Ezra Klein

about how he understands this moment in his presidency and in the country and what, if anything, he intends to do about it.

And the signal he sent last night was that he is living in a fantasy version of his own presidency, that he does not recognize any of the problems that Americans have with him, that he has no plan to do anything about it because he doesn't think there is any problem to solve.

And he sent that signal to the assembled members of, like, the idea that Republicans in Congress are cheering for this.

They're going to lose their jobs.

There's a very, very good chance, and I think it went up last night, that at the next State of the Union, Mike Johnson is not sitting behind him.

And so to me, we have this tendency to get really caught up in the showmanship of the State of the Union.

He had the hockey team out.

He kept bringing people out.

He kept presenting these medals.

That stuff is all going to be forgotten in 48 hours.

The State of the Union is going to be forgotten in 48 hours.

What will last is the strategic positioning.

the president chooses about how to solve the country's problems and how to solve his own problems.

And the positioning he chose was to see if lying about them will work.

But the problem with lying about them, the problem with treating this like a reality television show is most Americans do not tune into you.

And so you can't just lie to them.

I thought that was shocking.

Rent is not down.

Right.

Like anybody who is in the rental market knows rent is not down.