JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): Robert Draper, you also talked about the war that Donald Trump has created among the right-wing media. What did you find?

ROBERT DRAPER: Yeah, it's a war that essentially has fractured the conservative media, pitting folks who had been differing in tone, differing in emphasis, but otherwise singing from the same hymnal in terms of conservative ideology for the last 20 years or so. Erick Erickson of RedState, George Will of The Washington Post, strange bedfellows, but now find themselves in an anti-Trump situation pitted against people like Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity who are very much in the pro-Trump camp. And, again, in a lot of ways this describes this greater divide in the Republican Party, but it feels more personal with these people who not only have, as personalities, have their own sort of cult followings, but also who, again, despite basic tonal differences have been very, very much in alignment. Now they're going after each other on Twitter. They're going after each other on the air. And as I say, it's become a personal thing.

SCARBOROUGH: What about the godfather of them all, Rush Limbaugh? Where is Limbaugh in all of this?

DRAPER: Rush Limbaugh's been kind of an artful dodger in all of this in that he has never come out and said, “I endorse Donald Trump.” In fact, now what he's saying is that “why does it matter? Why is it news? Why does anyone care what I think?” Which is a bit disingenuous. But what Limbaugh is essentially doing is not leaving his followers. Not getting too much in front of his audience because he knows that the repercussions of that can be a severe blowback. And this is something they've all had to contend with. Erick Erickson of RedState, who now has his own radio show, has essentially decided to quit talking about Trump altogether because he is so anti-Trump that whenever he does talk about Trump in these negative ways, his female listenership will go up, and as we know, listenership for talk radio is largely white male. And so each has come up with their own kind of discomforting solutions.

WILLIE GEIST: Hey Robert, it's Willie Geist, it's good to see you. How much of this is people sort of riding the Trump wave for professional reasons, just to be honest? Someone like Sean Hannity, maybe Ann Coulter, they're selling books, people listen to the radio show, and hoping that perhaps there's something at the end of the rainbow if Trump becomes president.

DRAPER: Yeah, it's a good question, Willie. I think that certainly, and Trump said to me, “look, I'm on Sean Hannity's show for one main reason. The ratings, I get good ratings -- or he gets good ratings when I'm on.” I think, though, that there are other things too. Ann Coulter has been beating the drum on immigration for years, just as Laura Ingraham has on trade, and Trump has provided a unique mouthpiece. In addition to that, though, I think that for some of these guys, this is their last rodeo, their last opportunity to get in on a Republican administration. Folks like Ann Coulter are not exactly -- they're not Washington insiders. Neither is Donald Trump. Donald Trump, if he becomes president, is not going to rely on a coterie Washington establishment figures to lead his administration. And in fact, Coulter as well as Hannity, and for that matter Laura Ingraham who's participating in debate prep, have all provided strategic advice to Donald Trump. So, I think that part has to do with money. Part has to do with ego.

STEVE KORNACKI: Robert, it's Steve Kornacki. I'm remembering Rush Limbaugh back in the '90s how things took off for him when Bill Clinton became president, when he got a Democratic president, didn't have to deal with a Republican. It was a lot easier I think for him maybe to attack Bill Clinton every day. Sort of, conservative media, is this part of them that just would sort of rather have a Hillary Clinton presidency because that's an easier day-to-day mission for them?

DRAPER: Well, I suspect. You're certainly right, Steve, it's a lot easier to have an antagonist in the White House to rail out against all the time. There is, though, this other sort of discomforting feature which is that, for so many of these guys they've been saying that this is it. If Hillary Clinton is president, and Sean Hannity said this to me when I interviewed him, he said, “I think the country is basically over with.” They said this sort of thing in 2012 when Obama was up for re-election against Mitt Romney.

[...]

After awhile, the question's going to be begged, will their listernship continue to find believable these claims that the apocalypse is nigh if Hillary Clinton becomes president?

MARK HALPERIN: Robert, does Donald Trump have personal ties to these folks that help them stay on board? Or it's all transactional?

DRAPER: Personal ties, yes. But none of them are really friends. Mark, it's an open question as to who Donald Trump's close friends are anyway. That's a subject for another day. But when it comes to these media figure, Sean Hannity he's known for about 20 years. But I don't get the sense they socialize much. Ann Coulter has been to Mar-a-Lago, and as my story indicates, in the course of a conversation that they had in which she was offering him strategic admonitions after he had been talking about the size of his endowment, as a result of that, Donald Trump awarded her an honorary membership and waived the membership fee to Mar-a-Lago. But none of these guys are particularlyclose. I think that it's more that they have the same sort of bulldog temperament. They see Donald Trump in themselves, and vice versa. So basically I'd say he gets along with them well, but they're not running buddies.

Related:

NY Times Magazine: How Donald Trump Set Off A Civil War Within The Right-Wing Media

Previously:

The Continuing Conservative Media Civil War Zeroes In On Sean Hannity

On MSNBC's All In, Eric Boehlert Notes How Right Wing Media “Created An Inferno And Trump Has Seized It”

The Right-Wing Noise Machine Implodes Over Trump -- And The GOP Gets Burned