This is so weird we have to read it together: Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles

WASHINGTON — President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/us/politics/trump-white-house-aides-strategy.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[Tanuki]

1. Maybe it's the staff that needs to be rethought. eom

[grantcart]

2. Sounds like he is starting out at Nixon's finishing point

Shortest honeymoon in history

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Maybe he's older and richer but I don't walk around in a bathrobe

Maybe he's older and richer but I don't walk around in a bathrobe:

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

Sounds like a Hugh Hefner thing.

P.S. I regret yesterday's unpleasantness. The man makes me dyspeptic.

[grantcart]

6. I understand. I call it Trumpsomnia. All of my friends report they

are getting 2-3 hours less sleep a night.

We now have a new mental health standard. If you are getting the same amount of sleep as you did before November and are not dyspeptic then you should immediately report to a mental health professional.

I was relieved yesterday when my youngest daughter, who isn't very political, said to me "I don't know how much more of this shit I can take".

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. My greatest fear is there is an attack, likely caused by his malfeasance, that he exploits ...

My greatest fear is there is an attack, likely caused by his malfeasance, that he exploits for political gain.

What do we do?

[rickford66]

18. Not Hefner. More like Howard Hughes.

[bdamomma]

3. He shouldn't even be in the WH

He is a recluse like Putin. They are all horrible.

this line here is most telling.

he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller

He is constant monitoring perhaps???

[dalton99a]

20. Like a Mafia boss and his bodyguard.

[Buckeyeblue]

5. Both sad and alarming

He sounds like a sad old man who is in way over his head. He doesn't understand how government works. And apparently neither do his aids.

It's alarming because it doesn't seem as if they are prepared to handle an emergency.

He has started a marathon by sprinting, with no regard for the distance left to travel or the race course itself.

[grantcart]

7. Welcome to DU

[workinclasszero]

8. I don't see any big change coming up. President Bannon has Trump

right where he wants him.

[JTFrog]

9. And they bury the real story in the middle of the article.

Mr. Priebus bristles at the perception that he occupies a diminished perch in the West Wing pecking order compared with previous chiefs. But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

[PA Democrat]

16. That was my impression also. Trump doesn't even READ what he is signing.

OMG.

[2naSalit]

17. +1

[gratuitous]

24. We're moving toward Lord of the Flies territory at record speed

Can't wait until Bannon tells some emissary from Priebus to shove it because the emissary is just an errand boy sent by grocery clerks.

Never get out of the boat.

[progressoid]

11. Notice the women walking three steps behind the men.

[world wide wally]

12. Has there ever been a President that has had fewer people willing to fight a war if we needed to?

Who would even believe him about the circumstances that lead us to it?

[titaniumsalute]

13. Like Howard Stern said...

Trump loves to be loved. He's spent most of his life hobnobbing with friends, celebrities, etc. He has always gone to upscale restaurants, partied at with groups of people at night, flew around the country in his TRUMP jet like a rock star.

Now that the campaign and the big WIN "buzz" is over, he's lost everything else. He has no celebrity friends now for the most part. He can't call up Howard Stern and just show up on his radio program. He' can't decide to go eat at The Palm or Peter Lugers tonight with a group of friends. He's holed up in the White House...no real friends around him. Not even his wife. He knows that he lost the general vote by 3 million people which is killing him. He knows the polls are correct that more people don't like him or his policies. He's bored...scared...and aloof.

[Denzil_DC]

14. Stumbling around in the dark because they don't have the wit

to figure out where the light switches are.

How symbolic.

[ismnotwasm]

15. I did not need the image of Trump "watching television in his bathrobe"

Ick.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

19. I don't know how I feel about this

I don't want the country being run by somebody like Trump for the next 4 years because I don't think that he really knows what he's doing nor that he really cares- beyond the fact that he is "the boss man" for the next 4 years- but I don't necessarily want to see him gone and replaced by somebody like Pence, who is (relatively) more competent, "establishment", and can keep the lid on "teh crazy". I'd kind of rather have Republicans spend the next 4 years distracted from their agenda and having to spend most of their time apologizing or explaining for Trump's behavior, so that Democrats can gain seats in Congress in 2018/2020 and win back the WH in 2020.

[Grammy23]

21. Like you, I fear having Pence take over.

But tRump is so erratic, so dangerous that I am not sure how much longer we can allow this madness to continue. Pence is bad, I agree, but tRump is worse. His impulsiveness has already caused so much damage to the reputation of the United States that will take a long time to repair. In the meantime, if tRump is allowed to continue unchecked and unhinged, he does more damage.

I honestly think we are screwed either way, but at this point, we really do have to choose between the lesser of the evils. Let us hope the Congress has the will to step up to this crisis and do the right thing for tbe good of all of us.

[backscatter712]

22. Let me guess what the meeting looks like:

[lpbk2713]

23. Here's how it played down ...

Trump: What the hell is this?

Bannon: This is the bill that will convert the state hospital for the insane into the Donald J Trump memorial gambling casino for the insane.

Trump: [Standing up proudly] Gentlemen, this bill will be a giant step forward in the treatment of the insane gambler.

[ck4829]

25. K&R