How Trump Has Changed, With Maggie Haberman

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Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent at the New York Times of Pulitzer Prize winner and the co-author, alongside Jonathan Swan, of regime change. I would say the single best book on the first 14 months of Donald Trump's second term. She joins me now. [Music]

Maggie Haberman, welcome back to the show. How's her, thank you for having me. So I want to talk about the experience I had reading the book. Which is remembering how much energy and ferrocity.

There was in the first six to eight months of the Trump administration.

And then knowing how many of the things that you all were tracking here from the terrorists, to doge, to parts of society, bending the need of Trump, to be around more. By now, feel like they have deeply run out of some kind of steam, or they've ended up trapping the Trump administration in its own decisions.

This book is really about Trump's year one, mostly. What is your two feel like to you? First of all, thank you for having me. And I was Jonathan, we're here, but his wife is having a baby soon. And I have permission to say that.

So there's a reason that the first section of the book is called whirlwind. And I was thinking as you were talking about the running out of steam piece. I would put it a little differently. I think it's not black and white. And Elon Musk is obviously not working for the government anymore.

I do think it's remarkable how much of doge is memory-hold. He came in, he was supposed to change the way government was going to work. Reality does didn't do anything close to what it was supposed to do. But it did do things like show how Trump was going to govern by Fiat in large measure. Elon Musk shut down USAID, just shut down an entire

Congressionalty created agency.

One of Trump's first unilateral actions was firing a bunch of inspectors general.

Did not notify Congress, which he's supposed to do about why. And he was supposed to be Congress of 30 day notice. None of that happened. Stephen Miller in particular rolled out with a bunch of executive actions. That I would say some of them didn't run out of steam.

The ones focused on DEI in particular. The one about trans women and sports in particular. And certainly a lot of their activities at the border have not. If you were a Trump supporter and you voted for him for those reasons, which were things he did talk about on the campaign trail.

Just those three, you'd be happy. They didn't vote for most of his base. Another potential for ever war in the Middle East. So that is, I think, not just running out of steam. That is injecting fresh chaos.

He is now just launched a fresh trade war. And so there's the combination of new tariffs, plus escalation back to engaged combat with Iran. Could be really interesting for the economy. And so I don't know that I think it's that it's run out of steam.

But things tend to end one way with Trump. And it's usually in some form of the lack of strategy being apparent.

“And I would say that's what you're seeing right now.”

So I don't know that it's running out of steam. It's running into Trump reality. I think often if something that the conservative analysts you've all lived in, said to me early in the term, he said that administrations have a rhythm. At first, they are the master events.

Everybody is responding to them. And then they are responding to events. And in Trump's case, he's often even now responding to events he created. Correct, which is what I was thinking when you were saying that. There has been a lot of reporting for instance on Iran right now.

He's in the mood for revenge. I thought it was just strange word that was being chosen. Like he attacked Iran. The capital, the leadership, threatened to end the civilization. Iran is not completely capitulated to him.

So he needs to prevent like his revenge the right word there. I'm sure he feels it is. I saw that reporting. And I actually wondered whether it was just about what you're describing, which is some kind of retribution for a military intervention that he began.

Or whether it was part of this ongoing anger at Iran that really is quite real with him about the threats against his life.

“I'm going to talk through that because I think that's an important threat of the book.”

Sure, it's very much an important threat of the book. I know. I mean Jonathan and my reporting really did show us how radicalizing those four years at a power were not just for the investigations that he was facing.

But what also happened in 2024 right after he was convicted in a state court on falsifying documents and connection with a hush money payment to a porn star.

I was sitting at it. And affair with her was a Pakistani man who was indicted and connection with the murder for higher plot. That was supposed to be allegedly engaged in by Iran. This was a proxy. The allegation is Iran had a proxy was trying to hire a murderer to kill Donald Trump.

And it was indicted. By the way, you know, under the Biden Justice Department, it wasn't dated. But the assassination attempt in Butler happens right after that where he was shot. And it was a galvanizing moment for the campaign. It was a galvanizing moment for him.

All of that in his mind becomes one big blur.

“And around that time is when and I don't remember it was right before right after.”

But Iran had successfully hacked the campaign manager's emails, Susie Wiles, so court Iran, according to officials, was behind it. And they start releasing them. And that was hugely embarrassing to the entire campaign. It also added to this sense of siege that they all have. They all went back into the White House this way for different reasons in some cases.

But for that core group and for Trump himself. Iran and this feeling of being under threat is constant. You heard it when he spoke to John Carl after the Iotolo is killed at the beginning of this war. And Trump said something to John Carl that I don't think I've heard him say sense as a repeat. But it was, I'm paraphrasing, but it was I got them once they tried to get me twice.

Whatever he's referring to, I don't exactly know in terms of the choice. But it tells you what his mind said is. One story that we've heard a lot is that Netanyahu talked Donald Trump into the war. There's another story that Trump himself had distinct views on Iran.

As for some time, has always said they cannot have a nuclear weapon.

Tore up the Obama nuclear deal over the objections of his own advisors has always had a very hard line on Iran. Going back years, I mean, you can find all to do his way before the presidency where he talks about Iran humiliating us. When you get the respect of the other countries, then the other countries tend to do a little bit as you too. And you can create the right attitudes. The Iranian situation is a case and point that they hold our hostages is just absolutely and totally ridiculous. That this country sits back and allows country, such as Iran to hold our hostages to my way of thinking is a horror.

And I don't think they're doing with other countries.

“I honestly don't think they're doing with other countries.”

