President Donald Trump was fixated on an oddly specific, off-topic subject during an interview just days after he launched a war against Iran, according to a reporter who spoke to him.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman met with the then-79-year-old president in March at the Oval Office, where he fondled photos of the types of greenery he wanted to choose for a White House renovation, she told Axios in a new interview.
"You would think that on the 17th day of the war that he would have maps of the Middle East or maps of troop deployments — who knows," Haberman said. "He picks up these pictures, and [they're] of maple trees, and he says, 'I am choosing maple trees for the White House. I am good at picking trees.' I'm paraphrasing here, but that is pretty much what he said."
Haberman is co-author, with her colleague Jonathan Swan, of "Regime Change," which has sold roughly 600,000 copies and recently logged seven straight weeks atop the Times bestseller list. Her read on Trump's priorities offers a window into what genuinely animates him.
"What interests him are things that you can see and touch," she said.
Roughly 70 percent of the president's attention — "maybe plus or minus 5 percent," she said — goes toward gilding, construction, renovation, renaming and tribute projects.
"He is spending a huge amount of energy, mental and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington, and then monuments to self," Haberman told Axios co-founder Mike Allen. "There is no precedent in U.S. history of a sitting president devising such endeavors in their own name."
Haberman first floated the percentage estimate in an interview with Times colleague Ezra Klein, describing it as "a legacy thing," and she said the war seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind.
"He didn't really want to talk about that," she said. "He didn't really want to talk about policy specifics. He wanted to describe himself as winning, and he wanted to show us how he had remade Washington."
