Ezra Klein

And the reason I bring this up is that I think it's really important to distinguish between somebody who has a clear-eyed strategic picture of the situation in front of them and is acting cynically

lying and using conspiracy theories to rile up the base, and somebody who actually doesn't have a clear-eyed picture of the situation in front of them and is acting impulsively and emotionally, or at least unstrategically, in ways that can harm them.

And I think what we're seeing right now is Trump is the second thing, not the first.

He's not a brilliant manipulator.

I think one thing that is interesting and on some level a little bit inexplicable to me right now about how things are going for Trump and Congress is that if you actually look at what Congress is doing quietly – and this is a Republican-dominated Congress at the House and Senate level –

Trump is actually facing, I would say, a fair amount of resistance.

They have—I mean, they have agreed to, at the high level, just unfathomably unqualified and corrupt cabinet appointees.

But they have rejected—

force of the withdrawal of more sub-cabinet appointees than we have seen from any president in the modern era.

And if you look at spending, Trump just did not get a lot of what he wanted.

I mean, you know, Russ Vogt sent all these, you know, Doge-inspired spending cuts.

And in fact, the government is spending more this year than it did the year before.

Republicans in Congress just rejected a lot of what Trump wanted to eviscerate.

So there is this dynamic that is happening between Trump and the Republican Party, which is Trump only cares about a couple of big things.

He cares that you flatter him.

He cares that you agree with him on some of his big lies.

He cares about tariffs.

He has some things that he really does track.

Doesn't want to be impeached again.

Doesn't want to be impeached again.