You're listening to Comedy Central. Maggie Havenman, Welcome to the Dannist Show. Thanks for having me. Um. You have written a book that many have called the Ultimate Guide to Donald J. Trump, because it feels like you have an understanding of him that few, never mind journalists, few human
beings do. And and what's interesting is every time I've seen your reporting on him, every every time I've seen him comment on you and the conversations you have with each other, and the interviews that he grants you, even though he seems to hate you, but then he likes you. It seems a little bit like the like, like the relationship Hannibal Head with Clarice. I can't tell if you
if you have a mutual admiration for each other. Fascination as a journalist explained to me why he keeps speaking to you and then afterwards says to you, why would you write the things that he said to you? First of all, thank you and thank you for having me. A couple of things. Look, he's a subject who I cover, and I have covered a number of politicians over the
last twenty six years. I covered Hillary Clinton, I covered Mike Bloomberg, I covered Rudy Giuliani, who in many ways was a proto Trump, at least in certain aspects of his behavior. Uh and now is very much like Trump, and and has become it's more similar to him over time. Trump needs the media in a way that's unlike any other politician I've ever seen. He craves attention, and I explore this in the book. He just constantly wants to hold the media's gaze, and he wants to see if
he can sell you on a version of himself. And he wants to get what he would call a good story. Literally, those would be the words, a good story. And then you write about him accurately and he says that it's unfair, you know. So there's that's that's the dynamic you're talking about. But he basically, you know, he's obsessed with the New York Times. That is a lot of what this is about. You know, he is uniquely focused on the paper. And I'm just the person who has covered him more often
than not. It really feels like he is somebody who is frozen in time because everything he's obsessed with seems to be something that was popular when he reached some sort of zeitgeists himself, you know, So it'll be The New York Times, and then he'll complain about certain magazines but not others. In the SNL, he'll have a he has a certain pension for, but then not other shows. It's like it's an interesting world that he exists in
that isn't current, but but seems current to him. And in the in the book, you talk about how he lives minutes to minute when the rest of us move almost from twenty four hours to twenty four hours. But it doesn't seem like he's plagued as much by the things we think he is as as he actually is. Like do we what do we misunderstand about Trump? I actually think you understand really well based on everything you just said. I think there is a um, there is
a preserved and amber quality to him. You just describe that about how all of his cultural Touchsdownes are in the nineteen eighties, which is when he was reaching his height. He loves to talk about how many times he's on the cover of Time magazine. Um, you know, national news magazines, weeklies are are not in their heyday right now, and yet he talks about it all the time. The celebrities
he talks about are from the nineteen eighties. Its figures generally are from the nine It's when he was rising to prominence. And I agree with you that I think there is a degree which he has just stuck there. And he's also stuck there culturally. He's stuck there in terms of racial politics. He has stuck there in terms of New York City's machine boss politics from that era, and he exported so much of that onto Washington and
onto the Republican Party. The other thing that I think that people don't understand, and I try to show this and explore this, is his fascination with violence and how much violence informs what he thinks of strength, and then strength in terms informs what he thinks is a strong boss or a strong leader. So you will hear him praise, you know, a local machine party boss like the former Brooklyn Democratic Party head as ruling with an iron fist. He'll use the same words about shij and Ping, the
president of China, who's an authoritarian. Um, it's all contextless and kind of flat and the same, and I think people miss that. Yes he's playing to crowds. Yes he will say whatever he has to say, to survive small increments of time him, but ultimately the scenarios that exist for him kind of stay the same. But what makes him scarier in my reading of this book is people often see Donald Trump as somebody who is setting the trends.
