Maggie Haberman > Quotes

“Trump seemed to have learned a lesson from his travails: his personal brand mattered more than what was on his balance sheet, the projection of strength and success was more significant than any actual fact set underneath.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“It was as clear a guiding ethos for his life as Trump seemed to have: hate should be a civic good.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Esper had not directly criticized the commander in chief, but his predecessor, Jim Mattis, finally delivered the rebuke of Trump he had held in for years. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis told the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, before invoking “the Nazi slogan for destroying us . . . ‘Divide and Conquer.’ “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort,” Mattis went on. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Giuliani was never paid for his work beyond some expenses, at Trump’s insistence; the former mayor’s associate and radio cohost, Maria Ryan, tried unsuccessfully to set up a large daily fee for Giuliani, who Trump said shouldn’t be paid “a dime” unless there was success, and later sought a consulting fee for herself, as well as for Trump to grant the Presidential Medal of Freedom and, most significantly, a “general pardon” to Giuliani.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“News consumers were equally fascinated and horrified, like watching a car wreck where the victims repeatedly tried to hurt themselves more instead of accepting medical help.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Trump was the only modern president who had never met most of his senior advisers and cabinet appointees before he won the presidency; his three top White House aides—Priebus, Bannon, and Kushner—had never served in government either. He approached the new bureaucracy in much the same way he had a family-run business, demanding that employees sign agreements that would prevent them from ever speaking publicly about the experience. The White House counsel made clear to some staff that the contracts were not enforceable.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“narcissistic drama-seeker who covered a fragile ego with a bullying impulse and, this time, took American democracy to the brink.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Even as Trump eagerly asked aides to relay information from newspaper headlines, including whether his name was mentioned, he had never shown much interest in books. A cabinet next to his bedside contained a book that Ivana later said she saw him occasionally leafing through: an anthology of Adolf Hitler’s speeches called My New Order. (“It was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew,” Trump claimed when pressed about it by journalist Marie Brenner.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“When the tide sank, all boats were lowered. Trump had proven that the majority of Washington Republicans who had initially opposed him were exactly as craven as he had said they were, as he bent them to his will because they saw personal opportunity or necessity for survival, even after the Capitol riot.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“realized then and there that if you let people treat you how they want, you’ll be made a fool,” Trump told Blum. “I realized then and there something I would never forget: I don’t want to be made anybody’s sucker.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“As the pandemic wore on, Trump consistently lagged Biden, only briefly rising above 45 percent in poll averages during the early pandemic weeks before he began participating in daily Coronavirus Task Force briefings. (At no point during Trump’s presidency did a majority of Americans approve of the job he was doing,”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Trump loyalists quickly began trying to tear down Hutchinson’s credibility. Yet even as some contradicted specific elements in her testimony, she had painted a familiar portrait of Trump, one that dozens of people who worked for his company, political campaigns, and government tried masking over four decades: a narcissistic drama-seeker who covered a fragile ego with a bullying impulse and, this time, took American democracy to the brink.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Over time, Trump wanted the wall to be painted black so that the skin of immigrants trying to scale it would burn when they touched it, with spikes on top, and a moat dug along it. He asked whether border agents could shoot migrants attempting to cross. Some agents, responding to Trump’s demand for “extreme action,” suggested using a machine capable of emitting heat, or loud noises that would damage migrants’ ears. Nielsen resisted these proposals, some of which violated the law.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“[White House Chief of Staff and Four-Star General John] Kelly shared with [Mick} Mulvaney {who was appointed when Kelly resigned] his view that Trump was the most flawed person he had ever met.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Noem had come to exemplify something central to the Trump presidency: the idea that governing was, above all, a spectacle—a show of strength staged for an audience of one.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“Trump is to business what professional wrestling is to sports: part of it, certainly, but also a cartoonish parody of it.