Typhoon Trump sends message to the world with his non-stop, four-day trip of putdowns, rows and a tariff spat

Donald Trump’s first trip since retaking office was memorable not so much for his tours of hurricane-hit North Carolina or fire-ravaged California, but more for the message it sent to America and the world: I’m back and I’m for real.

He maintained a whistlestop pace of travel, meetings and social media posts, even finding time to pick a diplomatic fight with one of his best allies in South America.

This is the inside story of Trump’s four-day trip across America. The Daily Mail was with him every step of the way. 

Friday 9:24am – The big steps 

The traveling White House pool of reporters waits under the wing of Air Force One for Trump and the first lady to arrive on Marine One, the presidential helicopter.

One change is already apparent. Where Biden would use a smaller set of steps to enter the presidential jet through its belly (the better to reduce any risk of stumbles), the big stairs up to the passenger-level door are set up.

Marine One arrives and Trump raises a fist in salute to us.

Then we are on board the plane for the short hop down to Asheville, North Carolina. 

10:51am – North Carolina gaggle 

We land outside Asheville and take out places under the wing to watch Trump come down the steps and into his motorcade.

But he descends the steps and makes a beeline for our position. He wants to field a few questions in a ‘gaggle.’ 

He has something on his mind, overhauling or even abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency which he says has handled recent disasters badly.  

‘So, we’re going to be doing something on FEMA that I think most people agree,’ he says.

‘I’d like to see the states take care of disasters. Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.’

He takes questions on everything from the price of oil to deportation flights before heading for for the motorcade. 

He had already spoken to journalists on the South Lawn while Marine One idled nearby, reviving what was called ‘chopper talk’ during his first administration. It’ going to be a busy day. 

12:34pm – Hurricane tour

Trump revives one of his most powerful messages as he tours a street that saw some of the worst damage from Hurricane Helene last year: ‘You are not forgotten,’ he tells survivors.

For all his billionaire, private jet stylings, he won two elections by connecting with people across the nation who felt they were overlooked by the suits in Washington.

And as he listens to families describe their ordeal in Swannanoa, in front of a broken-down home with water tankers lined up down the street, he leans in close. He tilts his head to one side as if listening intently.

He promises to slash red tape to help reconstruction.

And then we are off again, motorcading back to the airport and Air Force One for the flight across the country to see wildfire damage in California. 

2:46pm PST – ‘Newscum’ on the Tarmac

Guess who is on hand to greet Trump when Air Force One lands at Los Angeles International Airport? Just the state’s governor, whom Trump has referred to repeatedly as ‘Gavin Newscum’ (a nickname repeated minutes earlier by his press secretary aboard the presidential jet).

The result is something of a standoff and an awkward show of warmth.

Trump keeps the governor waiting for at least 10 minutes before making his way down the steps.

They shake hands then the president moves into clap Newsom on the back. The result is that the show of bonhomie lasts ever so slightly too long to look natural of authentic.

‘We appreciate the governor coming out and meeting me very much, and we’ll be talking,’ Trump tells us under the wing, explaining how they both want the same thing.

‘We want to get it fixed. We want to get the problem fixed. And there’ll be some work, but it’s like you got hit by a bomb.’

4:43 – Clashes with Democrats

Newsom bids Trump farewell before the president and the first lady climb into Marine One for a tour of Pacific Palisades, one of the areas worst affected by the fires.

Fiske Street is almost entirely leveled. In places the only things left standing are chimney stacks, leaving the neighborhood looking like a medieval.

Then it is on to a firehouse where Trump is scheduled to hold a roundtable.

Another awkward encounter follows with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat whom Trump has regularly criticized.

Everything is civilized until the president tells her he has cut federal red tape to speed rebuilding and that she must do the same.

She starts to explain how she is reacting before Trump cuts her off.

‘We know the one thing is they are saying they will not be allowed to start for 18 months,’ he says.

She hits back: ‘That will not be the case,’ before explaining that some safeguards are needed to protect builders from hazardous materials loosed by the fires, for example.

