He's backsliding
by digby
This Axios report assumes that the Trump White house had somehow improved over the past year which comes as news to me. But if that's so, it didn't last:
After a triumphant end to 2017, White House sources tell Axios that they see a dangerous pattern forming for this year: a backslide into bad habits of the chaotic early days of the Trump presidency.
White House officials had a solid game plan for January: do a long tax-cut victory lap, avoid a government shutdown and swing a DACA deal. Instead, Trump became preoccupied with a gossipy book and the treachery of Steve Bannon, made repeated bizarre public statements about his mental health, misrepresented crucial national security legislation, and sent immigration talks down a “shithole.”
Tax reform focused everyone. With its passage, there's now a bit of a vacuum that has been filled with fighting these wild fires.
Trump has been newly consumed by the kind of grievances that make some Rs cringe and regret their silence.
"What is the White House about right now?” asked a source close to Trump. “I don't know.”
Chief of Staff John Kelly still has his orderly system firmly in place — there has been no let-up. But the Kelly bubble and schedule restrictions leave the President with more Fox time, and time for tangents.
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These three recent events have alarmed some senior administration officials:
Trump's "shithole" (Or was it "shithouse"?) comment that was promptly leaked to the media. You had House Speaker Paul Ryan denouncing it; one Republican in the room (Sen. Lindsey Graham) effectively confirming it; and others, like Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, saying Trump never said what he was reported to have said.
Trump's over-the-top response to Michael Wolff's book. When most people had moved on, Trump was still ranting about the book, publicly and privately. He continued to tweet about Wolff, which only served to further highlight the material in his book and drive more sales. He remains livid about it.
Trump's loose tweet — which he was pressured to walk back — in which he misrepresented and publicly trashed crucial national security legislation (FISA) just before the House was due to vote on the bill.
Why this matters: Kelly has worked wonders to impose process over what was an insanely chaotic and dysfunctional West Wing. He never promised to tame Trump's Twitter feed. But he had previously noted with satisfaction to aides that there'd been less of the wild, policy-affecting tweets that distinguished the early White House days.
Republicans inside the administration and on Capitol Hill are becoming increasingly alarmed by the prospects for the 2018 midterms. The White House political operation is still considered lightweight, and officials are still scratching around to fill the external-facing Office of Public Liaison