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Vitali has been covering Trump for over 600 days. Nikki Kahn / for NBC News

Not that I was in the business of making predictions. The presidential campaign was full of pundits and analysts, but I wasn't one of them. I was an embed: Attending every rally; toting 50 pounds of TV gear; filming protesters by standing on tables; emailing rally-by-rally readouts to NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, plus affiliate networks; trying to break news; get some TV hits and also making sure to call my mom enough.

That job is how I landed here, at the White House.

Everyone knows it hasn't been a laugh riot for the media covering this president. Not only does he make news more than anyone in recent memory, but he's continued his attacks on the press as "fake news."

For me? The sting's gone out of it a bit. Head down, work to do. I've moved on. For sure, it's easier to handle now than it was during the campaign, when those same anti-media grenades were lobbed from a podium and into a sea of thousands of cheering Trump fans, excited for the chance to boo the press.

I'm a baseball fan from New York, so I think of it like how the Yankees must feel when they're playing in Fenway Park. It's a small distraction, at most. The fans enjoy the razzing; the players learn not to be fazed by it.

Bottom line: The shock value of Trump's anti-media campaign has worn off.

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I first met Trump while he served jury duty in New York City in the summer of 2015, introduced by his longtime body man Keith Schiller. The first question I had a chance to ask him about was how he planned to pay for the wall on the Mexico border (he didn't really say). I've spoken with him before tapings of interviews and seen him pose for pictures with reporters at a post-election off-the-record gathering at Mar-a-Lago.

Amid the opulence and gold of his estate, where he's more at home than in the White House, I glimpsed another side of Trump. I began to understand what his aides often said of their boss he can read a room.

In those settings, I understood why former business partners and current associates describe him as likable and even charming; a guy who cajoles, laughs and does deals. It was almost enough to make me forget about the time he

The predictable unpredictability of Trump. And Twitter's still the perfect platform for him.

Tweets have always been a cornerstone of covering Trump and he can still send reporters on a merry-go-round of fact-finding with one tap. It's his way of circumventing a media that he says doesn't treat him fairly.

The social media firebombs have changed with the absence of "Lyin' Ted" or "Little Marco" to riff about. "Crooked Hillary" Clinton has not made an appearance on Trump's feed in months, though even five months later he still finds ways to raise the specter of last year's campaign to remind people that, yes, he did beat her even though everyone said he couldn't.

Trump's 140-character messages now include real threats on trade, new promises on healthcare, and seemingly spontaneous reflections on foreign policy all with the gravitas of the @POTUS handle to retweet them. The messenger hasn't changed; he's just got a bigger platform and a national archive.

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New office, new house, new city, same Trump who yearns for the campaign trail and the reassurance of his base. It's 2017 and yet I still find myself booking flights to campaign-style rallies where he can speak directly to his people. He's got another one in Pennsylvania on Saturday, the same night as the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner that he's boycotting. I joke with friends about checking the calendar to make sure I haven't somehow time traveled back to 2016 when a press "pen" cobbled together with bike racks in the middle of thousands of screaming Trump fans felt like my natural habitat.

Trump's still at home there, too. Gripping his podium, using his crafted TelePrompter remarks as suggestions for what he should say. He often doesn't stick to the script.

Same as ever on the stage, but those close to him say they've seen a change in the former real estate mogul. And even Trump himself has mentioned his realizations about the vastness of the government he now helms and the weight of the decisions he now makes. He's not just talking about bombing "the s--t out of" enemies anymore he can literally do it.

When the campaign ended, many people asked me if I would follow the president-elect to the White House. I had dedicated so many hours, attended hundreds of rallies, logged thousands of miles and charted intimately his rise. It had been exhausting; it had consumed my personal life. Admittedly, there was a part of me that would have liked to close the book there.

But separating from this beat and him is impossible. I feel beholden to this story. On the job at the White House or overhearing the table next to me at dinner, Trump is everywhere especially on my phone, which still buzzes every time he tweets.

More here:
My 100 Days of Covering President Donald Trump - NBCNews.com