[MUSIC - THEME, “SWAY”]

archived recording (SINGING) Darling, you, you have sway.

kara swisher

Hey, “Sway” listeners. Welcome to a bonus episode with New York Times White House correspondent and resident Trump expert, Maggie Haberman. She’s also my favorite person to text with late at night. We’re here to talk about my latest interview with Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. Maggie Haberman, hello.

maggie haberman

Hello.

kara swisher

So how are you? You’ve been busy. You’ve been busy covering Trump. Has then been a difficult four years or hard or lots of work?

maggie haberman

It’s been lots of work. It’s been, at times, difficult, at times, not. But it has slowed down to this sort of just daily barrage of tweets and lawsuits. There is a very long tail on this election so far.

kara swisher

The long tail — that’s a nice word. You’re so kind. That’s a way to put it. It just seems like an endless nightmare to me. So I’m surprised you had time to listen to my interview with Secretary Raffensperger. I’d love to know what you thought of what he’s doing because you’ve been watching all the Republicans as they swirl around President Trump.

maggie haberman

I think he sounds like a very unusually lone voice of frustration within the Republican Party, who is trying to maintain some faith in the process, as the leader of his party is telling people that they shouldn’t trust it and as the leader of his party is personally attacking him. I thought he got very in the weeds on facts with you. I think he tried to make very clear about what had actually happened, about what the requirements were for voting, about the way they conducted the election. I think that people could learn a lot from listening to him beyond just sort of the president declaring Brad Raffensperger is bad. And Brad Raffensperger is saying, no, I’m not. I mean, if people want to actually understand what happened in Georgia, I think they should listen to the episode.

kara swisher

I don’t think people do really want to understand what happened.

maggie haberman

Some people do.

kara swisher

Who do you think is the person who’s most gotten under Trump’s skin? Is it Raffensperger? Or is it Krebs, Romney? There’s a lot of enemies that he’s sort of aimed himself at recently.

maggie haberman

Yeah, I don’t know how to sort of rank the greatest hits here. I would actually say that Brian Kemp has gotten under Trump’s skin, the governor of Georgia, more than Raffensperger over a longer period of time, dating back to the fact that Trump did help him in his election. And in Trump’s mind, therefore, he should get some — what he wants in return. And what he wanted was not Kelly Loeffler appointed to the Senate, and that was who Kemp went with. And so, his relationship with Kemp has just devolved from there. Mitt Romney is definitely one of the officials who rankles President Trump. They have a very long history and weird history. I mean, on the one hand, Romney has been very vocal about the president’s abuses of power as he sees it and misuse of his office and impropriety. It’s also worth remembering that Romney helped enable Trump in 2012. Romney took an endorsement from Trump, which gave Trump a toehold of legitimacy. So, going along with certain things does come with a cost. And while I understand that the response to that may then be but Trump is really bad, sure, but he was saying pretty bad things at the time, too. And —

kara swisher

We are going to get into this —

maggie haberman

— he had aleady done birtherism, and Romney still took his endorsement.

kara swisher

So what I want to focus on here, though, is, these guys are making big bets standing up to Trump on the future of the Republican Party and their own role in it. Why do you think they’re doing that? And what do you think the Republican Party will look like post-Trump?

maggie haberman

Look, I think they’re doing it for different reasons, right? I mean, in some cases, they’re doing it for their own political futures. But I actually think that in the case of Romney, I think he’s really very discouraged by what he has seen happen within the party. I think that for Kemp, I think that he is making clear he is not going to go beyond what the law allows. And I think that’s true for Raffensperger as well. I think Raffensperger is taking his statutory role very seriously. I think that there is a greater question here. You know, Donald Trump is skilled at turning everything in an up, down referendum on himself. Elections are about the country. They’re not about an individual’s feelings. And —

kara swisher

Right.

maggie haberman

— I think that these are people who are concerned about where the Republican Party has headed under Trump. Your question is about where it goes after. And then that begs the question, is there an after? I don’t think there’s going to be an after for some time, Kara. I mean —

kara swisher

Really? Now tell me why this is. I have thought that he’s going to flame out.

maggie haberman

I mean, he — well, I think, I guess, define flame out. I don’t think he’s actually going to run again. But I think he will do everything that looks like running for at least a year. I think he will freeze the Republican field. I think he will continue to engage in these litmus tests of loyalty for conservatives in terms of an up, down referendum on himself. And I think that voters react to that. And I think that’s very important to remember one of the weird things that Trump has done is — not weird, but one of the fascinating things he has done is, he creates these conditions by which the base does exactly what he wants. And then other officials say this is what the voters want, so we’re doing what they want, right? So I mean, I’ll give you a for instance. I think if President Trump had encouraged mask use, I think that his voters would have even grudgingly, in some cases, but they would have gone along with it for the most part. The fact that he wouldn’t just further gave them a reason as voters to say, yeah, we think this infringes on our personal choices and personal freedoms. And then, other elected officials responded to that. So I think that there is a strange, circular dynamic going on here with Trump and his base and then other elected officials. And I think you are seeing that play out here.

