because his entire book is that there is something very like Donald Trump changed. Well, he didn't say he didn't know, he didn't change. What changed is that Wolfe Michael Wolfe wanted to get access to Trump, and so he did so by critic which he would not be the first person to do so. Lots of reporters over the years have done that. Have you read

the book? What do you think of it? I think it needed a copy editor. I think that some of it is very good. I think some of it is fantastical. UM, But I think conceptually it's It's pretty right. Let's talk about it, and it affirms what the rest of us terrible reporters have been writing for a year and a half. So have you talked to Michael wolf about it? We're

not friends. Let's talk about John. If he ever felt like reaching out to me for comment, did be more than welcome to John Kelly was supposedly going to bring a sense of discipline well. John Kelly has made the staff feel less scared of one another, which was really happening with Steve Bannon. UM. People felt scared of Bannon. Uh and the Bannon and Jared Navanka fight was horrible

UM internally for a lot of other staffers. And he has made staff never feel less frightened of the president himself in the sense that the president is a screamer and he can be difficult, but he's done nothing to control the president. Morale is terrible in the West Wang, It's it's as bad or worse than it was when Rance was there previous as the chief of staff. UM. So Kelly has made a decision that you're not going to change what a seventy one year old man does,

and he's not. And that seventy one year old man gets in big public fights with his attorney general, his Secretary of State, to name a couple. Do you think that's strange? You know you do you think that's aberrant unusual or do you think that that's normally what presidents do. I think it's the metrics laid before us by by recent books. Yeah, yeah, what what is the state of those relationships with the senior cabinet members to the great question. Um,

it depends on who it is. Mike Pompeio he has a great relationship with and he has this whole time, which is interesting because they didn't really have a relationship prior to the White House. Um. But he sees him every morning, sees him every morning. Pompeio has figured out how to brief Trump. He has sort of figured out how to speak Trump. Um. Tillerson Rex Tillers in the

Seretary of State, has not to speak Trump. Um. Although Tillerson had been expected to leave this month, is now telling people he doesn't want to leave, So we will see what happens. Um. What do you think is the conflict between those two guys just a very different style totally? I mean, I just think that, and I think the Tillerson is just not used to being somebody's underlying honestly.

I mean it's a buttoned up corporate exactly totally, totally like to with every fiber of his being, right, and when the CEO of eggs on mobile, that's basically like being a head of state, right, that's actually that's exactly right. And he's used to being sort of honored and fitted in a certain way. Um. So I think that's been one obstacle. What up with? What up with Mike Pence? Oh?

Being more specific? Um, well, every time you see him, he's smiling graciously, you know, sort of nodding in agreement. Don't you love how Maggie Maggie's been on her phone when she's like reporting a story right now reporting sty can you tell us? Well? We had we had had a tip that um Met Romney had cancer at one point, and it turns out he had um and it's prostate cancer and we just hadn't been able to confirm it. But somebody else just broke up. Really I'm just dealing

with right now. Yea is he Yeah? And he's still going to run. Um and he's still gonna run. All right, Well, this is very exciting to hear, like breaking news. Who broke it? Uh? It was I think CNN. Um anyway, Sorry, anyway, they're my employers. Still, I know, I know, what are the there's a little sarcasm there, I know, So Pens,

I mean I think that. Look. Remember the thing that everybody forgets about Pence is that he was a conservative radio host before he was a congressman, and then he then he was a governor of Indiana, and he struggled politically as a governor of Indiana. He wasn't gonna get real, he was not going to get correct, and so most likely not and so um he um. I don't know what the long game is here. I think basically he

actually took a short hop, right. I mean it was either not get reelected for governor or roll the dice and see what happens here. Um. He's very differential to the resident, very very very difficult. Yes, every time he appears with him right, and he has he has found a way to handle Trump pretty effectively. Trump really solicits his opinion, likes him, seeks him out. Um, do you think he'd be a good president. I think that you never really know what somebody actually isn't like in the

job until they get in there. Although I didn't know what Nonald Trump would be like before he got into it.

