Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Maggie Havenman, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Dannist Show. Thanks for having me. Um. You have written
Speaker 1: a book that many have called the Ultimate Guide to
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump, because it feels like you have an
Speaker 1: understanding of him that few, never mind journalists, few human
Speaker 1: beings do. And and what's interesting is every time I've
Speaker 1: seen your reporting on him, every every time I've seen
Speaker 1: him comment on you and the conversations you have with
Speaker 1: each other, and the interviews that he grants you, even
Speaker 1: though he seems to hate you, but then he likes you.
Speaker 1: It seems a little bit like the like, like the
Speaker 1: relationship Hannibal Head with Clarice. I can't tell if you
Speaker 1: if you have a mutual admiration for each other. Fascination
Speaker 1: as a journalist explained to me why he keeps speaking
Speaker 1: to you and then afterwards says to you, why would
Speaker 1: you write the things that he said to you? First
Speaker 1: of all, thank you and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: A couple of things. Look, he's a subject who I cover,
Speaker 1: and I have covered a number of politicians over the
Speaker 1: last twenty six years. I covered Hillary Clinton, I covered
Speaker 1: Mike Bloomberg, I covered Rudy Giuliani, who in many ways
Speaker 1: was a proto Trump, at least in certain aspects of
Speaker 1: his behavior. Uh and now is very much like Trump,
Speaker 1: and and has become it's more similar to him over time.
Speaker 1: Trump needs the media in a way that's unlike any
Speaker 1: other politician I've ever seen. He craves attention, and I
Speaker 1: explore this in the book. He just constantly wants to
Speaker 1: hold the media's gaze, and he wants to see if
Speaker 1: he can sell you on a version of himself. And
Speaker 1: he wants to get what he would call a good story. Literally,
Speaker 1: those would be the words, a good story. And then
Speaker 1: you write about him accurately and he says that it's unfair,
Speaker 1: you know. So there's that's that's the dynamic you're talking about.
Speaker 1: But he basically, you know, he's obsessed with the New
Speaker 1: York Times. That is a lot of what this is about.
Speaker 1: You know, he is uniquely focused on the paper. And
Speaker 1: I'm just the person who has covered him more often
Speaker 1: than not. It really feels like he is somebody who
Speaker 1: is frozen in time because everything he's obsessed with seems
Speaker 1: to be something that was popular when he reached some
Speaker 1: sort of zeitgeists himself, you know, So it'll be The
Speaker 1: New York Times, and then he'll complain about certain magazines
Speaker 1: but not others. In the SNL, he'll have a he
Speaker 1: has a certain pension for, but then not other shows.
Speaker 1: It's like it's an interesting world that he exists in
Speaker 1: that isn't current, but but seems current to him. And
Speaker 1: in the in the book, you talk about how he
Speaker 1: lives minutes to minute when the rest of us move
Speaker 1: almost from twenty four hours to twenty four hours. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like he's plagued as much by the
Speaker 1: things we think he is as as he actually is.
Speaker 1: Like do we what do we misunderstand about Trump? I
Speaker 1: actually think you understand really well based on everything you
Speaker 1: just said. I think there is a um, there is
Speaker 1: a preserved and amber quality to him. You just describe
Speaker 1: that about how all of his cultural Touchsdownes are in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, which is when he was reaching his height.
Speaker 1: He loves to talk about how many times he's on
Speaker 1: the cover of Time magazine. Um, you know, national news magazines,
Speaker 1: weeklies are are not in their heyday right now, and
Speaker 1: yet he talks about it all the time. The celebrities
Speaker 1: he talks about are from the nineteen eighties. Its figures
Speaker 1: generally are from the nine It's when he was rising
Speaker 1: to prominence. And I agree with you that I think
Speaker 1: there is a degree which he has just stuck there.
