At 4:21 a.m. on Saturday, President Trump announced on social media that the United States had captured Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela. Ten minutes later, I called him. After three rings, we were talking.

And by 9:45 a.m., I was at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, to go through security screening ahead of the president’s news conference.

As a point of comparison, during my four years covering Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidency, I never had an interview with him. And I tried! In fact, while I was working on a book about the 2024 presidential election, I was stonewalled in my efforts to interview Mr. Biden after he left office. I eventually reached him directly on his cellphone, and after a short interview, his aides changed his phone number. I wrote about that experience in July of last year.