It's not easy to be close to President Donald Trump, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Speaking on CNN's morning show New Day, Haberman addressed the attacks the president levied against her after she reported on the strained relationship between Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been raided by the FBI.
The president fired back in a series of tweets over the weekend.
The New York Times and a third rate reporter named Maggie Haberman, known as a Crooked H flunkie who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with, are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will “flip.” They use....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2018
....it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2018
Haberman was asked how she explains the anger coming from the president.
She responded:
"It's a topic... [that's] hitting a nerve with him. He and his lawyers are very anxious about the southern district investigation into Michael Cohen that is more, right now, of an imminent threat that the Robert Mueller special counsel probe is. Look, the story was really not about destroying their relationship. The president has destroyed their relationship pretty handily on his own over a very long period of time. And that is what the story is about, which is that he has been—he is abusive, according to almost everyone I speak to, to most people in his orbit. And family is not excepted from that. But he is particularly abusive to Cohen over the years. And the question becomes, does that come back to haunt him?"
Cohen has come under scrutiny lately, most notably with the FBI raiding his home, hotel and office earlier this month. He's been at the center of controversy after it was revealed that he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. At the time of the alleged affair, Trump was married to now-first lady Melania.
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