WASHINGTON
— For 13 months in the Oval Office, and in an unorthodox business
career before that, Donald J. Trump has thrived on chaos, using it as an
organizing principle and even a management tool. Now the costs of that
chaos are becoming starkly clear in the demoralized staff and policy
disarray of a wayward White House.
The dysfunction was on vivid display on Thursday in the president’s introduction of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The previous day, Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn,
warned the chief of staff, John F. Kelly, that he might resign if the
president went ahead with the plan, according to people briefed on the
discussion. Mr. Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs president, had lobbied
fiercely against the measures.
His threat to leave came during a tumultuous week in which Mr. Trump suffered the departure of his closest aide, Hope Hicks, and the effective demotion
of his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was stripped
of his top-secret security clearance. Mr. Trump was forced to deny,
through an aide, that he was about to fire his national security
adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster.
Mr.
Kelly summed up the prevailing mood in the West Wing. “God punished
me,” he joked of his move from the Department of Homeland Security to
the White House during a discussion to mark the department’s 15th
anniversary.
When
White House aides arrived at work on Thursday, they had no clear idea
of what Mr. Trump would say about trade. He had summoned steel and
aluminum executives to a meeting, but when the White House said only
that he would listen to their concerns, it seemed to signal that Mr.
Cohn had held off the tariffs.
Yet
at the end of a photo session, when a reporter asked Mr. Trump about
the measures, he confirmed that the United States would announce next
week that it is imposing long-term tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10
percent on aluminum. The White House has not even completed a legal
review of the measures.
Mr.
Trump’s off-the-cuff opening of a trade war rattled the stock market,
enraged Republicans and left Mr. Cohn’s future in doubt. Mr. Cohn, who
almost left last year after Mr. Trump’s response to a white nationalist
march in Charlottesville, Va., indicated he was waiting to see whether
Mr. Trump goes through with the tariffs, people familiar with his
thinking said.
The chaotic rollout also reflected the departure of another White House official, Rob Porter,
who as the staff secretary had a key role in keeping the paper flowing
in the West Wing and who had backed Mr. Cohn in his free-trade views.
Mr. Porter was forced out last month after facing accusations of spousal
abuse.
It
was the second day in a row that Mr. Trump blindsided Republicans and
his own aides. On Wednesday, in another televised session at the White
House, he embraced the stricter gun control measures backed by Democrats
and urged lawmakers to revive gun-safety regulations that are opposed
by the National Rifle Association and most of his party. But late
Thursday, he appeared to have changed his mind again, this time after a meeting with N.R.A. leaders that he described as “great.”
“I
always said that it was going to take awhile for Donald Trump to adjust
as president,” said Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax
Media and an old friend of the president’s. In business, he said, Mr.
Trump relied on a small circle of colleagues and a management style that
amounted to “trial and error — the strongest survived, the weak died.”
Mr.
Ruddy insisted that Mr. Trump was finding his groove in the Oval
Office. But his subordinates are faring less well. With an erratic boss
and little in the way of a coherent legislative agenda, they are
consumed by infighting, fears of their legal exposure and an ambient
sense that the White House is spinning out of control.
Mr.
Trump is isolated and angry, as well, according to other friends and
aides, as he carries on a bitter feud with his attorney general and
watches members of his family clash with a chief of staff he recruited
to restore a semblance of order — all against the darkening shadow of an
investigation of his ties to Russia.
The combined effect is taking a toll.
Mr.
Trump’s instinct during these moments is to return to the populist
themes that carried him to the White House, which is why his trade
announcement is hardly surprising. Mr. Trump has few fixed views on any
issue, but he has been consistent on his antipathy for free trade since
the 1980s, when he took out newspaper ads warning about American
deficits with Japan — a concern that has shifted to China in recent
years.
“The
W.T.O. has been a disaster for this country,” Mr. Trump said Thursday,
asserting that China’s economic rise coincided with its entry into the
World Trade Organization. “It has been great for China and terrible for
the United States, and great for other countries.”
But
a president who has long tried to impose his version of reality on the
world is finding the limits of that strategy. Without Mr. Porter playing
a stopgap role on trade, the debate has been marked by a lack of focus
on policy and planning, according to several aides.
Morale
in the West Wing has sunk to a new low, these people said. In private
conversations, Mr. Trump lashes out regularly at Attorney General Jeff
Sessions with a vitriol that stuns members of his staff. Some longtime
advisers said that Mr. Trump regards Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse
himself from the Russia investigation as the “original sin,” which the
president thinks has left him exposed.
Mr.
Trump’s children, meanwhile, have grown exasperated with Mr. Kelly,
seeing him as a hurdle to their father’s success and as antagonistic to
their continued presence, according to several people familiar with
their thinking. Anthony Scaramucci, an ally of some in the Trump family,
whom Mr. Kelly fired as communications director after only 11 days, intensified his criticism of the chief of staff in a series of news interviews on Wednesday and Thursday.
Yet
Mr. Trump is also frustrated with Mr. Kushner, whom he now views as a
liability because of his legal entanglements, the investigations of the
Kushner family’s real estate company and the publicity over having his
security clearance downgraded, according to two people familiar with his
views. In private conversations, the president vacillates between
sounding regretful that Mr. Kushner is taking arrows and annoyed that he
is another problem to deal with.
Privately,
some aides have expressed frustration that Mr. Kushner and his wife,
the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, have remained at the White House,
despite Mr. Trump at times saying they never should have come to the
White House and should leave. Yet aides also noted that Mr. Trump has
told the couple that they should keep serving in their roles, even as he
has privately asked Mr. Kelly for his help in moving them out.
To
some staff members, the chaos feels reminiscent of the earliest days of
the Trump administration. Some argue Mr. Kelly should have carried out a
larger staff shake-up when he came in. That has allowed several people
to stagnate, particularly in policy roles, one adviser said.
Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on March 2, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chaos Theory In Oval Office Is Taking a Toll. Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel sings 'Try to remember' especially for Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund at Vita Magica September
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