‘I Have No Idea What That Actually Means’: Maggie Haberman Puzzled By Trump Post About Mexico

Longtime Donald Trump beat reporter Maggie Haberman did not know what to make of the president-elect’s latest social media posts on Wednesday.

On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

The next day, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum fired back at Trump, saying, “Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country.”

She added that “encounters at the Mexico–United States border have decreased by 75% between December 2023 and November 2024.”

On Wednesday, Trump stated he spoke with Sheinbaum.

“Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo,” he wrote. “She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border. We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!”

In a subsequent post, he said, “Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!”

CNN’s John Berman read Trump’s first post to Haberman.

“What does it tell you that they had this conversation?” he asked before adding that Trump seemed to be “half-announcing the southern border was closed.”

“I have no idea what that actually means, John,” Haberman answered. “He has made statements like that before when he was president, and it didn’t actually amount to the closure of a border. You know, it comes a day after he made some very aggressive tariff threat against Mexico and Canada. And so, I think that’s probably not a coincidence, although who knows?”

She went on to call Trump’s calls with foreign leaders “unstructured” and “informal.”

“So, who knows what actually happened in that call?” she added. “At some point we may find out, but everything with him is the opening bid of a negotiation. And I look at this, plus the tariff threat, most likely as a combined push toward Mexico to try to get what he wants.”

Watch above via CNN.