Donald Trump has once again dominated headlines in 2025, asserting his influence over political debate and shaping the direction of the year’s biggest conversations.
A panel joined The Anton Savage Show to discuss his impact and explore what the future may hold for him.
“There’s no way really to talk about 2025 without talking about Trump,” said Jon Ihle, deputy business editor of The Sunday Times.
According to Isle, Trump has “inserted himself into the centre of everything”, whether on “domestic politics around immigration”, “international diplomacy around Ukraine or Gaza”, or “financial markets”.
He pointed to April’s tariff announcements, describing them as a moment that “really characterised a lot of what happened in the world economy this year.”
Ihle said Trump’s influence is unavoidable.
“It dominates everybody’s strategising, everybody’s tactics, whether you’re in politics, whether you’re in business.” He added that “Trump’s whims are somehow going to affect you.”
Despite low poll numbers, Ihle stressed that Trump still has enormous influence.
“He’s definitely on a downswing,” he said, “but wields an enormous amount of power nonetheless.”
He identified April 1st as the peak of Trump’s authority, when global markets awaited his highly anticipated tariff plans, before adding that this was “the first crack in his power”, showing that “he could be tamed by the reaction of the bond markets.”
Journalist Lise Hand warned against writing Trump off too quickly.
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“It’s hard to know,” she said, recalling past moments when she believed his political career was finished. “There have been so many pinch points since then that you think he’s a goner and he keeps coming back.”
She added that while Trump appears to be ageing and facing questions about his cognitive sharpness, “there is no getting away from him.”
Hand was concerned about what she described as "authoritarian" tendencies.
“If it looks like an authoritarian and walks and quacks like an authoritarian,” she said, “then it probably is.”
She pointed to what she called a “crackdown on the free press”, highlighting defamation cases against the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the BBC.
She also referenced Trump’s public treatment of journalists, saying, “You’ve seen him berate journalists,” including calling a reporter a “quiet piggy” for asking about the Epstein files.
John Lee, the political editor of The Daily Mail Group, who has attended multiple White House visits, offered a different personal view.
“When you meet him one-on-one, he’s a businessman,” Lee said, adding, “He isn’t that ogre in private.”
However, Lee described White House press conferences as “utterly performative” and saying they are designed to generate “social media clips” rather than substance.
“There is no substance to it,” he said.
Trump and Ukraine
The panel agreed that Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked a turning point.
Ihle described it as both staged and strategic, saying, “Those press conferences are not meant to convey information.
It’s meant to create content.” He likened the encounter to “a circus act”, arguing that Zelensky stood out because “he’s the one fighting for his life.”
Ihle added that Zelensky “exposed just how vapid, ignorant and shallow they actually are,” prompting a defensive response from the administration.
The White House in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025.Credit: Chris Kleponis/CNP/MediaPunchLooking at the Epstein files, Hand warned that the issue still remains unresolved.
“This isn’t going away,” she said, noting that while document releases have been “very cleverly stage-managed”, the political risk remains.
She also warned that Trump’s behaviour has real-world consequences.
“Unfortunately, a great swathe of American voters don’t know he’s being performative,” she said. “So when he behaves like this, people think: why can’t I?”
