Speaker 1: Hi, Brian, Hi Katie, and hello listeners. Brian. This week
Speaker 1: marks one year since Donald Trump's inauguration as President of
Speaker 1: these United States. Don't happy Trump adversary, Katie, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. It's only been a year, it is. It
Speaker 1: certainly does feel a little longer than a year, and
Speaker 1: a lot has happened in the past twelve months. To
Speaker 1: mark the occasion, we sat down with Maggie Haberman, someone
Speaker 1: who has had a front row seat for much of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. This, by the way, is the first
Speaker 1: in a series of podcasts we're doing that we're calling
Speaker 1: wonder Women. We're going to be interviewing a bunch of
Speaker 1: female powerhouses and the weeks to come. We thought it
Speaker 1: was sort of something in the air about girl power
Speaker 1: right now and about women in general. And Maggie definitely
Speaker 1: qualifies as a wonder woman Brian, for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: she arguably knows Donald Trump more and better than any
Speaker 1: other reporter covering him. She started writing about him in
Speaker 1: two thousand six for the tabloids here in New York
Speaker 1: and through Politico and The New York Times. She's always
Speaker 1: had Trump in her sight. She's a top White House
Speaker 1: correspondent for the New York Times, as many of you know,
Speaker 1: and she appears on CNN regularly as a political analyst,
Speaker 1: and over the past year she's really gotten scoop after
Speaker 1: scoop on the Trump administration, and in fact was doing
Speaker 1: some reporting on her phone as we were interviewing her.
Speaker 1: That's right, she was texting almost the entire time. She's
Speaker 1: known as a huge multitasker. I think The New Yorker
Speaker 1: described her as a humming bird, effortlessly doing what she
Speaker 1: needs to do, which is everything at once. So do
Speaker 1: you remember the story, Katie about President Trump watching TV
Speaker 1: in his bathrobe with news that Trump told Russian officials
Speaker 1: he fired FBI director James Kummy because he was quote crazy,
Speaker 1: a real nut job. I certainly do, Brian, Well, Maggie
Speaker 1: was behind both of those stories. In our conversation, we
Speaker 1: talked with Maggie about her first job in journalism, if
Speaker 1: anything about the Trump presidency has surprised her, and the
Speaker 1: challenges of covering this White House both professionally and personally.
Speaker 1: You were the original, really busy woman, So I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm only sort of following in your path. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you have me be You've been called a
Speaker 1: Trump whisper a West wing beat colossus and also maybe
Speaker 1: the greatest political reporter working today. Mozele on that, Maggie,
Speaker 1: of course, the president calls you something different altogether on occasion,
Speaker 1: a purveyor of fake news at the failing New York
Speaker 1: Times one year in. How is Donald Trump been similar
Speaker 1: to or different from your expectations? Uh? The day he
Speaker 1: was sworn in, Not a single thing that has happened
Speaker 1: has surprised me. Literally, not a single thing that has happened.
Speaker 1: The only thing that that surprised me, Uh, after I
Speaker 1: just said not a single thing, I was the only
Speaker 1: quasi single thing is And thank you for all the
Speaker 1: very kind words, but um, at least half of them
Speaker 1: are not true. Um, was that he fired call me
Speaker 1: because I thought if he was going to do what
Speaker 1: he would have done it on the first day. Um.
Speaker 1: But this has played out, if not in the precise
Speaker 1: ways in which I would have imagined, um, along the
Speaker 1: same contours and along the same lines. Um. He is
Speaker 1: who he is. He has not changed. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think one of the one of the conversations that I
Speaker 1: find sort of head scratching right now is this idea
Speaker 1: that um, which I think is promulgated, primarily by Michael
Speaker 1: Wolf's book, that there's some kind of a deterioration. He's
Speaker 1: the same person who I was interviewing six years ago. Uh.
Speaker 1: If people wanted to believe during the campaign that there
Speaker 1: was a strategy, that's fine, But there wasn't a strategy.
Speaker 1: He did things because it felt good to him, or
Speaker 1: because he liked it, or because it was fun. He
Speaker 1: you know, his axios had a story that he's now
Speaker 1: not getting into the to the west wing until eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. That's about him keeping with what
Speaker 1: he did a Trump Tower. So I ask you, Maggie,
Speaker 1: did he run his company Trump Enterprises or whatever it's
Speaker 1: called organization Trump org, dot com organization may be generous,
Speaker 1: did he run it the same way that he's running
Speaker 1: the White House? Because it makes you wonder, how was
Speaker 1: he ever able to be moderately successful? If so? So,
Speaker 1: I think the thing that people forget about him is
Speaker 1: that A he began his business with UM a hefty
Speaker 1: loan from his father. So this self made thing is
Speaker 1: not quite true. UM he was in real estate. He
Speaker 1: was never seen as one of the more successful developers around.
Speaker 1: He had four bankruptcies, not personal bankruptcies, but his businesses
Speaker 1: had had problems. Um. And then he went after the bankruptcies,
Speaker 1: he went into the licensing business, and he went into
Speaker 1: reality television. Um. His business was essentially a mom and
Speaker 1: pop shop. It was not a fortune company, was not
Speaker 1: anything close to that. And he ran it by instantly
Speaker 1: making people play for his affections. And he despite you know,
Speaker 1: sort of constantly picking fights for interpersonal confrontation, he really
Speaker 1: tries to avoid it. Um. You know. For instance, when
Speaker 1: his campaign manager, Korey Lewandowski was fired in six it
Speaker 1: was Don Jr. And Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen who did it.
Speaker 1: It was not Trump himself, and Trump in fact wanted
Speaker 1: Corey to know what a great guy he still thought
Speaker 1: he was. So yeah, this all is exactly who he
Speaker 1: was before. So he thrives in chaos. He creates chaos,
Speaker 1: and then he responds to the chaos he creates. It's
Speaker 1: all the cyclical feedback loop that you know, we're all
Speaker 1: on with him now and his approval writing is in
Speaker 1: the thirties and he seems to have polarized the country
Speaker 1: more than any president I can really recall. But you know,
Speaker 1: him really well, at this point, what do you think
Speaker 1: are the biggest misconceptions about him among both his supporters
Speaker 1: and his detractors. That's an excellent question. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that, Um, I think the most common misperception, no
Speaker 1: matter what side of the aisle you're on, in terms
Speaker 1: of him, is that there's a strategy at play, that
Speaker 1: he's doing it, that he has some some guidance, master plan.
Speaker 1: And then the second um, and this is really I
Speaker 1: think um been interesting for Republicans and Democrats to deal with,
Speaker 1: is that he's got an ideology. There is no ideology.