But as as you read through this book and as you understand the man, you come to realize that he is oftentimes victim of the trends, and then he plays
to them. So he'll say something to his crowd that he believes the crowd won't vibe with it, and so then he'll change what he believes and to keep going with the crowd, which makes him even scary because if you think about authoritarian leaders or any others out there who go I rule with an iron fist, their fist is their fist, But Donald Trump says, how would you like my fist to be? And then he keeps it
in that direction. Like so, when when you look at them, when you see that man, isn't that a scarier place to be in? And the people around him do they do they notice that or do they think that he's controlling his own narrative? It depends on how close they get to him, and it depends frankly on how willing they are to pat the perverted, preferred version of himself that he presents. So there's two versions of himself that
he can tolerate. One that he really wants, which is adulation and hero worship, and he gets that in certain quarters of the conservative media and from some of his aids. And then there's, you know, the portrait of him as competent strongman. Um this book is neither one of those, and and and I think explains exactly who he is. There are people around him who recognize that he is
often playing to the room, the crowd. He is taking his cues from Fox News, and then it became this kind of circular feeding cycle with Fox News where they would say something and he would pick it up and amplify it, and then they would cover it more. And
that is often how he makes decisions. And I explore how whether that was about not wanting a mask mandate during COVID, or whether he was attacking football players who were taking a knee in protested police brutality, or when he was at the Sea Pack in two thousand eleven and he saw that attacking Ron Paul was playing well to the crowd. It's always in response to how's it playing. He exists in interesting space in the world because you know,
Donald Trump is the man. But then you talk about in the book there's also Donald Trump the idea, and you give us truly one of the most comprehensive insights into how the man was forged. Many people around the world don't know that he was considered a joke in many New York circles, in business, in entertainment, whatever field
it was. Many people don't realize. And you talk about this in the book, how the Apprentice was in some ways a sort of joke idea of like, oh, this guy will tell you how to run your business because he was so terrible, but he was so captivating on screen. He was so magnetic. He knew how to create entertainment. And then it became the tail wagging the dog. People
saw the show, they went, he must be successful. And then because of that, his success started rising, and he went from the doldrums of nothingness back to being a semi successful person. So then I wonder when you when you look at Donald Trump, when you think of him through the lens of entertainment and politics, do you think Donald Trump has broken America because you say that the making of Donald Trump in the breaking of America. Do you think he's broken America or do you think he's
exposed how America is broken. I think he has exposed aspects of how America has broken and fueled and exploited that for his own gain. I think that the partisan divide that exists in this country started in the nineteen nine I started before that, but it really really accelerated in the nineteen nineties, and then there were a series
of national traumas that voters reacted to. There was an impeachment of Bill Clinton, there was a terrorist attacks in the US, there were wars that followed, There was an election in two thousands settled by the Supreme Court. Uh. You know, there was a fiscal crisis where most people who were seeing responsible were not punished. All of that left an impact on voters looking for something that they
thought they were finding in him. But his ethos that he came to define in New York in that period you're talking about in the nineteen eighties really was hate as a civic good. Hate should be a civic good. He would talk about that. He would talk about in the context of racial violence, in New York that he would want to hate people, and that is what he exported. So he didn't create it, but he fueled it and he has benefited from it. And there is a tremendous
triple trickle down effect. He has an interesting, you know, paradoxical vibe to him at times because on the one hand, and maybe this place to what you're saying, or it's an example of it, he plays to the room. You know, I've interviewed Republicans who at the very beginning and say like, no, I've spoken to him, He's fine. He just says that to the crowd, and then they themselves months later and be like, I'm shocked. I didn't think he would do this.
I don't think he would go this way. You have said in the book, and you say from the beginning, this man is the most consistent person. Ironically, he is going to be who he is and he always has been in many ways. And you even break down his techniques in an interview or when he's dealing with with press, you know, you you almost break them down like like video game character moves, where you go, he's going to defend, he's gonna deny, he's gonna he's gonna shift the blame,
he's gonna get angry, He'll perform the anger. You talk about all these things. Why do journalists now not understand this? Why did journalists still get tricked or trapped into a place where they go, Trump, what is this? And then he spins them and then they're like, oh, you did it again to me? Why does that still happen? I think, in fairness to my colleagues, I think for the most part,
people realize who Donald Trump is at this point. I think that when he became president, people particularly in the Washington press corps, many of whom did not follow the campaign in did not know who he was the person that they were dealing with. How effective he is at getting media around his finger to do what he wanted. I think people generally do understand that now. I think you have seen far fewer interviews from Mara a Lago over the course of the last eighteen months, despite his
desire to hold the media's gaze. Now, whether that changes when he's a nominee potentially or a candidate almost certainly, I think that's an open question, and we're going to see how that goes. One of the more fascinating posts of the book that I truly enjoyed. Somebody who's been immersed in this world for a long time is the
brewing clash between Donald Trump and Rhonda Sanctists. Rhonda Sanctus is somebody who, in my opinion, has slowly started adopting elm mints of Trump in order to win over Trumpers, but then doesn't transform himself into Trump so that he seems like a reasonable choice. I mean, like, I watched him even talking in like a briefing, and he started using hands like Trump. He starts doing little moves like Trump.
