Transcript of Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Over the past week, President Trump dramatically ceded the stage to Elon Musk in the oval office, turned the democratic mayor of New York City into a political spawn, and ensured that Vladimir Putin begins peace talks with Ukraine on Russia's terms. To make sense of all of that, I turned to three of my colleagues, White House reporters Maggie Haverman, David Sanger, and Zolen Kano-Yung's. It's Friday, February 14th. Friends, welcome back to the Roundtable. But first, happy Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day, Michael. Happy Valentine's Day, Michael. Thank you, Michael. Happy to spend it with you.

I mean, who else would you spend it with?

I can think of one person. I can, too.

You have a wonderful husband. David, appreciate you joining us from Munich. I was going to say from Paris, City of Love, that was the plan, but you changed location since we- That was two days ago with vice president fans.

Yeah.

You've been traveling with the vice president. Zolen and Maggie, appreciate you coming to us from our studio in Washington, DC. I just want to set up this conversation. Loosely speaking, our theme this week is projections of power, exercises of power by the Trump administration, both overseas and here at home. We're going to start here at home. It feels like the story of this presidency so far is the extraordinary wielding of power by President Trump and a remarkable wielding of power by Elon Musk, private citizen and the world's richest man. They've been happening simultaneously and seemingly a little bit independently. This week, we saw those two things come together in a very vivid and at times weird way in the oval office. Maggie, for anyone who didn't see this or watch it, can you just describe this scene?

It was pretty remarkable, Michael. Elon Musk joined Donald Trump in the oval office with Elon Musk's four-year-old child named X, just like the social media website that used to be Twitter that Elon Musk has renamed. It was for an executive order signing related to how Doge, Musk's so-called cost-cutting initiative, interacts with the hiring process in the federal government. Trump really just turned it over to Musk, and Musk just held forth. For many, many minutes, I think it was much of the roughly 30-minute event. He described what he's doing. He talking about all of the so-called fraud and waste and abuse that he says they have found. The most striking allegation for which he provided no evidence, and still has not, as far as I know, was that some government workers were taking kick that they were getting percentages. I believe it was specifically of USAID spending. But Trump was relegated to a spectator in his own office, just sitting at the desk and nodding and occasionally chiming in and criticizing judges. What was What's really striking about it, Michael, is that it looked to those of us who have watched him for a long time as if Trump was not enjoying this.

I talked to a number of his advisors afterwards. They said he was fine with it. I don't think that they're making it up. I think that he was defending his guy, Elon Musk, who has gone above and beyond in many ways to try to prove loyalty to Trump. Trump really likes having the richest man in the world seeking his approval.

All right. Zolen and David, I want to bring you in. What immediately really stood out about this scene. It was not just the fact that Elon Musk was there defending and justifying his unusual role. It was just the fact of him holding court next to a sitting President Trump for 30 minutes in this room that is the very definition of American presidential power. It was the stature that it conferred on Musk. You all know this, but there's been this running motif that Musk is a co-president. Time magazine went so far over the past couple of days as to put Musk on the cover of its latest issue, sitting behind the Resolute desk with a coffee mug in his hand. This scene didn't seem to combat that, or did it?

I cover the White House now, but I used to cover a cabinet agency during Trump round one. I remember covering that cabinet agency. Officials used to talk about all the time how if they were going to do an announcement, going to have a policy change, Trump needed the spotlight. They were very conscious about that. To see this scene of the richest man in the world standing in front of cameras, articulating this real attempt to reshape the federal bureaucracy into something that's in Trump's image. It was something that I didn't think I would see covering Trump round one.

I'd never seen anything like it covering five presidents. I would have to say that two things really jumped out at me. The first was that I think one of the reasons that Trump let this go on was that he thought that having the world's richest man talk about this cost-cutting move gave him some credibility. Added to the- Musk or Trump. Of what was going on.

Who got the credibility?

