Dissing Maggie

"Maggot?" How juvenile.

 

The Maggie Haberman-Jonathan Swan book was just released.

 

 

Yeah, of course I bought it. Stay tuned...

 

UPDATE

 

I am deep into this book. Very disturbing, even for someone already steeped in Trump critical biographies.

 

A snip from midway through the book:

By midway through the year, a picture was emerging of how the Oval Office operated in Trump’s second term. It was of a President spending his days at the Resolute Desk in a series of rolling bull sessions, accompanied by a core group of intimates; these were supplemented by a rotating cast of extras, and on any given day they could be Republican lawmakers, titans of industry, former pro wrestlers, country musicians, Gulf royals, crypto bros, or friends of felons seeking pardons. They would enter and exit the frame, with some invited to stay for meetings they had no business attending. The conversations ran fast, often straying far from the point, or from anything visitors imagined when they arrived at the White House. The President’s sentences often began on one topic and ended far away. 

The ever-present Natalie Harp was generally on a chair off to the side, her laptop open, head cocked, listening but never contributing unless ordered to by Trump. She fulfilled, in a flash, any request, whether a “Trump 2028” hat needed to be fetched from the merchandise room, a quick Google search, or producing the latest story from right-wing websites like Breitbart or Gateway Pundit. Once Dan Scavino became the head of the Presidential Personnel Office in late 2025, he mostly handed over Trump’s Truth Social account to Harp. 

Most presidents had adhered to the mantra that their most valuable commodity was time. George W. Bush and Barack Obama scheduled their days down to blocks of ten or fifteen minutes. The ideal “gatekeeper” function of a White House chief of staff was to guard those blocks of time against needless interruptions. But Susie Wiles had little interest in micromanaging her boss’s time, perhaps correctly calculating it was futile. She could try to control access to who got into the Oval Office, and what their agenda might be, but otherwise she would let the President set his own pace. 

In Donald Trump’s White House, time was a flexible concept. To outsiders, the administration appeared a hive of activity, but those brought into the Oval Office would often remark that Trump seemed to have all the time in the world. Unless the meeting concerned an imminent military operation, Trump was usually relaxed, gossipy, unhurried. Many visitors to the Oval were charmed. Even those who didn’t like him would often describe the President as solicitous and flattering, offering Diet Cokes and candy as if he were a greeter at one of his clubs. He would tell bawdy jokes and compliment his guests on how good they looked. He signed MAGA hats and extra ones for their kids and would urge them to come to Mar-a-Lago that weekend or to one of his golf clubs. He would spend hours examining the minute details of Oval Office decorations and plans for the ballroom he was plotting on the grounds of the East Wing. He loved showing off the quality of the speakers that piped his music—Pavarotti and Sinéad O’Connor and James Brown—into the Rose Garden patio. And he would regale visitors—especially foreign leaders—with the details of his 2024 election victory, subject them to his familiar litany of complaints about “Sleepy Joe,” and pepper them with questions about the dangerous animals in their countries with the fascination of a child. 

“I still can’t fully describe what the Oval Office is like with him,” said one visitor. “You’d have two people on two different speakerphones. Another person on a cell phone. I’ll never forget talking about a highly classified program, and this guy—looked like just a salt-of-the-earth, country guy—walks in and he’s got samples for the Rose Garden paving. Pops them on the desk. And the President stops what we’re talking about, gets up there, and walks out there with him and I see a lot of hands moving. And he comes back and then looks over our shoulders, and the curator is there with somebody to drill the cherubs into the wall that he had brought up from Mar-a-Lago. And then he goes back to the people on the phone, gives them guidance. And then he tries to come back to us, but we’re out of time.” 

This pattern would repeat all day long. The President’s last three meetings of the day would often blur into one contiguous meeting. Trade, national security, a visiting CEO. All would be mashed together into one borderless conversation. Trump had run his days this way—unstructured and improvisational—since the years he spent working from his corner office in Trump Tower. But in his second term, Trump had made the White House more fully his home—not just fixing it in accordance with his aesthetic, but fundamentally changing the rhythms and structures and operations of the place…

Haberman, Maggie; Swan, Jonathan. Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump (pp. 169-171). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Lordy Mercy...