Donald Trump aims to shatter political norms

In an interview with The Atlantic, Donald Trump says his second term will allow him a chance to shatter democratic norms and pursue his tariff agenda, but isn’t considering a third term.

Donald Trump speaks to journalists in the Oval Office. Picture; AFP.

Donald Trump says his second term is an opportunity to run America “and the world,” revealed he is trying to “shatter” democratic norms and warns there is no “certain” point at which he would change course on his aggressive tariffs which have up-ended global trade.

In an interview with The Atlantic on April 24 conducted in the White House Oval Office, Mr Trump said his second term was a “much more powerful presidency than I had the first time.” He was no longer “fighting for survival” or only to run the country as he had tried to do in his first term.

Instead, he was now “fighting to help the world and to help the country. You know, it’s a much different presidency.”

Mr Trump said his international diplomacy in Eastern Europe and engagement with Russia’s Vladimir Putin had been about trying to save Ukraine and preserve human life, arguing that “what I’m doing is good for the country, good for people, good for humanity.”

“I think I’m saving that nation (Ukraine). I think that nation will be crushed very shortly. It’s a big war machine. Let’s face it,” he said. “I think I’m doing a great service to Ukraine. I believe that.”

If Putin sought to continue the conflict, Mr Trump said there were “many forms of weapons. Doesn’t have to be weapons with bullets. It can be weapons with sanctions. It can be weapons with banking. It can be many other weapons.”

Reflecting on his public row with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, Mr Trump said all the war time leader needed to do was just “be quiet.” Mr Trump revealed he was frustrated by Mr Zelensky’s insistence on security guarantees, declaring that it was important to “get the war solved first.”

“I don’t wanna be saddled with it. It’s a terrible war. Should have never happened,” he said.

Mr Trump rejected the notion that his treatment of Ukraine had unnerved South Korea, Japan and Taiwan which are facing the threat of an expansionist and more aggressive Beijing under Xi Jinping’s leadership.

“These other countries have done very well at our expense, very well,” he said. “And I want to protect this country. I want to make sure that you have a great country in another hundred years.”

The President told The Atlantic earlier in March that his second term was different because “the first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Mr Trump said that former rivals, including the leaders of the major tech companies like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, had now shown him a “higher level of respect.”

“Maybe they didn’t know me at the beginning, and they know me now,’’ he said.

In the April interview in the redecorated Oval Office with The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg as well as Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, Mr Trump said he had sought no legal opinion about a third term.

But he framed himself as a man dedicated to shaking up conventions and taking a hammer to established political norms, declaring that “maybe I’m just trying to shatter.”

“It’s not something that I’m looking to do (run for a third term). And I think it would be a very hard thing to do. But I do have it shouted at me: ‘No, no, you’ve gotta run.’”

In the interview – used to chart the story of Mr Trump’s stunning political comeback after his election defeat in 2020 and the ignominy of the January 6 march on the Capitol Building in early 2021 – the US President said there were two groups of people: those encouraging him to do the best possible job as president and those urging him to extract political retribution on his rivals.

“I am in the first group, believe it or not,” he said.

Yet he firmly stood by his claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. “I believe—I don’t believe; I know the election was rigged,” he said. “I believe it with all my heart, and I believe it with fact—you know, more important than heart. I believe it with fact.”

Mr Trump used the interview to double down on his use of tariffs and his attack on Canadian sovereignty, arguing it would “make a great 51st state.”

“I’ve been saying this for 35, 40 years: I’ve watched this country get ripped off by other nations, and I say ‘friend and foe.’ And believe me, the friends are in many cases worse than the foe,” Mr Trump said. “Look, we lost trillions of dollars last year on trade with this guy [Biden], trillions of dollars. And every year, we lose trillions.”

Mr Trump said the tariffs enabled him to enter into negotiations. “I’m like somebody that has a very valuable store and everybody wants to shop in that store. And I have to protect that store. And I set the prices.”

Asked whether his trade policies would be affected by falling markets, Mr Trump responded: “We’re gonna be very rich. We’re gonna make a lot of money. So I don’t think the answer is that it will affect me.”

He said there was no “certain number” that markets would need to fall to before he changed course on his tariff agenda. “This is a transition period. It’s a big transition. I’m resetting the table. I’m resetting a lot of years.”

He also stood by his cabinet appointments including both Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz who have been under pressure in the early stages of the administration. Mr Trump described Hegseth’s position as “safe” and declared that “Waltz is fine.”

Both men faced questions over their future after The Atlantic broke the story about how Mr Waltz had created a discussion on the Signal app, with Mr Hegseth going on to share sensitive details about a military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen on the unclassified group chat.

Mr Trump also took aim at Democratic leadership, warning the party had “lost their confidence in the truest sense. I don’t think they know what they’re doing. I think they have no leader.”

“I don’t see anybody on the horizon,” he said.