This week in the saga

The last week before the date, and it is spent collecting. On Friday a law firm with two thousand lawyers agrees to a hundred million dollars of free legal work for causes the president and the firm both support, and the agreement is published on his account rather than theirs, numbered, like terms of surrender. It is the third firm to sign one in a month. On Thursday a congresswoman's nomination to the United Nations is withdrawn because the House majority is two seats and cannot spare her — the mission stated plainly, the person spent for it. Friday the capital is told to become clean and safe again, with no excuses from the mayor or anyone else. And underneath it all the ledger keeps running: eight million dollars to a magazine, two billion to a fund, all of it to be taken back, ASAP. On Monday, the last day before the tariffs, he writes that there has never been a transformation of a country like this one, and that it is a beautiful thing to watch.