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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman. We'll talk about her latest reporting on Donald Trump telling his lawyer to tell the National Archives that he had returned all the government documents that he had taken from the White House when he really hadn't. Another potential legal problem for Trump.

We'll talk mostly about Maggie's new book, Confidence Man, about Donald Trump. That turns out to be quite the history book about New York City in the '80s. We will take a trip back to the Ed Koch, Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, George Steinbrenner, Tom Wolfe, Ronald Reagan as president, Rudy Giuliani as US attorney in this city. I look forward, I think, now to a kind of tragi-comic New York history romp with Maggie, who explains how the New York politics of then contributed to the threat to democracy nationally from Trump today.

Maggie did report for The Daily News and New York Post and had a tabloid's eye view of the world before she joined The Times. She brings that experience among many other things to the conversation. Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times and a political analyst for CNN and author of, here's the full title of the book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Always great to have you, Maggie. Congratulations on the book and welcome back to WNYC.

Maggie Haberman: Brian, thanks so much. It is a highlight to be here with you talking about a book that's partly about New York City.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of this book is an explicitly New York history book. Can you tell everybody what New York story you set out to tell, big picture, in the context of your Donald Trump story?

Maggie Haberman: Sure, so there are a couple of threads that come together for the story that I'm telling about the world that Donald Trump came up from, was shaped by, and then exported to Washington, DC, when he became president. It was a morass of dysfunction where corruption touched on various aspects of the media, of politics. Machine-boss politics, as you know, dominated New York in the decades before the 1980s when, ironically, the corruption buster was Rudy Giuliani, at least before he became mayor and then had his own corruption scandals.

There was tremendous racial strife. For as much as New York is described as an avatar of progressivism, there are significant pockets of racism and significant areas where racist attitudes are pervasive. It is in this milieu that Donald Trump found his niche and he took this, I think, much further than anyone would've imagined.

Brian Lehrer: I'll open up the phones to people who remember the '80s in New York or anything else from Maggie Haberman. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Can you talk about your own early journalism experiences in this respect? Some of our listeners know you're the daughter of New York Times correspondent and columnist Clyde Haberman. You grew up in that context, but you worked early on for The Daily News and the New York Post. Was that an education for you in some ways, getting a tabloid's eye view of New York City and New York journalism?

Maggie Haberman: Absolutely. I began at the New York Post as a copy kid, which is a clerk. In August of 1996, I would get to run and do stories as a general assignment reporter. I was made a full-time reporter in 1998. I went down to city hall in 1999 and I had spent four years at The Daily News between '02 and '06 before I went back to the Post.

The way that the tabloids process and interpret New York City-- and they did it differently, The Daily News and the New York Post, right? They were very different working experiences, but the way that they processed the world they were covering informed a lot about what I got to see Donald Trump do in terms of how he would use the media, how he would make himself a commodity in the media.

I think about this a lot, Brian, and you'll remember this. Pete Hamill, when he ran The Daily News in the '90s for that period of time, he really wanted a ban on Trump coverage. Trump news for Trump's sake was not his thing. The New York Post did not do that and did not engage that way and found that Trump continued to sell. I think that was a lesson that Trump learned about himself.

Trump controversies sold. Trump just talking sold. I think that Trump in 2011 when he pseudo-ran for president and I took that pretty seriously when he was looking at it, he tried-- John Avlon, now at CNN, made a comment to me for a story I wrote at Politico at the time that Trump was trying to imprint New York tabloid rules on the national media at the time, and that was true. He didn't succeed, but he did succeed four years later.

Brian Lehrer: Was it in your book that I saw a factoid that Trump was on the cover of The Daily News 12 days in a row in the '80s about his divorce proceedings and his first marriage?

Maggie Haberman: Yes, that is where you saw that. What happened was one of the most epic newspaper feuds on a specific story just on a lane of coverage, but the lane of coverage was a guy's divorce and his affair with this other woman and how it was all playing out. Everything became news. One of the stories that I write about in the book involves a former colleague of mine at the New York Post, Bill Hoffmann, who's now in Newsmax.