I mean, you read about this, but a lot of Trump's politics seem very rooted in the 80s. And things that happened to American the 70s and the 80s. But what at this point is your view of why Donald Trump decides to actually do a regime change oriented warner on? The final piece of reporting that we did in regime change was about the lead up to the Iran war. And it was not there were things that happened that I'm sure will be either on earth or could fill out a filler picture.

But we were really just focused on a few discrete meetings and conversations. And these were situation remediings. One of which included a foreign leader coming to the situation room to have a very sensitive intelligence conversation with the US president. And so Netanyahu comes on February 11th and paints this pretty compelling to Trump's ears story about why now is ripe for regime change.

And Trump is always very receptive to you could be the person to do XYZ.

And so Trump says some version of sounds good to me. His own CIA director, his own secretary of state the next day, they have run these scenarios. They say some of what Netanyahu is proposing and what the Israelis would call their decapitation scenario of take out certain leadership. And some of it could be done. They could degrade the ballistic missile program at Iran for instance. But that the regime change scenarios that Netanyahu presented, including a video of who could take over.

And most of the Americans found it to be silly. John Radcliffe, the CIA director, called it first of all. Marco Rubio was much more explicit said in other words, it's bullshit. And Trump said regime change will be their problem. It wasn't quite clear whether he meant Iran or Israel.

But he still thought it was worth a try to accomplish the other objectives. So that, yes, was definitely Netanyahu making a case. But number one, Netanyahu and our reporting in 2024 has this meeting with Trump to essentially go kiss the ring and make nice after a break in their relationship. Trump says to him privately, I'm going to be much more aggressive on around this time. This is right after Butler.

“Remember that as you said, he was Trump was doing things against the objections of his own advisors on the nuclear deal.”

Certainly the Obama nuclear deal. Taking out General Soleimani at the beginning of 2020 was also against what some of his advisors wanted.

But he is more hawkish on Iran than he is about other parts of the Middle East to a degree that has always surprised some of his own aids.

And that these current aids have really misread, I would say. They will continue to insist that he doesn't like Netanyahu, he doesn't like this, he doesn't like that. But he definitely says different things to different people, depending on who he is talking to, but it's always been pretty clear that he is a former view here. And Trump believed Iran was a paper tiger after the 12th day war of last year, because their response was pretty tepid to the strikes of the US engaged in. It was sort of some choreographed strikes toward allies, okay, US allies.

Trump believed that was going to be the extent of it. It was just a massive miscalculation on his part and a lack of understanding what was happening. And he was also fresh off of this Venezuela effort to capture Maduro earlier this year. That also made him believe we can do these things. I'm not saying that's a rational belief I am saying that was his belief.

And he believes things will work out for him always.

“It gets to something that comes here in the book, and I think about a lot from our coverage from the first year even just on the show.”

There's really, in my view, no Trump is on there's only Trump. Correct, which is to say that the amount of energy that gets wasted chasing down purported doctrines. The Marilago Accords that were getting floated at one point to do a massive, you know, currency rebalancing all across world. The Don Road doctrine, right? We'd be focusing on the Western Hemisphere.

We wouldn't be entangled in all this war and conflict in the Middle East. Trump just weaves in and out of theories. I mean, there are things he holds to, right? He is Caucasian immigration has been for a very long time. That is sustained. He has his views on trade. But even trade, the objectives have flitted back and forth on that.

And everybody who says, I know what maga is. I know what Trump is am is. If it is anything as, you know, J.D. pants would put it, it's known who wars. They end up wrong because Trump is right.

“I think he it's possible you he said it to legal share at the Atlantic.”

He said it to. He's the one who decides. Right. Magas, whatever I say it is, is what he said. Now, I think that's true now. I guess I have a slightly different take on it.

Though I generally agree with you that trying to pin him to some ideology is just an absolute fool's

Aaron and has always been a fool's Aaron.

He does have these id like impulses that he is very interested in, but it doesn't mean they can't be supplemented if the occasion calls for it. I think maga is a movement I do. I don't think maga is the entire Republican party. I think maga is a movement within the Republican party. And the coalition that exists around Trump in that framework has always been very uncomfortable and strange because he will say different things to different parts of it.

And I think that they would only be willing to ignore the parts that don't match their own view for him. I cannot think of another figure who can unite these different facets of this movement. But I do think that this movement is having fissures not just because of a random Israel. It started with Epstein. Right after the 12 day war is when the Epstein crisis.

And I'm calling it a crisis. What it actually is is a multi-administration failure to deal with a pedophile who people are both parties tend entertaining or useful or whatever. But it was the maga movement leaders who had been talking about a need for transparency over many years leading up to Trump's election in 2024. And they then got caught up in that because Trump wants nothing to do with this. He doesn't want anything released. So it becomes a crisis because there is growing anger by Trump's own base about what's happening. There is growing anger by victims about why these files not been released. Why is nothing being looked at.

You end up in this remarkable series and we've read about these in the book, the situation room meetings. Same place where Trump decided to take the country to war and Iran was what they were using for crisis comps on how do we get ourselves out of this mess.

“But if you want to track a moment that Trump started losing his own base, it was then.”

But did he lose his bad. I mean, I had people I've had people on the right on to talk about Trumpism cracking up in him losing his base. And then, you know, you look at the polls and the bases almost entirely with him. He's able to intervene in any primary he wants he has not actually seemed to lose influence in this way. I mean, it's a problem, it's a problem, it's a problem, it's a problem, it's a problem. They're gone, they're gone, but there is I think two things can exist to once though, either was polling last year or showing that even with his own base mostly private polling his numbers were taking down. Now, there is no question that people who have opposed him because the Republican base is so Trump dependent will find themselves out of a job that is absolutely true. At the same time,

It's the only time I can think of as where he would say believe me not what you're hearing over there and there were people who didn't including in his own base. Now, what their voter preference ends up being in the midterms or in a primary, it doesn't necessarily correlate to that. And I realize it sounds like I'm saying two things that are contradictory. I think these are two facts that exist at the same time. Very real threat of the book is this, what is Trump know anymore? And when or how does he know it? I mean you have this, I was really familiar with Natalie Harp before I read the book, but this person who kind of follows him around and gives him printouts of adoring fan mail and positive news stories from right wing media.