Speaker 1: He's got a handful of it, like impulses, um, that
Speaker 1: have always animated him. But he is perfectly comfortable being
Speaker 1: inconsistent on policy. He is perfectly comfortable taking two conflicting positions.
Speaker 1: Consistency is not a hop goblin that gets to him particularly.
Speaker 1: I think those are the main misconceptions about him. I
Speaker 1: also think that the I mean one that I think
Speaker 1: it's really hard for people to grasp again whether you
Speaker 1: like him or don't like him, but really for people
Speaker 1: who don't like him, is that the storminess of his personality,
Speaker 1: which clearly is pronounced and frequent, is not incessant. It's
Speaker 1: sort of rhythmic. It's whether it comes in and then
Speaker 1: it blows storm blows out, comes in and then it
Speaker 1: blows out. And we wrote about this, Glen Thrush and
Speaker 1: Peter Baker and I did in December in a piece
Speaker 1: about how he functions as president. And what can be
Speaker 1: very darring for people who didn't know him for a
Speaker 1: long time is that he can scream at you and
Speaker 1: then be making small talk with you a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: because he's vinted, he's gotten an out of his system,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't occur to him how you might be
Speaker 1: receiving it, and he doesn't really care. The only thing
Speaker 1: that is predictable about him is that he is unpredictable
Speaker 1: and his reactions can be original. So you've known Donald
Speaker 1: Trump a long time because he would tell you I
Speaker 1: hardly know him well. The facts suggests otherwise. But you
Speaker 1: were both a big part of the New York tabloid world.
Speaker 1: You as a trigger part of well you you wrote
Speaker 1: about him in the New York Posts and Daily News
Speaker 1: for many years. Um and you come from a media family.
Speaker 1: Your your dad as a Pulitzer Prize winning New York
Speaker 1: Times reporter your mom's a big pr person. Um, so
Speaker 1: we'll just go back a little bit before we continue
Speaker 1: talking about Trump today. Obsessive lee, which is all anyone Maggie. God,
Speaker 1: you must get so tired of it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for doing it with us. You must be like,
Speaker 1: So let's just take a little interlude and talk about Maggie. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's talk about you. Okay, you said you never wanted
Speaker 1: to be a reporter. How did that happen? I couldn't
Speaker 1: get a job working in a magazine out of college
Speaker 1: where I had studied fiction writing and child child psychology
Speaker 1: and turned out to be pretty relevant to your job today.
Speaker 1: Deal in fiction, but you do deal with children. I
Speaker 1: have three children, Um I now and some would argue
Speaker 1: for anyway. Anyway, I couldn't get a job, and so
Speaker 1: uh I got hired as a clerk at the new Post,
Speaker 1: which was not a glamorous job. But it was really
Speaker 1: like fitching coffee, fitching facts is. But I loved the
Speaker 1: way the newsroom was. I loved the rhythm of it.
Speaker 1: I love the place and what they would do. I
Speaker 1: think they still do it there is they would, um,
Speaker 1: they would send reporter copy kids out. That's what we
Speaker 1: were called copy kids. Um out on assignment, you know,
Speaker 1: go to a fire or go let stick out of hospital,
Speaker 1: go whatever. Um. The height was getting assigned a day,
Speaker 1: so you know, you're the Tuesday copy kid who goes
Speaker 1: out and goes out an assignment. And I got myself
Speaker 1: in the rotation and I really loved it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that was that was it. But it was not what
Speaker 1: I planned for. What was it about reporting that really
Speaker 1: kind of floated your boat? Have you seen a movie
Speaker 1: The Paper, The Michael Paton movie. I mean that was
Speaker 1: the New York Post in the nineties. It was it
Speaker 1: was interesting, it was colorful. It was the adrenaline rush
Speaker 1: of a scoop of doing it well. And they're talking
Speaker 1: about being in a newsroom that I think it's so fun.
Speaker 1: I agree, it's just fun. It is fun. And I
Speaker 1: mean the New York Post was the most pure fun
Speaker 1: job I ever had. Um and uh. And that that
Speaker 1: New York Post doesn't exist anymore. That New York Post
Speaker 1: does not exist in quite some time. But what's happened
Speaker 1: in the New York Post. There were editor changes and
Speaker 1: just sort of, um, it's just a different place now. Um.
Speaker 1: But what if you always feel comfort ble with like
Speaker 1: you know, headless body founded topless bar and stuff. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a problem. I mean I was also a bartender,
Speaker 1: so like I might be the wrong the wrong target
Speaker 1: audience for that, But it wasn't a topless bar. It
Speaker 1: was not it was right, it wasn't well but so
Speaker 1: I mean again, so like, what's Donald Trump's favorite New
Speaker 1: York Post headline? It was the one supposedly quoting Marlin
Speaker 1: Maples sang best sex I ever had. It was No,
Speaker 1: he didn't call it. He didn't know what happened. Was
Speaker 1: so Steve Cuzo, who is UM, does real estate coverage
Speaker 1: and I think some business are there's some business or
Speaker 1: page six coverage for the for the Post wrote a
Speaker 1: book called It's Alive, and it was all about how
Speaker 1: the Post almost died until Murdoch bought it back in
Speaker 1: ninety three. And in the book he talks about how
Speaker 1: the reporter Bill Hoffman, who now works for Chris Ready
Speaker 1: at news Max Um and Bill Hofman said across from
Speaker 1: me for years because I was a dictationist and that
Speaker 1: was the way the newsroom was laid out. But Bill
Speaker 1: got a friend of Marla Maples on the phone and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I thought the sex was pretty good, right,
Speaker 1: and the woman was like yeah, and he's like best
Speaker 1: she ever had, right, And the woman's like, I guess.
Speaker 1: And that's how that headline came to base. So I
Speaker 1: was going to say, such great and I feel so
Speaker 1: much better in the New York Post. Hey, I love
Speaker 1: the ear Post. You're not gonna hear me say a
Speaker 1: bad word about it, but um, at least not right here.
Speaker 1: But but but that's the world that Trump comes from, too, right,
Speaker 1: feels true, is mostly true. I like the way that reads.
Speaker 1: And so And the first time, in fact, you quoted
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and a piece was in the New York Post.
Speaker 1: He was talking up Hillary Clinton for president in two
Speaker 1: thousand six. Yeah, yeah, um yeah. He once was a Democrat. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know in what he would when he started
Speaker 1: arguing as his explanation for why he was such a
Speaker 1: down or to Democrats for a long time was that
Speaker 1: he uh lived in New York, which is heavily democratic,
Speaker 1: and so you had to give it. That's that's not
Speaker 1: the real, the real main reason. Um. He was one
Speaker 1: of the only people who welcomed Bill Clinton to society
Speaker 1: after the White House tenure. Ended right, Um, I think
Speaker 1: invited him to join his clubs, and because some clubs
Speaker 1: wouldn't accept him, because this was right after this, after
Speaker 1: this was right after Monica Lewinsky h and so uh,
Speaker 1: they were quite chummy. They were quite chummy. And and
Speaker 1: Trump really likes proximity to power and he likes feeling
Speaker 1: like somebody owes him a favor. I mean, those are
Speaker 1: always the two things. And so he believed that Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton owed him something, which is part of why he
Speaker 1: got so angry when the Clintons were criticizing him. I know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven you reported seriously on his presidential ambitions,
Speaker 1: but then I felt a great story that he was
Speaker 1: launching a campaign in two thousand fifteen. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I would argue that, um, that might not have held
Speaker 1: up as the best call, but it was certainly defensible
Speaker 1: at the time because in two thousand eleven we did
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention to him. He did dominate,
Speaker 1: you know, the air, and he sucked up all the
Speaker 1: oxygen the way that he always does. And they didn't run,
Speaker 1: and he announced that he wasn't running in the most
Speaker 1: cynical way possible. During sweep sweek of The Apprentice after
Speaker 1: running the most racially cynical early platform we had ever seen,
Speaker 1: where he was effectively calling the first black president an
Speaker 1: illegitimate based on nothing other than based on an Internet
Speaker 1: rumor that Andrew Breitbart, who created the website Breitbart, denounced
Speaker 1: Trump for in two thousand eleven. He thought birtherism was disgusting.
Speaker 1: And it is amazing the degree to which Trump mainstranda.
Speaker 1: In fact, he is really the granddaddy at the birth
Speaker 1: or movement, isn't he. I remember seeing him talking about
Speaker 1: it on the View and spreading that around and and
Speaker 1: how did that take such a hold on the public's imagination,
Speaker 1: Because it's crazy, It was funny. It started out as um.
Speaker 1: It was it was a fringe issue. It was a
Speaker 1: fringe issue that most conservatives wouldn't touch for a very
Speaker 1: long time. And then he started talking about He talked
Speaker 1: about it on Fox, He talked about it where, you know, wherever,
Speaker 1: and he was making things up. You know, I have
Speaker 1: these investigators and they can't you believe what they're finding. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, people who worked with him at the time
Speaker 1: said that there was no such thing um. And it
Speaker 1: was so raw and strange and so norms breaking. I
Speaker 1: hate to use the word that we have a phrase
Speaker 1: that we have used a lot, and it's gotten quite
Speaker 1: a workout in the last year and a half. But
Speaker 1: it was it was effective. It was impossible to look away. Basically,
Speaker 1: what is impossible to not cover? I think to me, though,
Speaker 1: you guys, that is classic Donald Trump. Yes, you say
Speaker 1: something enough, you know, whether it's Crooked Hillary or whatever,
Speaker 1: that is a that is a page from his playbook.
Speaker 1: You repeat it. It's like a monstra petition is a
Speaker 1: huge part of it starts permeating your consciousness in a
Speaker 1: way that you don't even understand. But what does it
Speaker 1: say about it's absolutely true? What does it say about
Speaker 1: the base of the Republican Party that Birtherism is really
Speaker 1: what bonded Trump to those people? Says that it is
Speaker 1: an aging, older, largely white basse um that had seen
Speaker 1: You know, this is not the first time that we've
Speaker 1: seen ever in history, and certainly in in u s history,
Speaker 1: of a small group of people, much more on the
Speaker 1: far right than on the far left. Uh, but who
Speaker 1: had a certain what was described by Housesetter as the
Speaker 1: paranoid style in American politics. Right, others are taking what
Speaker 1: you have, and Obama represented that in Trump. Um my
Speaker 1: colleague Jonathan Martin, we were both the political at the time,
Speaker 1: but this really well and a piece in two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven that what the base saw Trump as was a
Speaker 1: neon stand in for somebody who would take the fight
Speaker 1: to Obama because the base didn't feel the party was
Speaker 1: fighting this president hard enough, which clearly is has proven
Speaker 1: otherwise in history. But that was the sentiment at the time.
Speaker 1: Can we take a little can we take a little
Speaker 1: turn just for a second momentarily to talk about Roy
Speaker 1: kone because honestly, I think that people don't understand just
Speaker 1: how deeply influenced he was by Roy Kuhne. Can you
Speaker 1: explain quickly, Maggie, who Roy Cone was, the nature of
Speaker 1: his relationship with Trump and what he taught the Donald
Speaker 1: as we used to call him. Sure, So, I mean
Speaker 1: Roy Cohen was the legendary John McCarthy fixer and lawyer,
Speaker 1: you know, dirt peddler on his opponents. The whole playbook
Speaker 1: was slimed the opposition, attack, attack, attack. Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: Roger Stone, Trump's longest serving political advisor, on and off,
Speaker 1: both shared Cone as a as a mentor. Michael Cruz
Speaker 1: at Politico had a great piece on Trump and Cone
Speaker 1: during the campaign where he unearthed this gem of a
Speaker 1: quote from Trump talking about Roy Cohne, which was Trump said,
Speaker 1: he brutalized, but he brutalized for you. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's so succinctly sums up both what what Trump
Speaker 1: believes people should be doing for him. But if you
Speaker 1: think about the thing that we've always talked about with
Speaker 1: the Clintons, especially Hillary Clinton, as they want people defending them, right,
Speaker 1: we always talked about this and covering the Clinton's Trump
Speaker 1: is that at times a gazillion you are supposed to
Speaker 1: go out and absorb whole bullets, give up your family
Speaker 1: for him. The professions of loyalty are and the need
Speaker 1: for it are huge, um and Cone and body that
Speaker 1: and Cone taught him that. And then at the end
Speaker 1: of Cohn's life, when con Con who was a in
Speaker 1: the closet gay man who had AIDS, when he was
Speaker 1: dying of AIDS, according to Cone's assistant, Trump dropped him
Speaker 1: Um and she believes he dropped him because of the
Speaker 1: AIDS panic in the nineteen eighties. Trump does not like
Speaker 1: talking about Roy Khne particularly. I think he spoke about
Speaker 1: him a little bit to my colleagues Jonathan Muller and
Speaker 1: Matt Flagenheimer during the campaign, but it's not one of
Speaker 1: his favorite topics. But he has really, even though he
Speaker 1: distanced himself, he's personified the tactics in the style I mean,
Speaker 1: very much so. And it's uh. You know, a friend
Speaker 1: of Trump's once said to me that, you know you've
Speaker 1: got Trump's got two people on either shoulder, and one
Speaker 1: is his father, Fred Trump, and the other is Roy
Speaker 1: Kone and and one of them is whispering in his
Speaker 1: ear at all times. Yeah. A friend of mine set
Speaker 1: if he could go back in time, he'd kill baby
Speaker 1: Hitler and tell Fred Trump to be a little nicer
Speaker 1: to his kid. I think it. I think it would
Speaker 1: have required a little more than just being a little nicer. Yeah. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: back to Maggy, Um, you joined the New York Times,
Speaker 1: and there's been some criticism of you. Um that, even
Speaker 1: amid all of these scoops. One colleague of yours, unnamed
Speaker 1: of course, is quoted in Vanity Fair saying you've brought
Speaker 1: a tabloid twitterified sensibility to the Times. How do you
Speaker 1: react when you hear something like that. Um that it's
Speaker 1: not true that I'm not the first person to get
Speaker 1: hired from Politico to The Times. That. Um. And I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure that was meant as an insult, frankly,
Speaker 1: but UM, I think that the direction that The Times
Speaker 1: has taken on politics is not attributable to any one person.
