‘Trump Fumes Once Again’: Maggie Haberman Told-You-So’s Trump After His Repeated Denials He Is Pissed About Midterms

L: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman bolstered her own reporting on former President Donald Trump’s frequent fits of rage after a series of denials from Trump that he’s angry about the midterms.

Haberman, a well-known conduit for Trumpworld reporting and Trump-Whisperer analysis, has dropped scoop after scoop since the bombshell search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home and her controversial but much-buzzed-about book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America has clearly gotten under Trump’s skin.

So has her reporting about Trump’s rage at his declining political fortunes. Haberman’s report that Trump is even blaming former First Lady Melania Trump sparked a super-convincing rebuttal in which Trump interrupted his many meltdowns to say:

“There is a Fake Story being promulgated by third rate reporter Maggie Hagaman of the Failing New York Times, that I am blaming our great former First Lady, Melania, and Sean Hannity, that I was angry with their pushing me to Endorse Dr. Oz. First of all Oz is a wonderful guy who really worked hard and was a very good candidate, but he WAS LONG IN THE RACE before I ever Endorsed him, they had NOTHING to do with it, he was not a “denier” (his mistake!), & I was not at all ANGRY. Fake News!”

On Saturday, Haberman — who stands by her earlier reporting — made a point of singling out yet another story depicting a fit of Trump political rage, tweeting “Trump fumes once again in the lede of this piece on how Democrats has a far better night than most expected and Republicans are left with concentric circles of infighting,” with a QT of Shane Goldmacher’s deep dive on the unexpectedly close midterms.

The anecdote in question — from just before the midterms — was a familiar-sounding one to anyone acquainted with this genre of Trump reporting:

Someone had sent the former president clips of that evening’s debate in the Nevada governor’s race. The Trump-endorsed Republican nominee, Joe Lombardo, the sheriff of Clark County, had declined to call Mr. Trump a “great” president and had backed off Mr. Trump’s stolen-election lie.

Mr. Trump fumed about withdrawing his endorsement, threatening to throw into chaos one of the nation’s most consequential swing states, a place with three competitive House races and a tossup Senate seat. Ms. McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, pleaded with the former president. She asked him for one hour to fix the situation, according to people familiar with the call.

Mr. Lombardo soon issued a statement calling Mr. Trump a “great president.” The crisis was averted. The next week, when Mr. Trump held a Nevada rally, Mr. Lombardo joined the chorus singing his praises onstage.

The subtext of Haberman’s tweet was clear: who are you gonna believe?

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