Why did Trump pick The Atlantic journalists' cold call? Truth Social has the answer
Donald Trump's private meetings reveal a different tone towards journalists. He praises media leaders while criticising the Democratic Party's direction.
Donald Trump speaks negatively about media members in public, but in private meetings, he converses with any journalist, even those he deems liars or lunatics. The Atlantic journalists Ashley Parker and Michael Sherer cold-called Trump, the prez picked up and discussed his sweeping return to the White House.
“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,” Trump told The Atlantic. “I’m having a lot of fun, considering what I do. You know, what I do is such serious stuff.”
Both insiders at the White House and people outside of it say Trump seems to be enjoying himself more this time around. The article also notes that Trump agreed to sit down with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, out of what he described in a Truth Social post as “curiosity.”
“I am doing this interview out of curiosity,” he wrote, and added, “as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful.’ ”
Trump praises Bezos and Zuckerberg
On Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, Trump said, “He’s 100 percent. He’s been great.” He also praised Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, adding, “Zuckerberg’s been great,” per The Atlantic article.
The Atlantic’s reporters said Trump appeared to be referring to Bezos again when he made a comment about media owners, saying, “You know at some point, they give up.” Trump had also recently acknowledged Bezos’s attempts to revamp the Post, saying he appreciated the Amazon founder “trying to do a real job” following leadership changes at the publication.
More in the interview, Trump claimed that the Democratic Party is struggling: “I don’t think they know what they’re doing. I think they have no leader. You know, if you ask me now, I know a lot about the Democrat Party, right? I can’t tell you who their leader is. I can’t tell you that I see anybody on the horizon.”
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When the journalists pressed how he handles court rulings, Trump insisted he respects the authority of the nation’s highest court. “You have to do that,” he said.
The POTUS even addressed that he might pursue a third term, stating, “It’s not something that I’m looking to do. And I think it would be a very hard thing to do.”
