Maggie Haberman Sounds The Alarm — Tells CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Trump Could Win and Enact ‘Radical Agenda’
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman sounded the alarm about a potential Trump win, telling CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins he’d try to enact his “pretty radical agenda.”
On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Haberman went over the recent doings at Trump’s fraud trial, but then Collins pivoted to Haberman’s latest reporting — a deep dive entitled “If Trump Wins, His Allies Want Lawyers Who Will Bless a More Radical Agenda.”
Haberman brought up the fact that as the very likely GOP nominee, Trump could very well win a second term and enact that agenda:
COLLINS: And your latest reporting, all of this is fits into this bigger picture, of — and I should note, Donald Trump is also going to be on the stand — this bigger picture of a second Trump term, and what that’s going to look like. And I do think that’s not something that’s talked about enough.
HABERMAN: I agree.
COLLINS: Because, right now, it’s so clear that Trump is going to be the nominee. We don’t know for sure. Of course, anything could happen. But right now, if it was tomorrow, he would be.
And the idea of him potentially having another term, he would kind of just be unrestrained. What’s your reporting on what that would look like?
HABERMAN: Yes. I mean, so look, you are correct, that elections aren’t over until they’re over. But, at the moment, he has an overwhelming lead, in the national polling. And even in Iowa, he is well ahead. And in all the early States, he’s well ahead.
And so, there’s reason to look at what a second administration would look like. My colleagues, Jonathan Swan, and Charlie Savage, and I have been trying to do just that.
And we focus, this week, on a piece about efforts, by two key Trump allies, Stephen Miller and Johnny McEntee. Stephen Miller, his policy adviser, I think, probably very known to this audience; Johnny McEntee, less so. He took over to the personnel office, in 2020, with a mandate to purge the government of people, who were seen as opposed to Trump, or trying to stop his agenda.
They are trying to find lawyers, who could staff a second Trump administration, lawyers who would fill agencies, not just White House Counsel. Lawyers who would find ways to get him to, “Yes,” on the kinds of policies that he wants to enact. And he has actually laid out several of them, on his campaign website, in some detail. It’s a pretty radical agenda.
COLLINS: And it would be so notable, because lawyers defined the first four years of Trump, to a degree.
HABERMAN: Correct.
COLLINS: Because they were kind of the seat belts, if you want to put it that way.
HABERMAN: The guardrails phrase gets used a lot. Look, lawyers, very conservative lawyers, many of them.
COLLINS: Incredibly conservative.
HABERMAN: Correct, were telling — were saying “No,” on things that Trump wanted to push through, particularly on matters related to immigration. I mean, that’s always going to be a big driver with Trump.
And so, you are now seeing a push, to try to get lawyers, who will not raise those kinds of objections, who will try to find ways that he can accomplish what he wants. And we’ll see what that looks like, if he becomes President, again.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