Speaker 1: And he's also stuck there culturally. He's stuck there in
Speaker 1: terms of racial politics. He has stuck there in terms
Speaker 1: of New York City's machine boss politics from that era,
Speaker 1: and he exported so much of that onto Washington and
Speaker 1: onto the Republican Party. The other thing that I think
Speaker 1: that people don't understand, and I try to show this
Speaker 1: and explore this, is his fascination with violence and how
Speaker 1: much violence informs what he thinks of strength, and then
Speaker 1: strength in terms informs what he thinks is a strong
Speaker 1: boss or a strong leader. So you will hear him praise,
Speaker 1: you know, a local machine party boss like the former
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Democratic Party head as ruling with an iron fist.
Speaker 1: He'll use the same words about shij and Ping, the
Speaker 1: president of China, who's an authoritarian. Um, it's all contextless
Speaker 1: and kind of flat and the same, and I think
Speaker 1: people miss that. Yes he's playing to crowds. Yes he
Speaker 1: will say whatever he has to say, to survive small
Speaker 1: increments of time him, but ultimately the scenarios that exist
Speaker 1: for him kind of stay the same. But what makes
Speaker 1: him scarier in my reading of this book is people
Speaker 1: often see Donald Trump as somebody who is setting the trends.
Speaker 1: But as as you read through this book and as
Speaker 1: you understand the man, you come to realize that he
Speaker 1: is oftentimes victim of the trends, and then he plays
Speaker 1: to them. So he'll say something to his crowd that
Speaker 1: he believes the crowd won't vibe with it, and so
Speaker 1: then he'll change what he believes and to keep going
Speaker 1: with the crowd, which makes him even scary because if
Speaker 1: you think about authoritarian leaders or any others out there
Speaker 1: who go I rule with an iron fist, their fist
Speaker 1: is their fist, But Donald Trump says, how would you
Speaker 1: like my fist to be? And then he keeps it
Speaker 1: in that direction. Like so, when when you look at them,
Speaker 1: when you see that man, isn't that a scarier place
Speaker 1: to be in? And the people around him do they
Speaker 1: do they notice that or do they think that he's
Speaker 1: controlling his own narrative? It depends on how close they
Speaker 1: get to him, and it depends frankly on how willing
Speaker 1: they are to pat the perverted, preferred version of himself
Speaker 1: that he presents. So there's two versions of himself that
Speaker 1: he can tolerate. One that he really wants, which is
Speaker 1: adulation and hero worship, and he gets that in certain
Speaker 1: quarters of the conservative media and from some of his aids.
Speaker 1: And then there's, you know, the portrait of him as
Speaker 1: competent strongman. Um this book is neither one of those,
Speaker 1: and and and I think explains exactly who he is.
Speaker 1: There are people around him who recognize that he is
Speaker 1: often playing to the room, the crowd. He is taking
Speaker 1: his cues from Fox News, and then it became this
Speaker 1: kind of circular feeding cycle with Fox News where they
Speaker 1: would say something and he would pick it up and
Speaker 1: amplify it, and then they would cover it more. And
Speaker 1: that is often how he makes decisions. And I explore
Speaker 1: how whether that was about not wanting a mask mandate
Speaker 1: during COVID, or whether he was attacking football players who
Speaker 1: were taking a knee in protested police brutality, or when
Speaker 1: he was at the Sea Pack in two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: and he saw that attacking Ron Paul was playing well
Speaker 1: to the crowd. It's always in response to how's it playing.
Speaker 1: He exists in interesting space in the world because you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the man. But then you talk about
Speaker 1: in the book there's also Donald Trump the idea, and
Speaker 1: you give us truly one of the most comprehensive insights
Speaker 1: into how the man was forged. Many people around the
Speaker 1: world don't know that he was considered a joke in
Speaker 1: many New York circles, in business, in entertainment, whatever field
Speaker 1: it was. Many people don't realize. And you talk about
Speaker 1: this in the book, how the Apprentice was in some
Speaker 1: ways a sort of joke idea of like, oh, this
Speaker 1: guy will tell you how to run your business because
Speaker 1: he was so terrible, but he was so captivating on screen.
