‘Maggot’ Haberman traffics in gossip about Trump-Musk rift

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President-elect Donald Trump has not even been inaugurated, yet he appears to be a more interesting topic of conversation than the current president.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times sat down with Kara Swisher to discuss Trump’s apparently tense relationship with billionaire X owner Elon Musk. Swisher opened up the questioning by asking Haberman how she thinks the incoming president will begin enacting his agenda and if Democrats have any chance to “stop” him.

“I’m positive that Democrats and even potentially some Republicans are going to take issue with certain aspects of what he wants to do,” Haberman responded. “What’s been fascinating, Kara, in the last couple of weeks, two weeks has been the most potent fight has not been over his nominees, in terms of the form of objections from Democrats. It’s been Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer and other people criticizing Elon Musk over H-1B visas and Trump siding with Musk.”

“And so I don’t know what stop looks like in terms of stymie or slow. I think you’re going to have a lot less people doing that from within Trump’s government, as would happen last time. But this time, I do think that Trump is, Jonathan Swan and I have written about this repeatedly, he is very reactive to media coverage and to the stock market,” she continued. “And so that will stymie him as much as anything. But I do think as time goes on, once he’s there, depending on what the initial rollout of actions look like, you could see Democrats getting more vocal. I certainly agree they seem sapped of energy right now.”

Swisher chimed in to dive deeper into the “MAGA civil war” that took place on X.

“Right. So he’s also, as you said, dealing with a MAGA civil war between the nativists, like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer, and billionaires like Elon Musk, and I suppose David Sacks, to a lesser extent. So far, they’re winning, the tech bros, and it’s incredible that your world and my world are now the same, which we never thought would happen,” she said.

“It was always bound that everything would be flat in the sand,” Haberman noted.

“Talk about the latest squabble. Were you surprised by the ascendance of Elon?” Swisher prompted.

“I was not because Elon Musk has an enormous amount of money that he put to use helping Trump. Trump equates wealth with intelligence So this hasn’t surprised me at all. How long it lasts, I think, is the open question,” Haberman mused. “A long-time Trump friend said something to me recently about how Trump is a one-ring circus. I’m not sure that Musk has figured that out yet. And Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot.”

“Privately, Musk, Jonathan Swan and I reported recently with Ryan Mack that Munk has been staying at this cottage at Mar-a-Lago. He rents typically for more than $2,000 a night,” she explained. “So he really parked himself in Trump’s face. But what that looks like, Kara, when Trump becomes president? I don’t know. I mean, Musk is leading this government cost-cutting initiative, DOGE, and it is not novel to have a government cost-cutting panel. Some of them work and some of them don’t. And so let’s see what this looks like when the transition, which is currently based in Palm Beach, moves to DC for the inauguration.”

“Will he move into the Lincoln bedroom, for example?” Swisher pressed.

“I don’t think he will move into the Lincoln bedroom, but I do think that at the moment, and again, we’ll see what this looks like. I think he’s going to try to have as much proximity to Trump as possible. That requires being given an office on the White House campus, either in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House, or the West Wing proper, and let’s see whether that happens,” Haberman said, closing out the discussion.