Maggie Haberman has recalled a recent phone call she received from former President Donald Trump.
Trump called The New York Times journalist to talk about his multiple civil and criminal cases. But much of what the Republican 2024 front-runner said “I didn’t report on,” Haberman told Gayle King and Charles Barkley on Wednesday’s episode of CNN’s “King Charles.”
Haberman recalled Trump being “very upset” about some of her reporting in her 2022 book “Confidence Man: The Making Of Donald Trump And The Breaking Of America.”
Allegations in the book included him flushing papers down White House toiletsand having a racist response to staff members of color, which prompted him to repeatedly slam Haberman as “Maggot.”
But Trump will “always engage with a reporter eventually if he sees some reason to,” Haberman explained to King and Barkley.
“I was writing a story about how politics and the courts are going to converge again,” she said. Most of Trump’s comments “I didn’t report on” but “he thinks he’s his own best comms director and his own best defender and you’ll see more of that I suspect.”
Haberman also predicted a grim few months ahead of the 2024 election.
“I think this is going to be a pretty bleak campaign on many levels,” the New York Times journalist told Gayle King and Charles Barkley on Wednesday’s episode of CNN’s “King Charles.”
“I just think that the way our campaigns are fought now are all about who you hate and who hates you back and I think you are going to see that to the nth degree in 2024,” she said.