That Trump got credibility from having Musk saying, basically, I'm bringing the cost-cutting strategies of X and Tesla and SpaceX and efficiencies to your government, and doing this on a scale that has never been done before. The second part that was fascinating to me was what was missing from it. What was missing from it was what is the purpose of having these government agencies? What is the purpose of government? In describing USAID, which I think has some of the most courageous people I have ever met in the US government, going in the world, putting themselves in danger on the front line with none of the weapons that the US military goes out and has at those moments. Instead, he was basically describing them as people on the take.

There seems to be an interesting thing happening where the President and Elon Musk believe that to justify their cost-cutting, they need to find and highlight corruption, just egregious cases of bad behavior, when it seems for the most part, that's probably not what they're going to find. Why is it that they're having such a hard time just saying, We want to cut government because we want to cut government? Why do they feel the need to brand everything as corrupt, as kickbacks, to make claims that so malign the workforce for which there's no evidence.

I think that, well, at least there may be evidence, but they have not shared it with us. Number one, it's Donald Trump's default setting is to call things corrupt when he doesn't like them, to call when they disagree with him. I do think that Trump is very radicalized about the government he is leading. I think that has happened since the investigations into him in his first term. I think since the multiple criminal indictments he faced, all of the civil cases that he faced, I do think that Trump's contempt for the federal government is genuine. But Trump comes historically from a period in time and a place, New York, 1960s, '70s, '80s, that was run by machine politics. Where lots of aspects of government, frankly, some aspects of the media, some aspects of the real estate industry, were tinged with corruption. Trump's basic belief, and we hear him articulate this in various ways, is everything is a little corrupt. He is suggesting in this case, it's a lot.

The question also asked, why can't they just say this is about cutting government? We know from reporting this is not just about cutting the fat off of government, that this is not just about limiting federal spending, that is also about getting people in office that will implement your agenda without asking questions, without putting up a bureaucratic hurdle. It's not just about cutting spending. For him right now, it seems like the definition of corruption is also changing. Corruption, as you were just saying, can be a policy difference. That's right.

I just want to close out this conversation about Elon Musk because this idea, this motif of a co-presidentcy is so much in the air. I just want to get some clarity on this, Maggie. Is there a version of this where we should see Trump giving Elon Musk this a platform as him actually exerting some power over Musk. I mean, if you watch the President set it up, he said, I've asked Elon Musk to come here to offer a few remarks, and Even though Trump was sitting there at their resolute desk not saying much during the entire time Musk was talking, he was sitting at the resolute desk. That's his desk. It was very clear he was the President. Is there a way of flipping this around a little bit and seeing this as him bringing Musk to heal?

Oh, 100%. I think the way you just described it is exactly it. Is Musk showing some level of due diligence obligation to Donald Trump? There's no question. To that point, I would just add a remarkable point that emerged this week. The Wall Street Journal first reported it, and we confirmed it, X, which is owned by Musk, settled for multimillion dollars. We don't know the exact figure. It's somewhere in the area of $10 million. A lawsuit that Trump had brought against the site when it Twitter on by other people when his account was banned after January sixth, 2021. Essentially, the site, I don't know exactly how the finances of X work in terms of Musk's ownership, etc. But this is his website, and it has now paid Donald Trump a substantial amount of money. Trump could have said, let's not do that. Right, you're working for me now.

Not a big deal.

Right. That's not what happened, evidently. Wow.

I didn't know that over the past week, among all the remarkable things, Elon Musk essentially cut a check to Donald Trump for many millions of dollars.

One of his companies did, yes.

Yeah. Musk and Doge and all this cost-cutting and conflict of interest risk overshadowing something else really important that happened this week, which is that the Trump administration, its Justice Department, asked prosecutors in New York to drop sweeping federal corruption charges against the city's mayor here, Eric Adams. Maggie, you've covered this story very closely. Can you just remind us very briefly of the basics of this case and how we got to this point where the Trump administration is demanding that charges for a big city Democratic mayor be dropped.

Michael, there are so many inputs as how we got here, so I will just try to do the short version.

Eric Adams- I trust you to do this.