Speaker 1: I think that we have an and on the White
Speaker 1: House coverage. Uh. And in terms of Trump, we are
Speaker 1: covering a tabloid president. So if you cover him as
Speaker 1: a conventional president, you're actually going to mislead your readers
Speaker 1: into thinking that he is a conventional president. He's not.
Speaker 1: There are only so many ways to do something when
Speaker 1: it is in the written form versus say a TV
Speaker 1: interview or a live rally and a live television interview. UM,
Speaker 1: I just don't agree with that assessment. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we'll be right back with more
Speaker 1: from the first in our Wonder Women's series, Maggie Haberman
Speaker 1: of The New York Times. And now back to our
Speaker 1: conversation with Maggie Haberman. Maggie talked about some of the
Speaker 1: challenges in covering a precedent like this. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a it never ends it's literally it's like I feel
Speaker 1: like I did when I had newborns. It's like a
Speaker 1: long day. You know, when you have a newborn. You
Speaker 1: sleep for two hours and you're up for three and
Speaker 1: then you, um, you don't have time to take a shower.
Speaker 1: You feel so nasty, have that like nasty green Vilora
Speaker 1: robe On and Liker and like you know, and so
Speaker 1: it's like, insteader the baby, it's your laptop. Um. I
Speaker 1: just cannot get away from that thing. Everybody, I think
Speaker 1: one of the big challenges. And again I thought that
Speaker 1: I had seen the zeno of this with the Clinton's,
Speaker 1: but I really hadn't. Everybody has a really strong opinion
Speaker 1: about what you're doing. Everyone is a really strong opinion
Speaker 1: at you, at the reporter. Everyone is a really strong
Speaker 1: opinion about how you're doing your job. People who do
Speaker 1: not know anything about journalism or suddenly journalism experts, UM,
Speaker 1: People who do not understand that it is not a
Speaker 1: reporter's job to hold an impeachment trial, UM cannot do
Speaker 1: the things that they would like them to do in
Speaker 1: an interview. UM. I think that people are I think
Speaker 1: that so I think a couple of things. I think
Speaker 1: that there has been this psychic experience, collective psych experience
Speaker 1: about this presidency. Um. And I think that that has
Speaker 1: been for most people. It has not been for his
Speaker 1: most ardent supporters, who do not really believe that he
Speaker 1: can do that much wrong. Although I do think that
Speaker 1: if you went and and interviewed a lot of them
Speaker 1: at this point, there are things they're going to be disappointed.
Speaker 1: Whether they would vote against him, I think it's a
Speaker 1: different issue. But um, for other people, we've never really
Speaker 1: seen anything like this. We've never seen thinking about something
Speaker 1: you said at the very beginning about how he's divided
Speaker 1: the country, and the country is pretty divided before he
Speaker 1: came in. What he has done that is different is
Speaker 1: he's done zero to reach out to people who weren't
Speaker 1: with him already, and that we've never seen before. We
Speaker 1: have never seen somebody who has come in and said
Speaker 1: the rest of you, you know what, the hairs, the losers.
Speaker 1: That is what he does. Um. Well, Ron Brownston wrote,
Speaker 1: I thought this was very savvy. The tax plan was
Speaker 1: not about redistributing so much as retribution. It was it
Speaker 1: was about punishing the blue state. It was a weaponized
Speaker 1: tax bill in a way that I don't think that
Speaker 1: as a as a friend of mine put in, I
Speaker 1: don't think that we have seen anything in front of
Speaker 1: mine who's a Republican. I don't think that we have
Speaker 1: seen anything like that in quite some time. But Maggie
Speaker 1: goes beyond not reaching out to people who weren't it's
Speaker 1: it's but but even more than that, I think he
Speaker 1: you know, what, did you use the norm norm shuttering,
Speaker 1: norm shattering? Uh, and the lack of decorum and any
Speaker 1: kind of attempt to be civil and to have manner.
Speaker 1: Now he does. He's not interested in he is not
Speaker 1: interested in niceties, he's not interested in in norms as
Speaker 1: we have always defined them. And he's Um, everything is
Speaker 1: an attack. If he doesn't like you, if you do
Speaker 1: anything that crosses he will. He will call you a
Speaker 1: great person in one breath and then the next breath
Speaker 1: call you the worst person in the world, which is
Speaker 1: he does the reporters as well, and which is both
Speaker 1: personally disorienting and then I think collectively disorienting. UM. I
Speaker 1: think that initially people wanted to believe that reporters were
Speaker 1: hero People who didn't like Trump thought reporters were heroes. UM,
Speaker 1: because people sort of want a hero at the moment,
Speaker 1: and then reporters are reporters. Reporters, they have a job.
Speaker 1: And now I think people have gotten frustrated that reporters
Speaker 1: can't do more. But the more that they want done
Speaker 1: can be done by Congress. It's not the job of
Speaker 1: journalists to prosecute the president. And what everybody knows about
Speaker 1: this presidency and the Russia investigation and so forth, it's
Speaker 1: all from reporters. I think reporter shif done a really
Speaker 1: good job collectively covering this president under very difficult circumstances.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. It's sort of your We're grateful honestly, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not reporting on the president on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, but for everyone who does it to say
Speaker 1: it's disorienting must be a massive understatement. It is. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a difficult. Um, it's a difficult thing to do.
