David Frum

And he called you at one point a fake conservative.

And you said, if I'm the fake, why are you sitting on a booster seat?

And it was just, the walls came in.

Chuck Norris, obviously a great American, a great star, but it is worth remembering how many of the Trump supporters like him, like Cash Patel, are extremely small people.

And you were the first to point out this trend.

And the camera likes small people.

I don't know quite why that is.

Maybe they have better skin.

But there's something.

The camera does love its actors to be on the small side.

If we ever get to write this chapter of history, and if this chapter of history comes to a less grim ending than sometimes it looks like we'll have a happier ending, I think one of the verdicts of future history may be that what saved America was that Donald Trump could never tell the difference between the substance of power and the image of power.

If you're doing a serious program of consolidation of power in an authoritarian way, you don't do something as gaudy and shameless and un-American as putting a living president's image on the coins.

That just gets everybody upset.

It creates opposition.

to the whole project in a way that might not be there if you just focused on realities.

And maybe it seems to be true that as Trump's hold on the realities of power falters or weakens a little bit, that he gets more consumed by the ballroom, the Kennedy Center, and his image on these coins.

I mean, it's obviously un-American.

It's arguably illegal, although the New York Times had an interesting story about some of the loopholes they're using because the coins are commemorative, maybe, that they don't come under the rules governing currency.

But it just seems a provocation that a wiser authoritarian would avoid.

Well, one more point about this that is sort of a sign of daylight breaking through, which is it doesn't look like he's going to be able to protect Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem.