New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman roasted former President Donald Trump even as she defended the media’s coverage of the “incoherent” and frequently untruthful subject.

Shots were fired at Trump International golf course earlier this month in what turned out to be a failed assassination plot. The suspect fired no shots and never had a line of sight to Trump. The incident occurred two months, almost to the day after the July 13 assassination attempt that left Trump’s ear bloodied and a supporter dead.

In the wake of both incidents, Trump and his allies have tried to blame Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, for calling Trump a “threat to democracy.”

Haberman was a guest on this week’s edition of NPR’s Fresh Air, and was asked about the “level of bitterness” in politics.

While Haberman cautioned it wasn’t fair to say Trump “brought on” these incidents, she noted that Trump’s rhetoric has been head-and-shoulders worse than that of his critics:

DAVIES: So let’s talk about some of the criticisms of the media. I mean, I will just say, you don’t have to answer for all media or even the many reporters and editors at The New York Times who are working on this campaign. But I’m interested in how you respond when people say that The Times and the media have given Trump credibility by treating things he says as if they should be taken seriously when they don’t deserve that treatment, or when he gives a garbled answer about, you know, say, child care, and it’s rewritten to sound clear and credible. In general, I mean, is there a point here?

HABERMAN: I think that the media does a very good job covering Trump. There are always going to be specific stories that could have been better, should have been better, that are written on deadline, and people are not being as precise as they should be. I think there is an industry, bluntly, Dave, that is dedicated toward attacking the media, especially as it relates to covering Donald Trump and all coverage of Trump. And I think that Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media process every day, has for years. The systems are just fundamentally — they were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does. I think the media has actually done a very good job showing people who he is, what he says, what he does. I think most of the information that the public has about Trump is because of reporting by the media. And I guess I don’t really understand how this industry that literally exists to attack the press broadly – and the media is not a monolith. It’s not a league. But this industry that exists to do that — I don’t see how they think they are a solution by undermining faith in what we do. That’s been very confusing to me.

DAVIES: Yeah. Well, I mean, part of the attacks are clearly are partisan. I mean, Republicans and Trump supporters are going to attack.

HABERMAN: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about —

DAVIES: Yeah, well, who is the industry you’re talking about? Yeah.

HABERMAN: I’m talking about criticism on the left. I’m talking about a lot of that Trump has used the language of despots to undermine the press is very well established, and it’s very dangerous. And I’ve talked about that. The publisher of The New York Times has been incredibly clear about that. He published an op-ed recently in The Washington Post actually talking about that. So I don’t think that anybody is in — at The New York Times is trying to sanitize Trump’s language. Do I think that there are occasional pieces at my paper, at other papers that probably should have been done differently? That’s absolutely true. And that’s – but that – what happens with this industry on the left that attacks the press is that it gets described as a grand conspiracy to try to help Trump somehow, as opposed to people doing their job on daily deadlines and not always hitting the mark because we are humans. And we are doing our best under a very challenging set of circumstances. But I actually think the media has done a very good job of covering Trump.

I think that what is frustrating to those people making those claims is that there is not the result they want to see, which is Trump melts or Trump no longer has, you know popularity. I mean, you were saying — I think your question was treat him with credibility. He’s the Republican nominee. So there’s a substantial voting bloc in this country — almost half — that take seriously what he’s saying. And it’s not because The New York Times wrote a certain story. And so to not understand that, I think, is problematic for folks leveling the charge.

Watch above via NPR’s Fresh Air.

The post Maggie Haberman Defends Media’s Trump Coverage — System Not Built For Someone Who Lies And ‘Speaks As Incoherently’ As Trump first appeared on Mediaite.

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