Speaker 1: And where do you draw the line between news analysis
Speaker 1: and commentary. So, for instance, we just interviewed Joe and
Speaker 1: Mika on our last podcast, and their criticism now is
Speaker 1: that reporters they think have gone too far in the
Speaker 1: anti Trump direction, that they're over their skish. Well, he
Speaker 1: didn't give specific I think they said even they were
Speaker 1: a little over their skis, you know, sort of media
Speaker 1: writ large and I think that included themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was going to say they've called the president mentally unstable.
Speaker 1: I don't understand who they think has gone further than
Speaker 1: what I think. They don't view themselves of a subjective reporters,
Speaker 1: and I think the evidence probably bears that out. But
Speaker 1: when you think about the sort of the quote mainstream media,
Speaker 1: New York Times, Washington Post, etcetera, do you think that
Speaker 1: the balance has been struck about right or do you
Speaker 1: think there's too much kind of reporters masquerading his calumnists
Speaker 1: on Twitter? Um? I think Twitter is a huge problem
Speaker 1: in general. It certainly is a problem for me and
Speaker 1: a challenge for me. You tweet a hundred and forty
Speaker 1: times a day, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. Is
Speaker 1: that not true? I think I did. Then I think
Speaker 1: I've stopped a little bit. But mean, it's a it's toxic,
Speaker 1: it's toxic, it's terrible. I also feel like it feeds
Speaker 1: the echo chamber because I feel like reporters tweet for
Speaker 1: other reporters to be cute and clever for other reporters
Speaker 1: and they're not really serving the public, They're serving their industry.
Speaker 1: I wonder if Twitter would still be in business, we're
Speaker 1: not for Donald Trump and reporters, it would be, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that it would be anywhere near as
Speaker 1: relevant as it is now, and I don't think it
Speaker 1: would be as much of a cesspool. It's it's just
Speaker 1: it's just it's toxic and so um, and people assume
Speaker 1: the worst of everything they're reading. Um. I do think
Speaker 1: Twitter is a danger for reporters, myself included. UM, I
Speaker 1: do not resent myself in that. But have you thought
Speaker 1: about not tweeting? Yeah? And then I tweet, So I've
Speaker 1: thought about it. And then do you think more about
Speaker 1: what you tweet now? Yes? I do. And what about
Speaker 1: a policy at the New York Times? There was it
Speaker 1: wasn't there a new policy? There was the Post or
Speaker 1: New York Times. The Times has The Times has um
Speaker 1: social media guidelines, and so these social media guidelines that
Speaker 1: have been instituted by The Times are relatively new. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in the last couple of months. I'm quoted in
Speaker 1: the in the guidelines. I'm just sort of like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that the problem is is like the number
Speaker 1: The number of tweets that I compose and then delete
Speaker 1: are a lot, either because it will end up I
Speaker 1: think people will misread it, or because it's just what
Speaker 1: I want to say can't be said in that many characters,
Speaker 1: even to eighty um, or because it's just not worth it,
Speaker 1: or because it doesn't always need to be said right then.
Speaker 1: The mistake that I made recently was defending myself on
Speaker 1: some criticism and like, don't go down. It's just not
Speaker 1: it's just about right. It's just it's it's it's you're
Speaker 1: through the looking last ones. You do that, it's a
Speaker 1: bad idea. So I didn't, so I've stopped. But um,
Speaker 1: but I do think that Twitter allows for a tone
Speaker 1: that straight news reporting does not, and I think that's
Speaker 1: I think that's dangerous. But I think the tone of
Speaker 1: Trump coverage generally is over the top that I do
Speaker 1: agree with them on. But I also think that, um,
Speaker 1: I think they've contributed to it. So I'm sorry, Brian,
Speaker 1: go ahead. I was gonna, yeah, go ahead, Okay, you
Speaker 1: brought you brought up this is fun. I know you
Speaker 1: brought up. You brought up Maggie. Trump's instability, or at
Speaker 1: least the factor and his irrationality. Joe and Meek, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, called Donald Trump mentally unstable and frequently. Pete Winner,
Speaker 1: a longtime Republican strategists who worked for the last three
Speaker 1: Republican presidents, said Mr Trump's recent twitter storm slash interviews
Speaker 1: are more evidence we've been watching an American president psychologically,
Speaker 1: emotionally and cognitively decompose. That sounds very right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's unflattering. It's also diagnosing from the couch. I
Speaker 1: think that my issue with this is that these same
Speaker 1: people and I and I respect Petee are a lot
Speaker 1: so I don't want to sound like I'm not um,
Speaker 1: but they've been saying that he was cognitively declining since
Speaker 1: the campaign. So you tell me where the bottom is
Speaker 1: and what we're hitting. I've been interviewing this man since
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven on a pretty consistent basis, uh, year
Speaker 1: to year. He's the same person I've been talking to
Speaker 1: you this whole time, and you don't see any evidence
Speaker 1: of it. I see evidence of somebody who is in
Speaker 1: an enormously stressful situation and a job that I do
Speaker 1: not think he loves and probably brings out the worst
Speaker 1: in him. I think that certain qualities get exacerbated. But
Speaker 1: do you think the president is mentally fit to govern?
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. I don't know. In
Speaker 1: other words, like I hear the words coming out of
Speaker 1: your mouth, I understand the sentence. But I'm not a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: and I do not think that reporters diagnosing people is
Speaker 1: a good idea. You know, his state of mind. Let
Speaker 1: me just try to phrase this in a different way.
Speaker 1: And I know you don't want to reach a sort
Speaker 1: of an opinion. I'm not going to reach that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna answer that question. What I am going
Speaker 1: to say is that I have I have covered his asiveness.
Speaker 1: I have covered in detail the types of things that
Speaker 1: he bores in on times of stress, his perseveration over slights, um,
Speaker 1: his self absorption, and on and on. So I think
Speaker 1: that if people can't decide for them, so I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that I find a little drawing,
Speaker 1: is the degree to which everybody needs to have some
Speaker 1: kind of you know, U s d a stamp unfit, like,
Speaker 1: look at what's in front of you and decide what
Speaker 1: you think. Um, But none of us is a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that we have been putting a
Speaker 1: gloss any of us on his moods or how he
Speaker 1: deals with things. But doesn't the amendment kind of require
Speaker 1: some kind of stamp. Well, that's in Congress again, and
Speaker 1: that's the that's thee and that's the cabinet. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, and that's the cabinet, but that's not
Speaker 1: the that's not reporters tell us about a day in
Speaker 1: the life of Donald Trump, Maggie, because you spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time following his every move. Does he eat
Speaker 1: as many uh and fish of filet o fish as
Speaker 1: my mom used to call them, and drink as many
Speaker 1: diet cokes as we've been told? And as many diet cokeses?
