Behind him rises a bigger renovation project: the new White House ballroom, its concrete skeleton consuming the former East Wing. Lawsuits have followed the endeavor, alleging that Trump demolished the historic structure and began building its replacement without congressional authorization or the required federal reviews. He kept building anyway. Trump points to the walls, calling them “nuclear concrete” (the sort, he says, used in nuclear facilities), and describes a military complex beneath the ballroom that will plunge six stories underground. There will be five separate floors, he says, with one side made entirely of glass, 6 or 8 in. thick. He holds his hands apart to demonstrate. “The steel goes up next week.” As we walk toward the Oval Office, Trump stops several times to inspect his handiwork. There are freshly painted doors, new gold doorknobs, the Rose Garden lawn ripped out and replaced with a Mar-a-Lago-style patio, where he now presides over dinners at what he calls the Rose Garden Club. “People say, why do you spend so much time on this?” he says. “But I find it relaxing.” Later, he returns to the subject again. “It’s what I do best,” he muses aloud. “I say, am I a better builder or a politician?”
—Photograph by Dan Winters for TIMEOutside these gates, events have become increasingly resistant to Trump’s will. The war in Iran, launched without congressional authorization and initially described by Trump as a four-to-six-week undertaking, is seven months old when we meet, with no end in sight. It has sent oil and gasoline prices soaring and convulsed the global economy. Inflationary pressures compounded by Trump’s tariffs have pushed the Federal Reserve—now led by his handpicked chairman—to raise interest rates over his objections, with another hike possible before year’s end. Mortgage rates have climbed to 7.5%, worsening an already punishing housing market.
Inside the Administration, senior advisers increasingly recognize that he has passed the apogee of his second-term power. Across the Republican Party, officials are preparing for the likelihood of losing the House—and perhaps the Senate—in the midterms. After two years spent almost entirely on offense, Trump may soon be forced onto defense. Democratic control of Congress would bring investigations and subpoenas, hearings, and potentially a third round of impeachment proceedings. Cabinet officials could be hauled before Congress. Trump describes the prospect in characteristic terms. “They’ll probably go after me,” he says, “and I’ll go after them.”
Gold and neoclassical flourishes in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2026. —Carolyn Van Houten—The New York Times/ReduxA model of President Donald Trump's proposed ballroom, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec. 12, 2025. —Doug Mills—The New York Times/ReduxStatues are pictured in the Rose Garden of the White House, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Washington, D.C. —Mark Schiefelbein—AP Photo
Trump dismissed widespread opposition to the rapid build-out of data centers, including among his own base, as a prescription for a poorer America. When pressed on the limits of his power, Trump left himself ample room: He would not rule out declaring a national emergency or invoking the Insurrection Act around the midterms, nor promise to refrain from bringing wrecking balls to the Kennedy Center without congressional approval. “I’m not committing to anything,” he says. “We’re going to see how it plays out in court.”
In late April, the President summoned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a retinue of military and national security officials to the Oval Office. By Trump’s own timeline, the war with Iran was supposed to be over already, with a new regime in place and a nuclear program throttled. But the Islamic Republic had proved resilient and resourceful, choking off oil through the Strait of Hormuz and sending tremors through the global economy.
According to those officials, Hegseth borrowed one of Trump’s favorite terms of derision, telling the President it was “fake news.” The Secretary of Defense insisted that the reporters had taken the facts out of context and exaggerated them to make the Administration look bad. But the reporting emerged from an official DOD inspector general’s assessment. (A spokesperson for Hegseth denied the exchange.)Trump’s frustration went beyond munition stores. The war was polling miserably. At the time, 13 U.S. service members had been killed and nearly 400 wounded. (Those numbers would increase to 19 killed and more than 800 wounded by the end of September.) Gasoline prices had risen more than 40% since the opening attacks on Feb. 28. The conflict had already cost more than $25 billion, and the consequences were beginning to bleed into the midterm campaign. The President found himself without an exit ramp. That dynamic appears to hold true: Instead of concluding the war, Trump tells TIME, he may ramp up the bombing after the midterms if they can’t reach a satisfactory deal. “Because by annihilating Iran, we’ve created peace in the world,” he says. “With Iran, I don’t think you could ever have peace.”
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance fires a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile in support of Operation Epic Fury, at an undisclosed location, Feb. 28, 2026. —U.S. Navy—Handout/ReutersA view of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy warship struck by a U.S. missile, off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Sept. 9, 2026. —Fatemeh Bahrami—Anadolu/Getty ImagesA cascade of crises followed. Though Trump has dismissed the pain of rising gas prices, he concedes the war has depleted a subset of U.S. munitions. “Some forms of ammunition are a little bit lower than other forms,” he says. Trump says he has struck deals with leading defense manufacturers, including Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, to replenish the arsenal and expand production. “They’re building four, five, six plants,” he says, citing Patriot and THAAD anti-ballistic-missile facilities. “They’re building tremendous amounts of capability.”When asked what this will cost American taxpayers, Trump offers a curious metric: less, he says, than America makes in a single month from Venezuelan oil. Yet Americans have so far felt little benefit from that arrangement. Major U.S. oil companies have returned to Venezuela and begun extracting from the world’s largest proven crude reserves, but gas prices remain at record highs for September. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariff regime strained America’s global relationships and reverberated through the economy.
President Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 28, 2026. —Dan Winters for TIME
Borrowing costs were becoming their own problem. For Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, preventing a sell-off in the bond market from becoming a broader crisis was an increasingly urgent task. By late September, only 25% of Americans believed Trump’s policies had improved the economy, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, while 60% said they had worsened it. Trump had returned to office promising cheaper energy, lower prices, and an economic boom. Instead, voters were finding the opposite. “It’s not lost on any of us,” a Trump adviser tells TIME. “When voters aren’t happy with the economy, they tend to vote against the party in charge.”
Along with his fascination with the technology came two related concerns. One was economic: that enthusiasm for AI’s potential was propping up the stock market. The other was geopolitical, reinforced in conversations with industry titans such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: that China could gain a decisive advantage over the U.S. if it developed more powerful AI first. Trump was committed to giving American companies the freedom to build faster than their foreign competitors. That meant embracing the unprecedented infrastructure build-out required to support the industry’s computing needs. After watching a cable news segment about the backlash, Trump fired off a Truth Social post. “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” he wrote Aug. 31. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.” Days later, aides showed Trump surveys from his longtime pollster, Tony Fabrizio, showing pervasive anxiety about AI: fears of lost jobs, rising costs, and technology eventually escaping human control. Fellow Republicans facing voters in November were increasingly eager to put distance between themselves and the issue. Trump “really just didn’t seem to care,” one aide says. “He wants to do what he wants to do. He’s used to generating outrage and then watching everyone eventually crawl back to him. It’s hard to convince him to do anything at this point.”
President Trump speaks to the press after a meeting with technology executives about artificial intelligence at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29, 2026. —Kent Nishimura—AFP/Getty Images
Trump’s contribution to the debate about AI safeguards has been to announce the formation of an “AI Force,” which he now wants to rename the “SI Force”—part of his effort to rebrand artificial intelligence as “super intelligence.” Asked what the group will do, Trump responds: “It’s going to be super intelligent.” Pressed further, he explains that it will consist of industry leaders advising him on government policy. On Sept. 29, he met with AI leaders at the White House, where the President and top executives from six leading tech companies signed a “constitution” to police themselves—a covenant of self-regulation in lieu of government oversight. An Administration official present said they left with a “no surprises if something happens” understanding between the White House and the industry. It was an example of how Trump has surrounded himself with industry leaders, seeking their advice, favor, and political donations. A recent CNN poll found 75% of Americans viewed artificial intelligence with more fear and concern than excitement, with broad bipartisan support for greater federal oversight. But Trump waves away AI fears, placing them in a familiar catalogue of what he considers manufactured panics. “They said that our country was going to burn down because of global warming,” he says. “Then they changed the name to climate change because global warming turned out to be a hoax. Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax.” Asked who, exactly, is perpetrating the supposed hoax of AI concern, Trump throws his hands in the air. “The whole country is based on fake stuff,” he says, “because these people have Trump derangement syndrome.”
Whatever happens in November, people close to Trump expect him to devote more of his remaining presidency to foreign affairs, as second-term Presidents often do, with particular attention to the western hemisphere, where ideologically sympathetic governments have given him opportunities to expand American influence. At home, they expect another emphasis altogether: Trump’s campaign against what he calls “lawfare” and his effort to reshape cultural institutions, including the nation’s museums, in his battle against what he calls “woke” ideology.
President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican National Committee Midterm Convention, dubbed “Trumpapalooza,” in Dallas, Texas on Sept. 9, 2026. —Carrie Schreck—ReduxPresident Donald Trump appears on stage on the second day of the 2026 Republican National Convention at the American Airlines Center on Sept. 10, 2026 in Dallas, Texas. —Kevin Dietsch—Getty ImagesInside the White House, advisers are already contemplating what a divided Washington would mean. “I think if the worst happens in the midterms, we’ll be forced to think more bipartisan,” one top official says. “I would hope that if we win, we can still do that, because for two years we’ve run a completely partisan play. When you’re looking back on your time, I don’t think that’s what you should be proud of, even if it was successful.”Trump’s political operation boasts a $400 million war chest, but he has only recently begun opening his checkbook. Aides say he has been reluctant to spend because he wants to preserve cash for future elections as a means of keeping his grip on his party. “He wants to have as much money in his account as possible when he’s no longer able to raise the kind of money he can now,” a Trump aide told TIME this fall. “He doesn’t seem to care that much about the midterms, thinks they’re a lost cause anyway, and wants to preserve future possibilities.”
—With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Simmone Shah, and Olivia B. Waxman
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