I appreciate you, and you'll let me know if I don't get there. Eric Adams was indicted on corruption charges in September of 2024. The basics for bribery involves airline ticket upgrades and essentially a quid pro quo with a foreign government, Turkey in particular. Trump started talking in December about possibly pardoning Adams. He had treated Adams as a fellow traveler in what Trump calls the weaponized justice system, and he's been very clear about that. Adams has also started trying to forge a very clear relationship with Trump. He went down to Palm Beach to meet with him. In January, the SDNY, the prosecutorsators in Manhattan, federal prosecutors, filed a court filing saying that they had uncovered evidence of additional criminal conduct by Adams. That signaled there could be more charges filed. That could be more serious. Trump clearly does not think the charges against Adams, as they are now, are serious. Earlier this week, the acting Deputy Attorney General, who is one of Donald Trump's many personal lawyers and is now in that role, directed the Southern district to dismiss the case, drop It does require a judge doing it, but also said that they would leave open a review of the case until after the November 2025 mayoral election.

It's not dead. It's just not happening right now. As they say in that memo, it has impeded Adam's ability to do his job, including helping on their immigration crackdown in New York.

You're nodding your head. There seems to be a quid pro quo implied here, which is that- Which they say is not, by the way, to be clear, but yes. The implied give and take here is that the Democratic mayor of America's biggest city will become an ally of the President, and most importantly, not a critic of things like his immigration agenda, if and once this administration drops these charges.

I thought this was really a takeaway that there actually wasn't an assessment in this memo on the evidence of this case. But the takeaway was rather an assessment, a political assessment, really, of how Eric Adams would be able to implement Trump's immigration crackdown. That was explicitly said here.

They explicitly said that they weren't making this decision based on the evidence, in fact, which was extraordinary.

I just want to be clear what you guys are saying. The Justice Department, in saying they think these charges should be dropped, basically said, We We really like to work with this mayor to conduct immigration raids and get undocumented immigrants out of New York City.

We see this case as a hurdle in order to doing that. That was the primary reason. It's worth noting that Eric Adams as well, early on in the Biden administration was one of the earliest Democrats to attack the previous administration over immigration. Made a lot of noise. Over-immigration made a lot of noise, which this current president also noticed.

It's also worth noting that Eric Adams' lawyer is also Elon Musk's lawyer, Alex I don't know.

Blowing my mind just a little bit. David, for many people, this scenario is pretty straightforwardly a subversion of the normal system of justice in the country. Putting that aside for a moment, if you wish to, Just as importantly, it would seem to make the mayor of New York City something of a, and I'm going to use this word, and you all can correct me if you think it's too strong, a pawn of the President, because it would seem from what Maggie said, that their plan is to drop the case but say they could bring it back. That message would seem to be, We can make all your problems go away, Mr. Mayor, or we can make your problems come right back.

You're right, Michael. There is a damooclees that is hanging over Eric Adams with every decision that he has to make. Every decision about whether to let an ICE raid proceed in his city. Every decision about whether or not he is going to oppose the President of the United States on a policy that might affect New York City residents. With each one of those, he's going to have to say, Is it worth it to stand up to this man if he can bring the Justice Department on me on these cases at any given moment.

That would end my career.

It not only end his career, but if you look at some of these charges, there's the possibility of jail time out here. I have never seen a rower exercise of presidential power. He could have just given him a pardon, in which case Adams would be free to go do whatever he wants to go do. Now, instead, he has simply, or the Justice Department, we don't know if the President was directly involved, has simply suspended the case.

You're saying there's a real Machiavelian value in arranging the situation such that Adams simply cannot afford to not do the president's bidding.

It certainly looks that way. In fact, that underrates Machiaveli, I think, in some degree.

This goes beyond just the Eric Adams case, too. I think what this all is showing is he doesn't want to limit his influence and power just to the executive branch, just to Washington. It is extraordinary to see a president say, My power will not be limited by the checks and balance of the federal government. I will involve myself in cities, in the private sector, in the global stage. I will put that Trump stamp on really all matters of society in the country right now.