Speaker 1: How many? A dozen? It's a it's a dozen a day.
Speaker 1: That is just insane, Maggie. He's not a healthy eater
Speaker 1: and he never has beend tell us about his eating habits,
Speaker 1: is drinking habits, is sleeping habits, and his TV habits.
Speaker 1: He doesn't sleep very much. He watches anywhere between four
Speaker 1: and eight to ten hours of TV a day, and
Speaker 1: the TV habits have been increasing, I'm told by several
Speaker 1: White White House staff, especially since he got back from
Speaker 1: our lago on the holiday break. He drinks about a
Speaker 1: dozen diet cooks a day. He loves to eat McDonald's
Speaker 1: Kentucky Fried Chicken, Um, burger king Um. These are his
Speaker 1: favorite meal. Let's just go to McDonald's. But I'm not
Speaker 1: sure the answer. There's one that he sent Keeach Keith
Speaker 1: Schiller to when Keith was still in the White Now
Speaker 1: to go to McDonald's. Item o his item God, I
Speaker 1: think it was a big math, but I don't remember. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing he was fattening though. I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: with that. But it's not the grilled chickens. It's not
Speaker 1: the it's not the healthy items. But the report that
Speaker 1: he doesn't get into the Oval office until eleven in
Speaker 1: the morning, that's true. That's true. And that's basically how
Speaker 1: he conducted himself a Trump Tower, like wouldn't roll in
Speaker 1: until about ten or eleven. Now was this always the
Speaker 1: case or is this more recent? It's gotten it's gotten
Speaker 1: more like that in the last decade or so. So
Speaker 1: he watches TV in his bathroom. Basically he watches TV. Um.
Speaker 1: Remember he doesn't own a bathroom. Didn't you read that?
Speaker 1: And I did? Um, that is true, and and he was, Um,
Speaker 1: what do you think of Michael Wolfs book? I'm curious
Speaker 1: because they say he doesn't read, he is semi literate,
Speaker 1: he doesn't prepare, he knows almost nothing about policy or politics.
Speaker 1: He's extremely moody, thin skin. Um does this sound right? Well,
Speaker 1: it's what I've been reporting for two years. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds right. I just couldn't help. But wonder how he
Speaker 1: got that much access? Um, Steve Bannon walked him in,
Speaker 1: and um, some folks in the comm shop decided to
Speaker 1: play some level of ball with him, not fully, but enough.
Speaker 1: He talked to Donald Trump for three hours. I think
Speaker 1: an aggregate on three of three hours short. Three hours
Speaker 1: is not out of time. So what I think an
Speaker 1: hour and a half of that was the interview he
Speaker 1: did in Beverly Hill. I do not think that they
Speaker 1: spent much time together since Trump spent on the White
Speaker 1: House now, but he had written some pretty pro Trump columns.
Speaker 1: He spent years criticizing all of the Trump covering media,
Speaker 1: and he spent the first year of the White House,
Speaker 1: UH and the transition saying that all of our coverage
Speaker 1: that things were a mess was wrong. Um, that we
Speaker 1: were all too negative about Trump. UM. I think he
Speaker 1: described my beat as the barrant presidency of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: UM in a very derisive way. So I don't understand
Speaker 1: how he makes that comport with his book if he
Speaker 1: considers that a negative, because his entire book is that
Speaker 1: there is something very like Donald Trump changed. Well, he
Speaker 1: didn't say he didn't know, he didn't change. What changed
Speaker 1: is that Wolfe Michael Wolfe wanted to get access to Trump,
Speaker 1: and so he did so by critic which he would
Speaker 1: not be the first person to do so. Lots of
Speaker 1: reporters over the years have done that. Have you read
Speaker 1: the book? What do you think of it? I think
Speaker 1: it needed a copy editor. I think that some of
Speaker 1: it is very good. I think some of it is fantastical. UM,
Speaker 1: But I think conceptually it's It's pretty right. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about it, and it affirms what the rest of us
Speaker 1: terrible reporters have been writing for a year and a half.
Speaker 1: So have you talked to Michael wolf about it? We're
Speaker 1: not friends. Let's talk about John. If he ever felt
Speaker 1: like reaching out to me for comment, did be more
Speaker 1: than welcome to John Kelly was supposedly going to bring
Speaker 1: a sense of discipline well. John Kelly has made the
Speaker 1: staff feel less scared of one another, which was really
Speaker 1: happening with Steve Bannon. UM. People felt scared of Bannon.
Speaker 1: Uh and the Bannon and Jared Navanka fight was horrible
Speaker 1: UM internally for a lot of other staffers. And he
Speaker 1: has made staff never feel less frightened of the president
Speaker 1: himself in the sense that the president is a screamer
Speaker 1: and he can be difficult, but he's done nothing to
Speaker 1: control the president. Morale is terrible in the West Wang,
Speaker 1: It's it's as bad or worse than it was when
Speaker 1: Rance was there previous as the chief of staff. UM.
Speaker 1: So Kelly has made a decision that you're not going
Speaker 1: to change what a seventy one year old man does,
Speaker 1: and he's not. And that seventy one year old man
Speaker 1: gets in big public fights with his attorney general, his
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, to name a couple. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's strange? You know you do you think that's aberrant
Speaker 1: unusual or do you think that that's normally what presidents do.
Speaker 1: I think it's the metrics laid before us by by
Speaker 1: recent books. Yeah, yeah, what what is the state of
Speaker 1: those relationships with the senior cabinet members to the great question. Um,
Speaker 1: it depends on who it is. Mike Pompeio he has
Speaker 1: a great relationship with and he has this whole time,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because they didn't really have a relationship
Speaker 1: prior to the White House. Um. But he sees him
Speaker 1: every morning, sees him every morning. Pompeio has figured out
Speaker 1: how to brief Trump. He has sort of figured out
Speaker 1: how to speak Trump. Um. Tillerson Rex Tillers in the
Speaker 1: Seretary of State, has not to speak Trump. Um. Although
Speaker 1: Tillerson had been expected to leave this month, is now
Speaker 1: telling people he doesn't want to leave, So we will
Speaker 1: see what happens. Um. What do you think is the
Speaker 1: conflict between those two guys just a very different style totally?
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think that, and I think the
Speaker 1: Tillerson is just not used to being somebody's underlying honestly.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a buttoned up corporate exactly totally, totally
Speaker 1: like to with every fiber of his being, right, and
Speaker 1: when the CEO of eggs on mobile, that's basically like
Speaker 1: being a head of state, right, that's actually that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And he's used to being sort of honored and fitted
Speaker 1: in a certain way. Um. So I think that's been
Speaker 1: one obstacle. What up with? What up with Mike Pence? Oh?
