Let me play you something.

This is from Wednesday.

I thought this was fairly remarkable.

This is the president the day after the election.

Listen, the kitchen is underneath because I put the kitchen on top and we have large staircases coming from the kitchen.

If I put the kitchen on top, you would lose three walls because the kitchen takes about 30% of the space.

So the kitchen is all the space that you have right underneath and it's going to be top of the line.

Interestingly, we had the same problem in our house.

We used the sliding doors to get to the kitchen to the dining room.

And I if anybody's looking for advice at the White House, I'm I'm here.

Um but what struck me in that I I couldn't understand was this his way of trying to deflect from Tuesday?

Did he not fully understand what just happened to him and to the party he ostensibly leads on Tuesday?

Does he not care?

And is this going to Steve's point, this is what he cares about?

What was going on there?

I mean, I think that this is his happy space.

This is where he's most comfortable.

When you have a bad day, you do what makes you feel good.

And I think going to visit a construction site is exactly what that is for Donald Trump.

Um, you know, but the fact it was also very telling.

It was odd that that's what he's talking about the day after the election, but it's telling.

The fact that he was so intricately aware of the details of what walls would have to be moved of where the kitchen is shows what he has been focused on um when you know the party was hoping he would be focused on winning.

on top of the fact that he was he was at the reflecting pool on Monday talking like the idea that he was not focused on the issues that the rest of the country cared about.

He wasn't focused on affordability.

He wasn't focused on ending the war in Iran because he has these pet projects.

After after Bush loses the Congress in ' 06, he comes out and says it was a thumping.

He acknowledges the defeat.

After 2010, when Obama loses the the Congress or the House, uh he says it was a shellacking.

He acknowledges the defeat.

You heard nothing like that from Trump this week.

In fact, the clip you played is him at his most engaged, at his most energetic.

He gave a speech tonight in Florida.

He was very flat about space policy.

Barely acknowledged there was an election.

He seems a little dazed, a little confused, uncertain about what this means.

He may have actually fooled himself into thinking that the polls were all fake as he told us.

And maybe he didn't expect it to be as bad as it was, but he hasn't yet found his footing.

So what does he do for the next two years of his presidency apart from worrying about where the kitchen walls are in the in the ballroom kitchen?

I mean this is this is the the biggest subject of all a what he wants to do with his remaining two years.

He still runs the executive branch.

He's still the commanderin-chief.

And what do the Democrats who are running Congress do to contain let's say that we're you're all correct and that Miller is this concentrated version of MAGA?

What do how did what power do they have to contain that?

I mean not much.

I mean we we all expect that they're going to launch a number of investigations or maybe an impeachment uh effort related to Pete Pete Hegsath.

I would imagine there would be an impeachment effort with the new Congress uh on President Trump.

I think the question about the president is does he sort of continue to check out and sort of back out and turn the White House over to Steven Miller.

I don't think that's inconceivable.

He doesn't seem to be engaged in the job anyway.

We all know that there are many aspects of the job he didn't like.

He would rather watch commentary on Fox News than participate in some of the cabinet meetings, some of the things that you do as president.

Seems to me entirely possible that he just steps further back and Steven Miller steps into the void.

And where does JD Vance fit into that formula?

That he's he's gonna be tweeting.

He's gonna be posting on Twitter analysis pundit.

Leanne, talk a little bit about the Democrat.

I mean, first of all, should we is it safe to assume at this table tonight that Hakeem Jeff is fine?

Yes.

And that Chuck Schumer is fine.

Yes.

Okay.

So, Jeff and Schumer, um, what do they what power do they have to contain?

What power do they not have?

what is their strategy going forward?

So, it's going to be really interesting to watch.

If you remember back in Trump 1.0, um there were all these meetings with Pelosi and Schumer and the Oval and there was a lot of theatrics um attempts to try to do something with Congress.

Um I don't know if there's going to be any of that.

I think that the president is going to dictate a lot of that, not necessarily based on how engaged he wants to be.

He didn't care about Congress when his party was in charge.