He's on true social, he's not really on other platforms. He clearly has some contact, you know, with people like Carlson and others and you know, so he gets some information.

“But how would you describe the difference in Trump's second term from his first in terms of what he knows of the world outside the White House?”

You know, I can't stress enough how radically different Trump to point out is from term one. So this government is run basically by a half dozen people who are in the room with him.

And if you are a senior official in this government somewhere else, major decisions can get made. And if you're not in the room, like you will literally have no idea. The interagency process, in particular, the national security council just really doesn't exist the way it used to and that was often how other agencies would be brought in. That's just not happening now. The comms process is not quite what it was, now it's just sort of pure trolling. And he gets his information, as you said, from truth social, it used to be that he would get on what was known as Twitter and he when he was president last time and he would look at the replies and he would look at the trending topics. He would talk to more people. He does watch other cable channels besides Fox.

We learned recently that he watches MSNow a lot on the weekends. We Jonathan and I learned that as after he appeared to have watched one of our appearances talking about the book. So it's a little more variegated than it seems.

But most of the information is coming from Natalie Harp, who's known as the human printer from people who know that he wants a constant supply of positive reinforcement.

And his azer afraid of giving him bad news. And I just want to make one other point. Fox is so much less critical of him this term than they were last term, even on the news shows. It is all pretty positive and especially about the war. We stopped the fighting and the ceasefire on the 20 yard line. We take it into the end zone. Once you start this, there needs to be a finish. And the only finish is complete surrender by the Iranians. I hate to say it, but complete annihilation. It's a reason this president will get on in history for 1,000 years. The reason the Prime Minister of Israel will get on in history for 1,000 years is because they saw the danger and they stood up to the danger and they're fighting the danger.

“Like the last in anything that would be considered the maga, a media ecosystem that is really championing this war. So how much do you think the decisions being made reflect and altered informational environment for him?”

Well, it's a great question that I don't think that we have the full answer to. I mean, one question that keeps coming up is, does he understand how depleted the US munitions are from this war?

Now, that's not an unknowable thing for his own Pentagon leaders, but I don't know how much they're telling him. We have seen in the book where his economic advisors, particularly Howard Letnek, Commerce Secretary, are talking about economic numbers. And Trump, this is ahead of the trade war liberation day last year. And Trump says those numbers are bullshit. Natalie, get me the real numbers. And so she's Googling to find these numbers. There was pushback in this meeting, but his willingness to operate on his own gut and on what he thinks is reality.

I would say as much sharper this term. There's something also tucked in there, which is you describe his meetings as having this borderless quality that people are flowing in and out of the White House. It's not necessarily. I'm sure that sometimes, but, you know, from 10. 15 to 10. 45, we're meeting with the Joint Chiefs from 10, you know, that ends. They all leave 10. 45.

“So can you talk about just a bit about that kind of free flowing nature? Because I think the way he ends up getting information, making decisions actually reflects that the slightly random”

assemblage of people might be around on a certain issue at a certain time. There's no question about that, but it's also by his design. This White House group of staffers as much more willing to work with that as his preferred state than term one.

This has always been a facet of Trump is just there's a big long kind of day and sometimes he has all the time in the world. But there is no sort of this person cannot come in.

Here might be certain moments like that or specific meetings, but in general he does have an open door policy. Everything becomes this rolling bull session.

“I'll give you another for instance in the book. Laura Lumer comes into this meeting in April. I think it was liberation to actually and she didn't negotiate this meeting with him directly.”

And she hands him this list of national security staffers who she believed were being disloyal to him and that should be fired and he's listening and you know he acts on it. But in the middle of that meeting Congressman Scott Perry comes in to join with his own list of things that he has an issue with and Trump just has them there. And so yes, the focus is whatever is in front of him. He just barks in order to make it and they often do it. Yes, it's just get it done. I want it fast. Fine. What's ever in front of his face.

You're correct that it does have to do with the intent. The information he's getting but trying to stop that is also useless because many have tried. [Music] This is Maurice Shema, host of the last 12 weeks, a new podcast from Cyril Productions, the Marshall Project and the New York Times. A couple of years back I got an email from a defense lawyer who wanted me to write about his client. The client David Wood was on death row in Texas. Had been there for more than 30 years.

The lawyer was writing because David Wood had lost all of his appeals. He was set to be executed. The lawyer's plan to stop the execution was to try and prove something that nobody had successfully done in three decades that one of Texas's most notorious Cyril pillars was actually innocent. It wasn't that the lawyers didn't have a case to make. I know two people fabricated test alone to get a guy executed. It's just that they had so little time to make it. The last 12 weeks, listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Music] This maybe goes back to the question of a certain beginning and maybe out of steam is not the right way to put it.

But I always wonder with him and put it around reporting like this what picture he has of the way things are going.

Because from where I sit, his trade war has been a disaster. It is wildly unpopular. It has been shredded by the Supreme Court. It has made people very angry at him. And it is accomplished. Nothing. We're not seeing a huge resurgence in manufacturing jobs.

“China is not weaker now. I think the broad and correct view is China is in a much stronger position today than when Trump stepped back into the White House.”

