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Unlike most presidents, who keep the public at arm's-length, President Trump appears to let us into his head with his constant tweeting. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Unlike most presidents, who keep the public at arm's-length, President Trump appears to let us into his head with his constant tweeting.

President Trump did it again on Twitter late last week.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt," he tweeted Friday morning.

Once again, a Trump tweet set off a media frenzy, this time making everyone wonder whether he was indeed confirming that he was under investigation for obstruction of justice. (The White House later said the tweet was not confirmation that Trump has been informed that he is under investigation.)

This isn't the first time that Trump has made trouble for himself in his tweets (see: the tweet that a judge recently cited in once again blocking Trump's travel ban). But his tweets are more than a potential legal liability, and they're even more than fodder for the occasional breaking news alert his Twitter feed is groundbreaking in that he seems to be letting us inside his head. And in doing so, he is the first president to narrate his presidency in real time.

But he is not just any kind of storyteller. He peppers those tweets with things that most politicians strain to hide: factual inaccuracies, evidence of character flaws, unsupported allegations.

Social media has given America President Donald Trump, unreliable narrator.

A point of view that clouds the story

Trump's Twitter account with its commentary on current events by one of the main players in those events could someday be an obsession of postmodern literature professors. And just as it's impossible to put down Catcher in the Rye or Lolita or Gone Girl, Trump's Twitter feed has captivated Americans' attention. Every ambiguous post sparks a debate about not only what he means but also what prompted it: What is motivating him today? Why say this, and why now?

In literature, an "unreliable narrator" is someone who tells the story while layering a clearly distorting lens over that reality there is a clear point of view (The Catcher in the Rye's angst-ridden teenager, Pale Fire's unhinged professor), and it shapes how the story is told. It doesn't necessarily imply malice (consider Huckleberry Finn or Tristram Shandy), but simply a point of view that clouds the story.

In The Art Of The Deal, Trump praised "truthful hyperbole" a kind of purposeful truth-stretching to get people "excited." In other words, he has shown a willingness to distort the facts. With his regular usage of factual inaccuracies and disputes with the "fake media," Twitter Trump has given us a framework to figure out what exactly his lens on the world looks like.

Trump isn't entirely unique in this regard: Everyone is an unreliable narrator in some way. And Americans often regard politicians in general as unreliable narrators. When politicians explain their views of the world, we can easily guess at their basic motivations: advancing policies, winning for their party, protecting their legacies.

And that means we can easily determine for ourselves how big the gap is between what any given politician says and what we perceive to be factually true.

But with every Trump tweet, Americans have the unique opportunity to measure and remeasure that gap.

Trump demands our attention over and over again

We occasionally get glimpses of presidents' inner lives (like Obama tearfully admitting his fury over the Sandy Hook shooting). And after presidencies, we get memoirs (George W. Bush writing about his decider-ness in Decision Points).

However, no president has narrated his presidency so heavily in real time. And Trump adds to that an aggressively unfiltered voice his tweets present a man willing to be impulsive, say things that aren't true and take aim not only at members of his own party but also at his own administration. His Twitter feed seems to let us know when he wakes up, when he goes to bed, what he is obsessing over at the moment and even which cable news outlets he is watching.

It's the kind of hints that J.D. Salinger has Holden Caulfield drop for us in The Catcher in the Rye. Yes, Holden tells us what he is doing, but Salinger wants us to also pay attention to the lens through which Holden views the world. Holden himself is the story.

That second part drawing our attention not only to the story but also to the point of view it's coming from is what makes this kind of story compelling. A third-person Catcher in the Rye would be hopelessly dull.

Similarly, up until now, the presidency has largely been narrated in the third person, by the media, by political scientists, by pundits (some of them unreliable themselves).

We've been able to glean all of those usual political motivations from past presidents, but it has been dull in comparison to what we could only imagine was going on in their heads. What was going on in Clinton's brain when he hit on a young intern? What did George W. Bush think on Sept. 11, 2011? We had no way of knowing in the moment.

Is Donald Trump actually Nabokov?

Candidate Trump holds up his book "The Art of the Deal," given to him by a fan in Birmingham, Ala. In the book, he espouses "truthful hyperbole." Eric Schultz/AP hide caption

Candidate Trump holds up his book "The Art of the Deal," given to him by a fan in Birmingham, Ala. In the book, he espouses "truthful hyperbole."

