An Interview With the President

Alrighty. We are on our way up through the West Wing, past the press secretary's office, past the, cabinet room, sitting under a great portrait of George Washington one of his younger days. The cross badges. Come on, guys. You ready for us? From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. How are you? Good. Good to see you, mister president. Did you see that? Just came out. Number one on TikTok, Trump. Alright. I'm a little older than the average age on TikTok. On Wednesday night, in the middle of a defining moment for president Trump's second term. Well, thank you, mister president. You know everybody. I do. I do. And you? Katie Rogers. Nice to see you. Hi, Katie. And, of course, Tyler. Nice to see you. Four White House reporters from The Times sat down with him for an extended interview in the Oval Office. Did you see my various truths today? They were sort of You did. They were sort of About 30 sparkling. Sparkly truth. Today, one of them, David Sanger, walks us through their conversation. It's Friday, January 9. So, David, four New York Times reporters walk into the Oval Office. What could possibly go wrong? Sounds like a the setup to a punchline. Tell us about this experience. Well, the president's second term is about to hit its one year mark, and I think it's a considerable understatement for anybody who's been listening to The Daily or reading The Times to say that this is truly one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history. Mhmm. Trump has just executed his most audacious overseas intervention. I've been talking to him for a couple of weeks about sitting down for a full on the record New York Times interview. As you know, the relationship between president Trump and the New York Times has been occasionally slightly fraught. Yeah. And litigious. And litigious. He sued us over the past few months. Only for $15,000,000,000. But in the end, he very happily agreed to it, and we were told that the moment would be 5PM on Wednesday night. Mhmm. And we actually thought that was a good piece of timing because we figured we would probably be his last appointment of the day. Right. And anybody who has dealt with Donald Trump, and I've dealt with him for a few years, knows that if you're the last appointment of the day, you're likely to be sticking around for a while. Mhmm. We didn't leave the White House till after 9PM. Right. You got a meaningful chunk of his time. We did. Interrupted some by a few side moments, including the president wanting to show us some of his architectural plans and visit what he's done up in the residence and so forth. But a good oh, just shy of two hours of it was an actual deep probing conversation about this past year, foreign and domestic issues. And our goal, Michael, …