It was a strangely quiet, even eerie scene outside the Oval. Otherwise, it was constant lurkers: serial lurkers like Peter Navarro, as if always posted at the door; a lineup of aides and random visitors—it was unclear how many of them got in the building. There was always quite a town-square mood, or perhaps an eighteenth-century-court feel akin to the anteroom outside the king’s chambers. In the two months after the election, it had been the many irregular lawyers hanging around outside. Now: nobody. There was a renewed and concerted effort to keep a still-manic Rudy out.

But Trump, as ever in a red tie, was crammed in behind the desk.

Without personal reflection, without (most believed) the capacity for it on nearly any level, he never much reacted in different or revealing ways. Mercurial, yes, but, oddly, extremely reliable. He swam in one direction. He yelled. He joked. He monologue-ized. He talked. Others listened. Indeed, he held court as the sun god, seeing the center of the world as his immediate circle. That was the nature of the Trump Oval Office: a man amid his admirers, flunkies, courtiers, relatives, with no restraints on his ability to bore, taunt, digress, or monopolize others’ time.

So, now, this moment—being alone, having to seek company—was out of the ordinary. He sat behind the desk with his arms crossed. He was listening, ready to listen to aides now confused that they were expected to do the talking.

Here was the thing, the vibe that everybody had picked up: he was not sure what to do next.

Time, Trump time, had stopped.

The force that had propelled him since Election Day, the grievance, the impossibility of having lost (in his mind) the stolen election had, for the moment at least, died away. This was to everyone’s relief, and yet now there was a different kind of concern: What was he feeling, and how deep did anyone really want to go into Trump’s psyche?

There were calls for the vice president to act to remove him under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment—but that wasn’t serious, was it?

“That doesn’t have any chance,” said Kushner, perhaps, tonally, taking the idea too seriously.

The president prompted a discussion about the mounting calls for a new impeachment—a second impeachment!

Impeachment was head scratching. Why would you remove someone from office who was to be gone in days? The Democrats could of course be counted on to react in their hatred both wildly and predictably, but this was kind of what the fuck.

“Is this real?” Trump asked. “Really?”

Everyone seemed uncertain and generally as dubious about this as a practical tactic as Trump.

“Well, is this good for us or bad?”