Bill Hoffmann was the reporter behind the headline and story, Best Sex I've Ever Had, that I imagine a fair number of your listeners still remember, ostensibly spoken by Marla Maples to a friend about Donald Trump, never actually spoken by Marla Maples to a friend about Donald Trump. I described the story, which Steve Cuozzo, an editor at the Post, wrote about as well years ago. I described the story that I had heard many times about how this happened. It was Bill Hoffmann calling a friend of Marla Maples and asking leading questions and confecting a front page out of it. Donald Trump, most people would experience premium coverage like that and hate it, he loved that front page. He was proud of it.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we'll take some phone calls along the way after we get through a few more interview questions for New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman now, author of the book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. We'll talk about her close reportorial relationship with Donald Trump. She's been covering him through this whole period of his life in politics.

He talks to her more often than he talks to many other reporters, including three times for this book, even though she's a straight-up New York Times reporter and reports his lies, his lies, and things like that. We'll get into some of that, but anything you want to ask Maggie Haberman, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. In the book, you call Reverend Al Sharpton Trump's mirror image in the 1980s. Why single out Sharpton specifically?

Maggie Haberman: Because Sharpton, in particular, Brian, was really adept at keeping himself in the press and was really adept at, and I write about this, just refusing to get thrown out of the ring that he had decided to establish himself in. He and Trump engaged with each other repeatedly over the years. I remember talking to Sharpton in-- I think I spoke to him in 2011 as Trump was spreading the birther lie about President Obama, the first Black president.

I know I spoke to Sharpton a bunch in 2015 and 2016 as Trump was making all kinds of racist statements. I remember asking Sharpton in 2016 for a story. It was either 2015 or 2016 for a story if he thought Trump was a racist. This was a story I wrote with a colleague, Steve Eder. Sharpton said, essentially, he doesn't know and it doesn't matter, which I thought what he was saying was dangerous. I thought it was an interesting comment. They engaged with each other over a very long period of time. I think that Sharpton survived and endured. Sharpton, like Trump, is effective at reinventing himself.

Brian Lehrer: Did they have a relationship that was complex at all or just antagonistic? Sharpton was a civil rights leader, yes, with a, sometimes, questionable credibility and big personality. Trump was like his white counterpart calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five even before they were exonerated, calling for the death penalty even though nobody got killed in that incident. What was their relationship like as these two larger-than-life figures who lived on the fuel that they got from the tabloids? If it's not unfair to say, one was a Black leader and one was a white leader.

Maggie Haberman: They engage with each other. It was not always adversarial. There was some issue where Trump was having a problem with-- I forget the specific nature of the problem. I just don't have my notes in front of me. On his project in Chicago and he had Sharpton come in to help him, and I think it was either navigating with Black-owned businesses or there was some role that Sharpton was playing.

It was not all antagonistic. They would see each other at various forums. I remember talking to one person who was attending an Al D'Amato fundraiser, and I think this was in 1986, and describe for me bumping into Trump who was with Don King and Al Sharpton. It was not all hostile. It became irrevocably broken in 2016.

Brian Lehrer: As we continue to talk about New York in the '80s as the seeds, to some degree, of Donald Trump's rise in national politics, what was his relationship with the Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner, who also had a reputation of being determined to win, Yankee fans like that, but also as a blowhard in those days?

Maggie Haberman: Well, what Trump found in Steinbrenner was this sort of prototypical example of hypermasculinity in the era of AIDS. I write about this, but Trump was really rattled by AIDS, talked about it constantly, was viscerally afraid of getting it. To be fair, there were a lot of very wealthy white men in particular who, when it was not clear how AIDS was spread, behaved that way and acted that way. I think that's part of why Steinbrenner was such a model for Trump.

