Emily Bazelon

Are you, though?

Anyway, keep going.

Thank you guys.

Thank you both for helping me think about this and talking this through.

Hey.

So if they don't plow the streets, how does your four-wheel drive help you?

I don't, like, do they have snow plows in Nashville?

Oh, I mean, I see much more crushing than caressing or much more creating fear than building trust.

I think if you were going to put the actual most powerful people in the Trump administration on that dais or whatever it was, it would be obviously Stephen Miller.

And then Russell Vogt, who is a real architect of policy.

And then I think also Susie Wiles, who was playing more behind the scenes until her Vanity Fair breakout article.

But those are like the three obvious officials, I think.

And then what's equally interesting to me is to think about who is not exerting power and the effect that absence is having.

And I'm thinking especially of Congress.

And then I have a kind of question mark in my head about the Supreme Court.

I could kind of argue it both ways.

On the one hand I think the court set the terms for a lot of this administration with its decision granting presidents immunity for most of their official acts.

And then on the other hand, they have basically just like gone along with a lot of what the administration has wanted to do.

And so that is a kind of conciliatory enabling role as opposed to like directing all the action.

David, what do you think about that?