The chaos king, Donald Trump, has appeared to get pleasure from sitting back watching his staff duel it out. As a result, smart, talented people have refused to take the many open positions in this administration. Not only that, the president appears to prefer it that way, which is frightening.
His desire for chaos just alienated longtime U.S. allies at the G-7 Summit in Canada. It was almost as if POTUS’ late-night phone calls included pillow talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump could not have carried out the former KGB’s (FSB) playbook any better.
TIME magazine’s cover showed the commander-in-chief looking into the mirror and seeing a reflection of himself alone as king. Trump has had no desire for a U.S. democracy or a traditional White House administration, as his praise of cruel dictators has amply indicated.
As much as the internal White House warfare amused the man sitting in the Oval Office, it has been a “miserable” environment for the staff. Even Chief of Staff John Kelly told senators that the place, The New York Times reported:
‘(Was) a miserable place to work.’
Senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a “staff turnover expert,” said in the wake of the midterm elections that many talented people will shun working at the West Wing. She also said that Trump believes that he is his own best “chief of staff, spokesman, and human resources manager,” according to the New York Times:
‘I think Trump has run through the first string of people pretty quickly. If the patterns hold, we’re going to see another huge number of departures simply because people are exhausted and ready to move on.’
Former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, said:
‘This is how he won. This is how he governs, and this is his “superpower.” Drama, action, emotional power. Trump understands the overwhelming power of modern mass communications. Trump gets what the media itself has forgotten about themselves.’
Tenpas, said that when the president relied on “outside advisers” that was an indicator of “emasculation” of Kelly:
‘It seems as though Chief of Staff Kelly is losing power by the day. It’s almost like a battery that’s draining. I’ve not seen any presidency operate effectively without putting somebody in there that you respect and you can trust.’
Those who entered the White House for the first time have watched Trump’s behavior “as deteriorating.” He has driven off those who might provide him cover.
Trump has relied upon his secret core advisers, the ones he called as he sat alone in his bed surrounded only by cheeseburgers. The three men he looked to have been his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, friend for many years David Bossie, and the errant Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Author of The Gatekeepers, Chris Whipple, wrote about the history of White House chiefs of staffs, and he said:
‘The lesson of the first year and a half of the White House is not that the president needs fewer guardrails (sic). He needs more. There’s a huge difference between confidence and competence.’
Now, 45 has decided to throw down 70 years of proven diplomacy and jetted over to Singapore for a meeting with North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un. Trump’s actions have indicated that he feels far more comfortable with the tyrants of the world than any ally with the same values as the American people and alone in the White House.
Featured Image via Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla.
