Haberman reveals how Trump feels about letter from federal prosecutors

Tonight for

President Trump

is attacking the Justice Department again

after revealing that he is the target

of the special counsel's election probe.

This is him in Iowa earlier tonight

They go after Trump,

but they don't go after

they should give a little of that of

to going after the terrorist

Maggie Haberman,

a senior political correspondent

for The New York Times, joins me now.

I mean, to hear him

saying that I don't think is surprising.

It came pretty unprompted.

He's felt this Elks Lodge

event in Cedar Rapids

and he just started talking about it.

What's your sense

from your reporting

about what

his reaction to this was privately?

So he was

for somebody who is not great

at keeping other people's secrets.

He can be very good at keeping his own.

And he was not especially chatty

with people in his circle about this over

the last two days

that he ended up putting it out

because they got a news inquiry about it

and he was trying to get ahead of it

because as we have seen

with his previous two indictments,

this is not yet an indictment,

but it's a likely one.

He wanted to control the narrative.

And so that's what he did. Here.

I heard

he was somewhat cranky

on his way to Iowa today,

but it was basically a normal plane ride.

He's obviously not happy

and he is facing Caitlyn

and he knows this.

These are significant charges

potentially.

You know, in January six

in the documents case,

potentially in Georgia as well

with serious jail time.

And he knows this.

And so that is weighing on him

very seriously.

Yeah.

And I mean, he's complaining,

this tone,

all he did with Sean

Hannity, that he got the letter

on a Sunday night,

Tim Pawlenty was saying

he thinks it's more

showy than it is substantive.

But I mean,

they're essentially giving him four days

if he wants to come before

the grand jury on Thursday.

Yet likely he's going to do that.

No, he's

they're going to decline that offer.

Is what our reporting is.

And I understand what

Hillary is saying about it being show.

It's unusual

to get a target letter on a Sunday,

so much so that I had to fact check

that Trump was correct.

Because as you know, Trump

is not always

the best source about Trump.

But it is true.

That is

when the letter came to his lawyers.

It is in your face

by the Justice Department.

But I don't think they're

doing it to be showy

I think they're doing it to show that

they don't really care

the games that Trump is playing.

And this is obviously around

January 6th, his efforts

to overturn the election,

which something you noted today.

He is whitewashed. I mean, he's never

felt that January six is what most people

believe it was.

But I mean,

he said he would pardon the rioters.

He'd recorded a song with them.

He said, these are peaceful people.

These are great people.

I mean, this is something that his base

buys into.

They're confronting people

like Mike Pence about it

on the campaign trail.

100% and he started doing this.

I know there is

there is some belief

that he's gotten more extreme

in the last two years.

I don't think that's true at all.

He's always been the same.

It's just that he's much more vocal

about what

he actually thinks for the first year

out of office.

He was off Twitter.

He wasn't doing a number of mainstream

media interviews.

He is much more vocal now

and more public.

And he had, you know,

truth social, his social media website

beginning in 20, 22.

So that gave him a platform

to say all of these things.

And then his rallies

where he started leaning into it

much more.

And so, yes, he has basically,

you know, melded this into his campaign

and his candidacy.

And as you say,

his voters, his supporters

believe what he says about that day.

A number of them,

you know, and a number of people

who I know

aren't happy

with what happened on January

six still say things to me like

and these are his supporters

say things to me like,

but I don't like what's happening

with the people who were arrested.

And so you are going to keep hearing

that as we go forward. Yeah.

And he had this court

date in Florida today.

He didn't have to show up for it.

His codefendant, Maldonado did.

But he didn't have to be there for it.

But I mean, the idea that he missed that

because he was in Iowa

for this campaign event.

Now, if he is going to face charges

here, like he says he is,

I mean,

that's a series of indictments

that his attorneys have to deal with.

I mean, what's your sense

of how they're grappling

with all of this?

They're struggling.

I mean, they're looking at

potentially four different jurisdictions,

D.C., Florida, New York, Georgia.

They're he's also facing civil trials.

There is one in October.

There's two in January.

One is in Carroll,

and one is a pyramid scheme case

it is a maze of legal activity.

And it's sort of ironic

because Donald Trump

is somebody

who has provided

a blizzard of legal paperwork

against enemies

over and over and over

And you're seeing him now

have to be on the other side of that.

But his lawyers are struggling

with the crush of this.

I think that I don't think

that they feel like it's insurmountable,

but it's a lot yeah.

And one thing

we know they're looking at with

with the January

six investigation is Trump's

mindset itself and

acknowledging that he lost

what Tim Barlow, Tory,

was saying there is.

It's plausible

that he he believes that he won

the election. That could be a defense.

But his own aides went and testified,

including former chairman

of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff,

his former communications director,

another former aide

who is in the West Wing,

all saying he knew he lost.

He says words to the effect of,

yeah, we lost.

We we need to let that issue

go to the next guy being president.

But he said,

can you believe

I lost to this effing guy?

Mark raised it with me on the 18th

and I said,

no, does the president really think

he lost?

And he said, yes.

A lot of times

he'll tell me that he lost,

but he wants to keep fighting it

with all

the people

that you

want for the congressional committee,

with all the people who have gone before.

Chuck Smith,

who do you think he's

the most worried about?

I would

I would suspect all of them, frankly.

But

but I think that Mark Meadows

being interviewed before a grand jury,

as we understand that he was,

I think is

something that is of concern to him.

I think that Meadows knows

more than almost anyone now.

We don't know exactly what Meadows said.

We don't know what he was asked.

We don't know

the extent of his involvement.

And I think it's also important

to note that

just because somebody cooperates

with an investigation

doesn't mean cooperate or in the way

people think of it.

But I think that Mark Meadows

is the person

he is the most concerned about,

and they don't seem to have

a good indication of what Mark

Meadows has said.

It seems it's

been pretty quiet for most of them.

Yeah,

there's a lot of guessing going on in

that world about Meadows.

There's been a lot of suspicion

about Meadows for some time now.

It's been months and months and months.

I expect that's going to continue

as we move forward.

It's going to become clear.

A lot of this Caitlin,

who talked it's

going to become clear to him, who talked.

We know that he has this 84 person

witness list in the documents case

or if he is charged in this case,

which is not a definite, by the way, it's

not a done deal

but it is likely with a target letter.

If he is charged by Jack Smith

in something in connection

with January six,

it will eventually become apparent to him

who among his aides

and in his world was talking.

And that always becomes

a different set of anxiety for him.