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Four White House reporters from The New York Times sat down with President Donald Trump on Jan. 7 for an extended interview in the Oval Office.

David E. Sanger, one of the reporters, walked Michael Barbaro through their conversation, and then David, Katie Rogers, Tyler Pager and Zolan Kanno-Youngs shared their takeaways.

This is a transcript of the Daily episode about the Trump interview.

David E. Sanger

All righty, we are on our way up to the West Wing, past the press secretary’s office, past the Cabinet Room, sitting under a great portrait of George Washington in his younger days.

David E. Sanger

Are you ready for us?

Aide

Come on in.

Michael Barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

President Trump

How are you?

David E. Sanger

Good. Good to see you Mr. President.

President Trump

Did you see? That just came out, No. 1 on TikTok, Trump.

I’m a little older than the average age on TikTok.

Michael Barbaro

On Wednesday night, in the middle of a defining moment for President Trump’s second term —

David E. Sanger

Well, thank you, Mr. President, for seeing us. You know everybody? Zolan and —

President Trump

I do, I do. How are you?

David E. Sanger

This is Katie Rogers.

President Trump

Nice to see you. Hi, Katie.

David E. Sanger

And, of course, Tyler.

President Trump

Nice to see you.

Michael Barbaro

Four White House reporters from The Times sat down with him for an extended interview in the Oval Office.

President Trump

Did you see my various Truths today? They were sort of — they were sort of sparkling — sparkling.

Michael Barbaro

Today, one of them — David Sanger — walks us through their conversation.

[Theme music.]

It’s Friday, January 9.

Michael Barbaro

So, David, four New York Times reporters walk into the Oval Office.

David E. Sanger

What could possibly go wrong?

Michael Barbaro

Sounds like a setup to a punchline. Tell us about this experience.

David E. Sanger

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.

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.

Michael Barbaro

Yeah, and litigious.

David E. Sanger

And litigious.

Michael Barbaro

He sued us over the past few months.

David E. Sanger

Only for $15 billion. But in the end, he very happily agreed to it. And we were told that the moment would be 5 p.m. on Wednesday night. And we actually thought that was a good piece of timing, because we figured we would probably be his last appointment of the day.

Michael Barbaro

Right.

David E. Sanger

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. We didn’t leave the White House till after 9 p.m.

Michael Barbaro

Right. You got a meaningful chunk of his time.

David E. Sanger

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, was to try to do something deeper and hopefully more revealing than what the president does every day when he stands up briefly in front of reporters on Air Force One, or does a gaggle, as they call it, around the Resolute Desk. And readers and listeners are going to have to determine —

Michael Barbaro

— if you succeeded.

David E. Sanger

Yeah.

Michael Barbaro

All right. Well, to that point, walk us through the interview.

President Trump

Sit down, please.

David E. Sanger

So we settled in, sat down, arrayed around the Resolute Desk. It was me and Tyler Pager, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Katie Rogers.

President Trump

Marco, why don’t you join us for a couple of minutes. Is that OK?

David E. Sanger

Already inside the Oval Office was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. We were about to learn why. And right away, Michael, we had to sort through a few logistics.

President Trump

So we have an understanding, this is only used for your reporting.

David E. Sanger

So this is what we wanted to ask you about. I think in two different interviews in the first term, we used the audio to go on “The Daily.” And —

David E. Sanger

The first thing we had to go do was negotiate that we could actually use this recording for “The Daily.”

Michael Barbaro

Right. Thank you. Because without that negotiation, we don’t have this episode.

David E. Sanger

Anything for “The Daily,” Michael.

President Trump

Let’s leave it on for a little while. It’s fine, for a little while. We’ll see how it goes.

David E. Sanger

And we were just a few minutes into the conversation —

President Trump

Is he on the phone? So can you turn that off for a second?

David E. Sanger

— when an aide came in and handed the president a note.

Aide

He’s about to have a call with President Petro, and this call is off the record.

David E. Sanger

OK.

David E. Sanger

— saying that the president of Colombia was on the phone.

Michael Barbaro

The country, not the university.

David E. Sanger

That’s right.

President Trump

Can you turn them off?

Katie Rogers

Off.

President Trump

Give me your word it’s o —

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Off.

Michael Barbaro

And what does that mean to you, knowing that the president of Colombia was calling him in this moment?

David E. Sanger

The first thing that came to mind was, oh, we have to get up and walk out. But just as I was getting up to go do that, the president waved at me, just like, no, David, please stay.

Michael Barbaro

Hmm.

David E. Sanger

And the second thing that I thought was, if the president of Colombia is calling, it’s because he’s worried about the fact that President Trump said just the other day he better “watch his ass” because he could be next.

Michael Barbaro

After Nicolás Maduro’s ouster, he could be next to be ousted.

David E. Sanger

That’s right. And in just that moment, JD Vance came in and settled in next to Marco Rubio to listen to the conversation.

Michael Barbaro

Got it.

