During the segment, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked the New York Times journalist why she believed Trump “has not been in front of the cameras.”
“I think that he is listening to his advisers, who are trying to keep him from being the face of [the government shutdown],” Haberman answered.
She added that the last time a shutdown occurred under Trump’s presidency in 2019, he appeared on camera declaring “something to the effect of ‘Let there be a shutdown.’”
Earlier in the discussion, Haberman said that the White House is “projecting great optimism” about resolving the situation soon.
“They believe that they are seeing some signs that the Democrats will come toward them,” she said, adding that she has seen “no signs of that” from her own reporting.
Trump had said a shutdown could actually be “beneficial” on Tuesday.
“We’re doing well as a country, so the last thing we want to do is shut it down. But a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things,” he said. “But they want open borders, they want men playing in women’s sports, they want transgender for everybody. They never stop. And they don’t learn. We won an election in a landslide, they just don’t learn. So we have no choice. I have to do that for the country.”