It isn’t Trump’s most bad-tempered row. But it is clear he is a man in a hurry to get things done, and he has the room of mostly firefighters and law enforcement officers on his side. It is also clear that he is reveling in the job.

7:37pm – Home from home in Las Vegas

The travel schedule does not make a lot of sense. The planned speech in Las Vegas is not scheduled till lunch time on Saturday.

But even so we head to LAX again for the flight to Las Vegas (and Trump gaggles yet again on the Tarmac before we board.) 

It only makes sense when you remember that Trump is a 78-year-old man, making him a creature of habit. He doesn’t like to stay away from home. So we made the one-hour hop so he could stay at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas.

He left Melania in California. So he greets the governor and state party chair alone before climbing into the Beast.

Motorcading through the Las Vegas strip is a surreal experience. Hotels and casinos provide a moving backdrop of glittering lights and jewelled fountains as we speed through the empty streets.

The lobby of the hotel is packed with a mix of people-some glammed for the tables, others in jeans and baseball caps-trying to catch a glimpse of 

It has been an exhausting day for the press traveling with Trump. It was filled with events and he came to talk to us five times, answering questions about anything we wanted. 

This is a man who sees having a press pool, always on hand to pump his words out around the world, as one of the biggest perks of the job. He is having a ball.

Saturday 12:36pm Trump takes casino stage

One of the questions about this trip was what sort of Trump would we get? The presidential figure reading from his autocue in a monotone? Or the freewheeling barnstormer.

The answer becomes clear quickly after he begins his speech in front of several hundred fans at the Circa Casino: A bit of both.

He sets out some of his plans for bringing down the cost of living in prepared remarks, but can’t help bragging about his election win in Nevada and tweaking us in the press.

‘It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times,’ he says, joking that he might be heading for a Constitution busting attempt to cling to power. ‘Headlines, headlines from the fake news.

‘No it will be to serve twice.’

He speaks for about 40 minute, short by his campaign standard of 90 minutes. But then the familiar intro to ‘Y.M.C.A.’ blasts through the speakers and it’s a rally again. 

1:30pm Shooting craps: ‘Throw em’

After finishing his speech, Trump quickly descends two stories to the casino floor.

He is greeted with chants of ‘U.S.A., U.S.A.’ as he makes his way to a craps table where a game is already in progress.

I am no more than six feet away in a scrum of media. So I try to shout a question about why he fired more than a dozen government watchdogs on Friday night, but he responds with a hard stare as if to say this is not the time nor place for questions.

Beside him, Alex Winnik, has the dice in his hands and tells me: ‘I’m rolling here.’ 

Trump shouts ‘throw em,’ and then ‘not bad,’ and ‘good job’ as the game progresses. 

Then, he is on his way, thanking servers who are lined up with bottles of water and tip jars.

Winnik apologizes for being abrupt. He said he was wracked with nerves.

‘If I’d thrown a seven I would have lost it,’ he said, referring to one of the ways to win.

(The moment also brings a reminder of how the press pool has changed with Trump’s win, as news organization swap out staff and bring in new faces. Two of the female journalists to have recently joined the pool ask me for the name of the dice game we were watching.) 

Then it is back to the airport for our flight to Miami, and the next leg of the trip. 

6:00pm Trump gaggles on Air Force One

In all the time I traveled with President Biden, I was never lucky enough to be aboard Air Force One when he visited the press cabin.

But Trump is laying out his way of doing things, when he turns up to chat with us, on the record for 20 minutes.

‘You’re getting a little but more access to your president than you did the last one …’ he says as we crowd around him in the aisle. ‘By about 5000 percent.’

There is some awkward small talk before Trump asks: ‘Any questions?’

But the rest of the pool is not sure how to handle such a mercurial figure, and offers some softball stuff about the plane and whether he’ll be playing golf.

I take my chance and ask about the fired inspectors general, and we are off on tour of the president’s mind on everything from the sale of TikTok, plans for his first international trip, and Melania’s role during the next four years.

