The Obamas made a commitment to each other when moving into the White House, “No new friends.”

It sounds ridiculous. They were going to meet all kinds of people from all over the world and … and… and it makes perfect sense in the Obamas’ context. Of course, they would meet people and become friendly, but in terms of intimate friends, friends for life types, no – none. Because, as president, nearly everyone “friendly” around you wants something from you, or wants a knife in that back of yours. One can be seduced easily by those “friends” with agendas.

Donald Trump thought everyone was his friend, everyone would be loyal. But it sounds like he got a tough lesson in how few friends he had in the days after November 3rd. According to Michael Wolff, the White House was essentially empty in the days afterward:

The important thing to remember is that there was nobody in the White House,” said Wolff. “From … November 3rd to January 6th, one of the themes was that everyone that surrounded the president in the West Wing, in the campaign, even his family, were running for the exits. So you had by November 3rd, by Saturday, November 7th, everyone around the president — 100 percent of the people around the president — knew he had lost the election.”

Everyone wanted to be around Trump when he was the president, the man with all the power, they all want a thumbs-up picture to text around to others as the endorsement. The moment he lost his presidential power, he had no personal power. But that is expected, at least with a guy like Trump.

What is not expected is that these people then put the entire country at risk by acting as though he had won. That is the message here, that from that point on, people were going through the motions out of sheer fear of what Trump might do if they did not play the game.

They knew he lost, but he didn’t know he lost. They all had to keep their distance.

“He had taken a step further. So he was not in the present reality. Everybody knew this. And everybody was trying to create enormous distance between themselves and the president. And this includes his family. So by the time you got to January 6, there was literally — the White House was crickets, nobody there.”

We suppose that’s how someone like Marjorie Taylor-Greene ends up at the White House in late December of 2020 “planning January 6th,” there were no grown-ups, no “anyone” left to restrain him at all.

He never did have any friends to pull him back. So that’s how it happens, a fever dream by a man who isn’t “present in reality,” leans on guys like Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, Proud Boys, Lauren Boeberts, Ron Johnsons, and even people like Marj, next thing one knows, there is an assault on the Capitol, people looking for Mike Pence, and a noose waiting outside.

Despite the “No new friends” rule, the Obamas left the White House with hundreds of new friends, people who are still very good friends, two of whom are back in the White House. Don quickly figured out he need not worry about “new” friends, he never had any.

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