Trump 2.0: A Year of Unconstrained Power
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Hey, I'm Tracy Mumford. There is a lot happening right now. The Headlines podcast from The New York Times will catch you up on the latest in 10 minutes or less. We'll take you inside breaking news and big investigations from The Times newsroom. Plus, bring you the stories that make you go, huh, whoa, I didn't know that. Listen to our show, The Headlines, every weekday morning, wherever you get your podcasts.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is a special episode of The Daily. The golden age of America begins right now. It's been exactly one year since President Trump was sworn into office for a second term. The fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists and deep state bureaucrats are being sent packing. A year in which he fired. President Trump says he is firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook.
Millions of federal workers are being offered buyouts.
Prosecuted.
Secured the indictments of James Comey and Letitia James.
Pardoned.
These were people that actually love our country, so... Tariffed. Brokered.
Pressured.
Not in a good position.
You don't have the cards right now.
Defied.
Directed Justice Department lawyers to be ready to tell the courts, F you.
Deployed. Deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law. Fortified. Border crossings have gone just way down. And deported his way to a new American government.
Okay, do you have some ID then, please? I don't. No ID.
designed entirely in his image.
Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?
Yeah, there's one thing, my own morality.
Today, in the first of a series of episodes evaluating the past year, we begin by turning to three of my colleagues, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Charlie Savage. It's Tuesday, January 20th. Maggie, Jonathan, Charlie, welcome back. Thank you, Michael. Hello. Good to be back.
What events defined Donald Trump's second term in the past year?
We come to the three of you on the occasion of this presidential term reaching its one-year mark. Always a moment for reflection, perhaps never more so than the extremely eventful first year. of Donald Trump's second term. And all three of you covered Trump's first term. And then you co-reported a series about what we should all expect from his second term, much of which came to pass. And as it happens, all three of you are now working on books about Trump and his presidency. So you're thinking big thoughts, or at least we're hoping that you're thinking big thoughts. Thank you for the encouragement. You're uniquely positioned, we think, to have this conversation. Hope you agree. So we wanted to start by asking you for the right big framework for thinking about this first year of Donald Trump's second term.
And Jonathan, let me start with you there.
Where I start conceptually with Trump is basically where we started with our series in 2023, which is the first big idea that we put out there, based on our reporting, based on talking to all the people around Trump, was that a second term of Donald Trump would involve extravagant uses of executive power. Mm-hmm. in some cases, possibly unprecedented use of executive power. And it became very clear early on that that's exactly what was coming to bear. There were just so many aggressive actions happening at once. It was happening in his immigration actions, in his use of tariffs. We saw it in the way that he attacked civil society, the way that he squeezed universities. We have agencies within the executive branch that either by law or by custom are understood to be independent from executive authority from the president himself.
He completely jettisoned that. You have a situation where he is directing the attorney general to prosecute named individuals. something that we haven't seen in this country before. You also had him jawboning the FCC to go after certain media companies. Again, agencies that are either by statute or by norm independent no longer are independent. You know, we've all forgotten Doge now, but that was an extraordinary expression of executive authority. So it's already a year in a profoundly transformational presidency.
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