Trump will have trouble papering over his 'history of seeking payback': Maggie Haberman

Former President Donald Trump tried to walk back his past vows to use the presidency to enact vengeance upon his enemies on Wednesday night -- but New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman argued that might be harder to do than he believes.

Appearing on CNN, Haberman sounded a skeptical note of any Trump effort to "pivot" to a more moderate tone given his lengthy record of trying to gain retribution against his political foes and critics.

"The reality is, Trump has a very long history of seeking payback, so there's a reason that people have focused on that," she said. "Those remarks are not helpful to him in a general election. You're seeing him trying to shift in terms of a general election electorate. Whether that successful is an open question, but last night was the begin of him trying."

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CNN host Phil Mattingly then asked whether Trump would at all be able to stick with this more moderate tone on using his office to get revenge given all of the times he's made purported rhetorical "pivots" in the past that have lasted no more than a week.

"Look, he has a very long history, as you say, of bucking his advisers," said Haberman. "Most of his aides do not want him saying 'poisoning the blood of the country' about immigrants, yet he continues to say it and he has doubled down on it repeatedly. So he definitely does what he wants."

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