kara swisher

So why?

maggie haberman

Because they are following their president because it has turned into a — I said, it is a test for their future. And many of them are representing very Trumpy districts. And they believe that they have to be seen as fighting. And again, this is my point about going along with something because you think it won’t really matter at the end of the day. Sometimes it does matter. Did Mitt Romney accepting Donald Trump’s endorsement help elevate Donald Trump eight years ago? 100%.

kara swisher

Yeah, he probably thought nothing of it.

maggie haberman

Yeah, I’m sure he thought it didn’t matter at the time. Well, it did matter. These things do matter, even when you tell yourself that they don’t.

kara swisher

So what do you imagine? It feels like lemmings. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe they do think this is the future. Because what is the Republican Party, if not the Trump party now? Do you think that grip will ever —

maggie haberman

It’s impossible. It’s really impossible to say. I mean, four years is a lifetime in politics. Two years is a lifetime in politics. So I think it depends on what President Trump looks like when he’s out of office. Did he pay any price with some Republican voters for how he’s conducted himself over the last couple of weeks? We don’t know the answer to that. And we’re probably not going to know the answer to that for some time. But I think that’s going to dictate a lot of whether this matters in terms of Trump’s staying power. But I think that this belief, again, that people have that he’s just going to flame out — based on what? What have you seen of him that ever makes you think he’s just going to go away?

kara swisher

Make the case why he would go away. What is the would go away part?

maggie haberman

The would go away is that he gets to Florida. He remembers that he really likes having a lighter life, that he didn’t particularly enjoy aspects of the presidency, and that he doesn’t want to work that hard to retain a job he never particularly enjoyed in the day-to-day. That’s the making the case for it. But I would say that 50 years of trying to get attention suggests to me that he’s not going to suddenly become a whole different person.

kara swisher

What I’d love to get at the idea is why doesn’t he mind people having a lack of confidence? Because I think the numbers right now — I saw a number last night. 70% of Republicans think the election is rigged, essentially. How does he do that? What is the superpower here that’s going on with this guy?

maggie haberman

He has a base that’s incredibly bonded to him. He’s been very effective at keeping them on his side. He has been very, very good at tapping into what his voters see as some sense of shared grievance. And frankly, there is a lot of frustration among Republicans at the media and a perception that the media — and look, I don’t like bad faith criticism against the media, and I certainly don’t like using it as some kind of an excuse for doing things that many of these Republican elected officials know better than to be doing, such as joining on to the suit and suggesting that the election was entirely fraudulent. But I do think that look, it’s impossible to have a nuanced conversation around Donald Trump these days. But I do think that there are a number of voters who believe that the media coverage of Trump is unfair. And he has been very good at flaming that, as opposed to just being a bad set of facts. And they are sticking with him.

kara swisher

Does he remind you of Nixon in that way? Because Nixon was quite supported for a long time. But in hindsight, he looks like he sort of skulked off to California, and that was that. But there was quite a lot of support for Nixon, including winning the election before he went down.

maggie haberman

I mean, it’s a little different. In the case of Nixon, there were Republican senators who went to him and said no more. A line has been crossed, and that’s when he left. The language of Donald Trump in public is sort of the language of Richard Nixon on the Nixon tapes in private. I think that’s an important distinction. I think that — I mean, what is amazing is that Trump is — it’s not just norm shattering. I mean, he is doing things that are fundamentally dangerous in terms of public confidence in institutions. And yet, people still stick with him and tell themselves, well, he’s telling it like it is, or it’s just stylistic. I don’t care. I mean, these aren’t style choices. This is who he is. But why it didn’t last with Nixon, again, he did have support. There were Republicans who were willing to say to him, no more. We really haven’t seen that.

kara swisher

Why isn’t there anybody doing that here?

maggie haberman

Part of why we haven’t seen it is because there are these two Senate runoffs in Georgia on January 5th. And the majority control hinges on the outcome of those. And McConnell is —

kara swisher

Mitch McConnell.

