If you’re a journalist about to interview President Donald Trump and ask the kind of questions you’d ask a normal president, you ought to know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get lies, nonsense, fantasies and insults. And probably very little news, because he just repeats himself endlessly.
Time political correspondent Eric Cortellessa and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs had a whopping 75 minutes with Trump on Tuesday to get something worthy of the magazine’s record 56th cover story about him. But because they chose deference over true inquiry, they ended up with 11,000 words of incoherence, zombie talking points and free association that ought to embarrass everyone involved.
The only thing Trump was effusive and actually knowledgeable about was his portfolio of construction projects, so that’s what Time went with for the cover title: “What Trump Has Built.”
But what he has destroyed and what he has lost is the real story. And you can’t tell that story without confronting him with reality in the moment — without correcting him when he’s wrong, calling him out when he’s making no sense, cutting him off when he rambles and testing him to see if he actually knows anything about what he’s talking about.
Trump exists in a bubble of adoration. Journalists are the only relatively normal people allowed anywhere near him. But Time didn’t disturb the bubble.
Trump’s Time interlocutors should have aggressively interrogated him about the depths of his ignorance before going to war with Iran and his utter lack of an exit strategy — to say nothing of his grotesque (and thank goodness, empty) threats to wipe out Iran’s civilization. They should have pressed him about his illogical tariffs, their arguable legality and the considerable pain they are causing American consumers. That could have started with some basic questions: “How do you think tariffs work? Who pays? Who are they a tax on?”
They should have leveled with Trump about his standing with the American people. Perhaps they could have cited polls showing a majority of Americans “strongly disapprove” of his job performance, and ask whether surrounding himself with sycophants has put him grievously out of touch with the American people.
Instead, Trump steamrolled them.
Cortellessa and Jacobs tried to get Trump to make news on artificial intelligence policy, but they mistakenly assumed he has a clue about the topic. The most essential questions they didn’t ask: “Do you understand that artificial intelligence and superintelligence are two different things? Do you understand how AI might or might not be limited?”
Instead, when they asked about what’s going on inside his meetings with AI leaders, Trump responded like a befuddled toddler:
Well, look, you know, this isn’t like I’m building a building, which I can do out of my back pocket. It’s easier to do that for me, and it’s what I’ve been doing. This is a whole new world, probably mostly good, but some bad too. And it’s a very powerful world. It’s a very — potentially really could be good for medical. I mean, some of the things they’re coming up with now that they never even thought about. But with good comes bad, and we want them, we want all of them to behave for themselves.
That was within the first few minutes. Later, the interviewers asked the president if he trusts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “I have the highest of IQs,” Trump replied. “I understand it much more than I think any president would, because I do have an ability on this.” When asked what his AI meetings have been like, the president responded with 427 words about China’s president, debt, interest rates, and the trade deficit in gold watches with Switzerland. The Time journalists didn’t interrupt.
You would think the interviewers might have considered changing tactics at some point. But no.
Instead, on the topic of Iran, they asked: “How can the president of peace be calling for the annihilation of an entire people?” Trump then seemed to justify such an act by noting that the Iranian regime had killed tens of thousands of its own people for engaging in protest.
An appropriate follow-up would have been something like: “You talk casually about annihilating Iran and sending its ‘whole civilization’ back ‘to the stone age.’ Targeting civilians is a war crime. Are you seriously considering it?”
The one place you could reasonably have expected the Time journalists to challenge Trump with a stiff spine was in relation to Trump’s recent moves to ban journalists from the White House who, in Trump’s words, “purposely write negative news.”
They asked: “Why should Americans believe that you respect the free press when you’re restricting access to the White House to some of our colleagues?”
They should have said: “What you did the other day was the act of an authoritarian who wants to control media coverage and a direct assault on the First Amendment. Do you still want to see national news outlets punished by the government for not writing more positively about you?”
When Trump referred to CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins as “crazy,” they should have interjected: “How can you possibly think it’s presidential to insult people – almost always women – like a schoolyard bully?” They should have said: “What you call ‘fake news’ is real news. Give us one example of what you consider ‘fake news’ from CNN, MS NOW, or Politico.”
And guess what? It still wasn’t enough deference for Trump, who fumed, “You haven’t asked me one f—ing positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative.” The president added, “I should be given credit for fixing the White House because I’m also doing very well with the war.”
Trump exists in a bubble of adoration. Journalists are the only relatively normal people allowed anywhere near him. But Time didn’t disturb the bubble. That was a mistake.
Any reporter lucky or unlucky enough to get the chance to ask Trump unvetted questions owes it to their readers, the nation and the world to confront him with reality and see if he’s even capable of giving coherent answers about anything besides his building projects.
That would be a worthy cover story.
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