U.S. President Donald Trump with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 16, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
New York Times reporter and co-author Maggie Haberman confirmed MS NOW anchor Jonathan Capehart’s claim that the White House is in a ‘constant state of chaos’ as employees lose purpose and leap from windows as the midterms encroach.
“There’s a sense of grind and a lack of having fun or common purpose in this White House right now,” said Haberman on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” Saturday morning. “They want to see him succeed, but [Trump] is not doing much to help himself.”
Show co-host Eugene Daniels then played footage of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitting that “the one thing” Trump likes to do in the middle of the week is construction — as opposed to acting like a president.
“[Trump’s staff] are all aware of what Howard Lutnick just said, except I was pretty surprised, Eugene, to hear him say that publicly, that they are ‘trying to keep the president happy’ because he prefers focusing on building projects on the day job over what he was elected to do as president,” said Haberman. “I don't think that's going to make voters very thrilled. But that certainly is true that that is what the president prefers. So, nobody is really trying to rein him in that hard. They're just trying to figure out how to balance it heading into November.”
She repeated her claim that staff don't deliver bad news to Trump in troublesome doses, but instead introduce portion of truth carefully couched in other, happier topics — because staff’s top priority is apparently Trump’s happiness over all else.
“People are very careful about what they say to him. He intimidates people [and] his own staff,” Haberman said.
While speaking, Haberman pushed back on White House attacks on her after she published a story revealing Trump was ducking a ceremony in Manhattan for the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, in part because he was refused the opportunity to make a speech, according to four sources with knowledge of the events.
“When we tried to follow up and confirm your reporting, a senior White House official told me that actually the reason for Trump going to the Pentagon instead of New York is because JD Vance is going to be attending, and the vice president and the president cannot be at the same place at the same time,” co-host Jacqueline Alemany told Haberman.
But Haberman dismissed that claim outright as White House after-the-fact cleanup work.
“Look, we stand by our reporting and the Times put out a statement explaining that this is based on multiple sources, that we went to the White House. We were quite transparent with them about what we were reporting, including [that] … part of the reason why he was not going to New York was because they didn't let him speak, and the White House did not say anything or push back on what we were reporting. And then 24 hours later, the president started attacking the piece.”
“You know, so readers can make their own assessment about a denial that comes a day later,” Haberman snapped.