Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Maggie Haberman on 2024

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Are we actually headed for a replay of Trump vs Biden in 2024? How strong is Trump heading into the GOP primaries? Is Biden certain to be the Democratic nominee? Do Biden and Trump need each other? And what role will Trump play in 2024 if he’s NOT the Republican nominee? Maggie Haberman, senior political correspondent for The New York Times, returns to the podcast. For the entirety of the Trump administration, Maggie Haberman was a White House correspondent for The New York Times. She joined The Times in 2015. Maggie is part of a team at The Times that won a Pulitzer, and she is the author of the book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Before joining The New York Times, Maggie was a reporter at Politico, The New York Post and The New York Daily News. Maggie Haberman's book, Confidence Man: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/confidence-man-maggie-haberman/1140985472 Articles discussed in this episode: "Some Democrats are worried about Harris’s political prospects" - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/30/harris-democrats-worry/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email "Few Americans are excited about a Biden-Trump rematch, Post-ABC poll finds" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/05/poll-biden-trump-2024/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

He commands a serious percentage of voters in the Republican Party, and he could take those voters with him potentially if he doesn't get the nomination. And it could be very, very deleterious for whoever the Republican nominee is if it's not him. Are we actually headed for a replay of Trump versus Biden in 2024? How strong is Trump heading into the GOP primaries? Is Biden certain to be the Democratic nominee? Do Biden and Trump need each other? And what role will Trump play in 2024 if he's not the Republican nominee?

That is, if he loses the nomination, will Trump be a spoiler in the general election? For wisdom, insight, and her widely read shoe leather reporting, we welcome back Maggie Haberman to the podcast. For the entirety of the Trump administration, Maggie was a White House correspondent for the New York Times. She joined the Times in 2015

and soon found herself covering Donald Trump's unlikely campaign. She's part of a team at the Times that 2015 and soon found herself covering Donald Trump's unlikely campaign. She's part of a team at the Times that won a Pulitzer. But she actually had been covering Trump one way or the other for many years before that, and also the years since his presidency, and now as he runs again. Maggie chronicles a lot of this in her book Confidence Man, The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Before joining the Times, Maggie was a reporter at Politico,

the New York Post, and the New York Daily News. She's a lifelong New Yorker. I first got to know her when she was covering local politics here. And according to a profile piece about Maggie, she's written or co-written more than a story a day. And stories with her byline have accounted for hundreds of millions of page views in the last couple of years alone. That's more than anyone else at the Times. Before our conversation with Maggie, one housekeeping

note. Our next episode of Call Me Back will be with Call Me Back fan favorite Mike Murphy. So record a question for Mike Murphy. Please keep it to under 30 seconds and send it to dan at unlock.fm. And we'll be playing more and more of these questions for our guests and getting them to react. But now here's Maggie Haberman on 2024. This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome back to the podcast my friend Maggie Haberman, senior political correspondent for The New York Times and author of the bestselling book Confidence Man. Maggie, thanks for coming back. Dan, thanks for having me.

I have like a mental list of things I want to talk to you about when we connect. So I'm going to try to, I won't be too greedy, but there's a bunch of things I want to talk to you about when we connect. So I'm going to try to, I won't be too greedy, but there's a bunch of things I want to hit with you today. So I appreciate you indulging me. Okay. I want to start with, we set this up as looking ahead to 2024. So I want to start by quoting from this poll from the Washington Post that on the one hand kind of blew me away, but shouldn't have been surprising. So the Washington Post just did this poll, and I'm just quoting here. President Biden and former President Donald Trump may have each drawn a record number of votes in 2020, but at this early stage in the 2024 election cycle, Americans showed little enthusiasm for a rematch between the two

well-known yet unpopular leaders, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll. Neither Biden nor Trump generate broad excitement within their own party, and most Americans overall say they would feel dissatisfied or angry if either wins the general election. Among Democrats and Democratic-leading independents, the Post-ABC poll finds 58% say they would prefer someone other than Biden as their nominee in 2024, almost double the 31% who support Biden. That is statistically unchanged since last September. Among Republicans and Republican-leading independents, 49% say they prefer someone other than Trump as their nominee in 2024, compared with 44% who favor the former president,

also unchanged since last September. But here's my favorite part. I'm quoting here. More than six in 10 Americans, 62% say they would be dissatisfied or angry if Biden were reelected in 24, while 56% say the same about the prospect of Trump returning to the White House for a second time.

