Maggie Haberman Reveals Trump's 'Very Clear' Desire Amid Signal Scandal
Haberman, citing sources familiar with Trump, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that the president would see such terminations 'as giving in to the media.'
'People around him see that as weak and I think you will hear that for a while,' said Haberman, a CNN political analyst.
'Whether this is sustainable for them is another story.'
Haberman's comments arrive on the same day that U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg — who recently saw the president call for his impeachment following an order to block Trump officials from carrying out deportation flights — ordered the Trump administration to preserve records of the Signal chat.
Collins said the judge's recent order is 'keeping this story very much on the front page' to the White House's displeasure. Trump officials' reactions have kept the story going, too, she said.
Haberman pointed to Trump pushing 'a number of other issues' as he looks to distract from the story with his increased tariffs, executive orders targeting law firms as well as executive orders aimed at restoring names on monuments and cultural institutions impacted by the racial reckoning movement.
'This is not going away,' she said of the Signal scandal.
Haberman noted that there's been a 'slow drip, drip of questions' primarily focused on national security adviser Mike Waltz — who invited The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat and acknowledged creating it — along with other Trump officials tied to the texts on national security matters.
Later in the interview, she argued that the story exposes the limits of Trump's political playbook, one where the 'laws of political gravity' don't apply to him.
'That is not true for everybody around him and a lot of them still continue to act as if that playbook works for them because that is what he wants them to do,' Haberman said.
'It doesn't really work for them the same way.'
H/T: Mediaite
CNN Data Chief Spots 1 'Big Reason' For Trump's Approval Rating Drop
Trump Adviser Face-Plants With Head-Scratching Answer To Signal Question
Trump Signs Order To Restore Racist Monuments, Remove 'Anti-America' Ideology
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
26 minutes ago
- Axios
Opposition mounts as Colorado lawmakers hunt for cash
Colorado lawmakers are eyeing new revenue streams to close a looming $1 billion budget gap. Why it matters: The controversial move to raise taxes, opposed by conservatives, could force Colorado residents to open their wallets. State of play: Ahead of the late-August special session, state lawmakers are considering legislation to decouple from federal tax law and refuse the tax cuts in President Trump's "big, beautiful bill." As Axios Denver first reported, state lawmakers started this effort earlier this year when they approved a little-noticed provision to require residents to pay state income taxes on overtime, even though Trump's bill made it exempt. It amounts to $180 million to $290 million in additional revenue for 2026. The latest: Now, lawmakers are looking at requiring state income taxes on tips, which are exempt at the federal level, as well as other penny-pinching options. Yes, but: Conservatives are looking to block the moves. In July, conservative group Advance Colorado filed a lawsuit against the state-level tax on overtime, saying it violates the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights because it amounts to a tax hike without voter approval. The same organization is pursuing a 2026 ballot measure to repeal the Colorado law that put the tax on overtime. What they're saying:"Hardworking families in Colorado shouldn't be burdened with an excessive tax simply because politicians can't balance their budget and are looking for additional sources of revenue," said Advance Colorado president Michael Fields in a statement.
The Hill
26 minutes ago
- The Hill
Nebraska Republican: Trump's Nvidia and AMD China agreement ‘not a good deal'
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Monday evening that President Trump's unusual agreement with major chipmakers Nvidia and AMD to share some of their revenue from chip sales in China is 'not a good deal.' 'We've got to realize we're in an intellectual war, a technology war with China, and we're in an AI [artificial intelligence] competition,' Bacon said during an appearance on NewsNation's 'The Hill' with host Chris Stirewalt. 'Having NVIDIA providing this technology to China is a mistake.' 'I was weary of doing the Chips Act, because that was a $270 billion giveaway to one industry, and now we're seeing some of this stuff's going to China,' the lawmaker, who is not running for reelection and has often criticized Trump and some of his Cabinet members, continued. 'Chris, I oppose it. Taiwan's our friend.' He added, 'We have to help protect them, because they're where most of this high technology is at. I'd like to encourage you coming here, but China getting our chips is not a good deal.' Both Nvidia and AMD reached a deal with the Trump administration to share 15 percent of their revenue generated from sales of advanced AI chips to Beijing to secure their export licenses. AMD will share 15 percent of its revenue from MI308 chip sales, while Nvidia will share the same portion from selling H20 chips in China. The agreement came after Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang met with the president at the White House last week, according to multiple news outlets. The agreement has raised constitutional questions among experts. 'It's bizarre in many respects and pretty troubling because Congress didn't have anything to say about this,' said Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 'It's just the president's own negotiating with the individual companies,' he continued. 'That's not how historically we've done business in this country.' The analysis also comes as Trump signed an executive
The Hill
26 minutes ago
- The Hill
Is there any reason to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell except to buy her silence?
