The Daily - Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

This week, President-elect Donald J. Trump asked the Supreme Court to prevent him from being sentenced in a New York criminal case and implied that he could use military force to seize control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, while President Biden did his best to try to Trump-proof his legacy.The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Maggie Haberman, David E. Sanger and Zolan Kanno-Youngs discuss the latest in the presidential transition.Guests: Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times.David E. Sanger, the White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times.Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: The Supreme Court denied Trump’s last-ditch effort to avoid sentencing.Trump floated using force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal.News analysis: Trump is back and chaos ensues.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro. This is The Daily. Today Donald Trump's sentencing in the New York hush money case is just two days away and he is throwing a Hail Mary in the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court. During a busy week, President-elect Trump asked the Supreme Court to prevent him from being sentenced in a New York criminal case. There has been international pushback over Trump's recent comments about taking control of Greenland.

He implied that as president, he could use military force to seize control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. Less than two weeks before his inauguration, the president-elect is mapping out headline-making plans for his administration. And he overshadowed a sitting president, who is using his final days in office to try to Trump-proof his legacy. To make sense of all of this, I gathered three of my colleagues, senior political reporter Maggie Haberman, and White House reporters

David Sanger and Zolan Kano-Youngs. It's Friday, January 10th. Friends, welcome to the first Daily Roundtable of 2025. And thank you for being here. Maggie, you are joining us from Washington. Welcome. Thank you. David, you are coming to us from Mar-a-Lago. Nice to have you.

Well, I'm down the street in Palm Beach, but yes, we've been in and out of Mar-a-Lago a few times. Good. And Zolan, we are talking to you from Italy, where President Biden was supposed to be but had to cancel because of the Los Angeles wildfires. Thank you for being on. Ciao, ciao, colleagues. So we have all the geography covered here.

And as always, we begin with the caveat that we are recording this at a very specific time, around 1.15 on Thursday, because the news could change before we run this. And in fact, we know it will change because the Supreme Court is about to make a major ruling at the request of President-elect Trump. Maggie, can you walk us through that request from President-elect Trump? Sure. So, President-elect Trump's lawyers filed a request for the Supreme Court to stop Trump's scheduled sentencing on felony falsifying business records that related to a payment

to a porn star who said she'd had an affair with Trump. Right. We think of this as the hush money case. The hush money case. And the sentencing was scheduled by New York justice Juan Murchon for January 10th. When this runs, Friday morning. Right.

Now, it's worth bearing in mind, Michael, that part of why this sentencing has not happened yet is because Trump's legal team has repeatedly requested delays over and over and over again. And Murchon's feeling is it needs to happen at a certain point for closure and respect for the jury verdict and so forth and over again. And Mershon's feeling is it needs to happen at a certain point for closure and respect for the jury verdict and so forth and so on. He has refused their request to dismiss the case outright.

The Trump team is not surprisingly using every avenue they can to try to delay it. And what's their strongest argument, Maggie, legally for why the Supreme Court should weigh in and stop this local court case from running its course? Maggi Pauly Legally, it's the presidential immunity argument, and it's going to be up to the justices to decide whether in their previous ruling about how presidents have pretty broad immunity for acts committed while in office, whether this would technically apply.

There is the question, and I do think that some of the justices may feel this poll, of whether an incoming president should be facing a hearing where even though the judge in the case has signaled that he's going to give Trump an unconditional discharge, meaning no penalties, no jail time, no anything, no home confinement, it is onerous to go into office that way. And that's not really a legal argument. it's more a respect for the presidency argument. Fascinating. And David, what would it mean for the ruling to go either way, not just for Trump necessarily,

but for the idea of the rule of law? Well, for Trump to begin with, just the concept, as Maggie said, of being inaugurated in roughly 10 days as a felon is something that I think he would probably not want to see on his Wikipedia page, right? And it will fit into the entire grievance argument that President-elect Trump has made that these prosecutions have been entirely political. And you've heard him make those arguments

as recently as earlier this week at his press conference. But more importantly, for the institution, it then would raise the fundamental question of how somebody could be convicted as they fell in and then quite constitutionally, quite legally elected as president. David, you mentioned there was a press conference from president elect Trump earlier this week made a lot of news and Zolan, you were covering that news conference. It was at Mar-a-Lago. Zolan, just to begin with, what was this news

conference supposed to be about? You know, on paper it was almost advertised as something that I think many would characterize as somewhat presidential about economic investment. The president-elect came out with a business leader from the UAE that actually has close ties to the Trump family and started out by talking about a $20 billion investment to data centers, a sort of normal press conference as one goes into office. But it really only took minutes for this thing to move off topic and to devolve into something that was a news conference that I think we all saw when Trump was first in office.

