President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at Maggie Haberman on Tuesday, hurling a string of insults at the New York Times journalist and her employer.
“Magot Hagerman, a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect, writes story after story, always terrible, and yet I almost never speak to her,” the Republican posted just after midnight, accusing the newspaper of getting its coverage of him “so wrong.”
“They do no fact checking, because facts don’t matter to them. I don’t believe I’ve had a legitimately good story in the NYT for years, AND YET I WON, IN RECORD FASHION, THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN DECADES. WHERE IS THE APOLOGY?”
Trump has called Haberman names in the past. He also referred to her as “Maggot” in August, when he raged at her for her coverage of a dubious story he’d told about once being in a dangerous helicopter landing; and in October 2023, when he fumed over her reporting on his civil fraud trial.
Haberman has covered Trump extensively for years. She’s the author of a biography about him and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for her reporting on his first administration.
It’s not clear what set off Tuesday’s tirade. Haberman and her colleague Jonathan Swan authored two articles about Trump that were published by the Times on Monday.
One was about Boris Epshteyn, a top Trump adviser who allegedly tried to profit from his role in the president-elect’s orbit. Multiple reports suggested he sought retainer fees from potential appointees in order to boost them for jobs in Trump’s administration.
Reached for comment by the Times, Epshteyn called the allegations “false and defamatory.”
Another article focused on Natalie Harp, a Trump aide and former far-right cable host who reportedly writes the president-elect “devotional letters” and acts as “an instant enabler of his impulses.”
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The Times also approached Trump’s team for comment about that report. The campaign provided several character references about Harp, and Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung said Harp was a “trusted and valued” member of the team.
Haberman also appeared on CNN Monday night, where she speculated about how Trump’s Justice Department might seek to investigate prosecutors who worked with special counsel Jack Smith, who led two federal investigations against the president-elect.