Welcome back to the To the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. Think about the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, Donald Trump was astride the world, a master of the universe, threatening to swallow whole countries, right, threatening everybody in his path. And yet in the last couple of weeks, he's had to back down twice, hasn't he? He had to retreat on attacking Greenland. His Board of Peace was, I think,

universally derided. Then, of course, the new tone in Minneapolis, probably temporary, but at least

for the moment, it looked like he was backing off. He was somewhat humbled. In my newsletter

yesterday, I described the little platoons of

Minneapolis residents with cell phones, who turned out to be Donald Trump's kryptonite, at least

short term. He's sidelined Christy Knoem, sort of put her in the penalty box for a little

while, apparently thrown Greg Bovino under the bus. Even Stephen Miller is backing

off. So we have a lot to talk about how much of this is temporary, how much of it is real.

What happens now?

And joining me somewhere in Florida, in a closet in Florida, our good friend Mike Peska,

who is the host of the just longest running news and opinion podcast, I think, in the history of

mankind or something like that. Mike, how are you?

They did find one in the Pleistine era. No, I think you're right. I started it like 12 years ago. And I am in a closet because we wrote out this blizzard or we're forced to. And so we're in Florida, which is nice. I live in Brooklyn. I know you Wisconsinites don't even look at this thing as a blizzard, but it's a blizzard, right? Would you deem it a blizzard? Yeah, okay, as long as we have the Badger State,

blizzard seal of approval.

I don't feel so bad about being in my father-in-law's closet. And if you're watching the video, my face is blocking his pants. And he's very nice pants, but I don't know if that's a visual you were. Well, I'm really glad to hear that. No, no, I'm willing to concede that this was a real blizzard, of course.

You know, the weather is somewhat nicer in Florida.

It's about, I think, zero degrees here in Wisconsin. It's been that way for some time. So let's talk about what's going on up in Minneapolis. We have the sort of somewhat climb down, the de-fenestration of Greg Bovino. Just give me your thoughts on all of that,

because this was an interesting development. I always stress how temporary this is, that the

problem with the Trump administration is not about personnel. It's not about Christy Noam. It's not

about Greg Bovino. It's not about Tom Homan. The problem with the Trump administration is Donald Trump. It all flows from him. But it was still interesting the way in which this played out. They went from complete denial and smearing of the victim. In this case, Alex a prety to a cover-up to an acknowledgement that, damn, this looked bad.

So, Mike, what's happening up in Minneapolis?

What is your take?

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