It's all about the art of the deal — the quid pro quo. Jeffrey Epstein was perhaps the most conspicuous pimp since the Marquis de Sade, and he did so on a grand scale. His associates included bankers, princes, CEOs, governors and past and future presidents. One of Epstein's friends was President Trump. Their relationship lasted 15 years. We don't know how their friendship got started, and we don't know the exact details of why it persisted or ended. We do know that it has become an albatross for Trump in his second term. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump — assuming that the Epstein files contained a list of prominent Democrats who were clients — promised his MAGA base that, if elected, the government files would be released. Now, the Wall Street Journal has suggested Trump's own name could be in the files, which are closely guarded by his captive Justice Department. So, what to do? The first line of defense is deception. Pretend you are making full disclosure when you are not. Vice President JD Vance proclaimed Trump's commitment to full disclosure. 'First of all, the president has been very clear,' Vance said. 'We're not shielding anything. The president has directed the attorney general to release all credible information and, frankly, to go and find additional credible information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.' What Vance failed to say is that Trump did not order his attorney general to disclose the files that would be the 'most credible information' to be examined in all their stark significance. Trump prevaricated and ordered her only to unseal the grand jury minutes underlying the prosecutions of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, indicted in the Southern District in 2020, tried and convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2022. Any prosecutor will tell you that grand jury minutes are largely uninformative. They will not normally include the thousands of pages of video and audio tapes, witness statements and other documentary evidence residing in the Justice Department's files. Also, grand jury minutes are by law secret and may only be unsealed by order of the court, where there are very narrow grounds. Justice Department lawyers went through the motions of a kamikaze mission to have the court unseal the minutes, and two federal courts have now denied the motion, as expected. This ploy would hardly satisfy elements of Trump's MAGA base, which by now was screaming for full disclosure of the files that might tell the full story of his relationship with Epstein. The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee got into the act, subpoenaing Maxwell to testify. She presumably was in the room where it happened and could answer the key questions about the Trump-Epstein relation. As might be expected, Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment rights unless she was granted full immunity. A spokesperson for the committee replied that it 'will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony.' What a charade! If there ever was a 'don't throw me in the briar patch' scenario, this was it. That might have ended the matter. But what if Trump needed to be sure of Maxwell's silence? A peek at what Maxwell might say would help. So would a deal about what Maxwell wouldn't say. There was talk of clemency and a full pardon. Trump said, 'Well, I'm allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody's approached me with it. Nobody's asked me about it.' He had to do his due diligence first. Trump considers himself the master of the art of the deal — the quid pro quo. This has been his core philosophy from the old days in Queens, Manhattan, Atlantic City and Roy Cohn. He has made other deals for women's silence, lest we forget Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. Trump's freezing of urgently needed military aid to Ukraine in a bid to extract political dirt on the Bidens during his first term was a classic. This quid pro quo led to his 2020 impeachment — a reference to which, as it just happens, was removed last month from an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. (A modified reference has now been restored.) His appointment of three justices to the Supreme Court who would vote his way whenever the issue was presented might be another. And his dismissal of the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams was widely decried as a quid pro quo for Adams's kowtowing to Trump's draconian immigration crackdown. So, has the time come for a quid pro quo with Maxwell? Her current lawyer is David Oscar Markus, a Florida-based criminal defense attorney who is a friend of Todd Blanche, Trump's former criminal defense lawyer and now the deputy attorney general. An ethicist might say there is nothing wrong with this, but one might fairly wonder why Attorney General Pam Bondi chose Blanche to coordinate with Markus about an extraordinary meeting with his imprisoned client. The two-day recorded meeting occurred and, according to Markus, Blanche asked Maxwell about '100 different people.' Maxwell reportedly 'answered every single question' truthfully and to the best of her ability. It is interesting that Maxwell was willing to talk to Blanche but unwilling to talk to Congress. One week later, without explanation and to the consternation of the victims' families, Maxwell was transferred from a low security prison in Tallahassee to a minimum-security prison in Bryan, Texas. Sex offenders, the New York Times reports, are rarely sent to minimum-security prisons, which house inmates with the lowest level of security risk. You may ask whether Trump approved the transfer. You can bet on it. This Justice Department doesn't make a move without Trump's thumb on the scale. Is favored treatment the part of a deal to ensure silence about Trump? Is it the prelude to a pardon for Maxwell? After all, with Trump, it's all about the quid pro quo.
