The FRONTLINE Interviews
Mark Leibovich
National Correspondent, The New York Times Magazine
Mark Leibovich is the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine. As a political correspondent for The New York Times, Leibovich covered the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, as well as the Obama presidency.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on November 5, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Let's start with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her death.As D.C. is mourning for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for a seat which is a pretty important seat in the Supreme Court, this is a reality that the Democrats have been fearing for years, certainly through the Trump years.Talk a little bit about that situation, how important her seat was, how the Democrats thought of it and in fact were somewhat freaked out about the possibility of her passing at some point.
Yeah.Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as someone who had cancer and someone who was very old and, you know, she—I mean, not to be morose about this, but she could go at any second.That was basically the quiet "don't really say it out loud" thing that Democrats had been worried about for pretty much four or five years.In fact, President Obama, when he was in office, was part of some discussions to try to get her to maybe retire then so he could appoint her successor.
So this has been sort of a looming thing for many, many years.It became more so as she got older.It became more so as she was diagnosed with cancer; you know, certainly she was going to die soon.And when Donald Trump came into office, that was sort of like the big, lurking disaster that Democrats hoped that they could run out the clock on.And yes, the year 2020 has been just so eventful, with COVID-19 and the economy crashing and just an incredible election that we've seen, and for all the obvious reasons, but Ruth Bader Ginsburg continuing to cling to life was the one thing that was sort of hanging out there as something that was putting off what seemed like a real, almost existential fight about political norms.It seemed like the country, it seemed like Washington couldn't become any more divided, but there was always the question.Actually, it could be more divided because Ruth Bader Ginsburg could die, and then all of a sudden her seat would be open, and the Republicans would be in the exact same situation that Democrats were in, or that they were in four years ago, when [Republicans] refused to vote on Merrick Garland, who Barack Obama nominated to the Supreme Court in his last year in office.
So everyone knew this was kind of a threat, and when it actually happened, it was still an utter shock.And it sort of kicked off a period in Washington that I've never seen before.
… Trump is making a campaign stop.He's up on the stage, but he doesn't know.Can you tell us a little bit about that?
It was an incredible moment.It was a Friday night.I remember this very, very well.You would literally—Washington, D.C., is an extremely liberal city, and you would be walking around the city, and I happened to be walking through one of the major corridors of Adams Morgan.And after the news came down that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, you heard just audible gasps just all over the sidewalk as people experienced the news on their phone.And, you know, because this not only was a giant in the progressive movement and a pioneer for all the reasons that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a pioneer, it also, again, signaled this just sort of existential, bitter divide, division that would play out, this battle over the next few months.
… So Donald Trump is holding a rally in Minnesota that night.He actually was on stage doing his rally schtick as the news came down.And so you had this sort of visual backdrop to this news that was breaking all over television, all over the internet, where Donald Trump is speaking, and I know for a fact that in the background, in the green room area, his staff obviously learned about this.There was some debate about whether to actually go out and tell him, to either have him just know about it so he could address it in a rally, but the immediate consensus was, no, we mustn't do this, because I think what that would probably do, or they thought what would probably happen is, it would elicit an ovation.It would elicit, you know, a triumph because that's sort of the way partisan people think these days.And someone immediately thought that would be in very, very bad taste, and there was no guarantee that Donald Trump was going to handle it with any grace whatsoever.So I think they kept it quiet.
And so then we have this clip of him learning about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death on the tarmac, as he was going back to Air Force One after the rally in Minnesota.He looked surprised.He looked sort of strange; he looked like he didn't quite know how to react.I have always wondered—and I don't know this for a fact—but I've always wondered if he really knew, and he was just advised, like, "Look, say something gracious; act surprised," because, again, my sense is people around Donald Trump worried that his reaction would be less than gracious, unless he was prepared.
So anyway, for history, we have him learning, or supposedly learning, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.And, you know, within apparently a few hours he had this conversation with Mitch McConnell, where Mitch McConnell almost immediately recommended that Amy Coney Barrett be chosen to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
Filling the Ginsburg Seat
Why?