So sort of everything they promised on the trade war has not happened in the politics of it have been bad. It was completely collapsed after a couple months. It did terrible damage. It did terrible damage. U.S. ideas, gutted and gone. People have died. But it did not then cohere into what many I think people thought you might get, which is like a douche 2.0 where you know, Rasmode and others like actually create something institutionalized. He's not popular, the Iran War. I think is not going well.

They have no legislative agenda that I can tell. They don't have a affordability agenda that makes any sense. But if you're him and you have somebody found you around all day telling you you're wonderful. You think the media that is mad at you just has trumped their instrument syndrome. You're getting presented with peace of words by the head of FIFA. Different CEOs are coming in and constantly kissing your ass and telling you how great you are.

“Maybe you don't buy it if you have to find the polls many times.”

You just hit on what it is. We've left out one piece that we haven't discussed at all that I think we will all be talking about after the midterms a lot,

which is the incredible massive self-dealing you are richer if you are Donald Trump.

That is a whole life talking about wealth and measuring success through wealth. And you are now wealthier, liquid-wise assets than you have ever been. From an industry that you regulate, from a company that was created during your campaign that your sons are running

It's a sentence that it's really was what an unimaginable not that long ago.

And you're doing it in Republicans and Congress say nothing. And the Senate say almost nothing. And voters have only started to care about some of it and polling I'm seeing.

“And I honestly think the main reason is less the money made, although I do think that that is a factor.”

It's that they can see visual signs with all of the monuments. And all of the literally blasting through long-standing buildings or structures like the East Wing, planning to build an arch, putting down drapes so people can't see your construction projects. And so were symbols are a lot easier for voters to understand. And voters tend to think all politicians are corrupt, but this is different than anything we have ever seen in the US system.

But if you're him, you have been this kind of walking moral hazard. Your company almost sank in 1991. People don't understand how close to ruin he was when his casinos were overleverage. It was across his properties, it wasn't just there. You come back through variety of reasons, but partly because the banks decided it was worth staying with you.

And your father helped you. You become a reality TV star.

You win the presidency after never having run for city council before.

You are indicted four times your opponents keep doing things that are pretty self-harmful. Joe Biden has a pretty non-spectacular last two years at minimum of his term. You are shot at, you survive. You have taken on this mystical quality with your, not just your followers, but with your advisors who refer to him or then anyway, would refer to him as the chosen one.

Only semi-joking in some cases. And you believe everything works out for you, which is literally what he said to Tucker Carlson. You know why the Iran War is going to work out? Things are going to work out because they always do. And so you believe that your reality is better than what experts have been telling you.

He thinks the economy is boring. He literally will tell advisors he finds us boring to talk about. He wants to talk about immigrants committing rapes or murdering people or committing crimes. And he's going to do what he wants to do. And he is, look, he obviously doesn't want to be impeached again.

“But when you have to say again on impeached, it's stuff's mattering as much sort of, I think, to some extent in his head.”

Also that I've been the first again.

Well, that's exactly correct. It would be again three. And so again, well again two, I guess. He's already told people that he's going to pardon everyone who has come with a certain radius of the other office. And he has an immunity ruling from the Supreme Court that it's still not entirely clear what would qualify

as a presidential act, where he has no criminal exposure. But I suspect it would be most of them if it was pressed. So if you were him, this moment could be very bad for other Republicans, but he's not that worried for himself. Let me ask you about the corruption dimension of this. So when you talk to Republicans off the record, often they will admit they know that we are dealing with a level of corruption that is majestic in its grandeur.

That is like nothing we've really seen before. It's not even a debatable point when you talk to the other. One thing I hear people say all the time. In the media, elsewhere, just voters, Democrats, is any one of these stories would have consumed Washington at another time. Would have sunk another presidency.

You think of travel gate and pig futures in the Clinton administration. You think of the Trump cabinet member, who had to resign. I think it was Andy Price. Tom Price. Tom Price.

For what was it taken to charter justice? He was using jets. It's in the way we have referenced them. Yeah, yeah. Why is it that stories that would have consumed Washington, even would have been a problem for, you know, members of the Trump administration another time, seem to slide off of him.

There's great reporting being done at the New York Times, to the New Yorker, at other places, you know, we know a lot.

“We have numbers now that we need to have, but why has he been able to flood the zone on corruption and then escape the consequences it would have attached to another administration?”

Well, I would break that down a little bit. So what you're describing in terms of consequences from what you just took through was primarily the consequences of a new cycle, the consequences of public information. And number one, I think that at this point, if you are a journalist and you get into journalism in the expectation that what you write is going to force an outcome and that that is your end.

Number one, number two, we don't have subpoena powers, right?

We can only write up to what we know. In the past investigations would have been done by the Inspector's General, he's fired Inspector's General to start this term. They would have been done by Congress on a bipartisan level. Everything is tribal now like beyond anything we have seen in the past was pretty bad before in terms of partisanship. The House GOP acts like an arm of the Trump administration.

The Republican House members and some senators, they still look at him as a celebrity. Yes, there is obviously a fear factor he has shown he is willing to destroy their careers and really humiliate them. But the way that they grown men, you know, he'll take chocolate bars out of the, what they call the chum closet that is the presidential merge or whatever. And he'll like throw them. It's like Hershey bars.

These are house members were like, oh me, they love being on Air Force one with him.

And the House member gushing that he knew his first name.

Yes, correct. This celebrity is talking to me, not this president, this celebrity. I watched the apprentice, I knew Donald Trump. So that's one reason why the other is he has been investigated since almost the second he stepped in actually literally the second he stepped into office in 2017.

“So I think there is a flattening effect with the public in terms of their expectation.”

