Trump pummeled by NYT's Haberman for 'cynical' lies about Dorian because he can't admit he's wrong

Appearing on CNN's New Day, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman appeared somewhat stunned by Donald Trump's continuing insistence that he was right about Hurricane Dorian hurtling towards Alabama and said his adamant refusal to admit he was wrong was more cynical than delusional.

Speaking with hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota, the normally placid Haberman got right to the point by noting that White House aides are more than willing to stand-by and defend Trump over even his most obvious lies.

"This one is so different," host Berman said about what has come to be called 'Sharpiegate.' "There's actually a cartoon that goes along with this false claim where the president is asking millions of Americans not to believe their own eyes and ears. But they do still believe their own eyes and ears. Other than the people around him that you see in this meeting here in the Oval Office who are forced to go along with him, and even fall on their sword like Rear Admiral Peter Brown who says, I suppose, I was the person who originally said that that projection. But for the rest of us, this has just been a really disturbing, disconcerting episode."

"I would take issue with the idea that his aides are forced to do anything," Haberman suggested. "They could quit. They don't have to stay there and repeat the things that he says and reverse engineer his claims when they turn out not to be true."

"There was this idea that he espouses and his supporters espouse and many of his aides espouse it's all the media's fault for focusing on what he says and what he meant," she continued. "I mean, he is the president of the United States and this is actually not just a tweet about witch hunt or any number of the ones he's done in the last two years."

"This is about a hurricane and people's lives," she insisted. "We're talking about this when the images that we just saw on this show are devastating and terrible -- people are really hurting."

"I think he's trying to create reality," the Times reporter explained. "I think these are two different things; one is a little more cynical than the other. I don't think this is he necessarily or genuinely believed that Alabama was in the path on Sunday of this hurricane. Because he always doubles down, refuses to admit errors ever, everything becomes that he had to be right."

"He's now just trying to bend reality to his will," she claimed. "I mean, I think it's frankly a different thing and it's equally troublesome and problematic for him. But it's that he tries to make everybody see it as he wants it to be and it's not."

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