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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
Trump Refuses To Sign Housing Bill, Demands Election Overhaul; New Book Details WH Aide's Adoring Notes To Trump; Trump: Doubt We'll Ever Know Who Bombed Iranian Girls School. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired June 24, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: --it's not something we normally need because the lovely Victorian and Georgian architecture is designed to keep heat in, not let it out. So, people complain all winter about there not being enough insulation, and they complain all summer about them being too hot. And actually, one of our colleagues, Anderson, had to sort of go to a window today because the glue started melting around her window--
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Wow.
FOSTER: --and it started falling out.
COOPER: Wow. Max Foster, I'm so sorry. Stay cool. Thank you.
That's it for us. The news continues. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: President Trump snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, refusing to sign a popular and bipartisan bill at the last minute, and then getting into a shouting match with a Republican senator.
Inside the wild day here in Washington, I'm Kaitlan Collins, and this is THE SOURCE.
As we come on the air tonight, President Trump is speaking right now on the National Mall, here in Washington, at the kickoff of the Great American State Fair, celebrating America's upcoming 250th birthday.
We're monitoring his speech. We'll bring you any news, as the President makes it, while he's speaking. He just got on stage.
And live here in studio, in a few moments, I'm going to be joined by Senator Elizabeth Warren.
And also here this hour, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan on their blockbuster new book that takes us inside the Trump White House.
It's really hard to think of three better guests on a night like tonight after a day like today. That's because President Trump spent the day, berating members of his own party, on Capitol Hill, after he abruptly switched positions on a major housing bill that he was hours away from signing, and that his own staff had been touting. Instead, demanding that Congress actually needs to pass his election bill that right now doesn't have enough Republican votes to pass before he'll sign anything else.
Our sources say that the President's lunch with Senate Republicans, on Capitol Hill today, was very intense, and at one point devolved into a shouting match over an issue that has nothing to do with federal elections or this housing bill. In fact, Senator Tommy Tuberville said the housing bill didn't even come up. Instead, the President and Senator Bill Cassidy were yelling at each other over the Iran war, and that vote to limit his power in Iran.
Just today, the administration actually asked Congress for another $87.6 billion, most of it, which is to cover the cost of the war, according to the White House. And today, at one point during that lunch and that shouting match, the President called Senator Cassidy, quote, a lunatic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): The President didn't want to hear my question, interrupted me. I didn't care to be interrupted. I felt like I was trying to get answers for the American people. And I'm not going to be bullied when I'm trying to get answers for the American people, and so, so it escalated from there. At some point it de-escalated.
REPORTER: We're told the President called you a lunatic?
CASSIDY: Can I imagine that the President called me things that -- that would be said on a school -- on a playground? Yes, I can imagine that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: OK, so notice that he did not say, No, the President did not call me a lunatic.
So, that was Senator Cassidy after this lunch.
Here's what the President said the minute that he walked out of the room.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We like everybody, really, in the room. I don't like a few people, but that's OK. I think you know who they are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The President argued that the Republican Party is in fact unified, as many in his party are actually pretty furious tonight, as the President is holding that housing affordability bill that passed both chambers of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. That is something that you just don't really see that much in Washington anymore.
Just this morning, the press secretary at the White House was calling the bill, quote, "One of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history."
The head of his political operation said it was a signature commitment.
But it was a bill that was going to go without the President's signature. Because moments before he was set to sign it, he went from going to do that, to then instead demanding that the Senate actually pass his bill that would overhaul federal elections first, to then later in the Oval Office arguing that housing -- that housing bill maybe is not even a good idea after all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I said I'm not signing the housing bill, I want to see what happens with SAVE. Look, the housing bill is -- housing -- I made billions of dollars with housing. I know housing better than anybody, maybe anywhere. It's all about the interest rate. Lower the interest rates, you can have all the housing you want.
But you have to understand, I don't want to have -- I don't want to hurt people that own houses too. These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses, they become rich. I don't want to hurt them either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:05:00]
COLLINS: Now, the President didn't just change his mind on this bill; he totally reversed course, even as his staff was setting up a signing ceremony. The Speaker of the House was actually championing the bill, as the President said he wasn't going to sign it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): That's what French Hill fought for in the housing bill, to give more people a chance to restore the American dream. That's what we promised to the voters, and that's what we are delivering.
