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Welcome to the commentary magazine daily podcast today is Tuesday, January 19, 2021.

I am John Pudhord. It's the editor of commentary magazine with me as always executive editor

Abe Greenwald-Hi Abe. Hi John. Associate editor Noir Rothman-Hainoa.

And Christine Rosen is off today. So as we as we record this we are 24 hours and 22 minutes away

from the last moment of the Trump administration and the first moment of the Biden administration.

And I have to say that I am very much puzzled and baffled by what the world is going to be like

on Thursday compared to today because it still seems to me that Donald Trump is taking up the

mind space of 90% of the political conversation in the United States even as he leaves office

and even as he basically has not been speaking or publicly for days and days and days.

We have had this situation with him as the dominating figure in American and world politics

now for five years or almost five years. And I don't know that we know how we are going

to have conversations without him so much so that when this image appeared last night

on the mall of these flags, these hundreds of thousands of flags that have been put out on the mall

and tribute to the people who have perished of COVID, I was almost like how did that happen?

I mean I know the Biden people did it but how did that happen? Like what Biden people?

I didn't even know that they were allowed to do anything until the inauguration,

you know, whereas in an ordinary set of circumstances both not Trump being president and without COVID,

of course this whole last week would have been people are coming to Washington, they're checking

into their hotels, there are parties who's doing this, who's going to be there, the Biden's have

shown up and they're going to be doing XY and Z on Tuesday night and then there's going to be a

day of service and then they'll be this and then they'll be that and of course there's going to be this

...