Maggie Haberman Roasts Trump Bragging About His Win At Joint Speech: ‘Nothing Historic About It’
New York Times White House correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman roasted President Donald Trump as she analyzed his address, torpedoing his claim of an overwhelming popular vote victory by noting “There was nothing historic about it other than that it happened.”
Trump delivered a 99-minute address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night — essentially a State of the Union address by a different name — that was chock full of memorable and newsworthy moments.
On Wednesday’s edition of NYT‘s The Daily podcast, Haberman joined Barbaro to discuss the speech, and the two began with a nearly blow-by-blow analysis of the address that included an early challenge of Trump’s claim of overwhelming victory:
MAGGIE HABERMAN: So, Michael, about 15 minutes after 9 p.m., the announcement goes out that the president, the United States, is going to be walking it already. This is a different setting than we are used to for this kind of a speech, because normally there is an escort committee. It’s a bipartisan escort committee. Right. And Democrats help walk in the Republican president. Republican members help walk in a Democratic president. This year, Democrats decided not to be part of that committee. So right away this was a new moment.
MICHAEL BARBARO: And newly partisan and newly partisan.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: And there were other signs of democratic protest. He’s being applauded by Republicans who are, you know, trying to touch him as he’s walking down the aisle. Most Democrats are refusing to stand, if any did. I didn’t see any who did.
MICHAEL BARBARO: Right. And usually both parties stand just out of respect for the office.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: For the most part, yes. And it foretold a very, very intensely partisan night that was about to come.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. It’s a great honor. Thank you very much. Speaker Johnson.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Trump reaches the lectern and then he starts to speak.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Members of the United States Congress, thank you very much. And to my fellow citizens. America is back.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: And there’s huge cheers from Republicans. And Trump relives his election victory.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The presidential election of November 5th was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades. We won all seven swing states, giving us an electoral College victory of 312 votes.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: He claims, falsely, that his popular vote win was by a large margin. It was not. There was nothing historic about it other than that it happened.
MICHAEL BARBARO: But he seemed to be doing that deliberately, as he has in the past, to suggest in this room before the entire country, in this live televised address, that he has a mandate.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Yes. And he does have a mandate. He just doesn’t have the mandate that he keeps saying he does.
Watch above via NYT‘s The Daily podcast and watch the full analysis here.