If Trump is indeed the unreliable narrator, his Twitter feed perhaps best resembles Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, considered one of the greatest works of 20th century fiction.

A quick summary: In Pale Fire, a fictional poet and professor named John Shade writes a 999-line poem, which is presented near the start of the book. The poem is, by turns, poignant, mundane, funny and wrenching, telling about Shade's youth, his marriage, his daughter's suicide and his struggle to come to terms with death.

After Shade's death, a fellow professor, Charles Kinbote, writes a 200-page analysis of the poem. That analysis is a total misreading Kinbote believes the poem to be about himself, and he also claims to be the exiled king of a foreign country named Zembla. And yet, even while it's a rambling, deranged delusion of grandeur, it's also utterly captivating.

Kinbote's analysis seems to have entirely lost touch with reality in a way that Trump's tweets have not. But just as the reader can look at the "reality" of the poem and then at Kinbote's commentary to decide how big the gap between reality and his commentary is, we can see what is going on in the real world, then look at Trump's tweets and decide for ourselves how big that gap is.

And on top of all that, there is yet another layer.

After all, Trump's tweets have led to endless conjecturing about why he tweets. Does he simply lack a filter? Is it red meat for his base? Is he carefully planting distractions when the news isn't going his way? Does he secretly want his executive order to fail? Is covfefe a coded message????

Literary critic Wayne Booth, who is credited with coining the term "unreliable narrator," expounded on what makes this kind of narrator work.

"All of the great uses of unreliable narration depend for their success on far more subtle effects than merely flattering the reader or making him work," he wrote in his The Rhetoric of Fiction. "Whenever an author conveys to his reader an unspoken point, he creates a sense of collusion against all those, whether in the story or out of it, who do not get that point."

So the question is who is colluding with us as readers. Essentially, one of the great debates over Trump's tweets boils down to this: Is Trump Kinbote, or is he Nabokov?

Almost 70 percent of voters, including 53 percent of Republicans, think Trump tweets too much, according a recent poll. J. David Ake/AP hide caption

Almost 70 percent of voters, including 53 percent of Republicans, think Trump tweets too much, according a recent poll.

At one extreme, some Trump opponents consider him to be Kinbote delusional or, at the very least, showing his weaknesses while being oblivious to the fact that he is doing it. There is a sort of collusion for these readers in the sense that Trump is unconsciously colluding with them by in their minds letting them know how far his perceptions are from reality.

At the other extreme, some supporters consider Trump to be Nabokov. They think he is playing "four-dimensional chess." Just as readers "collude" with Nabokov, seeing Kinbote's flaws as Nabokov lays them out, some Trump supporters feel they are colluding with the real-life Trump, the one who carefully draws our attention away from scandals and uses secret codes.

This point of view squares with his affinity for "truthful hyperbole." (But then again, potentially damaging tweets like his Friday message about being investigated for firing FBI Director James Comey undermine this point of view.)

In each case, each group feels like it's privy to a secret the other group just doesn't get.

The upshot seems to be that Trump has discovered a way to push the president of the United States even further into the spotlight. As Catcher in the Rye makes Holden's internal monologue a part of the story, Trump has found a way to make the president not just a person who does things; he is a person whose very thoughts seem to be on display. (And, as has been reported, Trump loves being the center of attention.)

But it's also possible that he loses something in the process namely, a portion of his potential symbolic status. The president is always a symbol. Yes, he gives off flashes of humanity from time to time, but he exists at a remove from Americans. And despite the constant clamoring for "authenticity," this kind of remove is, arguably, how many Americans want it.

"People want the president to be a symbol, like they want the monarch to be a symbol, but there's always this curiosity about the gossip about the royal family," Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, told NPR last month. "But we don't know, and we get to muse about it. There's a comfort level about not knowing."

That arm's-length president, shown in TV news shots shaking hands and striding purposefully from meeting to meeting, is the norm. But then, Trump isn't one for norms. Our brains try to push him to that arm's-length symbolic status we're used to, but he resists, yanking us back in. Every tweet eliminates the distance, putting us right inside his head with him (or, some might argue, that is what he wants us to believe).

This kind of whiplash happens in books like Pale Fire as well. The story is humming along, but then it jolts to a stop. Wait. Am I being played?

That whiplash may be one reason why Americans seem to be souring on his Twitter feed. Fully 69 percent of voters, including 53 percent of Republicans, believe the president tweets too much, according to a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll.