Fewer than two in 10 are enthusiastic about Trump. And just so about 17 percent and just 7 percent are enthusiastic about Biden. So here we are, have a poll of a replay of the 2020 election between two candidates who seem to be incredibly unpopular, not only with the general electorate, but kind of unpopular with their own parties. Maggie, this is the period of politics that you have been covering. How does it feel to be covering these two men who are defining their parties today and are like, you couldn't think of two less popular political figures? So a couple of things. One of the points that I make in the book that I wrote that you just referenced

is how much of the current political milieu is defined by who you hate and who hates you back. And I think that that reflects how distasteful and ugly much of our politics have become. So I think that's one thing. I think the other piece is, I'm curious to look at those numbers in a little more detail, because what we've seen in other polling is that Biden, you know, actually doesn't dissatisfied and angry are actually not the same words or the same emotion. So I suspect there are plenty of voters who would be dissatisfied if Biden won again, I'm not sure about angry. He doesn't tend to engender the same intensity of emotion with the electorate that Donald Trump does, which we just saw play out in the 2022 midterms.

So that's one thing. But to the broader point, I will offer you this stat. out of his first presidential campaign in 1987, shortly before Donald Trump made his first political trip to New Hampshire, which was October of 1987, when he was considering a race. These are two people who have been part of the political fabric for a very long time. And I think that you have, you know, a country that has gotten somewhat tired of a gerontocracy and is looking for a new generation of leaders. So it doesn't surprise me at all. And again, I think that 2020 was a very ugly election. 2016 was also ugly, but frankly, you know, at least just in the interpersonal stuff, weirdly felt less so as ugly as that was. I think every indication is that 2024 would be extremely ugly. And a lot of that does come from how Trump runs elections. I think the public wants

something different in its politics. However, they can only vote for the candidates that are in front of them. So let's talk about these candidates that are in front of them. So before the midterms, before the 2022 midterms, I would tell everyone I was in a political conversation with that I thought Biden would run for re-election. I just never understood the rationale for why he would not run. I mean, the rationale as explained to me was always, he's too old, he's slowing down, and everyone around him knows that. Now, first of all, everyone around him knowing something and he knowing something are two different things. So, you know, he like good luck trying to explain that to him.

A. B. I'm not convinced everyone around him, like if they think he has a shot at getting reelected. My experience is people around someone who has a shot about getting elected or reelected as president are not in the business of telling them they shouldn't run. So I'm like I was always skeptical of that. A, B, and there's like virtually no, there's one precedent, I think, in American history, James Polk in the middle, the mid, in the 18, you know, 1845 to 1849, he was president, right, that he chose not to run for reelection. That was it, right? There's no precedent for someone being president, serving a full term and saying, I'm done. I don't want that second term. Well, it may be tough to

win. Okay. I can handle tough to win, but tough to win is a better shot of winning than not running. And most people who are president want to continue being president for as long as they can. And oh, by the way, he was effectively on the ballot, Joe Biden, in these last midterms. Yes. And sort of a referendum on him. And he won. I mean, he didn't win. No, but the Democrats had a much more successful midterms

than they expected to. So yeah. So why wouldn't he run? Well, you just answered your own question. I mean, I think he is running. There's nothing in my reporting that leads me to believe that he is not running. I think that some of what you hear from people privately on that he's too old and so forth, you know, he'll realize that or they know that that's all wish casting. You know, I mean, I think that there are a number of operatives who would like

