Close, But No

During Trump’s first term, there was a designated White House staffer whose job it was to sing: specifically, to play the sorts of songs known to calm and soothe the losses of temper that Trump often, it seems, experienced. Any small or large sort of thing, being crossed, double-crossed, insulted apparently or insulted for real, even just being bored or out of sorts and of course, screaming through various sorts of rages, all these could be an occasion to hit play on various showtunes of choice — Andrew Lloyd Webber’s barn-burner from Cats, you know the one, Barbra Streisand covers it (it’s the one about memory). On occasion, Trump would ask for the guy himself. “Go get the music man,” the staffer reports that he would say.