David E. Sanger

Now, the conversation itself was off the record, but it turned out that some of our colleagues down in Colombia had just sat down with President Petro. So we had New York Times reporters at both ends of this conversation.

Michael Barbaro

Wow.

David E. Sanger

They had left before the call happened. But Petro was very clear with them. He said, this is a scary moment for Colombia. This is Donald Trump. We could well get the Venezuela treatment.

Michael Barbaro

So presumably, he’s calling to beseech President Trump to treat him kindly.

David E. Sanger

That’s exactly right.

Michael Barbaro

Got it.

David E. Sanger

So the call ends.

President Trump

OK, let’s go.

David E. Sanger

We turn our recorders back on.

President Trump

I hope that was interesting. Was that interesting to you?

David E. Sanger

Very interesting.

David E. Sanger

And that began a really wide-ranging conversation. And in the first part — not surprisingly — we spent a lot of time on foreign policy.

David E. Sanger

So let me tell you where we want to start. Your decision to capture [President Nicolás] Maduro [of Venezuela] and declare that the U.S. was in charge for the foreseeable future, I think, raised a question whether you believe — as your aide Stephen Miller put it so clearly the other night — that international niceties are gone, that countries operate by strength. I think he said “governed by strength, government by force, governed by power.” And I think that left a lot of people wondering whether you believe you have the right, as the world’s largest superpower, to go in and extinguish any threat or seize any resource you think is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.

President Trump

If there’s a threat — you use the word threat — you certainly would have the right. Any country would have the right to do that. Without the threat, much less so. And frankly, I do believe in the niceties. I get along with a lot of people.

David E. Sanger

For most presidents, military power is the very last resort. After everything else, every form of diplomacy has failed you. So I wanted to get the president focused on the question of what criteria he uses to exercise the most extreme and deadly form of American power, which is the military. But also try to figure out how much of a motivation in Venezuela was the fact that it’s sitting on the world’s largest reserves of oil.

David E. Sanger

— you’ve gone in, in part, to get a resource, which you just declared today, was —

President Trump

No, I went in for numerous reasons. No. 1, the drugs are pouring into the country, you know. No. 2, the people are pouring into the country — were — except now we have a 100% strong border.

David E. Sanger

That all this talk about a threat — from drugs, from criminals and all — that might be secondary to his true motivation here.

President Trump

No, it wasn’t. The oil happened to be there. Don’t forget, the oil will take a while, but we haven’t said, although we did get, you know, many barrels of oil today, as you probably know.

David E. Sanger

Yes, I saw it last night.

President Trump

And that’s fine, but we didn’t do that. We didn’t even know about all of the oil being stored there.

David E. Sanger

So, supposing you’re [President] Xi Jinping [of China], and you’ve watched the events of the past few days …

David E. Sanger

And I wanted him to talk a little bit about the long-term implications of this, the precedent it sets.

David E. Sanger

You may also be thinking that, if you’re Xi, that you could use the same logic to decapitate and control Taiwan. Or why couldn’t [President Vladimir V.] Putin [of Russia] use that argument, same argument — it’s a threat — to grab the rest of Ukraine, or go beyond into other former Soviet states? Have you created a precedent that you may come to regret later on?

President Trump

No, because this is, this was a real threat. You didn’t have people pouring into China. You didn’t have drugs pouring into China.

David E. Sanger

What happens if you’re Xi Jinping and you’re watching this thinking, “Boy, this is useful when I’m justifying going after Taiwan.”? The president engaged on this, but I’m not sure he’d given it a huge amount of thought before we started discussing it.

President Trump

— and that’s up to him, what he’s going to be doing. But, you know, I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that.

David E. Sanger

And at some point, Tyler Pager jumped back in to bring the topic back to the central question of Venezuela.

Tyler Pager

How long do you think you’ll be running Venezuela?

President Trump

Only time will tell.

Tyler Pager

Three months? Six months? A year? Longer?

President Trump

I would say much longer than that.

David E. Sanger

Much longer. And move to elections?

Tyler Pager

Much longer than a year?

President Trump

We have to rebuild. You have to rebuild the country, and we will rebuild it in a very profitable way. We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need. We’re going to be helping —

David E. Sanger

One of the things that we all really wanted to know was: What would it take for the president to actually send American forces back on the ground in Venezuela?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

On the importance of the military, what would trigger a decision to send ground troops into Venezuela?

President Trump

I wouldn’t want to tell you that, because, you know, I can’t. I can’t give up information like that to a reporter, as good as you may be. I just can’t talk about that. There’s a possibility I would do that, absolutely. …

David E. Sanger

Because the U.S. has really never tried an experiment like the one that we’re seeing play out now, which is a kind of virtual or remote-control occupation.

Michael Barbaro

Right, running a foreign country kind of by phone.

David E. Sanger

Or by having an armada floating just offshore.

David E. Sanger

Would you do it if you couldn’t get at the oil? Would you do it if they didn’t kick out the Chinese and the Russians?

