kek

Politico — ‘It has been eight years and Trump’s still standing and everyone else is exhausted.’

Politico editors clutch pearls, and it’s hilarious.

‘He’s Still Standing and Everyone Else Is Exhausted’: Our Insiders on How Trump Has Changed

To the journalists who have studied Donald Trump longest, the second transition looks a whole lot different from eight years ago.

Photo illustration of blurry White House surrounded by photos.

Illustration by Jade Cuevas/POLITICO (source images via AP and Getty Images)

By Michael Kruse

11/22/2024 05:00 AM EST

Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer at POLITICO and POLITICO Magazine.

Donald Trump — unbridled and emboldened, his control of the Republican Party all but complete, canny about the mechanics of government in a way he was not eight years back when his first election was such a shock — is headed again to the White House. But how exactly might this tour differ from the last tumultuous term?

To get a better sense of what is to come — in the Senate confirmation hearings for his controversial Cabinet picks, his first 100 days and beyond — I convened a quartet of POLITICO colleagues who’ve watched and covered Trump from the get-go: Anita Kumar, Eli Stokols, Kyle Cheney and Meridith McGraw. Their composite take: Trump is Trump, always has been, always will be — fractious, breakneck, unscripted — but after Jan. 6, two failed assassination attempts and an array of prosecutions (and convictions) didn’t stop him from getting reelected by a larger margin than the first time he won, he has, they say, a different sort of confidence and nerve. The GOP establishment is no longer so much trying to control him as he is testing the absolute limits of its willingness and ability to stand up to him.

It’s a moment that’s in some sense reminiscent of points in his past that ultimately led to trouble for Trump — Icarus-like inclinations that have made for scrapes he’s had to work hard to survive. At least for now, though, barreling toward what promises to be a contentious four or more years, the 45th and now 47th president is proceeding with an air of untouchability.

We had this conversation before the especially controversial Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Trump’s desired attorney general. But plenty of boundary-stretching Cabinet candidates remain. “He’s daring Senate Republicans to go against him — but he’s also daring the entire government apparatus to defy him,” McGraw said. “There’s an audacity to all of it.”

If there is a vestige of a guardrail left, in Cheney’s view, it’s that the protection afforded him by the position only lasts as long as his occupation of the office. “All the forces that were coming for him have been kind of defanged and obliterated,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean that he’s impervious to them forever.”

https://archive.is/yZ9UV

>>22049514

>Politico editors clutch pearls, and it’s hilarious.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Our Panelists

Kyle Cheney

Congress reporter, POLITICO

Anita Kumar

Senior Managing Editor, POLITICO

Meridith McGraw

National Political Correspondent, POLITICO

Eli Stokols

White House reporter, POLITICO

What so far strikes you all as most meaningfully different about this Trump transition versus the first Trump transition? Is it the picks? Is it the pace? Is it something else?

Anita Kumar: People said after he won that, “Oh, you should know what this is like because we went through this before.” But I actually think it’s very different. Last time he did the transition, he had an office space from the government [in Washington]. Press was allowed to come in there. They had press calls from the transition. Donald Trump did some press conferences. He at least saw the media, and he let the media see the people going up to Trump Tower to essentially interview for jobs. So it just felt very different than what he’s doing now, which is social media, press releases. We haven’t had a press conference from him. We haven’t had transition staff talking to us. And he’s just putting out these picks, and it’s way faster than last time.

And the picks are really different. Last time he picked people he didn’t really know, who were more establishment people. I know people will balk at that because many of them weren’t. But compared to who he’s picking now, they were more sort of Republicans that people knew that maybe he didn’t know. People said, “Oh, you should, you should talk to this guy” or “You should interview this guy,” and he did. This time it’s people he knows, that have been with him for a while, and that he feels like are really loyal.

Meridith McGraw: I think you just have to look at what a spectacle it has been both times but in different ways. As Anita was saying, the parade of people coming through Trump Tower, the speculation about who may and who may not get a pick, who was having meetings with Donald Trump — there was the fanfare of some of them in 2016 coming to Bedminster for photo ops and meetings with Trump. There was Chris Christie, James Mattis, and some very tabloid-y, New York moments — like when Mitt Romney and Reince Priebus and Trump were caught at Jean-Georges in New York eating frog legs and it was such a moment of humiliation for Mitt Romney. Trump really just didn’t know what he was doing, I think.

