Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / 'You are all that matters to me'_ Aides notes to Trump revealed

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'You are all that matters to me'_ Aides notes to Trump revealed · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Why the two of you titled this book Regime Change. Yeah,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I mean.
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  Speaker 2: We sort of a couple of months into the presidency
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  Speaker 2: realized that we weren't just covering a transition from a
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: democratic president or a Republican president, and in fact, it
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: was nothing like what we covered in the first term
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  Speaker 2: in the way he was using executive power. The premise
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  Speaker 2: for the title regime Change was that we're used to
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: talking about regime change in foreign countries, and covering regime
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  Speaker 2: change in foreign countries, it's a much more uncomfortable and
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  Speaker 2: challenging task to think about a regime change in our
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  Speaker 2: own country. And when you look at what he's done
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  Speaker 2: as president, the way he's used executive power, it's like
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  Speaker 2: nothing we've seen in our lifetime. So you can go
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  Speaker 2: across the gamut. When George W. Bush went to war
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  Speaker 2: in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, as flawed as the
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  Speaker 2: decision making was, there was a process of getting approval
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  Speaker 2: by Congress, the branch of government under the Constitution that
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  Speaker 2: has the power to declare war. Trump did't even talk
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  Speaker 2: to Congress. He just went to war. When he went
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  Speaker 2: and snatched a foreign sovereign head of state out of
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  Speaker 2: his bedroom in his pajamas in the middle of the
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  Speaker 2: night and forced regime change in Venezuela. He didn't talk
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  Speaker 2: to anyone in Congress when he started a trade war
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  Speaker 2: with the whole world based on authorities, which you know,
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  Speaker 2: once the court's caught up to it, you were invalid.
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  Speaker 3: Again.
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  Speaker 2: There's no consultation, So it's unilateral expressions of power like
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  Speaker 2: we haven't seen in our lifetimes. And what we wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do in the book was to really emphasize what's
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  Speaker 2: in front of our own eyes and try to dig
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  Speaker 2: deeper and show people how it's working in there, how
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  Speaker 2: this country is being run by the very small group
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  Speaker 2: of people that are in charge of this country.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you do that very effectively. New details about
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  Speaker 1: one of his closest aids, Natalie Harp, Maggie, and Jonathan,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: report on how she became the president's gateway to information,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: supplying him with positive news stories and pro Trump's social
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: media post. They also write how she would often read
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the materials out loud to the president and later give
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  Speaker 1: him physical copies from a portable printer that she kept
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  Speaker 1: on her According to the new book, Harp wrote Trump
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  Speaker 1: adoring letters that she left in his personal spaces, including
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  Speaker 1: one that read you were all that matters to me.
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  Speaker 1: Trump's chief of staff Suzue Wiles, told others that she
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  Speaker 1: remembered thinking where am I, and that Trump had taken
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  Speaker 1: to telling his staff that Natalie was the only one
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  Speaker 1: who loved him as much as his wife and his kids,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: adding all of you will go off and make money,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and she'll never leave me. I mean, Maggie. Obviously, those
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of us who cover the president know Natalie Harp. Obviously
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: she's typically by his side.
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  Speaker 3: All the time. For people at home, though, and as you're.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Looking at the realm of figures that are surrounding him
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  Speaker 1: in this second term, what does.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: This say to you?
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  Speaker 4: So a couple of things. Caitlin Natalie Hart became omnipresent
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: in the campaign, and we write about that she was
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  Speaker 4: not one of the original people in twenty twenty one
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  Speaker 4: and this very small group of people who was there,
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: but you know, at some point in twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 4: she became somebody who was constantly with him on the
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: golf courses. When he was in Florida again with a
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: they would refer to her as the human printer because
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: she had this portable printer where she would hand him
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  Speaker 4: pieces of positive information. What it says is that he
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: wants to keep people around who either make him happy
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: or feed him information that he prefers to hear. I mean,
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: one of the scenes that we have in the book
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  Speaker 4: is him demanding the quote unquote real numbers during a
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: tariff discussion when he is being told by his own
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: staff what the actual numbers aren't. He wants Natalie to
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  Speaker 4: go get him some different set of numbers that just
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  Speaker 4: didn't comport with reality. And he is more interested in
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  Speaker 4: information that he wants to hear and seeking out something
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  Speaker 4: that validates what he believes. You know that he has
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: always been interested in that, it was just harder for
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  Speaker 4: him to get This time, it is much easier. And
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  Speaker 4: Natalie Harp is one of the people who took over
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  Speaker 4: posting duties to the President's Truth Social Post in this term,
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  Speaker 4: and that makes her fairly significant.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Maggie, that part really stood out to
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  Speaker 1: me because basically, you know, he was talking to the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Howard Lutnik, the Commerce Secretary, Scott Best, the Treasury secretary.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this passage of the book talks.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: About what he's hearing from all of these staffers, and
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  Speaker 1: he's telling Natalie go find the good numbers that she
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  Speaker 1: had pulled up for him. I mean, it kind of
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  Speaker 1: takes you into how he equates his staff in terms
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  Speaker 1: of experience and whether they're in the cabinet or the
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  Speaker 1: staffer who follows him around.
