MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “ALONE. THAT IS WHAT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP must be feeling this morning. In the last two days, the Washington establishment has pummeled him like no president has been pummeled before. BOB WOODWARD’s book ‘Fear’ has 400-plus pages drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with people who work for and with the president. It has senior members of his Cabinet dumping on him, stealing his papers and generally treating him like an out-of-control toddler. AN ANONYMOUS OP-ED in The New York Times written by a person the newspaper calls a ‘senior official in the Trump administration’ delivered a stunning rebuke of the president, gently praising his work on deregulation and tax reform, but criticizing him on every other critical issue. The op-ed — BRUTAL LINES: ‘The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations… The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making…TRUMP COULDN’T BE BLAMED for thinking all of official Washington is closing in on him.'”
–Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and Daniel Lippman, “POLITICO Playbook: Trump, alone,” Politico, September 6, 2018 6:37 am