Robert Draper

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, in a sense, Natalie, what's taking place is in step with what historically has transpired with presidencies, that after a certain period, a president begins to take on the appearance of being a lame duck.

He no longer is in full control of the agenda, and the party begins to look at life after him.

But

Typically, that has taken place after the midterms, after a two-year period.

And so what's really notable is that this president is now just 10 to 11 months in, beginning to show the signs of weakness that historically we associate with a lame duck, when in fact he should not be a lame duck.

Right.

And alongside that, it's also notable that President Trump, like no other political figure before him in recent memory at least, has exerted a real stranglehold over his party.

The party's philosophy, the party's governing ideology has been whatever President Trump wants.

has said it will be, that has started to change.

And the fact that people are daring, and let's be clear, not everyone is, but that anyone is beginning to voice objections or take exception to President Trump's governing philosophy is something very new.

So the fact that it's happening at all and the fact that it's happening so early are both unusual features that were, I don't think, in any way expected.

when this president first took his oath in January.

That's right.

And when President Trump took his second oath of office, there were people on the right proclaiming this the golden era of America.

They really believed that nothing would be impossible with this president.

But that began to change, however, in the late summer when we began to see prominent conservative influencers dared to go off message from administration policy and, in fact, outright protest.

contradict what the administration's preferred policy was.

And so in doing so, they began implicitly to announce that the president was no longer omnipotent and to presage a kind of vulnerability in this administration.

Yeah, I can place a date on it.