Maggie Haberman Reveals Trump’s ‘Very Clear’ Desire Amid Signal Scandal

The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on Thursday revealed how President Donald Trump has been “very clear” as to why he doesn’t want to fire officials linked to the group chat used to detail U.S. strikes in Yemen.

Haberman, citing sources familiar with Trump, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the president would see such terminations “as giving in to the media.”

“People around him see that as weak and I think you will hear that for a while,” said Haberman, a CNN political analyst.

“Whether this is sustainable for them is another story.”

Haberman’s comments arrive on the same day that U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg — who recently saw the president call for his impeachment following an order to block Trump officials from carrying out deportation flights — ordered the Trump administration to preserve records of the Signal chat.

Collins said the judge’s recent order is “keeping this story very much on the front page” to the White House’s displeasure. Trump officials’ reactions have kept the story going, too, she said.

Haberman pointed to Trump pushing “a number of other issues” as he looks to distract from the story with his increased tariffs, executive orders targeting law firms as well as executive orders aimed at restoring names on monuments and cultural institutions impacted by the racial reckoning movement.

“This is not going away,” she said of the Signal scandal.

Haberman noted that there’s been a “slow drip, drip of questions” primarily focused on national security adviser Mike Waltz — who invited The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat and acknowledged creating it — along with other Trump officials tied to the texts on national security matters.

Later in the interview, she argued that the story exposes the limits of Trump’s political playbook, one where the “laws of political gravity” don’t apply to him.

“That is not true for everybody around him and a lot of them still continue to act as if that playbook works for them because that is what he wants them to do,” Haberman said.

“It doesn’t really work for them the same way.”

H/T: Mediaite