maggie haberman

Mitch McConnell is — one of the qualities he shares with Trump and there’s not many, but one is sort of a singular focus on winning and on power. And Trump goes about it in kind of a semi-competent, ham-fisted way. McConnell’s very disciplined. And he knows what the levers of power are, and he knows what’s at his disposal. And he is focused entirely on holding those seats. And I don’t think you’re going to see him or most senators say anything until afterward, although you have seen some senators saying, like John Cornyn of Texas, say, he doesn’t see what the legal basis is for this Texas suit. So you’re seeing some inching toward the line, but again, there’s nobody who’s having a sort of, how dare you, sir, kind of moment.

kara swisher

Is that over the how dare you’s with this guy? There’s been a lot of how dare you’s. Nobody wins.

maggie haberman

Well, there’s been a lot of how dare you’s from Democrats.

kara swisher

Well, here’s Brad. He’s kind of doing how dare you.

maggie haberman

He is doing it. But I think it would require a more visible figure in Washington to have a little more impact. Or maybe that wouldn’t even matter, Kara, by the way. I mean, when you are willing to say anything and you can’t be shamed, that’s an edge. And that’s what this president has had.

kara swisher

That’s the edge of politics. It’s not shamelessness.

maggie haberman

Yeah.

kara swisher

Is there anyone who could stand up and say something? Who would you pick?

maggie haberman

Well, but let me ask you a question. Let me flip it around to you. What does saying something do? What is it? If somebody believed that if they say something, then Donald Trump says, “oh, OK, you’re right.”

kara swisher

No, no, but who has the moral high ground anywhere in the Republican Party?

maggie haberman

I don’t want to get into moral high ground. I mean, that’s maybe for a columnist. That’s not for me.

kara swisher

That’s why I’m using the senators that go up and talk to Nixon. Who has the influence?

maggie haberman

But I mean — but sure, but that’s — I think that if McConnell wanted to go to Trump and say, you need to stop this, as I said, the reason he’s not doing it is because the incentives, the power incentives for what he needs are not in support of that. I’m not saying that’s good or bad. I’m saying that is what it is.

kara swisher

It is what it is. So, with Georgia senate run-offs, what do you think is going to happen?

maggie haberman

I have no idea.

kara swisher

No idea.

maggie haberman

Not into the predictions game. I don’t know. What do you think is going to happen?

kara swisher

But he’s important there. You think the reason they’re doing it is they think Trump’s important there and his anger. But it seems like he’s almost cutting into it by supporting all these half-baked conspiracies.

maggie haberman

Yeah, I don’t actually know. Look, I think that there are Republicans who are working in these Senate races who believe that they need Trump because of Trump’s own questions cast about the validity of the election to say to voters, it’s OK to vote. Yes, the system was bad before in my election, but this one is OK. You should do it. Whether that’s actually been effective or not, we’re going to find out. But I was talking to a Trump advisor who said that they had found in their reviews of data that Trump would go places for rallies. And his support in those areas would either stay the same or go down a bit during the campaign. So I don’t know why it would be particularly different here. These are very tight races. We’ll see. I could see a world where both Republicans win. I could see a world where both Democrats win. I don’t really see a world where it splits, but we’ll see.

kara swisher

And were you surprised the two senators in these Senate races stuck with Trump again, Perdue and Loeffler?

maggie haberman

No, it goes back to the same reason. They need the base voters. You’re not going to see a whole lot of variation on the themes here until at least January 6th.

kara swisher

Were you surprised by all these Republican governors and secretaries pushing back? It’s not just Brad Raffensperger. There’s in Arizona, in several states.

maggie haberman

I mean, I think that there are a number of Republicans who think that this is creeping toward a different and more dangerous space. And I think there were people — and again, this goes back to the whole theme that I said at the top about enabling. There are people who wanted to let him have his moment and thrash. And now, they’re warning that maybe they let that go on too long. The only thing that would have mattered would have been the AG of Texas saying I’m not going to do this suit. The AG of Texas is under investigation himself and may or may not be looking for some kind of intervention by Trump in his case. So I think that the incentives here are all over the place.

kara swisher

If you had to look at it like it’s all over, President-elect Biden is sworn in, what do they do the day after?

maggie haberman

What do Republicans do?

kara swisher

Yeah.

maggie haberman

Well, I think they continue to try to block some nominees and if they hold the Republican — look, if Democrats take the seats in Georgia, then this is a whole different ballgame, because then you’re going to see a much easier confirmation process for President-elect Biden’s nominees. You will see a different level of potential passage, not across the board, but on some policy matters. If Republicans hold it, then I think that you’re going to still see McConnell trying to flex muscle and keep some nominees from being confirmed. They’ve already made very clear that Neera Tanden at CAP is among the people that they consider to be not one they want to confirm. And then, if the Republicans hold the Senate, is there just total gridlock? I don’t expect much different. Donald Trump will still be the leader of that party. So I don’t think that January 21st looks much different than January 20th.