At a certain point, it all becomes one Trump would smear it that way, which hunt. Explaining to people that there is new information is I think a challenge for journalists across the board. All of that occurs in his favor. There is not one single reason why, and I don't think there will ever be another politician who will have this same experience as he does, but we'll see. Do you think that changes if Democrats get to be in a power? No, I don't because I think that if you are Donald Trump and you can pardon everyone around you and you can instruct your entire government not to respond to subpoenas with anything timely and only do it once the final stop and a court challenge makes you.

Trump's whole thing is waiting people out and we have seen this over and over and over again. So there are a number of members of his government and I talked about her radicalized. They all are who do believe that they are going to be not just subpoenaed, but prosecuted. And I'm not just talking about when the house flips. I'm talking about under a democratic presidency. They genuinely believe that I'm not endorsing this view.

I'm just saying this is their perspective. We are going to be indicted by an illegitimate hunter of the Democrats at some point. They are going to come after us when we are out of power. So we are going to do everything we can. That is entirely the mindset. They have the same hunted mentality that he does. I just think that people who think that the house is going to flip and this is going to look like it didn't 2019.

“I am struggling to see that. I could be wrong. But what happens when they issue contempt of congressmenis and they send them new attorney general Todd Blanche does he rush to start an investigation?”

Like I just don't know what this looks like.

A Democratic strategist said to me in 2016 right after Trump won that the entire country was about to finally understand how much of our system is norms and not laws.

Then fundamentally I still come back to that every time. If you have somebody who is willing to violate every norm, I mean I'm really every norm. I don't think I can think of one that he I'm sure there's something but it's hard to go down the list and find something that is still firmly in place. We have a president who cheered when Robert Mueller died. He cheered when Rob Reiner was killed by his own son according to prosecutors. He is making a ton of money and they're very blunt about it. You know they will say there's no corruption here as they continue doing what they're doing.

They're about to start trying to monetize his true social posts for advanced notice. It's a recipe. Can you talk through that for a minute because the true social, the. I know it's like it's hard to describe because they're trying to monetize. They're trying to monetize rapid trading. Correct. On true social, but can you explain how?

Yes, what they're trying to do is sell for very, very high dollar amounts.

“I think it's like $100,000 advanced notification of Trump's truth posts because they can move markets and do move markets.”

It seems even if it's not violating a law for Trump because presidents are actually not held to the same ethical standards and laws and regulations as their staff. I mean, how does this not become something else? Well, it goes to something I think in what you were just talking about, which is I think the deep answer to the question we were just discussing is Republicans.

Now arguably Republicans did that a bit on the IRS slash fund.

It was, I mean, that was so brazen that it was a little hard not to have problems with it. And I actually, I don't even remember if that the judge already raised questions about that once they did did that give them cover. I don't even remember, but yes, I mean, this was, this was you're taking taxpayer money and doing this, it's the taxpayer money. A lot of how not just accountability, but investigation worked in Washington was it either the other side was in power.

So they were able to structure investigation and it the agencies who run more professionally, the Department of Justice run more independently.

So they responded to investigation and responded to subpoenas. And that creates a structure of an sequencing of information coming out and possible consequences and people being hold before Congress and each one is a new new story.

“And that's how you get the connection of like a congressional operation and like media coverage that people understand is a scandal.”

Yes, well, that is true. And that's how it works. And Republicans just are not going to do that. No, they're not, you know, the closest that they have come would have been and I'm really stretching the word closest here. So just roll with me for a second before you say this is absolutely not at all parallel because I'm not saying it is, but the closest would have been some of what they were doing around Epstein. But of course, that took a detour into the clinton's and all kinds of other stuff. And by that, I just mean James Comer's committee initially which was filing a subpoena to Pam Bondi that the administration was not happy with and a nice slow rolled that.

But no, there's no analog. I mean, if you look back at the last real effort that attempted to be moderately bipartisan, it would have been the J6 committee and the select committee that was investigating what happened.

And it lead up to the January 6 right at the Capitol and Trump's efforts to overturn the election. But even that devolved into partisan politics. And so there you have it.

It was striking to me how small of a role Congress played in this book. Well, there's a couple of reasons. It's a good, it's a, it's a point. But the reality is that Congress plays a supplicant role. We did talk about that. We talked about Mike Johnson's role with Trump and how incredibly unusual it is historically. There's just, there has not been a relationship like this between a house speaker and a president that I can think of where it's literally give me my marching orders. This way that is not about policy.

It's about just whatever you want it to be. But the reality is there is no legislative agenda, as you said. There was the one big beautiful bill and we did talk about that and we do get into what went into that. But this administration knew that it was never going to be able to do much legislatively. But this again goes to me to this question of what is actually being built here versus what is just kind of collapsing or being like left alone. Even a lot of these issues. Okay. So big beautiful bill depends. There's a big change and, you know, as the actual changes to Medicaid and food stamps and other things, we'll have a lot of political upheaval around that.

Yes, and there will be more focus and there will be more coverage and interest. I agree with that. Look, they're trade agenda got gutted. They could have gone to Republicans in Congress to get more power on tariffs. They chose not to do that. That's true. Republicans Congress keep them from ever changing the fellow buster. I don't know. Like they've been kind of tough on that, but they've also like knicked it around the edges a little immigration.

“They have done a tremendous amount of immigration. I think of everything you can look at. They have done the most on immigration.”

What they have not done has changed the loss. Well, because that takes time. I mean, this isn't complicated. This is, but it also means that another administration can understand that, but they also assume that's going to happen regardless. I mean, I think they just try to explain the mindset here. The person who spent the most time, I'm glad you brought up immigration. The person who spent the most time thinking about a Trump 2.0 and not just from the perspective of immigration. But obviously, that's his driving issue and defining issues, Steven Miller. And he spent four years focused on not just what he wanted to do differently this time.

