Observations from the first days of Trump 2.0: Accessible, a slippery relationship with the truth, and shades of a president

It’s Donald Trump’s second full day as president.

It feels like rather longer. Plenty has happened. This is the future.

He promised he would get down to business and so he did. It’s been hard to know which way to look; what to focus on.

Latest on Trump’s new presidency

President Biden preferred short days. President Trump chooses unpredictable days. He thrives on them; he thrives on surprise.

So here are a few observations from this whirlwind week, three days in.

Accessible

First, accessibility.

For all his seeming hatred and vilification of the media, President Trump has given the press far more access and opportunities to question him than his predecessor ever did.

That doesn’t mean the answers he gives to the many questions thrown at him are always particularly meaningful, satisfactory or honest but we’ve already had two free-flowing news conferences.

There’s been no aide selecting reporters to ask their questions.

It’s just been Trump fielding the rowdy reporters’ quickfire queries.

Last night, inside the White House, he responded to plenty of issues.

On the Ukraine question – he’s talking to Zelenskyy he said and will meet with Putin “anytime he wants”. Still, he offered no further detail on how he’d end the war.

On tariffs – he hinted how China and Mexico could avoid 25% levies on their goods.

He said the tariffs are “because they are allowing fentanyl into our country”.

Stop the fentanyl and the tariffs go?

On the release of the January 6 convicts including the leader of the far-right Proud Boys – he suggested they could have a place in the political conversation.

On Elon Musk buying TikTok – “If he wanted to buy it, yeah.”

He looked like he was enjoying the back and forth. He was providing an open forum to probe him and, maybe, expose him.

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Fact-checking

Second observation – fact-checking is still very much required for Trump.

On Monday he claimed that American warships must pay double tariffs to travel through the Panama Canal – not true, and that Chinese soldiers are ‘operating’ the canal – also not true.

In defending his decision to pardon the January 6 protesters, he claimed that murderers in America don’t go to jail.

“They should not have served, and they’ve served years in jail. And murderers don’t even go to jail in this country,” he said.

This is a wildly misleading sidestep designed to distract from his decision to pardon 1,500 people.

Different shades

Third observation – we are already seeing the different shades of Trump.

Deeply controversial announcements have come, with dizzying speed, but mixed with policy decisions many will see as pragmatic and sensible.

The investment in AI, combined no doubt with minimal regulation, could help scientists in healthcare research make America much more competitive and boost the American energy sector.

Positives and negatives there.

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His intentionally unpredictable foreign policy is already yielding results, like the Gaza ceasefire, but his red lines are obscure to adversaries making miscalculations a risk.

And his domestic agenda is proving already to be deeply controversial and perhaps even constitution-defying, setting a dangerous precedent.

American dominance

Final observation. Trump’s unpredictability, volatility and transactional instincts are having immediate profound consequences.

Far from being an increasingly irrelevant, declining nation, America feels – in just a few (long) days – to have become more powerful and more dominant than it has been for a very long time.

The necessity to dance to America’s tune has never been greater.

Donald Trump would have it no other way.

We must watch now for when someone chooses to test him.