On with Kara Swisher - Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman On Trump 2.0

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

After MAGA rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, many people thought Donald Trump's days as a political force were over. A notable exception was Maggie Haberman – senior political correspondent for the New York Times, political analyst for CNN, and author of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Four years later, as the country prepares for President-elect Trump's second inauguration this month, Kara talks to Haberman about initial actions he'll likely take on immigration, tariffs and TikTok; which of his controversial cabinet picks could pass muster in Congress; and whether tech billionaire Elon Musk will have an all-access pass to the West Wing. Plus: how seriously she takes the administration's threats to retaliate against Trump's political enemies, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and journalists like herself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How you doing? How are you? Looking at your phone. I am. Your favorite thing. Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for the New York Times,

political analyst for CNN and author of Confidence Man, The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. She's arguably the best known reporter to cover president-elect Donald Trump and I love talking to her because one, she's an amazing reporter, two, she's a good friend of mine and three, boy does she have a job ahead of her. Four years ago, Trump enticed a mob to overrun the Capitol. The goal was to delay certification of President Joe Biden's victory in the election and

ultimately overturn the results of that election. Now Donald Trump's win will be certified, probably without a hitch. In fact, I'm pretty sure without a hitch. And this time Trump has a new best friend, someone I know well too, Elon Musk. Now Maggie's and my world's have completely collided. I'm going to talk to Maggie about how we got here, how Trump will deal with the tiny and restless Republican majority in the House, what his priorities are and what she makes of his bromance with Elon. And our expert question comes from Ben Smith, the editor-in- chief of Semaphore, former media

columnist for the New York Times and former founding editor in chief of BuzzFeed News. So stick around. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Stressing about not knowing where to start. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Word art. Sorry, live laugh lovers.

In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. At Criminal, we've made it a tradition every December to dedicate an episode entirely to animals who are really going for it. Nat, Ridgeville Police? Hi, yes. I'm walking from the Alea train station to my house in North Moonsville and a random

pig just came up and started following me. A pig, you said? Yes. I'm Phoebe Judge. Listen to this story and more on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts. Maggie welcome. Thanks for being on On and Happy New Year, by the way. Happy New Year.

Thanks for having me. It's going to be quite a year for you again. Here we are again. All of us really. Here we are again. It's like Ground for you again. Here we are again. All of us, really. Here we are again. It's like Groundhog Day again. It never really ended. It didn't end for you, at least for a second there, brief second.

A lot of people didn't. Yeah. So there's a lot I want to get into. So let's get started right now. So the interview will air on January 6, four years after President-elect Donald Trump incited a mob to attack the capital as part of an attempt to overturn 2020 election, or according to Trump, a day of love. Did you think Trump was over, or can you imagine him being president again? Well, no, I actually didn't think that he was done.

I didn't know that I thought he was going to be president again, but I thought that he was going to remain a factor in public life and in political life and in the Republican Party because there's just nothing in his history that has ever suggested he just goes away and accepts a defeat on anyone else's terms. And he was talking about running again already. He had started doing that even before January 6th. He did it again after. So I don't think anybody imagined the events of the last four years.

I mean, it was a pretty remarkable set of circumstances, but I think there was a prevailing view in Washington that I never shared. It's the Joe Biden view, right? The fever breaks. He's out of town. This is the fever breaks. I never thought that was the case. And why was that?

Because he had a really durable political movement, and it was a significant portion of the Republican Party and a not insignificant portion of the country. And I didn't think that Republicans in Washington, and certainly not Democrats in Washington, were ready to grapple with that. With grapple with that. And it was out of just, because it wasn't normal, or that it wasn't, they didn't understand

the movement? Because they didn't understand it because it was nothing that they had ever experienced. And there was a uniquely DC centric mindset that he was a media creation, that if the press coverage was gone, then he would get no attention. In fact, the lack of press coverage and him being off Twitter, now X, then Twitter, helped him. It actually lessened some of the angry memories that the public had of his term and of what had happened.

And then all kinds of other things happened, right, that we haven't talked about yet. But I just, I did not believe because I had covered him and I had covered both of his campaigns and I had been covering the post-Tea Party political scene for a very long time, which is really what gave rise to him that this was just going to evaporate. So I don't know if you knew for this podcast in October of 2022, and we talked about your book, Confidence Man. You described an internet, entering duality and how people perceive Trump.

He'd say something and one group would think it was funny or whatever, or they're in on the joke, and another group would find the same words, terrifying or threatening, which is a point that you were making. So apparently a plurality of voters think he's more funny than dangerous. And James Carville kind of pointed that out today. They didn't give a rat's ass about anything else except the economy in his view. What is it about him that makes his most unsettling actions or redic's seem funny to some people? I think a couple of things.