You know, the initial Muslim ban was a disaster and a court challenge disaster. And it was poorly written in so 4 and 2017. And it created mass chaos on flights and so forth. Steven Miller sent four years looking at how far the law could go on a number of things. What was in the executive branches control. What could be claimed as an executive branch power, which they've done a lot. And they've gotten caught in courts on this as you know.

“And it's sort of part of what you're saying, I think, is if you don't want to have a big court fight, go work through the actual process.”

They would rather have a big court fight because if you go through the process, it's going to move slowly. And their gamble is that they can win much of the time, not every time.

But does she has another example where does she is a great example?

To do what they wanted to do, you actually need to do civil service reform. And they've done a little bit of that, but it's not civil service reform.

“Yeah, you have to go away from the law. But that's not, again, this actually gets to a different problem.”

There isn't a day, actually. They don't all work in harmony, even though they collectively want the same thing, which is crush the left, expand our power, focus on a specific set of issues. And we've gone over many of them in this show. But rest vote actually understands how government works. You know, I must have not. He just came in and started punching through walls. In some cases, literally physical aspects were impacted by how he handles things.

That is different also than how Stephen Miller wants to handle certain things. And so that creates its own internal crash. Then at Congress to that is a layer, it's hard to say. [Music] I'm Winnello. I write the game connections, one of the puzzles from New York Times games.

And I love horror movies. I love my dog. And I love trying to trick you. I'm Sam Azarsky, and I create the game spelling bee and letterboxed on a daily basis. And I have this thing called "Promesthesia." I see color when I'm listening to music. I'm Tracy Bennett. I get to pick the word word every day, which is not as easy as it sounds. A fun fact about me is that I am descended from a witch who was put on trial in Salem.

Well, amazing. And I'm Joel Fahliano. I create your daily mini crossword.

I've been making these puzzles for the times for over 10 years now, which is like 3,000 minis. I am begging the universe for any new five letter word. New York Times games are made by people, like the ones you just heard from. Go to nytimes.com/games to start playing today. What's everyone's fastest mini-time?

Four seconds. No. What? I'll go find it. I have my screenshots on where.

“Has there been a shift in who holds power on the court?”

Master. Yes, but it can change quite rapidly. Marker Rubio had a lot of capital with Trump for a long time. I think still does. But he is really not that involved in the Iran issue. Because Trump doesn't want to because he doesn't want to be near it.

I think it's more the latter, honestly. I think that Trump would welcome his involvement more. And he may get more involved now, but he's been talking about it a little bit more. But I think that Rubio, if you strapped him to a polygraph, this is not where he wants things to be. Susie Wiles is still hugely influential.

Stephen Miller, despite these stories about how he was getting his wings clipped and whatever, after Renee Goodnellx, pretty real killed in Minnesota. That was vastly overstated. The showy displays of, you know, repelling into a building in Chicago from a blackhawk, which I still can't really believe happened last year.

But they have stopped the great displays of force. They're still using force. But it's not, you know, these ice drives the same way. It's the traffic stops.

“That's what the latest shootings were about.”

Stephen Miller has taken down his arrest number for undocumented immigrants from last year. It was 3,000 a day last year, now it's 2,000 a day. And he's back to pushing people. And he's very, very aggressive on these calls. So Miller still has power because Miller can also tell Trump.

I can get you what you want very quickly, which is also, again, why they don't go to Congress. They want to act unilaterally. Trump wants to act unilaterally. And he just wants to do what he wants.

Hexette is still actually pretty powerful with Trump rat cliff is uncertain issues.

But the person who is most powerful is Trump, period. Hexette is powerful. Trump listens to him. He listens to him on certain issues. Hexette has figured out how to have conversations. Look, hexette, if there was anyone who was in favor of Iran, it was hexette. But I don't think he fully envisioned it going this way either.

Hexette often shows up for these briefings with Trump with Dan Can. He has figured out how to handle these discussions. So that he is turning to somebody who actually has better tactical understanding. But Trump doesn't listen to anyone. The former general who is now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But whose style is very different than Trump's last choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was Mark Milley, who would get into the sort of grab Trump by the lapels arguments. He did see his job as telling Trump which way to go. Can, as told people, he doesn't see that as his job. Hexette is a die-hard, Trumper, not MAGA, Trumper.

And so that buys you a lot of cash internally. Yes, so that was my question with him. Is he somebody who Trump enjoys as a yes man or who Trump listens to for strategic advice?

But this strategic advice is also channeled through these Joint Conversations with Hexette.

But he just listened to him and he likes him. He's good on TV, he's tough, he doesn't take crap, etc. And he isn't devoted.

“What have the people in the inner circle learned about how to brief Trump?”

It's a good question. This is, it sits around the edge of a lot of the stories in your book. Of people bringing in poster boards, right? Well, that's filthy. That's one person.

But yes. But I've heard from other people around the briefing books that they're very visual. Oh, how totally?

How many people have learned about how you brief Donald Trump?

Trump is very visual, as you said. And this was a big facet of term one to now they all submit to it. I think they resisted it the government because it was so unusual to them in term one. But he really doesn't like long briefing books. He doesn't really read them.

He wants to be shown how things look that is how he absorbs them. People describe them. They'll say he's a TV guy and they tend to think of it as him on the set of the apprentice. But it's actually really how he absorbs the world is through TV. And so he likes to see how things look.

Just having a dry recitation of facts and discussions with him doesn't work very well. But even when it was visuals in term one, the quality of the information was fairly reliable. There's a much bigger fight now about the quality of the information. Whether you include essentially raw intelligence, whether you tell him reports that are unverified. Whether it is just a different type of discussion.

