The runaway train that was Donald Trump’s presidency once again produces a bestselling candidate. It was inevitable, as the author, Maggie Haberman, had more access to the businessman who was known in New York as “The Donald” than any other reporter.
The title of the book, released last Tuesday (4) in the United States, reveals the ambition of the enterprise: “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” of America). Among several revelations offered by the New York journalists, the most serious is perhaps that the Republican repeated to aides that he would not vacate the White House on the day of the inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden, January 20, 2021.
Like everything the septuagenarian says, whose cognitive decline can be tracked in YouTube videos, it’s hard to know if he would have tried to carry out the threat. Two weeks before inauguration, the violent invasion of the Capitol put the defeated president’s protectors at the polls on the defensive — and today could still put some of them behind bars.
“Confidence Man” is based on more than 200 interviews conducted by Haberman, who ran through the two major New York tabloids and the website Politico before landing on the politics section of the New York Times in 2015.
Newly hired, she got a phone call. “Trump will announce the candidacy on June 16th and we want you to give that scoop,” said an aide to the pre-candidate, referring to journalistic jargon for exclusive information. Haberman, who in 2011 had already covered the presidential ambitions of his frequent interviewee, decided not to risk it and waited for the official announcement.
The book contains anecdotes that would fill comedians’ monologues, such as Trump yelling at his lawyer Rudy Giuliani for the odor left in the bathroom of his private jet. But it’s hard to laugh at the testimony, accompanied by photos, that the then president flushed official documents down the toilet, both at the White House and on trips — much to the chagrin of plumbers on duty.
Or the lie he told a visitor when showing his “secret bathroom”, guaranteeing that it had been completely renovated. “You understand what I’m talking about,” he reportedly said, which the guest interpreted as a refusal to use the same vase as his predecessor, Barack Obama.
The racism that the then-candidate became a hallmark of his political ascension reappears shortly after taking office in the presidency, at a reception offered to congressional delegations. Trump mistook non-white aides to Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer for waiters, asking, “Why don’t you bring the food?”
More serious was the response heard by an ally when he insisted, during the campaign, that he should urgently denounce the white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan sympathizers who were asking for his support. There is no rush, argued Trump, after all “many of them vote”.
From exile on the Truth Social network, Trump anticipated the book’s release to attack Maggie Haberman, who he described, in one of the three interviews he willingly gave for the book, as his psychiatrist and now nicknamed “the maggot.” He angrily debunked the revelation that he nearly fired daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner with a tweet.
Considering Trump’s legal predicament, it’s another revelation that should make him more nervous. In September 2021, the Republican bragged to the reporter that he had taken “incredible things” from the White House, such as North Korean Kim Jong-un’s letters – which belong to the federal government’s archives, as well as so many documents targeted by the court’s lawsuit. August quest in Mar-a-Lago. Noticing Haberman’s incredulous expression, Trump tried to step back and muttered, “I think they’re in the files.”
The journalist has said that “Confidence Man,” with at least a third of its 600 pages devoted to Donald Trump’s family and professional background in New York, is a study of character exposed by reporting, not historical judgment.
The book serves as a chilling anecdote for historians and will not change the assessment of the most criminal presidency in American history.
Five revelations from Maggie Haberman’s book
1. Trump wanted to cosplay as Superman. He sent an aide to buy a Superman shirt before being released from the military hospital where he was hospitalized with Covid. The plan, inspired by a stage routine by singer James Brown, was to get out of a wheelchair and rip off the dress shirt in front of the cameras, revealing the logo of the superhero.
2. Trump gave examples of transphobia and homophobia. When receiving visitors, he made guesses about who would be homosexual. When a trans student asked if the then-president would agree to her using the girls’ bathroom, he responded: “With or without a penis?”, using a dirty term.
3. Trump ordered his lawyer to act savagely. Frustrated that he couldn’t reverse the defeat to Joe Biden, the president put Rudy Giuliani in charge of legal strategy saying, “Do anything, I don’t care.”
4. Trump finds secret documents sexy. Aides tried in vain to prevent him from publishing a photo of a facility in Iran without first blocking details the government wanted to keep secret. “If you remove the secret, you miss the sexy part.”
5. Trump wanted to bomb drug dealer labs in Mexico. After the Republican insisted several times on a plan to attack Mexican territory, aides, rather than trying to thwart him, asked Undersecretary of Health Brett Giroir, who was also an admiral, to no longer wear a military uniform to public health meetings in the Hall. Oval.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