REPORTER: In the process of this press conference, President Trump announced that he is canceling the bill signing for the housing bill that you all were just talking about. What is your reaction?
JOHNSON: Yes, my reaction is -- the truth of the matter, I spoke to the President for 20 minutes before I went in and gave that rousing speech to the House Republicans this morning. He and I've talked about this a lot. He has expressed his -- the priority and the preference of the SAVE America Act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I should note, the White House just confirmed President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson will be meeting at 02:00 p.m. tomorrow.
The SAVE America Act already faced longshot odds in the Senate, given right now it doesn't have enough support from Republicans. It doesn't have enough to get to the 60-vote threshold. And with the midterm elections months away, it would mean huge changes to how a lot of states conduct elections, by adding new ID and proof of citizenship requirements to that voting process.
It's not the only thing, though, that the President has demanded that he wants to see in this bill that, as you hear from Republicans, they say is about election security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We added in men in women's sports is a no-no. No men in women's sports, and no transgender mutilization of our children. These are 99 percent issues, and we have to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: As the President is standing firm against signing that housing bill, which his own team argues would make a big difference for millions of Americans. When asked why one issue to him matters above all, this is what the President said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Buying a home is unattainable for so many Americans. Is this election legislation more important to you than resolving the housing crisis?
TRUMP: Every election is important. We're doing very well. They want a lot of communists to come in. I'm saying it a little bit differently. But the people that they're pushing are communists, and this country is not going to have communists. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Tonight, my congressional source is one of the bill's sponsors, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
And thank you, Senator, for being here.
I mean, when the President first announced that he was not going to be signing this bill today, what was your first reaction?
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I thought it was some kind of joke. I really did. I thought it was a Borowitz Report of some kind. Because the Republicans were already out there trying to take credit for the bill, talking about what a great bill it is. And they should because, it is a great bill.
When is the last time you saw a bill that could pass the Senate with huge margins? Democrats and Republicans, passed the House with huge margins. And understand, it didn't pass because we watered everything down to, well, Oh, we'll do a study or a blue-ribbon commission. This is a bill that does two really big things. The first one is it has nearly 50 provisions that are all about expanding housing supply. Everything from manufactured housing, to housing for veterans, to more support for cities and local communities that are trying to build more housing, lots of different provisions. We had provisions in there from every Democrat on the Banking Committee and every Republican on the Banking Committee.
So, this is a bill that -- look, it's not the federal government coming in and big-footing and saying, Here are two things, and you got to do them in every community. It's one that says, Here are a lot of ways to widen the path and make it a smoother path to build more housing, which will bring down prices. That's part one.
Part two in the bill is for the first time ever in American history, this bill says, Private equity, stay out. You cannot move into one neighborhood after another, buy up all the residential housing, and turn America from a neighbor -- from a nation of owners to a nation of--
(CROSSTALK)
COLLINS: Which is an issue the White House has touted.
But the President, as he was talking about this, I mean, he seemed to signal this kind of last night, if you were watching Truth Social. He said, quote, "The Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren centric housing bill... is of minor importance" compared to lowering interest rates, and he said Republicans should terminate the filibuster, pass the SAVE Act instead.
I mean, a 192 Republicans in the House voted for it--
WARREN: Yes.
COLLINS: --or in Congress in total, I think, if that's in the House--
WARREN: That's right.
COLLINS: --and who in the Senate voted for it.
WARREN: And 85 voted for it, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate.
But you know, I want to focus, for just one minute, on his point about interest rates. I'd like to see interest rates come down too.
COLLINS: Yes, you agree.
[21:10:00]
WARREN: That's -- I would like to see interest rates come down. But remember why interest rates are up. It's because prices are going up. And why are they going up? Trump tariffs are driving up prices, basically for everything you buy that has been imported.
Energy policy that is taking renewable, the cheapest energy, offline. Health care policy that has driven up the cost of health insurance and health care for tens of millions of Americans. And starting a bombing war halfway around the world that has shut down the Straits of Hormuz and driven up the cost of gasoline and everything that has to be shut--
COLLINS: But it kind of sounds like he might veto the bill.
WARREN: Well, look, that's not going to bring down interest rates. He wants to bring down interest rates? High interest rates are laid directly at Donald Trump's feet. He wants to bring them down? Then reverse the Donald Trump policies that are pushing up costs for families.
