Journalist Maggie Haberman says Trump is driven to run again by desire for ‘revenge’ on Biden

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, author of a forthcoming book about Donald Trump, says Mr Trump misses the “pomp” of the presidency and wants revenge against Joe Biden.

Yet, she says Mr Trump may not have the drive or desire to run again, given the rigours of a presidential campaign.

In a Q&A-style interview with her own publication, Ms Haberman talked about the challenge of interviewing the former president, given that many of his statements and responses to answers, were mistruths or lies and that he was “not confined by reality”.

“As the journalist Joe Klein has written, referring to this larger pattern, he deployed words with a litigator’s precision — even if it sounded the opposite,” she said.

She added: “He’s a former president and a potential future candidate, with huge influence over the party. Among other things, interviewing him helps illuminate how he keeps that influence: his obsession with us-versus-them politics, with salesmanship and with presenting a version of himself that is often very different from who he actually is.”

Ms Haberman was asked what she thought the president would opt for when it came to making a second run for the White House.

“I think Trump misses the pomp and legal protections that the presidency afforded him. I also think he wants revenge on Biden, and on the media, and on a whole range of people,” she said.

“And he wants to be able to continue to raise money and get attention, both of which disappear if he doesn’t run. What I’m not clear on is that he really wants to wage another campaign, in part because he’s that much older and in part because he seems less engaged generally.”

She added: But that will reveal itself in the coming weeks or months.”

In an an excerpt of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America that was run by The Atlantic, Mr Trump is quoted about his attitude towards Ms Haberman, who started covering him in New York during the 1990s.

At one point during one of their interviews, he told two aides, “I love being with her; she’s like my psychiatrist.”

“It was a meaningless line, almost certainly intended to flatter, the kind of thing he has said about the power of release he got from his Twitter feed or other interviews he has given over the years,” she wrote.

“The reality is that he treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists—reporters, government aides, and members of Congress, friends and pseudo-friends and rally attendees and White House staff and customers.”

Mr Trump has already attacked the book before it is published this week, accusing Ms Haberman of telling made-up stories and not fact-checking, while calling her a “creep”. He also misspelling her name, calling her Hagerman.

Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Here we go again! Another Fake book is out, this one, supposedly very boring and stale, by self appointed head case, Failing (unfunded liability!) New York Times writer, Maggie Hagerman.”

Ms Haberman responded by posting a photograph of Twitter of Mr Trump’s handwritten replies to her questions.

In the Q&A, she was asked to respond to criticism that the media paid too much attention to Mr Trump.

“I think the criticism about too much coverage of Donald Trump felt very real to his primary opponents in 2016, and often to the Clinton campaign. But I would argue that he was leading the polls in the primaries and that the coverage was often not what one would call flattering,” she said.

“Now, he’s a former president with a huge following, as he undermines faith in elections and embraces conspiracy theories. I’m not sure there’s a good argument for ignoring him, because he still gets heard through other means. There is a good argument for contextualising him.”