How Donald Trump tried to court the Atlantic

Hell hath frozen over: At the White House the other day, Donald Trump was launching a charm offensive, directed mainly at Goldberg, as in Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief. There was none of the name-calling or hostility he regularly levels at our magazine. That’s according to Atlantic reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, who wrote the magazine’s cover story, which was posted yesterday.

For all the insights gleaned from the interview, nothing is more fascinating than how it came about. They called the president on his cell phone. Trump says he did the initial phone interview to see if the liberal magazine could be fair.

So I’m here to pronounce that the entire, seemingly endless piece is fair. The president hasn’t taken a shot at it on Truth Social, at least so far. He has, however, ripped new polls from the “Failing New York Times” and “ABC/Washington Post” as “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS,” saying they should be “investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the Fox News Pollster while you’re at it.” His lowest approval rating, in the Post-ABC survey, was 39 percent.

Meanwhile, we may now look back on Trump’s 2024 victory as inevitable, but after Jan. 6 it was anything but. On the cell call, “The president seemed exhilarated by everything he had managed to do in the first two months of his second term.” And then came the transaction: “As ever, Trump was on the hunt for a deal. If he liked the story we wrote, he said, he might even speak with us again.”

Goldberg describes the session: “What I found in this particular meeting was a Trump who was low-key, attentive, and eager to convince us that he is good at his job and good for the country. It isn’t easy to escape the tractor beam of his charisma, but somehow we managed, and we asked him what needed to be asked.”

But squaring Trump the Charmer with the Orcish Trump we more frequently see is difficult… Trump posted on the social-media platform he owns that Ashley is a ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ (she is not) and that Michael ‘has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES’ (also false). It is our task at the Atlantic not to be bullied by these sorts of attacks.

The most interesting Trump sound bite is his comparison of the two terms: “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys. And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Parker and Scherer did many other interviews, such as with Steve Bannon. “Our reality is that we won,” and he cited the conspiracy theory that the FBI had incited the crowd on Jan. 6. The reporters said that was simply untrue. “Now, here’s the interesting thing,” Bannon said. “Who’s won that argument? I think we have…”

One turning point: When he went to East Palestine, Ohio after the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals, while Joe Biden didn’t do squat. On the Kennedy Center: “I didn’t really get to go the first time, because I was always getting impeached or some bulls**t, and I could never enjoy a show.” So he fired the Democrats and made himself chairman.

Trump believes he can win over even his worst enemies. In 2015 or 2016, I watched him make a beeline in the New York green room for Karl Rove, who was very rough on him. At worst, he thinks, he can neutralize the person. Or soften him or her up for the next time. He enjoys the challenge.

The mainstream media almost uniformly can’t stand Donald Trump. He does invite some of his own negative headlines, while providing unprecedented access, but much of the press is back in Resistance mode.

Still, the Atlantic’s original pitch is undeniable, that he’s “The Most Consequential President of the 21st Century.”