COLLINS: Yes, I mean, and his pick is running the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh now, who has not lowered interest rates, and did not signal that.
WARREN: That's right.
COLLINS: In terms of all of this, when you look at this and what's happening on the Hill today. One Republican who voted against it was Tommy Tuberville, who voted against this bill, and I should note, it passed 85 to five--
WARREN: Yes.
COLLINS: --obviously, in the Senate, over where you are.
And this is what Tuberville said about the President torching this bill today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): It's not going to help the middle class. And if it helped the middle class, I'd be all in. But I think this -- this is a bill that might touch a little bit of the middle classes, but it's going to go to a lot of people that are here illegally to build houses for them. If you want to fix housing, drop the interest rate. That's how you fix housing and make it more affordable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN: Look, you want to drop the interest rate? Change Trump's policies on tariffs, on energy, on health care, and on bombing countries halfway around the world.
But do understand this. This bill is about housing for America's middle class. It's about housing for renters. It's about housing that people will buy. It's about housing for first-time homebuyers, and young people moving out into their first residences of their own. It's about housing for seniors, housing for veterans.
Republicans and Democrats put this bill together with help from mayors all over America--
COLLINS: Yes. WARREN: --Democrats and Republicans, who said, Here's something that would help in my community. And that's what we did.
COLLINS: Do you think Congress will override it if Trump vetoes it?
WARREN: Look, I'm not going to do the hypotheticals on this right now. But what I am going to say to you is we will get this bill passed.
Understand, Donald Trump spent a year running for office, and what did he say every single day? That he would lower costs for American families on day one. On day one. We are now on day 511-day something, and the cost of groceries, cost of health care, cost of housing, cost of utilities, cost of gasoline is up, up, up. Donald Trump is in real trouble on this economy, and families are getting squeezed tight.
What's happening right now with this housing bill, this is the one chance for this Congress to say, We not only are going to talk about lowering costs, we're actually going to do it.
Notice here, Democrats, we don't have the majority in the House, we don't have the majority in the Senate, we sure as hell don't control the White House. But by golly, we put our shoulders to the wheel, we helped get a bill drafted and through with big bipartisan votes that would bring down costs. What that says to me is that we need to stay focused on lowering those costs. Democrats are committed to doing that.
And Republicans? Who the hell knows what they're up to?
COLLINS: Well, what did you make of his shouting match with Senator Bill Cassidy today?
WARREN: You know--
COLLINS: Which was over the Iran war powers vote yesterday that Cassidy voted for, and several other Republicans. It doesn't actually make Trump stop the war, but it's a rebuke of the war.
WARREN: Look, Donald Trump is completely out of control. That's pretty obvious. The part that I still can't wrap my head around is why it is that so many Republicans, both in the Senate and the House, can only do one thing around Donald Trump, and that is bow down. Now, Senator Cassidy evidently didn't today at lunch, but how many others did?
Because, the Republicans in the House, the Republicans in the Senate, they're staying tied to a Donald Trump, who says affordability is a hoax made up by the Democrats, and says about those -- the high inflation and high interest rates, he loves the inflation.
[21:15:00]
Donald Trump is making it clear, that Republicans are not committed to lowering costs for families. Democrats are. I think I've just seen the big issue open up. Thank you, Donald Trump. Here we go. For the midterms.
COLLINS: On the SAVE Act, and why the President is pushing to get that passed, even though it doesn't have enough Republican votes to pass.
WARREN: Yes.
COLLINS: Why do you think he's so desperate to get it passed?
WARREN: Because he's losing, and he knows that the only possible way that Donald Trump and the Republicans tied to him can win these midterm elections is if he can keep millions of Americans from voting. If he can't rig these elections, he loses. Look, he knows how to read the same polls that the rest of us see. And Donald Trump has dug a hole for himself so deep, you can't even see him standing in it.
COLLINS: I mean, in terms of that, some Republican lawmakers who support it have argued that anyone should oppose or -- should not oppose taking basic steps to ensure that only citizens can vote. What would your response to that be?
WARREN: If that's what this bill were about, fine. But that's not what this bill is about. This bill is a voter suppression bill. It's a bill to create more chaos, so that Donald Trump has an excuse to move in with the military to be able to rig this election for Donald Trump. And remember, it's Republicans -- it's Republicans who are saying, Oh my gosh, we cannot do that with our voting.