President Trump

Well, I can’t tell you that. I really wouldn’t want to tell you that, but they’re treating us with great respect. As you know, we’re getting along very well with the administration that is there right now. They’re giving us everything that we feel is necessary.

David E. Sanger

But President Trump insisted to us that, right now, he’s getting from the Venezuelan government — which is essentially all filled with Maduro’s appointees — everything that he wants. And most of what he wants is access to the oil.

Katie Rogers

Given what has happened in Venezuela, the threats against Colombia, the discussions about taking Greenland, buying Greenland, however you’re framing this right now — is there anything that you think can constrain your power on the world stage?

If it, if you believe that something is against national security?

[…]

Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?

President Trump

Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me, and that’s very good.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Not international law?

President Trump

I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people. I’m not looking to kill people. I’ve ended — remember this, I’ve ended eight wars. Nobody else has ever done that. I’ve ended eight wars and didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize. Pretty amazing. [President Barack] Obama got it. He was there for a few weeks, and he got it. He didn’t even know why he got it. They asked him, why did he get it? He was unable to answer the question. I ended eight wars. I — If you look at those wars — these were tough wars to end, too. And let me tell you, India and Pakistan were going at it. As you know, they were going at it.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Just to follow up there, though, do you —

President Trump

But that was one of eight. But we ended eight strong wars. Some going on for more than 30 years.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

But do you feel your administration needs to abide by international law on the global stage?

President Trump

Yeah, I do. You know, I do, but it depends what your definition of international law is. But the answer is, I do. But we have to keep the United States safe. We have to keep parts of the world safe that we feel responsible for. NATO is not feared by Russia or China at all. Not even a little bit. We’re tremendously feared.

Michael Barbaro

David, I found this exchange that the president had with Katie Rogers really fascinating, because he is saying that at a moment when he is exercising power — arguably as never before — that international law is not much of a constraint on him. The only constraint, really, is his personal judgment.

And he goes on to say that he thinks that situation — him exercising American power, kind of at his whim, is what instills in our foes and even in our allies like NATO, the respect and fear required to operate in this world.

David E. Sanger

I think this is one of the most fascinating windows into the way President Trump thinks. Because as you just heard there, he views the only check on his power to be his own moral compass. And that outside institutions — whether they’re the U.N. or an international treaty — only means what he interprets it to mean. And that tells you that he wants to operate as a leader with fundamentally no check at all, because he thinks he’s a good person and therefore the world can rely on —

Michael Barbaro

His good judgments.

David E. Sanger

— his good judgment, and his good heart. And so we thought we’d sort of stress test that by turning to Greenland.

Katie Rogers

Can I circle back to what you had said about NATO? If you had to choose between obtaining Greenland and preserving NATO, what’s your higher priority there?

President Trump

Well, I don’t want to say that to you, but it may be a choice. You have to understand. Russia is not at all concerned with NATO other than us. China is not at all concerned with NATO other than us, because, sadly, you know, Europe is becoming a much different place, and they really do have to shape up. I want them to shape up.

David E. Sanger

So —

President Trump

I think we’ll always get along with Europe.

David E. Sanger

What he’s essentially saying is, the U.S. holds all the cards, has all the power. And NATO is not going to have a choice, because there is no NATO without the United States. And therefore, if the price of keeping the alliance together is handing the U.S. the right to control Greenland, they’re going to do it, because they don’t have another choice.

Tyler Pager

Are you prepared to send troops to Greenland if they do not give over the territory?

President Trump

Well, we already have troops —

Tyler Pager

But more troops to militarily take it over.

President Trump

Sure, I’d have more.

Tyler Pager

Would you take it over with the military?

President Trump

I mean, don’t forget, we have, you know, a good section of troops. And I’ve had troops there, and I’ve upped it. We already have troops in Greenland.

David E. Sanger

I was there this summer and […] You can send as many troops as you want.

President Trump

That’s right.

David E. Sanger

And you haven’t done it. How come?

President Trump

Because I want to do it properly.

David E. Sanger

And properly means own it?

President Trump

Really it is, to me, it’s ownership. Ownership is very important.

David E. Sanger

Why is ownership important here?

President Trump

Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base.

David E. Sanger

So you’re going to ask them to buy it?

Katie Rogers

Psychologically important to you or to the United States?

President Trump

Psychologically important for me. Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.

Tyler Pager

And you would use military force to get that?

President Trump

I didn’t say that. You said that.

Tyler Pager

I’m asking you. Would you?

President Trump

Yeah, I wouldn’t comment on that. I don’t think it’ll be necessary.

Michael Barbaro

And can you just explain what he means by that? The “psychological” value of owning Greenland. Not just controlling it, not just having a lot of influence over it, but owning it?

David E. Sanger

The way I read it was: “Hey, I spent my life as a real estate developer, and I know that you have way more control if you own than if you lease. But that also means I fundamentally don’t believe in relying on alliances.” And the fact that Denmark —

Michael Barbaro

A member of NATO.

