QUOTE : Having known every president since Harry Truman - as Murdoch took frequent opportunities to point out - and, he conjectured, as many heads of state as anyone living, Murdock believed he understood better than younger men, even seventy-year-old Trump, that political power was fleeting. (This was in fact the same message he had imparted to Barack Obama.) A president really had only, max, six months to make an impact on the public and set his agenda, and he'd be lucky to get six months. After that it was just putting out fires and battling the opposition.