He's putting a marker down that an awful lot of his colleagues have been unwilling to do.

I think he's going to fall back on what he didn't want to do, what he swore he wouldn't do, but almost all second-term presidents do, which is being in a kind of caretaker status.

giving aid and comfort to their adversaries.

This is part of laying down a marker.

She usually knew what was on the marker.

We'll use (this as) the marker for the next week or two but come Game 65, if we still haven't learned from that we're going to be way behind the eight ball.