President Donald Trump's late-night tirade against journalist Maggie Haberman over her new book backfired in real time this week, as critics — including a fellow conservative — seized on the attack to mock the president and, in at least one case, boost sales of the very book he was trashing.Trump had unloaded on Haberman in an all-caps Truth Social post, dismissing the book as "mostly made up" and deriding the New York Times reporter as a "third rate writer," while repeatedly mangling her name as "Magot Hagerman."CNN anchor Jake Tapper responded by flipping the attack into free promotion for the book, "Regime Change," co-authored by Haberman and Jonathan Swan."Disagree, Mr. President!" Tapper wrote. "REGIME CHANGE by @maggieNYT and @jonathanvswan is a great and fascinating read. Maggie is a great writer and intellect and was right about you and the elections, and much more!" He then added a link so readers could buy the book.Some of the sharpest commentary came from the right. Matthew RJ Brodsky, a conservative foreign policy analyst, pointed out the obvious flaw in Trump's claim that Haberman was irrelevant."Trump literally calls her all the time," Brodsky wrote. "Another self-own."Writer Brent Snyder delivered an extended takedown, opening with a dig at the president's eating habits."Oh, Donny Two-Scoops, bless your fragile little heart," Snyder wrote, before characterizing the post as "another all-caps meltdown over a book you clearly couldn't put down fast enough to 'brief' on it."Snyder went on to skewer Trump's central accusation, arguing the "mostly made up" charge was rich "coming from the guy who turned 'alternative facts' into a business model." He defended Haberman as a chronicler of Trump's "lies, the chaos, the ego-fueled disasters," and needled the president over his repeated misspelling of her name: "At least spell her name right while having a meltdown, champ."He also took aim at Trump's election boasts, writing that the president "lost in 2020. Spectacularly," and was now "crowing about 2024 like a toddler who finally won a participation trophy after throwing tantrums for four years." On Trump's insistence that no incriminating audio tapes exist, Snyder wrote that the denial came "from the man whose own recordings have sunk him before."Others kept it brief. The account David Gallant, @GallantDG, summed up the likely commercial effect of the president's outburst in three words: "Another best seller."The collective response underscored a familiar dynamic: Trump's attempts to bury a critical book often serve only to amplify it, handing the author a wave of publicity that money can't buy — and, as Tapper demonstrated, a direct sales link to go with it.