This time what’s different is all of this is happening behind closed doors for the most part, with the exception of glimpses of it from social media or when Trump’s allowed the press to come into the room like when he announced Doug Burgum off the cuff, for example. And Trump has, I feel, a different kind of confidence with things this time around. He knows how government works. He knows what pressure points there are in the government to push. And I think that’s what you’re seeing with some of these picks. It’s not only loyalty. He knows that by picking certain people, he’s daring Senate Republicans to go against him — but he’s also daring the entire government apparatus to defy him. I had one adviser who put it to me this way: “Look, he survived two assassination attempts, he’s been indicted how many times — he really is at this moment feeling kind of invincible and sort of emboldened in a way that he never has before.” That’s all playing out with some of the people he’s picked. There’s an audacity to all of it.

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>>Politico editors clutch pearls, and it’s hilarious.

Kyle Cheney: It felt very much in 2016 like he was being handled by other people. He had Reince as his chief of staff and it felt like the RNC infrastructure was sort of driving the train, and he was just there, being reeled back in from the crazy stuff that they were afraid he might do. Whereas this time it seems like he’s leading everyone the other way around — he’s still got those people around him, but he’s the one pushing them more in the direction of his sort of natural instincts that he was being restrained from eight years ago.

Eli Stokols: The first time there was shock. They weren’t expecting to win, and it was this really uncomfortable merger between Trump and Trump world and the RNC establishment. And now, eight years later, Trump has subsumed the entire party establishment. He is the establishment. And they were planning on winning for a long time, and so there is more confidence to this. If that was a merger, then this was the takeover. But the takeover happened over the last eight years, and now it feels like this is the relaunch. So there’s all these people who have grafted onto it, who are more in Trump’s image and know how to curry favor with him far better than they did before.

And yet, as someone coming back to Trump world after four years covering Biden world on Earth 2, you come back to Earth 1, and you’re like, “Oh, actually, all these things are the same.” And Boris Epshteyn is still there putting things in Trump’s ear and making him do things. And there’s still these little proxy battles among staff and people. The dynamic around him that’s existed in every organization he’s ever run, which is people currying for favor or trying to elbow other people out, all those things seem like they’re still there. For as much as this is kind of a more professionalized operation, it’s still kind of off-the-cuff. It still has that “holy shit” feel.

Is there something noticeably different about Donald Trump, not the Trump orbit, not the would-be Trump White House, but about the man himself versus this time eight years ago?

Eli Stokols: He’s the same guy. He still says the same kind of wild stuff and talks for two hours at rallies. But my sense is that, if anything, he’s aged a little bit. I didn’t really buy the “Oh, I was almost killed by the assassination, and now I have this new perspective on life” — that obviously didn’t really last in terms of his campaign speeches. But I think just having gone through eight years of ups and downs in politics, having gone through all these legal challenges, having run three times now, it does feel like maybe there’s a sense of I did it and I’m back and nothing can get me and almost being at peace. Not like everything else from here is gravy, and he’s just going to be a normal president and color within the lines, but it doesn’t feel like there’s something eating at him the same way there was.

I’d be interested in Meridith’s sense of how much he still is animated by grievance, of people saying mean things about him on TV. I wonder if he’s going to sit in the dining room and watch coverage of his presidency this time and react to it, and we’re going to have that same kind of Hall of Mirrors dynamic that we had the first term, or if he’ll be a little more sanguine.

Anita Kumar: Well, we ran a whole list of everybody he says he wants to get back at on Day 1.

Eli Stokols: Right. I think it will definitely be a revenge tour. But I just sort of wonder if there will be places where he’s a little more subdued.

Meridith, do you have a sense of that? The words subdued and sanguine — not typically words one hears when talking about Donald J. Trump.

Meridith McGraw: Just thinking back to four years ago and where we were as a country, we were in the midst of the Covid pandemic. In the 2020 campaign, Trump couldn’t be this entertaining jokester having fun and going with the flow with stuff. And I’m not making light of Trump or his power or what he’s capable of doing once he’s in the White House, but something that has sort of struck me just covering his campaign and this moment when he’s jetting off to a SpaceX launch and he’s having black-tie galas at his mansion by the sea every night, and when he was going on all these podcasts where he’s just ripping jokes and having bro time for hours is that he’s having fun again. And of course, revenge, retribution, grievances, all of that is embedded in who Trump is and what he wants to accomplish, but also you just feel like he’s having fun with stuff right now.

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>>22049534

US aircraft carrier featured in Top Gun arrives in Malaysia

Rex Tan

-

23 Nov 2024, 02:45 PM

The USS Abraham Lincoln docks in Port Klang, with the crew eager to experience local food, visit famous landmarks, and carry out volunteer work.

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2024/11/23/us-aircraft-carrier-featured-in-top-gun-arrives-in-malaysia/

>>22049636

>Is that a Moving Truck in front of the White House?

sure looks that way

>>22049682

<>No. It's a Rental truck. What it is being used for is conjecture.

>>22049636

reeeeeeeee

>>22049636

Some fags up on the roof now