David E. Sanger

— a member of NATO, which basically controls and protects Greenland, it’s not enough for him to have an ally. That he’s got to do it himself. Now, you can ask yourself, where does that logic end?

Michael Barbaro

Right. Does it end with China taking over Taiwan? Does it end with Russia taking over Ukraine? And so on.

David E. Sanger

Does it end with the United States demanding that it doesn’t stop at Greenland? Maybe we need Iceland as well.

Michael Barbaro

So, David, based on how the president talked about the use of American power overseas — and especially the use of American military power overseas — what were you left thinking by the end of this part of the interview?

David E. Sanger

I was left thinking that the president feels himself unconstrained by law, convention or the systems that the United States itself built at the end of World War II, after the world had gone through two horrific —

Michael Barbaro

NATO and the entire system of international law.

David E. Sanger

That’s right. But at the same time, that he’s not a warmonger, right? He actually does want that Peace Prize. He does want to be known as a president of peace. And yet, when he’s given the choice between long, slow, boring, diplomacy and quick action by Special Operations breaking down doors, he’ll go for the special operators.

Michael Barbaro

What you’re describing is a set of extraordinary contradictions, even for Donald Trump.

David E. Sanger

Absolutely. And that is what is both maddening and fascinating about covering the Trump presidency. Because you’re not going to fit this man into some simple set of theories. He is a bundle of contradictions.

Michael Barbaro

Well, David, after the break, we are going to turn to a similar bundle of contradictions when it comes to domestic affairs.

[Break.]

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

I want to make sure we have time for domestic policy, too. ICE did shoot and kill an American citizen today.

President Trump

That’s true.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

According to early reports.

Michael Barbaro

David, tell us about the conversation that the four of you had with the president about domestic issues.

David E. Sanger

Well, Zolan kicked it off, with questions about this horrifying scene we had all just seen play out in Minneapolis just hours before.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

We have also seen protesters met with violent tactics and pepper spray. In some cases, American citizens have also been wrongfully detained. Do any of these incidents or tactics make you think ICE has gone too far?

President Trump

Well, I think that ICE has been treated very badly. Don’t forget, ICE has gotten rid of thousands and thousands of killers, murderers. They got rid of thousands of people that were let into our country during the Biden administration so stupidly. They’re very brave, very strong people.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Well, what about this shooting today — an American citizen was shot today?

President Trump

That’s right, well —

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Does this make you uncomfortable?

President Trump

Well, everything makes me uncomfortable. I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen, either, or law enforcement.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

That’s disputed by local officials and the federal officials.

President Trump

Well, if you take a look at the tape. I saw the same tape that you must have seen. I just saw it.

Katie Rogers

There were several angles of it.

David E. Sanger

There were several angles of it.

President Trump

Well, I know, but if you take a look at that, that was a vicious situation that took place. And if you go before that, and in my opinion, the screamer, that woman that was screaming, “Shame, shame, shame” — that’s not normal. That was a practiced, rehearsed, professional agitator.

Katie Rogers

Even so, are those appropriate policing tactics for somebody to fire into a vehicle like that? In your mind, is that acceptable?

President Trump

Well, they ran him over. I mean —

David E. Sanger

And Trump just sort of reflexively defended the officers and claimed that the driver had run over one of them — and we had all seen this video — immediately sort of stepped in to challenge the account.

President Trump

She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

The video didn’t look like he was — he was run over.

President Trump

Well, I’ll play the tape for you right now. Do you want to just whip it out? Looked to me to be very bad. I’ve just put out the tape.

David E. Sanger

And so Trump said, “Well, let’s just watch it together.” And to our surprise, that’s exactly what happened.

[Trump turns to Natalie Harp.]

President Trump

Show that, show that clip.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

But have any of these, have any of these tactics made you uncomfortable? You know, you’ve had citizens that have also been wrongfully detained here.

[Trump has Harp play the video of the shooting on a laptop.]

Katie Rogers

Yeah, we’ve seen that one.

David E. Sanger

One of his aides brought over a laptop, slowed down a version of the tape.

David E. Sanger

Does not look like the ICE officer has been run over there. Now, maybe from a different angle we would see —

President Trump

Well, I — the way I look at it.

[Trump continues to watch the video.]

Oh sure, did you look at that?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

I just want to —

President Trump

It’s a terrible scene.

David E. Sanger

We all agree on that.

Katie Rogers

You say it’s horrible to watch. You said that on Truth Social. But do you think that goes too far?

President Trump

I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.

David E. Sanger

It was sort of a strange form of real-time fact-checking of the president, with it clear that the president wasn’t entirely comfortable with what he was seeing on that laptop or what these ICE agents were doing.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

So just take a step back here, because this …

David E. Sanger

And then from there, Zolan and the president sort of turned to a different topic about what the real aim of the president’s immigration restrictions are and who they’re supposed to target.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Your administration has also suggested that some people who are naturalized citizens could see their citizenship stripped. Which groups do you think should lose citizenship?