Not only will I do that, but I am going to do it all out in the open. These are not backroom conversations. This is, we are doing this, and this is how I'm going to go about it. It doesn't really bother me if it bothers you, because unless you can stop me, I'm going to do it.

Well, we're going to take a break, and Zolen, when we come back, we're going to return to the phrase you just used, overseas, and talk about projections of power in international affairs. We'll be right back. Welcome back to David Zolen Maggie. I want to turn to the President's actions this week overseas, because after focusing so heavily on his battle against the federal bureaucracy, he's now inserted himself quite forcefully into two of the world's biggest conflicts, the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas. Let's start with Ukraine. David, in just about the past 48 hours, it feels like Trump tossed out most of, if not all of America's existing approach to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which was to isolate Russia and to support Ukraine. Can you briefly tick through what the administration did and where it leaves the conflict?

Well, let's start with what the old policy was. The old policy was the United States will do everything it can, short of sending troops, to help support the Ukrainians against an invasion that they neither prompted nor saw. That was the Biden position. The second argument- We should explain that when you're in Europe, that's what the sirens sound like behind you. I was going to ask you if you really wanted to hear these, but now How you know I'm really immune.

No, you're not faking it.

It's like a Mission Impossible movie.

It's such a better siren song than what we have here.

You were saying.

The old strategy also was whenever we are ready to go into a negotiation to end the war, it will be nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. That means that the Ukrainians will be at the center of the negotiation, and no one's going to give away their country the way one did in colonial times. This is going to be the Ukrainians working it out with the Russians.

Imperialism will not be rewarded.

That's right. And imperialism will not be rewarded meant that Vladimir Putin couldn't come away from this with more land or a better situation than he had before. Vladimir Putin couldn't come away from this in a situation where he would be ready a few years from now to finish the job and take the rest of Ukraine. So fast forward to what happened. After dancing around each other for weeks, Putin and President Trump finally get on the phone for 90 minutes. When it's all done, Trump comes out and says, We're on the way to a peace deal. There's going to be a negotiation missing from all of this, the Europeans and the Ukrainians. We're talking to you on Thursday midday, but earlier in the day here in Europe, Zelensky came out and said, I'm not going along with any agreement about my country that I'm not involved in negotiating.

Maggie Insolent, I want to understand why a president who wrote a book called The Art of the Deal, who sees himself as a master negotiator, would start a peace process that many people believe should start now between Russia and Ukraine by giving away so much leverage to Russia. On top of what David described, the Trump administration in the past couple of days has said that Ukraine should not enter NATO, the alliance that would protect it from future Russian invasion. It has said that Ukraine is never going to return to its pre-invasion borders. Between those two proclamations and Trump's call with Putin, it really does feel like he's starting a peace process almost entirely on Russia's terms. Why would he give away that much leverage to Russia?

You answered your question because his interest is not in preserving what Ukraine wants. He is much more interested in forging a durable relationship between the US and Russia. He is very interested in his personal relationship with Putin. To be clear about this, he is very obsessed with nuclear war and nuclear capabilities, and this has been one of his obsessions about Russia for years. There was one piece of leverage he did not give away, and he was open about it, which that he's going to continue providing aid to Ukraine because he does recognize that there is leverage there. Interesting. But he also put some conditions on it. It's not a total giveaway of all the chits, but he is making clear that he believes that this will arrive at a faster place and a place that he can live with. He is a skeptic of Zelenskyy, and he is a skeptic of Ukraine, and he has been very clear about that for a long time.

I'm coming to learn, too, that it's very difficult to put into one of the traditional labels that we use. For foreign policy. For foreign policy. For any policy. Isolationist, imperialist. Covering this more and more, the word I just keep coming back to is transactional. He has this view where each nation, allies, are just taking advantage of the United States, and what are we getting in return? Even in the case of Ukraine, we've been hearing more and more about, yes, he did say he would commit to aid, but also he wants critical earth minerals as well now. What can the US gain from this? When you have somebody where that's the through line, just a transactional approach, with that comes unpredictable as well. You're no longer governed by a set of rules of acting a certain way with allies in another way with adversaries. It seems like it just has resulted in global leaders across the world, from Europe to the Middle East now, walking on eggshells.

What else it does is it takes you back to what Donald Trump has been saying was his favorite era, the McKinley era, the 1890s, where we're taking lands, in that case, the Philippines, Guam, and so forth. Now, what he wants is Greenland, the Panama Canal, and to own Gaza. But what that really tells you is that everything that we have done since World War II to build up alliances and basically establish that people should align with the United States on a basis of principle, not on basis of American power is out the window.

Maggie, that's one of my questions is, I know we're struggling to pin down a Trump ideology when it comes to foreign affairs. Zolan, you're describing it as transactional, but I wonder if we're under estimating the element of imperialism that David just hinted at, and if what's partly going on here is that Trump is giving Russia the deference that he wants the world to give him if he tries to, say, take Greenland or the Panama Canal or Gaza.

That's part of it, but he's doing that because he likes the way Vladimir Putin rules, which is, as he would say, about a range of people with an iron fist. That is what he likes. That is what It feels to him. That is why he is giving that deference. I think Zolan is exactly right. I would just add that this is where the leverage over whomever comes into play, and this is how our Eric Adams conversation relates to this. Trump is showing all of these foreign leaders that he will do these kinds of things at home, too. He will do these kinds of things within the US. He will try to make his strength known locally, even though there is supposed to be some level of autonomy within states. But Yes, I do think that there is a growingly visible imperialism. I personally don't think Donald Trump is any different than he was in his first term. He just happens to actually understand more about where lovers are. But this was hidden from view this side of him, and his impulses were curved by a number of advisors. It goes back to now it is just all hanging out there because he can.

Maggie, I want to pick up on something you're saying about how this all relates to the way his administration is treating something as local as the Adams case and how that has global implications. I want to apply that to Gaza. The President has articulated this plan, which some don't see as literal, some do, to permanently remove all 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, move them to neighboring Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, and then have the US take over Gaza and lead its redevelopment into what Trump has called a city for the peoples of the world. Many people read that to mean mostly Israelis. What ends up happening in the past couple of days, and I know a few of you covered this, is that the leader of Jordan, King Abdullah, one of the countries that would have to accept Palestinians, comes to the White House, and Trump is trying to sell him on this plan. It's very clear how uncomfortable the the leader of Jordan is. I want you to apply that prism, Maggie Zolen-David, that you just did of the way Trump uses power locally, how it applies to an international situation like this.

Well, it was more than just selling him, and this, I think we'll get to your question. It was more than just selling him. He put the pressure on him when he was in the White House. With the cameras rolling. With the cameras rolling.

We've had some quick discussions just now, and we're going to have some longer discussions after this.

King Abdullah sitting next to President Trump. President Trump is asked, You have this plan to forcibly remove Palestinians to these neighboring countries. The king of one of those nations- It's right here. Does not want to do that.

Mr. President, why should the king take in the Palestinian people. He's made clear he doesn't want to.

Well, I don't know, but he may have just something to say because we discussed just briefly. I think maybe you want to say it now? Well, Mr..

President- Then Trump started to answer by saying, Well, we just had a nice conversation, and then immediately turns and puts the King of Jordan on the spot.

What did the King say back?

Well, in that moment, he used what a lot of other leaders have used thus far with Trump, flattery, placating. One of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children that are either cancer children or in a very ill state to Jordan as quickly as possible. He basically was saying to the President, trying to make the case that they are helping Palestinians in Gaza.

I didn't know that what you just said, 2,000 children with cancer or other problems. That's really a beautiful gesture. That's really good, and we appreciate it.

But he didn't forcibly He pushed back at that point when he was in front of President Trump. It was only till hours later that the King of Jordan posted on social media, basically saying, Our stance remains the same. We do not want Palestine Palestinians forcibly displaced. But that was when he was outside the White House, away from the cameras, now away from Trump at that point. Yes, that message from the King of Jordan may go to his domestic audience. But I think President Trump also got the scene he wanted for his audience as well. 100%.

