A Missed Name From the President

In The Atlantic’s June 2025 cowl story, employees 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 convey new data to gentle and in addition assist make sense of how Trump got here again from political exile. I spoke with Ashley and Michael to study somewhat 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 truly had my ringer on that evening, as a result of I believed 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 referred to as.

David: Trump retains bizarre hours; how do you, as reporters, plan for that?

Michael: Nicely, clearly I didn’t do an amazing job of it! A lot is unpredictable about this presidency that you simply simply form of roll with it. We had an interview canceled on us, interviews denied to us, and plenty of steps in between, and finally, we received two interviews and time within the Oval Workplace with him. Nothing you suppose you recognize at any level in regards to the course of is essentially set.

Ashley Parker: We did attempt to be strategic. We referred to as him on the weekend. We had been wanting on the each day White Home schedules and the pool experiences. It type of felt like being a stalker. You’re taking a look at, properly, 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 feel he does it. Different reporters have used this automobile, however I feel 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 feel he was intrigued by the thought of showing on the quilt of {a magazine} that he doesn’t view as pleasant. The Atlantic has written some very essential 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 seem on the quilt—I feel in some methods it felt like yet another factor he may 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 feel the way in which to know Trump is that he’s making an attempt to win: the minute, the hour, the day, the scenario, the particular person instantly 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 viewpoint—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 following day.

David: He additionally appears to view interacting with the media as a recreation: In his Reality Social submit final week, he mentioned he was doing the interview “out of curiosity, and as a contest with myself.”

Ashley: There was additionally somewhat little bit of a component of “recreation acknowledges recreation,” 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 got 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. That’s how he defines success.

David: When he turned down the interview, which he later granted, Trump despatched you this quote by way of 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 which may exist amongst readers?

Michael: Proper now, many individuals devour political information in bites, and people bites don’t all the time add as much as the complete 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 truly suppose that in some methods, journalism that goes deeper is extra necessary 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.

Learn the quilt story.