Both a senator and a pastor, Raphael Warnock reflected on being asked to give closing remarks at an annual congressional dinner in Washington. “Since we are meeting in what used to be the Trump International Hotel,” he mused, “perhaps it is an exorcism.”
That was last year, when the ghost of Donald Trump had seemingly been banished for good from the nation’s capital. But like all the best horror movies, there is going to be a sequel. Next month, Trump will return to a city that he has openly disparaged – the feeling is generally mutual – when he is inaugurated as the 47th US president.
Trump lost the Republican primary election to Nikki Haley in the District of Columbia. He lost the presidential election there to Democrat Kamala Harris by 86 percentage points. Even so, he has vowed to radically overhaul the capital, threatened its political autonomy and recruited the billionaire Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.
