New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who is often called the "Donald Trump whisperer," walked through a range of comments on "The Mishal Husain Show" for Bloomberg News.
While she said she doesn't believe that the U.S. is likely to see someone like Trump again, what he has done to government "is a fundamental re-imagining of the US presidency."
Haberman spoke about the upcoming election and whether Trump traveling around the country to campaign for Republican candidates will help or hurt. Husain asked why Trump hasn't been seen on the campaign trail yet while he's telling crowds to vote like his name is on the ballot. Haberman made it clear that Trump isn't campaigning because his name isn't on the ballot.
"And it's interesting because there was a reason for that for a long time where he would poll somewhat better than the generic Republican brand. I don't think that's the case now, but he said something last year about how he was either proud or honored that Republicans don't do as well when he's not on the ballot," Haberman said.
"He has set up this distance from his own party. And again ... he is viewed as separate from the Republican Party and the brand or the worst of it in terms of how it polls," she added.
Even when Fox host Laura Ingraham asked whether he would be campaigning harder than ever before, Trump answered "no."
The "big test," she said, is whether he will be forced out of what she calls his "unreality bubble" while on the campaign trail. In her book co-written with Jonathan Swan, Haberman said that a story appears about the six people that essentially run the government, noting no one else is invited to those discussions with Trump's top advisors.
"It's hard to break through that unreality bubble with him. Again, this is why being out on the campaign trail will be a big test," Haberman said.
"It's not that he's in a bubble where he's only on Truth Social and he's only watching the markets. He does know about these realities," Haberman explained. "The unreality bubble doesn't mean that he's not aware of actual reality. It just means that he is sticking to his version of reality, but he is briefed. He is told."
"He is briefed on how this is going. He does know what the truth is," said Haberman.
She was asked if he knew just how bad his poll numbers were, and Haberman said he did.
"But again, that's another 'reality is what you make it,' as he projects," she added.
Husain said that if the GOP fails miserably in the election, then it will reflect poorly on him, but Haberman said that Trump doesn't see it that way. So, while he tells his supporters to pretend he's on the ballot, he knows very well that he's not and it's the major reason he doesn't care much.
On issues like AI, Husain questioned why Trump is in such conflict with his own voters.
"I think even more than not registering. I mean, he's made comments that would've been fatal for a politician before about this, that people want to stay poor if they don't want this, everybody should want this," Haberman said. "It goes to the out-of-touch thing that we were talking about. Look, the president believes his own instincts are better than any other data that people give him and any other information."
It's also a reason Trump went into Iran, she said, despite those advising against it. She noted that Trump would love "to cut and run" on Iran, but even that option is off the table.
"He told Tucker Carlson, again, we have this in the book, 'It's going to be okay because it always is.' And in his mind, it always is for him. It's just not always okay for other people, but it certainly is not okay right now, but we'll see," Haberman said.
"The war really was the furthest thing from his mind," she later said.
Another thing that bogged down the administration was the first six months of the "co-presidency" with Elon Musk.
"DOGE just was a failure. It just didn't work. The fact that the GOP Congress has acted like an arm of the executive branch has been pretty shocking in a way I've never seen before in my lifetime," said Haberman. "That is the difference. I talked to Elon Musk for quite a long interview on a stage when he was still running DOGE actually, but not long before he decided that he'd had enough. And I think he really didn't like being asked questions about how that was going because it probably was, I hazard a guess, harder than he imagined it was going to be to make a difference there."