Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, and Kurt Olsen, a lawyer contributing to many of the deep-state election steal theories, both among the most extreme conspiracy advocates, were hanging around Mar-a-Lago.

A group of unknown would-be financiers have launched an effort, which Trump has apparently signed on to, for the former president to front the Trump Media Group, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that will buy media outlets and social media platforms—“grifters with PowerPoint skills,” in the words of one Trump friend.

His son-in-law, the most significant figure in his administration and political life, and his daughter live in Florida now, but a calculated ninety minutes away. Each of his family members, all of them with a vastly elevated stature in American political and public life, but aware, too, of its precarious balance—between power and influence and disgrace and legal exposure—are trying to be strategic and careful. Early reports were that his daughter-in-law Lara might be considering a political future, a race for the Senate in 2022, but she seems to have quietly put her head back down.

There is Nick Luna, his body man from the White House, a thirtyish former actor—indeed, the nephew of Fred Thompson, a politician who became an actor, too, and a presidential aspirant—whose wife works for Kushner. And there is Jason Miller, who lives in Washington but functions as a part-time comms director and political advisor.

Trump doesn’t mention Hope Hicks anymore. Hicks had been the single steadiest figure in his daily political life, the one person most responsible for the incremental decisions that somehow got the administration to a (however stressed) natural end. But she walked away from his final fight. Now, in her stead, there is a Hope look-alike, Margo Martin, his new personal assistant, as young as Hope used to be, and as attentive.

And there is Brad Parscale, who, to wide Trump circle amazement, is back again in an undefined role—or, depending on whose Kremlinology, back again only to be on his way out again.

But Trump has never needed an organization, or infrastructure, or even a plan to make things happen. It happens because of his own stream of consciousness—his own expressiveness makes things happen. He talks. He sits in the middle of Mar-a-Lago and talks. Talks endlessly. And people listen.

The fact that he was talking to me might only reasonably be explained by his absolute belief that his voice alone has reality-altering powers.

His claim to be “a very stable genius” was a response to my book Fire and Fury, a tale that contributed to something of a worldwide questioning of his competence and mental standing. He threatened to sue me for it, along with other ravings and personal attacks he leveled in my direction.