Speaker 1: Being more specific? Um, well, every time you see him,
Speaker 1: he's smiling graciously, you know, sort of nodding in agreement.
Speaker 1: Don't you love how Maggie Maggie's been on her phone
Speaker 1: when she's like reporting a story right now reporting sty
Speaker 1: can you tell us? Well? We had we had had
Speaker 1: a tip that um Met Romney had cancer at one point,
Speaker 1: and it turns out he had um and it's prostate
Speaker 1: cancer and we just hadn't been able to confirm it.
Speaker 1: But somebody else just broke up. Really I'm just dealing
Speaker 1: with right now. Yea is he Yeah? And he's still
Speaker 1: going to run. Um and he's still gonna run. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: this is very exciting to hear, like breaking news. Who
Speaker 1: broke it? Uh? It was I think CNN. Um anyway, Sorry, anyway,
Speaker 1: they're my employers. Still, I know, I know, what are
Speaker 1: the there's a little sarcasm there, I know, So Pens,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that. Look. Remember the thing that
Speaker 1: everybody forgets about Pence is that he was a conservative
Speaker 1: radio host before he was a congressman, and then he
Speaker 1: then he was a governor of Indiana, and he struggled
Speaker 1: politically as a governor of Indiana. He wasn't gonna get real,
Speaker 1: he was not going to get correct, and so most
Speaker 1: likely not and so um he um. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the long game is here. I think basically he
Speaker 1: actually took a short hop, right. I mean it was
Speaker 1: either not get reelected for governor or roll the dice
Speaker 1: and see what happens here. Um. He's very differential to
Speaker 1: the resident, very very very difficult. Yes, every time he
Speaker 1: appears with him right, and he has he has found
Speaker 1: a way to handle Trump pretty effectively. Trump really solicits
Speaker 1: his opinion, likes him, seeks him out. Um, do you
Speaker 1: think he'd be a good president. I think that you
Speaker 1: never really know what somebody actually isn't like in the
Speaker 1: job until they get in there. Although I didn't know
Speaker 1: what Nonald Trump would be like before he got into it.
Speaker 1: Unless chaotic president would be let's get he would be
Speaker 1: a very conventional Republican, conservative Republican president, very conventional, very
Speaker 1: very it would be like, um, they were discovering City
Speaker 1: Hall and Giuliani was the mayor in his second term,
Speaker 1: and I remember we were complaining about something that the
Speaker 1: Press Office had done to us because you know, Giuliani
Speaker 1: was sort of prototypical for Trump, except that Giuliani is
Speaker 1: incredibly well read and um is has has actual sort
Speaker 1: of policy thoughts and beliefs and core beliefs. Um but
Speaker 1: very vindictive, but he's got it. But there there's a
Speaker 1: lot of similarities there in their personalities. Is a reason
Speaker 1: they're friends. Um But I remember we were all griping
Speaker 1: in the press fan one day and on our way
Speaker 1: to an event about something that the Press Office had done,
Speaker 1: and one of the radio reporters who had been there
Speaker 1: long she's long since passed away, but who had been
Speaker 1: there many many decades, said, you should be really grateful
Speaker 1: he does this many events. You know, when it was
Speaker 1: back in um in the A Beam days, the mayor
Speaker 1: would be unavailable for weeks. And like that's a little
Speaker 1: bit what Pence would be. Like I don't know the
Speaker 1: last time Pence to the live TV interview, Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: he is really really, really careful and so different stylistically
Speaker 1: than Trump. So two of the personalities that obviously get
Speaker 1: enormous attention or Jared and Ivanka you know, they're young,
Speaker 1: they're rich, they're glamorous. That I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people resent them. They think, oh, well, there's got to
Speaker 1: be something kind of corrupt or something a little bit yeah, malevolent,
Speaker 1: corrupt or not the same thing. No about either of
Speaker 1: both of them. What what are the facts that we
Speaker 1: know about their roles in the administration, how they operate
Speaker 1: day to day. Look, I mean, I think part of
Speaker 1: the problem early on was that, um they when when
Speaker 1: when Ryan's previous was made chief of staff, the immediate
Speaker 1: thing that I said to source who told me was
Speaker 1: it sorta doesn't matter who has the title, because Jared
Speaker 1: will be acting as the chief of staff anyway. It's
Speaker 1: only with Kelly that Jared has not been able to
Speaker 1: do that. Um. You know they're they're um, they're both
Speaker 1: difficult um to read. They are um uh, they're very
Speaker 1: different people. I mean, she really is a lot like
Speaker 1: her father. Um. Jared is very sort of chill and
Speaker 1: flat and does speaks as little as possible. Um. And
Speaker 1: how is she like her father? She has um a
Speaker 1: very similar set of grievances. She has a very similar
Speaker 1: uh sense that people are being unfair to her. Um. Um,
Speaker 1: she's a lot like him. Do you think she sees
Speaker 1: what's happening with her father and is distressed in what sense?
Speaker 1: I mean distressed at both how he is being perceived
Speaker 1: and how he is governing. I don't think she's happy
Speaker 1: with how he is being perceived, and I certainly know
Speaker 1: there're aspects of his governance that she's not happy with him.
Speaker 1: In their policy issues that they've disagreed on many of
Speaker 1: them that I just mean his style, not policy. I
Speaker 1: mean she has always tried to refine his style. At
Speaker 1: the same time. This is when they're one area of
Speaker 1: reporting in My Golf's book that I think was really
Speaker 1: dated UM and I think was based primarily from people
Speaker 1: who knew her when she was younger and before she
Speaker 1: was being roomed to take over the company. UM. She
Speaker 1: has gone from being sort of a somewhat resentful daughter
Speaker 1: to really being, in many ways, the spitting image of him.
Speaker 1: I'm not not I'm not physically obviously, but UM she
Speaker 1: I but she's him without a lot of the flash
Speaker 1: and style. She believe. She does believe that he's got
Speaker 1: a genius. She believes that there are things that he
Speaker 1: can into it that other people can't. UM and she's
Speaker 1: very riveted by it. Um, but this is not the
Speaker 1: life that they wanted. This is not and none of
Speaker 1: this is what they thought was going to happen. Um.
