When Donald met Scott: a reporter's view of Trump and his White House wonderland

Extract from The Guardian

Main image: Donald Trump and Scott Morrison at a ceremonial welcome on the south lawn of the White House. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP 

Australian PM Scott Morrison received a full-blown welcome from the US president. Katharine Murphy was on hand for an inside account

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by Katharine Murphy Guardian Australia's political editor

Sat 28 Sep 2019 04.00 AEST Last modified on Sat 28 Sep 2019 04.41 AEST

Scott Morrison has made his first visit to the United States as prime minister. It was a trip that included a close encounter with the unpredictability of the Trump White House, a foreign policy pivot, and a backlash about a lack of climate policy action. Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, travelled, with the prime minister. Here is what she witnessed:

Washington

We’ve been positioned at the White House since 5am, watching the sun creep over the American capital. Security is as laborious as you’d expect. Dogs sniff bags, then the secret service guys have a good look, passports are collected, checked and returned, White House passes and pins are distributed, and then at last we clear the metal detectors. Eventually we make it to the press briefing room, the small blue one, famous through several presidential administrations but now abandoned by Donald Trump. The modest proportions don’t fit his presidency. Now it’s just a transit zone.
We are greeted by a blond woman in a broad-brimmed hat. June, a self-described southern belle, is receiving visitors in the briefing room, although it’s not clear why. She identifies herself as a fellow scribe working for Christian radio and television in Nashville. When she’s not reporting on the Trump White House, she’s rallying Christians for the president. This seems something of a line cross for a reporter with White House press accreditation – but we’ve been on the premises for about 10 minutes and it’s clear that we’re not in Kansas any more.

Donald and Melania Trump welcome Scott and Jenny Morrison on the south lawn with full military honours. Photograph: MAI/REX/Shutterstock

On the other side of the building, visitors are streaming across the South Lawn to grab prime positions to witness The Donald receiving The Scott at the official welcome. Flags, American and Australian, are held aloft on a glorious summery day. Eventually we are permitted to wander down to the lawn as well.

The Donald’s grass is lush and slightly dewy, making me regret my choice of footwear. The daylight is now dazzling but the bucolic scene is disturbed by Austin rebuking Steve in the media pen. The confrontation happens just before the splendidly peppy pipe band strides across the lawn for the ceremonial welcome.
I’ve never met Austin before this moment but he looks about 30, buttoned down and watchful as a raptor – a White House wrangler who looks as though he hasn’t sat down, eaten anything apart from a protein bar, or slept more than four hours straight a night since early infancy. Steve has transgressed and Austin convenes a short, sharp show trial in front of me. I’ve nabbed a prime position on the fence in the media pen right in front of the entrance, and I don’t intend to move unless the secret service guy standing beside me gets feisty.
“You left the media area to make a call,” Austin says, voice appropriately low so as not to disdain the Wonderful Occasion swelling around us. Steve is older than his accuser and possesses the rumpled look of a longtime print or news wire reporter. I’ve never seen Steve before either, but he’s clearly part of the White House press pool and looks like a man disinclined to small talk. My guess, from my quick scan of the body language, the suppressed inner sigh, is that Steve has seen a number of Austins in his reporting lifetime, perhaps a small production line of them, and is not much gripped by this power play.
Steve says nothing. Austin persists. In a minute we are going to go full Veep. “The secret service told me you left the media area to make a call – is this correct?” Steve, at the end of his tolerance for J’Accuse now, delivers his mic drop. “Yah,” he says. “One of the secret service guys held back the rope so I could get out to make the call. I needed to take the call.” I suspect Austin doesn’t really know where to take this from here. The aide returns to the front of the fence, shoulders back, eyes front. It’s showtime.
Trump strides out of the White House with Melania. From my vantage point they look like a pair of Easter Island statues. This is my first encounter with the current leader of the free world and my curiosity is intense. How will Trump look uncut?

Donald and Melania Trump arrive to greet Scott Morrison. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Will he look how he does on television, with that weird affect – the pursed lips, narrowed eyes and nose and chin set to an upward inflection, indicative of defiance and displeasure? Or is this a posture he adopts only after he pulls on the presidential onesie every day and heads for Fox News, purring “ready for my close-up Mr DeMille”?