The amount that he relies on a sense of how things are either playing visually. There are moments in the book and that I've heard about too. Where he sees what it's looking like when the Israelis are doing something right now he wants to be involved. Or if the flip right where he is being showing possible cabinet appointees. And they give him little montage of them on cable news.

There is something very deep about Trump's. He doesn't just apprehend the world visually. He is somewhat a master of creating visuals for the world. 100% yes. You know, Hegsef is one of many people he sort of cast into his administration.

He was an innovator in this.

“I mean, I think you have to see, Mombani is having like a different version of this.”

A kind of visual mastery of the world. I just had more as cats on the show. They very much found Graham Platner and cast him in a very particular position. Again, this operates on the the edges of the book. I'd be curious to hear you bring it to the center of the stage.

Which is what has it meant to have this administration. The both makes internal decisions through spectacle. And then communicates through spectacle. But the judge is visually and acts visually. It becomes a self-ran forcing feedback loop sometimes, right?

I mean, so when you were talking about Hegsef, I've been in the book about how he got very into these videos of the both strikes. And they would be privately described as Hegsef's snuff films. But you know, he would want to have some sense of Trump because he knew Trump would want to see them. Trump is a master of the attention economy, which is what I was thinking about when you were talking about Mombani.

I think that that is part of the attention economy is creating a visual and is getting something that will grab people. Mombani was exceptionally good at that in his campaign. And still is, honestly. I mean, when I look at his social media, just as mayor, it is actually quite striking how much of it still comes into my feed. Even if I'm not looking for it, even if I'm not looking at his thing.

But it becomes a way to tell yourself that your view of reality is what's happening. So for instance, we've seen the book where Steven Miller comes into, it's really an important moment. He comes into the Oval Office and he's got these pictures of this kid from Doge whose name online was Big Balls.

“That's what he has known as, and his actual name is Ed, something.”

But he had been beaten up and he's got these photos that Steven Miller got in his wife who had been working with Musk at Doge. That then fires up something that Trump's been wanting to do forever, which is his national garden to DC. It isn't just about seeing visuals that, you know, reaffirm your point.

It is basically that your world is no competing viewpoints and that everything is just going in through the eyes.

And it's not to you from thinking the same way. Because part of, I mean, this is my opinion. Now I'm getting a little inside his head, which I'm trying not to do, because it's not very, very worthwhile endeavor. But it do think that when people are consuming their own content that way. So much of consumption of visuals is about, you react, you react. And so it's just a constant reaction. And that is what they try doing with these videos that Steven Chung does when he's trolling.

You know, the White House Communications Director, who's a big UFC guy, for instance.

Or, and I thought this was a fascinating detail in the book, to the music of artists who are going to protest.

“Correct, that's what you're going to say. How dare you use my music in this way.”

And then that's another new cycle for them. Correct. One of the things that Kushner used to tell people in the White House last time was that he would describe what he called Trump rules. And one of them was controversy elevates message. And so there's no quicker way to do that. But it's also a way to say I'm not going to follow your rules. What did you make of the Trump on Donny meetings?

I was so not surprised and it went exactly as I thought it was going to in all seriousness. But Trump's own team is a little jard by how much he enjoys talking to Mom Donny and how, as much as Republicans are trying to talk about how, you know, Socialist or communists and Trump is even doing that in his own speeches, but he seems to have a real carve out for one particular person. And I know he's attacked him a few times recently, Mom Donny, but Mom Donny is, he's very good.

I mean, apparently in the first meeting, Mom Donny was referring to the crossover of voters that were Trump voters at his own rallies.

Mom Donny has been quite smart. The Trump Mom Donny meetings, they reflect what I thought was the funniest part of your book, which is Trump's tendency to be incredibly conciliatory and friendly when he meets one on one with people who he has been slandering with administration might be entirely persecuting, but for somebody who is so brush and aggressive, he's a bit of a pussycat one on one. He does not like one on one interpersonal direct conflict. This has been a constant in his life.

Sometimes he does it intentionally, just to sort of make the person be off guard. But with Mom Donny, he seems to genuinely like him, so or whatever that's worth.

“Do you feel Trump is changed with age or the age is selling him in meaningful ways?”

I mean, to find meaningful, when I watch him on television for me for 10 years ago, I mean, that was watching his RNC address in 2016 recently and it's a pretty jarring comparison to just how his words flow now. He speaks much slower. He's telling the same stories. A lot, the weave is getting wide as Joe Rogan would say, that's definitely true. I will say that Jonathan and I spent an hour with him in the Oval Office on March 16th of this year for a fact check interview for the book. We didn't notice anything meaningfully different.

What we did notice is that he seemed like what Steve Bannon describes as pure Trump. There was just much more focus on payback, much more focus on what he wants to be focused on. Very obsessed with the renovation projects, very. And, you know, here's the models. It's day 17 of the war. Here's my models of the ballroom and so forth.

It was like he didn't have a care in the world, but I don't subscribe to this dementia conversation. I don't think Trump is some fundamentally different human being. I just don't. But I think he is much more himself, which is a product of the age in general. There was a sense, maybe the better way to put it is that there was a thread on, particularly lefty social media. Six eight months ago around the sort of strange bruising people overseeing.

I mean, yes. The sort of the ankle swallowing that he was quite sick. In terms of physical health, he has chronic venous insufficiency syndrome disease, whatever it's called. That means that the blood is not going to his heart properly.

So that's not a good thing. You know, on his first medical report in 2018, he had a calcium score.

“If I think 133, that suggests some level of heart disease.”

