Maggie Haberman is finding it hard to speak to sources in President Donald Trump’s second term.
The New York Times reporter, who also chronicled MAGA 1.0 in a book published in 2022, told Vanity Fair that she is “astonished” and “shocked” at how many people are no longer willing to speak out against Trump as his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, runs a “much tighter ship.”
“When I said that, I was actually referring to people who have just been outside critics of him in the past,” she said. “I have been astonished at the number of people who are no longer willing to speak because they just don’t think that it does anything to help their sense of anxiety about their lives.”
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“I started seeing this shortly before the inauguration; I was shocked at how few people wanted to talk.”
Haberman, 51, was once described by the rival Washington Post as the “highest-profile reporter” in Trump’s first term. She enjoyed access not only to the president himself, sitting down with him for exclusive interviews as early as 2017 and as late as 2021, but also broke news by interviewing those close to Trump and his then-revolving door of senior advisers.
Those sorts of reports led to her being the most-cited reporter in the Mueller report, which accused Trump of colluding with Russia. She was also the subject of attacks from the president, who called her a “third-rate reporter” in 2018, among other insults, and from figures on the left, who accused her of cozying up to MAGA to receive access.
Haberman noted that fewer people are willing to speak out against Trump since he was inaugurated a second time on Jan. 20, however. She told Vanity Fair that she credits White House chief of staff Susie Wiles with the change.
“This really is also a credit, in part, to Susie Wiles,” she said. “She is running a much tighter ship. She has hired a lot of people who are more respectful of her authority than they were [for] previous chiefs of staff who worked for him.”
Reached for comment about Haberman’s remark about Wiles, White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers told the Daily Beast: “Susie Wiles has been the most effective Chief of Staff in White House history. The Administration’s many accomplishments are a direct reflection of her leadership and ability to build a team that works together to accomplish one goal—enacting President Trump’s agenda on behalf of the American people.”
Trump has had his fair share of chaos in his second term—thanks to his ever-changing tariff policy, Signalgate, and feuds with Elon Musk, Gavin Newsom, U.S. allies, and the judicial branch—but has not yet experienced significant turnover.
Trump has largely stuck with his appointments. Instead of firing Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who accidentally added a reporter to a secret Signal group chat, the president appointed him to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who went nuclear on Trump late last week after being exiled from his inner circle, is the only notable exception.
Haberman told Vanity Fair that the reduction in people willing to speak against Trump is a red flag for the country.
“It doesn’t surprise me, I guess, in hindsight, that people became afraid of talking, but that is a very risky slope to go down in a democracy,” she said.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the full context of Haberman’s remarks.
