I understand the appeal of a businessman president. But Trump's

Host: The rain poured in silver threads over the glass façade of a downtown high-rise. The city below was a restless sea of headlights and reflections, the kind of night when ambition and exhaustion looked the same. The office lights glowed like distant stars, each window a small universe of someone still working, still chasing something that maybe no longer mattered.

Inside a corporate lounge thirty floors up, the world felt suspended — all glass, leather, and steel. A half-empty bottle of scotch sat on the counter beside two crystal tumblers. The city hummed beneath it all — like a giant machine that never stopped.

Jack stood near the window, his suit jacket hanging off one shoulder, his tie loose, his expression unreadable. The neon reflection sliced across his face, half red, half blue — like the divided map of a country uncertain of itself.

Jeeny sat on the sofa behind him, her heels off, her hair slightly undone, her eyes heavy with thought. On the television in the corner, a muted news broadcast replayed an old clip of Michael Bloomberg saying: “I understand the appeal of a businessman president. But Trump’s business plan is a disaster in the making.”

The sound was off, but the words were everywhere — printed, repeated, dissected.

The rain kept falling, steady, rhythmic, like the pulse of time itself.

Jeeny: “He said it years ago. Bloomberg. Before everything unfolded. Before the market swings, before the chaos.”

Jack: “Yeah, I remember.” (He poured another drink, the ice clinking like a verdict.) “People laughed. Thought he was just another billionaire jealous of the spotlight.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now they realize he was right.”

Host: Jack’s voice was rough, weary. The kind of tone that came not from anger but from the fatigue of watching the same story unfold over and over again — different faces, same logic.

Jeeny: “You used to believe in that logic. The businessman model. Efficient, pragmatic, results-driven.”

Jack: “Still do — in theory.” (He turned, his grey eyes catching the light.) “But business isn’t leadership. Running a company isn’t the same as running a nation. A business fires its weakest. A nation has to heal them.”

Jeeny: “That’s the difference, isn’t it? Profit versus people.”

Jack: “No.” (He took a slow sip.) “It’s clarity versus conscience. In business, you cut what doesn’t serve the bottom line. In politics, you serve even what doesn’t serve you. The moment you forget that, you turn the people into assets — or worse, liabilities.”

Host: The clock ticked in the background, every second louder than the last. Jeeny’s eyes followed Jack — watching the man who once believed that capitalism could save anything, now doubting if it could even save itself.

Jeeny: “So you agree with Bloomberg.”

Jack: “I agree with the warning. A businessman president sounds good to people tired of bureaucracy — someone who’ll ‘run the country like a company.’ But they forget companies are built to win. Countries are built to hold.”

Jeeny: “Hold what?”

Jack: “Everything. Chaos. Diversity. Failure. Hope. A company doesn’t survive by embracing difference — it survives by eliminating it.”

Host: The rain pressed harder against the glass. The city lights blurred — red streaks, blue streaks, like the bleeding colors of a flag half-drowned.

Jeeny: “You sound like a man who’s lost faith in his own kind.”

Jack: “No. Just one who’s learned that the same instincts that make a good CEO can make a dangerous president.”

Jeeny: “Because they confuse control with vision?”

Jack: “Because they confuse power with progress.”

Host: Jeeny rose, crossing to the bar. She refilled her glass with water, her reflection glimmering beside his in the window — two outlines caught between illumination and shadow.

Jeeny: “You know, it’s strange. Bloomberg wasn’t wrong about Trump’s plan being a disaster. But maybe he also underestimated why people found it appealing. It wasn’t about business, Jack. It was about certainty. He sold them certainty in an uncertain world.”

Jack: “Certainty’s the most expensive illusion there is.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But people buy it anyway. Every election, every promise, every headline — we’re all just buying comfort we can’t afford.”

Host: The wind outside howled, rattling the windowpane, as if the city itself disagreed.

Jack: “You think people wanted a president or a savior?”

Jeeny: “Both. And he pretended to be both.”

Jack: “That’s the trick. Every populist sells the same thing — the fantasy that chaos can be managed by instinct. That charisma can outthink complexity.”

Jeeny: “You don’t think it ever can?”

Jack: “No. Charisma gets you applause. Competence gets you legacy.”

Host: Jeeny took a long sip of her water, her eyes lingering on the skyline.

Jeeny: “But maybe what Bloomberg missed was that a nation doesn’t want a leader who runs it. It wants one who reflects it — its flaws, its pride, its contradictions. Trump wasn’t the businessman president. He was America’s mirror.”

Jack: “A mirror can’t lead, Jeeny. It only reflects what’s already there — fear, anger, nostalgia. That’s not leadership; that’s performance.”

Jeeny: “But every leader performs. Even the righteous ones rehearse their sincerity.”

Jack: “Then maybe we deserve actors, not architects.”

Host: The silence that followed was heavy. The rain had softened, but its echo remained — a gentle percussion against the city’s insomnia.

Jeeny: “You know what I think the real disaster was?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That we kept treating democracy like a brand. Competing slogans, quarterly polls, rebranding trust like it’s marketing. Maybe the businessman didn’t fail us. Maybe we failed by turning politics into commerce.”

Jack: “You’re saying we bought what we deserved.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying we stopped reading the fine print.”

Host: Jack laughed softly, without mirth. He moved closer to the window, the city sprawling beneath him like a data sheet of human chaos — lights blinking, lives moving, profit and pain indistinguishable from each other.

Jack: “Bloomberg saw the storm before it hit. But maybe he forgot — the disaster isn’t just the plan. It’s the people who keep thinking they can buy their way out of consequence.”

Jeeny: “And what would you buy, Jack, if you could?”

Jack: (pauses) “Time. To fix what broke before it looked profitable.”

Host: Jeeny smiled — a small, tired thing that didn’t reach her eyes. She stepped closer, standing beside him now. The city reflected both of them — a pair of silhouettes against the glittering machinery of modern faith.

Jeeny: “Maybe what we need isn’t a businessman, or a politician. Maybe we need someone who remembers how to lose — and still cares enough to rebuild.”

Jack: “You mean someone who treats power like stewardship, not stock ownership.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The clock struck midnight. Somewhere below, a siren wailed, then disappeared into the hum of the metropolis.

Jack: “You know what’s ironic?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “Every empire starts as someone’s business plan.”

Jeeny: “And ends as someone’s apology.”

Host: The rain stopped. The clouds thinned, revealing a sliver of moonlight. It glimmered across the glass — faint, fragile, but real.

Jack: “So what do we call this then — this place, this time, this experiment?”

Jeeny: “A lesson in the price of ambition.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, his eyes tracing the skyline one last time. The city pulsed below — alive, flawed, relentless.

Jeeny’s hand brushed his — not a comfort, just a reminder that even amidst wreckage, connection still existed.

The lights flickered once, then steadied.

Host: And in that stillness, the two of them stood before the city — the machine and the dream — realizing that what begins as business too often ends as belief. And belief, once sold, is the hardest thing to buy back.