COLLINS: We've talked a lot about candidate quality in these races, and what this has looked like. We talked about Mamdani's success last night, and the candidates that he backed.
But are Democrats also overlooking some unsavory things that their own candidates have done? But I'm thinking of one candidate that Mayor Mamdani had backed that won last night in New York, who, a CNN KFILE reviewed hundreds of her posts, Darializa Chevalier had a lot of them that said, a world without borders and a world without prisons or police, is possible, if necessary, the only moral way forward. She said, Abolish the border, all deportation is wrong.
I mean, are those sentiments that you think Democratic candidates should hold?
WARREN: Look, I don't know her. I'm not familiar with what she's written.
But I will tell you something. There is one of the three candidates that Mayor Mamdani endorsed, last night, whom I've known for a long time, and that's Brad Lander. I've worked with Brad Lander for a long time.
COLLINS: We had him on the show, as we called his race actually.
WARREN: That's right. That's right. I saw the little clip from it.
I know what Brad Lander wants to come to Washington to do, and that is fight for families. Brad Lander is going to be a great partner in lowering costs for American families. That's why he is in this fight. And I think that makes him a perfect partner. I want him for a partner here in the United States Congress. But it also makes him a perfect partner for Zohran Mamdani because, what he ultimately ran on is, let's make New York City affordable for workers, not just affordable for billionaires who can live in penthouses, but let's make it affordable for working people. That's what Democrats are trying to do. That's what the Bill, ROAD to Housing, is all about. It's about bringing down the cost of housing all across America. And Donald Trump turns his back on that, and the Republicans stick with him.
COLLINS: If he reschedules the signing, will you go to it?
WARREN: Yes. So far, haven't been invited.
COLLINS: Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you for joining us tonight.
WARREN: You bet.
COLLINS: Appreciate your time, as always.
Up next for us here. What the President's battle with Republicans reveals about how he is viewing his second term. Two of the best sources are coming up: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, and a remarkable new book that they wrote on Trump's presidency.
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: With less than five months to go until a crucial midterm election, the President's agenda is now stuck in both chambers of Congress, over his demand that Republican lawmakers pass his voting bill. It's a lose-lose scenario that Senate Republicans had hoped to avoid and are saying won't help them out in November.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is he hurting your chances of keeping the majority?
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): I'm just going to say I don't think it helps. People want us to be able to deliver on priorities, absolutely, and they want to focus on things that they're talking about back home.
RAJU: Wouldn't it be helpful if you guys were rallying around a big housing bill, talking about affordability in this election season?
SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): It's a real -- and we are. I mean, this may not be a big thing to him, but we're talking about it. We're grateful for it. But will be more--
RAJU: Wouldn't it be helpful if he were?
CRAMER: Yes, it would -- it would -- it would.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: My inside sources tonight are Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, who are co-authors of the excellent new book, "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump."
And I'm so happy to have both of you here.
Because Maggie, I mean, today felt very reminiscent of Trump 1 for me. I mean, just this, the President waking up, blowing up these plans that had been, you know, made by Republicans, by his own staff, to sign this bill that they wanted to be able to tout. I wonder what you made of what transpired today.
MAGGIE HABERMAN, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES, CO- AUTHOR, "REGIME CHANGE": Yes, it was -- it was fascinating, Kaitlan.
And thank you for having us. And thank you again for giving us a chance to talk about the book with a broader audience, and with your audience.
It did feel reminiscent of Trump 1. There have been a lot of moments recently that have felt a lot more like Trump 1. In so many ways, this presidency has been pretty unrecognizable in comparison to Trump 1.
[21:25:00]
But this was quite self-destructive. It certainly was destructive to his party. This was a bipartisan housing bill, and he decided that he was going to blow up the signing if he didn't get his way on a bill that he is demanding be passed, that is not bipartisan, that some members of his own party don't like and are not especially interested in going ahead with.
So, where this goes remains to be seen. But he is doing this at a moment when Republicans are feeling somewhat emboldened to speak out against him.
COLLINS: Yes.
I mean, Jonathan, obviously Senator Cassidy was the only one that we know that really got into it with him in the lunch today. I mean, he doesn't have anything to lose at this point. But I wonder what it told you that -- you know, Trump obviously was complaining about the housing bill. He wants the SAVE Act passed. But what they were really arguing about inside that lunch today was the war powers vote last night, when it comes to Iran.