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“All present a chance for him to vent or test reactions or gauge how his statements are playing or discover how he is feeling. He works things out in real time in front of all of us. Along the way, he reoriented an entire country to react to his moods and emotions. I spent the four years of his presidency getting asked by people to decipher why he was doing what he was doing, but the truth is, ultimately, almost no one really knows him. Some know him better than others, but he is often simply, purely opaque, permitting people to read meaning and depth into every action, no matter how empty they may be. Donald Trump was born in Queens in 1946, the second youngest of Fred and Mary Trump’s five children.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“(During the same period, Trump also sent four-figure donations to California attorney general Kamala Harris, a Democrat. Her office ultimately took no action against Trump University even as it went after other for-profit educational entities.)”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Laura Loomer, not long from her victory in thinning out the National Security Council, called the President’s decision “a stain,” and supported her point with a cartoon of the 747 modeled on the Trojan horse, only this time filled with armed jihadis.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“He is incredibly suggestable, skimming ideas and thoughts and statements from other people and repackaging them as his own; campaign aides once called him a “sophisticated parrot.” He has shown a willingness both to believe anything is true, and to say anything is true. He has a few core ideological impulses, but is often willing to suppress them when it’s useful for another purpose. He makes vague statements that allow people to project what they want onto his words, so two sides of the same issue could claim his support. More often than not, Trump is reacting to something instead of having an active plan, but because he so disorients people, they believe there must be a grander strategy or secret scheme at play. Whatever he’s up to is often part of what he sees as a game, whose rules and objectives make sense only to him.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“few people took Trump’s ambition to run for president as seriously as he took himself. When I later asked a longtime acquaintance why Trump had finally decided to run after so many prior feints, the person responded without hesitation, “He’s gotten crazier.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Kelly declined for years after he left to be openly critical of the commander in chief except for occasional remarks amid extreme circumstances. But several people who spoke with him said he described Trump as a “fascist,” uninterested in history or geography, and uniquely unfit for the job of leading a constitutional democracy.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Trump had always endeavored to author his own reality and then force others around him to submit to his version of events. Trump lied, of course, endlessly and preposterously; but what started as fantasies often blurred and morphed into a reality of his making. With jarring frequency, and the help of his devotees, Trump spoke his worlds into existence.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“The last day of March was the first at work for Mark Meadows as Trump’s fourth chief of staff, tied for the most a president had had in a single term. Meadows, as a leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, had been one of Trump’s most committed champions on Capitol Hill. As chief of staff, Meadows was intent on pleasing Trump in a way none of his predecessors had been, hoping to establish himself not only as the White House’s internal manager but Trump’s most important adviser. Meadows became the latest chief to try to show Trump he could root out press leaks just as Trump wanted, going at it with distinct vigor.”
― Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

“Carlson had previously criticized Trump for refusing to knock Netanyahu over the Gaza carnage; now he would make clear to the President that a broader war would be his ruin. “They want you to go to war with Iran,” Carlson said. “We’re not doing that,” Trump answered. “Good”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“During job interviews at the transition headquarters in West Palm Beach, several candidates for senior positions were asked what they thought of the events of January 6 and who had won the 2020 election. In fact, officials on the Trump transition team had already searched candidates’ social media accounts for any criticisms of Trump after the riot at the Capitol. Former aides who testified in the congressional investigation into January 6 would be divided between those who had shown loyalty to Trump and those who hadn’t.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“And the system”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“These included an order to end birthright citizenship that had been dismissed by Trump’s first-term attorneys as blatantly unconstitutional.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“Mark Twain had coined the term “Gilded Age” satirically; for this was also an era of rapid industrialization, vast wealth for the few, widespread poverty for the masses, and rampant political corruption; all concealed beneath the thinnest veneer of gold.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“On the morning of June 12, the day the Israeli assault began, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Susie Wiles gathered in the vice president’s office for a Catholic Mass with Communion. Vance’s priest conducted the service. “To pray for the people,” Wiles would later tell others.”
― Maggie Haberman, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump