old-school talk therapist, disbursing neutral prompts to draw him out and keep him going.
.. Haberman knows how to conjure it forth: with flattery, simple questions, and boundless patience.
.. also gently calls him on inaccuracies in a way that opens him up rather than shutting him down. When the president asserts (incorrectly) that the New York Times hasn’t covered the Susan Rice story, Haberman replies, “We’ve written about it twice.” Then she transforms his ego-wounded dig into a request for edification: “You mean there’s more information that we’re not aware of?”
.. HABERMAN: Sir, if you could give us more information about Rice. If the administration would give us more information—
TRUMP: No, you have a lot of information. No, you have so much information.
HABERMAN: If you would have given it to us last week, we would have written it. Would you declassify some of the information so that—
TRUMP: I don’t want to talk about that.
HABERMAN: No? OK.
TRUMP: No. I just don’t want to talk about that. It’s such an important story for our country, for the world. What took place.
HABERMAN: Why not talk about it then? With all due respect.
TRUMP: At the right time, I will be.
.. Haberman appeals to the president’s vanity. When he complains that “the highways are in poor shape,” she eggs him on: “What about the airports?” When Trump takes the bait (“I think the airports are a horror show”) and tacks on a self-congratulatory aside (“I’ve traveled the world, I know the world”), she seizes the opportunity to flatter him further. “And, well, you’ve traveled the country,” Haberman notes with admiration. “Tell us what you thought.”
How Trump’s Candidacy Has Divided Conservative Media
Ann Coulter’s role in inspiring some of Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policy, she tweeted – and I’m not sure if this was after his campaign announcement announcing that he was running – she tweeted (reading) I don’t care if Donald Trump wants to perform abortions in the White House after this immigration policy paper.
And I’ve just been trying to imagine somebody like William F. Buckley or George Will tweeting something like that or ever saying something like that. It’s just inconceivable, like the rhetoric has changed so much within the right-wing media. And…
DRAPER: Well, you’re not the only one who thinks that, Terry. The conservative talk show host – and in a lot of ways intellectual godfather in conservative talk radio Mark Levin tweeted back after Ann Coulter’s tweet, which, indeed, was immediately following Trump’s announcement speech. Levin had said this has to be one of the more pathetic statements that I’ve ever read.
So a lot of people who are horrified, of course, Ann Coulter has made a career out of horrifying people. And she – among her many gifts, understatement is not one of them. She also had said that that speech was the greatest thing written since “Magna Carta.” But, of course, this was self-glorification, too, since Ann Coulter recognized the rhetoric as her own.
.. GROSS: Do you think that the impact of talk radio and cable news is changing in terms of politics in America?
DRAPER: Well, what’s clear is that talk radio could dictate, basically, the tenor of the electorate. And I don’t think that that has taken place in this election cycle. The numbers show that talk radio is still a very healthy phenomenon. Though, it does not own a monopoly on conservative activism the way it did in the 1990s when Rush Limbaugh ruled the roost. Because of social media, because of Breitbart, because of Drudge – they are not the only voices that count.
.. DRAPER: Well, I think that no area of the overall Republican family has had such an awkward time with the Trump candidacy than Fox News. I mean, I think even more than the Republican National Committee. And you can actually see, on the air at Fox News, people who have made a choice to throw themselves utterly behind Trump and others who have been skeptics and others who have been vigorously opposed to him.
.. But it’s notable to me that Trump, while continually denouncing the media, is in his own way accessible to a number of us. He’s been talking to reporters from The New York Times, including myself, constantly for months and months now, where Hillary Clinton, for example, notably has not. And now, I’ve been at rallies where we are confined to this media pen and where Trump makes a big exercise out of pointing out to everyone in the audience that there is the disgusting, dishonest media. Lots of booing ensues. I’ve, you know, been a journalist for several decades so I’ve not ever been concerned that this is going to rise to a level of violence. I hope that I’m not proved wrong on that.
But to me, this is not the civil rights era and being cursed at by people in the crowd is not the same thing as what our colleagues endured 50 years ago going down to the Deep South. But it can be alarming for the uninitiated. And – but my view is that it’s for show.
I mean, Trump very much sees himself as an entertainer whose foremost job is to keep people listening. And he has said as much, that when it looks like he’s losing the crowd he’ll start talking about building the wall and having Mexico pay for it.
