I’m inadvertently live blogging the Ryan/Trump meeting. As I post this, the two of them are meeting. The air crackles with excitement. Work grinds to a halt across the nation as people tune into cable news. It’s hard to get a waiter in a restaurant to refill your coffee.

There are lots of things at stake in this, of course. For Trump, is this the first occasion in the campaign season where he actually has to act like a professional politician and statesman? Act like a grown up?  Shed the clown suit?

Ryan will address the press after the meeting and take questions.  Will Trump? How will Trump look sharing the stage with Ryan after the meeting? Can Trump sustain an extended conversation through the media with Ryan? Can he discuss policy differences?

If Ryan is playing a long (six-month) game to force Trump to prove he has the temperament to be president, will Trump be up to it?

Trump has built his entire campaign through Twitter and big rallies. That’s it. No town halls. No round table meetings with voters (can you imagine? Trump in listening mode? Feeling your pain?)  Like watching video of Vladimir Putin being nice to little kids.

The tweets and rallies are exactly Trump’s biggest weakness in trying to look presidential.

Nothing about 140 character messages from your bath tub tends toward reasonableness and statesmanship.

Nothing about large rallies tends itself to moderation and thoughtful discussion.

The question, then, is will this bring Trump down?  Or does he just look at the Weimar Republicans and say, “well, these meetings have been very useful, but the people are on my side, Lyin’ Ryan?”

Trump’s also meeting today with Mitch McConnell and the white men who make up the Republican senate leadership.  They’ll all support him.  They might even “endorse” him. The question is, will they ever be seen again in the same room together between now and November?