Well, inevitably, it turned to Greenland. And David, you were there, and you ended up asking him a question about his now repeated interest in the idea of the United States basically subsuming Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. And I want to play, David, for our listeners the question that you asked the president-elect that basically became the exchange heard around the world. Here is what it sounded like. The war on fire that you mentioned, but let's start, if we could, with your references to Greenland and the Panama Canal, so forth. Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?

No. And can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold the vote? What is the strategy? Yeah, I can assure you, you're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two, but I can say this. We need them for economic security.

The Panama Canal was built... David, just explain what it is Trump is saying. He's not saying all that much, but it ends up making a ton of news. So when this all began in the first term, Michael, you may recall that one of his close friends had suggested to him that the United States should buy Greenland. An idea that actually Harry Truman had had in the 1940s at the opening of the Cold War. And in the first term, it was pretty much described as a real estate offer, right?

He was making an offer. The sellers said they weren't interested in selling and we kind of moved on. Okay, right. Denmark has got the foreign and defense responsibilities for Greenland. As the president-elect has come back at this in December in a series of tweets and increasingly martial sounding statements, he has made it sound less like a deal and more like you have to go do this. And I had been told by people who had had conversations with him or with his advisors that he was increasingly discussing using the other powers of the United States to force

Denmark and now Panama to basically make this deal happen. In other words, that he would come to it not just as a real estate developer, but a real estate developer who's commander in chief. With the world's most powerful, yes, military behind him. And so that's why I phrased the question as I did, which was to ask him, are you planning to use military or economic coercion? And as you might expect with Donald Trump, who frequently tells you, as Maggie knows better than I do, sort of what's right on his mind, he immediately said, I'm not going to rule out using any of those tools.

And that's what made such news. Maggie and Zolan, let's take the president-elect at his word here. What might it look like to use, let's just use the example of military power, perhaps not to invade, but to begin a campaign of intimidation to try to convince Denmark this is inevitable? I can't speak to what a military effort would look like that isn't an invasion. In terms of economic pressure, tariffs are Trump's tool of choice and have been over and over again. And I was talking to a former Biden administration official about this today who was saying that folks in Greenland are alarmed about the tariff threats.

And there's a sense in Greenland that, as David said, this is different than the discussion in 2019, which was this would be great for us strategically. That's a little different than I want this and I'm gonna take it. And I've been reminding some people in the last couple of days that Trump in the early 1980s, when he was making his name as a developer, did things like threaten to move homeless people into a building he had bought

to try to get certain tenants out. He did things like paint the homes of people who lived near one of his casinos in Atlantic City because he just didn't like the way they looked without asking their permission. Just went and painted their houses. And so like this is his mindset and everything is sort of flat and the same and he's treating it that way. Trump never rules anything out. It's straight out of his playbook. Economic. It's straight out of his playbook.

Economic coercion is straight out of his playbook. And it's not just Denmark and Panama, which he focused on in the press conference, leaders there that are rattled by this. He also talked about Canada and potentially using economic coercion there. Also the tricky thing with these press conferences is we focus on, one example, Trump said, I want to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, right? The focus is there. But also, he did have comments about Mexico and the Mexican government not doing enough to stop migrants to stop drug trafficking. We know that he has also threatened tariffs against Mexico before.

So while there might be sort of a flashy statement at the top of this, I do think there's a real through line behind it. And it does, you know, rattle leaders, including some of our biggest trade partners. I have a theory I wanted to run by all of you, or perhaps just one of you who's willing to take it on about how Trump talks about Greenland, Panama Canal, Canada, and what may simply underlie it. And let's just put aside the argument that there's a strategic economic reason for doing it.

Perhaps there very much is. I don't think it's controversial to say that at this moment, Americans' sense of themselves is that we're a little bit on our heels. We aren't the only superpower in the world anymore. David, you've written books about this. Many see us as a nation somewhat in decline from our heights of power. And in that context, my logic has been, the idea of expansion, even if it's just an idea, is enormously appealing in this moment.

