corcoran s shoes having penned an attestation, even if christina bobb signs it at the end of the probe. yeah, this was a part of the investigation and throughout, this is largely explaining where trump is today facing the criminal charges. that s because he was very reticent all along, as was one of his colleagues boris epshteyn, with taking the posture with the federal government, with the national archives, in returning these materials that they have demanded repeatedly over the course of really a year and a half. so this time period after the justice department and the fbi executed a search warrant of mar-a-lago, and december, when investigators were still skeptical that trump had returned all of the materials is a really important one. and three of these lawyers
the president was in coordinating a federal response to that. because, yes, he s going to talk about his accomplishments in office to voters next year, but that is a very tangible example in a neighborhood and city he knows very well of government working. and that s really part of the story that the president wants to be able to tell. at a time of cynicism coming out of the trump administration in particular, the president feels one of his most important responsibilities is trying to restore america s confidence in governing. and sometimes, that s giving a big speech to an audience that was maybe more media than the general public. and sometimes, that s just fixing a highway in pennsylvania. and it was interesting to see a poll come out in pennsylvania today, it s a dead heat if we have the 2024 election in pa-p between trump and biden but governor shapiro who was right there with the president dealing with the highway collapse has approval rating upper 50s. a strong number. and that
something that shapes how he presents himself publicly, who he wants in the background of camera shots. it s something he s really obsessive about. he would often compliment men he golfed with and say that they were handsome. he would choose how he hired based on how they physically appeared on tv. it s so front of mind for him the looks of the people who he hires and gives jobs to, and the way that other people perceive his appearance, what other people think about the way that he looks. those images are absolutely preeminent for him. so to have someone like chris christie, who was long one of his close advisers really influential ally who brought some conservative bona fides to trump at a moment in the campaign when he really needed them, to have chris christie now sort of saying if trump s going to dish it out, he s going to need to be able to take it,
and i understand why some of the some of those people made those judgments. and it s hard to criticize that. and i try to separate that from briefings of the intelligence community. and i also think that one of the important things here is the people around mr. trump. i think they were trying, to the extent that they could, to ensure that the classified information was protected, right? they were trying to keep him to leave it in the sit room, right, and collect it later even if he had taken it to his personal quarters. as we now know, many, many documents exceeded the efforts of our intelligence community to keep them safe. mary, one of the first people trump showed classified materials to that jeopardized definitely sources and i believe methods was sergey kislyak who hadn t been in the white house and found himself walking the red carpet and at the elbow at
there s no question that that s something that the president would find deeply unpleasant to have to listen to. those are the kind of comments that get under trump s skin in a really unique way. you know, michael steele, this has a sort of frivolous feel to it, right, to men jabbing each other about their appearance. it s so beneath the kind of problems that most americans deal with in their lives, bus but there is a more profound piece. trump s obsession with appearance has extended to men and women in our country. there s been great reporting about the generals contending with moving wounded warriors out of camera shots just as betsy s describing, the people that were behind him. this is a sickness that he has. this is knowable. this has been reported, and if chris christie is knocking on this door of his vanity, there are a lot of political vulnerabilities there with groups that trump pretends to care about.