I discover this is how Trump looks all the time, or at least all the time he is in open space. He’s striding to the podium with exactly that look, with Melania, who is a dignified presence yet strangely devoid of life force. Perhaps she laughs and sings and dances in her track pants like no one is watching in her private domain but, in public, Mrs Trump looks like a perfectly proportioned doll in a doll’s house.
Over the next little while, Trump will lavish praise on Melania for her crack presidential spouse skills. The first lady, Trump reports over and over during the course of Friday, “worked so hard” on the table settings for the state dinner, pondering every detail. The flowers, the centrepieces, so wonderful, so beautiful. The best table decorations anyone has ever seen.
It’s hard for me to imagine the reality of the first lady’s life, what it must be like to agonise over centrepieces for state dinners amid the sound and fury of her husband’s bitterly contested presidency. Given her reserved public presence, it feels like an impertinence to wonder.
There’s no time for whimsy in any case, because the Morrisons are now on the premises, ready for their induction into the Trumpiverse. In comparison with the Trumps, Scott and Jenny Morrison, from the Sutherland shire, Australia – more latterly of Kirribilli House – look like a well-to-do couple from the suburbs. They are earthed in this big moment, respectful of the tradition they are now associated with, the tradition of Washington’s special friends being drawn to the nation’s bosom.

Scott Morrison’s arrival in Washington marks the second state visit of Donald Trump’s presidency. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/ABACA POOL/EPA

Presumably they are buzzing with anticipation and anxiety, given that the unofficial White House weather forecast for Friday is clear skies, a light breeze and a high probability of catastrophic cyclone once their delegation reaches the Oval Office. Looking normal in this environment takes some doing, but the Morrisons manage.

The troops march, and are duly inspected; the visitors clutch their flags, which flutter gaily in the breeze. The anthems are played. The two couples appear content with each other and the scripted remarks they share with each other and the crowd. Just before the conclusion of the formalities, Austin is back working the fence line to move us, lickety split, to the holding pen outside the Oval Office. Fortunately, the war with Steve seems to have subsided.

Trump and Morrison review the troops during an official arrival ceremony. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

I wash up near Steve and the other White House wire reporters. One of the group explains to me that Steve is the man if they want to get a question to the president. Trump will answer Steve. It’s unclear why that’s the case, and I don’t ask.
She also gives us tremendously helpful advice: Trump will be on for a rave when we get in there. We are surprised by this. Our assumption was we’d be in and out in a matter of minutes. Our river guide shakes her head. Trump, she says, is in an expansive frame of mind. Best we prepare some questions. She also predicts that Trump will struggle to understand our accents. If he doesn’t understand, the president will say: “Say it.” This means ask the question again, she says.
I assume this is some sort of weird in-joke until I hear Trump do just that. “Say it,” Trump says, narrowing his eyes and curling his lip. It’s utterly peculiar, but it’s an earworm. Once you hear it, it’s hard to get the locution out of your brain. Say it.

Trump reacts to questions during a joint press conference with Morrison. Photograph: Sipa USA/SIPA USA/PA Images

The door of the Oval Office swings open and we are thrust into pure madness. The media scrum feeds off the static electricity in the room. It heaves like a wave. Our questions crash on the shore. Thud, thud, thud. Mr President. The Americans in the pool want to know about Joe Biden and the Ukraine controversy – a story that will spiral towards impeachment during the week of our visit.

No American journalist gives a crap about Australia, and Morrison, and the second state visit to Washington of this febrile presidency. Fun fact: Emmanuel Macron, back when he imagined he had a talent for Trump whispering, was the first to be afforded the honour. But who cares? Conventions are devalued in the coarseness of politics in 2019. No one pretends to care. Everyone just has to emerge with what they need.

Journalists crowd the two heads of state during their press conference. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

 

Once we realise this is going to be nuts – a small blazing blitzkrieg at the seat of American power with no rules of engagement – Australian reporters also start hurling questions across a range of topics. Trump looks delighted by the disorder. It’s where he thrives. Morrison shifts in his seat.
The president lays into the media. We are hopeless, finished, friendless. But Mr President, what about the call? Did you speak to Ukraine’s new president? It was a beautiful call. Next question. Say it.
The Morrisons sit tight as the stiff westerly blows. The prime minister isn’t visibly alarmed but he’s hyper alert. Jenny Morrison composes her face into a placid mask – until Trump suddenly raises the spectre of nuclear weapons and Iran. I catch her eye at that moment and she startles, ever so slightly. Her eyes, to me, say “help me”. I catch Morrison’s eye a couple of times and the corners of his mouth crinkle.

