Washington Week with The Atlantic

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Here's the way things now work.

President Trump will slap tariffs on any country at any time for any reason.

No superpower has ever tried this before.

It's a dramatic and destabilizing way to manage America's economy and our relationships with the other 200 or so countries on the planet.

But it's become the new normal.

Tonight, how the world is being reordered by a disorderly White House, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

I will say this for Donald Trump, more stuff, all different kinds of stuff, happens in a single week in his Washington than has ever happened during another presidency.

Trump likes attention.

He likes movement.

He especially likes to keep people, including sometimes himself, guessing.

Now, here are two things he doesn't like, trade deficits and numbers.

Not all numbers, just numbers that don't match his understanding of reality.

Here he is talking about happy numbers yesterday.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President: I think when you look at them, they're all something, but this one chart really says it better than anything, if you look at this, this is great, but this chart is pretty amazing right here, all new numbers.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Some numbers he didn't like were the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers on jobs growth.

He didn't like those numbers so much that he'd fired the bureau's commissioner.

Here to discuss the latest on Trump's attempt to create realities by talking them into existence are Jonathan Karl, the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, White House and Washington correspondent, I'll give you both, Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent at The New York Times and a co-author of 2024, How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, Jonathan Lemire is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC, and Vivian Salama is our newest staff writer at The Atlantic.

He used to work for a newspaper of some sort, if I recall, from last week.

VIVIAN SALAMA, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, welcome, welcome to the table.

Big book, I want to get to some stuff in the book, if we can.

I want to start by talking about the upcoming Alaska summit.

Trump posted this announcement just a little while ago, Friday afternoon.

The highly anticipated meeting between myself as president of the United States of America, it was good that he noted that, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia will take place next Friday, August 15th, 2025, in the great state of Alaska.

Further details to follow.

And then of course the inevitable, thank you for your attention to this matter.

So, this is fascinating.

Putin -- this would be Putin's first visit to the United States in ten years.

Trump has said there's going to be discussion of an exchange of territory, noting, of course, that Zelenskyy is not coming to this Alaska summit.

But what are we actually talking about here, Jon?

An exchange of territory, Russia controls 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine has about four square miles left of its incursion.

What's going on?

JONATHAN LEMIRE, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: So, first, this summit, the president's right, has been teased for a while, the Trump critics suggesting that it's going to be in Alaska, so he can give Alaska back perhaps to Russia.

But I think what we'll see here instead is two parts.

First of all, originally, the White House offered to Putin was going to be two summits.

It's going to be a Trump and Putin, followed by a Trump, Putin, Zelenskyy trilateral.

The Kremlin said no to that.

They're not -- they don't want to legitimize Zelenskyy.

So, we're not sure that's going to happen, but that's not a deal breaker for President Trump.

He made that clear yesterday and today with the announcement that he will go through at this meeting next week, we believe, in Alaska.

We're not clear what sort of territory we're talking about here.

Russia has put forth a proposal.

They'll be able to keep the Donbas, a couple other -- Donetsk, (INAUDIBLE), Luhansk.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And Crimea.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: And Crimea, of course.

But it's not clear what Russia would need to give back.

And, in fact, there's some reporting tonight from The Wall Street Journal suggest that all they're offering is a ceasefire.

We'll stop fighting if we get to keep this land, which would be a nonstarter, of course, for Ukraine and most of Europe.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

Jon, nonstarter is the operative word here.

No?

JONATHAN KARL, Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News: I mean, it's an extraordinary development if what The Wall Street Journal's reported is accurate, that you have basically ceding significant territory that you've been fighting for for three years in exchange for, what is by definition, temporary, a ceasefire.

But Zelenskyy has actually had some comments since this has come out, that seems to be a positive about what can happen here.

What's interesting is the White House at first was insisting.

We didn't hear Trump himself say this, but the White House was saying that this would have to be with Zelenskyy, you know, that Trump wanted to have, you know, a trilateral meeting.

And then, very quickly, the president just said, okay, a one-on-one meeting's fine.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Vivian, as Jon points out, Zelenskyy is making positive-ish noises about this, but does he really have any choice?

Trump is having a big summit.

He's not going to -- he's learned his lesson from that Oval Office encounter, like don't get on Trump's bad side unnecessarily.

He can't possibly be happy about the idea of ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia under pressure from Donald Trump.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Definitely not happy about it.

The Biden era mantra of nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine is now ancient history under the Trump administration has made it -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Meaning that you can't negotiate.

VIVIAN SALAMA: That you cannot negotiate the future of Ukraine without Ukraine at the table.

