Maggie Haberman Says Trump Itching For Attention During Biden Debate Crisis Cycle: ‘Wants The Narrative Back On Him’
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman said ex-President Donald Trump is itching to get back into the news cycle after weeks of coverage centered on President Joe Biden and his debate performance.
Calls for President Biden to drop out have escalated from a media frenzy over anonymous chatter to a media frenzy over elected Democrats stepping out publicly after CNN’s Biden-Trump debate.
The president has vowed to stay in the race and attempted to reassure critics with a series of interviews and a stepped-up campaign schedule, and on Monday released a letter to Congress defying calls to step down and a surprise call-in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Through it all, Trump has been relatively quiet — until he gave his first post-debate TV interview to Hannity Monday night, a pre-taped phoner.
On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, anchor Kaitlan Collins noted Trump “held his fire” during the interview, and asked Haberman for her insight.
Haberman told Collins that Trump “doesn’t like being out of the news cycle” and “just wants the narrative to be back on him”:
COLLINS: Moments ago, former President Donald Trump, as we were just talking about how he’s been pretty quiet, in recent days, called into Fox News, and was asked questions about President Biden’s debate performance and for his thoughts on it.
Donald Trump though seemed to be holding his fire to a degree, not giving any kind of full-throated blistering takedown when he was given this ample opportunity. And instead, knocking Biden for what he claimed was his pale appearance and weak voice.
Here’s what Donald Trump said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP: You know, I was thinking about what I was saying. I wasn’t looking over at him almost at all. Except when he went a little bit haywire, I didn’t look at him at all.
And I’m very disappointed in him. He’s the worst president in the history of our country. We’ve never had anything like it, what he’s done to our borders, what he’s done to our country, inflation, the people that he’s hurting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Joining me tonight.
Trump’s former White House Communications Director, Alyssa Farah Griffin. And also, New York Times Senior Political Correspondent, Maggie Haberman.
Maggie, just to — just start with you. When you hear Trump, tonight and how he has been uncharacteristically and relatively quiet over this, I wonder what you make of his response there.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Well, I think he doesn’t like being out of the news cycle.
And I think that it’s seeming safer to Trump and his world that Biden is digging in, and is — even if not more likely, than not to say that he’s not going — that to not go anywhere. He’s clearly saying that he’s not going to step aside, and let somebody else be the nominee, or endorse someone else being the nominee. So, I think that that makes him emboldened.
I will say, Kaitlan, he hasn’t been that quiet. If you look at Truth Social, and you look at his feed, which doesn’t get a whole lot of coverage, he has been quite, quite, quite active there, saying all kinds of things, including posting an old video clip, of him telling Hillary Clinton, during their debate that she would be in jail if he was running the country.
I think that he just wants the narrative to be back on him. And I think that he’s feeling better about the idea that the race is going to be him versus Biden.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
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