to see another candidate run either because they're shut out of Biden world or because, you know, they do think that it's a risk, just given the age of the president. And, you know, Biden's people are particularly sensitive to conversations about his age. The reality is the public can actually tell how old he is. And the public does care about stuff like that. This is not the first time in history that that has come up as an issue for a candidate. But Biden has, you know, a record that he can point to, and he has a number of successes that he can point to. I think he also feels very passionately about the war in Ukraine and about not letting Russia make further advances. And I think that, you know, whatever people want to argue about domestic policy, and, you know, foreign policy on the on the front of the Mideaster China, or Asia broadly, you know, there is there is no

question that Biden has played a galvanizing role in, in marshalling support to back Ukraine. And that has been one of his strongest achievements. And he feels very passionately about it. So given everything that is going on, it's very hard for me to see him saying, yep, you know what, I'm out. I just, I just don't, I don't, there's nothing that leads me to believe it. And anytime you raise it with people who are really around him, they laugh and it's, it's not. And they laugh because they disagree with the case for it or they just think he's locked in. Because they think he's locked in because they think that it's silly that people are suggesting he might not run. Yeah. And what about this idea that, I mean, this reality that if he wins reelection,

by the time he finishes his second term, he will be closer to 90 years old than 80 years old? Well, that's just, that's just math. I mean, that's, that's just a fact. But, you know, that is not something that they express any concern about. And, you know, he is he has more energy at his age than a lot of people who are closer to my age, which is the other thing that they point out. So, you know, I just don't I don't think I he's not letting it get to him, it sounds like. Right. But why does the age issue in terms of his viability as a candidate, you know, simmer around Biden, but it doesn't Trump? It's a good question. I mean, A, Biden is a little bit older, not significantly. Trump is 76. He's not a good question. I mean, a Biden is a little bit older, um, not, not significantly. Trump is 76. He's not a young man. Um, uh, but I think that some of it is just that Trump created this as he often does this sort of aura around himself that may be divorced from what's actually

happening. But he looked as if he was keeping something of a peripatetic schedule, um, with rallies, even though he was doing fewer rallies than it seemed at various points last year. Part of how he accomplished that was by doing so many media interviews. It always looked as if he was everywhere and he was talking all the time. Biden doesn't do that. And going crazy on social media. Correct. He was like in our lives every morning before 8 a.m. Correct. It created this aura of energy, even when it really wasn't actually signaling anything. It doesn't take a lot of energy to do a tweet. But I do think that it's just this sort of media, I don't mean mainstream media, I mean literally using media to create a perception. And to what extent do Biden and Trump need each other? It's a good question. I do think that they need each other in very specific ways. I think that Trump needs Biden in order to galvanize Republicans,

although I think that's less of a strong argument than it once was given the interest in Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who I think that a lot of Republicans are very interested in and, um, and do see as somebody who could beat Biden. Um, Biden needs Trump because Trump is a galvanizing force for Democrats. He helps paper over, um, uh, fissures within the democratic party. Um, and Biden beat him once before. And so Biden's argument is I can do that again when it's not clear everyone can. Now, I think there is Trump. Trump does not have this electoral strength that he seems on the one hand, he did bring out more new voters in 2020 than a lot of people had forecast in polls. And I think that's important to bear in mind that he still has this ability to harness new support, or at least he did. But 2022 was a

loser for Republicans. 2020 was a loser for Republicans. The Senate was lost. 2018, Republicans lost pretty badly in the midterms. So the idea that Trump is some unique driver for the Republican party is not really borne out by the details. And this idea that Biden, I mean, it's interesting. I hear this from some Democrats all the time, like, well, Biden's got the playbook. You know, he knows how to beat Trump, which always has seemed a little off to me. I mean, he did beat Trump, you know,

