Dan Pfieffer, Senior Advisor to Barack Obama, said to CNN’s Erin Burnet recently:
“Look, I’ve been in Washington a long time, I’ve watched a lot of White Houses, I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening here,” he said. “There are clearly factions, I don’t know who’s in what faction, but the things that White House officials are saying to other White House officials on background to reporters is mind boggling. Every day you read another story about someone in the White House trashing Sean Spicer, saying that Trump doesn’t support him, doesn’t like him, that Reince Priebus is out of favor because he supported Sean Spicer. In White Houses, presidents get mad at staffers, staffers get mad at each other, but you don’t read it in the paper in a minute by minute basis. It appears to people on the outside like it is pure chaos. It’s like ‘Hunger Games’ or ‘Game of Thrones’ in there.”
The Trump Inner Sanctum is dominated by four personalities vying for alpha status in the West Wing: to wit, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner and Kellyanne Conway. In the maelstrom that is the Trump White House tensions mount and nerves snap, like electrical wires in a hurricane force gale. And the storm never lets up, it only shifts direction and changes focus on where, in this case on whom, it will touch down next. Two days ago, although it feels like ever so much longer, Kellyanne Conway had fallen from grace in the Trump court. News host Erin Burnet asked Dan Pfieffer about the obvious discord between Conway's ethical faux pas over Ivanka's issue with Nordstrom's, which ostensibly upset Trump with Conway, and then Conway's immediate disclaimer that the president supports her “100 percent."
Conway refused to comment on what she was “counseled,” who “counseled” her and what any of the details were. When asked about the letter of concern from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and ranking member Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Conway said the president was not concerned.
“We’re aware of that letter and we’re reviewing that internally,” Conway told Fox. “I’m just really happy that I spent an awful lot of time with the president of the United States this afternoon and that he supports me 100 percent. We spoke about a range of matters and he supports me 100 percent, in fact, it was a very hearting [sic] moment. All I can say to America’s women is that at some point in your life you ought to have a boss who treated me the way that the president of the United States treated me today.”
According to Dan Pfieffer this is just another in a long line of “alternative facts” from Conway that hurt her credibility. What hurt her credibility most in this brief Fox sound bite is the fact that she sounded uncharacteristically repetitive. Perhaps she was correct and all was well in Trumpville -- then can somebody answer why Kellyanne stayed home from the Sunday news shows and Steve Miller pitch hit? Miller either pitch hit for Kellyanne or helped throw her under the bus, depending upon whose perspective you care to endorse. Sean Spicer told the press that Kellyanne was "counseled," and that piqued Trump, ostensibly, who irritatedly inquired of Spicer, "Why did you use that word? Who said that? Counseled [is] like a child and now she's in counseling. That's a dumb word."
An investigation from Politico, based on interviews with two dozen people who have spent time with Trump since the inauguration, suggests, “the president is completely cowed by the complexities and responsibilities of managing a federal bureaucracy, his staffers bordering on mutinous: “[It’s] a powder-keg of a workplace where job duties are unclear, morale among some is low, factionalism is rampant and exhaustion is running high.”
After Trump grew infuriated by disclosures of his confrontational phone calls with foreign leaders, an investigation was launched into the source of the leaks, according to one White House aide. National Security Council staffers have been instructed to cooperate with inquiries, including requests to inspect their electronic communications, said two sources familiar with the situation. It’s not clear whether the investigation is a formal proceeding, how far along it is or who is conducting it.
The administration is considering limiting the universe of aides with access to the calls or their transcripts, said one administration official, adding that the leaks — and Trump’s anger over them — had created a climate where people are “very careful who they talk to.”
The president and his allies believe career NSC staff assigned from other agencies are out to get them. In turn, some NSC staff believe Trump does not possess the capacity for detail and nuance required to handle the sensitive issues discussed on the calls, and that he has politicized their agency by appointing chief strategist Bannon to the council.
Last week, Trump told an associate he had become weary of infighting among — and leaks from — his White House staff “because it reflects on me,” and that he intended to sit down staffers to tell them “to cut this shit out.”
That's the backdrop and the atmosphere in which one works. Not very encouraging, is it? Axios reports that technically Reince Priebus is not paranoid because in fact, “they” are out to get him:
Imagine you're Reince Priebus. Every day, you hear speculation that your days as White House chief of staff are numbered. You wake up on a Sunday and read that colleague Kellyanne Conway's dream job is, well, yours.
