The first question came from one of the two Fox anchors, Bret Baier, who wondered what the president would say to the opposing sides of the country’s many cultural fault lines: those who think it’s too early and unsafe to go back to work, and those who think the business shutdowns have gone on too long.

Trump’s capacity to astonish even his most jaded viewers is bottomless. Politicians love to accuse their rivals of “trying to have it both ways,” as if it were a capital offense against logic and leadership. A politician who really does want to have it both ways (and they all do) will scold his rivals for creating a “false choice.” (Barack Obama used the phrase so often, he could make it the name of his fishing boat.) But no politician in his right mind, under any circumstances, would ever dare to—

“I think you can have it both ways,” Trump said. At these moments his insouciance glows about him as brightly as his corona. Then, as a way to explain how that could actually happen, he answered by simply rephrasing the original question at much greater length and ending in midair, dropping to Earth with an authoritative “So I understand that very well.”