by basically sitting in his basement for a year and just doing interviews and kind of virtual town hall meetings from his base. He didn't really have to campaign. It was the middle of a once in a generation pandemic, sort of a crazy time in our politics, in our country. And I mean, he just didn't campaign. I mean, it was kind of extraordinary. He won't be able to do that this time. Biden will have to really campaign and really be out there. So this idea that only Biden can beat Trump, it's interesting that that has gotten purchased. No, it's true. I mean, I think that

it's true in the sense that it would be a very different campaign this time. You know, the pandemic restrictions are about to be ended in May by the Biden administration. So it would just definitionally look different. Life has come back, not entirely to pre COVID levels, but but pretty close, at least certainly as campaigns are concerned. You know, I do think that Biden has found a way to tap into certain aspects of support within the Democratic Party, and to frame the case as about the soul of the country and a fight for democracy that Trump keeps providing ample evidence that Biden has reason to point to that, right? hearings on January 6, and what led up to January 6, were really pretty devastating for Trump. And I think and I think sharpened public focus on what took place and what Trump was doing in a way that, you know, many of us had reported on those incidents. And yet, the hearings, I just think brought them into sharper relief than news coverage did or than books did.

And so I think that I think that is what Biden has been focusing on. I mean, if you look at 2022, there were a number of candidates in various races who Trump endorsed, who were viewed by the electorate as crazy or viewed by the electorate as dangerous. And so I think that is the formula. And I think Trump has done little to show that he's willing to step away from giving Biden fodder for that. So let's talk about the Republican primaries. You and I just texted the other day about this Ross Douthat column, your colleague Ross Douthat in The Times. Trump needs a confrontation. His GOP rivals don't have to give him one.

And, you know, which is interesting you know, interesting because the conventional wisdom, at least now, it's funny who go through these waves of conventional wisdom. So the current wave in Republican circles is, oh my gosh, Trump could be the nominee. So like a few weeks ago, up until a few weeks ago, it's kind of between fall of 2022, the midterms, and a few weeks ago, it was like Trump is tired, Trump is spent. You know, you, you did that reporting on how he's not raising money the way he should be for a presidential candidate this period. Um, and then now for some reason we're in this period of, you know, well, if no one's going to take him on, um, he's going to be the nominee and we're going to run into the same. That's also math. That's also math, right also math right and then like it's people somebody has to challenge him right but not just challenge him but really challenge

yeah in other words it's one thing for someone to get in the race but but but someone has to actually like you know run a race decide they're gonna yes right rip his yeah go go go at him aggressively so um and then ross duthat writes his column where he lays out maybe, maybe like, you know, he has this line, like, will Trump's defeat, if he's defeated, be in a bang or a whimper? You know, is it, does it have to be in this clash of titans, or can you just kind of ignore him for a while? And he has, you know, unimpressive fundraising, as you were reporting. He hovers around a lock on about 30% of the

Republican electorate, which is a lot. And any Republican jumping into a primary would want that so long as it's a floor, not a ceiling. And the question is, is it a ceiling? And people are just getting more interested in these other candidates. And if the field is not as big as Trump had in 2016, where it was Trump and, you know, a thousand flowers. Yeah. So where are you on this? I mean, you've studied Trump. Confidence Man is all about like, you know, the Trump only responds to direct confrontation.

Correct. And you can't ignore him. Is that where you are now as we enter what could be these primaries? That's where I've always been. I mean, I think that, you know, there is always a desire to, I think part of the way that people rationalize his behavior is to sort of treat him like a joke and treat him dismissively. And I think that's a huge mistake. You know, one of the models for reporting on him that I tried to follow in my book was Wayne Barrett, who was the muckraker for the Village Voice, who did the original deep dive investigative reporting on Trump because he took him seriously as a power player in New York.