JONATHAN SWAN, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, CO-AUTHOR, "REGIME CHANGE": President Trump has not really ever understood how the Senate works, and he's always tried to treat the Senate like the House, and I think it's a source of great frustration that they don't all just do exactly what he says.
They've been pretty compliant for the first year of his presidency, but he's alienated a few key senators. Turns out, when you support primary challenger against an incumbent, they may be feeling liberated to oppose him.
But I don't -- you know, I've talked to several advisors of his, and it's not clear to me what he's really doing here. Because, it's very clear that the SAVE Act doesn't have the votes in the Senate. He keeps demanding it. But from their perspective, it looks weak. I mean, you make a demand, it doesn't happen.
The other thing that one of his advisors mentioned to me is that he's never really been a supporter of this housing bill in an enthusiastic way. It's always been something that his staff has been pushing on him, and Trump himself was always sort of lukewarm about it, went along with it, and so was never really fully invested in this bill. Even though he made them all walk the plank and take votes and go through the whole process, he felt quite fine at the end to just pull the rug out from under them.
COLLINS: Yes, I mean, and on that, the White House wants something to run on in the midterms, and they realize how bad the numbers are.
And in y'all's new book, Maggie, y'all write about the political strategy right now, and how it differs from the first term.
At one point, you say, quote, "To the extent that he still cared about polling at all, he is seeing far fewer polls than during his first term. His advisors knew he was not receptive to being briefed on harsh realities. In his second term, unlike his first, he was willing to take breathtaking risks, risks that could throw not only his presidency but the Republican Party and the entire world into chaos and carnage. More than ever before as President, he was operating on pure gut instinct."
Do you think that's what he's doing now? And do you think it matters if that gut instinct hurts Republicans who are on the ballot?
HABERMAN: Well, look, yes, I do think that what we are seeing right now is very in line, you know. On the one hand, yes, it's similar to what we saw in term one, just in terms of sort of a sense for his party and some of his own staff of being erratic, but is definitely consistent with trusting his gut more than ever, and certainly doing something that just doesn't support what his advisors have said he needs to be doing, and what they are seeing in their own polls.
One of the -- we got our hands on some polling memos, some confidential polling memos inside the Trump team, and one was from December when his own pollster circulated a memo, and it was after Trump had done an affordability speech, or what it was supposed to be an affordability speech, where instead he called affordability a con job and started suggesting, again, Democrats were responsible for coming up with this term, and that this was not fair to him.
That -- it used the term, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it was the White House and the GOP, if they wanted to make gains in the midterms and not suffer, they needed to be quote-unquote, honest, with the voters about the affordability crisis and try to find a way to deal with it. This bill was supposed to deal with that, and the President just wasn't interested. So, does the President care? He's not behaving like somebody who cares. Maybe he will start to, at some point, but he is not right now. And I'm not sure whether he particularly believes he will suffer consequences. Again, this is something else we talk about in the book. If the House, and even possibly the Senate, flip.
COLLINS: Yes, I think that's a good point in terms of how he's viewing the stakes here.
I mean, and Jonathan, this gets at why the two of you titled this book "Regime Change."
SWAN: Yes, I mean, we, sort of couple months into the presidency, realized that we weren't just covering a transition from a Democratic president to a Republican president, and in fact it was nothing like what we covered in the first term, in the way he was using executive power.
[21:30:00]
The premise for the title "Regime Change" was that we're used to talking about regime change in foreign countries and covering regime change in foreign countries. It's a much more uncomfortable and challenging task, to think about a regime change in our own country. And when you look at what he's done as president, the way he's used executive power, it's like nothing we've seen in our lifetimes.
You can go across the gamut. When George W. Bush went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as flawed as the decision-making was, there was a process of getting approval by Congress, the branch of government under the Constitution that has the power to declare war.
Trump didn't even talk to Congress. He just went to war. When he went and snatched a foreign sovereign head of state, out of his bedroom, in his pajamas, in the middle of the night, and forced regime change in Venezuela, he didn't talk to anyone in Congress. When he started a trade war with the whole world, based on authorities, which once the courts caught up to it, were invalid. Again, there's no consultation.
So, it's unilateral expressions of power, like we haven't seen in our lifetimes. And what we wanted to do in the book was to really emphasize what's in front of our own eyes, and try to dig deeper and show people how it's working in there, how this country is being run by the very small group of people that are in charge of this country.
