Jamelle Bouie

I was just struck going through some of them, how, you know, you hear what I've read and heard about Jeffrey Epstein is that he was like this remarkably charming and intelligent guy.

And then you read these emails, and frankly, he sounds like an idiot.

He writes in like this half-literate style.

Nothing he says is particularly perceptive.

And one thing I was struck by is, you know, the extent to which Whitby is...

very wealthy, very powerful people, you always hear that they're so charming.

I think it's that people want to be charmed by someone with wealth and with power and with access to things that they might want.

I think that's true for Epstein.

I think it's true for Trump.

And one of the useful things about a glimpse to sort of maybe more intimate communications is it allows you to see how much these people aren't particularly remarkable.

The only thing that really distinguishes them is that they have money and power.

I mean, what the hell?

I think the logic to this, such that it is, and this goes back to something David said earlier, is that they, Trump specifically, but the people around him, do not know how to engage in politics in any other way other than sort of being super aggressive, going on the attack and escalating.

They don't know how to do anything else.

No other thing seems to occur to them.

This is their only mode of operation.

We are going to try to use as much force as we can to kind of beat you into submission.

And when that doesn't work, they're kind of left adrift.

And one thing I want to really strongly emphasize is that looking ahead to the next year, the only way things get better for the administration—

is if they can somehow recover, right?