New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman criticized the White House media environment on Monday by boldly claiming that only one reporter has been challenging President Donald Trump “aggressively” in his second term.
“Routinely, the only person really challenging him aggressively — and not rudely or unprofessionally — is Kaitlan Collins,” Haberman said of the CNN anchor on Monday’s airing of “The Daily Show.”
Haberman appeared on the show with her colleague Jonathan Swan to promote their new book, “Regime Change,” which detailed several bombshells during Trump’s second term.
She told host Jon Stewart that the Trump administration has structured the press corps “so that it is primarily people, or half people, who they consider to be friendly to them.”
“They control the media pool that is in there now. They control seats,” Haberman said.
However, according to the Times correspondent, Collins, who has drawn insults and backlash from the president, is the only reporter in the room who really grills Trump.
“And she takes an enormous amount of shit, and she keeps a total straight face. But she doesn’t have backup,” Haberman said.
She recalled how difficult the administration made it for pool reporters during Trump’s first term, but questioning him was still “doable.”
“You’d ask a question, somebody else in the pool would follow up on your question. Now it is, you ask a question about Ukraine, Iran, I can go on and on, and he turns to the Reflecting Pool, and it’s 20 minutes of him just talking, and so it is much more challenging,” Haberman said.
According to Haberman, even speaking with Trump directly is difficult for reporters because “he controls the terms.”
“There have been some pieces of news that have come out, but generally speaking, it’s him setting the agenda,” she said. “He says one thing here, he says something totally different 15 minutes later, and it’s just him flooding the zone, and it’s what he did in New York when he was a tabloid guy.”