I think that he has clearly over a long period of time, and my line that I talked about on the podcast with you, which was from Confidence Man, was in a section of the book where I talked about him reading Lindsey Graham's cell phone number on stage in 2015, and I was quite queasy about what he did. And a colleague later said to me, oh, it was so funny, an industry colleague. And I said that that was, you know, he was being interpreted as if he had a laugh track and a psychological thriller score behind him at all times. He has incorporated into his persona and into his political campaigns. This world wrestling entertainment ethos of Smash Mouth and

of grand performances and violence. In wrestling, it's a pre-scripted, predetermined outcome. It doesn't always mean it goes the way you think it will. There can be real pain. On stage with him on election night was Dana White, the head of the UFC. They've been friends for a long time. The UFC is actually much more in line with the Trump ethos,

but either way, they both have this very heavy fan base of entertainment. And there are a lot of people who observe Trump through the lens of entertainment. And I don't think that that's ever changed. This is a guy who came onto the cultural scene as a businessman and he was sort of painting himself as a figure that he wasn't quite.

He was not a titan of finance, he was a real estate developer. But he got very into entertainment. He was sort of always captivated by entertainment and by being a star. And so I think that's a real estate developer. But he got very into entertainment. He was sort of always captivated by entertainment and by being a star. And so I think that's a part of it. I think he works hard to try to be amusing to people. And there are people who find him that way and are willing to excuse all of the rest. When you say that, people get very angry. You know what I mean? Some do.

Yeah, but why does he unsettle others? Because they're not in on the joke or that it's not funny to many people? Because to some people, it's not funny. Hence the line about laugh track and psychological thriller score. There's a clear split in how people interpret him. In the 2024 election, more people cared about what he said he was going to deliver to their lives because it was as A bunch of Democratic operatives and Republican operatives put it to me and my colleagues

It was an incredibly transactional electorate in the post kovat world and they didn't they didn't believe that the Democrats were offering them You know enough specifics about what would help their lives That's what they cared about this this group of voters was their lives. Jonathan Swan and I wrote a piece about that during the election and Jenny Medina, our colleague, is it, you know, is it, it's a plurality. I mean, he didn't clear 50% of the popular vote. But what he is not is a fluke, as people believed he was in 2016. Going back to your original question of, you know, does he just go away? Right.

So a lot of, obviously, the outward opposition to Trump seems to be melting my Democrats are not finding common ground CEOs grovel before him. We'll get into that. We'll see. We'll see. I mean, let me just say, but people are making the moves, right? There's news organizations settle spurious lawsuits and make donations to his library. Who do you think you said we'll see? So who do you think will make an effort to stop Trump if he moves along what he's been promising? Well, I don't know what stop Trump means, right? Okay, great.

I mean, I think that there is going to be, stop him from what, he's the president. So are people are going to try to stymie his agenda? I'm positive that Democrats and even potentially some Republicans are going to take issue with certain aspects of what he wants to do. What's been fascinating, Cara, in the last couple of weeks, two weeks, has been the most potent fight has not been over his nominees in terms of the form of objections from Democrats. It's been Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer and other people criticizing Elon Musk over H1B visas and Trump siding with Musk. And so, you know, I don't know what stop looks like in terms of

stymie or slow. I think you're going to have a lot less people doing that from within Trump's government, as would happen last time. But this time, I do think that, you know, Trump is, Jonathan Swan and I have written about this repeatedly. He is he is very reactive to You know media coverage and to the stock market and so that will stymie him as much as anything But I do think as time goes on once he's there Depending on what the initial rollout of actions look like you could see Democrats getting more vocal I certainly agree. They seem sapped of energy right now. Right. So he's also, as you said, dealing with a maga civil war between the nativists like

Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer and billionaires like Elon Musk and I suppose David Sacks to a lesser extent. So far, they're winning the tech pros and it's incredible that your world and my world are now the same, which we never thought would happen. It's always bound that everything would be flat in the sand. I know exactly so Talk about the latest squabble and were you surprised by the ascendance of Elon? I was not because Elon Musk has an enormous amount of money that he

Put to use helping Trump Trump equates Wealth with intelligence. So this hasn't surprised me at all How long it lasts, I think, is the open question. A long time Trump friends said something to me recently about how, you know, Trump is a one ring circus. I'm not sure that Musk has figured that out yet. And, you know, Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot. Privately, Musk, Jonathan Swan and I reported recently with Ryan Mack that Musk has been staying at this cottage at Mar-a-Lago that rents typically for more

than $2,000 a night. So he really parked himself in Trump's face. But what that looks like, Kara, when Trump becomes president, I don't know. I mean, Musk is leading this government cost cutting initiative, DOJ, and it's not novel to have a government cost cutting panel. Some of them work and some of them don't. And so let's see what this looks like when the transition, which is currently based in Palm Beach, moves to DC for the inauguration. Will he move into the Lincoln bedroom, for example? I don't think he will move into the Lincoln bedroom, but I do think that at the moment, and again, we'll see what this looks like, I think he's going to try to have as much

proximity to Trump as possible. That requires being given an office on the White House campus, either in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House, or the West Wing proper. And let's see whether that happens. We'll be back in a minute. Okay, business leaders, are you playing defense or are you on the offense? Are you just, excuse me.

