Bestselling author and renowned NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman was asked about Trump’s cognitive decline and his long history of insane lies and racism in an exclusive interview for The Jim Acosta Show.
On Thursday afternoon, the “Regime Change” author joined Jim Acosta just in time to deliver her insights on the ever-growing Natalie Harp story.
Natalie Harp And The Gang
Haberman said Harp’s sycophancy and devotion are a cut above what she’s seen from other Trumpworld figures like Michael Cohen and Boris Epshteyn.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: The Secret Service was alarmed, in part because she had left him these letters in his personal spaces that Jonathan wrote about in the book.
One of which said, you know, “You are all that matters to me.” You know, they were very emotional and she is the most devoted of his aides.
…And, you know, there have been other people who feel... Similar, you know, sort of comfort blanket roles for him. Boris Epshteyn, his top legal advisor, he’s one. Michael Cohen, in his day, was one at Trump Tower. But we haven’t seen this in the White House this way.
JIM ACOSTA: So this goes way beyond Hope Hicks in the first term. This goes beyond like Johnny McEntee, I remember him during the first term.
Is Trump All There?
Acosta asked Haberman about Trump’s bouts with public sleeping and his bonkers riffs about flagpoles and health problems.
“Do you think he’s all there?” he asked.
JIM ACOSTA: Maggie, do you think that he’s all there?
NY TIMES JOURNALIST MAGGIE HABERMAN: I have no indication that he’s, I mean, obviously that I’m not a doctor and we don’t see him as often as we used to. I mean that is very true.
What you said at the top of this about just this bit that you were asking about, you know, physical problems. I mean it’s not, there’s no question. I mean the bruising on the hands has been going on for two years, maybe a little under.
The answer that we’ve always gotten when we ask about it is that, you know, it’s from handshaking and because he, you get some marks on his hand, that’s always been. A little hard to understand.
He takes a very large aspirin regimen. You know, aspirin can be used as a blood thinner, but he is taking a dose that, according to what I have read from experts, is quite large.
There is the swelling of the ankles. There’s the, as you said, there’s the eye closure, which is either sleeping or transcendental meditation or God knows what.
There’s the, as you said, there’s the eye closure, which is either sleeping or transcendental meditation or God knows what.
But the, I mean, you know, he also then can open his eyes and is clearly awake. I don’t and heard some of it. I don’t know what that is. I do know when he was in court in 2024, he was sleeping at times. And then other times he was just closing his eyes and seemed to be just sort of putting himself somewhere else.
But he’s 80 and they are not transparent about his health. He had been taking more frequent trips to Walter Reed and they have released less and less information. He said that he was seen by 22 specialists. I don’t even know who that could be. But these are all valid questions for a president. But I will say that Jonathan and I spent an hour with him for a fact checking interview for this book. And we did not detect really anything different with him in terms of his engagement with us, in terms the questions that he was answering, in terms how this interview was going.
Obviously he tells stories that last longer and his speaking style is slower, which happens when people get older. I did not notice a difference, but again, we only see what we see.
A few minutes later, I followed up and asked Haberman if she’s drawing a distinction between age-related cognitive issues and the baked-in pathological behaviors that he has always exhibited:
TOMMY CHRISTOPHER: I get responses to my questions. Let me be the first to say for you, stop that shit. All right, so here’s my other question. Because I heard you talking to Jim, and he said, I hear you saying that you haven’t seen a change in Trump’s cognition.
NY TIMES JOURNALIST MAGGIE HABERMAN: Of course, I’m not a doctor. So like that’s what I’m saying. That’s yeah
TOMMY CHRISTOPHER: So you have you have eyes and ears, you know, we all see Trump.
He says crazy stuff all the time. He says racist stuff. He tells insane lies like uh, “Hey guys, remember that time all the tv’s turned off because of the wind stopped?”
So--
NY TIMES JOURNALIST MAGGIE HABERMAN: How is that different from what we were saying 10 years? I mean, I’m really being serious.
TOMMY CHRISTOPHER: This is my question. You’re getting ahead of my question, which is what I hear you saying is: it’s not that he’s not crazy, it’s that he is as crazy as he’s always been?
NY TIMES JOURNALIST MAGGIE HABERMAN: I’m not doing diagnostic, but I am saying that he is exactly who he has always been and he is who I have always covered. I think he’s exactly who you guys have always covered.
Do I think that he’s 80 and that shows? Yes, I do. But that’s a different question.
The question that gets asked about cognition tends to be clinical about him. And I am not equipped to answer that.
What I can say is that in my conversation with him. In the Oval Office with Jonathan. And it was a small group, by the way.
I mean, often he, and Jim knows this, he often would bring, if you would go interview him, there would be like a phalanx of aides.
He would roll very deep. It was just, it was us and Kaaroline Levitt and Stephen Cheung and Natalie Hart. That was it.
And so I didn’t, if there was opportunity, he wasn’t. Hamming it up for other people, which you often would see in those situations. Uh, I really didn’t detect a difference.
I do think that uh that the insults are you know far and wide and he’s doing it with more people and I think that uh he uh, whatever filter--.
.We write we write about this in the book. Whatever filter he had Uh is is pretty much gone.
Um, and some of the and some that is, you.
Know at least familiar to to age, at least from my experience to other people who are 75 plus. But what that means for a broader question, I don’t know, other than the fact that there’s a legitimate conversation out there about whether 80-year-olds are wise to keep electing.
Watch the full interview here.
According to medical experts in psychiatry, DT is a danger to the country and the world!
He has acute, undiagnosed mental impairments that have never been treated(and sadly, probably never will be)
Dr. Lee and her colleagues entered a statement into the congressional record(Vol 172 N 76) on April 30, 2026)
that DT needs to be removed for medical reasons.
Today is, August 21, 2026 and legacy media, the GOP and others continue to gaslight us all.
It’s unbelievable!
As a former New Yorker, I can tell you none of this started with cognitive decline. We knew who Trump was long before he came down that escalator talking about Mexicans bringing drugs, crime and rape. The racism, the lies and the cruelty have been there for decades. Maybe age has taken away whatever filter remained, but we shouldn’t confuse a disappearing filter with a newly emerging character. This is who he has always been.