Maggie Haberman Calls BS On Trump Claim He Didn’t Know About Death Chatter

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman called BS on President Donald Trump for claiming he hadn’t seen chatter speculating that he was secretly dead or about to die.

Over the weekend, Trump’s empty schedule, combined with heightened attention after Trump was repeatedly photographed with serious bruising on his hand and swollen ankles — and perhaps a dash of wishful thinking from some — caused “Where’s Trump?” and “Trump is Dead” to become viral trending topics.

But when Fox News Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump about the trend, the president claimed “I didn’t see that,” then appeared to reverse then re-reverse himself several times.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, anchor Kaitlan Collins asked Haberman what she thought of Trump’s odd denial:

KAITLAN COLLINS: Maggie, when you heard the President say today that he wasn’t aware of these conspiracies. I mean, he did write, in all-caps, on Sunday, that he had NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE, as he posted on Truth Social. Obviously, he kind of seemed to know something was up.

And I wonder what your reporting says about his assertions that he didn’t know about all this rampant speculation, over the weekend.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: Well, Kaitlan, it was interesting. I think he said three different things in that answer. He said he didn’t know. Then he said he did know. Then he said he was informed. And he clearly was aware of it. As you said, he did that Truth Social post.

I have to say that the rumors about his health took off online in a way that we haven’t seen. A theory, we — you could call it a conspiracy theory, take off online in some time.

Look, President Trump has never been transparent about his health. He was much sicker with COVID than the White House said in 2020. He took this mysterious Walter Reed visit in 2019. That was later said to be a colonoscopy. But he doesn’t like talking about his health. And so, in some ways, he invites this. And if you’re going to be absent for six days after talking especially about President Biden’s long absences from the public, you’re going to get these questions.

That said, there was a lot of demands that the mainstream media should prove that he’s in some kind of ill health. And that is, you know, that’s a rabbit hole to go down. We can only report on what we’re able to report on.

COLLINS: Right. And there have been moments, to your point, about how this was handled when he was in office, the last time, about his health.

HABERMAN: Yes.

COLLINS: Obviously, in the most — one of the most serious moments when he — when he did get COVID-19.

Part of this, why there has been the speculation, one, is just simply his age. Obviously, these questions followed Biden around long before the end of his presidency as well.

But also, with the bruises on his right hand — or his left hand, something that has been there for several weeks now, several months now. We’ve heard from people who say that he is self-conscious about it, that he doesn’t always have it. You can always see his hand when he’s speaking publicly. Which does speak to the point that he–

HABERMAN: Yes.

COLLINS: –the levels that he wants to go to when he is, pointing back to how the last administration handled questions about President Biden’s health.

HABERMAN: Yes, look, I mean, as you said correctly, he has had this bruise for many, many, many months. We have seen a number of pictures of it. Sometimes he has makeup covering it. Sometimes — last week, I was actually surprised to see it was just there.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.