The difference between Trump and Kinbote, of course, is that Trump is real, and his policies have real effects on people. So do his tweets, says one literature professor, creating a sort of Rube Goldberg machine of tweets.

"Especially in real time, the narrator has to keep going on the same storyline," said Nathalie Cooke, professor of literature at Montreal's McGill University. "So as Trump fuels the storyline with the populist Trump, the polarization in his readers actually fuels the continuation of the story."

And as the story continues, Trump has more to tweet about, creating more news and more fodder for that polarization among readers about whether he's Kinbote or Nabokov. That kind of polarization arguably fuels even more tweets tweets in which he further intensifies his us-vs.-them point of view.

But Trump's tweeting is also a risky pastime. His tweets have weakened the case for his "travel ban," for example. And his Friday tweet further intensified the nation's focus on the Trump-Russia investigations storyline.

And this is the nature of the dilemma that Trump's addictive Twitter account presents. Unreliable narrators are fascinating, but it's often because they say too much.

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President Donald Trump, Unreliable Narrator - NPR

In its own inside-out, upside-down way, its almost wondrous to behold. As befits our presidents wildest dreams, it may even prove to be a record for the ages, one for the history books. He was, after all, the candidate who sensed it first. When those he was running against, like the rest of Washingtons politicians, were still insisting that the United States remained at the top of its game, not anbut the indispensable nation, the only truly exceptional one on the face of the Earth, he said nothing of the sort. He campaigned on Americas decline, on this countrys increasing lack of exceptionality, its potential dispensability. He ran on the single word againas in make America great again because (the implication was) it just isnt anymore. And he swore that he and he alone was the best shot Americans, or at least non-immigrant white Americans, had at ever seeing the best of days again.

In that sense, he was our first declinist candidate for president and if that didnt tell you something during the election season, it should have. No question about it, he hit a chord, rang a bell, because out in the heartland it was possible to sense a deepening reality that wasnt evident in Washington. The wealthiest country on the planet, the most militarily powerful in the history of . . . well, anybody, anywhere, anytime (or so we were repeatedly told) . . . couldnt win a war, not even with the investment of trillions of taxpayer dollars, couldnt do anything but spread chaos by force of arms.

Meanwhile, at home, despite all that wealth, despite billionaires galore, including the one running for president, despite the transnational corporate heaven inhabited by Google and Facebook and Apple and the rest of the crew, parts of this country and its infrastructure were starting to feel distinctly (to use a word from another universe) Third Worldish. He sensed that, too. He regularly said things like this: We spent six trillion dollars in the Middle East, we got nothing. . . And we have an obsolete plane system. We have obsolete airports. We have obsolete trains. We have bad roads. Airports. And this: Our airports are like from a third-world country. And on the nations crumbling infrastructure, he couldnt have been more on the mark.

In parts of the U.S., white working-class and middle-class Americans could sense that the future was no longer theirs, that their children would not have a shot at what they had had, that they themselves increasingly didnt have a shot at what they had had. The American Dream seemed to be gaining an almost nightmarish sheen, given that the real value of the average wage of a worker hadnt increased since the 1970s; that the cost of a college education had gone through the roof and the educational debt burden for children with dreams of getting ahead was now staggering; that unions were cratering; that income inequality was at a historic high; and . . . well, you know the story, really you do. In essence, for them the famed American Dream seemed ever more like someone elses trademarked property.

Indispensable? Exceptional? This country? Not anymore. Not as they were experiencing it.

And because of that, Donald Trump won the lottery. He answered the $64,000 question. (If youre not of a certain age, Google it, but believe me its a reference in our presidents memory book.) He entered the Oval Office with almost 50% of the vote and a fervent base of support for his promised program of doing it all over again, 1950s-style.

It had been one hell of a pitch from the businessman billionaire. He had promised a future of stratospheric terrificness, of greatness on an historic scale. He promised to keep the evil ones the rapists, job thieves, and terroristsaway, to wall them out or toss them out or ban them from ever traveling here. He also promised to set incredible records, as only a mega-businessman like him could conceivably do, the sort of all-American records this country hadnt seen in a long, long time.