He starts speaking in kurt sentences like Trump, very good, very good, doesn't change his voice, but he dresses in the front, he suits like Trump. He has like not really. I think I think he's emulated enough of Trump to to to take Trump's people, but they're not so much of Trump to to, you know, dissuade the middle voters who wants somebody who's reasonable. And it seems like Donald Trump is starting to realize that Rhonda Sanctis is stealing
his vibe and he doesn't like it. You know, he's not happy about it, and he thinks that he made Rhonda Santas, and he talked about this with me in interviews last year that you know, he was responsible for De Santis. You know, I said, Ron, you're at three percent. Uh. And so you know when Ron asked for my endorsement, he told me that he, you know, he thought he would beat anybody very easily. I asked if he had talked to De Santis about running against him or de
Santis running against him. He said that hadn't come up, but it's clearly his mind. And he's been privately trashing him to any number of people, which is often what he does when he's he trashes him about his his weight. Well he's been he's been trashing in privately to people fat phony whining. So Trump has been saying that run Sanctus is fat right, Okay, um, it's it's It's interesting because you also talk about in the book why you think and how you think Trump sees the presidency and
what it brings him. He's in a different position to what he was in before. Before it seemed like it was, you know, a joy ride. It seemed like another push for publicity, maybe to get more money for the Apprentice or whatever. But now it seems like there are more stakes. You know, he may want the politics, but he's also
worried about the investigations. He's also worried. Do you then think, knowing him the way you do and having the interviews that you've had with him and the people around him, do you think that then, in a weird way, Runda Sanctists is now the biggest threat to Trump because if Runda Sanctists manages to take the Republican Party away from Trump, Trump loses his best opportunity to escape all of the cases that are coming and all the people that are
coming for him. Whether it's around to Santis or someone else, the biggest threat to Donald Trump is that someone will stop him in the Republican Party. Now, a number of donors and a number of conservatives are hopeful to Santis. Is it. We are just seeing to Santas on a national stage in a way we haven't before with with the hurricane response, and so we'll see how that goes. He has had a couple of off moments, not not in the least day, but he has had a couple
of off moments and handling it. Everyone looks very good until they're on the bigger stage and that is one thing Trump is aware of is that the difference that he brought to running for president over other candidates was he had been in the media spotlight for decades and it is just something that is completely different now. The party is different in overall how it deals with the national media. Republicans are very aggressive against national reporters at
this point. To Santas has obviously co opted that from Trump to to Santis does not need or crave national attention in the media the way Trump does. Trump is definitely aware to Santis is a threat. I think it is too soon to say what that looks like before I let you go, because I mean, it's an amazing book. We could talk for hours about it's Trump is a force unlike any other in American and maybe even world politics. He's inspired so many other countries. When I when I travel,
people will have these strange opinions about him. I've never seen anything like it where other countries have opinions about Trump as if they vote for him as well. People on the ground, genuinely, you don't really see that. And
it feels like he has turned American politics forever. When you speak to him, does he have an acknowledgment of the volatility that he's dealing with, or does he only think of it through the lens of trump and entertainment and getting to the end goal, or is there even a part of him that goes if I if I do this incorrectly, I could I could blow up the country as a whole. I don't think there's a ton of the introspection that you just described. I think I think.
I think in general, he looks at everything in terms of how it impacts him. And even when he has told that something is going bad, even if he's conscious of it, he will be aware it's something is problematic for others, but for whatever. You know, three D chess in his head, and it isn't literally three D chess, but how he's how he's gaming this out. He won't allow himself to acknowledge that because that would be a sign of weakness, or that would be giving somebody else
a ship. And so even if that's a consideration, you're never going to hear him say that. You will hear him say you know, he threw himself the other day. I'll just give you an example. He volunteered himself to try to solve the war between Russia and Ukraine to be a peacemaker. This is a This is a classic Donald Trump move, which is I'm going to throw myself into this national situation that doesn't involve me at all.
You know, he did he was offering himself up as Reagan's arms negotiator with the Soviet Union in the early nineteen eighties. He actually did that. He literally was offering himself up this side. And so now obviously he was not taken up on it. But um, it's a little different when it's a former president doing this and it's just in his head. The context just doesn't change. The moves are all the same. Every part of the book
is interesting. You have notes from Donald Trump, for instance, because you obviously send them to him, you know, say this is what I'm writing. Do you have any comments or anything. Some of them are like him just going like fake news. He scribbled and he sent you so several let's fake news. Some of my favorites were the ones where he's like, oh, this is great. I never thought of it like this. It's like there's like weird, there's weird interesting parts in in how he sees you
and what you're doing. I mean, there's a fascinating story about Rudy Giuliani taking the biggest dump in a private plane I've ever heard from Trump. It's a book that covers everything, and honestly, I hope a lot of people read it before the next election comes, because I think it gives a lot of much needed insight. Maggie, thank you so much for joining on the show. Appreciate you punks, because that notw where you've got your book, people. Maggie
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