It's like a return to manifest destiny, westward ho. We have bought states and land in the past. We bought Alaska from Russia. I looked it up right before this conversation started. And so should we just view it in that context? It's nationalism on steroids. Yes, America went through a phase where from the Louisiana Purchase to Alaska, which was dismissed as, you know, seward's folly at the time, right,

to the Spanish-American War from which we got Guam and Puerto Rico and had control of the Philippines for a long time. This was the way the US operated. In the post World War II era, we have talked instead about living in a rule of international law where power took a backseat to what our legal rights were. And our fundamental argument as a nation about why the United States is supporting Ukraine is that Vladimir Putin used the fact that he had a more powerful

army to go in on a national security argument, you could call it a pretense, to invade Ukraine. And that, you know, we have moved beyond that. that was the core of The Biden argument for why this was an illegal move So any suggestion that the United States was moving back to sort of the law of the jungle is what's got people? So I think disturbed at this moment I mean Maggie, let me give you the last word on this before we go to break Is this symbolic or based on your reporting, is this a serious, earnest undertaking that we should be watching with the carefulness that goes with the adage that when Trump says something, take it seriously?

I think in general, he's the incoming president. So I think that after everything we have seen over the last eight years, the whole literally seriously fight seems kind of beside the point to me. And settled. Yeah, and settled. And so he's saying it Yeah, I mean part of the problem too, Michael, is that Trump sort of everything is a troll until as Jonathan Swan says until it suddenly becomes serious We are gonna take a break and when we come back we're gonna talk about talk about what the president, the actual sitting president is up to right now. It's quite overshadowed by the president-elect and understand how Biden is thinking about his final days in office. We'll be right back.

Okay, Zolan, talk about what President Biden is doing in this final stretch of time he has in office. So I'll start with policy and sort of the actions that he's been taking. You know, he recently signed an executive order in the vein of environmental justice and climate. It would basically ban drilling in about 625 million acres of US coastal waters. Biden has also used his final days to issue clemency action as well for those on death row.

That being said, I do think that there's a focus right now on how the sitting president is sort of putting up hurdles in the way for the incoming administration. When I talk to administration officials privately, they're honest that they're limited in what they can do with the president elect coming in. You know, Trump has said that he's going to gut Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and his environmental investments. He has said he's going to peel back some of that money.

And there are laws in place that basically say that appropriated funds have to go out. But there's not much you can do for say, Biden's executive actions on immigration, Trump's going to be able to peel much of that back. So yes, Biden is taking action to try to protect some of these policies. But privately, administration officials are a little bit more candid about how little they can do here to protect this agenda, particularly that which wasn't signed into legislation. Right. What you're pointing to is that Biden might sign an executive order saying that the grounds

under the ocean can't be drilled. But the thing about an executive order is that it depends on who's the executive. Trump could come in and essentially roll that back, which is the case for pretty much all executive action. That's right. David, what stands out to you about these last, I guess, two weeks and days of Biden's presidency? Two things.

First, on the executive orders, we've still got a couple that are coming and some that will put, I think, President-elect Trump in something of an interesting bind, or at least some interesting choices. There is an order coming on artificial intelligence that would basically restrict to manufacturing in the United States and keeping in the United States the data centers, many of the chips, that are used for AI purposes so that China can't use them

for military purposes. It's a very nationalistic kind of order. It follows what Biden has been doing with the semiconductor industry since the start. And it would make president Trump, once he's in office, have to choose between his tech supporters, including the Elon Musk crowd who want the greatest ability to conduct AI work all around the world. Fascinating.

And the MAGA group that would say, let's do this here in the United States. I think he might stick with that one. So you're saying if Biden can't protect everything he's done, what he can do is drive a wedge between Trump and his supporters. That's right. And leave him in a pretty tough spot. That's right. And between these emerging groups, the tech supporters versus the older line

sort of nationalistic MAGA supporters. Your broader question, you know, what's been remarkable, I think to all of us has been the degree to which President Biden has seeded the spotlight. We've now seen Trump do two major press conferences. I don't believe there's been a full press conference with President Biden since the NATO summit last summer,

just before he dropped out of the race. David, I traveled with him to Latin America and Angola, and he answered two shouted questions during both of those trips. Answered two shouted questions, you know. And this is the old trope. Journalists really like it when their presidents hold news conferences, but I'm hearing you all say this is not just journalistic belly-aching about access to the president. This is about what seems like either a conscious or unconscious decision by the president to not hold the office in the fullest

way possible publicly as he could at the end of his presidency. That's right. And he did one interview with USA Today. You know where I'm going, David. In that, I'll be interested to see what Zola and Maggie thought. I didn't think that he used the moment to sort of put his presidency in the scale of history. Well, let's talk about what he did do in that interview.

I mean, the elements of the interview with USA Today that ultimately seemed to break through were the fact that Biden, among other things, is considering issuing preemptive pardons that would protect potential targets of a criminal investigation by the incoming Trump administration. We've talked so much on the show about a Trump DOJ's pretty much open commitment to going

after certain of his rivals and enemies. It was interesting that Biden came out and said, I am thinking about doing this. Do we know who might be at the top of that list for preemptive pardons? And do they want them? Because getting a preemptive pardon from the president suggests that you might have done something wrong. Yeah. This has been a huge subject within the White House and on Capitol Hill.