Speaker 1: He was so magnetic. He knew how to create entertainment.
Speaker 1: And then it became the tail wagging the dog. People
Speaker 1: saw the show, they went, he must be successful. And
Speaker 1: then because of that, his success started rising, and he
Speaker 1: went from the doldrums of nothingness back to being a
Speaker 1: semi successful person. So then I wonder when you when
Speaker 1: you look at Donald Trump, when you think of him
Speaker 1: through the lens of entertainment and politics, do you think
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has broken America because you say that the
Speaker 1: making of Donald Trump in the breaking of America. Do
Speaker 1: you think he's broken America or do you think he's
Speaker 1: exposed how America is broken. I think he has exposed
Speaker 1: aspects of how America has broken and fueled and exploited
Speaker 1: that for his own gain. I think that the partisan
Speaker 1: divide that exists in this country started in the nineteen
Speaker 1: nine I started before that, but it really really accelerated
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, and then there were a series
Speaker 1: of national traumas that voters reacted to. There was an
Speaker 1: impeachment of Bill Clinton, there was a terrorist attacks in
Speaker 1: the US, there were wars that followed, There was an
Speaker 1: election in two thousands settled by the Supreme Court. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a fiscal crisis where most people
Speaker 1: who were seeing responsible were not punished. All of that
Speaker 1: left an impact on voters looking for something that they
Speaker 1: thought they were finding in him. But his ethos that
Speaker 1: he came to define in New York in that period
Speaker 1: you're talking about in the nineteen eighties really was hate
Speaker 1: as a civic good. Hate should be a civic good.
Speaker 1: He would talk about that. He would talk about in
Speaker 1: the context of racial violence, in New York that he
Speaker 1: would want to hate people, and that is what he exported.
Speaker 1: So he didn't create it, but he fueled it and
Speaker 1: he has benefited from it. And there is a tremendous
Speaker 1: triple trickle down effect. He has an interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: paradoxical vibe to him at times because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: and maybe this place to what you're saying, or it's
Speaker 1: an example of it, he plays to the room. You know,
Speaker 1: I've interviewed Republicans who at the very beginning and say like, no,
Speaker 1: I've spoken to him, He's fine. He just says that
Speaker 1: to the crowd, and then they themselves months later and
Speaker 1: be like, I'm shocked. I didn't think he would do this.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would go this way. You have
Speaker 1: said in the book, and you say from the beginning,
Speaker 1: this man is the most consistent person. Ironically, he is
Speaker 1: going to be who he is and he always has
Speaker 1: been in many ways. And you even break down his
Speaker 1: techniques in an interview or when he's dealing with with press,
Speaker 1: you know, you you almost break them down like like
Speaker 1: video game character moves, where you go, he's going to defend,
Speaker 1: he's gonna deny, he's gonna he's gonna shift the blame,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get angry, He'll perform the anger. You talk
Speaker 1: about all these things. Why do journalists now not understand this?
Speaker 1: Why did journalists still get tricked or trapped into a
Speaker 1: place where they go, Trump, what is this? And then
Speaker 1: he spins them and then they're like, oh, you did
Speaker 1: it again to me? Why does that still happen? I think,
Speaker 1: in fairness to my colleagues, I think for the most part,
Speaker 1: people realize who Donald Trump is at this point. I
Speaker 1: think that when he became president, people particularly in the
Speaker 1: Washington press corps, many of whom did not follow the
Speaker 1: campaign in did not know who he was the person
Speaker 1: that they were dealing with. How effective he is at
Speaker 1: getting media around his finger to do what he wanted.