The dynamics might be a little bit different, but the basic through line is the same with both the Eric Adams case and that meeting with King Abdul and what Trump is trying to extract from him, which is I want something, and you are reliant on me. In Abdul's case, it is aid.

Right. Billions of dollars a year that the US gives to Jordan. Correct.

In Eric Adams case, it is his freedom. He is going to apply pressure, and he's going to do it pretty plainly.

Michael, this is another through line. Think of the Ukrainians and think of the Palestinians. In both cases, they're in Trump's mind, not major players here. They are ponds to be moved around. Trump has never once, since he's raised this idea, gone and tackled the question that the Geneva Convention actually forbids the mass movement of ethnic groups. So He views international treaties, international law as obstacles to his plan, and the way he's going to get past it, he believes, is by pressuring allies over whom he's got some leverage, and that would be, in this case, Jordan and It's a partnership. Right.

What you're really getting at here is that when it comes to the domestic and the international front, this version of the Trump presidency, this undiluted, unrestrained, Maggie, to use your words, version of it, is one where the victors win totally. In the case of Russia-Ukraine, Russia will win almost totally. In the case of Israel versus Hamas when it comes to Gaza, Israel will pretty much win totally. In his interactions with the bureaucracy or Eric Adams, it will be Trump who will win totally.

You are hitting on a very important dynamic with Trump, and this one has been consistent for a very long time, if not forever. Everything is zero sum. Everything is zero sum. There are clear winners, there are clear losers. Everything with Trump is a maximalist position, and then he sees if he has to even walk things back in a different direction.

As I was getting off a plane here from Munich, I ran into a European diplomat I've known for a long time, and we were discussing this dynamic, what we've seen in Ukraine, what we've seen in Gaza. He said, it goes back to Thucydides, who wrote that history of the Pelipanitian War. That famous quote we all had to learn in 11th grade, which is the powerful do whatever they can and the weak do whatever they must. I'm sure I've got the phrasing slightly wrong there. But that's the world that Donald Trump thought it sees at home and abroad.

Well, on that unexpected, incredibly erudite literary note. David, thank you. Zolan, thank you. Maggie, thank you. And again, Happy Valentine's Day.

Thank you, Michael, and honored to be here with you for it.

Happy Valentine's Day, Michael.

Great to be with you. All three.

On Thursday afternoon, the US attorney for Manhattan resigned rather than obey the order from Trump's Justice Department to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. In In the letter, the US attorney said she could no longer remain in the job because, The law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged. Rearched. Soon after, the Justice Department sought to reassign the case to a different team of lawyers in Washington. But the two attorneys who run that team, as well as three of their colleagues, also resigned rather than follow the order. The six resignations were a remarkable rebuke of the administration's decision to end the case against Mayor Adams.

We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. In the latest legal setback to President Trump's executive orders, a federal judge ordered the White House to keep funding funding hospitals that offer gender transition treatments to people under the age of 19. Trump had sought to block that funding, which was already approved by Congress on ideological grounds. But in the ruling, the judge said that Trump's order encroached on Congress's power and put trans youth at, quote, extreme risk. And on Thursday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Was confirmed as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services and sworn in during a ceremony in the oval office. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who failed to win a single Democratic vote in the Senate, had explicitly sought the role of Health Secretary in return for his endorsement of Trump during the campaign. Today's episode was produced and edited by Rachel Quester, Sophie Erichson, Brook Minters, Roman Sefuelen, Eddie Costas, and Nkhtta Mahmoudi, with help from Shannon Lynn. It contains original music by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansvog of Winderly. Remember, you can catch a new episode of the interview right here tomorrow.

Lulu García-Novaro talks with Senator Ruben Diego of Arizona about where he thinks his party has gone wrong.

Do you think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters?

I think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters. I think Democrats are afraid to talk to people that are going to criticize them. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Ambaro. See you on Monday.