Why_Maggie_Haberman_thinks_Trump_likes_to_have_far-right_Laura_Loomer_around
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00:00Any moment now, we are expecting to see Donald Trump take that stage that you are looking at
00:04right now in Las Vegas after he spent much of the day ranting while in battleground Nevada,
00:09spewing some of his darkest rhetoric that we've heard from him this campaign cycle.
00:14For starters, he's vowing mass deportations for people who are in this country legally
00:20as he continues to target and demonize Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
00:25Despite threats directed towards Springfield City Hall or its schools,
00:29Trump refused to back down from his baseless lies today.
00:34There are bomb threats at schools and kids being evacuated.
00:38Why are you still spreading this false story?
00:40The real threat is what's happening at our border. Those are your real problems.
00:45Just swatting that question about bomb threats on schools right away
00:49as he continued to fan the flames with this claim.
00:52We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations. We're going to get
00:59these people out. We're bringing them back to Venezuela. It's like an invasion from within
01:03the largest deportation in the history of our country. And we're going to start with
01:08Springfield and Aurora.
01:11Those immigrants in Springfield that he's talking about sending back to Venezuela
01:16are from Haiti and they are here in the United States legally. Meanwhile,
01:21two Republican officials in Aurora have said his claims about what's happening in that city
01:25are overstated. In that same press conference today, though, Trump declined to denounce the
01:30racist anti-Semite that he has been traveling across the country with. That's Laura Loomer,
01:35the 9-11 conspiracy theorist who was with Donald Trump this 9-11.
01:42Laura's been a supporter of mine, just like a lot of people are supporters. I don't control
01:47Laura. Laura has to say what she wants. Your allies have expressed concern. Well,
01:51I don't know. I mean, look, I can't tell Laura what to do.
01:54Laura Loomer was traveling with you on your plane.
01:58A lot of people do. It's a very big plane.
02:00She made racist remarks about your opponent. She
02:03also espoused conspiracy theories about 9-11. Do you disavow those remarks?
02:08Well, I have to see what the remarks are.
02:12A short while after that, Trump posted on Truth Social saying that Loomer doesn't work for his
02:17campaign, which it was not reported that she did, and also said he disagrees with her statements,
02:22though he declined to say which ones. On the other side of the campaign trail tonight,
02:26Vice President Harris is back in Pennsylvania visiting two counties that Trump won overwhelmingly
02:32in 2016 and 2020, hammering her opponent while on the ground. We'll talk more about what she said
02:38while there in a moment, but my lead source tonight is CNN political analyst and senior
02:42political correspondent for The New York Times, Maggie Haberman. And Maggie, hearing Trump talk
02:47about what he amplified to 70 million people on Tuesday night, this false claim about Haitian
02:54immigrants in Springfield, now he's mixing that with his pledge to carry out mass deportations
03:00in a second term. But I mean, these are people who have temporary protected status. They are here
03:05legally in the United States. They do. And, you know, it has been,
03:09we have reported, my colleagues Jonathan Swan and Charlie Savage and I have reported that
03:12as part of his vow to go through with mass deportations, and he's been talking about this
03:17now for some time, they would try to end TPS status for a lot of people. So this is actually
03:22in keeping with it, although, as you know, he seemed not certain what country they were from,
03:27and it's not Venezuela, it's Haiti. It's not surprising, you are correct, that it is mixing
03:32in a bunch of different threads, and all it is trying to do is suggest people should be afraid
03:36of these immigrants. And it is something we have seen him do over a long period of time,
03:41and people spend time trying to fact check him. And by the time that's done, you know, the lie he
03:46is saying, or the, you know, misleading statement he is saying is already well down the street.
03:51Right. And to this point, I was talking to Pete Buttigieg last night, he was appearing as a
03:56campaign surrogate, not as transportation secretary. He thinks this is all just a big
04:00distraction technique. This was his argument. This is a strategy. And there's even more to it
04:09than demonizing immigrants, although that's obviously part of what he's doing. This is a
04:14strategy to get us talking about the latest crazy thing that he did, whatever urban legend he
04:20amplifies, right now it's about people eating cats or geese or whatever, because he cannot afford for
04:26us to be talking about his record. You know, there's always a lot of talk about is Trump
04:33playing chess or checkers? Are we all just kind of falling for it? You've often reported it's
04:38actually not some grand strategy behind the scenes. What is your sense of what this actually
04:43is? So there, I think one of the most important quotes that was ever said about Donald Trump as
04:47president was by someone who told BuzzFeed that everybody thinks this is 3D chess, but you know,
04:53most of the time he's eating the pieces. And I think that is worth bearing in mind a lot. I do
04:58think that he is intentionally trying to get people to talk about this. That's definitely true,
05:03but it's not because there's been some large discussion necessarily about it being great
05:07politics, although his vice presidential running mate has been talking about this too. It's not
05:12like this is being offered to him by some person far afield in his campaign and he's just grabbing
05:19on it. He likes talking about these things. He likes, you know, creating controversy. He likes
05:23being the center of attention. I think the secretary is incorrect that this is some strategy
05:27to distract from his record, but I do think that it is a strategy to just try to drive news cycles.
