Michael Scherer

It is good staffing in the traditional sense, and it was good staffing in the first term in part because Trump also didn't come into office with a policy plan, with an ideology about what really to do with government.

He didn't have a plan from day one about what he wanted to accomplish in terms of remaking the federal government.

And so I think a lot of people back then were thinking, well, we're going to—

defend the White House, defend the government as it was.

Like, that is our job, to make sure the systems work as they have worked for decades.

And so by that definition, it is good staffing.

Now, I think there was mistakes Trump made in that first term.

You know, we should mention that, like, he likes a gang of rivals, you know, sort of nasty viper pit of rivals around him.

And

And he had Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner and Stephen Bannon and Reince Priebus.

I mean, those first few months, those were all independent power centers that were all fighting against each other.

And that was bad staffing.

I mean, that was a misdesign of his White House.

But I think for the people who came in in that first term who were resisting him, they felt they were defending something that

that the country wanted, that the country had long established.

And I think the implicit part of your question is, why has it changed?

I mean, everyone who came into the second term knew what Trump wanted to do to the presidency, what he wanted to do to the government.

And it was pretty radical the second time.

And he had plans for it that he just wasn't able to describe, you know, in 2017.

Yeah.