Forget the first 100 days. It's only been a week and Donald Trump is reinventing the presidency.
Amid a torrent of action, disruption and protest, the new President's moves on trade, immigration and foreign policy have honored his campaign promises -- and dramatically reshaped Washington's role in national and global affairs.
Some things are clear at the end of this jarring week. Trump won't have an epiphany and suddenly embrace Beltway conventions. As president, he will keep conjuring his own reality and is happy to use the backdrop of the White House to advance his many rhetorical wars.
His staff is learning how to work together as they jockey for power. And amid it all, Trump still manages to surprise: Lawmakers and business leaders say the larger than life president and former reality show star listens more than he talks.
Will President Trump's executive actions stick?
But his unorthodox style is also raising questions about whether a presidency built on creative destruction will simply exhaust the political system. Trump's conveyer belt of executive orders is an effective symbolic device, but they are noticeably lacking in details and actionable plans. Sooner or later, he will have to show proficiency in the harder task of shepherding his agenda through Congress.
Trump's first week in office leaves one fundamental question in its wake: Can he successfully govern a complicated and divided country without bringing his erratic behavior under control? For now, there is no answer.
Man of action
Trump is making no secret of his top priority: Pay back the disgruntled voters who sent him to Washington to blow things up.
"Think of everything we can achieve and remember who we must achieve it for," Trump told Republican lawmakers Thursday in Philadelphia. "Now we have to deliver. Enough all talk, no action. We have to deliver."
In the delivery column, mark down an executive order calling for the building of a wall on the southern US border -- honoring Trump's earliest campaign vow. He's also made it easier to deport undocumented immigrants. Trump pulled America out of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact, rupturing decades of US foreign policy orthodoxy that power was projected through multilateral deals.
He also hauled business and auto executives into the West Wing and warned they will pay a heavy price for manufacturing abroad. With another sweep of his pen, Trump moved forward trans continental oil pipelines and smashed Obama-era environmental regulations.
Every new administration makes splashy executive actions aimed at appealing to the base. Former President Barack Obama quickly signed an order in 2009 ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility -- something that never fully became reality.
But the determination to keep campaign promises is verging on an obsession inside the Trump White House. Those close to the President believe that despite the uproar in Washington, the actions are being well received.
"If you are somebody sitting at home, you say, 'Wow, there's a lot going on here.' The media bubbles on the coast are not the people Trump is talking to," said a senior aide . "The people that Donald Trump is talking to are the thousands of counties that he won."
But Trump isn't dispensing with the Washington game entirely. He spent considerable time with congressional leaders this week, a big departure from Obama, who once joked to journalists who criticized his reluctance to socialize with top Republicans: "Why don't you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?"
Shattering the norms
It took one day for Trump to shatter the norms of presidential behavior.
On Saturday, his first full day in office, Trump caused offense by boasting about his election win against the somber backdrop of the CIA's wall honoring fallen heroes. (He later told ABC News the speech was a "home run.
The day ended with the new administration escalating a feud with the media over the size of Trump's inauguration crowd.
Trump sent his press secretary, Sean Spicer, out to deliver an extraordinarily explosive statement about the episode packed with untruths.
Over the course of the week, Trump tweeted castigations of "celebs," apparently piqued that a massive women's march last weekend drew more people than his own inauguration. He accused an academic researcher of "groveling" after he said Trump misrepresented his study by claiming that up to five million people voted illegally in the election.
Trump's ego is the common denominator in all these eruptions. The first week of his presidency has proven the ultra sensitivity to criticism he displayed on the campaign trail has carried over to the White House. In each case, the facts in question also clash with the version of reality that Trump prefers.
"He feels vulnerable when other people have access to facts and when he can be measured against something objective," said Michael D'Antonio, author of the recent book "The Truth About Trump." "His favorite thing is to game a system or defy a norm and if he can't do that, he doesn't feel as powerful."
After his highly criticized statement at the CIA, Trump's more measured performance early in the week sparked hopes that the initial storm had passed.
"He looked like a president today," one Republican close to the White House said on Monday as Trump pulled out of trade deals, met with executives and watched as Spicer delivered a far more measured press briefing. "Let's hope it lasts."
It didn't.
By mid-week, Trump revived debunked claims that millions of illegal voters cost him the popular vote during a meeting with congressional leaders. He's now pushing to spend taxpayer cash on an investigation into nonexistent allegations of wrongdoing, suggesting an open and public contempt for facts rarely seen from a White House.
Still, those who hope against hope that Trump's more extreme instincts will be mollified by the responsibilities of his office might take succor from his clear pleasure at the trappings of the White House and Air Force One.
"He continues to react the same way he has throughout his time in his presidency, in awe of the splendor of this plane and what the White House represents," Spicer told reporters during Trump's first ride on the presidential jet.
The unpredictable president
Count this as another campaign promise Trump has lived up to: Being unpredictable. Washington now braces early each morning for the first blast from Trump's Twitter account.
A series of tweets by Trump about street violence in Chicago showed how he is changing the way the presidency interacts with the American people.
"If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible 'carnage' going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
The tweet caused uproar in Chicago, sending law enforcement and local political officials scrambling to work out what Trump meant. Was he planning federal funds for Chicago, to deploy the FBI or even taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard on a law enforcement mission? Should his warning be taken seriously or was it simply a throw away tweet that represented a whim not a new policy?
source:cnn
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