Aaron Retica

Where do you want to start?

I want to start at the very end.

After Trump spoke, before we heard from Abigail Spanberger, I was listening to the feed that kept going after he was done as he moved through the Capitol.

And it was absolutely incredible.

Everybody was like, attaboy, you're the best.

That was incredible.

Amazing.

And then there was a truly stellar moment when someone said, that was a home run, sir.

It was a grand slam.

Whatever else that was, it wasn't a grand slam.

In his speech, he seemed to be living in a reality that is not the one we're actually living in.

What do you make of that disjunction?

Like, he's in one place and America is in another.

Can I interrupt you for once?

You know what's so interesting about that?

The guy who wrote that, and of course he's out and about talking about it now, was in DHS, which I think is... The Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security, which I think is very significant, actually, in terms of what you're talking about, right?

The people who were there were in some ways the people who were the most skeptical.

Yeah, it's even true of the speech writers, right?

They can't come to him and say, do a Carter-type speech where you acknowledge