Star NYT Reporter Stuns Podcaster With Wild Trump Revelation
The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman left podcast host Sam Fragoso visibly stunned after sharing an extraordinary behind-the-scenes story about President Donald Trump’s handling of his own tariff policies.
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Speaking on Sunday’s episode of the Talk Easy With Sam Fragoso podcast, Haberman discussed Regime Change, the book she co-authored with fellow Times reporter Jonathan Swan.
In the book, Haberman and Swan reveal that Trump was unaware just how high his own Liberation Day tariffs on Chinese imports had climbed, saying he appeared shocked when he finally learned about the figure.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, announced in April 2025, imposed a 10 percent tariff on nearly all imports while raising duties on dozens of countries, including China, as part of his push to reshape U.S. trade policy.
The move sent shockwaves through financial markets, triggering a sharp sell-off in stocks and bonds, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffering its steepest drop since June 2020.
But amid the market turmoil and growing backlash, Haberman said Trump himself did not realize how high his tariffs on Chinese goods had risen.
She said Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods had risen to 145 percent before he realized the scale of the increase.
“At one point he couldn’t—he didn’t realize how high China’s tariff burden had gotten,” Haberman said. “It was up to 145 percent. And his reaction was, you know, like ‘Holy s—.’”
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A surprised Fragoso asked: “Just to clarify… he is surprised about his own numbers?”
“Correct,” Haberman replied.
She added that Trump later suggested imposing a 10 percent tariff on China seemingly without any formal calculation. “At another time he was just talking about China, and he says put them in for 10. So that’s not a formula, that’s a gut feeling.”
According to Haberman, Trump’s approach to tariffs was driven more by instinct than economic planning.
“This was something that he had wanted to do for 40 years. And it’s not because he had an economic theory of the case. It’s because he likes the idea of tariffs,” she said.
Haberman also said senior advisers, including Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, regularly presented Trump with competing economic data. When he dismissed those figures, she said, he instead turned to aide Natalie Harp to provide numbers that aligned with his thinking.
“The real numbers are whatever Trump believes they should be,” Haberman said.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Trump has sought to discredit Haberman’s reporting and her book.
In a lengthy Truth Social post on Saturday. he called her book “a joke” and claimed “90% of it is Fake News,” accusing her of years of “bad reporting” aimed at hurting his political career.
He also mocked Haberman by repeatedly calling her “Maggot” and claimed that a truly accurate account of his presidency would be “quite boring, but loaded with lots of SUCCESS.”
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