That's done.

That's out of the question.

Now, President Trump has made clear that he's happy to do that, at least to an extent because he is very eager to have a deal.

This is something he promised on the campaign trail as a priority, and he's very eager to do so.

Putin made it a little bit difficult to meet him at the table in the beginning.

But what he sees basically is that Putin is going to be the hard negotiator.

He believes he has leverage over the Ukrainians, that he can push them to do whatever is necessary to at least superficially come to the table and agree to whatever it is that they decide to agree on.

But, obviously, it puts the Ukrainians in a very difficult position because they basically have lost first their sovereignty to the war, and then, again, to the Trump administration essentially twisting their arm.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Tyler, though, I want to ask a question about Trump and his relationship to Russia.

It seems much more complicated than then we might have been discussing a year ago.

You know, the perception among many people in Washington was that Trump was incapable or unwilling to even criticize Putin.

He now seems pretty regularly angry at Putin.

Is that for show or is there actually a shift?

Was he not the Putin lackey that the Democrats say he is?

TYLER PAGER, White House Correspondent, The New York Times: I think the genuine frustration that Trump has toward Putin is largely based in the fact that Trump promised to end this war within 24 hours, and he has been unable to do so.

So, I think it's less about the interpersonal relationship and more about the broader strategic objectives that Trump has because Trump wants a victory.

We saw that today with Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Trump is in this mode of being the peacemaker president, and the biggest prize of all is ending this war between Russia and Ukraine.

And he has been frustrated by the intransigence he's seen from Putin.

And this is no surprise to any other American president or political leader who has dealt with Putin for decades and found this to be the case, but I think Trump is hopeful that he can sort of work Putin over in this in-person meeting.

But I think many American officials, particularly Democrats, are concerned about what sort of agreements Trump might make with Putin.

We saw in a famous moment that Jon was at in the first term where he was asked about, you know, American intelligence that Russia had interfered in the U.S. election, and he just basically brushed it off.

And so I think there's genuine concern about what could unfold from this meeting.

But the relationship is definitely more complicated than the perception of just Trump -- JONATHAN KARL: And I think Trump is sensitive to the idea that.

Putin has played him.

And when he has a conversation with Putin that he thinks went fine, and then, you know, Russia, you know, goes forward with a massive a drone attack on cities in Ukraine, it angers him.

So, I think there's a frustration.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Which is an understandable frustration.

It's interesting that he articulates it, again, given the perception that he would never say anything negative about Putin.

It's also a sign of overconfidence maybe in his ability to negotiate with the world's toughest dictator.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: Yes.

I mean, he has clearly been humbled and humiliated, but he's not lost the confidence that he can sit down with anyone, that it's the art of the deal, that he's the master negotiator, he can get some sort of agreement, and the Nobel Peace Prize he has been seeking for quite this time.

So, yes, I think he has told people that he believes he can still handle Putin in this setting, others, less sure.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Vivian, let me just ask one more question on this.

If Putin and Trump decide that in exchange for whatever Putin is giving he gets a chunk of Ukraine essentially, where does that leave Zelenskyy?

It leaves Zelenskyy saying, no, we're not doing that?

What happens?

VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, Zelenskyy has the right to continue fighting, but, obviously, there's a lot at stake, U.S. weapons being among them.

They have largely been able to sustain this war because of U.S. support.

Obviously, European support as well, but nothing measures up to the U.S. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Can Europe replace American weapons?

VIVIAN SALAMA: Never, not to the extent.

I mean, even if they were to double it, it would still not come close to what the U.S. gives Ukraine and the Ukrainians know that.

So, they know they're between a rock and a hard spot.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Vivian, let me switch to another sore spot on the globe, Gaza and Israel.

It seems that Donald Trump, at least by some reporting that's coming out of the White House, is getting very, very angry at Netanyahu, especially in light of Netanyahu's promise to go invade Gaza City now to look for the hostages and the Israeli hostages and the rest of Hamas.

Do you sense anything permanently shifting in their relationship, or is this just Benjamin Netanyahu taking on yet another president?

VIVIAN SALAMA: despite Donald Trump's public remarks about Netanyahu and his support for Israel, he has had a very contentious relationship with Netanyahu that dates back to his first administration, some dealings with attacking Iran and Netanyahu backing out.

He has really lost trust in Netanyahu since then and has said it publicly.