And early as it is in the Trump era, it seems as if, on one score at least, he could deliver something for the record books going back to the times when those recording the acts of rulers were still scratching them out in clay or wax. At this point, theres at least a chance that Donald Trump might preside over the most precipitous decline of a truly dominant power in history, one only recently considered at the height of its glory. It could prove to be a fall for the ages. Admittedly, that other superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, imploded in 1991, which was about the fastest way imaginable to leave the global stage. Still, despite the evil empire talk of that era, the USSR was always the secondary, the weaker of the two superpowers. It was never Rome, or Spain, or Great Britain.

When it comes to the United States, were talking about a country that not so long ago saw itself as the only great power left on planet Earth, the lone superpower. It was the one still standing, triumphant, at the end of a history of great power rivalry that went back to a time when the wooden warships of various European states first broke out into a larger world and began to conquer it. It stood by itself at, as its proponents liked to claim at the time, the end of history.

Applying hard power to a failing world

As we watch, it seems almost possible to see President Trump, in real time, tweet by tweet, speech by speech, sword dance by sword dance, intervention by intervention, act by act, in the process of dismantling the system of global power of soft power, in particular, and of alliances of every sortby which the U.S. made its will felt, made itself a truly global hegemon. Whether his America first policies are aimed at creating a future order of autocrats, or petro-states, or are nothing more than the expression of his libidinous urges and secret hatreds, he may already be succeeding in taking down that world order in record fashion.

Despite the mainstream pieties of the moment about the nature of the system Donald Trump appears to be dismantling in Europe and elsewhere, it was anything but either terribly liberal or particularly peaceable. Wars, invasions, occupations, the undermining or overthrow of governments, brutal acts and conflicts of every sort succeeded one another in the years of American glory. Past administrations in Washington had a notorious weakness for autocrats, just as Donald Trump does today. They regularly had less than no respect for democracy if, from Iran to Guatemala to Chile, the will of the people seemed to stand in Washingtons way. (It is, as Vladimir Putin has been only too happy to point out of late, an irony of our moment that the country that has undermined or overthrown or meddled in more electoral systems than any other is in a total snit over the possibility that one of its own elections was meddled with.) To enforce their global system, Americans never shied away from torture, black sites, death squads, assassinations, and other grim practices. In those years, the U.S. planted its military on close to 1,000 overseas military bases, garrisoning the planet as no other country ever had.

Nonetheless, the cancelling of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, threats against NAFTA, the undermining of NATO, the promise of protective tariffs on foreign goods (and the possible trade wars that might go with them) could go a long way toward dismantling the American global system of soft power and economic dominance as it has existed in these last decades. If such acts and others like them prove effective in the months and years to come, they will leave only one kind of power in the American global quiver: hard military power, and its handmaiden, the kind of covert power Washington, through the CIA in particular, has long specialized in. If Americas alliances crack open and its soft power becomes too angry or edgy to pass for dominant power anymore, its massive machinery of destruction will still be left, including its vast nuclear arsenal. While, in the Trump era, a drive to cut domestic spending of every sort is evident, more money is still slated to go to the military, already funded at levels not reached by combinations of other major powers.

Given the last 15 years of history, its not hard to imagine whats likely to result from the further elevation of military power: disaster. This is especially true because Donald Trump has appointed to key positions in his administration a crew of generals who spent the last decade and a half fighting Americas catastrophic wars across the Greater Middle East. They are not only notoriously incapable of thinking outside the box about the application of military power, but faced with the crisis of failed wars and failing states, of spreading terror movements and a growing refugee crisis across that crucial region, they can evidently only imagine one solution to just about any problem: more of the same. More troops, more mini-surges, more military trainers and advisers, more air strikes, more drone strikes . . .more.

After a decade and a half of such thinking we already know perfectly well where this ends in further failure, more chaos and suffering, but above all in an inability of the U.S. to effectively apply its hard power anywhere in any way that doesnt make matters worse. Since, in addition, the Trump administration is filled with Iranophobes, including a president who has only recently fused himself to the Saudi royal family in an attempt to further isolate and undermine Iran, the possibility that a military-first version of American foreign policy will spread further is only growing.

Such more thinking is typical as well of much of the rest of the cast of characters now in key positions in the Trump administration. Take the CIA, for instance. Under its new director, Mike Pompeo (distinctly a more kind of guy and an Iranophobe of the first order), two key positions have reportedly been filled: a new chief of counterterrorism and a new head of Iran operations (recently identified as Michael DAndrea, an Agency hardliner with the nickname the Dark Prince). Heres how Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Goldman of the New York Timesrecently described their similar approaches to their jobs (my emphasis added):

Mr. DAndreas new role is one of a number of moves inside the spy agency that signal a more muscular approach to covert operations under the leadership of Mike Pompeo, the conservative Republican and former congressman, the officials said. The agency also recently named a new chief of counterterrorism, who has begun pushing for greater latitude to strike militants.

