Maggie Haberman Told Jake Tapper She Was ‘Shaken’ After Trump’s Bonkers Oval Office Meeting Weeks Before Insurrection
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman told CNN anchor Jake Tapper she was “shaken” after former President Donald Trump’s bonkers December 2020 Oval Office meeting and knew then that there would be an “issue” with the peaceful transfer of power.
Haberman reported on and tweeted about the “raucous” meeting where Trump floated and considered multiple insane ideas in a bombshell scoop just weeks before the insurrection.
During an airing of the CNN special report AMERICAN COUP: The January 6th Investigation Saturday night, marking the anniversary of the insurrection, Tapper revealed that Haberman spoke to him after news of the meeting broke.
Haberman confirmed she was “shaken” by the meeting and knew then that the transition would become an issue, calling the meeting a “real neon warning sign”:
TAPPER (voice-over): The meeting very nearly devolved into a physical fight.
HERSCHMANN: Flynn screamed at me that I was a quitter and kept on standing up and turning around and screaming at me. And then at certain point I had it with him. So I yelled back, either come over or set your effing ass back down.
RUDY GUILIANI, FORMER TRUMP PERSONAL ATTORNEY: I’m going to categorically describe it as you guys are not tough enough. Or maybe put it another way, you’re a bunch of pussies. Excuse the expression but that’s — I’m almost certain the word was used.
POWELL: I mean, if it had been me sitting in his chair, I would have fired all of them that night and had them escorted out of the building.
TAPPER (voice-over): The January 6th Committee discovered text messages sent during and following the meeting by Cassidy Hutchinson, the assistant to Mark Meadows, who testified live before the committee hearing in June, describing the meeting as unhinged.
She also snapped this photograph of Mark Meadows escorting Rudy Giuliani from the White House to make sure he did not get back into the mansion.
(on camera): You tweeted, quote, somehow the committee testimony featured live ‘underplayed’ how crazy that December 18 meeting was. How was it underplayed?
HABERMAN: Because Donald Trump faded into the background as this was all being described. One of the ways in which Donald Trump has escaped a lot of accountability over time is he gets people fighting with each other. And that’s what people focus on.
He considered extreme, really unprecedented actions. Now he didn’t take them but he was unwilling to foreclose options until the last possible second, no matter how extreme and potentially dangerous they were.
TAPPER: I remember talking to you after that meeting. And you were shaken.
HABERMAN: I was. And it was — frankly, it took a little bit to process exactly what had happened but I remember getting a text from a senior Republican Senate advisor, asking me if there was going to be an issue in terms of a peaceful transfer of power after this. And I said, yes, there is a legitimate issue here. And I think that was a real neon warning sign.
The special originally aired in September of 2022.
Watch above via CNN.
