President Donald Trump was, unsurprisingly, irate and lashing out behind the scenes as the GOP was wiped out in historic fashion in the midterms, with reporter and biographer Maggie Haberman revealing new details about the targets of his ire.
Haberman, who has had extensive access to Trump throughout his time in politics and written multiple books about him, appeared on CNN Saturday to discuss the continuing fallout of the midterms. During one segment, host Kaitlan Collins asked what she had heard about Trump’s motivations for replacing Susie Wiles as his chief of staff with his widely loathed top ally, Stephen Miller.
Haberman first stressed that, as reports suggested leading up to the midterms, Trump had been tiring of Wiles for a while, explaining that her departure had “been brewing for some time” and was “not a surprise” once it finally happened.
“This is not just in recent days,” Haberman said. “The president has been incredibly critical of Susie Wales behind the scenes, to her face, to other people over the course of the last, I would say, at least six months, if not longer. There have been a bunch of people inside the administration undermining her as well.”
Haberman noted that Miller, despite replacing her, was not among those in the administration pushing for her ouster and was said to be fine with her staying on.
She also revealed that on Election Night, Trump was particularly vicious towards Wiles as he watched the results pour in.
“And yes, the president berated her in front of other people on Election Night in the East Room, blamed her for the losses,” Haberman said. “He had also been very critical in other circumstances of James Blair, her close associate.”
She added further: “When you have a wave, Kaitlan, that sweeps seats from Mississippi to Maine, that’s not really a tactical campaign decision. And this is a White House where the policy is largely set by the president. He does not want to be reined in. He wants decisions to be made by a small number of people. And he’s been berating her for months about not finding the, quote, unquote, ‘leak’ related to his travel to Turkey during the NATO summit over the summer, when he was put in the refrigerator, when he was put in the refrigerator truck, and they told everybody that he was actually on a plane that the press members and cabinet members were on, and including Stephen Miller, by the way.”