They have not put out a calcium score since he was very sick with COVID in 2020. And we still don't know the extent of that. I mean, I reported some on that information. We got well after he was at a office, but, you know, we don't know what we don't know. And his health notes read as if he's written part of them.

So, you know, he goes to Walter Reed with more frequency and they release less information. He got imaging. We don't even know what they were. He can't tell us. He says he was treated by 22 specialists. What 22? I don't know that could be.

And the bruising thing the explanation has never made sense.

It has always been hand shaking aspirin. It could be that 80 year olds have thinner skin. But he's clearly not the picture of great physical health. But I don't know what that means. You know, what I know generally know what it means is that electing 80 year olds is a bit of a gamble.

I mean, electing anybody is an a gamble. You don't know how somebody's health is going to be. But you can guess where it's going when they're older. How much for this time actually goes into the renovation now? A lot.

If you looked at like a chart of his mind share, like this I will say about getting into his mind. It was mine, like 70% of it would be on his renovations. It's it's it's it's a legacy thing, but it's. I was think of legacy with him different than the way we usually use the word legacy. It's it's not what am I leaving him behind for the world.

It's what am I leaving behind so the world can't kick me off the world or de-platform me or

At least golf course you know or debank me it's what can I do that cannot be taken away.

Yeah, how can I create monuments to myself. Correct. I mean literally. I mean literally said that when edok from CBS asked him. He noticed the arch which he's calling the arc to Trump. Design on the resolution desk and he asked her on the desk.

“I don't know if it was the resolute. I think it was back up by then.”

Ed said what is that? And Trump's like it's an arch. And I said but who's it for? And Trump said me. And I was quite clear about it. There was no further conversation. The Kennedy Center, the ballroom. You know, I mean I can go on and on but it is all monuments.

Can you tell them a chrome story with the arch? Yeah. I'm going to eff this up a little bit.

But in a meeting he calls.

So one of the things he was using about was like what should go on top of the arch. And it was like should he put a version of the gold version like the fight fight fight fist from Butler up there. But he calls Macron in the middle of another meeting and starts asking him about the arch to Trump. In France and you know, what's it like? And how many people you notice it? Have a visitor's desk to people jump off of it.

I mean, this was the conversation that he was interested in. And he's still talking about this kind of thing. But calls up a foreign leader to inquire about what his arch to himself should look like. Speaking of the other side of like to see the more traditional way we're talking about like a sea.

“Does he have things he still wants to achieve politically?”

It's a really good question. I could answer that pretty clearly in 2019 and 2020.

There were things that he still wanted to achieve.

If there are things that he wants to achieve beyond just sort of not being Herbert Hoover as he would say. Meaning with a giant global crisis. Not really. I mean, he looked. He's resumed his trade war as you as you said. I think he'd liked to achieve getting out of Iran. I think he would like to figure out and the war that he started.

But that's on achievement. That's a reaction to his own behavior as we started this episode with. There are people around whom who would like to see some form of comprehensive immigration reform to your question about legislation. That's something that we can work with Democrats on. Boy do I have a hard time seeing Democrats wanting to give him some kind of a political win that way. Especially when it would be.

I suspect a bill they would find less than palatable as they have almost every single other bill involving anything related immigration with him. Maybe another way of asking this is are there actual policy issues. His mind is gravitating towards in the way it does towards the renovation. No, I know. I mean, I mean, that could change.

That could be having conversations were not aware of. But certainly not in anything that we have heard. I mean, if anything, what he spent the last year and a half focused on, you know, as issues top one two and three were. Retribution were these bullying campaigns across various industries and aspects of civil society were he was pretty successful for a time. The law firms won the courts cut up with him, but media, he's done pretty well.

I would say in terms of his attacks on the media, not through the government levers, but through lawsuits. But renovations is really a huge part of it. The degree of mine share on. These projects is is a vast. He is vastly less interested in and reactive to domestic politics this time, just beyond.

And one of the things that we started seeing in 2024. And we get into this, this relates to the in the book, it relates to the mystical quality.

“He sees himself as big on a level that I think people really don't understand.”

And there it was quite clear when we were sitting with him. And we write about that in the epilogue of the book, but he is playing for history. He capital G, great man of history, to be remembered, to be remembered by one name, to have left a mark on the world that is just different than a typical president or what he would say is a normal president. That doesn't involve the boring work of trying to pass a bill.

That doesn't involve the boring work of going to Iowa to talk about XYZ, although it's numbers are not great in Iowa now either. I mean, this is fundamentally less interesting to him. I think that if he could find some way to even further change the immigration system and claim credit for that, he would, they did not involve legislation.

He may still end up trying to do something legislatively. It wouldn't surprise me at all. I just don't see it going very far, but, but who knows, I'm willing to be surprised. But no, there is not room in the tank for here is how we are going to map out XYZ. They are in survival mode politically to a degree that I kind of can't express.

I think that's a good place to end. Also, find a question. What if he books you'd recommend to the audience? Okay, so I'm reading Charlie Savage's Takeover, The Return of the Imperial Presidency, which was a very, very good look at how particularly

Dick Cheney expanded executive power under W Bush, post 9/11. I am reading Bill Burton's Strangers, because a book that is that everywhere, I sort of feel compelled to have some sense of.

It's interesting. It's interesting.

“It's well written, it's definitely propulsive.”

It's an interesting choice to write about such wealth in this moment.

It was, that was a little hard to, to get through,

“because there are many people who go through divorces who don't quite have the same resources.”

And then Keith McNally's, I regret everything.

Oh, that book is beautiful. It's actually fantastic.

“So, yeah, but I've had to cycle out of that one for news and for other reasons.”

So, I gave him, thank you very much.

That's right. Thanks for having me.