COLLINS: Yes, and you do that very effectively in the book.
Maggie and Jonathan, don't go anywhere because, I want to dig more into what you uncovered with your reporting.
We have more right after this, including some revealing details about one of the President's closest White House aides, notes that she leaves behind. Also, what happened when Maggie and Jonathan went to the Oval Office to interview President Trump about their reporting.
[21:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: And we're back now with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of The New York Times, who are the co-authors of the brand-new book, "Regime Change," which is filled with new reporting inside nearly every corner of President Trump's second term, and that includes new details about one of his closest aides, Natalie Harp.
Maggie and Jonathan report on how she became the President's gateway to information, supplying him with positive news stories and pro-Trump social media posts. They also write how she would often read the materials out loud to the President, and later give him physical copies from a portable printer that she kept on her.
According to the new book, Harp, quote, "Wrote Trump adoring letters that she left in his personal spaces, including one that read 'You are all that matters to me.'"
Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, told others that she remembered thinking, Where am I?
And that Trump had taken to telling his staff that Natalie was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and his kids, adding, All of you will go off and make money, and she'll never leave me.
I mean, Maggie, obviously, those of us who cover the President know Natalie Harp. Obviously, she's typically by his side all the time. For people at home, though. And as you're looking at the realm of figures that are surrounding him in this second term, what does this say to you?
HABERMAN: So, a couple of things, Kaitlan.
Natalie Harp became omnipresent in the campaign, and we write about that. She was not one of the original people in 2021, in this very small group of people who was there. But at some point, in 2022, she became somebody who was constantly with him on the golf courses when he was in Florida, again with a -- they would refer to her as the human printer because she had this portable printer, where she would hand him pieces of positive information.
What it says is that he wants to keep people around who either make him happy or feed him information that he prefers to hear. I mean, one of the -- one of the scenes that we have in the book is him demanding the quote-unquote, real numbers, during a tariff discussion, when he is being told by his own staff what the actual numbers are, and he wants Natalie to go get him some different set of numbers that just didn't comport with reality.
And he is more interested in information that he wants to hear, and in seeking out something that validates what he believes, you know -- that he has always been interested in that, it was just harder for him to get. This time, it is much easier. And Natalie Harp is one of the people who took over posting duties to the President's Truth Social post in this term, and that makes her fairly significant. COLLINS: Yes, I mean, Maggie, that part really stood out to me. Because basically, he was talking to the -- Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary. I mean, this passage of the book talks about what he's hearing from all of these staffers, and he's telling Natalie, Go find the good numbers that she had pulled up for him. I mean, it kind of takes you into how he equates his staff in terms of experience, and whether they're in the cabinet or a staffer who follows him around.
HABERMAN: No, that's right. I mean, one of the things we used to hear in term one a lot, Kaitlan, and in this way, you know, this is a sort of more of a pure Trump aspect, and we describe Steve Bannon referring to Donald Trump that way, and how much pure Trump was coming through. He often would assign multiple people the same job, and -- but not quite like this.
He really is just bringing in, sort of direct, people who will do what he wants. You're seeing that with Bill Pulte, who is now the Director of National Intelligence, despite having no intelligence experience, no intelligence community experience.
[21:40:00]
We have a lot of detail about Bill Pulte's efforts to try to push Trump toward evidence that he believed could help lead to prosecutions of Trump's perceived enemies in the book. The fact that he is now the Director of National Intelligence, I think, speaks to exactly what we're talking about with Natalie Harp in a different context.
COLLINS: Yes, and Jonathan, as Trump was speaking in the Oval Office today, with the NATO Secretary General, I thought about a part of your book that I had read, in terms of the President's aging and what White House staffers have noticed, not even what other people have noticed. I mean, obviously he turned 80.
And the two of you write in the book that the President was having trouble hearing, he was asking people to repeat questions they had just asked, that joint press conferences with world leaders were more often held in the Oval Office than in the spacious East Room, in part because the acoustics were better and they didn't have to stand for an hour.
You also write that some of Trump's aides began to say privately that for the first time he was beginning to seem old to them. Those who spent time with him could see the signs, the moments of fatigue, the cupped hand behind the ear. But Trump's personal dominance in any room often papered over what his body could no longer fully conceal.
I mean, what did you -- what was the sense you picked up on from these staffers?
