NYT reporter sheds light on Trump’s perspective of hate as a 'civic good'

12 October 2022

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman recently weighed in with an in-depth perspective on former President Donald Trump's understanding of hate as a "civic good."

The reporter's remarks come amid the release of her new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, which chronicles the former president's influence in the world of business and politics.

During a recent interview with NPR, Haberman touched on the severity of the investigations Trump is currently facing. "The scale and nature of the investigations that he's facing now are more significant than almost anything else he has faced," Haberman said.

Currently, Trump is facing three investigations, but out of all the cases, the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) documents case seems to be the biggest concern for the former president.

"The documents case connects more directly to him because there's a clear throughline where he was being told to return these boxes and he wouldn't, and that there were three different efforts to recover documents and they kept finding classified documents with each interaction," she said. "It's just harder to blame on someone else."

The cases have managed to keep Trump in headlines. According to Haberman, this appears to work in Trump's favor because he "learned early to personalize every conflict and see political relationships as transactional."

NPR notes: "His father, Fred Trump, cultivated relationships with powerful politicians — including Meade Esposito, the scandal-ridden Brooklyn Democratic machine boss — and then 'gifted' those connections to his son."

"I asked [Trump] about Esposito and if he had thought that being president was going to be like that. He said Meade 'ruled with an iron fist,'" Haberman said. "That was how he believed government worked. People made decisions for their fiefdoms and what they said went and people operated in fear. And that was how Trump believed Washington would work."

The reporter also explained Trump's perspective of hate and how he's managed to use it to his advantage. "I think American politics was changing to this level of smash-mouth to some extent before he got here," Haberman said. "I think the Tea Party era helped usher that in and I think he fueled it and accelerated it and benefited from it."

She added, "And I think it is defining the Republican Party in large measure right now. I think all of our politics are defined, not just the Republicans at this point, by who you hate and who hates you back. He just happens to fare very well in that kind of an environment, because ... he sees hate as a civic good."

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