And he was. And it was really based on what he was trying to do and his connections. It is a he does things that are absolutely clownish and buffoonish, but that does not mean that you should treat him as a clown or a buffoon. He commands a serious strain of voter, a serious percentage of voters in the Republican Party. And he could take those voters with him potentially if he doesn't get the nomination. And it could be very, very deleterious for whoever the Republican nominee is if it's not him. Look, I think, Dan, the way I always put it is he's stronger than he was in 2016 and weaker than he was in 2020, right? And so he's in this weird

neither fish nor fowl place right now. That's scary. He's, well, he's not- Because he was still pretty strong in 2020. He was still pretty- I mean, in pretty yeah a lot of people voted for him yeah but he was i guess and so my point is that he's he's still in a in in a position that most candidates would envy um and he tends to do best to your point he needs someone to fight against he tends to do best to your point, he needs someone to fight against. He tends to do best when he has someone on stage with him. And he has not had that he's about to get it most likely when Nikki Haley gets in on February 15, which is as expected, but I don't know that she's going to, you know, actually go after him. I mean, she's she's shown a resistance to do that. I don't

know that Ron DeSantis, if he runs is going to go after Trump that aggressively. There was a lot of excitement about Ron DeSantis saying the voters of Florida have spoken, you know, about his own win as if this was this massive clapback. I thought it was just kind of, you know, again, like I keep saying, that's just math that Biden will be close to 90. That's just math. Yes, you won by more votes than, you know. Right. It's not a national referendum. Right. And it's also not, you know, it's not some huge blowback on Trump just to point out the obvious.

So it's gonna take more than that. Look, Trump has seemed different to me in the sense that his heart has not seemed in it. I stand by that. Maybe that will change. That's the way it's been so far. If it does change and his heart gets in and i think he's still um he's still a formidable contender what do you mean by that his heart's

not in like what what do you actually see it's just that is different first of all the lack of rallies which i think partly reflects the fundraising issue because the rallies are very expensive to stage um anytime that donald trump is just just just so folks understand that so so he you know he does these massive rallies takes out massive arenas right he goes to say you know mobile alabama and takes out the biggest arena there's 30 40 000 seat arena it's a lot it's very expensive to rent the arena yes and it's very expensive to to to get all those people in there, just the logistics and the promotional events and all the rest.

And then it's very expensive to advance the event and produce it for television. Yes, that's right. These are like huge. Think about like WWE or wrestling, these events that take out these arenas. It's a massive entertainment expenditure. And you're saying he doesn't want to keep doing those. Well, or he can't keep doing them because they can't actually afford the expenditure is my point.

Like, I actually think he would prefer to do the rallies. He certainly would prefer those over a teleprompter speech, but I think that they're in a position where they can't really do that right now. And again, if their first quarter of this year is better than their half quarter of last year was, that'll change. He has just not seemed excited about this the way he once did i can't some of this is some of this is you know vibes right and like just watching him over a very long period of time um but he has just not seemed excited or enthusiastic about this um you know in a way that he did in 2015 in 2015 and know this, and we talked about this,

2015 and 2016, he was having fun most of the time. He does not seem like somebody who's having fun right now. And I think that the point too, that needs to be watched, and we haven't mentioned this yet, he's under multiple criminal investigations in various jurisdictions, state and federal. I have no idea, none of us does, what will happen should he get indicted in any of those cases. I think the state cases are likelier than the DOJ cases, just because I think the threshold is higher for DOJ. But you know, there's this prediction of, oh, that that's going to make it impossible for him to go on. I don't know about that. There could be a huge rally around Trump effect among Republican voters if he gets indicted. We just, we don't know. We are in an extremely weird, uncharted time right now. Is that occupying a lot of his time, all these cases? Yes, very much so. He

spends a fair amount of time dealing with lawyers on these cases. And there's also, Dan, there's civil actions too. He's facing two cases, although I think one of them is in an appeal cycle right now, but related to E. Jean Carroll, a New York writer who alleges that he raped her in the 1990s. That's supposed to go ahead in April, right in the middle of these primaries. It's going to it's it's it's going to be very unlike anything we have seen okay the other point i make about 2015 and 2016 is yes he seemed into it and seemed to be having fun and i often say this friends of mine roll their eyes he actually ran on issues yeah that's actually no that's actually true he did he's not when people say what no he did i'm like no one and he talked about there's

a bipartisan consensus today right on the uS. taking a hard line against China. I mean, it predates the balloon event of the last few days. But really, even like the last few years, there's... I mean, Biden has not rolled back virtually anything Trump did on China. If anything, he's expanded upon it with the export controls around technology. I mean, they're like... Biden... they have a Trump-esque policy on China. This is one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans agree on. And I think Trump's 2015 and 2016 was a big catalyst for that.

