Weeks before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump is pushing the federal government toward a shutdown, corporate titans are flocking to Mar-a-Lago to gain his favor and a major media company has capitulated to Trump’s legal strategy of suing those who cross him.

The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Maggie Haberman, Catie Edmondson and Andrew Ross Sorkin try to make sense of it all.

Guest: 

• Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times.
• Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.
• Andrew Ross Sorkin, a columnist and the founder and editor-at-large of DealBook.

Background reading: 

• The government is lurching toward a shutdown after the House tanked Trump’s spending plan.
• The billionaire rivals Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are said to have dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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