Trump no longer ‘behaving like someone who cares’: Haberman

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The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on Wednesday said President Trump is no longer “behaving like somebody who cares.”

Haberman spoke on CNN about the president cancelling plans to sign a bipartisan housing bill until his voter ID bill, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, is passed. She emphasized to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the cost of living is a crucial issue among a large swath of Americans and could factor into whether Republicans maintain control of Congress.

“This bill was supposed to deal with that, and the president just wasn’t interested,” she told Collins. “So, does the president care? He’s not behaving like somebody who cares. Maybe he will start to at some point, but he is not right now, and I’m not sure whether he particularly believes he will suffer consequences.”

Haberman and her colleague Jonathan Swan spoke with Collins about their new book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” Collins pointed out one piece of news Haberman and Swan report in the book, which is that the president looks at far fewer polls than he did during his first term and operates more “on pure gut instinct.”

Collins asked if this matters, if it hurts Republicans in the November midterm elections.

“Yes, I do think that what we are seeing right now is very in line,” Haberman said. “On the one hand, yes, it’s similar to what we saw in term one, just in terms of sort of a sense for his party and some of his own staff of being erratic but is definitely consistent with trusting his gut more than ever.”

Haberman said she and Swan looked at a White House polling memorandum from December that showed if Republicans wanted to “make gains in the midterms and not suffer, they needed to be ‘honest’ with voters about the affordability crisis and try to find a way to deal with it.”

Around that time, however, Trump spoke out against affordability, suggesting it was a hoax created by Democrats, she said.

Trump said he considers passing the SAVE America Act — which he has said is his No. 1 legislative priority — “a National Emergency.” He has pressured Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to pass the bill by abolishing the filibuster, though Thune has refused to do that.

The president’s relationship with Senate Republicans has been strained over certain issues, including complaints raised by some over the administration’s objectives in fighting Iran. This particular issue led to a shouting match between Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) after the president met with Senate Republicans behind closed doors at the Capitol.

GOP senators have been frustrated with the president’s repeated calls to pass the SAVE America Act after failing to pass five different votes on the Senate floor.

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Bill Cassidy

Donald Trump

John Thune

Jonathan Swan

Kaitlan Collins

Maggie Haberman

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