Will Trump’s fi xes be enough to quiet West Wing squabbles?
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump enters a new phase of his presidency Monday with a new chief of staff but an old set of challenges as he seeks to get back on course after enduring one of the worst weeks that any modern occupant of the Oval Office has experienced in his inaugural year in power.
With his poll numbers at historic lows, his legislative agenda stalled and his advisers busy plotting against one another, Trump hoped to regain momentum by pushing out his top aide, Reince Priebus, and installing a retired four-star Marine general, John F. Kelly, to take command. But it is far from certain that the move will be enough to tame a dysfunctional White House.
The shake-up followed a week that saw the bombastic, with-me-or-against-me president defied as never before by Washington and its institutions, including Republicans in Congress, his own attorney general, the uniformed military leadership, police officers and even the Boy Scouts. No longer daunted by a president with a Twitter account that he uses like a Gatling gun, members of his own party made clear that they were increasingly willing to stand against him on issues like health care and Russia.
The setbacks came against the backdrop of a West Wing at war with itself, egged on by a president who thrives on conflict and chaos.
Kelly, who had been serving as secretary of Homeland Security, brings a career of decisive leadership to his new assignment as White House chief of staff. But he confronts multiple power centers among presidential aides, all with independent lines to the man in the Oval Office, who resists the discipline and structure favored by generals.
“Everybody knows what needs to be done to fix it, and I think everybody is coming to accept that they’re not going to happen,” said Sara Fagen, a White House political director under President George W. Bush. “And the reason they’re not going to happen is the person at the top of the food chain is not going to change. This is the new normal. This goes down as one of the worst weeks he’s had politically and PR-wise, but I don’t think anything will change.”
The palace intrigue spilled into public with a vulgarity-laced rant by Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, who called Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic” and vowed to take him down. While aides fought with one another, Trump’s signature promise to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care program went down in flames.
“Anyone in a position of responsibility in GOP politics is quickly losing patience with President Trump,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. “The dysfunction is beyond strange — it’s dangerous.
“If Trump’s poll numbers were above 50 percent,” Conant continued, “health care reform would have passed. Instead, he’s spent more time responding to cable TV chatter than rallying support for his agenda.”
Presidential historians found it hard to recall precedents for the combination of internal warfare and external legislative troubles. Jeffrey A. Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, said the best examples were John Tyler and Andrew Johnson in the 19th century. Both men were serving as vice president when their bosses died in office, each during a time of great turmoil in his political party.
“In either case, we are forced to go well back over a century in the past to find an administration in such an open state of infighting coupled with legislative disarray,” he said.
Presidents can recover from a difficult first six months, as Bill Clinton did, Engel said. “But certainly, like both Tyler and Andrew Johnson, we see today a president at war with his own party, and that to my mind never turns out well,” he said.