And it really did, as I understand it, originate from Capitol Hill. There are a lot of members of Congress who are concerned that the way he often frames it is this person should be investigated. Now I just want to point out, because Trump's people often do, he told me at the press, you know, that he wasn't going to direct the DOJ on what to do. And maybe that will be true, and maybe it won't be true, but it almost doesn't need to be true because they know what he wants. Right.

And they know what he'd like to see done. So these folks are worried about being targeted for trying to hold Trump accountable for things like trying to stay in office after losing an election or- You're talking about Liz Cheney. Liz Cheney, for instance, or Benny Thompson, who co-chaired the J-6 committee with her, or Anthony Fauci, who is a top infectious diseases official in government for decades who.

Including during the Trump administration. And incurred a lot of anger for his coronavirus era recommendations. People can take issue with some of the recommendations without suggesting he somehow committed a crime, And that's where that leap goes. But if you accept a pardon, you are acknowledging some level of wrongdoing. And these folks generally don't believe they did anything wrong. Number one. Number two, the challenge for the Biden White House is where is the line? Where do you stop?

Biden also made a fascinating admission in this conversation with USA Today. And it was this. Although he believes he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race, which we'll never really know the answer to, he said he's unsure, he acknowledged an uncertainty that he would have made it through a second term. That's a big thing to acknowledge. I thought that was his most clear acknowledgement of what many Democrats had been fearing. You know, one thing I would often hear is, it's not necessarily that he's 82

years old. It's what happens when he's 86? What happens at the end of a second term? And does he have the ability to fully carry out that service? And here you saw him acknowledging that concern as well. I also think he was speaking to, we've been reporting a lot on just Biden's sort of mood and his mindset in these final months. And there's been frustration. He does believe that he had the ability to beat Trump

if he had stayed at the top of the ticket. He's also very reflective right now. And I think the USA Today interview showed that. He's in this period where he's reflecting on his long career, but also thinking about what could have been if he hadn't dropped out. But to be clear, I mean, most polling does throw doubt on the fact that he had the ability to beat Trump. Can I just make one point real quick, Michael, in terms of what Zolan is saying?

He is reflecting, but he's reflecting on what he believes he was denied. He's not reflecting on mistakes that he made or how the White House handled questions about his age or the fact that large numbers of reporters were attacked on social media and elsewhere for raising questions that were taking place in front of their eyes. And to deliver the statement of, yes, I could have won, but who knows if I can't say for sure if I could have served the whole four years, that's a pretty astonishing statement. David, is that an admission of irresponsibility on Biden's part? You've covered this presidency for its entirety. To suggest that you might not be able to fulfill the obligations of President of the United

States Commander-in-Ch Chief for a full term, but that you were determined to do it anyway. It borders on raising serious questions about judgment. It sure does, Michael, because it raises the question, when, Mr. President, did you come to that conclusion? Right. Because before or after you decided not to run. Right.

At that last press conference that I mentioned, the NATO press conference, I mentioned the NATO press conference I asked him whether or not he thought that he could take on a sit-down meeting with Putin or she In two or three years, and he basically said absolutely that was July right okay That he definitely could go do that and what are we hearing from him now? Well, no one can predict what I'm gonna be like when I'm approaching 86. Well, that's true of everybody, you know, in that age group, right? And I hope that all of us in this conversation get to the point

where we have to go make that decision ourselves. But I'd love to know when he came to this conclusion. David, this does remind me that you are basically the Forrest Gump of presidential news conferences. That's totally true. Which news conference did you not ask the question? That's totally true. I want to end, my friends, on a scene that has just played out. A somber one in Washington at the National Cathedral. Biden was there, so was Donald Trump.

And all of our living former presidents. one in Washington at the National Cathedral. Biden was there, so was Donald Trump. And all of our living former presidents, this was the funeral, of course, of former President Jimmy Carter. I'm curious what stood out to all of you about the ceremony. I know you're busy. You might not have been able to watch the funeral in its entirety, but there were several moments that I think a number of our colleagues are seizing on for their symbolism and their significance. I didn't get to hear most of the eulogies, Michael, but from what I saw visually, what was striking was Mike Pence sitting almost directly behind Donald Trump and they shook

hands at one point. I don't think they have seen each other in person since they left office. January 6th might have spelled Mike Pence's death at the hands of people rioting in the name of Donald Trump. He rose to shake Trump's hand. To shake Trump's hand. And Trump has since said, well, those people were angry. The mob at the Capitol of his supporters

in explaining, somewhat justifying, why they would be saying such things. The other thing that really struck me was just what looked like moments of levity, I don't know if it was pretend or not, between President Obama and President Trump, who were sitting next to each other. I noticed those as well.

