Trump vs. the Office: Waging a Daily Battle
from South Carolina. “He believes passionately that the liberal left and the media are out to destroy him. The way he got here is fighting back and counterpunching.” Mr. Graham added: “The problem he’s going to face is there’s a difference between running for the office and being president. You’ve got to find that sweet spot between being a fighter and being president.”
Mr. Trump’s uninhibited approach seems erratic to many veterans of both parties in the capital and beyond. Some politicians and pundits lament the instability and, even without medical degrees, feel no compunction about publicly diagnosing various mental maladies. In recent weeks, the president made a derogatory reference to Native Americans in front of Navajo guests, insinuated that a television host was involved in the death of an aide and prompted an international incident with Britain by retweeting inflammatory anti-Muslim videos.
His approach got him to the White House, Mr. Trump reasons, so it must be the right one. He is more unpopular than any of his modern predecessors at this point in his tenure — just 32 percent approved of his performance in the latest Pew Research Center poll — yet he dominates the landscape like no other.
After months of legislative failures, Mr. Trump is on the verge of prevailing in his efforts to cut taxes and reverse part of his predecessor’s health care program. He has made significant progress in his goal of rolling back business and environmental regulations. The growing economy he inherited continues to improve. His partial travel ban on mainly Muslim countries has taken effect after multiple court fights.
Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, has told associates that Mr. Trump, set in his ways at age 71, will never change. Rather, he predicted, Mr. Trump would bend, and possibly break, the office to his will.
Mr. Trump, so far, has arguably wrestled the presidency to a draw.
Before John F. Kelly, a retired four-star general, took over as White House chief of staff this summer, the Oval Office had a constant stream of aides and visitors stopping by. The door to the Oval Office is now mostly closed. Mr. Kelly is trying to reduce the amount of time the president has for tweets by accelerating the start of his workday.
Mr. Kelly puts in 14-hour days to impose discipline on a chaotic operation — with mixed success. The pace of meetings has increased. They often include Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser; Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, and Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor.
Despite chafing at the limits, the president craves the approval of Mr. Kelly, whom he sees as a peer, people close to Mr. Trump said. He calls Mr. Kelly up to a dozen times a day to ask about his schedule or seek policy advice, according to several people.
Some believe there is a strategy behind Mr. Trump’s actions. But there is seldom a plan apart from pre- emption, obsession and impulse.
When three former campaign advisers were indicted or pleaded guilty this autumn, he tweeted that the financial charges lodged against his former campaign manager, Paul J. Manafort, had nothing to do with the campaign and that investigators should be examining “Crooked Hillary & the Dems” instead. He belittled George Papadopoulos, the campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to lying about his outreach to Russians. He was calm at first when his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pleaded guilty. By that Sunday morning, with news shows consumed by Mr. Flynn’s case, the presi- dent fired off tweets excoriating Mrs. Clinton and the F.B.I.
The ammunition for his Twitter war is television. During meetings, Mr. Trump keeps an eye on scrolling headlines. What he misses he checks later on a system that records cable news. But he is leery of being seen as watching too much television — a perception that reinforces the criticism that he is not taking the job seriously.
Mr. Trump’s difficult adjustment to the presidency, people close to him say, is rooted in an unrealistic expectation of its powers, which he had assumed to be more akin to imperial command than the sloppy reality of having to coexist with two other branches of government.
During his early months in office, he barked commands at senators. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, bristled when Mr. Trump cut in during presentations in the Oval Office. “Don’t interrupt me,” Mr. McConnell told the president during a discussion of health care.
Mr. Trump may have gotten the message. He and Mr. McConnell reconciled and began speaking most days. He has shown more comfort with the details of his tax- cutting legislation. And aides said he had become more attentive during daily intelligence briefings.
Mr. Graham, once a fierce critic and now increasingly an ally, said Mr. Trump was adjusting and his presidency was still “a work in progress.” At this point, he said, “everything’s possible, from complete disaster to a home run.”
Mr. Trump’s associates raised questions about his capacity to differentiate bad information from something that is true. Monitoring his information consumption — and countering what Mr. Kelly calls “garbage” peddled to him by outsiders — remains a priority for the chief of staff.
Mr. Trump is skeptical of anything that does not come from his bubble. Mr. Kelly has told people he pushed out Stephen K. Bannon, who he believed advanced information to rile up Mr. Trump. And the president’s longtime security chief, Keith Schiller, left after confrontations with Mr. Kelly, including one over an article he had given Mr. Trump. The president has since expressed frustration at Mr. Schiller’s absence.
The president has a nightly dinner in the White House residence. When the guests depart, the remote control comes back out. He watches shows on Fox News, and sometimes “hate-watches” CNN to get worked up. In between, it is time for phone calls to old friends and, more recently, Republican lawmakers. This is when his fixations are unfettered: Russia, Mrs. Clinton, Barack Obama, the “fake news” media, disappointment with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
From there it is off to bed for five or six hours of sleep. Then he will turn on the television, reach for his iPhone and the battle will begin anew.