… This is why this day and age is so utterly surreal and weird.Everything is moving too—so fast.I mean, in a different age, maybe 20, 30 years ago, an iconic Supreme Court justice dying would occasion no one discussing politics, no one discussing his or her replacement for a number of days.Everything would be given over to testimonials about his or her life, their career, how big of a loss it is and so forth.Just respect would be paid for a long period of time.
Obviously, it was to some degree for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but this all happened in a very compressed period.
So the immediate question after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and the shock wore off was Democrats were saying, they wouldn't dare fill the seat until the next president is picked, would they?Because certainly they made their perspective very, very clear four years ago, and they said Barack Obama, even though eight months, he had eight months left in his term, surely could nominate a Supreme Court justice, and Mitch McConnell kept the seat open.He would not vote it; the Republicans controlled the Senate.And that's been a bitter pill, you know, certainly from that point on, about a Supreme Court seat being stolen by the Republicans in the Senate.
So you had an almost entirely analogous situation transpire four years later, except that it happened within a matter of weeks of the election rather than eight months before the election.And there was actually a number of people out there who thought that, well, certainly decency and integrity would prevail here, and even if Republicans are going to go forward with this, surely there would be three or four who would recognize the unfairness of this, and they would be able to block any effort to go forward with this till after the election.
It seems like Mitch McConnell wasted no time whatsoever in making this decision, and Republicans in the Senate fell into line very, very quickly.They wanted not to talk about the hypocrisy of this at all.But it just happened very swiftly.I think it was—there was a lot of tortured logic behind it, but once that decision got made, I think Mitch McConnell thought it was important to put Amy Coney Barrett—and put a name and a face and a figure who has been very well known in conservative legal circles for many years as the face of this decision, rather than an abstract process decision that they couldn't really justify.
When, as you said, McConnell made the decision very quickly—and this was with the reality that the decision he had made in 2016 about Garland and waiting that period of time, and this time around it's only a month later that the process is done—some people call that hypocrisy.What do you call it?
It certainly has the makings of hypocrisy.I mean, I certainly didn't understand the tortured logic that a lot of Republicans were trying to place around this, like, "Oh, well, well, when Republicans control the Senate, historical precedent is such that they have the opportunity to decide on the timing of"—I mean, it just made no sense whatsoever.And I think the bigger tell is a couple things.… I talked to a number of Republican senators who wanted no part of this argument; they just wanted to duck their head, keep walking, and just sort of keep their head down and hope that eventually, you know, the voters would forget and wouldn't make it an issue.
The other thing is, Mitch McConnell was asked about this hypothetically many months ago, and I think it was a fundraiser or maybe in some sort of private reception.[An interviewer] said, "So if a seat comes open right during the election year, this time, what would you do this time?"And there was a sort of pregnant pause, and [McConnell] kind of smiled, and he almost laughed, and he said, "Oh, we'd fill it."And people laughed.I mean, people thought it was a comical proposition, including Mitch McConnell.And it was devious, and it was cynical, and I guess you'd say it worked.
McConnell’s Focus on the Court
… The reality of what he achieved in a very small period of time when Trump was president, three new Supreme Court justices.The Barrett nomination fulfilled a 30-year goal he had had, didn't it?How important was this to him?
It was huge.I mean, you could argue that it was the single biggest part of the bargain he made with Donald Trump.I mean, Mitch McConnell privately is no huge fan of Donald Trump.I think that's true privately of most Republicans in the Senate.But they knew that they had one choice if they wanted to get their agenda through—and their agenda, at least for Mitch McConnell, nothing is more important than Supreme Court judges—and that is to realize that you need to hold Donald Trump tight.You need to be personally linked to him.And you don't have to like him personally, and you don't have to like what he does personally, but if you want to get reelected, you need to be good with Donald Trump.And if you want to get judges nominated, you need to be in a deal with him.And that's sort of what Mitch McConnell was.I mean, to get three Supreme Court justices onto the bench in four years … is extraordinary.I mean, it is an incredible hit rate.And you could argue that two of those three picks were done purely out of shrewd, cynical, whatever you want to call it, maneuvering by Mitch McConnell.I mean, Mitch McConnell kept Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court almost single-handedly by refusing to hold the vote for him, and he did the exact same thing with Amy Coney Barrett by doing the exact opposite thing that he said was wrong four years earlier.