05:32Do they think it's helpful at all inside the Trump campaign that it's putting a focus back on
05:37immigration and we're talking about the impact that the 20,000 legal migrants have had on a
05:43city like Springfield? Yeah, a hundred percent. They think this is actually good politics for
05:46them. They think this is advisable to be talking about immigrants. I think that, you know, left to
05:51their own devices, some of them would not have liked to have seen the cats discussion or the
05:55eating the pets from the debate stage, but they do think in general, anything that highlights
06:01immigration as a controversial topic is good for them, no matter how much race-baiting is part of it.
06:07Well, I mean, and speaking of controversial topics, he spent half that press conference
06:11today talking about this and then also Laura Loomer, who has been traveling around with him
06:16and we talked about the fact that she was at the 9-11 memorials with him on Tuesday,
06:21on Wednesday, on the 23rd anniversary of 9-11, you know, and it's caused quite a
06:28moment where he was getting like 10 questions on this earlier, where reporters were saying
06:33what she has said in the past, that she thought 9-11 was an inside job, for example,
06:38and he was saying, oh, well, I'm not familiar with her past statements. What do you make of
06:42what he said on Truth Social tonight about her? Well, so a couple of things. To the question of
06:46is this a strategy? I mean, no, oftentimes these are just things he wants to talk about and
06:50sometimes they align with good politics and sometimes they don't and, you know, however
06:54controversial they may be or offensive they may be, in this case, there's nothing especially good
07:02politically about talking about the idea that 9-11 was an inside job, you know, a few days after the
07:0823rd anniversary. What I saw he posted on Truth Social is that she's not employed by the campaign
07:13and that, you know, she doesn't work for him, but she's a strong supporter and that's what he,
07:18you know, what he's happy she's standing up for, although I don't think he overtly says that,
07:22but that is the point, right? I mean, she was supposed to get a job with the campaign last
07:27year. They rescinded it when we reported on it, or I don't even know how far down the road it was,
07:31but they were making plans to hire her. They decided not to move ahead with that because
07:35she's controversial. However, she's around him, not infrequently. He clearly likes her. He clearly
07:41wants to see what she will say. Donald Trump, as some of the people have known him the longest,
07:46have often said, likes people who will do anything for him, and that is something Laura
07:50Loomer will do. So is that why he likes her? Because she's basically willing to do whatever?
07:56She praises him and she sees herself as his biggest defender, and she will go after people
08:02who are critical of him, you know, on social media, and he likes all of that. Today he called her a
08:09free spirit and a supporter, though he claimed to not know what she had said. It's like a pattern
08:17of every time he gets asked about someone who is controversial, just take a look at these other
08:20moments when he's been asked about this. I don't know what she said. I don't know who the Proud
08:26Boys are. Just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, okay?
08:31I mean, he tried to pull that when he had dinner with Nick Fuentes and avowed white supremacist
08:36Mar-a-Lago. I mean, this is a pattern that we do see.
08:39This is a go-to move for almost anything that he wants to not claim ownership of,
08:43be it people who are controversial, like the figures you just said,
08:46be it people who were employed by him, who he fired or he dismissed. Hardly know him,
08:51barely worked here for a short period of time. He is a man of few moves that he uses over and
08:56over again, and the goal with all of these is to try to insulate himself and not be tied to it.
09:00He said today he might do a second debate with Harris if he's in a better mood.
09:04What's your sense in your reporting of whether or not he's going to actually do one?
09:08I think it's not likely. I think that if the polling doesn't really change in one direction
09:13or another, I think that he will stay where he is. If it changes toward him, then I really don't
09:17think he will. I don't expect we're going to see some massive polling swing just because the
09:21country is so polarized, but we won't know until next week whether the vice president got a bump.
09:26I do think that his statement yesterday that there will be no more debates was taken a wee
09:30bit too ironclad for somebody who said the ABC debate was terminated before agreeing to it again
09:36and then thinking about dropping out and then showing up. I've heard things are not great
09:41inside the campaign. What are you hearing about what it's actually like behind the scenes with
09:46his officials? He brought on Corey Lewandowski, who was his campaign manager in 2016, for whom he has
09:54enormous fondness. He told Olivia Nuzzi at New York Magazine that he likes him,
10:00he's a character, or I just like him, I think was the quote. But Lewandowski has sharp elbows.
10:08I don't know that it's exactly clear how things are going there right now.
10:13Maggie Heberman, thank you for starting us off.