just blocks from where we<u+2019>re sitting in times square, president-elect donald j. trump has been hosting a parade of potential cabinet appointees in the heavily fortified trump tower, also known as white house north. the daily drama is being punctuated and animated by mr. trump<u+2019>s provocative early morning tweets. this week on the run-up , we devote our show to mr. trump<u+2019>s transition into the white house <u+2014> one of the most unusual and unpredictable transitions in recent memory. michael barbaro is finally taking some time off <u+2014> he is on vacation this week at an undisclosed location. so i am taking over the microphone this week. i<u+2019>m the chief national correspondent for the new york times magazine. joining me from washington, where i<u+2019>m normally based, are my colleagues michael shear and julie davis, two of our crack white house reporters, who are now in their own transition moment, from covering the obama administration to covering the trump administration. i<u+2019>m also joined in new york by charles homans, the political editor at the magazine. we start by talking about mitt romney<u+2019>s public pageant to be appointed secretary of state. why would he be putting himself through this? mr. shear says those who know mr. romney say he has <u+201c>a sense of service, partly because of his mormon faith but also a sense that he wants to serve the country,<u+201d> given how fiercely mr. romney condemned mr. trump during the campaign <u+2014> calling him a phony, a con man, a fraud <u+2014> mr. shear is just as intrigued by the opposite question: not why mr. romney would put himself through this process, but why mr. trump would even offer him the job. ms. davis has an answer, based on her reporting. <u+201c>one of the things that we know that he said privately about mitt romney is that he seems like he<u+2019>s straight out of central casting for secretary of state, which, coming from donald trump, is the highest possible praise.<u+201d> we discuss what<u+2019>s in store for rudy giuliani, whether chris christie is off the scene entirely, what to make of kellyanne conway<u+2019>s seemingly scripted <u+201c>going rogue<u+201d> moment and what, generally, we expect from a trump presidency. <u+201c>i think the institution of the white house and the physical building has a huge impact on its occupants,<u+201d> mr. shear says. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s possible that once they move into that building and once they start flying around on the plane and they<u+2019>re in the east room, that some of the tradition, some of the things that normally happen that presidents do, will start happening. it will never be exactly like obama <u+2014> it shouldn<u+2019>t be, and it won<u+2019>t be <u+2014> but i think it may be more normal than people think.<u+201d> we also talk about mr. trump<u+2019>s tweets, and the question of how the media should cover them. <u+201c>i<u+2019>ve been sort of mystified at the notion that we should somehow ignore what are by most accounts completely unrehearsed, un-poll-tested utterances from the mouth of the person who<u+2019>s about to become president of the united states,<u+201d> ms. davis says. <u+201c>we don<u+2019>t have to retweet them credulously <u+2014> we shouldn<u+2019>t <u+2014> we don<u+2019>t have to report them without any context or fact-check element <u+2014> we shouldn<u+2019>t <u+2014> but for the most part each one of these things is an important window into the way he<u+2019>s thinking, certainly the way he<u+2019>s communicating with 16 million of his followers, and it contributes to a portrait of him that, frankly, we don<u+2019>t have that many other primary sources to fill out.<u+201d> <u+201c>we<u+2019>re in the early stages of an unprecedented experiment,<u+201d> mr. homans adds. <u+201c>we<u+2019>ve never had this sort of window on any president before. there are a ton of fascinating implications of that, that we haven<u+2019>t sorted out. what does the steady stream of kidding-not-kidding utterances mean in terms of how we read more formal statements by trump or by his administration? how does the rest of the world, in the event of a diplomatic incident, read official proclamations coming from the white house? we end with a lightning-round question: is donald trump having fun? how do i listen? two ways from a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. or if you<u+2019>re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. on your iphone or ipad: 1. open your podcast app. it<u+2019>s a pre-loaded app called <u+201c>podcasts<u+201d> with a purple icon. 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( this link may help.) 2. search for the series. click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for the name of the series and select it from the list of results. you may have to scroll down to find the <u+201c>podcasts<u+201d> search results. 3. subscribe. once on the series page, click on the word <u+201c>subscribe<u+201d> to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. or just sample. if you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. if you have an internet connection, you<u+2019>ll be able to stream the episode. get politics news updates via facebook , twitter and the morning briefing newsletter .
the trump transition reality show
mark leibovich