Steinbrenner and this clique of men who he was friends with became role models for Trump. He wanted to hang around them. He wanted to be with them. Trump would go to Steinbrenner's box. Trump ends up emulating Steinbrenner when he does the, "You're fired," catchphrase on The Apprentice. Everyone is Trump's best friend. In reality, no one is Trump's best friend. Trump doesn't have a best friend, but he would call Steinbrenner one of his best friends or his best friend. I do think that he took a lot of lessons in how to behave from him.

Brian Lehrer: He called you his psychiatrist.

Maggie Haberman: Well, that didn't mean anything. Trump calling people his best friend doesn't mean anything.

Brian Lehrer: Should I tell people one of the references that's breaking out from the book is when Trump, excuse me, says something like, "Talking to you is like talking to a psychiatrist"?

Maggie Haberman: He said, "I love being with her. She's like my psychiatrist," when he was in the middle of a stem-winder about his golf course in the Bronx that, at that point, de Blasio had canceled the contract for. Trump ultimately succeeded in his lawsuit and still has the lease on it. What I also say is that it was a meaningless line, clearly intended to flatter, and it's the kind of thing that he has said in many other settings. Just like his brother is his best friend and so is George Steinbrenner. The reality is Trump treats everyone like they're his psychiatrist. It's literally everyone he's dealing with all the time. He's working it out in real time.

Brian Lehrer: Robert in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Maggie Haberman. Hi, Robert.

Robert: Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Maggie, my question is not really about the reporting, but about the personal aspect of covering Trump. You've been doing it for so long. Recently, since he started to run in 2015, it feels like he's been your entire professional life. I wonder, are you sick of him, in covering him? Does it invade your consciousness so much and what do you think would be your beat when he's no longer Trump-

Brian Lehrer: Relevant?

Robert: -or here? Yes, that's a good one, Brian.

Maggie Haberman: Thank you for the question. I take slight exception with him being my entire professional life. I'm turning 50 next year and Donald Trump has only been a political figure for the last seven. Prior to that, I covered Hillary Clinton. I covered Mike Bloomberg for many years as Brian knows. I covered Rudy Giuliani. I first started covering city hall, as I mentioned, in 1999. I covered Giuliani's presidential campaign. I covered it more of a remove Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

I've covered a lot of people. I covered George Pataki when he was governor. I covered Andrew Cuomo. Trump has been my focus for a long time and he requires a level of focus because he's constantly doing things and constantly embroiled in controversy. They're not all equal. Some matter more than others. At some point, he won't be a story anymore or, at some point, I will go do something else because I'm not in this business because of Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: Well, can you talk about your relationship as a journalist with Trump? Some people have called you the Trump whisperer. I see he gave you three interviews for this book, even though he knows you're a straight-up New York Times reporter who's going to call him out on his lies like I said before and his radicalism and everything else when that's where the facts lead. Why did he give you three interviews for this book?

Maggie Haberman: I just want to make clear, Brian, when you use the word "relationship." He's a subject who I cover, the same as I have covered and object--

Brian Lehrer: I don't mean to imply anything else.

Maggie Haberman: No, no, no, of course, but I do think it's important because I think for people who don't necessarily know how reporting works or how beat reporting works, I just think it's really important to make that clear. He is uniquely focused on The New York Times and I'm just the person who has covered him more than anyone else at the paper for a sustained period of time.

I think that's a lot of it, but he granted me interviews because he talks to everybody. He spoke to almost every book author for their books. He spoke to Michael Wolff, who wrote the first book of the Trump presidency that was a pretty damning account. It's just what he does. He cannot help himself. Now, he probably will be able to help himself going forward, but that was the reason then.

Brian Lehrer: Tina in East Orange is going to look back on New York City in the '80s. Tina, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Tina: Hi, I just need to ask a question because this bothers me. I grew up in the '80s and everybody in New York knew, everybody in Jersey knew that this guy was a con artist. I mean everybody, even regular people. This is the point. How does this guy become this great Republican and everybody that's Republican or mostly everybody that's Republican loves this guy when he was this huge con artist in New York? Everybody knew he was a con artist. I don't understand. How does a con artist and a fake become the Republican king? How does this happen?

