Why would President Donald Trump invite The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Trump has attacked as a “total sleazebag,” to meet with him in the Oval Office? We talk with Goldberg about what Trump told him about Signalgate. We also talk with Atlantic staff writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer about the lessons Trump learned from his time in the political wilderness, and how he is applying them in his second term (which he is apparently experiencing as a grand adventure). Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why did Jeffrey Goldberg visit the Oval Office?
Yes.
By a guy.
By a guy.
Who has referred to you as a total sleazebag and the editor of a failing magazine.
Yeah.
How did you expect he would receive you? Like, as you were going over there, what did you think was going to happen?
80% he would be full charm offensive. 20% he would start yelling at me.
This is The Atlantic's Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, talking about Donald Trump, of course.
I figured that people on the staff, on his team, might be a little dubious about this whole operation. And they were. That was facially obvious, as they say. But no, him, I figured, I kind of guessed this correctly, I figured he was bringing me over there to try to charm me.
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Chapter 2: What was Trump's reaction to Goldberg's article?
This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hannah Rosen. Not long before Jeff and Atlantic staff writers Michael Shearer and Ashley Parker met in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social, calling Jeff a person, quote, responsible for many fictional stories about me.
Aber Trump hat auch geschrieben, dass Jeffs neueste Geschichte, Signalgate, als Jeff zu einem Gruppechat über Kriegspläne, Ups, verabschiedet wurde, etwas erfolgreich war. Trump hat das Wort erfolgreich in Quoten geschrieben. In der zweiten Hälfte des Shows werden wir mit Michael und Ashley über ihre Cover-Story im Atlantik sprechen.
Trump genießt das, insbesondere über das, wie Michael Trump kalt genannt hat und Trump das Telefon aufgenommen hat. Aber zuerst wollte ich wissen, was geschah, als Jeff, der eine der größten Geschichten dieses Jahr über die Trump-Administration geschrieben hat, Trump kennengelernt hat. Der Kerl, der ihm eine Schlauchmaschine genannt hat.
We go over to the Resolute desk and he stands up and forget the exact words, but it's like, oh, this is going to be interesting. And he shakes hands with Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, and gives me a big handshake, big warm handshake. And, you know, we just sort of sit down right in front of him. Stephen Chung is sitting on the same row and kind of launch into it.
I thanked him for seeing us and I made my sincere point that it's better for us to talk than not talk. Und dann ging es auf die Rennen. Aber er war charmant, fokussiert. Und vor allem war ich da... with two writers who were actually writing a very large piece for us. So they had to drive the interview. But there was no hostility.
I mean, you've read the Truth Social post about our visit that he posted like four hours before that was filled with hostility and nonsense. And, you know, I said to him or one of us said, what was that about? He's being Mr. Friendly. Mr. Charmer, and he said, well, I wanted to up the pressure on you a little bit. And then he said, you know, everything is a transaction.
So it's like, look, I got something out of that post, meaning I got to screw with you a little bit, but you're going to sell so many more magazines because of that post. I can't disagree with him. And obviously, Drew, I mean, within 20 minutes of that post, I probably had, I don't know, 50, 60, 70... Ja, genau. Yeah, it was very low-key. He wrote something that was odd in his Truth Social post.
He said, my scoop, or, you know, he uses a lot of scare quotes, was, you know, somewhat more successful than the Suckers and Losers story from four years ago, five years ago.
He said you were somewhat successful with Signalgate.
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Trump learn from being in the political wilderness?
LOL. Don't use signal. It's wild how different it is in approach. It's just a game. Yeah.
Which is what? What's the adjective?
Bad.
Bad. Okay. Did he say anything about Pete Hexeth? Did you get the sense he was in trouble in any way?
Ich denke, dass Pete Hexuth von anderen Berichten, die wir gemacht haben und die andere Leute gemacht haben, Probleme hat. Er hat indiziert, dass er Pete liebt. Wir hatten ein Gespräch. Es war ein positives Gespräch. Wir hatten ein Gespräch und er wird es zusammen machen. Und er war hinter ihm, bis er nicht hinter ihm ist.
Wenn man morgen herausfindet, dass er aus dem Job ist, wird niemand sehr überrascht sein. Das gleiche ist für Mike Waltz. Für verschiedene Gründe. I think President Trump likes Pete Hegseth. True believer. True believer in Trump. Fox and Friends. Loyalist. Knows him from television.
But, you know, if that story of Pentagon mismanagement and incompetence continues, it gets in the way of other messages that the White House is trying to send.
Yeah. Was there anything that he said that will keep you vigilant? Where you left thinking, oh, we have to keep our eye on this one.
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Chapter 4: How did Trump's comeback strategies evolve?
Yeah, when Ashley asked him about the 2028 hats and what they might mean, he mostly made a joke of it and said it wasn't very likely and, you know, acknowledged that he's a shatterer of norms, but kind of indicated that that might be a norm too far. But he didn't just say, no, of course I'm not trying to run in 2028, the Constitution doesn't...
A normal politician in his second term as president would say, why are you asking me whether I would run for a third term? I can't. But this is Donald Trump, so everything's open. And why would it be surprising if he somehow tries to hold on to power? So I have an eye on that. I'm most interested in... Er hat es persönlich gemacht.
