bottom. so i think if we look at the fact that the president is still focused on andrew mccabe, we can't discount the idea that this is something that he actually wants us to be talking about. >> aaron, that's really -- that's an interesting way of looking at it. to your point, he is getting air support on the deep state argument on fox news all evening, every evening. shannon, from time to time i ask you about the business of this presidency from the point of view of citizens and taxpayers. how much of the business of the west wing is proceeding? what can we expect out of this white house? >> yeah, well, i mean, right now it's an interesting time. i mean, things kind of ground to a halt after the shutdown. they're just sort of getting their legs back under them. now, of course, you have this sort of boom, boom, boom of the mueller investigation and the possibility that mueller could actually submit a report in the coming weeks, which is what a lot of us are getting signals could be happening. so that again could grind everything to a halt. i mean, a lot of attention they're trying to turn to