President Trump

Well, I think Somalia is a disaster, to be honest with you. I look at what’s happening in Minnesota, and you look at this country — it’s one of the worst in the world. It’s acknowledged to be truly one of the most corrupt, one of the most vicious, violent countries in the world. Even the ships. They go after the ships. They don’t do that anymore because if they go after the ships, you know what, they get hit by the same missile. That we hit the drug dealers with.

David E. Sanger

I think Zolan’s question is: Would you strip them of their nationality?

President Trump

If they deserve to be stripped, I would, yes.

David E. Sanger

So what would the criteria you would want to —

President Trump

Well, we’re looking at criteria right now, but if they deserve to be stripped, David, I’d do it in a heartbeat, yes. […]

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

You don’t think that your comments about those of Somali descent have painted a broad brush on your own citizens?

President Trump

I don’t care. I want great people in this country. I want people that love the country, and I think that many of the people that came in from Somalia, they hate our country.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

I’ve met plenty of Somalis that love the country.

President Trump

Not only do they hate our country. They’ve ripped off our country. They’ve ripped it off. They’ve stolen billions of dollars. It’s shocking. From where they came, they had nothing. And they come here and they steal, and it’s an embarrassment to the intelligence of the people of Minnesota and to the people of our country.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

In your view —

President Trump

That they would be allowed to do it.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

I’ve heard many people that say this is generalizing a population. And find these comments insulting.

President Trump

You call it whatever you want. […]

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

I just, I want to ask if part of your immigration agenda is also aimed at changing the racial makeup of this country.

President Trump

No, not at all.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Is part of this, this agenda aimed at making the country whiter as well?

President Trump

No, I just want people that love our country. It’s very simple. I want people that love our country. I want people that respect our country, respect the laws of our country, and I want people that can embrace our country.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Because you’ve, you’ve shut the door to all refugees, besides Afrikaners.

President Trump

I want people that can make America great again.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

You have a travel ban on majority African and Muslim nations.

David E. Sanger

Zolan raises an interesting point, though. The only immigrants who can come in right now are white South Africans, right?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Refugees.

David E. Sanger

In the way of refugees.

President Trump

Well, I haven’t seen that. I mean, I certainly haven’t seen that. But over the years, it’s been very much the opposite of that. Very, very much the opposite of that. People are coming into our country. Nobody’s doing it based on race.

Michael Barbaro

Trump is positing to you all that his immigration restrictions are not about race. They’re not intentionally about race. When the reality is that they are allowing for very few people of color to enter the country. The people who are banned from entering the U.S. right now — and there are bans on a lot of countries — they are almost uniformly from countries where the populations are Black and brown. The very few people he is letting in are white. The pattern becomes difficult to ignore.

David E. Sanger

It sure does. And look, he says he just wants people who love this country to be allowed in. But what we’re learning is — he basically only wants to favor white South Africans, as I raised with him. Or the immigrants he wants the most are those who bring special skills that can help our economy. And that’s a very select group.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Do you think some industries still need immigrant labor?

President Trump

Yes.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Which ones?

President Trump

They need inexpensive — well, there are different things.

David E. Sanger

Do we need people to come in?

President Trump

Just so you understand something: I’m all for people coming into our country through the border legally, if they come in legally. I want them more than they want me and more than they want this country. And if you look at my first term and if you look at this term, I want — we need people. We’re building factories all over the country. We’re build —

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

But you said agriculture and hotels — that you wanted ICE to use common sense against them, right?

President Trump

— but I want them to come in — yeah, respectfully — I want them to come in legally. I want them to use common sense.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Have you directed ICE to ease deportations —

President Trump

Yes, I have.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

— against those industries?

President Trump

Yes, I have.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Are there other industries that you’ve directed ICE to ease deportations?

President Trump

Because I watch farmers, and I deal with farmers, and I won 90% of the farmers — more than that and they’re great people. And they have great people working for them who have been working for them for 25 years. They are almost like a member of the family, and I don’t want those people thrown out of the country.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Are there other industries or companies that you’ve directed ICE to ease deportations on?

David E. Sanger

Well, the South Korean case.

President Trump

Some service industries, some — I’ll give you an example in Georgia, with South Korea. They make batteries. Batteries are very complex, and they’re very dangerous to make, and they make them, and they brought in three or four hundred people who specialize in batteries —

David E. Sanger

And ICE grabbed them all.

President Trump

— and they threw them out. And I was very angry about it. You know why? Because they have to open a factory, and you can’t take a person off the street who’s never seen a battery before and think that they’re going to make highly complex batteries.

David E. Sanger

He actually invoked the ICE raid on that Hyundai plant in Georgia where they deported a whole bunch of South Korean workers who were there setting up a car-battery factory.

President Trump

You have to allow them to bring some of their experts with them, or they’re never going to be able to open their plant or factory.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

It sounds like you were angry at ICE for this raid on the Hyundai facility.

