Trump 2.0: A Year of Unconstrained Power

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 Well, president Trump says he is firing fed governor Lisa Cook over Millions of federal workers are being offered buyouts. Prosecuted They secured the indictments of James Comey and Letitia James. And I think she's a total crook. There's no question about it. It. Pardon me. 1,500 pardons for the January 6 defendants. These were people that actually love our country. So tariff. Gonna be Liberation Day in America. Brokered. President Trump's ceasefire and hostage release deal. Pressure. You're not in a good position. I was You don't have the cards right now. Defined. Directed justice department lawyers to be ready to tell the courts, f you, which is a Deployed. Deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law order of 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. I have no Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. 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 20. Maggie, Jonathan, Charlie, welcome back. Thank you, Michael. Hello. Good to be back. 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 Appreciate it. 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 …