Friends Know

Friends say President Donald Trump has grown frustrated that his greatness is not widely understood, that his critics are fierce and on TV every morning, that his poll numbers are both low and “fake,” and that his White House is caricatured as adrift.

With both the Roosevelt Room and the Rose Garden as backdrops, he mixed facts and mirage, praise and perfidy in two head-spinning, sometimes contradictory performances designed to convince supporters and detractors alike that everything’s terrific, moving ahead of schedule and getting even better.

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Trump told Cabinet members and reporters that there’s plenty wrong in America, and it’s variously the fault of Democrats, insurance companies, NFL players, Republicans in Congress, Hillary Clinton, former presidents and drug-dealing Mexicans.

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What is going well, he said, has been his doing.

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He heaped lavish praise on his own performance and ideas.

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He praised himself as brave for ripping away the health care subsidies that are key to the insurance market.

  Politico

How unlike him.

Trump pushed back on consistent reports of discord among his Cabinet members. “There are those that are saying it’s one of the finest group of people ever assembled as a candidate,” he said of his Cabinet.

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The president, as he often is, was sometimes loose with the facts or uncertain of the details.

Faced with a question about not calling or writing to families of soldiers killed two weeks ago overseas, he deflected by saying other presidents didn’t do either one — and that he often did both. The letters, he said, were going out Monday evening, and he planned to call once time had passed.

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Some of it was contradictory, but Trump didn’t seem to care. He hauled McConnell to the Rose Garden to convince the world that they’re actually friends, then bragged that he had legislative plans he hadn’t even yet shared with the Senate majority leader.

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“We’re probably now closer than ever before,” he said of McConnell. “My relationship with this gentleman is outstanding.”

The best relationship? Nobody has a better relationship with Mitch McConnell?

Senate Republicans, Trump said, had let him down and hurt his agenda.

“I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest,” the president said.

Yeah, we already knew that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.