Vice President Pence has begun looking for a new home in the Washington suburbs, and he’s planning a valedictory foreign trip to begin the day Congress counts the electoral college votes.

Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has discussed opening a consulting firm with other White House aides and allies.

Top economic adviser Larry Kudlow has told friends he is planning to return to broadcasting, and he has his next gigs lined up.

As President Trump remains defiant, refusing to publicly acknowledge that he lost the Nov. 3 election, all signs around the White House point to a four-year whirlwind coming to an end. Aides are quietly lining up next jobs, friends are wrangling last-minute favors and Cabinet secretaries are giving exit interviews.

These behind-the-scenes preparations underscore the reality that while Trump may continue to tilt at the windmills, his tenure as the president of the United States is ending….

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Was it Worth It?

Peter Nicholas: “People who work for President Donald Trump typically meet one of two fates. They fail to show the unthinking loyalty he demands and get fired. Or, maybe worse, they don’t get fired—they endure the tantrums and turmoil and survive another day, binding themselves even closer to perhaps history’s most divisive president.”

“Anyone who went to work for Trump inside or outside the government surely knew the terms of the bargain. They’d be answering to an untested and impulsive president. They weren’t getting Dwight Eisenhower as a boss—they were getting Dwight Schrute.”

“Was it worth it? I asked nine seasoned officials, credentialed lawyers, flameouts, worker bees, operatives—some who voted for Trump twice, some who absorbed his harshest attacks. They all insisted that it was.”