That is an version of The Atlantic Every day, a publication that guides you thru the largest tales of the day, helps you uncover new concepts, and recommends the very best in tradition. Join it right here.
In The Atlantic’s June 2025 cowl story, workers writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer report deeply into the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency. To me, the article is an exemplar of journal journalism: They carry new info to mild and likewise assist make sense of how Trump got here again from political exile. I spoke with Ashley and Michael to study a bit of extra about their reporting—and to listen to the story of how Michael missed a middle-of-the-night telephone name from Trump himself.
David A. Graham: So, what’s it wish to miss a name from the president?
Michael Scherer: I really had my ringer on that evening, as a result of I assumed behind my thoughts, It’s potential the president calls again. We needs to be prepared for it. So I had it on and I heard nothing. I used to be in mattress lengthy earlier than 1:28 a.m., when he known as.
David: Trump retains bizarre hours; how do you, as reporters, plan for that?
Michael: Properly, clearly I didn’t do an amazing job of it! A lot is unpredictable about this presidency that you simply simply type of roll with it. We had an interview canceled on us, interviews denied to us, and plenty of steps in between, and in the end, we obtained two interviews and time within the Oval Workplace with him. Nothing you assume you understand at any level in regards to the course of is essentially set.
Ashley Parker: We did attempt to be strategic. We known as him on the weekend. We had been wanting on the day by day White Home schedules and the pool stories. It type of felt like being a stalker. You’re taking a look at, nicely, what did he do the evening earlier than? Is he going to be awake that subsequent morning, and can it’s early sufficient that he hasn’t left for the golf course but? What’s the prime second?
David: The truth that he picked up a name from an unfamiliar quantity shocked me.
Michael: I believe he does it. Different reporters have used this automobile, however I believe extra usually it’s not reporters contacting him—it’s CEOs, rich associates, donors. For many years, the telephone was his instrument. He would sit at his workplace in Manhattan and work the telephones, and that was his method of speaking with the skin world.
Ashley: He’s such a creature of when he got here up, in Nineteen Eighties New York, the place the journal cowl reigned supreme. I believe he was intrigued by the thought of showing on the duvet of {a magazine} that he doesn’t view as pleasant. The Atlantic has written some very important reported items on him, and the concept we had been coming to him and saying, We need to inform this very particular story of your comeback and the way you’re wielding the levers of energy now to bend the nation and the world to your will, and we wish there to be a photograph shoot and we wish you to look on the duvet—I believe in some methods it felt like another factor he might attempt to conquer.
David: How is Trump totally different in personal from the way in which the remainder of the nation sees him on TV?
Ashley: I believe the way in which to grasp Trump is that he’s making an attempt to win: the minute, the hour, the day, the state of affairs, the particular person immediately in entrance of him. In order that doesn’t essentially imply that in one-on-one conditions he’s all the time charming, however he is usually a consummate host. He could be extremely charismatic. With me and Michael and Jeffrey Goldberg sitting within the Oval Workplace, when he’s making an attempt to win us over and get us to see his perspective—he’s going to behave in a really totally different method than when he’s making an attempt to win over a rally crowd who would possibly need to see him heckle us or mock us.
Michael: And in contrast to different politicians or most individuals, there’s no contradiction for him between calling somebody a “sleazebag” or a “lunatic” at some point and being very charming the subsequent day.
David: He additionally appears to view interacting with the media as a sport: In his Fact Social submit final week, he stated he was doing the interview “out of curiosity, and as a contest with myself.”
Ashley: There was additionally a bit of little bit of a component of “sport acknowledges sport,” as a result of he refers to Signalgate, and he mentions it was type of successful. Jeff requested him, What do you imply, it was type of successful? You imply it was successful as a result of the story revealed flaws within the administration’s operational safety that you’ve now taken steps to repair? Trump’s reply was so revealing. It was like, No, it was successful since you owned the information cycle. You broke by way of. That’s how he defines success.
David: When he turned down the interview, which he later granted, Trump despatched you this quote through an aide: “I gained the election in a landslide, and there isn’t anybody who can say something about that. What can they write about?” He’s getting at one thing. Who doesn’t have a view of Trump by now? What’s your function as Trump reporters on this time period, the place there’s a lot occurring each minute, and the way do you fight the fatigue that may exist amongst readers?
Michael: Proper now, many individuals eat political information in bites, and people bites don’t all the time add as much as the total image. We spent two months doing this story. We’re making an attempt to color a deeper image of what led to Trump’s return, why it occurred, who he’s, and the way he’s governing.
Ashley: I really assume that in some methods, journalism that goes deeper is extra vital with Trump. There may be worth in pulling all of those threads collectively and making a complete product—that tells the American public one thing in a story method that they’ll perceive, separate from, Oh my God, he Truthed this at 1 a.m. on a Sunday.
