Ezra Klein

it is a big political problem for this president and for the Republican Party that Donald Trump is lecturing the American people rather than listening to them.

Because what Trump spent almost two hours saying at the State of the Union last night must have been music to Hakeem Jeffrey's ears.

Because Donald Trump said he doesn't have an answer to the problems facing his presidency.

He said he doesn't need an answer to the problems facing his presidency because there are no problems facing his presidency.

Everything is going great.

And who around Donald Trump will dare tell him otherwise?

Joining me now for a bit of a turning of the tables is my great editor, Aaron Redica, who's going to ask me some questions about the State of the Union and how to think about it.

Aaron, welcome back to the show.

Hi, Ezra.

I think he believes his own bullshit.

And I think that is an important skeleton key at this point to understanding the Trump administration.

You remember when the Times, Times Opinion, in fact, published in the first administration article,

the famous incognito, we are the resistance inside the Trump administration.

Of course I remember.

Yes.

Yeah.

Like that was an extreme version of something that was more broadly happening inside that administration, which is that there were a lot of people who were not bought in, in a loyalist, sycophant way to Trump himself.

They were serving under him.

They understood themselves as serving partially him, partially the country.

They understood him as having some good ideas and some bad ones.