On the latest episode of FP Live, I looked back at the year that was with Peter Baker, the New York Times’s chief White House correspondent. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or download the FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.
2025 was a year of geopolitical tumult, and one person seemed at the center of it all: U.S. President Donald Trump. From tariffs and the trade war to attempting to play peacemaker in several global conflicts, Trump was ubiquitous in the headlines and in the minds of foreign leaders trying to figure out how to navigate a very different White House.
2025 was a year of geopolitical tumult, and one person seemed at the center of it all: U.S. President Donald Trump. From tariffs and the trade war to attempting to play peacemaker in several global conflicts, Trump was ubiquitous in the headlines and in the minds of foreign leaders trying to figure out how to navigate a very different White House.
On the latest episode of FP Live, I looked back at the year that was with Peter Baker, the New York Times’s chief White House correspondent. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or download the FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: You’ve covered six U.S. presidents, including Trump in his first term. But almost one year in, this second term really feels different. As someone who covers the White House every day, how much of an outlier has 2025 been?
Peter Baker: Trump 2.0 is Trump 1.0 in some ways but on steroids. A lot of the things that he talked about doing or exploring in the first term—or tried but failed to do or was dissuaded from doing—he’s now doing and in spades. One of the things he learned was that it matters who is around you. Many of the people he surrounded himself with in his first term viewed their jobs as keeping him from going off the rails, from doing things they thought were reckless—or illegal even. This term, he’s surrounded by people who not only agree with him but are egging him on, enabling him, and empowering him and want to serve his desires. So all the things that they toy with, he’s now pushing forward—and with great intensity.
RA: In policy terms, which three or four issue areas have emerged as the key differentiators between Trump 1.0 and 2.0?
PB: The National Security Strategy drafted by former U.S. National Security Advisor H.R.
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