I am a spectator at this circus but the prime minister isn’t permitted the luxury of distancing. Morrison is a peer of the president, a leader of a respectable middle power who has chosen, as the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd puts it with just the right squeeze of lemon during our visit, “to play ball with the Mad King” – to give friendless Donald a friend.

“It was a beautiful call.” Trump responds to journalists asking about his call with the president of Ukraine. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

The prime minister, unlike us, enjoys the benefit of knowing what Trump really thinks on a range of fronts; he has that baseline to keep him tethered through the rhetorical turbulence. But back in the nosebleed seats we lack those insights. During our 33 minutes in the Oval Office, Australian journalists are on a rollercoaster, hanging upside down, while the president indulges a dialogue with himself about whether to launch a military strike against Iran, or whether restraint is the better course. He lands eventually at restraint but the disorientation is so profound it takes me a while to process that’s where we’ve landed.
Eventually Trump stops feeling all the feelings and we are herded out. I ask one of my fellow travelling reporters whether the president just raised the prospect of nuclear attack, because I fear the sleep deprivation might be messing with my cognition. He’s as knocked around as I am. Yes, he thinks so, but he needs to listen to the recording. TV reporters are wondering out loud how on earth they are going to distil what just happened into a package. How do you do this in a minute and a half?
At the height of my disorientation, I spot Paul Murray from Sky’s Fox News lite after-dark crew at the back of the room. As we are guided out, Morrison beckons Murray forward and introduces him to the president. This introduction yields an exclusive interview with Trump which includes the simpering question: “What do you want to say to your many Australian supporters who wish you nothing but the best in November 2020?” I suppose it could have been what was his favourite colour.

Stephen Mayne @MayneReport

Paul Murray gets his exclusive with ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ but talk about not asking the hard questions.

The madness persists. The day ends with wranglers trying to facilitate some access to the state dinner, which is al fresco, in the Rose Garden. As we are herded through the South Lawn accompanied by the lilt of violins serenading guests and the murmur of clinking glassware and small talk, a secret service guy in night goggles, with foliage in his helmet, suddenly materialises from the bushes and sprints across in front of us.

Mr. and Mrs. Trump meet with Mr. and Mrs. Morrison as they attend a state dinner. Photograph: Pool/ABACA/PA Images

Shortly after this our White House wrangler declares this walk off the record, which generates considerable confusion among the scribes. How can a walk to a pool position be off the record? Which bit is off the record? This walk never happened? How do we explain our capacity to bear witness to events at the state dinner? Did we parachute in?

We resolve not to overthink this and press on, and eventually get close enough to see the guests drifting around the Rose Garden: the Australian billionaire box maker Anthony Pratt is hard to miss with his shock of orange hair; the younger Murdochs are there, Lachlan and Sarah, I reckon I’ve spotted the mining magnates Twiggy Forrest and the generally reclusive Gina Rinehart, who appears to be floating. I rub my eyes, fearing a fancy. Perhaps Rinehart is not floating, more likely I’m swaying, peering through a large shrub, sleep deprived and smacking the mosquitos that threaten my ankles, questioning my life choices.

Fox CEO and co-chairman of News Corp Lachlan Murdoch (L) and Sarah Murdoch arrive for the state dinner. Photograph: Ron Sachs/POOL/EPA

Hancock Prospecting chairwoman Georgina Rinehart arrives for the state dinner. Photograph: Ron Sachs/POOL/EPA

I see Rinehart again the next day, floating (she is definitely wafting like a cloud, because I know I’m no longer swaying) into a soiree at the Australian ambassador Joe Hockey’s residence, in a white dress with sequins and what appear to be pom poms trailing at the back. Morrison’s old chief of staff and new department head, Phil Gaetjens, by contrast, is wandering around in a Wallabies rugby jersey with cut-off sleeves.