And so they've had ups and downs in their relationship, but probably in the last few weeks where, A, Trump sees the images coming out of Gaza, and he does -- he is moved by a lot of those images, according to his advisers, but also just public opinion shifting globally about what Netanyahu's been doing, and then Netanyahu just being a tough person to deal with, that a lot of officials in Washington find him extremely frustrating.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, Jon, there's a theme here, though, is that foreign leaders, even those who are partially dependent on you for arms, don't do what you want them to do.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

It turns out they have their own interests.

But, look, the Netanyahu-Trump relationship is a very complicated one, and it's been a tense one for a long time, as Vivian pointed out.

I mean, this is a -- he clashed pretty mightily in 2020 with Netanyahu.

Obviously, he was upset after the election in November of 2020 when Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden.

I think it's probably his toughest relationship on the globe, probably maybe second only to Zelenskyy.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I want to switch to tariffs.

Tyler, could you explain tariffs to us?

That's your homework assignment.

Could you explain specifically is there a governing theory to the way Trump is carrying out his tariff policy?

TYLER PAGER: I mean, I think it's important to sort of reiterate that this has been an interest of Trump's dating back to before his political life and something he wanted to do in the first term and was not necessarily surrounded by the people that largely would just go along with what he said or agreed with his worldview.

So, I think what he sees in tariffs is an economic weapon.

He sees leverage, and Trump is someone that wants to make deals, cut deals, and in order to make a deal, he thinks he needs to have leverage over them.

And so he's trying to reset the global economy with this sort of cudgel.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But I guess my question is also, is this just going to go on forever?

Like it's Tuesday, so he's slapping punitive tariffs on X country.

Next week, he pulls them off and hits another country.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: It's tariffs, something he's believed in, but it's also something he believes he can execute unilaterally.

It is a personal power here, which is deeply attractive to him, that he can settle scores, that he can go after whatever country's up or down, you know?

And we've seen even this week, you know, depending on, you know, his feelings towards that country's leader at the moment, he'll increase or lower the tariff.

JONATHAN KARL: And, by the way, it's not his power.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: No, it's not his.

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, there is a very serious legal case underway now.

I think there is a very good chance that his so-called reciprocal tariffs will get declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, including the appointees that the justices that he put on the court.

I don't know how it's going to, but that is a very real possibility, not just the tariffs but the trade deals that he's negotiated.

I mean, the U.S.-Mexico agreement was ratified by Congress.

NAFTA was ratified by Congress.

Trade deals need to be ratified by Congress.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, Trump's preference for tariffs is also very indicative of how he does -- how he operates, because he's doing this in a punitive way to punish states for typically what presidents would use sanctions for.

But sanctions are very tedious.

They take a lot of legal work to actually roll out.

Tariffs are a lot easier, at least under the Trump administration don't if about that.

So, he can put them on and then next week just completely pull them back if he wants to.

And that's how he's doing business with a lot of these countries where he is holding their feet to the fire and saying tariffs this week, but next week we can roll them back.

And that's - - it's roiling markets as a result of it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

My personal opinion is that the media should control international tariffs, but that's just me.

JONATHAN KARL: Specifically the host of this.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Just specifically Washington Week.

The -- I want to I want to switch to the Justice Department issues for a moment.

We see that there -- now the Trump administration is going to investigate the New York State attorney general.

We see that the FBI is firing more of its officials who were involved in authorized investigations of Donald Trump or Donald Trump-related activities.

Jon, you've been following this for a long time.

This is fairly naked now.

JONATHAN KARL: It's retribution.

I mean, this is actually what Trump campaigned on, maybe even more than tariffs, definitely more than tariffs, retribution.

He complained about -- I mean, this is the Justice Department that tried to put him in prison.

And he is out to take revenge against anybody involved in any of those.

And he's got people in power to do it.

And what was interesting this week is you had the firing of Brian Driscoll, who, for a hot second, was the acting FBI director, but, you know, a career FBI agent, storied career with the agency gone.

And also the head of the Washington Field Office, who, you know, had been involved in supervising some of the January 6th investigation in the Mar-a-Lago, the investigation and the documents in Mar-a-Lago.

What's interesting about that is the head of the Washington Field Office was put in that position by Kash Patel.

And Kash Patel went on television and said that he had made the decision because he was an upstanding guy who had tried to fight back against the weaponization, but he had to follow orders because he was in the chain of command.

And now Kash Patel has been undermined, which I think is a -- I don't know what that means.

This is the guy, this was the president's, you know, appointee to clean out the FBI.

And even somebody that he stood up for is gone.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tyler, in your book that just came out, you talk a lot about -- obviously it's about the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign.

Is any of this -- this level of retribution, is it surprising to you based on what you and your co-authors saw develop over the last year-and-a-half?