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for seamless, productive work. Innovation belongs on the canvas. Innovation belongs on Miro. Go to Miro.com to find out how. That's M-I-R-O.com. Let's talk about the cabinet and staff nominations with another test of his rip on the party. Let's go through some of the more contentious ones still. RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services.

He might face some tough questions from Republicans who don't like his pro-choice stance or want to know where he stands on the polio vaccine. Mitch McConnell pushed back on that. How do you expect his confirmation hearings to go? I think that there could be some tough moments with Republican senators. Kennedy is a pro-choice Democrat, pro-worshan rights Democrat historically. It's not clear at all what that would mean in terms of an agency that has impact over reproductive health policy.

You know, his views on vaccines, obviously you just talked about them, I think those are of more concern generally to Democrats as a group than Republicans right now. But as you said, Mitch McConnell has a very specific interest in one of the vaccines. Trump is a vaccine skeptic, except for the COVID vaccine. I don't think that Trump is a polio vaccine skeptic, except for the COVID vaccine. I don't think that Trump is a polio vaccine

skeptic. But I think that you're going to see Kennedy get asked some difficult questions. So let's see where that goes. What about Tulsi Gabbard? There are reports that her nomination is particularly dear to Trump's heart. How come and where does that stand? Well, I don't know about particularly dear. He likes her a lot. I don't know that she's dearer than say, Cash Patel for FBI director, right? But he likes her a lot.

She's become very, very integral in parts of his operation. Her nomination is also gonna face some challenges. There's been some whispers from senators that they don't always find her especially prepared. I don't know whether that's fair or not. I'm just saying that's the line. And she's a younger woman who I think is going to face tougher questions in the Senate, which tends to be this older male bastion.

Yeah. So we'll see. But they definitely, I mean, look, Trump put forward four of the most controversial nominees Yep In modern history, if not all of US history and one of them is gone, Matt Gaetz, the other three, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are facing challenges still. So Pete Hegseth to lead the Defense Department, he has no experience running law organizations and has a ton of baggage. There's lots of reporting on his incompetency, obviously his personal issues drinking and

there was allegations of sexual assault. Which he's denied. That's correct. We should just note that. Yes, I am going to note that. He's very vehemently denied despite a lot of reporting on the subject. He seems to be on his way to confirmation. What derailed that? It's a good question. You know, he was the case study, right, for how the Trump team was going to try to approach any of these nominees

and senators taking on these nominees. They were concerned when these reports started popping up around Hegseth and concerns were being voiced by senators started popping up around Hegseth and concerns were being voiced by senators, that if they lost Hegseth, that it was going to become easier to pick off each of these. Now Matt Gaetz was gone for a variety of reasons, but Trump clearly didn't want to engage in that fight anymore. He did decide to stick with Hegseth after being uncertain. So what could derail it is, you know, anything unexpected in the hearings.

Or if some of the accusers who have so far not spoken out publicly, do they go public? That's the one thing that I keep hearing over and over again from Republicans. Do any of Hegseth's exes, you know, go on camera or put their names to something? That could be a circumstance that would be complicated. Right. And Cash Patel, as you mentioned, to lead the FBI wildly unqualified. Yeah, I think Cash Patel actually has, at the moment, the easiest path. Because?

So he said, I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it next day as a museum of the deep state. Yeah, well, that's not going to happen. But I meant right. Yeah. Why does he have the easiest? A couple of reasons. He's worked on the Hill.

A lot of these folks know him and like him. A bunch of Republican senators have gotten fairly radicalized about the intelligence agencies and about the FBI and law enforcement agencies. Remember, Trump has made a cause of talking about the FBI executing a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022 in search of classified documents that he had held onto after he left office and did not return after several requests. And so there's a lot of shared feeling by Republican senators with Trump about the FBI and they think Cash is a good choice. Now Cash not only has said he would shut down the building and reopen it as a museum,

he also talked, you know, in a podcast with Steve Bannon, you know, I think it was 2023 about how he would, quote unquote, go after the media, that whether it was civilly or criminally, that would be figured out later. So all of these are open questions, but Trump has been pretty plain about his desire for retribution and we'll see what questions Patel gets asked. Are you nervous at all in that regard, being gone after? I have a job to do. It's not, they're going to do what they're going to do and we're going to do our job as carefully as possible.

Yeah. So when we look at the slate of nominations, you said it's unprecedented, you know, of how he, sort of in your face, Matt Gaetz, probably the worst. Yeah. Oh, yeah. What do you think it says about how he thinks about governance and democracy? He certainly could have made other choices that were just as conservative, but maybe not quite as irritating to everybody. Trump has been pretty open about wanting to blow up the system in various ways. And so

it's not really a surprise. Matt Gaetz was a surprise to be the attorney general because Matt Gaetz was investigated by the justice department. Matt Gaetz was facing a house ethics committee report that has since become public about his alleged drug use and allegedly paying for sex with women and an alleged encounter with an underage girl.

