Mark Halperin revealed one truth about Trump that explains his complete transformation
Mark Halperin – Donald Trump has never been the same politician twice.
The man who returned to the White House in 2025 bears little resemblance to the cautious figure who first took office eight years ago.
And Mark Halperin revealed one truth about Trump that explains his complete transformation from establishment-wary newcomer to the most fearless President in modern history.
The moment that changed everything
Halperin was inside the West Wing on May 9, 2017, when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
The veteran journalist got a front-row seat to something most Americans never witnessed – Trump 1.0 in action.
“Minutes later I was ushered into the Oval Office, where Trump, flanked by his most senior advisers, was basking in the drama while at the same time betraying a smattering of unease,” Halperin recalled in his Daily Mail column.¹
Trump wanted to know how the firing would play with the media and Washington’s political class.
“How will this play?, he wanted to know, genuinely curious, clearly anxious, scanning the faces around him. Would the media savage him? Would Capitol Hill rebel? Would the chattering class denounce him?” Halperin wrote.
His aides were “worried, uncertain they had made the right call.”
They feared the move could backfire and damage Trump politically.
“There was fear that the move could boomerang, drawing blood not from Comey, but from the president himself,” Halperin observed.
That version of Trump – concerned about elite approval and media coverage – no longer exists.
The transformation nobody saw coming
The years between Trump’s first and second presidencies fundamentally changed him.
Look, this wasn’t some gradual evolution.
“What followed in the years ahead—the Mueller probe, two impeachments, multiple indictments, the loss of the presidency to Biden in 2020, assassination attempts, and endless controversies—burned away that version of Trump like a forest fire clearing dead brush,” Halperin said.
According to the veteran journalist, Trump’s evolution is unmistakable.
“The man now back in the White House in 2025 is not the same leader who fretted about what the Georgetown cocktail circuit or the morning papers had to say.”
This version of Trump operates without concern for establishment approval.
Where his first-term advisers constantly worried about elite reactions, today’s team takes a different approach.
“In 2017, Trump’s closest confidantes—his chiefs of staff, Jared and Ivanka, Cabinet officials—constantly sweated the responses from the Hill, the press, and the donor class,” Halperin observed.
That dynamic has completely flipped.
Here’s what Trump’s team is doing now
The clearest evidence of Trump’s transformation came when Trump’s Justice Department recently moved forward with legal action against Comey.
Halperin reached out to current Trump advisers to gauge their reaction.
“In the West Wing, Comey’s indictment by Trump’s Justice Department after the president publicly pleaded for it, all but demanded it, has largely been met with glee,” he reported.
No hand-wringing. No second-guessing. No concerns about media blowback.
“Texts and conversations with various Trump advisers Thursday evening and Friday morning produced not a speck or smidge of disquiet, no second thoughts or second guessing.”
The contrast with 2017 couldn’t be starker.
Halperin described how Trump’s first-term staff behaved: they “acted like new parents tiptoeing around a sleeping, tetchy infant, or like nervous homeowners trying to prevent a grease fire in the kitchen from spreading to the rest of the house.”
Today’s approach is the opposite.
“Now, they warm their hands as Trump the arsonist, lights the match and smiles as the blaze roars,” Halperin wrote.
Here’s what changed everything for Trump
Halperin identified the key factor in Trump’s evolution.
The President now surrounds himself with advisers who share his worldview rather than those who urge caution.
“It is not that they are afraid to tell Trump to restrain his instincts; they share his instincts,” Halperin explained.
Trump’s experience taught him that establishment approval was never achievable anyway.
After surviving years of investigations, impeachments, and prosecutions, he emerged with a different perspective.
“Trump sees himself as having endured hellfire and emerged purified—immune to the establishment’s condemnation,” Halperin observed.
The journalist pinpointed the crucial insight: “criticism only reinforces Team Trump’s conviction that they did the right thing.”
Here’s what this should tell every conservative.
Trump’s evolution explains his entire approach to governing in his second term.
Where he once considered elite media reactions, Trump now makes decisions independent of establishment opinion.
“He no longer bothers with fig leaves. The insults are harsher. The defiance is more brazen,” Halperin wrote.
Trump discovered that establishment protests often signal he’s on the right track.
“When the elites cry foul, Team Trump hears applause. When the press squawks, the White House sees evidence of strength.”
For folks who’ve watched decades of Republican politicians apologize and backtrack every time the media complained, this is what real leadership looks like.
Trump represents what his supporters wanted from the beginning – a President who fights back instead of seeking approval from people who hate him anyway.
The establishment sees Trump’s approach as reckless.
His supporters see it as long overdue.
That’s the real difference between the old Republican Party that always played defense and Trump’s America First movement that refuses to back down.
The political attacks didn’t destroy Trump – they created exactly the kind of fearless leader his voters demanded all along.
¹ Mark Halperin, “I was in the Oval Office when Trump fired James Comey in 2017. He was nervous then… now chilling texts from his aides prove he is more ruthless than ever,” Daily Mail, September 26, 2025.
SF Source US Political Daily Sep 2025