Maggie Haberman: I guess I would answer it. I love talking to anybody who was from New York in the 1980s. Everybody didn't know. One of the things that I visit in the book is how he used this media coverage brick by brick to build this artifice of himself as this tycoon commensurate with the Milstein's or the Helmsley, significant real estate tycoons, when that just wasn't who he was.

There was enough real there. He had Trump Tower. He had casinos that people thought that he was bigger than he was. The difference between the five borough view of him and outside New York City was really vast and a lot of that was just built on this media coverage. I will also say there were a lot of people, and I explore this in the book, who enabled him over his time in New York in that period of time, people with whom he struck up relationships like Bob Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney.

They had a transactional relationship that also was something of a friendship, I think, in both of their views. Morgenthau liked Trump. There were aspects of the media that enabled him by just printing what he would say uncritically even though a lot of people knew that he lied over and over again. I think there's a lot of things to look at, but that is how, and this book really does try to explore the answer to what you just asked.

Brian Lehrer: Can you go more into the Trump-Morgenthau relationship? Did Morgenthau as Manhattan DA have things put in front of him that would have or should have caused him to investigate Trump or even charge Trump criminally, but he didn't because they were tight?

Maggie Haberman: The only one that I know of for sure, Brian, that made its way to the district attorney's office was complaints about him stiffing contractors, which was not exactly a novel fact about him at that point. The view of the district attorney's office, as my sources told me, was they're not a collections agency. Do I think that there was enough of a whiff of all kinds of problematic behavior and people making allegations about Trump that if somebody had wanted to explore them, they could have? Yes, I do.

I can't speak to why Morgenthau thought didn't. Trump held a fundraiser for him. He went down to Mar-a-Lago. That was the aspect of the reporting that I think surprised me the most. I just started looking at it because it had become clear over the course of covering him over the last seven years how much time he invested in cultivating prosecutors. I went backwards in reporting for the book.

Brian Lehrer: My guest is Maggie Haberman, New York Times correspondent. Her new book is called Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. A lot of it is about New York in the 1980s. Really interesting to look back on New York than in the context of our obsession with and, really, fear of the threat to democracy from Donald Trump today. We're also going to talk about that second part, the breaking of America, 212-433-WNYC, if you have any more New York in the '80s stories or questions or you want to talk about the second part. Let's talk about the breaking of America. Maybe we should tell people, the book is 600 pages, ish, so I hope you have a strong backpack, people, if you get the book.

Maggie Haberman: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: How much of it is New York? How much of it is White House era?

Maggie Haberman: Watch your feet if you drop the book. The first half of the book is New York through about 2014. Then the second half of the book is the 2016 campaign and the presidency and its aftermath. I really did set out to do it in equal parts. The breaking aspect, and I write about this, is that Trump did not create the partisan divide in this country and he didn't cause the national traumas that this country went through in the late 1990s, 2000, 2001, two wars after that 2008 fiscal crisis, where a lot of voters just felt as if no one significant and responsible for the pain of people who got caught in the housing bubble that they had gone to jail or faced consequences.

He did fuel it and capitalize on it and exploit it for his own purposes. One of the things that I explore is how in the 1980s when he's taking out an ad, condemning the teenagers who are arrested in conjunction with the Central Park jogger rape and beating and he calls for bringing back the death penalty. I'm sure all of your listeners know, those confessions were later found to have been coerced.

The convictions were overturned. These men lost their lives. Trump has never apologized and has never acknowledged that he was wrong. He clearly came to decide and, I think, distill one of his guiding ethoses as hate can be a civic good. I think that that really governed him in the White House. I can't think of as big a demagogue that we have ever had in this country. It just guides everything he does.