In other words, more!

Rest assured of one thing, whatever Donald Trump accomplishes in the way of dismantling Americas version of soft power, his generals and intelligence operatives will handle the hard-power part of the equation just as ably.

The first American laster?

If a Trump presidency achieves a record for the ages when it comes to the precipitous decline of the American global system, little as The Donald ever cares to share credit for anything, he will undoubtedly have to share it for such an achievement. Its true that kings, emperors, and autocrats, the top dogs of any moment, prefer to take all the credit for the records set in their time. When we look back, however, its likely that President Trump will be seen as having given a tottering system that necessary push. It will undoubtedly be clear enough by then that the U.S., seemingly at the height of any powers power in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared, began heading for the exits soon thereafter, still enwreathed in self-congratulation and triumphalism.

Had this not been so, Donald Trump would never have won the 2016 election. It wasnt he, after all, who gave the U.S. heartland an increasingly Third World feel. It wasnt he who spent those trillions of dollars so disastrously on invasions and occupations, dead-end wars, drone strikes and special ops raids, reconstruction and deconstruction in a never-ending war on terror that today looks more like a war for the spread of terror. It wasnt he who created the growing inequality gap in this country or produced all those billionaires amid a population that increasingly felt left in the lurch. It wasnt he who hiked college tuitions or increased the debt levels of the young or set roads and bridges to crumbling and created the conditions for Third World-style airports.

If both the American global and domestic systems hadnt been rotting out before Donald Trump arrived on the scene, that again of his wouldnt have worked. Thought of another way, when the U.S. was truly at the height of its economic clout and power, American leaders felt no need to speak incessantly of how indispensable or exceptional the country was. It seemed too self-evident to mention. Someday, some historian may use those very words in the mouths of American presidents and other politicians (and their claims, for instance, that the U.S. military was the finest fighting force that the world has ever known) as a set of increasingly defensive markers for measuring the decline of American power.

So heres the question: When the Trump years (months?) come to an end, will the U.S. be not the planets most exceptional land, but a pariah nation? Will that again still be the story of the year, the decade, the century? Will the last American Firster turn out to have been the first American Laster? Will it truly be one for the record books?

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Inside Donald Trump's America last presidency - Salon

CIA Director Mike Pompeo carves out three hours almost every weekday to drive from Langley, Va., to the White House with his team to give President Donald Trump his national security briefing in person.

The CIA directors treks to the West Wing reflect Trumps insistence on frequent meetings with favored members of his team. Every president has regular contact with key Cabinet members, but Trump, who remains deeply mistrustful of career agency officials, has turned the White House into a hangout for his chosen department heads.

Story Continued Below

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has met with the president at least 34 times since he was confirmed in February, according to a POLITICO analysis of Trumps interactions since taking office. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are also frequent guests at the White House so much so that one White House staffer quipped, Wilbur practically lives here. Defense secretary James Mattis has enjoyed private meetings with the president, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has taken to eating at the White House mess several times a week.

Senior aides say Trump demands facetime with his appointees in part because he doesnt trust bureaucrats who do the day-to-day work of the federal government. The president shuns them as tools of what he often refers to as the deep state, and blames them for the frequent, unflattering news stories coming from his White House, according to two White House aides.

But for Trumps Cabinet members, proximity is a plus. Being physically present at the White House ensures that they have a say in policymaking and serves as an indication of status with the president. While Pompeo, Tillerson, and others like Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly are frequent White House visitors, some Cabinet secretaries have had little interaction with Trump, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, according to POLITICOs analysis.

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Who gets to sit in meetings is highly competitive, said one Trump adviser. People want to be in those meetings, because information is power.

But the constant visits to the White House are beginning to worry some inside and outside the administration.

Two administration officials said the parade of Cabinet officials going into the White House on a daily basis has prompted worries that their focus is being diverted from the day-to-day operations of their departments and agencies.

Well see how long it lasts, one of the officials said, noting that many secretaries dont yet have a full cast of undersecretaries to brief top White House officials. They dont have their politicals yet, so some of it is a necessity.