In the middle of all that, he was also instrumental in getting Justice [Anthony] Kennedy to step down, which ensured that a much younger Trump appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, would replace him, which ensured probably another 20, 30 years of a conservative on the bench.
… So two hours after her death, he makes a statement where he mourns her death, of course, but then basically says that "We're moving forward here, and the nominee of the president will be pushed forward."What's his argument?What's his argument that he makes to the public about why this is necessary?
His argument is not an argument at all.It's just sort of simply stating the fact that it is the president's right to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court when there is a vacancy.It is within their right, and it's the Senate's responsibility to hear it.And then people would remind him, well, what about four years ago?And he would say, look, that was a completely different case.And of course it was completely analogous, but he would say it was completely different, because it was a different president and the majority—and Republicans held the majority.I mean, again, that's when the tortured logic takes over, and everyone's head starts spinning, which I think in itself became a strategy for Mitch McConnell, in this case.
The Kavanaugh Hearings
… You mentioned Kavanaugh.Talk a little bit about the Kavanaugh hearings.Where were we then, as far as partisanship?Was it quite clear at that point that whoever owned the Senate basically owned the process?
It was.I mean, look, Kavanaugh is a different case than the other two.I mean, the other two, like the Garland and eventually Neil Gorsuch nomination, which is the first nomination—the first Supreme Court justice who was nominated by Donald Trump—and obviously now Amy Coney Barrett, I mean, these were pure process power plays.They were Mitch McConnell just sort of keeping the seat open to a point where it was advantageous to Republicans to actually make the selection.Brett Kavanaugh took on a life of its own.It wasn't a process decision so much as it was a decision on whether it was appropriate for someone to have his teenage life litigated again and a possible rape charge, very serious, but also a long time ago.And there was all kinds of—I mean, it was an incredibly divisive few weeks.And Brett Kavanaugh became very emotional, and his accuser back in the '80s, Christine Blasey Ford, became very emotional.It was, obviously, for its own reason, a culture-war thing.
But I guess it was a few months from the midterm election, so it wasn't that far away.So technically, I guess, if Republicans—or if Democrats controlled the Senate, they could have been cute in saying, "Yeah, why don't we, like, not hear this until the midterms, because maybe the Democrats will win the Senate and then maybe we won't—you know, it'll be a different calculus here."But I mean, again, that never got beyond the hypothetical stage, because Justice Kavanaugh's hearings and everything around that sort of took on a life of its own.Eventually he was confirmed.
The Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett
So back to Amy Coney Barrett.We have the very strange, fascinating pandemic party at the White House on Oct. 3 to celebrate her nomination.Describe that event a little bit and who was there and the celebratory feeling of that event.
It was a bizarre event in history.I mean, basically, the basics of it were Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court, and it's customary in a case like this for there to be some kind of Rose Garden ceremony or, you know, somewhere in the White House a ceremony where the nominee is introduced.Donald Trump, as Donald Trump does, turned this into a big sort of pep really and party, and it was right in the Rose Garden, and there were literally hundreds of people there, and it was kind of a who's who of Trumpiness, like everyone from Chris Christie to Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, to Rudy Giuliani.I mean, just every—it was just like a who's who of Trumpworld: his family, their family, Republican senators, Republican members of Congress, people he has deemed most loyal to him.I think Mitt Romney was not invited.Things like that.
So—and this happens in the middle of a pandemic, and it happened, you know, right before the election.And Donald Trump just loves to throw norms like this in everybody's face.I mean, even before we knew this to be a very, very dangerous superspreader event, Donald Trump was just really determined to make this a spectacle in a way, to just really sort of spike the football at a very, very emotional time in his presidency.
Lo and behold, a number of people there started testing positive for the coronavirus.One of those people was Donald Trump.One of those people was Chris Christie, who was in the hospital for several days; Thom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina; Melania Trump, the first lady.I mean, it goes on and on and on.And it became this perverse sort of "Masque of the Red Death," where you have this collision of these massive stories—the coronavirus, the appointment to the Supreme Court and certainly the election and the president's health—all sort of being rolled into this really festive, almost decadent proceeding that has all kinds of photographs and all kinds of film associated with it.And you have Chris Christie kissing people and hugging people, and Mark Meadows doing the same, and Rudy Giuliani doing the same.And you know, a few days later you have the president winding up in the hospital, which, again, who knows where he picked up COVID-19, but there's a very good chance it happened there.There was also an indoor component to this, which could have been more so.Very few people were masked, both on the indoor and outdoor component.
