Beyond the huge consequences for national politics, the arrival of opposition-party oversight can make daily life in the White House unbearable for senior officials and their aides, according to more than a dozen veterans of the Clinton, Obama and George W. Bush administrations interviewed by POLITICO. Their assessments offer a gut-churning preview of what’s in store for Trump administration officials should Democrats wield gavels come January.

White House staffers can expect to work past midnight battling congressional committees, wage exhausting fights over redactions to internal documents, suffer through mind-numbing meetings with government lawyers about the nuances of executive privilege and see their memos and emails leaked to the media by freshly-empowered Democratic investigators.

One former Clinton administration official compared the experience to getting dental work without anesthesia. A former Obama administration aide described the period after Republicans regained control of the House in 2010 as “excruciating.” A former George W. Bush administration official said it was one of the most demoralizing times of his career.