SWAN: Well, it's very difficult area of reporting, as you know, Kaitlan because, all of us cover the President. It's something that they keep very well concealed. I'm not even sure that his most senior aides have a clear picture of his health, about all the aspects of his medical reports. They often talk about how they're the most transparent White House, the most transparent president. It's manifestly not the case. They put out very incomplete medical information. Recently, they said he saw 22 specialists. We have no indication of who those specialists are or what their specialties are. They haven't released all the imaging results. You can go down the list.
Look, he's 80-years-old. We can see for ourselves that he's having -- sometimes has trouble staying awake in the afternoons. We can see the swelling around the ankles, the chronic venous insufficiency, and there's a lot of unknowns. So, we didn't manage to crack -- that was one area that, as a reporting task, feels very incomplete to us, and we're still very much continuing the reporting on that. But there's nothing beyond what is publicly available, but I think we actually know very little, frankly.
COLLINS: Yes. I mean, Maggie, the two of you, as you reported out on this book, and everyone really should read it because, it goes into so many different facets of this second Trump term, and so much that has happened, from the Kennedy Center, to the President's health, to the dynamics.
You actually sat down with the President, inside the Oval, in the final stages of your reporting for this book, to go over the material that you had learned.
And the President kind of went off. At one point, he told you, They illegally indicted me, they impeached me, they did everything -- they shot me, I guess you could say. But I won the election in a landslide. Nobody else could have done it. And there's only one thing you can say about me that anybody believes, and you know what it is. He said, Essentially I won every effing time.
Can you just take us inside the Oval Office, and what that was like?
HABERMAN: Sure. So, we had been asking for an interview with him for several weeks, but we wanted a fact-checking interview. We wanted to be able to ask rigorous questions about our reporting in this book, and we asked for it at the end of the process. It -- you know, we didn't get through a number of our questions in the time we had, but we did get through several.
He was very genial. He greeted us, perfectly cordially. When he came in, it was -- he was very flat in tone. He actually had very few aides there, even though he often tends to sort of roll very heavy and deep, and brings in a lot of aides during interview like that. But in this case, it was just Natalie Harp, Steven Cheung, and Karoline Leavitt there.
And he walked in, and you know, he first started talking about maple trees, and how he was -- he was picking trees for the White House grounds, and he said that he was good at maple -- at picking trees. He showed us the models of his ballroom, which he was very proud of, and talked about the column design.
And then we started talking about presidential power. And so, two things really stood out in this -- in this hour we had with him, Kaitlan. One was that he handed us, and I will try to tell this story pretty quickly, but he handed us -- we had asked him a question about how he viewed his own power -- and excuse me, my earpiece is having some dislike of my ear.
He, instead of answering our question directly, told Natalie, who was in this meeting, to go get us these printouts, and she brings us these two printouts, which he said were written by a historian.
[21:45:00]
And essentially, the document said that Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever walked the face of the earth, and then it went through a list of history's greatest conquerors and monsters, you know, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, the Caesars, Napoleon, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and it was suggesting that Trump was stating, actually, that Trump was more powerful than all of them, and it was because he had greater reach, he had the might of the American military and of technology, and also because he was willing to use the power.
But what was really striking to us is that we were sitting there, and he's reading this list, and he was clearly reveling in just being seen as, you know, as grand and memorable a figure as any of these men. There was no moral dimension to it. He wasn't talking about the millions of people who Hitler killed, or he wasn't talking about the seizing of land, he wasn't talking about the conquering that many have done. It was -- it was simply that he wanted to be seen as great.
And it turned out this document was not written by a historian. It was by the golfer Gary Player's business associate and former caddie. But that's for another time. That's all in the book.
COLLINS: And, of course, that story is pretty much the prime example why everyone should go and read this book.
Maggie Haberman. Jonathan Swan. Excellent job. Excellent reporting. Thank you for joining us.
HABERMAN: Thanks, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Up next. What we know about the President's firings. Speaking of Bill Pulte, the new spy chief that he's put in place. The former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence will join me right after this.
[21:50:00]
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COLLINS: Despite his own intelligence community, and analysis from CNN, concluding that the United States was likely responsible for the bombing of that girls school in Iran, near the start of this war. President Trump was asked again today about the investigation and said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Have you seen the report into the Minab school attacks, sir? Could you tell us?
TRUMP: I have not seen it. No.
REPORTER: Why not?
