US President Donald Trump as he arrives at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, in Dallas, Texas, US, October 1, 2026. REUTERS Jonathan Ernst
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who is often called the "Donald Trump whisperer," says the president probably doesn’t have the capacity anymore to openly admit his mistakes, even as he acts to reverse the damage he's done.
This applies to the destruction he heaps upon his own party this year.
The confession landed Thursday after CNN anchor Anderson Cooper pointed out that Trump has been to Texas three times, in part because he drove incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn out of the office by backing the current nominee in the Republican primary. Now Trump must content with unpopular candidate Ken Paxton, someone a conservative CNN political commentator called a “walking liability for the whole of the GOP.”
“I think he grasps the headwinds, but I don't think that he blames himself, based on everything we've seen him say and everything in my reporting and my colleagues reporting,” said Haberman. “He very infrequently blames himself.”
Despite this, Haberman said the reality is that the biggest issues facing the Republican Party have everything to do with his personal decisions and the policies he has singularly pursued without serious input or pushback from more intelligent advisors.
“Tariffs would be one of them. But the much larger issue is the Iran war and the price of gas and the affordability crisis, and the fact that the president talks about it in a way that is not very understanding about voters,” Haberman told Cooper.
Also included in the mass of bad tidings destroying Republicans this year is the increasingly obviousness whiff of corruption saturating the White House.
“All of this is why he has a problem, including what you were talking about in the previous episode, which is all of this self-dealing on a scale that we just have not seen ever in my lifetime like this at all, and I don't think in yours either. So, it's not that there have not been other allegations of corruption and other administrations,” said Haberman. “It's the level at which this is taking place.”
the Wall Street Journal reported news of Greece ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle Wednesday, asking a Trump donor to pay off some of her debt to shine her resume for a new White House post. And the candidate Trump is struggling to carry over the finish line has his own pong of corruption having nearly been impeached by his own Republican legislature over allegations of misconduct that included bribery and abuse of office.
“And so all of that is felt by voters. But he's blaming his strategists,” Haberman added. “He keeps saying things privately like, ‘you know, this plan is bad,’ but these candidates are his candidates. And these decisions are almost all his.”