While the grandees mingle, Rinehart sets up court with her entourage in a shaded corner of the garden on what looks like a sedan chair, but is actually just a garden settee. The visual cue is Ms Rinehart is receiving guests, as long as they are not journalists. The media mogul Kerry Stokes is also said to be mingling but I don’t clap eyes on him.
In Hockey’s garden I strike up a conversation with an expatriate pub owner who is now the mayor of Annapolis and is campaigning to tighten gun control. Gavin Buckley, formerly from Western Australia, is an avuncular Democrat at a Republican knees-up, a fish out of water who can’t quite believe his luck. Buckley tells me he hugged Hockey for the great honour bestowed upon him.

The whole scene is F Scott Fitzgerald meets the pre-woke capitalism of the 1980s, and the humidity is sending us all bonkers. Servers hand out party pies and sausages with disturbing names like cheese and Vegemite, and bald men in linen sports jackets compete for shade. One of our travelling media pack then proceeds to conduct a mock interview of a new magnolia tree which has just been planted to celebrate the Morrison state visit. With the Magnolia, this is Brett Mason, SBS News. It’s a joke, hijinks to help us stay alert when we are hitting that hour of the day when jetlag threatens to take your legs out. But we’ve crossed the sense barrier and we haven’t even hit the Trump rally. What could possibly go wrong?

Ohio

It’s a voyage with billionaires, this American excursion with Morrison. I confess that this is new territory for me. The cashed-up and politically connected drifted past us during the pomp and circumstance in Washington, and now we are closing in on Anthony Pratt as we speed to Wapakoneta, first airborne and then jammed in Morrison’s motorcade with police cars racing past, sirens blaring, to stop traffic on the freeway.

Crowds await the opening of Pratt Paper Plant in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Morrison, who will be thriving on all this hard work and energised by the thought that he might be called upon to pull things back from the brink, is upbeat during a quick amble down the back of the plane. He wonders what we have made of the Oval Office. “Two words,” I shoot back. “How good?”

The gaggle of Morrison staff tumbling in and out of black vans in the motorcades, and standing glassy eyed at midnight in hotel foyers, clutching their phones and wondering what day it is, look in reasonable shape despite the fact that most of them won’t have slept much. Team Morrison and senior bureaucrats drift in and out of our orbit, leaving us mostly in the hands of a crack team of departmental minders. These officials, particularly the logistics people, are always the unsung heroes of these trips. The wranglers on this trip are outstanding. The pace is punishing – at times it feels like early in the Kevin Rudd era. The transitions are down to the second and there are no screw-ups, at least none that are visible to us.
One of Morrison’s press secretaries, Nick Creevey, has joined us for the sprint to Wapakoneta on the commandeered Dayton school bus. We’re all practising the pronunciation of Wapakoneta. Wah-pa, Christ, how do you spell this bloody place again? Katina Curtis, the meticulously prepared Australian Associated Press reporter, is patient with the spelling drills. Hey Katina. How do you spell …
There are few female journalists on this trip, and overseas voyages, in my experience, tend to take on an Aussie barbecue dimension. This is a generalisation but, as generalisations go, not an unfair one. Male correspondents largely herd together, socialise together, crack jokes together, reinforce one another’s insights, and women run on a parallel track. It’s a strange dynamic at times; stranger because the blokes who engage in the behaviour would be entirely unconscious that’s what’s happening. It’s just custom, or muscle memory. Hashtag road trip. Hashtag dudes.
Dayton to Wapakoneta is flat and rural. The billboards we pass are a combination of fast food temptations and Jesus Christ, saving the born and unborn. I’m both fascinated to learn what we are driving into and mildly apprehensive, given that Trump rallies can be hostile to the media covering them, and hackles in the base must be raised by the latest mainstream media pursuit over Trump and Ukraine. The president loves a persecution narrative with him at the centre of it – it fuels the righteous rage of his supporters. Everyone can be aggrieved together.