Speaker 1: I think people generally do understand that now. I think
Speaker 1: you have seen far fewer interviews from Mara a Lago
Speaker 1: over the course of the last eighteen months, despite his
Speaker 1: desire to hold the media's gaze. Now, whether that changes
Speaker 1: when he's a nominee potentially or a candidate almost certainly,
Speaker 1: I think that's an open question, and we're going to
Speaker 1: see how that goes. One of the more fascinating posts
Speaker 1: of the book that I truly enjoyed. Somebody who's been
Speaker 1: immersed in this world for a long time is the
Speaker 1: brewing clash between Donald Trump and Rhonda Sanctists. Rhonda Sanctus
Speaker 1: is somebody who, in my opinion, has slowly started adopting
Speaker 1: elm mints of Trump in order to win over Trumpers,
Speaker 1: but then doesn't transform himself into Trump so that he
Speaker 1: seems like a reasonable choice. I mean, like, I watched
Speaker 1: him even talking in like a briefing, and he started
Speaker 1: using hands like Trump. He starts doing little moves like Trump.
Speaker 1: He starts speaking in kurt sentences like Trump, very good,
Speaker 1: very good, doesn't change his voice, but he dresses in
Speaker 1: the front, he suits like Trump. He has like not really.
Speaker 1: I think I think he's emulated enough of Trump to
Speaker 1: to to take Trump's people, but they're not so much
Speaker 1: of Trump to to, you know, dissuade the middle voters
Speaker 1: who wants somebody who's reasonable. And it seems like Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is starting to realize that Rhonda Sanctis is stealing
Speaker 1: his vibe and he doesn't like it. You know, he's
Speaker 1: not happy about it, and he thinks that he made
Speaker 1: Rhonda Santas, and he talked about this with me in
Speaker 1: interviews last year that you know, he was responsible for
Speaker 1: De Santis. You know, I said, Ron, you're at three percent. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so you know when Ron asked for my endorsement,
Speaker 1: he told me that he, you know, he thought he
Speaker 1: would beat anybody very easily. I asked if he had
Speaker 1: talked to De Santis about running against him or de
Speaker 1: Santis running against him. He said that hadn't come up,
Speaker 1: but it's clearly his mind. And he's been privately trashing
Speaker 1: him to any number of people, which is often what
Speaker 1: he does when he's he trashes him about his his weight.
Speaker 1: Well he's been he's been trashing in privately to people
Speaker 1: fat phony whining. So Trump has been saying that run
Speaker 1: Sanctus is fat right, Okay, um, it's it's It's interesting
Speaker 1: because you also talk about in the book why you
Speaker 1: think and how you think Trump sees the presidency and
Speaker 1: what it brings him. He's in a different position to
Speaker 1: what he was in before. Before it seemed like it was,
Speaker 1: you know, a joy ride. It seemed like another push
Speaker 1: for publicity, maybe to get more money for the Apprentice
Speaker 1: or whatever. But now it seems like there are more stakes.
Speaker 1: You know, he may want the politics, but he's also
Speaker 1: worried about the investigations. He's also worried. Do you then think,
Speaker 1: knowing him the way you do and having the interviews
Speaker 1: that you've had with him and the people around him,
Speaker 1: do you think that then, in a weird way, Runda
Speaker 1: Sanctists is now the biggest threat to Trump because if
Speaker 1: Runda Sanctists manages to take the Republican Party away from Trump,
Speaker 1: Trump loses his best opportunity to escape all of the
Speaker 1: cases that are coming and all the people that are
Speaker 1: coming for him. Whether it's around to Santis or someone else,
Speaker 1: the biggest threat to Donald Trump is that someone will
Speaker 1: stop him in the Republican Party. Now, a number of
Speaker 1: donors and a number of conservatives are hopeful to Santis.
Speaker 1: Is it. We are just seeing to Santas on a
Speaker 1: national stage in a way we haven't before with with
Speaker 1: the hurricane response, and so we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1: He has had a couple of off moments, not not
Speaker 1: in the least day, but he has had a couple
Speaker 1: of off moments and handling it. Everyone looks very good
Speaker 1: until they're on the bigger stage and that is one
Speaker 1: thing Trump is aware of is that the difference that
Speaker 1: he brought to running for president over other candidates was
Speaker 1: he had been in the media spotlight for decades and
Speaker 1: it is just something that is completely different now. The
Speaker 1: party is different in overall how it deals with the
Speaker 1: national media. Republicans are very aggressive against national reporters at
Speaker 1: this point. To Santas has obviously co opted that from
Speaker 1: Trump to to Santis does not need or crave national
Speaker 1: attention in the media the way Trump does. Trump is
Speaker 1: definitely aware to Santis is a threat. I think it
Speaker 1: is too soon to say what that looks like before
Speaker 1: I let you go, because I mean, it's an amazing book.