Biden administration has kept the Abraham Accords. I mean, I can point to a bunch of things that the Biden administration has not rushed to overturn, one of which was Title 42 at the border. And they've had a much more tortured relationship with that policy. But still, you know, you are correct that he ran on issues. He also ran on talking about jobs all the time. He said the word jobs all the time. It was about people. His entire campaign in 2020 and now has been about himself. And voters can tell. Himself and how he's been wrong. And how he's been wrong.

I mean, he literally said in his kickoff speech, I'm a victim. Right, right. What is, okay, so Trump runs, stays through it, and in a world in which he doesn't become the nominee, knowing what you know of him, what does he do in a general election? By the way, I'm presuming here that he does not have the organization together to get on the ballot as an independent candidate. Yeah, I mean, it's much harder than people think it is always. People throw this out like, oh, he just flips, he gets on the primary and he goes, here's something you've got to start like now.

Yep, very, very hard. Getting on all these ballots and all these different states. Each state requires its own effort. He does not have the organization to do it. And even if he did, it's hard to do that while you're trying to run for the nomination of your own party. So let's assume he's not going to be a third-party candidate. Yep. So then he's out there as a sort of glad fly in our national politics who's disgruntled because his party rejected him.

What does he do in the general election? It's a great question. And I just I don't know. I'm completely hesitant to venture a guess because it could get incredibly, incredibly ugly. It will, again, depend on the circumstances he himself is facing, such as an indictment, you know, and maybe there won't be one, but your guess is as good as mine. I mean, I just envision it being like, you know, the Joker in the Dark Knight, you know, just like, let's blow everything up. And I want the Republican to lose.

Yep. Yep. I mean, I think that the expectation is that to your point, even though I don't think he can I don't think he has the wherewithal to form an independent candidacy, he could make life very miserable. And this goes back to what I said before about the percentage of the Republican primary electorate that he has a tight lock on. You know, he can encourage those people to stay home. Look at what happened in the Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5th, 2021. You know, most establishment Republicans still blame him for that. So. And if he doesn't, if he's not the nominee, assuming that Biden is the nominee and he's

facing a younger next generation Republican, we talked about Nikki Haley, it could be Ron DeSantis, it could be Glenn Youngkin, it could be Tim Scott, it could, I mean, Mike Pompeo, any one of these is like a, then I do think the contrast with Biden's age becomes more real. Well, and I think Nikki Haley is kind of leaning into that, right? I mean, she's talking, her folks are talking about generational change. Right. So that then to me becomes an incredible threat to Biden. I mean, Biden is the only guy that can stop Trump, you know, normalizing figure. But Biden against the next generation, you know, like think of the George Bush senior versus Bill Clinton, John McCain versus Barack Obama. That is a world that then that comes back to the Biden needs Trump. No, that's right. And that's right. And I think that, you know, again, for the reasons we discussed before, Trump is both a unifier for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party in a different way.

But yes, it is a contrast with Biden. We talked about the playbook that Biden uses against Trump. You know, there is no other candidate who is talking about, you know, rigged elections the way Trump is. Right. It's just there's it's just completely different. And somebody who's younger would identify themselves as the future and not the past. And they would identify Biden as the past. It's you know, it's very hard for Donald Trump to do that. Right. OK.