So it was just a bizarre, perverse and very kind of morose, almost biblical setting which was—you know, if it wasn't so sad and serious and emotionally charged and physically dangerous.I mean, it was almost literary.
So, Mark, the one missing person was … Leader McConnell.From what we've heard, he didn't show up because he was worried about coronavirus; he wasn't going to get coronavirus.But talk a little bit about, he's the guy that really, though he wasn't at the party, he was the guy who created it.He pulled the strings; he made it happen.
It's exactly right.It's exactly the kind of role Mitch McConnell loves, the guy in the background.He's not a spike-the-football kind of guy.He knows that there's really no upside to that.He also knew, by the way, that this was going to be an incredibly close Senate race, and the single biggest issue on voters' minds, at least at that point, was the coronavirus.And he has been pretty forceful in saying that: "You know, look, masks, social distancing, you know, this is the way to go; I'm going to try to do everything I can to make people aware of that.I'm going to do this in my own life.And I think that I would urge others to be responsible in this way."And that was good politics.
So not only did he not get sick, which is always a good thing, he was able to send a message and also kind of a quiet signal to his caucus that, look, I mean, don't get too close to this because, you know, ultimately people are going to be paying attention, and you don't want to be too close to what is seen as a reckless, sort of, course of events that leads to people getting sick, that the president is very complicit in, not only by doing these big superspreader events, but also by holding rallies.
The Barrett Confirmation Hearings
So the hearings start 16 days from the nomination, I guess.And Senator [Lindsey] Graham, Chairman Graham makes an interesting opening speech where he basically says outright that Democrats are going to vote no, and Republicans are going to vote yes, but our job here is to confirm Barrett, period, totally defining the fact [of] how political this whole event was, ignoring this idea that, in the past, this was a bipartisan decision made by the grand old men of the Senate.What did that say?When you heard him give that little speech, what was he defining?
It was really something.He said, you know, "We are here to confirm Justice Barrett."And if you sort of look at this as political boilerplate, what chairpeople of the Judiciary Committee would say in a similar circumstance through any point in history is, "We are here to consider the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett."He actually said "confirm," which basically gave away—he sort of, like, gave away the whole deal right there.It's like, we're not considering anything; we're just here to vote.
And I remember sitting next to someone saying, "So why are we here, exactly, other than to maybe get sick?"Because this was, again, it was an indoor hearing.There was social distancing.The press was largely kept outside, but it was a fairly crowded room, as indoor rooms go these days.People were talking.And look, it was, I think, quite a tell about where we are politically.We're here to confirm; this is not a deliberation; this is not a debate.This is not, you know, the world's greatest deliberative body as we know it.This is the world's biggest rubber stamp as we know it, and Donald Trump is the one who is, you know, who's actually calling the shots here.But actually Mitch McConnell is, because he told Donald Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett.
One of the things that Mitch later says—which is fascinating—that we'll have in the film, is that as a legislator we see accomplishments as ephemeral that we accomplish here, but in fact the idea of changing the court for generations is something which is extremely important. …
More than anyone else I have seen in the Senate, Mitch McConnell keeps score, in terms of judicial appointments.He would say, absolutely, I'm convinced, that the single biggest accomplishment Donald Trump's presidency has yielded, both for the Republican Party, for himself, and for the Senate and for the future of conservatism, are the judicial appointments, beginning with the three to the Supreme Court.So again, he's right.Look, what's the single biggest legislative accomplishment that Donald Trump scored over the last four years?Probably the tax cut, which wound up not really making that much of a dent in the economy.It seemed like kind of a wash in the economy.It wound up being quite unpopular.It was divisive when it was being considered.They failed to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which was one of their priorities.There was no infrastructure bill.
And so for the most part, Mitch McConnell had his eyes focused like a laser on judicial appointments.And again, he would absolutely—if he could take one accomplishment that he has had over the Trump years, despite all the headaches that Donald Trump created for him, and don't be fooled; he created a lot of headaches for Mitch McConnell; this has not been an easy four years for Mitch McConnell—he would say that it's all been worth it, chiefly because of the judges.
