Nearly eight years ago, I remember walking into the lobby of Trump Tower to cover President-elect Donald Trump’s first news conference after the 2016 election. On Monday, as I watched him turn Mar-a-Lago into the backdrop of his first news conference since he became president-elect for the second time, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much has changed.
And how much hasn’t.
As it turned out, Trump himself seemed to be in a similarly contemplative mood.
“The first term, everybody was fighting me,” he said on Monday. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know — my personality changed or something.”
Trump’s personality has not, in fact, changed. But plenty of world leaders, American politicians and corporate chieftains have caught on to the simplest and most direct way to Trump’s heart: flattery, preferably in public.
Back in 2016, much of the Republican Party was still openly leery of Trump. Paul Ryan was the House speaker. Mitch McConnell was the Senate leader. Both were Trump skeptics, to say the least, and their own centers of political gravity in the party.
Now, everything in the G.O.P. revolves around Trump.
The way top Republican congressional leaders all piled into the same luxury suite as the president-elect at the weekend Army-Navy game was symbolic of their relationship. Speaker Mike Johnson all but owes Trump his gavel. And while Senator John Thune has previously been no MAGA mouthpiece, he has had only positive words for Trump since his ascent to becoming his chamber’s majority leader.
“We have a big head start — last time we didn’t,” Trump said. “And last time we didn’t know the people, we didn’t know a lot of things.”