Trump supporters await the arrival of their hero in Wapak

oneta. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Nobody in the PM’s entourage expresses any apprehension at all about Ohio, not even a hint of it. But my instinct suggests they are also worried about the unknown. There are risks in the look of this thing. Should Morrison really be at a Trump rally (even though the Ohio event is more complicated than a 2020 campaign whistle stop with Morrison attached). Apart from the possibility of any bizarre, indefensible off-piste business, there is also the risk of Trump banging on and on and on. It is entirely possible scheduled remarks at the opening of a box factory could stretch into a Castroesque monologue that kills our logistics stone dead. Morrison’s crew had expected the Oval Office encounter to last for a few minutes and instead it stretched, putting them behind for the remainder of the day.
I filed a column describing our arrival into Wapakoneta and the rapturous welcome the locals gave Trump, but there were some other memorable moments behind the scenes. When Trump and his entourage finally blow in to town in a blaze of police sirens and secret service agents, we are reunited with the same White House press pool we met on Friday outside the Oval, grinding through another event. I clock Steve in the distance, kicking on.
Trump engages Pratt the minute he’s in the factory. The two billionaires exchange lavish compliments as they amble towards the gaggle of reporters. Presumably the box maker is explaining recycling to Trump as they go. Rubbish in, box out, cash in.

Trump and Morrison with the chairman of Pratt Industries, Anthony Prat. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The president then tracks towards where the journalists are corralled behind the fence, straining to get an iPhone snap for Twitter. He’s looking for Steve, the Trump whisperer, because he’s got exciting information to share. “So that’s 100% recycled paper into a really, fine finished product,” the president enthuses on the fence line. “It’s really amazing, Steve. They start off with …” Trump pauses delicately … “can I use the word ‘garbage’?”

Pratt is entirely comfortable with the word. Pratt Industries, Ohio, is proudly euphemism-free. Trump picks up the story: “They start off with waste, garbage, and they end up building it into a – making it into really great cardboard and paper.”
“A hundred per cent of the plant”. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never seen Steve before these couple of brief encounters, he is a complete stranger to me, and what follows is pure speculation, but I’m going to hazard a guess that he knows what recycling is. I reckon Steve does know about it.

In the last presidential contest, Anthony Pratt bet $100,000 on Trump to win against Hillary Clinton. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Trump is another story. Possibly this impromptu recycling-for-dummies tutorial is just the president being performatively didactic, or perhaps he is inoculating himself from cable TV hysterics who might associate reuse with One World Government. Or perhaps this is the first time in his life he’s encountered recycling.
Trump continues to roll this newfangled Pratt magic around in his mind, and engage journalists enthusiastically along the fence line. “That’s really some equipment. The finest equipment in the world. And more and more people are going this way.
“Normally, you take down trees and you make the paper. In this case, Anthony does 90, 95% out of waste, out of garbage, and they make incredible final product through a very – through really a very – a really costly but efficient process.” He could be describing the interface between tycoons and politicians but let’s not be caustic or labour the metaphor. We need to continue with our story.
Emboldened by this level of engagement from the president, one of the Australian journalists calls out: “Do you want more businessmen like Mr Pratt, Mr President?”. Trump is confused. Say it. (Implied, not stated: louder visiting freak, take two.) Say it.

“Do you want more businessmen like Mr Pratt to invest in America like he has?” Trump narrows his eyes. “Yeah, well, we have some good ones. But this man is number one in Australia, they say.” Number one of course, being the highest Trump accolade. That and apex predator.
Pratt returns the favour before we leave America. He tells the Australian newspaper Trump is going to win in the 2020 election. Lest this just appear guesswork, or another shovel load of obsequiousness, history shows that Pratt has a sharp eye. In the last presidential contest the billionaire box maker bet $100,000 on Trump to win against Hillary Clinton.
Asked whether he’d make the same bet again, Pratt reports that he’s raised the stakes. There is now $2bn on the table – investments in new paper operations in the US. “I told the president we want to continue to invest and fulfil our pledge,” Pratt tells the paper. “It was very gracious of him to come to our Ohio plant opening. I was fortunate to spend some time with him. He was as gracious as ever.”

Trump departs after the tour and plant opening with Morrison and Pratt. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Gracious indeed. As another wealthy entrepreneur, Malcolm Turnbull, was once fond of saying. What. A. Time. To. Be. Alive.

New York

By the time we roll out of Chicago – a whistle stop characterised by a serious foreign policy pivot from Morrison, and an unfortunate photo opportunity in front of a McDonald’s smart board that built a visual bridge to Engadine for people familiar with the infamous internet meme (let’s just leave it at that) – and on to New York, the drumbeat is cacophonous, literally and figuratively.
It is leader’s week at the UN general assembly, and the area around the headquarters is locked down. The streets teem with protesters and delegates, and groups of Africans gather on Forty-fourth Street to drum and sing. The UNgeneral assembly circus drives New Yorkers bonkers, the streets are gridlocked and the eateries overflow, but the vibrancy of it is quite wonderful: the convivial murmur of languages on the east side of Midtown, the colour and style of the clothing, the downing of late-night whiskey amid animated conversation.

