Just over a month before the midterm elections, President Donald Trump addressed the top issues confronting his administration in a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, from his efforts to remake Washington to growing fears about artificial intelligence.
Here are the top takeaways, based on the transcript that Time published on Wednesday:
1. Trump refused to promise he would not demolish the Kennedy Center
When asked whether he would pledge not to demolish the Kennedy Center without the consent of Congress, Trump said he is “not committing to anything.”
“We’re going to see how it plays out in court,” Trump said. A federal judge in September said that Trump’s board could not demolish the Kennedy Center without warning.
Last month, Trump was photographed aboard Air Force One examining a large printout about the Kennedy Center whose partially visible title appeared to say “Kennedy Center DEMOLIS[HED],” hours after he warned that the performing arts venue could eventually be “ripped down” without his intervention.
“It’s in terrible shape. I’d be willing to save it, but it’s in terrible, terrible shape,” Trump told Time. “Only I can save it, and I’ll tell you the biggest problem with the Kennedy Center. I can build it, but it will lose like many of those places.”
Just months earlier, Trump was praising the center.
2. Trump says he would pardon staff to insulate them from Democrat-led investigations
Trump told Time magazine reporters that he would offer his staff these protections because former president Joe Biden took similar steps. At the end of his term, Biden proactively pardoned people he worried the incoming Trump administration could target, including his son Hunter Biden, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley and Anthony S. Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
He then lashed out at the reporters for asking negative questions, including about his Washington building projects.
“I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them?” he said. “This ain’t gonna be much of a story. Here we are doing this. You haven’t asked me one fucking positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative.”
3. Trump declined to endorse Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections
Trump three times sidestepped questions about whether the Israeli people should reelect Netanyahu later this month, as the Israeli prime minister seeks a seventh term.
First, Trump claimed he was “not involved in politics anymore,” despite his own popularity in the country.
“No, my primary thing — I do want to help them defend Israel,” Trump said. “My thing that I mention all the time is Iran cannot have a nuclear power because they are crazy and you can’t let crazy people have nuclear weapons.”
Trump said he did not know if he could work better with Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s top opponent in the elections.
“I don’t hear bad things about him,” Trump said.
But he said he wouldn’t underestimate Netanyahu, using the Israeli prime minister’s nickname.
“Well, people have written off Bibi many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times,” Trump said.
4. Trump says his ‘Super Intelligence Force’ will be a group of advisers
As AI leaders warned that companies should pace the development of AI models, Trump announced last month on Truth Social that he would form an “AI Force.”
The announcement appeared to catch even some White House staff off guard, according to multiple people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Trump compared the initiative to the Space Force created in his first term, sparking general confusion over whether the president was considering establishing another new branch of the military.
In the Time magazine interview, Trump said the initiative will now be called “Super Intelligence Force,” in line with his efforts to rebrand AI.
“It’s going to be a group of very smart people that understand it, who will be advising me,” Trump said.
Earlier this week, Trump suggested that he may create a committee of advisers that would include some of the executives who attended a lunch focused on AI safety at the White House on Tuesday. Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was among the attendees.
Trump also said that OpenAI could face penalties after its agents probed government websites without the company’s knowledge. (The Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)
“They’re not allowed to do that, and if they do that, they, you know, could have penalties that are not going to be acceptable to them,” Trump said.
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