CNN’s John Berman Asks Maggie Haberman ‘What Does Trump Hope To Gain’ From Meetings On Capitol Hill

CNN anchor John Berman asked New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman what ex-President Donald Trump “hopes to gain” by meeting congressional Republicans — including from a “less pliable” Senate.

Trump is scheduled to meet with congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday, many of whom he has not seen since the January 6 attack, and for the first time since becoming a convicted felon.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Berman wondered what Trump thinks he can get out of the meeting, and Haberman  offered her unique insights:

BERMAN: The former president is also expected to meet with House Republicans tomorrow and separately members of a business roundtable. With us now, New York Times senior political correspondent, Maggie Haberman, also former Colorado Republican Congressman Ken Buck.

Maggie, first to you. What is on the agenda for this meeting, particularly the Senate meeting? What does Donald Trump and the Trump campaign hope to gain from it?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They’ve been pretty vague about the specifics of what they’re hoping to talk about. It’s been left sort of in broad strokes about policy, the border, Medicare, Social Security and I expect we will hear a lot about that.

[20:20:05]

But I think this is mostly, as one lawmaker put it to me, about Trump trying to garner enthusiasm. The senators in particular, as you know, this is the first time he’s going to be in a room with Mitch McConnell since 2020 and the Senate Republicans, unlike House Republicans, have been a group that have been not more resistant to him, but certainly less pliant in terms of his demands.

However, what we have seen in the days since his conviction in Manhattan is a pretty broad array of Republicans, including senators, rallying around him and saying that this conviction is improper or that Democrats should be investigated or prosecutors should be prosecuted. And I think this might be a different tone of meeting than we’ve seen him have with senators before.

BERMAN: You know, Congressman, in 2017, when Trump took office the first time, there were some Republican members of Congress who went their own way or pushed back on some controversial statements or some policies that he had at the time. Are there any of them really left? Do non-Trump Republicans have any power in Congress anymore?

KEN BUCK, (R-CO) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: One, I think this is going to be a great opportunity for President Trump to be surrounded by Republicans after felony convictions and show that he is still the leader of the party and still generates enthusiasm. I think that there are some Republicans who are running in Biden districts, districts that President Biden won in 2020, that will be concerned about being too close to President Trump. And I think President Trump understands that they have to win their races.

So while they won’t push back verbally, they won’t push back publicly, they will certainly have some distance before their election in November.

BERMAN: So Maggie, as we said, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski won’t be there. I guess not for them specifically, but maybe others who haven’t been fully in the Trump camp, what outreach has there been from Trump or the Trump campaign, do they do the outreach thing?

HABERMAN: They do actually do the outreach thing. They have people who work in Trump’s world or close to Trump’s world who do a lot of Congressional relations. You know, Brian Jack, before he ran for Congress himself, did a lot of that work. There are others who have taken over the political work. There are people who work for Trump directly who have their own relationships.

They do, do outreach. But again, it’s not always the kind of traditional political outreach we have experienced before in the past or seen in the past. In some cases, it is.

I mean, one thing I will say about Trump is he has been working the phones a lot himself. I mean, there are Republicans who have been shown over and over as these primaries took place that Trump is dominating and he’s not going away and he is the presumptive nominee now. And yes, there are some people who have races that are – it is more sensitive to be close to Trump and they need some distance from him. But they recognize that he is potentially going to win.

The polling at the moment is showing him slightly ahead in a number of polls, not all of them, but in a number of them. And so they’re cognizant of the fact that, that he is faring well and the message is clear to him that they may not want to be so at odds with the leader of their party.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.

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