I want to ask you about where Kamala harris fits into all of this there was this big washington post piece that everyone in our respective worlds was talking about you know it's one of these classic pieces these kinds of pieces you've written too where they're like you know we've spoken to 4 000 people who with close ties to the vice president none of whom will speak on the record although actually i'm surprised that some people did actually speak on the record in this piece. But anyways, so the piece says, and I'm quoting here, many of the activists, we'll put the article in the show notes, but the piece titled, some Democrats are worried about Harris's political prospects at a pivotal point in Biden's term. Many party activists are not sure the vice president has shown she's up to winning

the top job. And then my favorite part of the piece is, I'm quoting here, many of the activists, I quote, many of the activists reached by the Washington Post said they like Harris personally and would support her if she became the nominee, but, it's like, I love when they like her personally. It's like my friend Roger Hurtado, whenever he's about to like, you know, be very critical of someone, he always preface it. He's a fine man. He's a fine man, but.

So they like her personally, but. So what is the but, Maggie? Why? I mean, this article is kind of amazing. being interviewed on WGBH radio, where she's asked if she endorses, you know, or something about whether or not she endorses Biden and Harris, or Harris as Biden's running mate in 2024. And she responded by, yes, he should run again, but asked if Harris should be his running mate. She said, I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team. And then apparently she tried to clean it up after. But this went around like saying, like, even senior figures in the party like Elizabeth

Warren are like, we're not sure. So what's going on? I didn't hear the Warren thing quite that way, but that maybe it was intended that way. I mean, look, what I think is going on is, number one, I think that the vice president versus president story is a tale as old, as old as time. Um, it happens with almost every, every white house, not, not, not all of them, but a lot of them. Um, Harris ran for president herself.

She's pretty young. So she's perceived as likely to want to have a future. Um, there have been tensions between, um, you know, the, the office of the, uh, of the president and the office of the vice president, that have, you know, my paper has written about them, others have written about them. Harris ran a less than overwhelming campaign of her own in 2000, God, I can't remember what year that was now, 2019. Yeah, she pulled out in 2019. And so, right, and so, you know, I don't think that she...

She got out of the race before there was a single ballot. Right. You know, Marianne Williamson lasted longer. And I don't think that and so I think that, you know, there are in her current role, she has not, you know, either been in a position or been able to sort of demonstrate her own independent identity that would look like, you know, an overwhelming favorite for the party's nomination. Now everything looks different, you know, when it's not in a vacuum, it's in a vacuum right now. But I think that's what's going on. And I also think what's going on is you have a lot of people who have their own ambitions who don't want to subjugate them by, you know, anointing Harris as the successor, you know, for whatever reason. I also think, Dan, I have to say this, I'm sorry, and you might roll your eyes, but it is always different when it is a woman who is being talked about as an elected official than it is a man. And so I can't.

And the article acknowledges that. Yeah, I just can't. I can't. I can't ignore that. It was true with Hillary Clinton. It is true with Kamala Harris. And so I think all of these are the factors. But it is also true that every, the article makes this point, every sitting or former

vice president who sought the Democratic nomination going back, I think to 1972 has gotten it. Every single one. That is true. That is true. It's not clear that it'll happen this time. That's true. Right.

Or in, or in 2028. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And then what there's this whole crop of these fresh faces in the Democratic Party that I, you know, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, who I think is impressive. Governor Polis in Colorado, who's interesting. Obviously, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer. There's, and I can go on, I'm probably leaving people out. What's your sense, A, of, is there, do you feel like in your reporting that there's this excitement among Democrats about this bench, or it's just, everyone's just so locked into Biden versus Trump? I think there is excitement about this bench, but I don't think that anybody feels like they want to try to push that bench through right now

and risk, you know, if the incumbent president is running again, which again, as I've said, I think he is, I don't think that they want to look as if they are taking shots at him. You know, I think that one of the few people you saw sort of doing that was Gavin Newsom. And he has walked that back at this point. So, you know, I think that people feel like... And he's annoyed the Biden people, right? So, you know, it's not surprising that they did. But I don't think that, you know, I just don't think that anybody wants to be the person who is seen as undermining the incumbent, given the stakes of what the next election is going to be. Yeah. Okay, let me, before we let you go, I do want to ask you, you have now been, as your book and competence man, as you chronicle in your book, you have been covering Donald Trump one way or the other since when?

For a long time. I mean, most intensively since 2011. But, you know, I was at the New York tabloids before that, and Donald Trump was everywhere. No, that's what you say, right? So he was a big personality back then in a different context. Right. He was in your world. he was, that's what you say, right? So he was a big personality back then in a different context. Right. He was in your world. He was in my world

more than in 2011. I covered his pseudo-presidential campaign. Okay. So here we are, Maggie, in 2023. Like, do you ever sit there thinking,

I mean, it's like my friends who work on Middle East Peace, like these diplomats, like, you know, Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross, they say it's like the the the one path to like uh guaranteed uh career you

know guaranteed lifetime employment is to say you're a middle east peace process negotiator because there's never gonna be middle east peace so you're always in the game do you sometimes think like covering trump it just never ends just when people think it's going to end, it never ends. Well, I mean, that's one of the points I make in the book. You know, I mean, it just every time people think he is done, he is not done. And so like, and so do you like extrapolate that out and say, OK, so so he's figured out a way to be relevant in the 2024 presidential election, like literally by being a candidate. And then here we are talking about if he even if he doesn't win the nomination and he's out of it and it's, say, DeSantis versus Biden or DeSantis versus whomever. We are going through scenarios. It's like all it's like all he's in conversation is, you know, the arc of all conversations and to trump yeah no he he is one of his successes is making himself look bigger than he than he was always by this i

mentioned this about like it's why he looked like he had more energy than biden you know he's tweeting all the time he's um he he he makes himself look big just by volume, but he has been, he has made himself everywhere for so long that he now really is everywhere. And, um, you know, what was once kind of artifice became reality. And he is a, he is the defining force in the Republican party for now and probably for the 2028 election too. So, you know, it doesn't mean, he obviously won't be on the ballot in 2028, but he is going to remain a hugely influential force in the party.

And if not him personally, then what he has spawned within the party. And that's just not changing. And has your, just before we wrap, has your relationship, how has your relationship with him changed as a result of this book so i just you've gotten it right so i reject the word relationship only because i think it relations i know what you i know what you mean but for listeners who don't know what you mean he's just said you want to clarify he's a subject who i

cut he's a subject who i cover like i have covered any number of other subjects um he i last time i talked to him was september 21 um uh september 16th 2021 which was the final interview for the book and a few months later i reported that he had been flushing documents down toilets in the white house and on foreign trips and he i will shock you to hear did not like that reporting and uh called me a maggot and that was that so look i mean this was you know this was a book that reporting and called me a maggot. And that was that. So look, I mean, this was, you know, this was a book that, you know, I thought was important to write that, you know, I didn't write it based on what, you know, what his emotions about it would be, but his emotions have not been positive. So. Yeah. And does it have any, how does it affect how you cover? I mean, the way you do your job covering Charm doesn't change.

No, not at all. I mean, book – right. Nope. That's what I thought. The book is a period in time, and now we're back to regular scheduled program. Right, right. Got it. All right, Maggie.

Thank you for this check-in. Thanks, Dan. You haven't calmed me down. I'm still, like, totally still like totally didn't realize didn't realize that was my um my my my mission here i was looking for a little bit sorry you know yeah you know i'm here we are all right thanks maggie thanks guys bye that's our show for today. To keep up with Maggie Haberman, you can find her at The New York Times, nytimes.com.

You can follow her on Twitter at MaggieNYT. That's at M-A-G-G-I-E-N-Y-T. And you can order her book at your favorite independent bookseller at barnesandnoble.com. And there's that other e-commerce site these days. I think they're calling it Amazon. And be sure to send your questions in for Mike Murphy at danatunlocked.fm. Mike will be our next guest.

Call Me Back is produced by Alain Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.