kara swisher

Oh, great. Thanks, Maggie. Geez.

maggie haberman

I just wish people would start getting more realistic about this because I think that what I worry about what’s going to happen, especially because so much of the anger at Trump has been deflected onto the media over the last four years, is, nothing changes. And then, it’s, “why are you guys covering him?” If he’s a former president with 74 million voters and if he announces he’s running, should we not cover that? What is the argument for not covering him? My job is to chronicle what is happening. He is the president, full stop. I understand many people would like him not to be or not to have been. But at the moment, he is. And when Joe Biden is the president, we will cover him.

kara swisher

Speaking of which, but Trump. That’s something we talk about, but Trump.

maggie haberman

But Trump is a big theme in our text.

kara swisher

Yes, explain that if you can.

maggie haberman

I hold to the belief that two things can be true at once. Now I will say that a big difference at this moment is that— and when Trump is doing is a different level of doing an assault on democracy in terms of trying to undo the —

kara swisher

I would say perfidy, but go ahead. Go ahead, yeah.

maggie haberman

OK, you can say that. But what he is doing is an escalation even beyond what we have seen from him. So I do think that we are in a particularly fraught and dangerous moment. And I understand why people are concerned about looking like anything is a distraction. But I just —

kara swisher

And using the word “coup,” right?

maggie haberman

I mean, some people are using the word “coup,” and I understand why they are. I don’t think it’s been particularly effective so far. If he succeeds at the court in some way, then that’s different. I think it is possible to both cover Donald Trump and cover Joe Biden. And what I have discovered is that if even the mildest observation is made about Joe Biden, there is an enormous level of pushback ostensibly not from Biden’s team, but sometimes encouraged by Biden’s team. They’re about to be president, unless something incredibly dramatic happens. The coverage gets rigorous or should. And that is, a healthy democracy isn’t only that we cover the unprecedented nature of Donald Trump and then nothing ever else again. That is not how this works.

kara swisher

Right, except —

maggie haberman

There’s another thing, Kara. It’s also that, look, working the refs is a time honored tradition by various administrations, but their problems are also not our problems. So while I understand it’s inconvenient when, say, the Biden team puts out a pretty inaccurate statement saying that the FDA has approved a vaccine, which the FDA has not yet done as of this recording — now it may happen any minute now. It’s expected to happen, but it’s a central issue of the moment, the vaccine. And it’s an issue that Biden ran on. So, when they put out an inaccurate statement and his supporters can’t even handle a tweet acknowledging that the statement was wrong, I mean, that’s unfortunate.

kara swisher

Well, it is a but Trump thing. And at the same time, I think that Trump has given —

maggie haberman

You see it as a but Trump thing. I understand that. I’m saying I think two things can exist at once.

kara swisher

I think Trump is literally over here burning things down. And so, they —

maggie haberman

But I just said that. Why can’t two things be true? I’m not saying these are equal.

kara swisher

See, as we text about, I think Trump is giving Biden great cover. I think —

maggie haberman

Absolutely. Completely agree with that. Completely agree with that. I think that Trump gave Biden great cover throughout this campaign. And I think most Biden people will acknowledge that.

kara swisher

Yeah, the basement worked.

maggie haberman

Correct, and them’s the breaks. If Donald Trump wanted mail-in voting to be more in his favor, he perhaps should not have spent all of his time undermining it and telling his voters to vote on Election Day. Trump took advantage of all kinds of windows of opportunity in 2016. There is nothing wrong with Joe Biden doing the exact same thing.

kara swisher

So there are the Republicans like Brad Raffensperger — very conservative, very conservative. And he’s more of a Reagan Republican. One of the things he did right after this was he — I thought he made a bogus comparison between Trump 2020 and Abrams’ 2018. He represents a different kind of conservative to me. How does he and people like him get power back, or is that just impossible now?

maggie haberman

Well, I mean, that would have — the aiming at Stacey Abrams is not a province of Donald Trump. So I mean, I think recognizing that is the answer to your question, right? I mean, I think that even if they weren’t in power, they would be doing the exact same thing — in power within their own party, I mean. That’s actually a shared goal of Trumpers and non-Trumpers within the Republican Party.

kara swisher

But what — you get back to conservatives like him. Because those are conservatives I think Democrats feel like they can deal with, right? Do you get back to the Brad Raffensperger version of conservative?

maggie haberman

Look, before Trump, there was a 20% to 25% of the Republican Party favored somebody like Trump with positions like Trump. That is obviously now much more than 25%. I think it’s going to take several election cycles to be beyond that for the Republican Party, if it gets there at all. But I think that who the nominee is for the party in 2024 will be quite revealing to that end.