He makes major news too, telling me that earlier he asked King Abdullah II of Jordan to take in refugees from Gaza.

‘You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,’ he says.

And he takes a dig at the CNN reporter on the plane for asking ‘terrible’ questions.

8:49 pm POTUS arrives in Miami

Air Force One touches down in Miami.

We watch as Trump gets into his black SUV and then we motorcade to his Doral golf club, where he will spend the next two night and meet with his House Republicans on Monday evening.

The press pool is at a much less exclusive place down the road.

Sunday 1:28pm Diplomacy by social media

It is supposed to be a quiet day in Miami. But all hell breaks loose when the president of Colombia announces he is turning back two military flights from the U.S. packed with deportees.

Trump responds with a Truth Social post, throwing the kitchen sink at probably his closest ally in South America.

He promises 25 percent tariffs on goods coming from Colombia, which will rise to 50 percent within a week if President Gustavo Petro does not back down. On top of that are sanctions and travel bans on government officials.

In some ways it made no sense. The U.S. runs a trade surplus with Colombia and tariffs could backfire if Colombia hit back with its own.

The country has already accepted hundreds of repatriation flights. This time around it was objecting to the use of military rather than civilian planes. 

In other ways it made perfect sense. Trump wants mass deportations and his post sent a message not just to Colombia but to the world: Mess with me at your peril.

10:20 pm The White House declares victory 

It is all over almost as soon as it had begun. Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, posts a statement claiming that Petro had agreed to all of Trump’s terms.

Petro even reposts her X message.

Trump had tested his social media bullly pulpit and found it to be working loud and clear. He could claim victory without even firing a shot. He had won by saying he was posting that he was going to fire a shot.

And Trump still had time to fit in some calls to world leaders, including the King of Bahrain and the British prime minister. 

Monday 10:46am Golf

Trump told us Saturday that he wouldn’t be playing golf. 

But it is a beautiful day in Miami and he is staying at his own golf club, so it’s perhaps no surprise to see images emerge of him in his familiar white polo and red cap on the greens.

5:31pm The final event of the trip 

Trump takes the stage in the ballroom of his own Trump National Doral golf club for a speech to House Republicans.  

Among the audience are familiar faces from the first Trump administration, including pollster Kellyanne Conway. 

‘He’s unfettered,’ says Hogan Gidley, a survivor of the first White House.

‘In 2016 he was surrounded by people who told him why he couldn’t do things. This time he is surrounded by people telling why he can do things. 

‘That’s the difference.’ 

Speaking of fetters, Trump goes off on one during his speech about the row with Colombia, describing how its president objected to his citizens being shackled for flights home.

‘And you’re flying that plane, it’s not going to end well. You ever see the movie Con Air?’ he said to peals of laughter.

His audience are members of his own team, and he is going to have give them marching orders. But he offers little guidance on one of the big questions they face: Whether to have one bill (as House Republicans want) or two bills (favored by Senate Republicans) to push through his agenda.

‘Whether it’s one bill or two bills … I don’t care.’ 

8:30 pm Another gaggle

Air Force One is on its approach to Joint Base Andrews and suddenly Leavitt appears in the press cabin. ‘He’s coming,’ and the harried-looking press secretary is gone again.

Minutes later Trump is outlining his thoughts on the trip before handing off to executive secretary Will Scharf to talk through the five executive orders he just signed at the front of the plane.

And then it is time for questions. He makes news, revealing that Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok, and that the Indian prime minister may visit the White House as soon as next week.

He also is in reflective mood when asked what the spat with Colombia reveals and what it means for cooperation with one of his closest allies in South America. 

‘I think it’s really helped,’ he says. ‘It serves the world well to look at it.’

He is clearly buzzing from an extraordinary four days. His message to the world is clear. And he is in a hurry to make his mark.

Minutes later we feel the rumble of the undercarriage being deployed and the lights of the air base come into view.Q