There's another great moment where he, in an interview, he … did something which he doesn't do often, which is he crows about his accomplishments, and he basically says that no other majority leader since LBJ has accomplished something as consequential.What's your view of that?Is he right?
I mean, I don't know if he's right, but he would, I mean—I would imagine a lot of progressives would say that passing the Affordable Care Act is up there.I mean, a lot of Reagan people would say that the—I mean, there's any number of things you could point to over the last 50 years.But he has every right to say that.And that's—I think that points to two things.One is a pure practical matter: He's up for reelection this year—or he was up for reelection this year.He won handily, but it didn't always look like he was in the safest of seats.He wound up winning by, you know, double digits, and he'll be in the Senate for another six years.
But I think the other piece of this is you do maybe get a window into how Donald Trump changes the rhetoric of how Republicans—even the most reticent Republicans in the world, like Mitch McConnell—speak.That is a sort of Trumpy tooting your own horn, almost hyperbolic way of looking at your accomplishments.Mitch McConnell, again, has always been very reserved.He's not been one to chest-thump at all.And again, that's a pretty—that's a pretty bold thing for Mitch McConnell to say.I mean, but it also is—I mean, yeah, people would say, and people who support him and his position would say, that it's absolutely deserved, and it probably would not have happened with some other majority leader during this era.
So take us to the swearing-in ceremony at the White House.Again, a very political event, almost an advertisement.Tell us about it and how you viewed it.
I mean, it was a kind of—first of all, there was a lot of talk that Amy Coney Barrett might not show up because she's already been confirmed; she's on the court; why make yourself part of such a political spectacle?She did it anyway.I don't know if she even considered not going.But again, this is sort of a classic Donald Trump move.I mean, not only do you make a spectacle, but you double down on a spectacle that was remembered and will always be remembered as a superspreader event in which people actually got sick.So here you have the woman who was the guest of honor at the original superspreader event and the guest of honor at this other event, and just—we're going to do it all again.And you know, you're—if you don't like it, fine.This is—this is why my supporters love me; this is why I was elected to the presidency in 2016 and why I almost was again in 2020.
So again, pure Trump.It's throwing it in everyone's faces.It's just loving to make people angry and to trigger people.I mean, that's sort of Trump 101.I think what a lot of people were sort of wondering about were, you know—again, would Amy Coney Barrett sort of go along with this or would, at this point, she kind of adopt a more judicial temperament, which is supposed to be apart from politics?
The Court and Politics
… She takes the bench eight days before the election.Sixty million people or so have already voted, extended voting.Can we divorce politics from this at all?
I don't think so.I don't think so at all.I mean, I think—look, as we sit here and as this airs, it's unclear how this is going to unfold in the next few weeks, but, I mean, I think the ultimate test would be if the Supreme Court needs to weigh in on some election issue involving the presidential election, where you would literally have three of the nine justices who were appointed by one of the people who is competing for the presidency.And, I mean, how do you divorce that from politics?I mean, you could argue that that train has long left the station anyway, but that would sort of bring it to the next level.
Look, the fact is, we've been at the next level for a long time now.I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death sort of brought this to a head.I think Amy Coney Barrett's nomination was the next step.And look, I think hopefully—I speak as an American here—hopefully this will not get so dramatic that the Supreme Court has to weigh in again.But if it does, I mean, I don't think we've seen any proof over the last several decades that the Supreme Court is in any way immune from politics, the divisive politics of this day and age.
So what's the big picture then?Why is that important?What does that mean?
Well, it gets to the question of legitimacy.I mean, John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who was nominated by George W. Bush in the mid-aughts—I think 2005—is a Reagan conservative, a very conservative justice.He's always been—he's been pretty consistent.Over the last maybe decade or so, he has become I wouldn't say an activist, but he's certainly become a voice of institutional legitimacy.He does not want the Supreme Court to be too activist in actually setting laws.I mean, I think he almost alone saved the Affordable Care Act from being overturned in the courts, like at the very end of the Obama years, purely because he didn't want it to be such a politicized decision in the hands of the Supreme Court.
