The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman has been covering former President Donald Trump for years and she knows him about as well as any member of the media is able to. And now she has revealed that since leaving office, Trump has had numerous aides following him around the golf course, reciting praise he receives on social media.
She revealed that in a tweet Tuesday, saying she’d been told by numerous sources with access to Trump. Each source noted that since leaving office, a “rotating” cast of aides has been accompanying him on the golf course, relaying the adulation he’s received.
“As Trump has been out of office over the last 20 mos [months], a rotating cast of aides has been tasked with following him around the golf course at the club he’s at and giving him positive reinforcement from Twitter and wherever else they find it on the web, per ppl told of the practice,” tweeted Haberman, who’s known for her extensive contacts in Trump World.
As Trump has been out of office over the last 20 mos,a rotating cast of aides has been tasked with following him around the golf course at the club he's at and giving him positive reinforcement from Twitter and wherever else they find it on the web, per ppl told of the practice.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 20, 2022 [1]
I almost can’t blame Trump for this. His situation right now looks pretty bleak. But he’s the one who created the situation, to begin with, so that’s where my sympathy ends.
Just about every journalist who’s covered the former president has likely written about his love of praise, and his private office reflects this. Every wall has magazine covers, paintings, and other mementos lauding his accomplishments.
In 2017, CNN reported [2] that Trump held a cabinet meeting and sat silently as aides heaped praise on him. The aides soon learned this was a useful tactic and in a report from the same time period, Politico [3] notes those around him used a steady stream of praise from allies and friendly media organizations to restrain his vituperative tweets.
Foreign leaders also learned to rely on the former president’s addiction to praise to advance their causes in the hopes of strengthening alliances with the U.S. during his time in office, some reports [4] say.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un learned to do this and began corresponding with Trump during his presidency, leading Trump to boast about the “beautiful letters” [5] the dictator had sent him.
And now that Trump is beset by a multitude of legal problems, not the least of which is the Justice Department’s investigation into whether he removed classified documents from office, his allies are rallying around him. It seems apparent that these folks will be doing this for a while because the former president is up to his eyeballs in trouble, especially now that New York Attorney General Letitia James has hit Trump and his organization with a whopper [6] of a lawsuit.
All I can say is, stay tuned.