Unless chaotic president would be let's get he would be a very conventional Republican, conservative Republican president, very conventional, very very it would be like, um, they were discovering City Hall and Giuliani was the mayor in his second term, and I remember we were complaining about something that the Press Office had done to us because you know, Giuliani was sort of prototypical for Trump, except that Giuliani is incredibly well read and um is has has actual sort

of policy thoughts and beliefs and core beliefs. Um but very vindictive, but he's got it. But there there's a lot of similarities there in their personalities. Is a reason they're friends. Um But I remember we were all griping in the press fan one day and on our way to an event about something that the Press Office had done, and one of the radio reporters who had been there long she's long since passed away, but who had been there many many decades, said, you should be really grateful

he does this many events. You know, when it was back in um in the A Beam days, the mayor would be unavailable for weeks. And like that's a little bit what Pence would be. Like I don't know the last time Pence to the live TV interview, Like, I mean, he is really really, really careful and so different stylistically than Trump. So two of the personalities that obviously get enormous attention or Jared and Ivanka you know, they're young, they're rich, they're glamorous. That I think a lot of

people resent them. They think, oh, well, there's got to be something kind of corrupt or something a little bit yeah, malevolent, corrupt or not the same thing. No about either of both of them. What what are the facts that we know about their roles in the administration, how they operate

day to day. Look, I mean, I think part of the problem early on was that, um they when when when Ryan's previous was made chief of staff, the immediate thing that I said to source who told me was it sorta doesn't matter who has the title, because Jared will be acting as the chief of staff anyway. It's only with Kelly that Jared has not been able to do that. Um. You know they're they're um, they're both difficult um to read. They are um uh, they're very

different people. I mean, she really is a lot like her father. Um. Jared is very sort of chill and flat and does speaks as little as possible. Um. And how is she like her father? She has um a very similar set of grievances. She has a very similar uh sense that people are being unfair to her. Um. Um, she's a lot like him. Do you think she sees what's happening with her father and is distressed in what sense? I mean distressed at both how he is being perceived

and how he is governing. I don't think she's happy with how he is being perceived, and I certainly know there're aspects of his governance that she's not happy with him. In their policy issues that they've disagreed on many of them that I just mean his style, not policy. I mean she has always tried to refine his style. At

the same time. This is when they're one area of reporting in My Golf's book that I think was really dated UM and I think was based primarily from people who knew her when she was younger and before she was being roomed to take over the company. UM. She has gone from being sort of a somewhat resentful daughter to really being, in many ways, the spitting image of him. I'm not not I'm not physically obviously, but UM she I but she's him without a lot of the flash

and style. She believe. She does believe that he's got a genius. She believes that there are things that he can into it that other people can't. UM and she's very riveted by it. Um, but this is not the life that they wanted. This is not and none of this is what they thought was going to happen. Um. Like him, she believed that they would walk in and be treated sort of deferentially. Um. And she's been a little surprised at How do you see actually is as

you look ahead? What are you most concerned about in this year too? Um, I'd like I'd like yeah, I'd like a little less nuclear fun talk on Twitter. I think that that's a little alarming. Um. Um. Yeah, North Korea is of great concern to the administration, and and um, I think for a good reason. Um, that's my that's my biggest concern. When he tweets that his button, his red button is bigger. I mean, you can't make this

stuff up, can you, Maggie, Well, no comment, Um, I don't. Um. I don't think any of it is productive or conducive to actual policy or conversations. I just I think it's a problem. What do you know about the more investigation, the state of it, where it's headed, who it's ensnaring. Right now, we know very little about that. I mean, really, I don't want to speak to something that we really

can't see into. What the George Papadoubel's indictment taught all of us is how little we actually know about what Mueller has. But given that he has gotten a bunch of people to plead guilty, you should assume there's going to be more, Maggie. On a personal level, how you know, I people are criticized because they don't ask men the same question. And I would argue that I would ask men the same question. But given the demanding nature of covering this White House, how are you able to unplug?

