Trump’s Chaos Theory for the Oval Office Is Taking Its Toll

The following article by Mark Landler and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website March 1, 2018:

President Trump on Thursday at the White House. Credit Tom Brenner/The New York Times

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. Continue reading “Trump’s Chaos Theory for the Oval Office Is Taking Its Toll”