Speaker 1: We could talk for hours about it's Trump is a
Speaker 1: force unlike any other in American and maybe even world politics.
Speaker 1: He's inspired so many other countries. When I when I travel,
Speaker 1: people will have these strange opinions about him. I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like it where other countries have opinions about
Speaker 1: Trump as if they vote for him as well. People
Speaker 1: on the ground, genuinely, you don't really see that. And
Speaker 1: it feels like he has turned American politics forever. When
Speaker 1: you speak to him, does he have an acknowledgment of
Speaker 1: the volatility that he's dealing with, or does he only
Speaker 1: think of it through the lens of trump and entertainment
Speaker 1: and getting to the end goal, or is there even
Speaker 1: a part of him that goes if I if I
Speaker 1: do this incorrectly, I could I could blow up the
Speaker 1: country as a whole. I don't think there's a ton
Speaker 1: of the introspection that you just described. I think I think.
Speaker 1: I think in general, he looks at everything in terms
Speaker 1: of how it impacts him. And even when he has
Speaker 1: told that something is going bad, even if he's conscious
Speaker 1: of it, he will be aware it's something is problematic
Speaker 1: for others, but for whatever. You know, three D chess
Speaker 1: in his head, and it isn't literally three D chess,
Speaker 1: but how he's how he's gaming this out. He won't
Speaker 1: allow himself to acknowledge that because that would be a
Speaker 1: sign of weakness, or that would be giving somebody else
Speaker 1: a ship. And so even if that's a consideration, you're
Speaker 1: never going to hear him say that. You will hear
Speaker 1: him say you know, he threw himself the other day.
Speaker 1: I'll just give you an example. He volunteered himself to
Speaker 1: try to solve the war between Russia and Ukraine to
Speaker 1: be a peacemaker. This is a This is a classic
Speaker 1: Donald Trump move, which is I'm going to throw myself
Speaker 1: into this national situation that doesn't involve me at all.
Speaker 1: You know, he did he was offering himself up as
Speaker 1: Reagan's arms negotiator with the Soviet Union in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. He actually did that. He literally was offering
Speaker 1: himself up this side. And so now obviously he was
Speaker 1: not taken up on it. But um, it's a little
Speaker 1: different when it's a former president doing this and it's
Speaker 1: just in his head. The context just doesn't change. The
Speaker 1: moves are all the same. Every part of the book
Speaker 1: is interesting. You have notes from Donald Trump, for instance,
Speaker 1: because you obviously send them to him, you know, say
Speaker 1: this is what I'm writing. Do you have any comments
Speaker 1: or anything. Some of them are like him just going
Speaker 1: like fake news. He scribbled and he sent you so
Speaker 1: several let's fake news. Some of my favorites were the
Speaker 1: ones where he's like, oh, this is great. I never
Speaker 1: thought of it like this. It's like there's like weird,
Speaker 1: there's weird interesting parts in in how he sees you
Speaker 1: and what you're doing. I mean, there's a fascinating story
Speaker 1: about Rudy Giuliani taking the biggest dump in a private
Speaker 1: plane I've ever heard from Trump. It's a book that
Speaker 1: covers everything, and honestly, I hope a lot of people
Speaker 1: read it before the next election comes, because I think
Speaker 1: it gives a lot of much needed insight. Maggie, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining on the show. Appreciate you punks,
Speaker 1: because that notw where you've got your book, people. Maggie
Speaker 1: havinly The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ears editions. Subscribe
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