This week in the saga

It starts on Tuesday evening with a warning: change the law in the capital or he will federalize the city. Wednesday his envoy sits with the Russian president for three hours and great progress is made. Thursday at one minute past midnight the tariffs he has been promising since January actually begin, and he stays up to watch them start. That same morning he orders a new census that will not count anybody who is here illegally. Sunday he announces the press conference for the next day and tells the homeless of the capital to move out immediately — they will be given places to stay, but far away — and promises there will be no Mr. Nice Guy. Monday at ten past eight in the morning the city is declared liberated: the police federalized, the Guard called up, a capital run from the desk of the man who lives in the middle of it. The Border was fixed, he says. D.C. is next.