• Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker who has as deep relationships at the highest levels in Beijing as anyone in the West, sees an end to the trade war between the U.S. and China — probably within the next month or so.
• "Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are driven by similar, underlying interests — stronger growth to their respective economies — in trying to put this one to bed as quickly as possible," Rudd says.

Rudd, who's in the rare position of being able to channel both Washington and Beijing, elaborates in an Asia Society Policy Institute post:

• "Trump, as we have seen throughout his business career and most recently in Hanoi, wants to do a large part of it himself in a final round of brinksmanship with his opposite number."
• "Unfortunately for the Donald, the Chinese just don’t do it that way with their leaders."

The bottom line, per Rudd: "Whenever the Mar-a-Lago Summit is held between Trump and Xi, ... however it is dressed up, for it to work it will need to be signed off in full in both capitals beforehand by Vice Premier Liu He and his American counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer."

• "That’s where the art of this particular deal will have to lie, whether President Trump likes it or not."

Go deeper: Grading the impact of Trump's China tariffs

The key exchange:

• Brennan: "As a candidate, the President called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. He said Islam hates us. This kind of language in the past leads to these questions of why isn't the president now directly using that megaphone to condemn it.
• Mulvaney: "Well, then ... take the words and put them in one category and take the actions and put them in another. Something the president doesn't get hardly any credit for or any attention to is the work he's done in defense of religious minorities all around the world up to and including Muslims in the Middle East. ... So I hear what folks say, 'Oh, Donald Trump said this during the campaign.' Look at what we've done while we've been here. I don't think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim."
• Brennan: "Well, the president's tweeting now about a TV host who was suspended for anti-Muslim rhetoric. So it's I think a fair question to ask you about this."

Behind the scenes: We often hear this exact line from administration officials as justification for Trump's rhetoric: "Take the words and put them in one category and take the actions and put them in another." A senior European government official told me former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis often used the same line privately with allies to try to assuage their concerns about Trump.

• But Brennan made a painfully obvious point that still bears repeating: Trump's words matter.

• Trump loves driving, but he also enjoys being driven around — sometimes just for the sake of it, not to get anywhere in particular. He owns a black Cadillac limousine — "old school, with the partition and the bar ... like the inside of the limo in 'Home Alone 2,'" according to the source. 

Before he became the Republican nominee and got his Secret Service detail, Trump would sometimes just go for a cruise. "He'd be driven into a TV studio to record an interview and he'd say afterwards, 'Let's drive a couple blocks and listen to the radio.'" By radio, he meant right-wing talk shows: Rush, Sean Hannity, sometimes conservative Mark Levin in the evenings, and sometimes provocateur Michael Savage.

Between the lines: Over the past decade, Trump has spent countless hours honing his feel for the Republican base by listening to right-wing talk radio on his drives.

As president, Trump still loves driving past the lines of people on the street on the way to rallies. "Let's turn the lights on so they can see me," he sometimes says, according to a source familiar. A White House source who's joined him for car rides told me Trump likes to recognize the people who wait in line for hours to see him — plus, he craves the attention.

• During the early days of the campaign, before getting Secret Service protection, Trump would ride in the front seat. People used to chase the car with MAGA hats, photos of him and other memorabilia. He would open the window at stop lights and sign things or he'd tell the driver to pull over.
• Trump chafed when Secret Service ended these impromptu stops. "We've lost the magic," he'd gripe. As president riding in his armored Cadillac, he'll say, "Come on let me out. They'll go crazy. ... Stop the car for one second and open the door." They always say no.