He always makes it personal, but he left it open, the idea that maybe Putin can push him too far. Which I thought was interesting. I don't necessarily believe that. I think he wants to be friends with Putin. And I think he doesn't care about Ukraine. But I also imagine that he understands that pictures of Russian tanks rolling into Kiev and slaughtering Ukrainians would be bad for him.
So, did your impression of him in an overall way change after this meeting? Like in any way? Did you come away thinking differently broadly about Trump than before the meeting?
Look, I find him totally fascinating, obviously. And if you really want to know... I find it very easy to relate to his personality because I grew up around people like that. I grew up five miles from where he grew up. I understand that type. I understand the humor. Some people don't find him funny. I actually do find him funny. I know that he's doing schtick half the time.
The schtick has extraordinary consequences. But his ability to bifurcate und nichts nehmen. Wie sage ich das? Wenn du mir die Namen, die Donald Trump mir genannt hat, genannt hättest, dann würde ich und du beide eine persönliche Begegnung finden. Sehr, sehr, sehr seltsam. Er findet es nicht seltsam, weil er glaubt, dass es nur ein Spiel ist. Es ist nur eine Performance.
Und ich glaube, er glaubt, zumindest mit mir und vielleicht mit anderen, dass ich glaube, es ist nur eine Performance. Aber nein, er ist ein interessanter Typ, den man zu sprechen und zu hören hat. Und unser Job ist es, ihn zu verstehen, so weit es möglich ist, ihn zu verstehen. Und je mehr Aufmerksamkeit ich an ihn habe, desto besser ist es für mich, aus analytischer Sicht.
Ich versuche herauszufinden, was in ihm drin ist, ob es etwas drin ist, und warum er so denkt, wie er denkt.
Jeff, thanks for coming on.
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Chapter 5: What does Trump's attitude towards his critics reveal?
Thanks for having me.
When we come back... Tell the people in the Atlantic. Yeah. If they'd write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot.
Atlantic-Staffwriters Ashley Parker and Michael Shearer on their new cover story, Trump is Enjoying This.
The magazine would be hot. I'll pass on the message.
That's after the break. All right, we're back. And now I'm joined by staff writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer. Ashley, Michael, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
Thank you for having me.
So let's start with where it starts, which is the phone call.
Well, it actually starts with the request for the interview and him canceling it on Truth Social.
So the story is that we talked to some of his advisors. His advisors say... Yes, this sounds like a great idea. We should keep talking. We'll get a request to the president. We kind of write a formal request after some more conversations. It's delivered to the president. The president comes back and says to Stafford, tells Ashley, yes, we're doing it. We can probably have a photo.
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Chapter 6: What insights did the Atlantic staff gain from their interactions with Trump?
Never, ever.
Ich meine... So the way you land an interview with a sitting president is you just call him on his cell phone and he picks up the phone. I know who you are, Michael.
You know, what's interesting about that is he didn't say who he was. He didn't really make much sound initially. So I assumed it was a staffer picking up the phone on his behalf, which is why I was so confused initially. And I had to wait for a tone of his voice to come through before I realized. But yes, that is under this current president the way things work. I mean, we...
We write about in the story that, you know, lots of people have that phone number. And he talks with lots of people and he's very proud of the people he talks to privately. And the White House does not control this. The White House had no idea we were calling that day. You know, he was not prepped for it.
You know, one of the staffers said that during the call there was somebody else in the room and they got a text saying, oh, by the way, you should know he's on the phone right now with a reporter. And so they sort of find out as we're doing the conversation.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of Trump's performance style?
And I should say, again, it's worth noting, we did try to go through official channels first. And it was only once it looked like we were not going to get in that way that we procured the number. And Michael called him at 10.45 on a Saturday morning. I mean, this is so much better.
So you're just sitting in your kitchen talking to the president?
Is that... No, I have like a little office, like a COVID office upstairs in my house. I had to tell my kids to be quiet and tell my wife to be quiet. It was a Saturday morning.
Okay, so you talked to a lot of people besides Trump about his comeback. And I'm most interested in lessons he learned from that comeback and brought to a second term. So, Ashley... You write that while he was in the political wilderness, which is after he lost the 2020 election, one big lesson he learned was the vampire lesson. Can you explain that?
Yes, it was that. In that phone call, Michael asked him about it, but it was fascinating. It was that all these would-be vampire slayers, the Democrats, the never Trumpers, the legal cases against him, the media critics, even his Republican opponents, they failed to drive a stake through his heart, continuing with the vampire analogy. And in doing so, they only made him stronger.
For instance, after January 6, when the House impeaches him, you know, Senators had a moment where they could have convicted him. That would have been a knockout blow. They did not. He was sort of banished. There was a world in which Republicans could have worked to truly implement that banishment.
I mean, as we went back and we reported this story, we knew there was this moment where Kevin McCarthy was in Florida for fundraisers. Trump invites him to Mar-a-Lago. A photo of the two of them is... Das ist der erste Schritt in Trumps politische Retribution.
Aber was so beeindruckend war, als wir dies wiederholt haben, weil Sie einige dieser Details vergessen, das passierte eine Woche nachdem Trump nach Washington als Pariah wegging, weil seiner Rolle am 6. Januar war. Es war nicht drei Monate später oder ein Jahr später. Eine Woche später.
after McCarthy has himself suggested maybe Trump should resign and not even serve out the final, you know, two weeks of his term, he is down there with a publicity photo that helps rehabilitate Trump. So it is striking how quickly this all begins.
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