Maggie Haberman Says Trump Doesn’t Think About ‘What Comes Next’ — Wild Comments Are ‘About Flexing Muscle’

CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told anchor Kaitlan Collins that President Donald Trump’s wild comments aren’t made with a lot of “long-term thought” — they’re “about flexing muscle.”

Trump and his top officials have been stirring controversy with their chatter about the war in Ukraine. Trump flew into a rage at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday and referred to him as “a dictator” after Zelensky made public comments about “misinformation” that Trump has been spreading.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Haberman — considered by many to be the “Trump Whisperer” by virtue of insights she’s gained over years of experience and reporting — took Collins inside the decision-making process behind Trump’s frequently provocative public statements:

COLLINS: You wrote an entire book on just Trump’s upbringing, and making of him as a young man and then a young businessman, and what that looks like, and how it manifests itself in his presidency and his politics.

I mean, how much of this is just getting to having a deal, and getting a deal done on his term, on his watch, I guess.

HABERMAN: I mean, that’s — that is a lot of it. But he does have some leverage points over Putin. And he has — in fact, you asked him that question, I believe. You asked Karoline Leavitt that question, last week, in the briefing room. He has given away certain pieces of that leverage with these comments.

So yes, I do think he wants a deal. Yes, I think that he wants it to go quick. Yes, I think that he truly believes that the U.S. should be repaid for some of its aid, and that’s what this deal — that resources deal that he’s pushing with Ukraine is about. And I think you might see him try that with other nations. But what you give up in the process is the question and the message it sends.

And this is, look, the approach he’s taking, to your point, about his history and his background and how he sees things, is actually how he treats everything, essentially. I mean, it’s you could — you could close your eyes, and he could be talking about how he wants certain senators to support his nominees, or–

COLLINS: Or tariffs.

HABERMAN: Or tariffs. Or judges who he doesn’t like.

COLLINS: Yes.

HABERMAN: But it’s very different when it’s domestic politics versus what we’re talking about between Russia and Ukraine. However, that does not make the American people care more about it. And this has just not been a top-of-mind issue so far.

COLLINS: And I wonder what that looks like, in terms of what is the guiding factor for him here. We know what his instincts are.

HABERMAN: Right.

COLLINS: And he has made clear what he wants to do. I mean, ever since we did the town hall with him, he said he just wanted to stop the killing in this. And he wouldn’t say who he wanted to win, Ukraine or Russia. Which, when I talked to Zelenskyy, he didn’t think that was a good sign.

But in terms of, is there anyone in the administration who was saying, Well, actually, here’s the guardrail of that, or here’s the concern, if this is the path we go down.

HABERMAN: I think there are people who raise certain concerns about some of what he is saying.

But he is very much heeding his own counsel, on a lot of matters, these days. He often — you know, there’s a lot of discussion about strategy around Donald Trump. And he absolutely has, what David Axelrod often calls, some kind of a feral impulse for certain things, including weakness, in other people.

There’s often not sort of a long-term thought on the throughline of what comes next, If I do X, then Y will happen. And right now, this just seems to be about flexing muscle.

COLLINS: Yes. And it was remarkable to see Mike Pence today, pushing back on this, saying he disagreed.

HABERMAN: Yes. And he was, I think, the most vocal, sharpest voice about it, and a pretty lonely voice once again.

And so, you will see that. I think you will see certain people who are going to push back on him. But at the moment, it looks like it is going to remain the way it did toward the end of 2020, when he was president, or, you know, for parts of 2020 and there were these sole voices. He has driven all of his critics, for the most part, out of the party.

YCOLLINS: Yes, which is the point for him.

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