The temperature was rising before the cameras started rolling. Reporters with assigned seating jealously guarded against the occasional poachers who were inevitably but politely evicted and sent scrounging for a spot to squeeze into along the already crowded aisles.

Welcome to the hottest club in Washington: the White House briefing room.

It has everything: breaking news, minor press celebrities recognizable from their profile pictures on the social media website formerly known as Twitter, and behind the podium, the new spokeswoman for President Donald Trump, Karoline Leavitt. It functioned like a convection oven.  

But other than the actual atmosphere, the first press conference of the second Trump season was relatively cool and calm. “President Trump is back, and the golden age of America has most definitely begun,” declared the press secretary. News followed quickly after Leavitt plugged the ongoing deportation operation, as twin screens behind her flashed the mugshots of recently arrested illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes or suspected of terrorism.

Reporters with prepared questions waited anxiously for her to finish. She made them wait through two announcements.

The unidentified drones that caused widespread panic along the eastern seaboard last year were not unidentified; they were operating with authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration all along. “This was not the enemy,” Leavitt said.

And then the answer to another mystery: How would this White House shake up the clubby briefing room? Trump has never hidden his disdain for the press corps, and rumors abounded as........

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