Maggie Haberman Says Trump Will ‘Ramp Up’ After 100 Days — ‘Go After Additional Targets’ for Retribution

CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told Anderson Cooper that after a lull around the 100-day mark, President Donald Trump will “ramp up” his quest for “retribution.”

Trump’s 100th day in office — a political benchmark that dates back to FDR — arrived Tuesday amid a raft of polls showing historic unpopularity and a PR offensive from the White House that included early morning briefings, MAGA media rap sessions, a Trump rally in Michigan, and a series of contentious Trump interviews.

Haberman was a guest on Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, during which she delivered her well-sourced insights into Trump’s second first hundred days.

After noting the breakneck pace slowed somewhat in recent weeks, Haberman said it will “ramp up” — and that “you’re going to see him go after additional targets for retribution”:

COOPER: Well, what do you think — I mean, the biggest difference between this hundred days and his first administration hundred days? Obviously, I mean, the speed of which and the executive orders, you know, it’s a big difference?

HABERMAN: There’s a couple of things that are different. One is certainly the number of executive orders signed. They had a plan coming in for certain things. I would clearly trade has not been some well thought out plan, but on immigration it absolutely was. And a number of the executive orders he’s taken, and executive actions he’s done, it absolutely was.

He also — and they’ve done very little through Congress. He did much more through Congress in the first term. He’s not under investigation right now. That is the main difference. He came into office knowing that there was this investigation related to Russia and his campaign, and he had been briefed about that by the FBI director and others about this dossier that was going around. And that was a cloud over so much of what he did in the first few months and impacted his thinking for the first several months. That is the main difference.

COOPER: Do you think the pace will continue?

HABERMAN: I don’t think — the pace isn’t the same this week as it was last week or a few weeks beforehand. I think it will ramp up again. I do think you will see a number of additional executive actions. I certainly think you’re going to see him go after additional targets for retribution, and we have seen him do that from the Oval Office, in a way, we really just have not seen any President do.

But I think the pace they had for the first certainly 80 days was not sustainable.

COOPER: Yes, Maggie Haberman, thanks so much appreciate it.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.