And so that one was surprising. Hegseth has actually been a favorite of Trump's for a while. Trump wanted to put him at the veteran affairs in his first term at Tulsi Gabbard. We knew he was going to be getting something. RFK Jr. was playing that he wanted HHS. So sure, could Trump have done something different? Yes, but there has generally been an approach by Trump and by a lot of his supporters, like

Bannon, like Stephen Miller, you know, and supporters and advisors, to basically flood the zone and that the media then can't catch up. And that's really what this was. Right. Flooding the zone is this Bannon thing. We'll get to Bannon in a second. And that's really what this was. Right. Flooding the zone is this Bannon thing. We'll get to Bannon in a second. But let's talk about his priorities. We'll kick it off with our expert question.

Let's hear it. Hi, I'm Ben Smith. I'm the editor of Semaphore. And the big question I'd ask Maggie, I guess the big question everybody has right now is what is Trump actually going to do on day one? Ben Smith. Yeah, of course. very short and sweet. What is Trump actually going to do?

I think you're going to see a bunch of executive orders on day one. How many and what kind I think is the big question. I am 95% certain there will be a series of executive orders related to immigration. Trump said in a speech at Turning Point USA a couple of executive orders related to immigration. You know, Trump said in a speech at Turning Point USA a couple of weeks ago, on day one I will seal the border. And I don't think that was just, you know, apocryphal language.

I think that he is going to attempt it in some way. He made a bunch of other campaign promises about campuses and about anti-Semitism and about LGBT issues and trans issues. And I think that you will see those. I don't know if those will all be on day one. So one thing you did mention is tariffs also. He had promised in the first 100 days that they were a big part of the campaign. You will see tariffs.

There's no question. No question. But one of the things you said, he's interested in the stock market. This would be hugely disruptive to the business community. He does pay a lot of attention to that. What do you imagine on day one him doing in that regard with trade policy? And who is he listening to the most? Yeah, I don't know himself, frankly, but in terms of day one, I don't know, because in order to implement

tariffs, there are some things that have to be done. But I do think that you will see tariffs implemented pretty quickly. The question is whether he goes with the volume and scope that he has said he is going to impose on Mexico and Canada. Remember, he has tied these to immigration and to the flow of drugs across borders. So we'll see. He often uses tariffs as leverage. He did that throughout his first term. He would sometimes back off when there were stock market issues or when some of his advisors were pushing back. But his general take on this, Kara, and remember he's been talking about, you know, quote unquote, other countries ripping us off since the 1980s. You know, this is

a very sort of retro view. It's ingrained. It's, he has a couple of policy matters that he really, or thoughts, instincts, impulses that he has been on for a long time, and that's one of them. So we'll see how far he's willing to go, but it hasn't always been a deterrent that the stock market is crashing because the stock market or sinking or dropping, because the stock market goes back up. And so in the first term, he treated the stock market like a pole. But when he went with tariffs, and know, amid him having pushed through this

massive tax bill, which he had regretted not making his first legislative priority, he instead went with trying to repeal Obamacare. And when that bill sank, he said to advisors, I should have done tax cuts first. People who didn't want him to go with tariffs tried pulling back on him by saying, you are going to undermine the effects of the tax cuts. Right. And he didn't believe that. And he went ahead and he was more or less right. I mean, the world didn't end. The economy didn't crater. And so what he took from incidents like that, or, you know, moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem when he was cautioned that there would be a massive and potentially

very violent backlash, there was some backlash, but the scope was not what had been predicted, you know, forecast as a possibility. He takes that as my instinct was right. And so I think you were going to see him testing as far as possible. But what exactly that looks like in the first 30 days, I don't know. Immigration policy is another one with his instincts. He campaigned on mass deportation, which would also be massively disruptive to the economy. You're seeing story after story about that with farmers and et cetera, et cetera, restaurant workers, hotel workers, etc.

He said he wants to help DREAMers stay in the country and they're going to focus on deporting immigrants who have committed crimes, which every administration says it's going to do. Right. The Biden administration did that too. Correct. Yeah. So what does that look like?

He's saying we'll see the largest deportation in American history. Is that possible? Is that one of the things that's sticking with him? It's certainly possible. I think it's worth remembering he made some of these promises in 2016. And they didn't quite work out the way he thought they were going to. But he was also stymied by his own government over and over again on this. I think that there's a couple of things that I would say.

Stephen Miller, his immigration advisor, his speechwriter, his title is deputy White House chief of staff, that really undersells how much power Stephen Miller has. If you look across the government that Trump has announced so far, there's various lawyers who are close to Miller who are in key places, in key roles, in agencies that will have something to do with immigration. Stephen Miller has worked in the government before, the federal government, and he spent four years running a legal policy organization that knows all these lawyers across the country and understands what the possible is. So I do think you are going to see them go further on that than they did last time. But what that means in terms of retaining land to hold migrants as a staging area before deportation, I don't know. I will say, Karen, he's going to get, I think, more help from some Democratic mayors, specifically my mayor of my city, Eric Adams, then I think people realize this

was pretty sada voce among Democrats other than Eric Adams. But during the Biden administration, there was a lot of frustration among Democrats with the Biden administration over immigration. And so this is not 2016 or 2017. It is a different moment. And I think that there is going to be in certain places, less pushback on Trump because again, this needs bearing in mind, Trump was very open about what he planned to do on immigration. He has criticized undocumented immigrants. He has recently tied undocumented immigration to crime, specifically

in New Orleans, despite- Which was not- Right. The alleged perpetrator was US born. But Trump won. Trump won decisively on that message. And so I think he is going to face less pushback than he did before. Depending on how it looks, correct?

Depending on how it looks and depending on how it's implemented. But what I mean about someone like Eric Adams is I think Trump is going to get more support or partnership in certain cases than he would have had otherwise. So he's also promised to pardon the January 6 rioters and insurrectionists, although not specifically, not all of them in a blanket. Right. A, do you think he'll do it? And does that hurt or help him politically or most Americans just moved on?

I do think that he will pardon some of them. I don't know exactly what that will look like. I don't think it will be everybody. I think that Trump has spent most of the last four years trying to rewrite the history of what took place on January 6th. He's, as you noted, described it as a day of love. He has called people who were arrested for their participation that day hostages who were still in...

He makes everybody listen to this chorus. Right, right. There's a version of the national anthem that was recorded by J6 arrestees. Cash Patel actually was one of the producers on that rendition. And Trump plays it on his iPad when he DJs at Mar-a-Lago and people stand and put their hand on their heart during dinner on the patio. I don't think that the country broadly experienced January 6th the way that those of us who were in Washington did or who were in proximity to Washington did, it wasn't September 11th.

It did not broadly affect people's daily lives. I don't know that the country's moved on. I also think that January 6th was a really awful day. But how much blowback does Trump get for commutations or clemency grants on that? I don't know. Yeah. So what about actively going after people like Liz Cheney? He and Cash Patel both talked about jailing political opponents. She just got an award from President Biden, a citizen award. Do you expect him to go after them or is there anyone in specific cities going to try to go after?

You know, the person who he has railed about the most is Jack Smith, who was the special counsel whose team indicted Trump twice, federally, once in connection with the lead up to January 6th and Trump's lies about his election loss in 2020, and the other for that documents case that we were talking about. I think that it's going to be an interesting test of what happens at the leadership of DOJ, which is stocked with Trump's personal lawyers now, which is something that would have just caused an enormous outcry once. If Bill Clinton had put his personal lawyers at DOJ when he was president, the reaction would have been intense.

There has not been much of a ripple this time because everything just kind of becomes flat and the same with Trump. Do I think that Trump is serious about going after people? Yes, I think that people should assume if he's saying he's going to do something retributive, that people should take it seriously. I should also note that Kara, a lot of times he doesn't say, he's going to do something retributive, that people should take it seriously. I should also note that Kara, a lot of times he doesn't say, I'm going to do this. He did say he was going to appoint a quote unquote

real special prosecutor to go after the Bidens. Although he has sort of, I wouldn't say backed off of it, but he hasn't reiterated it. In general, what he does is say, people should be prosecuted. And so in an interview with Meet the Press, he told the host that he wasn't, this was a couple of weeks ago, that he wasn't going to direct the DOJ to do anything. It'll be up to them.

It'll be up to Pam Bondi, the incoming attorney general, or Cash Patel, the FBI dread. It'll be up to them. However, these are all people who also have echoed Trump's statements that the quote unquote deep state needs to be cleaned out and so forth and they know what he wants. So we'll see what that looks like. In terms of Liz Cheney, you know, Barry Loudermilk, one of her former colleagues in the House Republican, sent a, I think it was sent a letter suggesting that she should be investigated and alleging that she may have engaged in witness tampering. He offers no evidence that's compelling of this.

She has denounced this as false and as trying to tarnish her and doing Trump's bidding. There's things to remember here, which is that the speech and debate clause also- Protects her. Give her pretty wide latitude, yeah, in terms of what she was doing. So I understand that Trump is going to continue to say things like this, but the risk, I think, for a lot of people who are not Jack Smith or you know, or are whomever, is just the other attacks they face, right? Online, they become, you know, focal points for Trump's supporters.

But look, Trump has been pretty open about believing this very long list of people that he keeps reciting, quote unquote, should be looked at. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. What would you do if you were them? If you prepare for it or just wait to see? I can't advise them. But we will see where this goes. So tech policy wasn't a big part of the campaign as terrorist or immigration, but conservative censorship is a huge conservative talking point, Republican especially.

Trump wants Brendan Carter to head the FCC, who's a very thirsty commissioner. Andrew Ferguson to head the FTC, slightly less thirsty, but thirsty nonetheless. They have plans to essentially criminalize content moderation, use antitrust law to punish advertisers who leave platforms like X, which seems insane. It's pretty ambitious stuff and rests on very shaky legal ground. What is the strategy here? Is he personally invested in tech regulation or is he letting them just do that and make all kinds of noise?

I think it's mostly letting them do that. These, as far as I know, are not closely held thoughts for him. But these are areas of deep interest to some of his supporters. And so, so I think he's just letting them do what they would like. Do what they would like and not really be supportive or just say things, but without... Just, yeah, and just see where it goes. See where it goes. I mean, a lot of this is going to be governing by seeing where it goes.

I just want to also make the point, Kara, that we didn't make before. Trump is inheriting a pretty calamitous world right now. I mean, this is not, you know, what he stepped into in 2017. There was an explosion of a Tesla cyber truck in front of the Trump Hotel in Vegas by an Army veteran. The New Orleans suspect was an Army veteran. There have been a series of subway pushings in New York City. There was a mass shooting, you know, the other night. This is not a placid world. And we haven't had to see Trump govern during multiple crises before.

And the one time he had a real crisis, which was the coronavirus pandemic, he didn't do very well. govern during multiple crises before, and the one time he had a real crisis, which was the coronavirus pandemic, he didn't do very well. So every elected official comes in with a lot of grand plans, but sometimes the world gets in the way. We'll be back in a minute. Nerds. Support for this show comes from NerdWallet.

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it is annoying to Trump. As you've reported, Elon's effectively living at Mar-a-Lago and sitting in on meetings, including one Trump had with Jeff Bezos. I think he showed up like a bad penny for Bezos. I saw his face. Yeah. Although if Trump didn't want him there, Trump would have told him not to come. Correct.

That is correct. But he did. Obviously, he wanted to unsettle Bezos. He unleashed a tweet storm that roughly 100 posts to help defeat the original bipartisan deal Speaker Johnson had made to keep the government funded. He also, Trump, accidentally posted what seemed to be meant to be a private DM saying how much he missed him. That was odd.

That was odd. That message, yeah. Talk about this, it was sort of that, speaking of thirsty, talk about this relationship. I have noted that I suspect that it will go awry at some point, but they're very much alike in some ways, too. How do you look at this relationship, but they're very much alike in some ways. How do you look at this relationship, especially because he's now helping defeat a spending bill. They are using the term President Musk a lot.

They seem annoyed by him. So talk a little bit about what's developing here. It's complicated because Musk is close to people around Trump. It's been reported that he had some kind of a political spending relationship with Stephen Miller in 2022. He has given a lot of money as a pass through through a group called Building America's Future, which previously been connected to Ron DeSantis, but people who were connected to Ron DeSantis run it.

Musk has been a major donor to Trump, this campaign cycle, and he's sort of tied into a lot of various areas around Trump, which makes things more complicated. Where do I see it going? Musk seems more willing to irritate Trump than a lot of other people have been and less concerned about what it might mean. I just continue to believe that once Trump gets to Washington, this is going to change a little bit. I don't anticipate that Musk is going to have an office in the West Wing. I don't even know that he will have what's called a blue pass to wander around.

I think it's blue, maybe it's green. But there's a pass you need to- That you can just walk in. You can just walk in. And so, and I don't... Yeah, it doesn't mean you can just walk straight into the oval, but it's pretty close. And Trump also has historically had a really freewheeling office. He did it. Right. The Trump Organization, he did in his first term.

So I don't think that people really want Musk running around this way. But what that ends up looking like remains to be seen. Trump keeps people around for a long time if they are of use to him, and he almost never totally closes the door on somebody. Not someone this rich. Well, even somebody who's not this rich. But yes, somebody who's this rich and who is willing to go to fund primary challenges to lawmakers who might thwart Trump. Musk comes with something that quote unquote, President Bannon did not, which is a lot of

money. And I think that buys him a fair amount of time. But I just think that when Trump goes to Washington and he's not sitting on the patio, you know, when Musk can walk over from Banyan Cottage, you know, where he's been staying, I think it's going to be tougher. Tougher for Musk. Tougher for Musk, yeah. I mean, again, I don't think it's going to completely change. These things are like, it's like watching shifting sands around Trump.

Right. Do you know what I mean? It's like, this one's up, sands around Trump, do you know what I mean? It's like this one's up, this one's down, and I don't, but nobody's ever totally out, and I don't expect Musk will be, but it's a fraught relationship, or has potential for becoming more so. You are correct that they are not dissimilar. Trump usually delegates dealing with unpleasant interpersonal tasks

to people around him. I think a bunch of people around him are also struggling with how aggressive Musk can be in their interactions. Right, right. No, I've heard from them, oddly enough. And so I don't know what that ends up looking like. But do I also think that if you asked them publicly, they would all say, what a great entrepreneur. Musk is a great supporter. And this is like, I think that's true too. Yeah.

Yeah. So when you look at that, is there something he could align, he could cross? Is Trump bothered by the President Musk thing? He did address it and he seemed... Yeah, no, he didn't bring that up because it doesn't bother him. Yes, exactly. I mean, it definitely bothers him. The puppet master pictures.

Yeah. I mean, just the president musk line was always going to be a way to get him. And I mean, Trump's not a windup toy, but there certainly are very specific things that can zot him. And that was one of them. But I think once Trump is actually the president, that might stave some of this off for a bit. Stave some of it off for a bit. So how influential do you, of all the advisors, is he the most

influential right now, Elon Musk? Musk? Yeah. No. No. No. But he is influential. Right. No. Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles are the two most influential advisors.

Very different people. Very different peopleie Wiles are the two most influential advisors. Very different people. Very different people, but they are the two. Could you talk a little bit about her? What is her role right now? She seems to let Trump be Trump, if I'm going to use a West Wing term. She does let Trump be Trump, but she also historically in our reporting picks her spots. And there are spots where she makes her influence known and she ran the most effective version of the Trump political organization that has existed.

She's also the only person who has survived a full campaign in that role. And that is not nothing, especially given everything that was going on with the legal cases and assassination attempts and a criminal case in the middle of the campaign. That said, Chief of Staff is a different role. And so, you know, she has a team of people who feel very close to her and wanna see her succeed and who she brought to the dance. And so we will see what that looks like when they all get into the White House. But I think it is a mistake.

There is a, the thing that people kept saying to me is, it's actually similar to what you said to me at the start of this interview is, is blah, blah to stop him? Right. Like, I don't think that Susie Weil sees her role as stopping him. Right. But do I think that she has certain areas of priorities where she is going to try to

have influence? Yes. You know, she doesn't do it flamboyantly, but she does make her presence felt. Yeah. So a powerful figure in the administration. A very effective blade wielder, which I think people are often caught by surprise about. Yeah, because she's apparently lovely on the surface, correct? She's a very different personality than them.

She's a very different personality than what Trump has had in that role before. That's definitely true. So one last question about one thing that's going to get his attention right away is, I made a prediction for 2025 that Trump is asking the Supreme Court to delay the TikTok Bim. So someone like Elon with help from L'Areal's and other investors can buy and that China will cooperate. This might be a big thing right at the beginning of the administration. It's the law goes into effect January 19th.

If the Supreme Court does not act law goes into effect January 19th. If the Supreme Court does not act, that's what it will be. And Trump is asking them to delay. Right, which is unprecedented, apparently, but everything is unprecedented with him. Everything is unprecedented. So what is your take on what will happen? That will be a big thing right at the start, for example. It will be a big thing right at the start.

And this is more your area than mine, so I don't want to sound like an idiot with the king here, but your supposition, whether it's Musk or someone else, might, you know, possibly wanting to buy TikTok. I have heard that theory. I don't know if that's the case, but I have heard it. I don't know what it looks like, but I think that of things that Trump would be focused on that would be high on the list. High on the list. What happens to TikTok?

Because? Because Trump believes, although I think, yes, he asked as an investor, I don't know how much that's been a part of their conversations, if at all, Trump believes that TikTok is partly why he won. And he did a post on Truth about it, I think. He did. Truth Social yesterday, or the day before, showing, you know, it was like, why would I want to get rid of TikTok?

And it was like all of his stats. And you know, this is obviously a pretty big turnaround from where Trump was on TikTok in his first term. Yeah. Complete is what I would call it. Correct. But it had a benefit to Trump. And so I think that's why it's something he pays attention to.

Yeah, which will be interesting. So I want to finish up last couple questions about how the press looks during this time period. Obviously, ABC News agreed to pay Trump $15 million to settle a defamation suit that he probably would have lost. Most lawyers I'd speak to say that. He also filed suit against Des Moines Register for publishing a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris. Musk is, despite his free speech shtick, which is largely empty, he's talking about suing media outlets over headlines related to the Cybertruck explosion. It was an explosion in a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. It seems everywhere everyone's emboldened in this area.

Are we entering this era where the richest and most powerful people in the world use this lawfare, which is what they like to call it, to intimidate and silence news outlets? And how do you look at that? These cases are not all the same. But Trump is historically litigious and he actually had pretty little success with libel related cases previously. I do think that you were going to see, and Trump was open about it at a press conference, he is going to file lawsuits. You know, the purpose is, when he sued Tim O'Brien, now at Bloomberg, who covered him

for a very long time and is one of the originals, Trump sued Tim for libel because of, I'm going to paraphrase here, but it was whatever Tim put Trump's net worth at. Trump claimed it was too low. It was a couple hundred million dollars. The suit went on for a couple of years. Trump lost. Trump actually did spend a fair amount of money on it, although he claimed that he hadn't. Trump told the Washington Post in the 2016 campaign that he did it to make Tim's life

miserable. Now, I don't believe he did make Trim's life miserable. But that says something about what Trump's mindset is on this, right? Which is just to force you to spend and to force you into court and to force you to be distracted. The Des Moines Register suit is an attempt to use a consumer fraud statute in that state. It's not liable. They have been effective at jurisdiction shopping.

That's correct. Much more so than they used to be. And they are finding judges who are more willing to let cases go forward. And we should also note that this is another area where Trump's personal desires align with longstanding Republican interest. In this case, trying to get NYTV Sullivan before the Supreme Court. Right. That's the whole goal, which is why ABC people told me they settled.

So I think that, I do think you're going to see more of these. I think it is, look, we need to do our best to be, you know, the standard of the public figure is actual malice. We need to, you know, do our best in our reporting to be accurate and factual and fair. But that said, Trump also has a history of not liking coverage that, you know, other people might find neutral, but he, you know, decides is, quote unquote, negative. So do I think this will be an ongoing theme? This gets back to the Musk point, right?

I mean, people like Musk, I suspect, if not Musk, someone else, Trump has a lot of wealthy backers now who would be more willing to fund these lawsuits than they might have been eight years ago. Right. And what does that propend for the press covering him? Look, I mean, you know, it shouldn't change the way people do their jobs. I mean, people should be responsible, as I said before. But, you know, holding power to account is what we do. And so, you know, there's obviously been a fair amount of concern that it is going to try to stifle that.

I have a lot of faith in the press. I have two more questions. Is corporations giving the money? Not a surprise to me. I know everyone's shocked by it, but of course they're going to. The slew of CEOs have gone down there. They've written positive things. This seems normal to me that they would do this.

And is Inauguration fund is breaking fundraising record. A lot of the cash though is coming from corporations that pledge not to donate to Trump after January 6th. Do you think he's going to keep requiring these displays of submission once he's in office? I don't know what this looks like once he's in office. I think that they think they have two years, Kara, until the midterms. They do. And so, right. And if they keep the House and grow a margin of Republican control, then

that would be Trump's ideal. But historically, midterms are hard on the party in power. So, although that obviously wasn't the case when President Biden was facing his midterms in 2022, I don't know. I think we will see what it looks like once he's there and we'll see what the policy rolls out. This has been such a strange period of time. It's been so antithetical to what we saw when Trump won in 2016 heading into January 20th, 2017.

We'll see. I mean, one thing to remember, Trump, in 2017, and the date was January 6th, 2017, that was when Trump got briefed by the intel chiefs about the dossier and the debunked steel dossier and so forth and so on. And Trump went into that term very, very anxious. He's not facing that right now. He still has the criminal conviction in New York

that has not been set aside, he's appealing that. He is facing a bunch of civil litigation. But generally speaking, he is coming in to office in a pretty different way than last time. In theory, that should lead him to make some decisions differently, but historically, he is a person of relatively few moves. So, we'll see. So, I don't, the answer is I don't know. Do you mean by calmer or more confident or I've got... Calmer, more confident and so forth and so on.

Older. Older, more experienced. But again, as I said earlier, the world is pretty chaotic and these are intractable problems. So, we'll see. So my last question for you is you you managed to help sources within the administration. They've given you lots of information and scoops on Trump. As you said, when you first go around, he was new to DC, you knew him well and depended on establishment Republicans to staff the administration.

Now he's surrounded by loyalists. He is the establishment. Correct. The Democratic opposition for now appears to be cowed. I don't know if that will last. His people seem to be emboldened How has the work changed for you? Here you are. I always joke with you. I'm like not this year You'll get out, but you're not out. You're back again. And unfortunately, I'm being dragged in

I can't talk about Elon Musk anymore. I don't want to I'd like to not talk about him ever again I have bad news for you. I know I know but I'm not I'm trying not to talk about him ever again. I have bad news for you. I know, I know. But I'm trying not to talk about him again. But what do you see as your role here? This is a different reporting challenge, presumably. It's not really. You attract a lot of attention yourself, by the way. I think that there is a bipartisan antipathy toward the mainstream media. And we've seen it for some time.

There was a pretty loud coterie of Democrats who were very angry when reporters would note that President Biden had some struggles. And then the magic of sight on June 27th and 2024 at the debate made pretty clear that this wasn't just a press construct. So I guess my point with that is that this isn't a new reporting challenge. I mean, this is just a new phase of this story. It's a remarkable construct. So I guess my point with that is that this isn't a new reporting challenge. I mean, this is just a new phase of this story. It's a remarkable story. It's a historic story. For me, I've been covering him consistently as a political figure for the last nine years and on and off as a political figure for the last 14 years.

So, it's not really that different. It's just in some ways easier because I know some of what it looks like. And do you have a name for your next book? No. None whatsoever? Not that I'm going to share right now. All right. Okay. But you are writing one, presumably, because this is one of the-

I am writing a book with Jonathan Swan. Do you think at all about your role in history? It would go down as one of the main chronicles of this story. I, I, I, no. I think about trying to get the story right. All right. And I think about trying to inform people. All right.

Maggie Haberman, thank you very much. Thanks, Kara. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yocum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Special thanks to Maura Fox. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get a blue or green or whatever color card

it is to the West Wing. If not, no security clearance for you. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.