President Trump

I was not happy about it. No, I was not happy about it. They’re making batteries. Batteries are very dangerous and actually very complex, and they brought people that make batteries, and those people would have trained our people how to make batteries. And at some point they would have gone back because they want to go back to their country. They might not want to.

Michael Barbaro

So in Trump’s telling here — and I was struck by this — that a fair number of American workers just may not be qualified to do the kind of highly technical manufacturing that he’s prioritizing right now, something like car batteries. And what’s interesting about that, of course, is President Trump runs on a message of remembering forgotten America — the blue collar, working class Americans, many of whom used to be in the manufacturing sector, who need jobs now in the new economy. And he’s kind of saying, let’s be honest. A lot of those people, they can’t do this work.

David E. Sanger

Well, I think what he’s saying is they certainly can’t do it at the beginning. You can’t just —

Michael Barbaro

Immigrants can.

David E. Sanger

That’s right. That you can’t just drop a car-battery factory and expect it to be up and running without the help of the technical workers that they need to get it up and running. And the American workers aren’t going to catch on until that happens.

President Trump

To be honest, I’d love to be able to create an immigration policy that works for everyone.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

You — like a comprehensive immigration reform?

President Trump

I would love to do it if it was possible.

David E. Sanger

Is Congress willing to go do that? George [W.] Bush tried.

President Trump

[…] If the Democrats would do it, I’d do it. I’d love to have a comprehensive immigration policy, something that really worked. It’s about time for the country to have it.

Tyler Pager

What would that look like?

President Trump

Excuse me?

Tyler Pager

What would a comprehensive immigration policy —

President Trump

I don’t want to go into that because it’s a very — it’s a very ticklish subject. But I believe that there is a plan that can work for everybody.

Michael Barbaro

David, I wonder if you were as surprised as I was in listening to this interview by the president’s sudden enthusiasm for something like comprehensive immigration reform.

I’m sure you remember this as well as I do. Comprehensive immigration reform is a word that if a Republican invokes, they are in big, big trouble. Because it almost always implies that you’re going to create a legal path for those here illegally. That’s the comprehensive part of immigration reform. In the past, President Trump has sought to kill any form of comprehensive immigration reform. And suddenly he’s saying, “I want this”?

David E. Sanger

You know, Michael, to hear President Trump come back and discuss this, I was sitting there thinking, “How is his own base going to go react to this?” Because yes, the core of it is you do find a pathway for at least some to get to citizenship. And I’m not sure the current Trump base is ready for that.

Katie Rogers

Can we move on to the economy? I would like to ask you about — Republican pollsters lately are warning that you and the party is losing ground with young voters, particularly young men, who are concerned with job prospects and the rise of AI.

President Trump

Well, I might be, let me — could I have the TikTok thing?

Katie Rogers

But what would you say to those young voters and those young men?

President Trump

Well, I’d say they’re rigged polls. Look, the polls are rigged just like the writers are rigged.

Katie Rogers

But these are Republican pollsters who are warning your party that you are not doing enough to focus on American jobs.

President Trump

I don’t know. I think, I think I can tell you I’m very popular. This just came out, from TikTok. It came out just recently that Donald Trump was No. 1 on TikTok and the most popular person. You can have these.

Michael Barbaro

David, on the economy, the president pretty forcefully waves off the idea — which we keep finding in poll after poll and in election results from the last off-year election — that voters, including many Republican voters, are persistently feeling anxious about the economy. And they don’t think he is focused enough on it.

David E. Sanger

We kept trying to steer him back to this to try to get him to think about the economic anxieties of ordinary Americans.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Mr. President, so many voters voted for you because of the economy. And I think Katie just wanted to get back to that.

President Trump

The economy is probably the best it’s — look, the economy right now. I have trillions and trillions of dollars coming into this economy, more than any nation has ever had, by far. Our economy is unbelievable. And I’m bringing down the prices. Remember this, I didn’t cause the high prices. Biden did.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

What would you say to voters, though?

President Trump

Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, one second.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

What do you say to voters, though, who think that you are more focused on American jobs and less on foreign conflicts?

President Trump

I inherited a mess. Listen, I inherited a mess.

I inherited a highly inflated, horribly run country. The borders were bad. The military was bad. The Afghanistan was the worst, worst day in the history of our country. Maybe in the history, I think it was the lowest point. You know what, that was the lowest point, and we may right now be at the highest point.

Katie Rogers

There are good signs, and the economy is growing. Wages are keeping up with inflation —

President Trump

Thanks.

Katie Rogers

— but there are other indicators that people are — are hurting. High earners, they’re — 10% of high earners make up for half the economy growth.

President Trump

Well, there may be, there may be — and you know what, I’m bringing — they are hurting because of Biden. I’m bringing down prices.

Katie Rogers

No, high earners are not hurting. It’s the low earners. It’s the middle earners. It’s the people that you have promised to help. What do you say to them?