TYLER PAGER: No.

And I think it comes back to Trump's decision to run.

His decision was crystallized in large part because of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

And he saw he was not just running for his freedom, but he wanted to come back to Washington and lead a retribution campaign against all of those people that he felt persecuted him.

So, we are seeing him carry out much of what he promised to do on the campaign trail and what animated him personally to run for office.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: And the tone was set in the first hours, day one, the January 6th pardons.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, right, which came and went, were not as shocking to the American people as some people thought they might be.

In other news, Trump has just removed the head of the IRS.

This is the -- he was the sixth person to run the IRS this year.

I want to -- by the way, I don't know if you guys know this, but in the Constitution, it says that if the IRS has more than seven commissioners, no one has to pay taxes today.

Yes, no, it's a very small type.

TYLER PAGER: The Treasury secretary gets another job following the long line of Senior Trump administration officials who just pick up jobs.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, Marco Rubio being the secretary of state and the national security adviser.

What do we know about this new firing?

JONATHAN KARL: My understanding is Bessent just had -- didn't have a working relationship with him and didn't think he could do the job.

I think this was him clashing with the Treasury secretary.

And, you know, Billy Long was not exactly the most qualified IRS commissioner.

I mean, he got confirmed.

His main piece on his resume regarding the IRS is he sponsoring a bill in Congress to eliminate the IRS.

He's a career auctioneer, very likable guy, no experience related to running an organization with, at the time, had 100,000 employees.

I think about a quarter of those employees are now gone.

But, you know, he's going to be ambassador to Iceland now.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, which is not a bad job.

It's not Greenland.

JONATHAN KARL: It's not Greenland.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

The -- I have to ask you guys, you're White House correspondents, and something very strange happened at the White House this week, we had a little bit of a president on the roof situation.

Here, you can watch this for yourselves.

DONALD TRUMP: Something beautiful.

REPORTER: What does that mean?

DONALD TRUMP: It's more ways to spend my money.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Was he -- I mean, this is criminology, I guess, or White Houseology, was he suggesting that he's building a dome over the West Wing?

JONATHAN LEMIRE: Yes.

The hand gestures disturbed me, frankly.

He's already paved over the rose garden.

He's adding a ballroom.

This seems to be -- maybe he's adding a second level, expanding extreme -- JONATHAN KARL: The amount of gold in the Oval Office is astounding.

TYLER PAGER: Each day, each time we see it, there's more and more of a -- I mean, it is clear he is making this his own.

He wants to leave a mark, but he also wants to turn the White House into a place that he enjoys spending time.

That is why he built basically a Mar-a-Lago patio over the Rose Garden.

It's why he's building a ballroom.

He's making this into his home.

And he's inspecting it like it's his personal property.

That's what we saw with him walking on the roof.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, seeing him -- that was his natural element.

He's looking at a building and trying to figure out what to do with it.

That's what he spent most of his life doing.

But, nevertheless, I'm going to press on it.

Is he building a dome on the West Wing, because that will look very, very strange?

I mean, he was making the international sign for, I'm building a dome.

TYLER PAGER: You don't want to over interpret what Trump's hand motions are at any point.

You just don't know.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, I think it's literally my job, but, okay, I won't for purposes of the show.

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, he's planning to build in 90,000-square-foot ballroom.

That house there, that White House is 55,000 square feet.

So, I mean, he's got big plans.

And to me, it says something about the difference between the first presidency and the second Trump presidency.

The first Trump presidency kind of came and went.

It was rather ephemeral in its effects on the country despite what we all saw at the time.

This one, he's making more radical changes to the country and to the White House that'll live well beyond his presidency.

TYLER PAGER: And I think part of it is because he now knows how government works.

I think one of the things that really is the key difference between the first term and the second term is that he had a whole host of characters in the government that were trying to stymie his efforts to radically change the country.

He's now surrounded by people that are fully supportive of his agenda and helping him do it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I mean, one final question to you, Tyler, as the author of a book about the race.

It seems very effective thing to do, to be president and then be off of four years and plan the next four years.

It turns out in retrospect.

TYLER PAGER: Yes, he is way more effective at accomplishing his agenda with having that time out of office because those -- a lot of his aides, Russ Vought, those sorts of officials, spent their time out of government planning for this term.

And so what they've done is an onslaught of executive orders in the first six months that accomplished a lot of their goals very quickly because he knew what they wanted to do.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Well, we're going to have to leave it there, a fascinating conversation.

I want to thank our guests, and I want to thank all of you at home for your attention to this matter.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goodnight from Washington.