Then, you flick on CNN to see Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy — a Trump pal of 10 years (and Mar-a-Lago member) who just spent time alone with him in Florida — saying this on "Reliable Sources": "The White House is showing not the amount of order that we need to see. I think there's a lot of weakness coming out of the chief of staff."
After a pleading call from Priebus, Ruddy tweeted: "Reince just briefed me on new WH plans. Impressive! CNN today my personal view. Told him I have 'open mind' based on his results." Then Ruddy got another call: "Jared Kushner tells me COS Reince is doing 'amazing job.'"
Not a reassuring end to your third week on the job!
But this is a problem hardly confined to Priebus: After watching Trump clean house several times during the campaign, everyone feels on thin ice. This naturally breeds insecurity, ass-covering and endless leaking. Those who don't fear for their hide are busy gaming out how they rise when someone falls. Trump feeds all of this. It's why an insider describes the White House hierarchy as "fragile."
"These people are insecure because Trump does not respect them," said a person in constant contact with the West Wing. "He does not because they have not made any money. He respects [Stephen] Bannon and Gary Cohn because they are financially successful."
Trump has already consulted friends about his next chief of staff. I'm told that to avoid admitting error, Trump plans a smooth transition from Priebus (could be a year), perhaps by making him a Cabinet secretary!
Trump is trying to figure out who he should trust. This is totally new for him, so he's trying to figure out who the strong ones are the who the weak ones are. -- Chris Ruddy in a phone interview with Axios.
Don't forget the Hand Of The King. In Game of Thrones parlance that would be none other than Steve Bannon. The Hand Of The King is the highest appointed official in the seven kingdoms and to get there requires surviving multitudenous conspiracies and sudden twists of fate. Bannon is in a much more secure position than either Priebus or Conway, and certainly the fourth "knight of the realm" (or horseman of the apocalypse, take your pick) Jared Kushner, being family, the father of Trump's grandchildren is also safely cloistered away. The dynamic to watch here is the rivalry between Bannon and Kushner and so far Bannon has maintained the upper, more villainous hand, darkly manipulating affairs of state so as to peak when Jared and Ivanka are busy observing the Sabbath, for instance.
Back to the business about "sudden twists of fate,” fate is not a fantasy concept in Trump's administration. Axios published its article mentioning Priebus and Flynn on the 12th. It was most prescient. As of the 14th, it was also history. Here is what Axios said about Michael Flynn:
Any purge will begin with national security adviser Mike Flynn, for lying to Vice President Pence about contacts with Russia on sanctions. In retrospect, that was clear as soon as Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Friday that he didn't know about the story, which had been on the front page of that morning's Washington Post. It was a way for Trump to dodge showing support for Flynn.
"Spread the butter: He is toast," said a top source. "Lying to Pence damaged Pence's credibility and the administration's. That is an unpardonable sin."
One nice thing about history, you always know how the story ends. Flynn's career in the Trump administration drew itself to a swift and sudden resolution. That chapter is over. Meanwhile, another amusing chapter was being written in the Senate, during the confirmation process of Jeff Sessions. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took a few moments of his confirmation time to make the following observation about the opening days of the Trump administration. Senator Whitehouse spoke very well. Check this out:
“President Trump and his family have brought more conflicts of interest to the White House than all other modern presidents and families combined. The proposed Trump domestic cabinet is an unprecedented swamp of conflicts of interest, failures of disclosure and divestment and dark money secrets. The Trump presidency is a haven for special interest influence and they’re just getting started.”
“Many Republican members of Congress have made a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump. They don’t admire him as a man, don’t trust him as an administrator, but they respect the grip he has on their voters,” Whitehouse observed. “The Republican Fausts are in an untenable position. The deal they’ve struck with the devil comes at too high a price. It really will cost them their soul.”
“Even if Trump’s ideology were not noxious, his incompetence is a threat to all around him. To say that it is amateur hour at the White House is to slander amateurs.”
"The opening days of this administration have been a gong show, but a gong show with a nuclear button."
Only Trump could be the central figure of a display which draws comparisons to "Game of Thrones," on the one hand, and "The Gong Show," on the other -- and with a nuclear button. Only and exclusively Trump.