President Trump

Well, if you look at my, if you look at my achievements, the greatest, percentage-wise, the greatest beneficiaries of my economy in my first term were low-income workers. And it’s turning out to be right now — blue-collar workers are doing better than anybody else, percentage-wise, as they measure that. I inherited a mess. It was high prices, it was high inflation, it was high crime. You know, did you see where murders are the lowest they’ve ever been? Did you see where crime is at the lowest point it’s ever been? You know why? Because I closed the border, and we don’t have criminals pouring into our country.

Tyler Pager

Mr. President. Do you — a few more on the economy. Do you think, are you basically telling Americans that they have to wait a little bit longer, particularly low- and middle-income, Americans to get —

President Trump

Yeah, I can’t fix what they destroyed in four years immediately. But if you look at it, I have more investment income coming in than any president, than any country has ever had. What I’ve done —

Michael Barbaro

I mean, it felt in these exchanges that this concept of a president as insulated from the American economic challenges of this moment was very vividly on display. And you don’t sense that he is empathetic to those who are worried about the economy. In fact, he kind of disputes the premise that there is anything wrong with the economy.

David E. Sanger

That’s right, or that new technology — like artificial intelligence — would bring about more economic anxiety.

Tyler Pager

Mr. President, just on AI. There are many Americans who are concerned that AI

—

President

Trump

Let me turn that off. Yeah, AI.

Tyler Pager

— AI

is going to take their jobs, and they will not — will be out of work.

President Trump

I think just the opposite. I think AI

is going to be a tremendous job producer. I think that we have so many jobs. My biggest problem isn’t taking the jobs. It’s that we don’t have enough people to fill the jobs, and that’s where robots come in.

David E. Sanger

And so I think you’ve got to come to your own conclusion about whether or not there’s anything in this interview that would make an ordinary American feel better about supermarket prices, or a tightening job market, or the anxieties that come from the arrival of a new and somewhat terrifying new technology that’s going to have effects that none of us can predict.

Michael Barbaro

So, David, how does this interview ultimately come to an end?

David E. Sanger

Well, the president had stuff he wanted us to see.

Will Scharf

These are two personnel actions that [the White House deputy chief of staff Dan] Scavino’s team asked the president to —

President Trump

Oh, I’ll sign it in two seconds.

Will Scharf

Sorry, sir.

President Trump

This is a much more important thing to do. So, this is the ballroom right here. It’s beautiful. People love it. It’ll hold —

David E. Sanger

And after nearly two hours of conversation, he got up, started pointing out paintings he had dug out of the vault of the White House and hung.

President Trump

Get me the model real fast. I’ll show them. Should I?

David E. Sanger

Talked about his plans for the White House complex, all a reminder that while he is taking out the leader of Venezuela and threatening to re-engage with the Iranians and denying that there’s any reason for people to be anxious about the economy —

President Trump

As an example, have you seen the white marble floor in there?

Tyler Pager

No.

Katie Rogers

No.

President Trump

Well, I’m going back up, so if you want, you could follow me. Oh, let me just finish this.

David E. Sanger

— he’s also busy thinking about rebuilding the White House.

Karoline Leavitt

Sir, do you want to show them the renovations?

President Trump

Yeah, let’s go, come on. We’ve had enough. Nice setup, right?

Karoline Leavitt

Two hours.

President Trump

Katie, good? Two hours, Katie — I could go nine hours.

Michael Barbaro

Well, David, thank you very much for walking us through this fascinating conversation with the president. When we come back, we’re going to ask that all four of you who conducted this interview sit down together and briefly reflect on the conversation and what you all took from it.

[Break.]

Michael Barbaro

So Tyler, Katie, Zolan — David just walked us through the highlights of the interview the four of you did with [President Trump]. Because this went on for so long, there’s inevitably a lot of material that we couldn’t cover. So I want to begin by just asking each of you: What’s one thing he said, that we probably didn’t cover with David, that’s really going to stick with you when you reflect back on this interview? Katie?

Katie Rogers

I think it’s the degree to which the president, throughout this interview, really wanted credit. And he wanted gestures of good will from people he wanted respect from, be it Democrats, Republicans, members of the news media, the American public. And one of the ways I felt that that was manifesting during this whole encounter was — he’s building a ballroom where the East Wing used to be, big enough to host an inauguration inside for future presidents.

And he kept going back to this idea that he’s a builder. He mentioned that maybe he was a better builder than he ever has been at politics. And at one point, he summons a military aide to bring in an architectural rendering with miniature models of the ballroom and is almost telling us and himself, “That building being built over there, they’ll be thanking me.” As if this is the project that will do it, that will give him this credit that he has been seeking in this term — his last term — and throughout his time in public life.

Michael Barbaro

Zolan, what about you?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Katie made the good point of how the president is so motivated by whether or not he’s getting credit. And it’s not just about whether he’s getting credit now, but it seems he’s also motivated by whether or not he got credit in the first term. And he did not seem bothered at all when we asked him about his relatives and the business deals and the money that they’ve made across the world throughout his second term.

When we pressed him on this, he was saying, well, in his view, his family showed restraint in the first term and he didn’t get credit.