Brian Lehrer: You've left me speechless there. I hadn't seen that line in the book. "Hate can be a civic good."

Maggie Haberman: I think that I can find it for you if you want to give me a second so that I'm quoting myself back accurately.

Brian Lehrer: Well, just give me the context.

Maggie Haberman: The context was as he was talking about-- Yes, I just found out. It's when he was talking about wanting to hate people who were involved in hurting others. It was after the Central Park Five. He takes out this, "Bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police," ad in newspapers. He talks glowingly. I'm sure this story didn't actually happen, but he claims to have seen when he was young, "I sat in a diner with my father and witnessed two young bullies cursing and threatening a very frightened waitress."

This is in the ad. "Two cops rushed in, lifted up the thugs, and threw them out the door warning them never to cause trouble again. I missed the feeling of security. New York's finest once gave to the citizens of this city," then he calls for unshackling the police. These are his words, "from the constant chant of 'police brutality,' which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who just risked his or her life to save another's."

"The primary target of Trump's ire was Ed Koch, the mayor, who had instructed citizens not to carry 'hate and rancor' in their hearts," in connection with this vicious crime in the park. "'I want to hate these muggers and murderers,' the ad continued. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes." It goes on and on and on. What I say is, "It was as clear a guiding ethos for his life as Trump seemed to have: hate should be a civic good." I think that we saw that over and over again.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe this is more of a philosophical question and not a reportorial one, but do you think it's the equivalent of like some of our listeners might hear that and think, "Well, I hate Donald Trump and I think that's okay because I hate Donald Trump because he may actually break our electoral democracy"?

Maggie Haberman: I think that there are reasons to think that hate and politics is a dangerous ingredient. I understand that there are people who are going to think that they hate Donald Trump. I think where it becomes problematic, and I do think, Brian, this is something that is happening across politics, is that I talk a bit in the book about how people around Trump start to act like him, but sometimes his critics do too. I'm not sure that that's healthy for democracy either.

Brian Lehrer: John in Mérida, Mexico, you're on WNYC with Maggie Haberman. Hi, John.

John: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Hi, John.

John: Hello? Hi, sorry.

Brian Lehrer: You can hear me? I can hear you.

John: Yes, I can hear you now. Yes, I'm in Mexico, but I was a Brooklyn resident until two years ago. I have a question. I know Maggie Haberman hears this criticism all the time, but it's problematic that she sat on stuff for her book and she's not alone. Many journalists are trying to sell books and are sitting on information that the public should have known about. I'd like to hear what her response is to that criticism. I'm also curious about your opinion, Brian, as a journalist, how you feel about the number of journalists who covered the Trump White House who sat on information that the American public should have known about much sooner than before the pub date for the different books that are coming out.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you for that question. I think in your case, Maggie, it revolves around-- I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but for our listeners, I think it revolves around practically just like one line in the book, a quote of Trump that you have where he says, "I'm just not going to leave," that he reportedly said shortly after the 2020 election. "I'm just not going to leave." People think that that in particular, once you knew that, you should have reported it because it's relevant to the January 6th investigation. What do you say to John or anyone else raising this?

Maggie Haberman: If I had known that in real-time, Brian, which is when it really would've had huge impact, I would've put it in the paper. I found this out well after the second impeachment trial ended. The investigation is still ongoing and it's public now. The other two pieces of information that I put in The Times long before the book published, one related to Trump flushing documents down the toilet.

I published that eight months ago. The book just published this week, and another related to Mike Pence and various elements of how Trump was pressuring people to try to get what he wanted. There's two answers. One is books take time and it's a process of going back and talking to people over and over again and getting new information, but the short answer is I didn't.

Brian Lehrer: I think there are many worse examples of that out there than this since the caller wanted to know my opinion. I think some of the bad ones come from some of the tell-all books from people who worked in the Trump White House who could have revealed things in real-time. I don't know. You must have conversation about this at the policy level at The Times, Maggie, right?

