Just as relevant, none of the six men had precisely told the president this. Herschmann, in close touch with Kushner—traveling back at that moment from the Middle East and, likewise, by no means pressing the issue with his father-in-law—perhaps came closest to addressing the point. But far from close enough. Meadows reverted to a kind of Southern speak, so polite and genteel and sugary that no matter what he said, you might think he was on your side or at least wanted to be. Miller, Clark, Cannon, Scavino, and Murtaugh had all become expert at absorbing what the president said, ever ingesting and trying to process it in the most palatable way possible short of saying something to cause the president to turn on them.

They, along with almost everyone else in the White House, and among those who had slipped out, just wanted this to be over. It was over. Top of mind for Justin Clark, on his way to the RNC meting, was the fact that the lease on the campaign headquarters in Rosslyn was running out on January 31—everything needed to be cleared out in the next few weeks.

It was Jason Miller’s daughter’s fourth birthday, and he was hoping the certification of electors that day would not involve too much grandstanding. He wanted to spend the day with his family.

Miller called Boris Epshteyn for a reality check: “So … how exactly do we think this is going to go today?”

“Short answer: we have no idea.”

“How many states are teed up?” The number of states receiving House and Senate objections would determine how long and how pitched the day’s events would be.

“We’re still not sure.”

“And the chance of anything going anywhere? Really, ballpark me.”

“Zero.”

“And then what?”

“Then it’s over.”

It was hard to imagine what kind of confrontation or intervention might at this point have forced the president to appreciate that the vice president’s course of action was set, and that everyone everywhere knew what his course was. This was rather the serious and alarming point: however known to everyone else, however absolute the vice president’s course was going to be—indeed, however impossible it would have been to do otherwise and however much Pence had been clear on this point—however much it was only the president (and Rudy) continuing to believe that the course was fluid, there was yet nothing that could be done to make the president of the United States understand or prepare for this single, immutable outcome otherwise known by everyone.