Morrison delivers his statement to the 74th session of the UN general assembly. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Trump declares theatrically, with Nancy Pelosi closing in, during his address to the UN national assembly, that this is the time for patriots, not globalists. It’s a soundbite crafted for Breitbart or Fox News, potent with his rusted-ons, but a hollow slogan in the world of facts and evidence. Did I miss the bit of history where globalisation became optional? For what it’s worth, New York categorically ignores him. On the streets, in the stores, in the financial district, globalisation prevails. It’s not even a contest.

Beyond the literal, the figurative drumbeat is for Trump. Impeachment is closing in on the president. Some commentators say he looked subdued at the UN, which would be a rare lapse in self-confidence. The mood at the start of the week in Washington was come and get me suckers. But I’m out of the presidential orbit now so I have no first-hand observation to report.

Trump waits to give his address. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Morrison, comprehensively overshadowed by movements in the tectonic plates of the major powers, ploughs on diligently with his UN program and seems unperturbed by the misfortune of his two mates, Boris Johnson and Trump, hitting some serious turbulence. If the prime minister had any regrets about taking hospitality from Trump and aligning Australia’s diplomatic language precisely with the president on some thorny geopolitical issues, he certainly didn’t show it.
A certain defensiveness did creep in on climate change, though. Morrison wasn’t cranky but there were persistent pesky questions from the travelling media about Australia’s lack of policy ambition, and about his decision not to attend the UN climate summit on Monday. Even Trump called by. Why didn’t Morrison? There was the sound of prime ministerial teeth being gritted.
Interestingly, Morrison’s speech to the UN general assembly, which was billed initially as being an address about practical environmentalism, not climate change, drifted back into climate. There was a significant chunk defending his government’s policies, and some umbrage at the media for feeding false narratives – not fake news, mind you, but stoking prejudicial sentiment.

Morrison defends his government’s record on climate change to the UN general assembly. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

In New York we meet our final billionaire, Mike Cannon-Brookes. The final piece of my triptych, the next gen mover and shaker, moves in different circles to Pratt and Rinehart. MCB didn’t make the cut for the state dinner at the White House, evidently, but he made a bit of a splash at the UN.
The Atlassian founder went to the climate summit to commit his company to a target of net zero emissions by no later than 2050. Cannon-Brookes nudged Morrison on Twitter: “Please give us a future we can believe in tomorrow. Inspire us. Lead us. Don’t bullshit us. I’m happy to help, as are millions of Aussies.”
I meet Cannon-Brookes at the Flower Shop, a hipster bar on the Lower East Side. His minders invited us down for a beverage. Most of my colleagues are punctual but I’m late, because the traffic is terrible, and the bearded tech entrepreneur lobs late as well. There is an overwhelming smell of weed that eddies through the bar as we settle in, which I stress is not connected to anyone in our group or Atlassian’s.
I don’t know who is responsible for this licentiousness and don’t intend to investigate, frankly – but it’s surreal, meeting a thirty-something billionaire in a bar as the bookend of this bonkers week, and having the bar reek of marijuana – that I find it hard to stop laughing at the unlikeliness of it all. It caps off the Through the Looking Glass sensation of the US odyssey.
The evening is convivial and, unsurprisingly, there is much impassioned talk about climate change and energy policy and a fair sprinkling of acronyms – a bunch of Aussies jousting good naturedly about the future of the planet in a bar in Manhattan. I leave Cannon-Brookes downstairs shooting pool with a few stayers, settling in to welcome the dawn, and head uptown, clearing my head by walking up Forty-fifth Street as the dumpster trucks and the street sweepers move into high gear for the pre-dawn cleanse.
I engage a cop at a checkpoint just to make sure I haven’t veered wildly off course in a desperate bid for oxygen. “The Roosevelt is just up here,” I inquire, “right?” The cop smiles and sips his coffee. “I’m from Brooklyn, m’am.”