If something can affect a policy or people's safety or anything like that in real-time, then there must be some line past which even if it's for research for a book that's not officially in your role for your employer, the newspaper, that you would feel some obligation to report it or they would want you to feel some obligation to report it. Is there a standard of behavior that's written down or anything?

Maggie Haberman: Without getting into internal discussions, Brian, the only thing I would say is my goal is always to get confirmed reporting into print as quick as possible and especially when it can be significant at the moment. Again, that's why I made clear that he was flushing documents down the toilet several months ago. I guess I would put the question back on you. Do you think that people knowing before more recently that Trump had said this thing that I learned about well after the fact, what impact do you think that had, and when is it that people should report things?

Brian Lehrer: It's a good question. I think if it can inform an important policy debate or inform the prevention of something horrible happening like January 6th, I'm thinking of William Barr, for example. This may not be in a book, but his testimony to the January 6th committee about how early he thought it was a total lie, BS as he described it, Trump's claims, and he did resign right near the end of the Trump administration. If he had gone more public with that kind of thing earlier on, I don't know, maybe it would've helped prevent some of the horrors that we've seen. That's the most concrete example I could think of.

Maggie Haberman: I guess the only thing that I would say to you in reverse, and, again, to be clear, I said before and I don't know if you've heard me say it, I think you did, that I didn't know this in real-time. I found it well after the fact and well after his impeachment trial.

Brian Lehrer: I hear you.

Maggie Haberman: Barr also was the only official in that government who said publicly that there was no evidence of widespread fraud, which was not nothing at the time.

Brian Lehrer: Right, he did. Let's see. Okay, we only have two minutes left. Instead of going to another caller, I want to ask you. I just want to make sure that we mention Roy Cohn.

Maggie Haberman: Yes, that would be a big omission.

Brian Lehrer: I think we should give people a little Roy Cohn 101. He was a Bronx political leader who goes back to the McCarthy era of Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy's side of that. People today, I don't think know much about Roy Cohn. What was his claim to fame really and what was his relationship with Donald Trump?

Maggie Haberman: I'm thrilled that you raised this, Brian. That would've been embarrassing if we had not discussed it. Roy Cohn, among other things, in addition to everything you just cited, was a child of privilege and transacted with-- and this was something that Marie Brenner, the journalist, described as the favor economy in New York City. He was a huge practitioner of it. He was a lawyer. Yes, he was famous in the McCarthy era. He was famous for aggressive efforts to-- he was a closeted gay man who was deeply homophobic.

That defined a lot of his life. He ultimately died of AIDS. He became Donald Trump's lawyer in 1973 when Trump and his father and their company were getting sued by the Justice Department for racially-discriminatory housing practices. Cohn became Trump's main enforcer. He became the first or at least the most visible in a series of fixers and enforcers and lawyers willing to use their jobs as if it was some other purpose, almost like a Mafia don, in service of Trump.

Cohn indeed had relationships with mobsters and Cohn had relationships with celebrities. He was very close with Barbara Walters. He had Rupert Murdoch as a client. He had Estée Lauder, the cosmetics magnate, as a friend. He became Trump's guide through a lot of New York. He taught Trump about punching back and punching hard and denying all the time. He tried to treat Trump to be more strategic than Trump is.

When Cohn got AIDS, Trump dumped him. That was the end of that relationship. Cohn in Barrett's book complains that he can't believe that Trump is doing this to him. Trump spent the entirety of the White House searching for-- He would literally say, "Where's my Roy Cohn?" I think James Comey memorialized that, the former FBI director, in memos. He spent the entire presidency looking for a Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn is not an avatar for productive staff behavior in a government, but that was what Trump preferred.

Brian Lehrer: The book is called, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Maggie Haberman, New York Times senior correspondent. Thank you so much for sharing this with us on the day after the release. We really appreciate it.

Maggie Haberman: I'm thrilled to be here, Brian. Thanks so much.

 

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