Maggie Haberman Says ‘Unwise’ To Underestimate Trump — Can ‘Appear To Be Different Things To Different People’
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman said it’s “unwise” to underestimate ex-President Donald Trump’s ability to “shapeshift” and be more disciplined “when his back’s against the wall.”
Trump participated in a Fox News town hall this week, during which he slightly walked back his promise of “retribution” if he wins, saying people like the idea but he won’t “have time” for it. He also moderated his tone — relative to his normal pitch — on issues like abortion and being a “day one dictator.”
On an episode of CNN This Morning this week, co-anchors Phil Mattingly and Poppy Harlow asked if Trump can sustain that kind of shift. Haberman noted that Trump “can actually be much more disciplined” when “his back is against the wall”:
MATTINGLY: My question, and you know this better than anybody, can it be sustained more than anything else? I feel like we’ve had so often, and you have covered every single one of them over the course of the last eight years, these moments where he starts to moderate the tone and we hear that advisers are trying to tell him, please moderate your tone on this. It matters. He does it for like a day or five days and then swings totally back the other way. Is this time different?
HABERMAN: Look, he has a very long history, as you say, of bucking his advisers. Most of his aides do not want him saying poisoning the blood of the country about immigrants, and yet he continues to say it. And he has doubled down on it repeatedly. So he definitely does what he wants, and we have been seeing more of that lately, including in him insisting on showing up in all of these cases this month, which not all of his advisers were onboard with.
That having been said, when his back is against the wall, he can actually be much more disciplined than I think people realize, and he’s certainly disciplined about delivered a repetitive message of victimhood and grievance. But I think the bigger point is, he has a history of favoring retribution. He has a history of seeking payback. And so whether he modulates or not, the history is his own behavior. And I think that’s going to come up often too.
HARLOW: But does his ability now, as you say, to exhibit more discipline, make him a more formidable competitor to President Biden if it is that head-to-head matchup, Maggie?
HABERMAN: I guess I would put it this way. I think that everyone has seen that if you underestimate Trump, it’s probably unwise. It doesn’t mean that he will win. It doesn’t mean that he does not have enormous general election liabilities. But he has been able to shapeshift and appear to be different things to different people in ways that we have rarely seen a political figure on this largest stage do. And so, will it be effective? I don’t know, but it could be.
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
