Well, hello from Washington. I'm Chuck Todd, and this is the Chuck Todd cast. President Trump is back. He started off with a bang. He signed 47 executive orders, gave half a dozen speeches just on his inauguration day, not just the inaugural speech. There was the grievance speech, literally a half hour later,

where he went after people by name. And he generally just took up all the attention. He was

the living embodiment of that old saying that he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the

corpse at every funeral. So let's just say Trump is back.

The eight o'clock signing, executive order signing at his desk in the Oval, also taking questions.

I think it's a very, you know, it's funny. I saw that in your list like, you know, I do think

Democrats shouldn't just think anything Trump does is bad. Trump has figured out how to engage

more people with the, with some of the decision making of governing, that the left ought to be

jealous of. The left wishes its supporters were as engaged with what they were doing.

We wanted to see every executive order signed.

That is something that I think the left ought to work on actually trying to enjoy a little bit,

not just talk to the small group of activists who care about every little word that is said and written, but figuring out how to broaden the interest out, if you will, to a larger chunk of the coalition.

It is an intriguing part and I think an underrated part of Trump's ability to move his party. My guest today is Stephen Hayes.

He's the co-founder of the dispatch. He's a good friend. You guys know the dispatch. It is certainly

looks at, I think it's a pretty straightforward news site. The commentary is certainly more of a free market conservatism when you

get the commentary out of it. But what they cover is down the line. Some might say it's sort of the

old conservative wing of the Republican Party looking for looking for a worldview that is

different from the Trumpian worldview,

if you will. And if you remember, Stephen and I did a, where is the Republican Party

ideologically during the Republican convention back in Milwaukee? So if you didn't hear that,

I'd encourage you to listen to it because it actually, this was right after the assassination.

So in some ways, we definitely were covering a euphoric version of the Republican Party who thought it was just inevitable that he was going to get elected at the time.

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