When Sam shows his Blackberry to him, Josh screams, wondering whether Otto is scared to face him. Sam hushes him, and also won't actually give it back. Josh glares and taps his foot, causing his whole body to shake. He looks very much like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum. Sam closes the door: "I didn't come here because you're such a silver-tongued recruiter or because I got tired of summer in January." He goes on to say that Santos might end up being The Man, but only with Josh's help navigating through the political BS, and if it turns out great, then Sam wants to be a part of it. But Sam points out that the job will be hard, and that Josh needs to be at his best, not a million miles from it like he is now. He gives Josh his second ultimatum of the week: Josh must take a vacation, or Sam's out the door. "One of us is getting on a plane tonight," says Sam. "If it's you, you're back in a week. If it's me, I'm gone, adios, for good." Sam smacks the Blackberry down: "Your call." With that, he leaves the office.

Santos is waiting for Bartlet, and Debbie's got the flirt turned up to 11. She charmingly comments on his height, and asks whether he played college sports: "My sister thinks that you're very attractive." Bartlet walks in, actually throws a file onto her desk, and tells Santos, "She doesn't have a sister," before wishing him a good morning and ushering him into the Oval Office. Debbie just gazes after Santos, a great twinkle in her eye.

Bartlet asks Santos about the call to the Chinese President, and how it went. Santos merely tells Bartlet that he could read the transcript, and Bartlet apologizes for that, but tells Santos that he really needs to know what happened in the conversation: "I haven't seen the transcript, I didn't want to seem...overly interested." Santos tells him, "I portrayed myself as being impatient with our intervention, mystified as to the endgame. I might have referred to you as an incrementalist." Bartlet shakes it off: "I've been called worse." They smile at each other. This is definitely not a conversation of two men who are trying to undermine each other, that's for sure.

After they sit, Santos tells Bartlet, "It wasn't a bad idea, sir; to exploit the inherent awkwardness of transition this way." After explaining the game, Bartlet exposits, "Use it to play a little political good cop/bad cop. But you know you're going to have to make some really loud saber-rattling if we're going to pull this off." Santos explains how he'll handle a call with the Canadian Prime Minister: "[I'll] make it clear that while I wouldn't have necessarily gone in, once the troops are there, I have no intention of just keeping them in place open-ended, waiting to get shot at. If they're deployed, I'm gonna give them something to do -- like roll people back across their own borders. I'll suggest that the Russians and the Chinese are going to look back on the Bartlet plan as the good old days -- which you might want to find a way to artfully communicate to them both." Bartlet has a smile behind his eyes: "Sounds good. You make that case with seeming conviction...Let's hope we can scare the hell out of them." I'm going to start calling them Ballsy and Ballsy-Elect.