Indeed, many agencies still lack top political leaders that could play a more regular role in briefing the White House. There are only four confirmed deputy secretaries at Cabinet agencies. Five have been nominated and six have no nominees, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which advised Trumps presidential transition team on hiring.

The challenge here is the leadership structure isnt in place in these agencies, said Partnership for Public Service president Max Stier. The idea that President Trump is going to look to Secretary Mattis or Secretary Kelly for advice and to lean on them heavily is all good and important. Its something to be encouraged. But what you dont want to occur is that the conversation is only through that small pipe.

Past presidents have met frequently with Cabinet secretaries, especially when key issues arise. But former White House officials said the frequency of contact seen so far under Trump is unusual.

Obama was very clear in directing us to make sure that he stayed in touch with all of his Cabinet on a regular basis, said Broderick Johnson, who served as Obamas Cabinet secretary in the last years of his second term.

We were very prudent about using their time, Johnson added. President Obamas view was certainly that time they spent away from the agencies or with the president would be time that could conceivably distract from what they were trying to get accomplished.

Pompeos daily presence in the White House for the national security briefing breaks with the practice of past presidents.

Traditionally, CIA analysts skilled in briefing would handle this part of the presidents daily routine, but Trump insists on one-on-on time with the principal. Obama received his briefing in a memo and then would follow up with a lower level briefer, while Bush had a briefer present the findings, though his CIA director George Tenet would occasionally attend.

Because Pompeo spends so much of his day with Trump, the White House set up a temporary workspace for him in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the 4th floor next door to the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

While sources familiar with the issue said Pompeo has griped privately about the inconvenience of his trips to the White House, a CIA spokesperson referred to his public comments that their daily meetings are important, and that he often needs a great deal more of the presidents time.

Its not unprecedented that Trump is doing it, but it is not the norm, said David Priess, Author of the Presidents Book of Secrets on the history of these briefings and a former CIA officer and intelligence briefer.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Trump often refers to certain Cabinet secretaries as his killers the highest form of praise from the commander-in-chief, according to aides.

Ive only got killers, only killers, Trump often says when introducing his Cabinet secretaries, taking pride in the team of high-net worth individuals who have excelled in military or the private sector.

My Wilbur, on Wall Street, all you have to say is Wilbur and everyone knows who it is, Trump has said of Ross, the aides said.

And for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump has said, Rex ran the worlds biggest company, now he runs the State Department. Pruitt bonded with the president during discussions over how the United States should withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, other administration officials said.

Some of the cabinet officials are just his friends, and are beckoned to the President for political advice, even if its outside of the purview of their agency.

Ross is the Cabinet official most often photographed with the president, regardless of the event. He often sits in on the Presidents morning intelligence briefing. Trump and Ross have known each other for more than two decades, and Ross has been a frequent guest of the president at Mar-a-Lago.

One senior administration official said White House staff understand the presidents desire to rely on agency heads to learn about complex issues, but they wish that the meetings would be coordinated in advance. Instead, Cabinet secretaries like Mnuchin and Ross just stroll in with little notice.

Others in the administration remain concerned that Cabinet officials are spending too much time schmoozing with the president and attending events, and not enough at their agencies.

Everyone is in events all day long, said one senior agency official. Everything about this White House. Its a dog and pony show.

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Trump demands face time with favored Cabinet heads - Politico

Forbes

Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library A Smash For 'The Daily Show' Forbes What originated as a casual discussion months ago in The Daily Show writers' room came to fruition over the weekend in New York City. On Friday, Comedy Central's long-running satirical newscast and talk show unveiled "The Donald J. Trump Presidential ... 'The Daily Show' celebrates the tweets of Donald Trump in new exhibitEngadget Trevor Noah And 'The Daily Show' Just Took Donald Trump Mockery To The Next LevelHuffPost all 57 news articles »

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Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library A Smash For 'The Daily Show' - Forbes

Forbes

Business Is Good For President Donald Trump -- Mostly Forbes President Donald Trump's expansive business empire brought in nearly $600 million in revenue since January 2016, according to a financial disclosure report released late Friday. The documents, which Trump was required to file with the Office of ... Donald Trump Reports He's Getting Rich as PresidentThe Atlantic Why we still really need to see Donald Trump's tax returnsCNN Escalating investigation puts Trump and his staff at legal oddsPolitico HuffPost -Fortune -Mother Jones -Box all 238 news articles »

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Business Is Good For President Donald Trump -- Mostly - Forbes