Demoralized West Wing stokes fears over Trump's capacity to handle a crisis
The president has embraced chaos since the beginning, but the past week's drama has left staffers dangerously depleted.
By JOHN F. HARRIS and ANDREW RESTUCCIA 03/02/2018 08:38 PM EST Updated 03/02/2018 08:43 PM EST
Chaos here, backlash there, shock everywhere. And in Washington and around the globe another gasping chorus of WTF commentary: reckless, not normal, reality show run amok.
And so on, et cetera, et cetera, for the one-hundredth-and-cant-remember time of the Trump Era.
But there is something different about this weeks spasm of sudden policy lurches, graceless personal insults, oozing scandal news, and ceaseless West Wing knife fights.
It is the starkest example to date of President Donald Trumps executive style looking untenable not merely from the outside from the perspective of establishment politicians and media analysts but from the inside, too.
Administration officials and outsiders with windows into decision-making describe a growing sense of despair within Trumps ranks, driven by the mounting realization that the presidents brand of politics guided by intuition and improvisation is incompatible with a competently functioning executive branch.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/02/trump-white-house-chaos-crisis-434333