Michael Barbaro

Showed restraint in terms of what he was willing to do in the name of making his family money.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

That’s right. And thus, now, in this term, he said that he was pretty much unbothered about the business deals that his family has been able to pursue. All of this, I think, speaks to a president who’s so much more emboldened in this second term. And I think we saw up close and personal just how emboldened he is.

Michael Barbaro

Tyler?

Tyler Pager

One thing that I think stood out to me, Michael, is a conversation we had about anti-Semitism, because it’s become such a flashpoint within the Republican Party as we see this intraparty warfare over whether or not there is space in the Republican Party, and the broader Make America Great Again movement, for people who espouse antisemitic views.

Michael Barbaro

Right, Nick Fuentes.

Tyler Pager

Right. And JD Vance — his vice president — said basically that as long as you love America, you’re welcome. And he didn’t want to institute purity.

Michael Barbaro

Even if you’re antisemitic?

Tyler Pager

Right. And I asked President Trump whether or not there was room in his movement for people with antisemitic views. And he said, “No, I don’t think we need them. I don’t think we like them.” And that puts him at odds with leading Republican figures, including his vice president, who seem more open to including people who spread hateful views within the party.

It was a moment where he really came out quite strongly against people who spread anti-Semitism when this debate is coursing through his movement and among his supporters.

Michael Barbaro

Right, he’s drawing a pretty bright red line there. So one last question for each of you. What is your ultimate takeaway from this conversation?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

For me, there were moments in this interview where it almost seemed like the president was a bystander to his own policies, to his own agenda. There were times where he would speak, for example, about an interest in comprehensive immigration reform and a potential pathway to citizenship.

Well, he has also directed his aides to go pursue mass deportations. And he talked about, well, ICE needs to be careful around certain industries.

David E. Sanger

You run ICE.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Yeah, you run ICE. And also, Stephen Miller works for you. Stephen Miller has been clear about pursuing mass deportations, as well. So it was that distance he almost seemed to sort of try to create between himself and some of the actions that his administration is taking.

Michael Barbaro

Yeah, that is fascinating. Katie, what about you?

Katie Rogers

My major takeaway from this is that there are many faces to President Trump. And even throughout that interview, it was a real exercise in wrangling those different personas. Because he was combative, he was upbeat at times. He was very — almost docile when we were asking him probing questions about his health.

And so instead of being the President Trump who has called reporters seditious for asking questions about his health, he allowed Tyler to ask him if he’d ever taken a GLP-1 medication before. He said, “No.”

Michael Barbaro

Quick interjection. What did he say?

Tyler Pager

He said he had not, but he probably should.

Katie Rogers

David asked him if he was on any blood thinners beside aspirin. The answer was no.

Tyler Pager

Very personal questions.

Katie Rogers

I asked him if he had ever had a heart attack. These are questions —

Michael Barbaro

The answer was no?

Katie Rogers

The answer was no. But the point is, this was a different version of him. And you never know which version of him you are going to get. And he knows that. He knows that if a foreign leader calls him, that person does not know who is on the other end of the line.

Michael Barbaro

Which persona —

Katie Rogers

Yes. And that means that this president can dangle consequences, can show up as magnanimous. He can show up as threatening. I think that is my main takeaway going forward.

Michael Barbaro

That’s fascinating. David?

David E. Sanger

You know, all presidents in their second term turn more to foreign policy, not only because they’ve got greater leverage and greater freedom, but because they want to establish a legacy. And I think the first thing I took away from it is, this is somebody who thinks about building a foreign policy legacy and building buildings.

The second thing that really jumped out at me was that he was spending this time with The New York Times because he really wants approval for this new vision of a muscular America. And I think he was making what he thought was a significant investment in trying to explain a new approach to managing the globe.

Michael Barbaro

Tyler?

Tyler Pager

What was remarkable to me, as we were in there for quite some time, was just watching how the Oval Office operated and the bubble around the president to support all of his needs. Whether that’s him pressing the red button on his desk to get a Diet Coke, or the aide that runs out multiple times of the Oval Office to pick up different pieces of paper that he has requested she print out as evidence for whatever point he’s making.

Or just the people walking in and out of the Oval Office with notes, whether that’s a foreign leader’s on the call or an aide is waiting outside, to him combining meetings. There were documents he had to sign, and he just had that person come in with the paperwork as we were sitting there for the interview. His phone — his personal cellphone — was ringing multiple times. He took one call from the Fox News anchor Bret Baier.

But it was really just quite amazing to see how chaotic, frankly, the Oval Office can be. And we’ve reported on how this unfolds. But I think sitting in the Oval Office for an extended period of time and watching it up close really gives you the sense of how Trump makes decisions, how he thinks, and how his world operates.

Michael Barbaro

Well, to all four of you, thank you very much.

David E. Sanger

Thank you.

Katie Rogers

Thank you.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Thank you, Michael.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By The New York Times/Doug Mills
c. 2026 The New York Times Company