Writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer of The Atlantic say they’ve learned one thing during their years of covering President Donald Trump: His first word is rarely his last one.
That’s obvious from their circuitous journey in landing interviews with the Republican president, which included an apparent late-night “butt dial” and Trump’s unexpected invitation to include in the session their editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Trump had bashed as a “sleazeball” weeks earlier.
That last interview, this past Thursday, sparked a true “stop the presses” moment. The Atlantic had already sent Parker and Scherer’s piece, the cover story for its June issue, to the printers. They called it back to add new material.
The article, titled “Trump is Enjoying This” and published online Monday, was in the works before Goldberg was inadvertently included in a Signal chat group among administration leaders about a military attack in the Middle East.
The interview wasn’t supposed to happen
The writers, who recently joined The Atlantic from The Washington Post, had pitched an interview to talk about the details of Trump’s improbable political comeback. He was willing to talk, but on March 17, during the week they were supposed to meet, Trump posted on social media that Parker was a “Radical Left Lunatic” incapable of doing a fair interview. Scherer’s past pieces about him were, Trump wrote, “virtually all LIES.”
The interview was off. The writers surmised in their article that someone in Trump’s camp had persuaded him not to do it.
At 10:45 a.m. on a Saturday in late March, Scherer — armed with Trump’s cellphone number — called him anyway. “Who’s calling?” Trump asked. Scherer identified himself.
“Oh, I know who you are, Michael,” Trump replied, according to a tape released by The Atlantic. “I know who you are. You never write — you never write good about me, Michael. Never, ever.”
And he proceeded to give Scherer an interview on the spot.
An accidental dial and more developments
Wanting to ask some follow-up questions, the writers called Trump again on April 12. They left a message that wasn’t returned, but Scherer’s cell phone recorded a call from Trump’s number at 1:28 a.m. the next morning with no message left. They figured it had been dialed inadvertently.
The journalists made a request through Trump’s staff for an in-person interview, but were rejected. Nine days later — last Wednesday — with their story already written, the White House called and said to come to the Oval Office the next day. And bring Goldberg with them.
Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, had written on March 24 about being included in the highly sensitive group chat, arguably the most embarrassing story about the new administration so far. Striking back, Trump called Goldberg “truly a sleazeball,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called him a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist.”
On his Truth Social platform, Trump explained he was doing the interview “out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if The Atlantic can be truthful. Are they capable of writing a fair story on TRUMP? The way I look at it, what can be so bad — I WON!”
There was no immediate reply from the White House to questions about how they think the interview went. In a briefing for “new media” on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt compared Trump agreeing to some interviews to his willingness to speak to leaders like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
“The president believes in direct diplomacy, whether it is with our adversaries and competitors around the world or left-wing activists like Jeffrey Goldberg,” she said.
Trump’s adversarial relationship with the press has been plain on several fronts since returning to the White House. His FCC is investigating several outlets, including CBS and ABC News, and he’s been fighting in court with The Associated Press over access to White House events.
It was a civil interview
When Goldberg came into the Oval Office, Trump gave him a warm handshake — even if the faces of many of the president’s aides did not look at all happy to see him, Goldberg said in an interview with the journalists posted by The Atlantic on Monday.
“If you called me the names that Donald Trump has called me, I think you and I would both find a personal encounter very, very, very awkward,” Goldberg said. “He doesn’t find it awkward, because he believes that it’s just a game. It’s just a performance.”
From the moment The Atlantic proposed the interview, it had been a negotiation for Trump, Scherer said in the same interview. “It’s a transaction,” he said. “What are they trying to do? Could I benefit from it? Is it going to hurt me? I think it is a window into the most essential fact of Donald Trump, which is that everything he engages in is a transaction.”
The president was also well aware of the value of an interview with The Atlantic, along with the value of Goldberg’s Signal story. Goldberg said that he correctly guessed that Trump was trying to charm him last week. The president seemed less interested in talking about the national security implications of the story that Goldberg broke than in conveying, “Well, you won,” Goldberg said.