TRUMP: At some point -- well -- I have to wait for it to be complete. I don't know that they're ever going to solve that problem, and you could ask Pete, but I don't know that they're ever -- they're going to say it was one of our missiles.
Pete, I don't know that they're ever going to solve that problem, in terms of whose fault was it. Because there were missiles flying all over the place.
REPORTER: So--
TRUMP: And it's horrible what happened. But there were missiles flying all over the place. And somebody said it was our missile. Well, maybe it wasn't our missile, but I've seen nothing to lead me to believe it was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Is it unusual for an investigation to take this long? And what about the Trump-backed purge of U.S. intelligence officials that's been underway?
My next source knows a lot about both of those issues because she served as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence during Trump's first term. Sue Gordon is here.
And thank you for being here.
Obviously, this question is now getting to a point about accountability. Because, it's been several months since this bombing happened, we've seen all the evidence that points in one direction.
SUE GORDON, FORMER PRINCIPAL DEP. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Yes.
COLLINS: What did you make of the answer that came from the Oval Office today?
GORDON: Yes, I think it's disingenuous. I mean, the -- one, to feign that he doesn't have any knowledge, and then to suggest that it could be anybody. This is something that's knowable. I haven't seen the report, and the final report. But based on even preliminary reporting that it was a missile that, that is not abundant in that region.
Just take the hit, you know, the -- on the one hand, he's correct. During war, things can happen. I don't think that it was intentionally targeted. But this is one we -- you know, we've taken responsibility in the past. I just -- I think it's unseemly. I think it just continues to build the notion that the U.S. just is not a reliable partner. If we don't take responsibility, if we can't be trusted with our word, you know, it just erodes our power worldwide.
COLLINS: Well, and obviously, when this first happened, the consensus was Iran doesn't have the missiles that were seen, that seem to be what hit that school.
GORDON: Yes.
COLLINS: And so, in terms of this, it's also taken a weird turn where last week, after saying he wanted to dismantle their missile industry to the ground, the President was making the case for Iran to actually have missiles.
He met with the NATO Secretary General today, Mark Rutte, at the Oval Office. And I asked him afterward if that's a sentiment that he agrees with. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Last week, at the G7 Summit, the President, at his press conference, actually made the case for Iran to have ballistic missiles, saying that if Saudi Arabia has them, so should they.
Do you agree that Iran should have ballistic missiles?
MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Let me say, from NATO perspective, that obviously Iran is not in the NATO territory. But what is important here--
COLLINS: But--
RUTTE: --is for NATO that we always had a consistent position as an alliance with the United States, all the 32 nations, that Iran should never get its hands on the nuclear capability.
I think there's a lot at play here. Of course, freedom of navigation. Clearly, you heard the President about that, he was very clear in the presser, in the Oval Office. And there is this big issue of the nuclear capability.
And when it comes to the nuclear capability, I really want to say this again. Iran having its hands on the nuclear capability, this country exporting chaos, exporting terrorism, would be a danger to the whole world, particularly the region, Israel, and to Europe, but also the rest of the world.
COLLINS: So, what about ballistic missiles?
RUTTE: Yes, but let -- please don't ask -- require for me to comment on everything because, I really want to focus on the -- on the nuclear capability.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Wonder what you made of them obviously wanting to talk about nuclear capability, but not ballistic missile capability.
[21:55:00]
GORDON: Well, first of all, if you remember, one of the rationale for President Trump in his first term of ending JCPOA, which had remarkable strictures on the acquisition of nuclear capability, provable, verifiable strictures. But the other reason they gave was because the money that they received had turned into conventional weapons that were used in proxy wars against the region.
So, to now turn around and say that it's OK if they have ballistic missiles. Again, I don't want to use the word disingenuous twice, but it's just unbelievable. They aren't -- and why did we go to war if it's going to be OK?
And again, on the nuclear issue. It's a fine tagline to say Iran should never have nuclear weapons. I agree. But we are not anywhere close to, in this negotiation, assuring that outcome, anywhere close to the assurance we had before in the agreement with -- that we disbanded.
So, it feels to me that Mark Rutte is aligning himself with our President. But our President's position just doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of either his rationale before or the situation we have now.
COLLINS: Sue Gordon, it is always excellent to have your expertise on here with us. Thank you for joining us tonight.
GORDON: You're welcome. Good to see you, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: And we'll be right back.
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