You would think that he would probably say the same thing if the election came down to the Supreme Court, and his discretion on whether to take a case like that would possibly carry the day.But it's unclear if he has the votes now.I mean, there are six pretty solid conservatives on the court, including him, and three pretty solid liberal or just-to-moderate justices.And so again, if it did come down to it, Donald Trump has said explicitly he would hope the Supreme Court would help him keep the presidency.I mean, it doesn't get any more explicit than that.And Donald Trump and his history of saying the quiet part out loud has never really exceeded that, I guess.And you just know that certainly John Roberts, and I imagine others on the Supreme Court, were cringing when they heard that.
But again, if the Supreme Court has to weigh in on this, it's sort of, at this point, a crap shoot based on what Brett Kavanaugh, what Amy Coney Barrett, what Neil Gorsuch had said, whether they think it's appropriate here.And, again, it's a question I hope we don't have to answer.But it would, again, bring a question of legitimacy to the presidency and certainly to the Supreme Court that we have never seen before.
So with Biden winning, we assume, with a new 6-3 court, with a Senate that very probably could go—remain Republican, and therefore the leader will remain the leader, with McConnell winning his election, with no Trump to have to deal with, can you make the argument or do you agree with the argument that Mitch McConnell will now be the most consequential, if not the most powerful, man in Washington?
Second to Joe Biden.But yeah, I would say he is, if he's not 1/1A, he's definitely somewhere between first and second.I mean, I think Nancy Pelosi's still going to hold a lot of cards.I think her position is pretty precarious.But no, Mitch McConnell, absolutely.I mean, he—it's going to be hard to envision Joe Biden getting a somewhat—just any kind of Cabinet position through without at least accounting for the fact that the Senate is controlled by Mitch McConnell, a very conservative person who is willing to play cards.
Now, a lot of it here depends on, will the final count in the Senate be 52-48; will it be 49-51?I mean, again, there are actually a few Republican moderates there that could conceivably be the real power brokers here, whether it's Susan Collins, who was [re-]elected against seemingly all odds in Maine; Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, who's up for reelection in 2022; Mitt Romney, who would have probably been considered a conservative a few years ago, but who has proven to be pretty independent. He's up for reelection in four years.So I mean, those are three people that can conceivably play ball with the Biden administration.There's also a few Republicans who are quite vulnerable for the 2022 elections.So, look, they might be able to go over Mitch McConnell's head, as it were, and deal directly with the Murkowskis and the Romneys and the Collinses of the world, and that could get them their numbers.But again, it's going to be very close.I think that this very much ensures that the very progressive agenda that a lot of people on the left were rooting for is probably not going to happen.
A Divided Washington
You talk to a lot of people all the time.What is the Democrats' mood in Washington, at this point?You've won the presidency, but you've got this 6-3 Supreme Court; you've got Mitch McConnell still in power; you lost seats in the House.What's the mood like in Washington?
Well, I think this is absolutely divided government.I mean, we've had divided government in this town for a number of years now, but this is actually divided government on steroids, if such a thing is possible.I mean, this is really divided government.You have a president winning an extremely close election.You have a House where the margin for Democrats is maybe, you know, less than 10 points.You have a Senate where the margin is maybe two or one in either direction; it could be 50-50 pretty soon.You also have a challenging environment for Democrats in the House in 2022 and Republicans in the Senate in 2022.So there's a whole lot in play.
Now, I think the good news is, possibly, if you want to look at governing, Joe Biden is sort of a custodial president.He's kind of a caretaker, in some ways.He has relationships across the aisle in the Senate, beginning with Mitch McConnell, that some things could get done.I also think you can't discount the relief that both parties are going to feel if Donald Trump is not part of the governance of this city anymore.I mean, he has just been this big, fat reality show that has been plunked down in the middle of everything here—his capriciousness, his pettiness, his impulses.Anything you want to say about Donald Trump—you know, his ability to tweet something that can just turn the city right upside down, turn negotiations upside down, anger so many people, embarrass so many people on his own side—has just burned a lot of calories.So I think there probably will be some, if not honeymoon, certainly a period of relief, where people—kind of, maybe—get used to the fact that there is, again, not a huge reality show going on in the White House and, by extension, on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
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