These are two men who, the one who was about to be president for a second time, rose to prominence in the Republican Party by questioning the legitimacy of the former president. Was he American? Was he born in the United States? Was he, right, was he truly born in the US? It was really striking, especially because Obama

was quite pointed about Donald Trump during this last campaign in a way that he generally hadn't been. We're going to slide in and out of Washington routine and normalcy at certain points. And then there's going to be how Trump does things that is not how things have usually been done. And today was just a stark reminder of that. That was the most striking thing for me. Maggie is just seeing not just Obama, but also Biden

and really all of these leaders sitting together, you know, in a way you have a collision of institutionalists and traditionalists facing somebody that for years they have called a threat to democracy and who many of their also supporters believe is a threat to democracy. But now you're in this period where your commitment to the institution rises above it seems. Exactly. David, I want to end with a clip of President Biden's eulogy to Jimmy Carter. I think by the time we're done playing it, you'll understand why I chose it.

Let me just play it for you. You know, we have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor. And to stand up to what my dad just says is the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power. Was that what I think it was? Oh yeah, that was exactly what you thought it was. Just translate that. So the eulogy was about Jimmy Carter,

but it was about Jimmy Carter as the anti-Trump. And I think that is what Biden truly believes. And so you had this odd duality as I was watching it. And it struck me, Michael, not to follow your Forrest Gump comparisons for too long, because I'm not sure I really like that one very much. But these are the five presidents I've covered. And these were five remarkably different people, but four of them worked within the institutions, even though we had our doubts at various moments during the Iraq War about George W. Bush. And one of them has celebrated living outside the institution.

And one way you could look at the five people who were standing there was to say, this moment too shall pass. We've had good presidents, bad presidents, presidents who broke laws, presidents who didn't break laws. I'm sure a lot of people looked at this and looked at Bill Clinton and said, here is an impeached president standing here. And there was one at the other end of the bench as well. But the other way to go look at it is that that eulogy basically was a warning that while we have made it through each one of these five presidencies represented on those benches and Jimmy Carter's, that there remains a threat to the institution. And I think that's what Biden was saying without ever, of course, uttering Donald Trump's name. Well, Maggie and Zolan and David, thank you very much for your time.

I really appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. Thanks, Michael. On Thursday night, the Supreme Court denied Trump's request to stop his criminal sentencing in the New York City hush money case. The decision all but ensures that Trump's sentencing will proceed as planned later today. The justices noted that Trump faces no jail time and can still appeal his conviction through traditional legal means.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. It is safe to say that the Palisades Fire is one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles. On Thursday, officials in Los Angeles said that the largest of the city's five wildfires, the Palisades Fire, has now damaged or destroyed thousands of buildings and continues to burn out of control. In a worrying sign for firefighters, forecasters expected winds to pick up on Thursday night with wind speeds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts of up to 60 mph, and warned that heavy winds

could arrive again over the weekend. So far, the fires have killed at least five people, but that number is expected to rise. And during his state funeral on Thursday, former president Jimmy Carter was remembered as a humble peanut farmer who rose to the heights of power and used that power to seek out justice and peace. It was something of a miracle. And I don't mean this with any disrespect, but it's hard for me to understand how you could get to be president from Plains, Georgia. In eulogy after eulogy, friends, advisors,

and Carter's grandson, Jason Carter, recalled just how much the former president and his late wife Rosalynn had embraced a life of modesty. Yes, they spent four years in the governor's mansion and four years at the White House, but the other 92 years they spent at home in Plains, Georgia. And one of the best ways to demonstrate that they were regular folks is to take them by that home. First of all, it looks like they might have built it themselves. Second of all, my grandfather was likely to show up at the door in some 70s short shorts and Crocs.

After the funeral, Carter's body was flown by military jet to his hometown in Georgia for a private service at his local church and a burial at a family plot next to his home. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Michael Simon Johnson, and Will Reed. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Chris Haxel, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsferk of Wonderly. A reminder, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. David Marchese speaks with the actor and comedian Ben Stiller about what it was like growing up as the son of comedy legends.

It's a hard thing when you look up to a parent so much. I look at myself and go, am I that person? Am I as good as he was? Are you? I don't know. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Bobauro. See you on Monday.