Maggie Haberman Reveals the Tricks She Thinks Trump Uses to Create the ‘Veneer of Transparency’
Screenshot via C-SPAN
New York Times White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan spoke to C-SPAN’s Peter Slen this week for a lengthy Q&A about their bombshell new book covering the Trump administration.
Haberman and Swan’s book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” came out last week and became an instant best seller following weeks of details from the book being released in the media.
Slen pressed the star reporting duo on their access to President Donald Trump, “My guess is you both have his cell number?”
“Yeah, sure,” they both quickly agreed.
“And if you called him right now—we’re not gonna make you do it, trust me,” Slen quipped as Haberman added, “I wouldn’t say yes, and I don’t think Jonathan would either.”
Slen then added, “Good, but he would pick up, probably, or call you back—is that correct?”
Haberman replied, “I don’t actually think so. Maybe. I mean, we really have not—we personally have not really talked to him very much other than day-to-day, which we write about when we’re covering him during this term. I know—”
Slen jumped in, “Because of the book?”
“Because of a couple of things, but we made a concerted effort to get him to sit with us for this book, and it didn’t look like it was going to happen, and it was becoming clear to us that we were going to have to go to him directly to ask, because we had tried through the front door of the White House and that wasn’t getting us very far. And this is a book where he’s the subject,” Haberman replied, adding:
We wanted to give him the opportunity to answer direct questions, but we also did not want it to just sort of be open mic night and, you know, “sit down and ask the news of the day, sir.” And there is, clearly, news has come from people calling him in the last, you know, however many months it’s been. There have been very revealing comments he’s made—one about how, you know, to Michael Scherer of the Atlantic, about how “America First” means whatever I say it means, last year when he was first involved in an incursion into Iran, which was the 12-day war.
There have been other pieces of news that have emerged, but in general, these calls, when people make them, they last about two and a half minutes. He dictates the terms of the discussion, and it’s a way to appear and make a display of transparency, which we describe. I mean, this administration is very good at making shows of transparency.
Karoline Leavitt constantly says he’s the most transparent president in history, which is just simply not true—not rating him against other presidents. This is not a transparent administration. But so, those calls allow him to maintain that veneer while really dictating the terms and not answering much at all.
Slen followed up, “But when he has an Oval Office meeting and says, ‘Do you have any questions?’ you could ask him anything you wanted, correct?”
“If I’m in the pool,” Swan replied, adding, “The White House now decides who’s in the pool. So yeah, if I’m selected in the pool, sure. But the composition of the pool has changed from what it used to be.”
“There are more friendly reporters there. It is true—let me be clear about something: he answers more questions than Joe Biden did,” Swan said as Haberman agreed, “There’s no question.”
“He’s more available; I mean, there are reporters in there asking him questions, you know, when they’re in the pool. There’s no question about that. But Maggie and I just find the type of reporting that we do in this book—there’s many different types of reporting—but when we want to try and get inside a room, the Oval, the Situation Room, for the most sensitive conversations, the way to get that is not to call Donald Trump on the cell phone for three minutes. It’s just—it’s not that useful,” Swan concluded.
.@maggieNYT on reporters calling Trump: "It's a way to appear and make a display of transparency…this is not a transparent administration."@jonathanvswan: "It is true, let me be clear, he answers more questions than Joe Biden." pic.twitter.com/sdxpue3Ii3
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 29, 2026
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
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