Speaker 1: Like him, she believed that they would walk in and
Speaker 1: be treated sort of deferentially. Um. And she's been a
Speaker 1: little surprised at How do you see actually is as
Speaker 1: you look ahead? What are you most concerned about in
Speaker 1: this year too? Um, I'd like I'd like yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: like a little less nuclear fun talk on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: think that that's a little alarming. Um. Um. Yeah, North
Speaker 1: Korea is of great concern to the administration, and and um,
Speaker 1: I think for a good reason. Um, that's my that's
Speaker 1: my biggest concern. When he tweets that his button, his
Speaker 1: red button is bigger. I mean, you can't make this
Speaker 1: stuff up, can you, Maggie, Well, no comment, Um, I don't. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of it is productive or conducive
Speaker 1: to actual policy or conversations. I just I think it's
Speaker 1: a problem. What do you know about the more investigation,
Speaker 1: the state of it, where it's headed, who it's ensnaring.
Speaker 1: Right now, we know very little about that. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: I don't want to speak to something that we really
Speaker 1: can't see into. What the George Papadoubel's indictment taught all
Speaker 1: of us is how little we actually know about what
Speaker 1: Mueller has. But given that he has gotten a bunch
Speaker 1: of people to plead guilty, you should assume there's going
Speaker 1: to be more, Maggie. On a personal level, how you know,
Speaker 1: I people are criticized because they don't ask men the
Speaker 1: same question. And I would argue that I would ask
Speaker 1: men the same question. But given the demanding nature of
Speaker 1: covering this White House, how are you able to unplug?
Speaker 1: How are you able to be with your kids and
Speaker 1: to do the things that you need to do um
Speaker 1: when you're not at work? Um? With difficulty? I mean
Speaker 1: I don't have it. I don't. None of this has
Speaker 1: been easy. It's been really hard on my kids. Um, twelve,
Speaker 1: eight and seven. That's little. The other really little. That's
Speaker 1: what I would get, That's what I would undo. Over
Speaker 1: the last years, so hard this has been on them.
Speaker 1: Is your husband a saint? Yes? Um, ask anyone who
Speaker 1: knows us, Um he is. He's also he's the politics editor.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, but he also has long hours because of
Speaker 1: that job. It's just it's been hard on my kids. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's been hard and and and Trump selection has
Speaker 1: seeped into see at the time, seeped into schools in
Speaker 1: a way that very few other campaigns have. So I
Speaker 1: just my kids have just been surrounded by all of
Speaker 1: this for a while. Do you feel that they're more
Speaker 1: anxious and you're more anxious as a result of what's
Speaker 1: going on in the world. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: they're just being on duty all the time, Like this
Speaker 1: lends itself to being anxious. But what But beyond that, though,
Speaker 1: beyond the hours that the stererm and drag that is constant,
Speaker 1: I think it is a I think it is an
Speaker 1: an unnerving time in the world. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that we are any of us is impervious to it.
Speaker 1: Let you just do the best you can. Let me
Speaker 1: ask about someone else who who was or is close
Speaker 1: to you, and that's Glenn thrush Um. You guys were
Speaker 1: set to write a book together. He got into some
Speaker 1: trouble apparently because of sexual misbehavior. Can you comment at
Speaker 1: all about sort of what you know about those problems
Speaker 1: and how it's affected your reporting and your relationship. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's been a friend for a really long time. This
Speaker 1: is obviously pretty painful for a lot of people, UM,
Speaker 1: including UM these women who UH felt mistreated or who
Speaker 1: were scared or uh who had encounters with him that
Speaker 1: they were unhappy with and that they did not feel
Speaker 1: good about. UM. But he also has said he as
Speaker 1: a substance of best problem, and I'm glad he's getting
Speaker 1: helped for that. And beyond that, I don't really want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Let's talk about where you go
Speaker 1: from here. So we're finishing up this podcast. It's approaching
Speaker 1: three o'clock. You have an appointment, so we're going to
Speaker 1: get you out of the studio. Thank you, But what
Speaker 1: is the rest of your day going to be? Like, Maggie,
Speaker 1: I have a meeting with somebody of the paper, and
Speaker 1: then I have to do a TV hit, and then
Speaker 1: I have to meet a source, and then I have
Speaker 1: to go home, and then tomorrow I go to Washington
Speaker 1: And how do you? How do you? Kind of I'm
Speaker 1: curious because I'm so impressed with your reporting and so
Speaker 1: much reporting that's been done these days. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know this White House leaks a lot, but is it
Speaker 1: difficult is it difficult to find a source that really
Speaker 1: trusts you and you can really trust Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's look, well, look it's difficult because Trump and the
Speaker 1: people around Trump have historically told a lot more untruths
Speaker 1: than any other campaign that I have dealt with. UM.
Speaker 1: So we developed a system in the campaign, Ashley Parker,
Speaker 1: Alex Burns and I did of sort of how we
Speaker 1: would arrive at a common based soup stock of what
Speaker 1: we what what was true based on a number of
Speaker 1: people overlapping in the same account, and then anything that
Speaker 1: did not comport with that would get shaved off. And
Speaker 1: we we still use that. UM. The difficulty is just
Speaker 1: that there is so much stuff that is un true
Speaker 1: floating around, and then the true stuff is called false.
Speaker 1: So and everyone has an agenda, and everyone has an
Speaker 1: agenda correct, and it's usually about killing someone else, So
Speaker 1: it's usually not policy, it's usually harming some other person.
Speaker 1: On that note, Maggie, have a nice day. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. You guys, thank you so much for Thanks
Speaker 1: to our wonderful production team is always a tip of
Speaker 1: our hat to produce ser Giana Palmer, our engineer Jared O'Connell,
Speaker 1: assistant producer Nora Ritchie. Nor have I ever told you
Speaker 1: I really like the name Nora. I really like the
Speaker 1: name Nora too, I do. It's my favorite dolls house.
Speaker 1: And my mom's name was Eleanor, and Ellie is named Eleanor,
Speaker 1: but I call her Ellie, not Nora. But I could
Speaker 1: have called her Nora, but anyway, I didn't, And I
Speaker 1: like your name. Thanks also to Emily Beana of Katie
Speaker 1: Couric Media, my assistant Beth Dems, and Alison Bresnik, who
Speaker 1: hits the bull's eye day in and day out on
Speaker 1: social media. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music. Katie Kirk
Speaker 1: and I are the show as executive producers, and please
Speaker 1: if you can drop us a line at comments at
Speaker 1: Current podcast dot com with guest ideas, feedback questions, or
Speaker 1: anything that's on your mind. You can also find me
Speaker 1: on social media under Katie Couric, and you can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Goldsmith b. We'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with the next installment of our Wonder Women's series,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned for that everyone. Meanwhile, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Bye bye, like John McLachlan would say, bye bye,
Speaker 1: done done, done done,