.. I’m saying we hoped this a year or a year and a half ago – that this election might actually provide an opportunity to sort of build at least a rickety bridge between both sides that there’d be some healing after the divisiveness of the last really 16 years or some, perhaps longer.
But there’s no end in sight to this. I think that if Trump becomes president and he abuses his authority, there will be articles of impeachment. If Hillary Clinton becomes president, the House Republicans, already lying in wait due to the Benghazi and email server situation. We’ll also be contemplating articles of impeachment. I simply do not see a way in which things become better
.. GROSS: You mentioned that Trump is good at flattering people, and that’s – your implication is that that’s kind of a tool that he uses.
DRAPER: Well, I have personal experience with him, going back to my first encounter with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago when he walked in, saw me and said nobody told me he was such a handsome guy.
(LAUGHTER)
DRAPER: And then throughout what turned out to be about a four-hour evening, Trump, you know, was constantly asking me what I thought about certain members of the media, what I thought about his chances in a particular – the state of Wisconsin, what I thought about particular commercials that other candidates were putting up. And I – as I mentioned, really couldn’t tell whether or not he was acutely interested in my opinions or wanted me to feel like that he was interested in my opinions or if he just wanted to hear my opinion, so he knew where I stood, not so that he would follow my opinions.
But, nonetheless, to be around a guy who is a billionaire and has achieved a lot, I think, you know, would probably – that would be like a momentous thing for someone. I can see how for individuals who have not been asked their opinions before by major political figures that Donald Trump doing so would make them feel like, wow, I’m a Donald Trump consultant. And my my own view is that – and I mentioned this in the story – that lest I would have had any kind of illusions that Trump really valued my insights relating to his prospects that just a few days later, I saw him on the campaign rope-line, you know, asking the very same question to total strangers. So this is just something that Trump does.
The Global Effort to Flatter Ivanka
the achingly obvious oddity of deciding that Trump, whose experience on the public stage largely consists of marketing her clothing and jewelry lines, and her efforts to get her father, Donald Trump, elected, was qualified to sit between Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Minister of Canada.
.. maybe the make-believe about Ivanka coming up with world-changing ideas is harmless, if it means that her father will look kindly on the World Bank—although a report, this week, in the Washington Post about the conditions in a Chinese factory run by the contractor who makes her brand’s clothes (extremely low wages and long hours) does not quite fit into the picture.
.. He’s been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive in the new reality of a duelling—”
When asked, more specifically, how she advised him, she said, “It’s been an ongoing discussion I’ve had with my father most of my adult life, and we’re very aligned in many, many areas. And that’s why he’s encouraged me to fully lean into this opportunity and come into the White House and be by his side.” The implication was that nepotism was one of her father’s virtues, and proof of his good character.
.. when NBC News asked her about admitting Syrian refugees to the United States, she said that it should be “part of the discussion, but that’s not going to be enough in and of itself.” The resulting headlines suggested that this constituted a break with her father. But how, exactly? Refugees are “part of the discussion” when he rails against them; and “not going to be enough” could just as easily refer to what the President sees as the need for “extreme vetting,” or letting in only Christians. She referred, for a second time, to the areas “in which I’m fully aligned with my father—which are many.” “Many” could mean anything,
.. Foreign countries and companies might appreciate the idea that they can more easily handle Donald Trump if they lavish his daughter with attention; this is a common enough practice when dealing with authoritarian governments.
The Post Pours Some Sugar on Gary Cohn
Trump’s economic adviser is faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound, we’re told.
.. Known inside the trade as “beat sweeteners” or “source greasers,” such praiseful articles lavish flattery upon officials in hopes that the subject will come to trust the reporter and return the favor in the future by leaking inside skinny or providing other access.
.. Conservative press critics can’t shut up about liberal media bias, but for my money the enduring bias in the Washington press is for moderation, centrism and bipartisanship. If a politician or policymaker signals a willingness to make deals in Washington—no matter what the deal—the press will treat him like a wise and worldly figure.
.. Wall Street Journal editorial in Friday’s edition pegs Cohn—accurately, I think—as a “pragmatic Wall Street Democrat
.. Cohn’s smartest move has been to position himself inside the Trump administration as the anti-Bannon
.. Cohn has already convinced willing scribes that he’s an effective power broker.
.. struggled with dyslexia
.. If Cohn makes that leap—and given current White House disarray, that’s more than possible—he would make a most excellent source.