FYI

This is what I'm now going with--what do you think?

In the White House, the President, to general surprise, announced that he would not accompany his family to Mar-a-Lago over the holidays—a confounding, even alarming, turn for anyone who knew how much he valued a golf-and-warm-weather opportunity over any presidential business. Melania certainly had no intention of staying behind. Among other issues, friends suggested that she was still furious about his fireside Christmas Eve chat with a seven-year-old boy, during which Trump asked the boy if he still believed in Santa. "Melania didn't think that was funny," said one aide. Trump was "clearly a guy who had never dealt with a seven-year-old."

In an empty White House, Trump's personal secretary, 28-year-old Madeleine Westerhout, brought his papers and call sheets from the West Wing up to the residence, finding him, she told friends, in his underwear.

And herein, suddenly, was another subplot.

Westerhout had been the elevator girl in Trump Tower during the transition. The comely young woman ferrying dignitaries and job-seekers up to the President-elect soon became something of a meme herself. Bannon recalled noting that Trump took a particular interest in her. A leering Trump kept repeating, “She's got a way about her,” his signature, and creepy, stamp of approval for young women.

Now the president was telling friends that he wasn't staying at the White House because of the shutdown—he was staying because he was “banging” Madeleine.

Shutdown bravado? Locker room talk? Or all part of a new alternative reality that only he seemed to be living in?