Writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer of The Atlantic say they’ve discovered one factor throughout their years of protecting President Donald Trump: His first phrase isn’t his final one.
That is apparent from their circuitous journey in touchdown interviews with the Republican president, which included an obvious late-night “butt dial” and Trump’s surprising invitation to incorporate within the session their editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Trump had bashed as a “sleazeball” weeks earlier.
That final interview, this previous Thursday, sparked a real “stop the presses” second. The Atlantic had already despatched Parker and Scherer’s piece, the duvet story for its June concern, to the printers. They referred to as it again so as to add new materials.
The article, titled “Trump is Having fun with This” and revealed on-line Monday, was within the works earlier than Goldberg was inadvertently included in a Sign chat group amongst administration leaders a few navy assault within the Center East.
The interview wasn’t presupposed to occur
The writers, who just lately joined The Atlantic from The Washington Submit, had pitched an interview to speak concerning the particulars of Trump’s inconceivable political comeback. He was prepared to speak, however on March 17 — through the week they have been supposed to satisfy — Trump posted on social media that Parker was a “Radical Left Lunatic” incapable of doing a good interview. Scherer’s previous items about him have been, Trump wrote, “just about all LIES.”
The interview was off. The writers surmised of their article that somebody in Trump’s camp had persuaded him to not do it.
At 10:45 a.m. on a Saturday in late March, Scherer — armed with Trump’s cellphone quantity — referred to as him anyway. “Who’s calling?” Trump requested. Scherer recognized himself.
“Oh, I know who you are, Michael,” Trump replied, in accordance with a tape launched by The Atlantic. “I know who you are. You never write — you never write good about me, Michael. Never, ever.”
And he proceeded to offer Scherer an interview on the spot.
An unintended dial and extra developments
Desirous to ask some follow-up questions, the writers referred to as Trump once more on April 12. They left a message that wasn’t returned, however Scherer’s cellphone recorded a name from Trump’s quantity at 1:28 a.m. the following morning with no message left. They figured it had been dialed inadvertently.
The journalists made a request by Trump’s employees for an in-person interview, however have been rejected. 9 days later — final Wednesday — with their story already written, the White Home referred to as and mentioned to come back to the Oval Workplace the following day. And produce Goldberg with them.
Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, had written on March 24 about being included within the extremely delicate group chat, arguably essentially the most embarrassing story concerning the new administration up to now. Putting again, Trump referred to as Goldberg “truly a sleazeball,” and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth referred to as him a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist.”
On his Fact Social platform, Trump defined he was doing the interview “out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be truthful. Are they capable of writing a fair story on TRUMP? The way I look at it, what can be so bad — I WON!”
There was no fast reply from the White Home to questions on how they assume the interview went. In a briefing for “new media” on Monday, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt in contrast Trump agreeing to some interviews to his willingness to talk to leaders like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
“The president believes in direct diplomacy, whether it is our adversaries and competitors around the world or left-wing activists like Jeffrey Goldberg,” she mentioned.
Trump’s adversarial relationship with the press has been plain on a number of fronts since returning to the White Home. His FCC is investigating a number of retailers, together with CBS and ABC Information, and he is been preventing in courtroom with The Related Press over entry to White Home occasions.
It was a civil interview
When Goldberg got here into the Oval Workplace, Trump gave him a heat handshake — even when the faces of lots of the president’s aides didn’t take a look at all comfortable to see him, Goldberg mentioned in an interview with the journalists posted by The Atlantic on Monday.
“If you called me the names that Donald Trump has called me, I think you and I would both find a personal encounter very, very, very awkward,” Goldberg mentioned. “He doesn’t find it awkward, because he believes that it’s just a game. It’s just a performance.”
From the second The Atlantic proposed the interview, it had been a negotiation for Trump, Scherer mentioned in the identical interview. “It’s a transaction,” he mentioned. “What are they trying to do? Could I benefit from it? Is it going to hurt me? I think it is a window into the most essential fact of Donald Trump, which is that everything he engages in is a transaction.”
The president was additionally effectively conscious of the worth of an interview to The Atlantic, together with the worth of Goldberg’s Sign story. Goldberg mentioned that he accurately guessed that Trump was attempting to appeal him final week. The president appeared much less excited about speaking concerning the nationwide safety implications of the story that Goldberg broke than in conveying, “Well, you won,” Goldberg mentioned.
“He’s an interesting guy to talk to and listen to,” he mentioned. “And our job is — to the extent that he’s understandable — to understand him. And so the more exposure I have to him, the better it is for me from an analytical standpoint.”
___
Related Press author Michelle Worth in Washington contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Comply with him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