How are you able to be with your kids and to do the things that you need to do um when you're not at work? Um? With difficulty? I mean I don't have it. I don't. None of this has been easy. It's been really hard on my kids. Um, twelve, eight and seven. That's little. The other really little. That's what I would get, That's what I would undo. Over the last years, so hard this has been on them. Is your husband a saint? Yes? Um, ask anyone who knows us, Um he is. He's also he's the politics editor.

Yeah so, but he also has long hours because of that job. It's just it's been hard on my kids. Um, and it's been hard and and and Trump selection has seeped into see at the time, seeped into schools in a way that very few other campaigns have. So I just my kids have just been surrounded by all of this for a while. Do you feel that they're more anxious and you're more anxious as a result of what's going on in the world. I mean, I think that they're just being on duty all the time, Like this

lends itself to being anxious. But what But beyond that, though, beyond the hours that the stererm and drag that is constant, I think it is a I think it is an an unnerving time in the world. And I don't think that we are any of us is impervious to it. Let you just do the best you can. Let me ask about someone else who who was or is close to you, and that's Glenn thrush Um. You guys were set to write a book together. He got into some

trouble apparently because of sexual misbehavior. Can you comment at all about sort of what you know about those problems and how it's affected your reporting and your relationship. I mean, he's been a friend for a really long time. This is obviously pretty painful for a lot of people, UM, including UM these women who UH felt mistreated or who were scared or uh who had encounters with him that they were unhappy with and that they did not feel

good about. UM. But he also has said he as a substance of best problem, and I'm glad he's getting helped for that. And beyond that, I don't really want to talk about it. Let's talk about where you go from here. So we're finishing up this podcast. It's approaching three o'clock. You have an appointment, so we're going to get you out of the studio. Thank you, But what

is the rest of your day going to be? Like, Maggie, I have a meeting with somebody of the paper, and then I have to do a TV hit, and then I have to meet a source, and then I have to go home, and then tomorrow I go to Washington And how do you? How do you? Kind of I'm curious because I'm so impressed with your reporting and so

much reporting that's been done these days. I mean, I know this White House leaks a lot, but is it difficult is it difficult to find a source that really trusts you and you can really trust Yeah, I mean it's look, well, look it's difficult because Trump and the people around Trump have historically told a lot more untruths

than any other campaign that I have dealt with. UM. So we developed a system in the campaign, Ashley Parker, Alex Burns and I did of sort of how we would arrive at a common based soup stock of what we what what was true based on a number of people overlapping in the same account, and then anything that did not comport with that would get shaved off. And

we we still use that. UM. The difficulty is just that there is so much stuff that is un true floating around, and then the true stuff is called false. So and everyone has an agenda, and everyone has an agenda correct, and it's usually about killing someone else, So it's usually not policy, it's usually harming some other person. On that note, Maggie, have a nice day. Thanks for

having me. You guys, thank you so much for Thanks to our wonderful production team is always a tip of our hat to produce ser Giana Palmer, our engineer Jared O'Connell, assistant producer Nora Ritchie. Nor have I ever told you I really like the name Nora. I really like the name Nora too, I do. It's my favorite dolls house. And my mom's name was Eleanor, and Ellie is named Eleanor, but I call her Ellie, not Nora. But I could have called her Nora, but anyway, I didn't, And I

like your name. Thanks also to Emily Beana of Katie Couric Media, my assistant Beth Dems, and Alison Bresnik, who hits the bull's eye day in and day out on social media. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music. Katie Kirk and I are the show as executive producers, and please if you can drop us a line at comments at Current podcast dot com with guest ideas, feedback questions, or

anything that's on your mind. You can also find me on social media under Katie Couric, and you can follow me on Twitter at Goldsmith b. We'll be back next week with the next installment of our Wonder Women's series, so stay tuned for that everyone. Meanwhile, thanks so much for listening. Bye bye, like John McLachlan would say, bye bye, done done, done done,