After they passed the one big beautiful bill, he said, "We have done everything we need to do legislatively."

And so I expect the president to continue to govern from the executive branch focused on his things and what what the Democratic leaders are going to do.

They're going to try to pass bill after bill after bill that addresses the issues that they think people care about regarding health care, housing, affordability, tariffs, ending the Iran war.

Um, and we'll see where it goes and what the president does with it.

Um, if it reaches his desk, then there's the whole investigative side of it as well.

And the challenge for Democrats is do you investigate without that overtaking the entire narrative?

um which is what the leaders do not want but you know we know the Democratic party they sometimes overstep right Adam where where are the crisis points in other words now that we have Miller in charge is it going to be immigration that causes massive confrontation between the legislative branch democratic controlled legislative branch and the executive or the are there other issues that I'm not thinking of I think immigration I think the the war in in Iran Right.

For the last eight months, um people have been asking what what can Congress actually do to stop this this war, right?

Calling it an illegal war.

Um how do you actually contain that?

So legislation um there to to attempt to to contain the war.

I think um if you look at ICE um and and the ways that the president is trying to utilize ICE, the way that they're trying to utilize the National Guard um in cities across the nation, right, there are there are a lot of these these really um really central touch points that we've seen over the last couple of years that have really driven people um to to anger to the polls.

And there's I mean on top of everything, right, some people will say it's it's it may be retribution from Democrats, but a lot of voters will say that it's accountability.

Um, right.

We are trying to hold them accountable to the Constitution.

We're trying to hold them accountable to what they, you know, you mentioned something interesting.

The National Guard, um, relatively small in the scheme of things, but Pete Hegath has doubled down in the last couple of days in Washington saying they're going to do now Humvey patrols, boats, and boat patrols.

Um, it was that meant to impress Donald Trump, whose loyalty maybe he's worried about, or was that just a manifestation of I don't know.

You're going to have to come up with a hook for this, but like pure pure MAGA, like like this is this is it.

Like, we're going to just do everything we we we want to do.

You know, it it there's always probably a little bit of both with with Hexath.

um the the ways that if you look look at the video that he released um on Thursday um where he was talking about you know the war in Iran is is right because we want to make sure that they don't get a nuclear weapon when um you know voters you know went to the polls and said well my gas is expensive um because you've closed the straight of m or because the straight of form moves is closed right it's there is a little bit of I'm trying to impress the president but it would be dangerous for the democrats to concede too much to Iran is that Fair, Peter.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, I think, look, Trump is going to he's going to, you know, rattle the saber for a while and so forth, but in the end, I think he wants out.

I think he wants to find a way out of this thing that looks like victory because I don't think he sees a path forward.

I don't think he loves this war at this particular point, but he doesn't want to look embarrassed, right?

JD Vance gave voice to that wing of the party in his 600word online uh message this week.

and and Pete Hex's video in some ways it was a push back against the impeachment, but it was also a push back against Vance.

And you see in that the beginning of the parameters of the debate of the 28 cycle, right?

What does this party stand for?

Is it a hawkish conservative party on Iran as the president has sort of positioned it to be?

Or is it return to the JD Vance, you know, more um isolationist America first?

Stay on this for a minute.

Is is it JD Vance is quasi isolationist.

Pete Hexath is a classical muscular interventionist.

Um, where's Miller and where's and where generally speaking is Marco Rubio.

Where is Marco Rubio?

Is a great question.

He is ab, right?

He wants nothing to do with this war.

He was more than happy to turn it over uh to Wickoff and Kushner in terms of the diplomacy part of it.

Right.

when it came time to have the the ceasefire talks, it was JD who was sent, not not Marco Rubio.

And he has been very careful about making sure to straddle that line.

He may be the only person in this administration who successfully to some extent straddled that MAGA non-maga line at least to the point he hasn't been uh crucified by one side or the other.

Right.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

I was just going to say when you asked where Miller is on the war.

Um, what's interesting is Peter's paper, the Times, they reported tonight, Maggie Haberman, that the uh, one of the ways he got that Miller got the chief of staff job is he said that he would help the president end down this war.