“He’s an interesting guy to talk to and listen to,” he said. “And our job is — to the extent that he’s understandable — to understand him. And so the more exposure I have to him, the better it is for me from an analytical standpoint.”
Making a truly all-American product during the Trump tariff era is either impossible, extremely difficult, or extremely costly, The Wall Street Journal reports. It spoke with executives or owners of various U.S. businesses — manufacturers of pickup truck organizers, coat hangers, and factory machinery — who say they're scrambling to adjust. In the case of Rapid Plastics' high-end hangers, components sourced from China have doubled in price. Its co-owner says the federal government should make exceptions for specialized components.
Whether it's delaying new plants or axing travel budgets, U.S. companies have been cutting costs to help cope with evolving tariff plans, The Wall Street Journal reports. While few have announced big layoffs, many have been revealing new cost-cutting measures such as slowing hiring or reviewing consultant and contractor fees. Hasbro, meanwhile, will speed up a multiyear plan to cut $1 billion in costs. For many, the goal is to avoid irreversible, "dramatic" moves in case tariffs quickly resolve.
Domino's Pizza reported stronger-than-expected earnings in the first quarter as sales growth overseas helped offset weakness in the chain’s U.S. market. While overall revenue climbed 3% to $1.1 billion, CEO Russell Weiner said Domino's faces a "challenging global macroeconomic environment." International same-store sales jumped 3.7% in the quarter, but a slowdown in demand in the U.S. led to a 0.5% decline. The results follow those of Chipotle, which last week reported its first same-store sales decline since 2020.
Amazon’s first batch of internet satellites rocketed into orbit Monday, the latest entry in the mega-constellation market currently dominated by SpaceX’s thousands of Starlinks.
The United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket carried up 27 of Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites, named after the frigid fringes of our solar system beyond Neptune. Once released in orbit, the satellites will eventually reach an altitude of nearly 400 miles (630 kilometers).
Two test satellites were launched in 2023, also by an Atlas V. Project officials said major upgrades were made to the newest version. The latest satellites are also coated with a mirror film designed to scatter reflected sunlight in an attempt to accommodate astronomers.
Stargazers oppose the fast-growing constellations of low-orbiting satellites, arguing they spoil observations. Others fear more satellite collisions.
Founded by Jeff Bezos, who now runs his own rocket company, Blue Origin, Amazon aims to put more than 3,200 of these satellites into orbit to provide fast, affordable broadband service around the globe.
The European-based OneWeb satellite constellation numbers in the hundreds in an even higher orbit.
Amazon already has purchased dozens of rocket launches from United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin for Project Kuiper, as well as others.
“There are some things you can only learn in flight,” despite extensive testing on the ground, said Rajeev Badyal, the project’s vice president.
“No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey,” he said in a statement ahead of the evening liftoff.
The first liftoff attempt earlier this month was nixed by bad weather. It took until now to secure another spot in the launch lineup at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Tariffs and the prospect of tariffs are adding tremendous uncertainty to third-party sellers who are trying to maintain profit margins and inventory in the face of levies that could cause their costs to import goods from China to double or more.
Meantime, Amazon is planning its annual Prime Day discount shopping event and asking sellers to offer price cuts of 20% or more. That's a tough pill to swallow for many sellers who fear they can't afford to sell their highest margin products today and not have them around for the holiday selling season later in the year.Nvidia, Apple, and Eli Lilly are other companies which have made splashy spending announcements since the election. With looming tariffs, there's pressure to show a domestic manufacturing footprint.
IBM's plans include $30B in R&D spending for quantum and mainframe manufacturing in the US.
Still, it's unclear how much of the spending plans are new. Over the past five years, IBM reported about $34 billion in research and development spending globally. Its total operational expenses in that time frame were $142 billion.