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  Speaker 3: Now that's right.
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  Speaker 4: I mean one of the things we used to hear
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  Speaker 4: in term one a lot, Caitlyn, And in this way,
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  Speaker 4: you know, this is a sort of more of a
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  Speaker 4: pure Trump aspect, and we describe Steve Mannon referring to
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump that way and how much pure Trump was
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: coming through. You know, he often would assign multiple people
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  Speaker 4: the same job, but not quite like this. He really
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  Speaker 4: is just bringing in, you know, sort of direct people
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  Speaker 4: who will do what he wants. You're seeing that with
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: Bill Poulti, who is now the Director of National Intelligence,
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  Speaker 4: despite having no intelligence experience, no intelligence community experience. We
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: have a lot of detail about Bill Poulty's efforts to
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: try to push Trump toward evidence that he believed could
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  Speaker 4: help lead to prosecutions of Trump's perceived enemies in the book.
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  Speaker 4: The fact that he is now the Director of National Intelligence,
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  Speaker 4: I think speaks to exactly what we're talking about with
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  Speaker 4: Natalie Harp in a different context.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Donathan, you know, as Trump was speaking in
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  Speaker 1: the Oval Office today with the NATO Secretary General, I
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: thought about a part of your book that I had
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  Speaker 1: read in terms of the president's aging and what White
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: House staffers have noticed, not even what other people have noticed.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously he turned eighty.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And the two of you write in the book that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the president was having trouble hearing. He was asking people
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  Speaker 1: to repeat questions they had just asked. That joint press
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: conferences with world leaders were more often held in the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Oval Office than in the spacious East Room, in part
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: because the acoustics were better and they didn't have to
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: stand for an hour. You also write that some of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Trump's aides began to say privately, for the first time,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: he was beginning to seem old to them. Those who
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: spent time with him could see the signs, the moments
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  Speaker 1: of fatigue, the cupped hand behind the ear, but Trump's
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: personal dominance in any room often papered over what his
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  Speaker 1: body could.
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  Speaker 3: No longer fully conceal.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, what did you what was the sense you
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: picked up on from these staffers.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Well, it's very difficult area of reporting, as you know, Caitlin,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: because all of us cover the president, it's something that
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: they keep very well concealed. I'm not even sure that
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: his most senior aides have a clear picture of his health,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: about all the aspects of his medical reports. They often
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: talk about how they're the most transparent White House, the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: most transparent president. It's manifestly not the case. They put
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: out very incomplete medical information. Recently, they said he saw
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: twenty two specialists. We have no indication of who those
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: specialists are or what their specialties are. They haven't released
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: all the imaging results. You can go down the list. Look,
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  Speaker 2: he's eighty years old. We can see for ourselves that
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  Speaker 2: he's having he sometimes has troubles staying awake in the afternoons.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: We can see the swelling around the ankles, the chronic
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  Speaker 2: venus insufficiency, and there's.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of unknowns. So we didn't.
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  Speaker 2: Manage to crack. That was one area that as a
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  Speaker 2: reporting task, feels very incomplete to us, and we're still
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  Speaker 2: very much continuing the reporting on that. But there's nothing
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  Speaker 2: beyond what is publicly available. But I think we actually
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  Speaker 2: know very little.
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  Speaker 1: Frankly, Yeah, I mean, Maggie, the two of you, as
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  Speaker 1: you reported out on this book, and everyone really should
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: read it because it goes into so many different facets
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of this second Trump term and so much that has happened,
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  Speaker 1: from the Kennedy Center to the President's health to the dynamics.
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  Speaker 1: You actually sat down with the President inside the Oval
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  Speaker 1: and the final stages of your reporting for this book
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  Speaker 1: to go over the material that you had learned, and
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  Speaker 1: the President kind of went off.
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  Speaker 3: At one point.
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  Speaker 1: He told you they illegally indicted me, they impeached me,
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  Speaker 1: they did everything, they shot me. I guess you could say,
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  Speaker 1: but I won the election and a landslide. Nobody else
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  Speaker 1: could have done it. And there's only one thing you
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  Speaker 1: can say about me that anybody believes, and you know
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  Speaker 1: what it is. He said, essentially, I won everyfing time.