kara swisher

Do you have any opinions?

maggie haberman

Oh, I have no idea. Listen, I think at the end of the day — and I’m basing this on reporting — he will not ultimately try to run in 2023. But I think he will do everything to say he is up until that point, because it raises money and money pays for his endeavors, and it keeps him relevant and so forth. And I think that presents an enormous challenge for those of us in the media, which is the bar for providing him with news coverage. Now, again, I think if a former president with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank who just got 74 million votes says he’s running, I think we have to report that he said that. I think we also have to appropriately caveat it and make the point about why it may actually not end up happening further down the road. But I still think it has to be covered. In terms of who will be the nominee, I was recalling on Twitter last night that when Jake Sherman at Politico and I were doing a story when I still worked there about the huge GOP field, he said shouldn’t we put Trump in? And I said absolutely not. He’s not going to run. And I don’t want to do this again, where —

kara swisher

Ha.

maggie haberman

— we say he’s running and he doesn’t. Because that’s what happened in 2011. And I was obviously wrong, but it was a very defendable call at the time. This is a guy who had spent 25 years up until then, saying he was running and not running. So my point is, I have no idea what 2024 will look like. And you shouldn’t want my guess on that. I don’t know.

kara swisher

Yeah, I think it’s Tucker Carlson. Anyway, last question. You’ve been covering him for a long, long time, including way, way back kind of stuff. Why Trump? Not but Trump. Why Trump?

maggie haberman

Look, I think a couple of reasons. But I think that you will get angry at this statement, but I think that he has often been underestimated. And I think that that has been a mistake for people to do. I think that among those underestimations was that he was so ingrained in pop culture for 30 years, but particularly, that he was introduced to broad segments of voters through “The Apprentice” —

kara swisher

Yeah, I agree with you on that.

maggie haberman

— and as something other than the businessman that we knew in New York City, when I was at the tabloids in New York City. And I think that he is — I think, as I said before, I think his shamelessness is an edge. And people should not hear that as praise. It’s just a fact. I think that he has an appeal for some voters of a kind of obtainable wealth, obtainable aspirational wealth, aspirational status. I think all of that factors into it, but also, he demagogued immigrants. He race baited. I mean, I could go down the list why him. He was willing to say the dog whistles through a bullhorn, and that was part of why, too.

kara swisher

So is there any — I mean, Ted Cruz seems like a paler version of this. But is there anybody who can pick it up?

maggie haberman

I don’t know who could pick it up. But I mean, honestly, I think that if you’re talking about pure Trumpism, I think your Tucker Carlson suggestion is probably the closest to it right now.

kara swisher

Yeah, they’re all trying to copy him.

maggie haberman

Yeah, but I just — I have no idea what to come. I think we also don’t know yet, Kara. We haven’t mentioned an important piece here, which is what investigations the president faces when he leaves office. And so, we know that Tish James, the attorney general in New York, is looking at a civil investigation. Cy Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, is looking at a criminal investigation related to the Trump organization. Now that’s the only criminal investigation that we know of right now, but does that change? Who knows? So that’s an important asterisk.

kara swisher

This is why the show is going to keep going. And it’s like Berlusconi in Italy, who’s back again.

maggie haberman

I’ve heard that argument made. I think it could be made in a different direction. There’s so many unknowns.

kara swisher

Yeah. So are you going to stop covering him? You’ve been talking and covering this guy for four years. What are you going to do?

maggie haberman

I don’t think I’m going to stop covering him, but again, I don’t know what the bar for actual news coverage is going to look like going forward. We’ll see.

kara swisher

Are you exhausted, Maggie Haberman?

maggie haberman

Yes, I am always exhausted, but you know that.

kara swisher

I do, I do. But I think this is more exhausting than you can imagine.

maggie haberman

I think this, as I said, this election has had a long tail. So I think everyone’s very tired, including his supporters.

kara swisher

Yes, not Rudy Giuliani, though.

maggie haberman

No, he’s never going to leave the show. And Donald Trump is never going to break with him. This is like — somebody said to me, why won’t he get rid of Rudy? They’ve been dealing with each other in one way or another since the ‘80s. He’s not going to suddenly get rid of him.

kara swisher

No, they’re strapped to the mast together, till the end times.

maggie haberman

I’m just going to let you roll with that.

kara swisher

[LAUGHS] OK, Maggie Haberman, thank you, and thank you for your coverage. I think that you get a lot of flack, but I think you’ve done an amazing job covering this really unusual moment in political history of the United States of America.

maggie haberman