So, we know that Miller is focused on domestic policy.

He was also big on the the boat strikes um, because that had to do with domestic policy.

So I think it's a real unknown of what the future of of the president's foreign policy is going to look like if he is there or not what Miller is focused on and where Marco is.

But should we should we anticipate some open fracturing among this small group Hegath Vance Rubio in the coming year?

Is that a fair thing to worry about?

I would think you have to.

And it's also important to point out that Stephen Miller is going to run the White House very differently stylistically than Susie Wilds did.

I mean, she was sort of a consiliator, you know, somebody who moved things around, set up tell people what to do.

Yeah.

Miller says, "I believe these things."

I mean, the there's a long tradition of White House chiefs of staff who don't really weigh in unless they're asked and they, you know, merely create access to the president, allow people to make their arguments.

That was Susie Wells is more in line with that.

Steven Miller, he he'd never be able to do that.

He has opinions about everything and he wants the president to know that.

Remember what he said on TV a few months ago, right?

The world is run by power.

Whoever has the power makes the decisions.

He was very open about that.

It's a very I mean, real politic doesn't even really begin to get at it.

It's so uh you know, almost authoritarian.

Yeah, this is his moment.

Um Steve, so things are objectively quite awful for the Republican party quite obviously.

Um give us your understanding of what may unfold.

Is this the end of MAGA?

I mean, I think it has to be the end of MAGA, but it could be a very long and slow end of of MAGA.

I don't expect that you'll see many Republicans here in Washington start to speak out robustly against the president.

They, you know, you'll have moments.

You had some moments before the election.

I think you'll have more of those people say like, "We're not following you anymore."

But remember, he still has leverage because he'll be a powerful player in primaries both at the House, Senate, and and uh for the White House.

I think where you're likely to see more Republicans speak up is in the states.

You're going to have governors.

I mean, you've already seen Ronda Santis running to to cameras in the last couple days sort of like, who's this Donald Trump you speak of?

I don't what I mean, isn't that?

But, you know, he he clearly is putting himself forward.

I think you're going to see other governors who have managed Christie is running for president again.

Is that fair?

Christie is already running.

I think we know that Ted Cruz is going to run.

I bet that Ran Paul is going to run.

Brian Kemp, maybe Kevin Stit.

So, so like literally a ton of guys and and and it will be on a it will be on a MAGA non-magga anti- mega spectrum.

Well, JD Vance I mean I think the conventional wisdom has been wrong about JD Vance as long as he's been vice president that he is sort of the deacto Republican nominee in 2028.

I didn't believe that before.

I certainly don't believe that now and I think it's going to be a big field and a big scrappy fight.

Adam, probably a final question to you.

Um, was this what happened on Tuesday?

Was this a repudiation of Trump himself?

Uh, did this represent genuine enthusiasm for the Democrats and their policies or at least their candidates?

Or is it what's the what's the what's the what's the mix?

I I think there is a mix of both.

I think it was more of a repudiation of the president and his policies, right?

If you consider the the high prices of gas, you consider an unpopular war, right?

If if if you are if you have told voters that you are not going to start an unnecessary war and then you go and start an unnecessary war, that is the you can do a onetoone of I have been lied to here and this is um I'm I'm going to vote against that.

But then also you look at the South um and a place where they tried to gerrymander people out of power.

Um that's a very strong message for um for black voters in particular in the south where you saw numbers that approached um you know presidential numbers in a midterm.

Well, so many things that he did uh backfired uh pushing corn and out of the Texas race, gerrymandering that didn't work.

I mean he's not actually that skilled at politics sometimes.

Donald Trump.

Yeah.

And and when the base at times used to be able to to be activated, right?

He tried to activate the base this time around and and it didn't necessarily and he blamed the base.

Blamed the voters.

He blamed the voters which is uh not the usual playbook but um but this is not a a usual presidency.

We'll see in He said 47 times pretend I'm on the ballot.

Right.

And then after election says I wasn't on the ballot.

I didn't.