A revelation from New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s forthcoming book about Donald Trump left members of CNN’s “NewsNight” panel laughing and struggling to keep a straight face on Thursday.
Anchor Abby Phillip got a case of the giggles as she recounted a passage from “Regime Change,” in which the journalists wrote that Trump once showed them a document claiming he was more powerful than some of history’s most feared rulers, including Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
“And you wouldn’t believe where he got that assessment from,” Phillip said, noting that Trump has since shared the document on his Truth Social platform where he claimed it was from a presidential historian called Dave King.
But in reality, Phillip said, it was written by the “longtime caddy and personal confidant” of golf Hall of Famer Gary Player.
Phillip laughed as she finished recounting the story.
“It’s not a joke,” she said. “This actually happened.”
Pundit Xochitl Hinojosa, a former spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, also laughed, saying incredulously: “This is the president of the United States.”