Trump says NYT’s Haberman ‘like my psychiatrist’

Former President Trump described The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman as being “like my psychiatrist” during an post-presidency interview for Haberman’s forthcoming book.

During one of the duo’s three interviews for the book, Trump turned to two aides sitting nearby and said, “I love being with her, she’s like my psychiatrist,” according to an excerpt published in The Atlantic on Sunday.

Haberman has covered Trump for years, including his time in the White House and both of his presidential campaigns.

She gained a reputation for constantly breaking scoops on the Trump administration and relentlessly getting information from her sources at all hours, making her forthcoming book, titled “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” highly anticipated ahead of its Oct. 4 release date.

“It was a meaningless line, almost certainly intended to flatter, the kind of thing he has said about the power of release he got from his Twitter feed or other interviews he has given over the years,” Haberman said of Trump’s psychiatrist comment in the released excerpt.

“The reality is that he treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists — reporters, government aides, and members of Congress, friends and pseudo-friends and rally attendees and White House staff and customers,” she continued. “All present a chance for him to vent or test reactions or gauge how his statements are playing or discover how he is feeling. He works things out in real time in front of all of us.”

Haberman in the excerpt outlined how Trump’s constant disparaging of the media is juxtaposed with a “relentless desire to hold the media’s gaze,” noting how he has met with nearly every prominent author writing a book on his presidency, including Haberman herself.

“His impulse to try to sell his preferred version of himself was undeterred by the stain that January 6 left on his legacy and on the democratic foundations of the country — if anything, it grew stronger,” Haberman wrote.

Her book, however, begins far before Trump arrived in Washington, also detailing his rise in New York in the real estate business.

A previously reported excerpt of the book by CNN includes a revelation that a leaseholder of a Trump-owned parking garage once paid the former president in gold bars.

Haberman also wrote that Trump told aides following the 2020 election that he would remain in the White House after President Biden’s inauguration, according to CNN.