CNN's Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota grill Maggie Haberman on whether Mueller has now crossed Trump's 'red line'

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CNN)

published 16 March 2018

The news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed documents from President Trump's family business, the Trump Organization, "impinging on the president's red line of family finances, is sure to get under Trump's skin, and may make him want to fire Mueller," Axios noted Friday morning. CNN's New Day brought on New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman to ask her that very thing.

The big picture is "it's pretty clear that not only is this not going away, that it is moving closer to the president," Haberman said. It also "adds another pound to the president's sort of mental weight on this issue, which we know eats at him on a daily basis." Trump's lawyers kept him calm last year by saying the investigation was wrapping up, she said, but it's clear now that it isn't, and "the longer this goes, the more you are going to see the president frustrated by it."

Alisyn Camerota asked if these subpoenas cross Trump's "red line," playing a recording of Trump telling Haberman last July that Mueller would be out of bounds digging into his family business. "He wasn't a definitive, 'Yes, that would cross a line for me," Camerota noted. "That was him trying not to answer the question, that was not him being uncertain," Haberman said, adding that she doesn't have enough information to speculate if these subpoenas crossed "what the president has described as his personal red line."

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Chris Cuomo said he's heard Trump's advisers are spinning this as good news, and Haberman said yes, but "they are basically advising him on best-case scenario," and candidly, advisers say they have no idea where Mueller is headed. "There's only one way for the president to know," Cuomo said: "If he sits down with the special counsel, he will have all his questions answered about what is in this about him. But that is a big roll of the dice." Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.