Wow—are we ever in an A-plus pickle as a nation. Donald Trump has now lost all the aides who were apparently capable of tempering his ideas and even steering him in the opposite direction on merciful occasions. That means we should all get a lot more used to shoot-from-the-hip military pronouncements like with the Syria ‘withdrawal,’ spontaneous international commerce decisions à la the steel tariffs, and 180-degree foreign policy walk-backs on declarations by unfortunate administration officials like Nikki Haley. Politico writes:
While people close to the president say Trump has always been mercurial, some of the president’s allies attribute the recent spate of public disconnects to the departure of loyal aides who were skilled at translating his impulses into legible stances on key issues — and, perhaps more importantly, at keeping all the relevant White House and agency staffers in the loop on big decisions.
“There’s nobody there that can say to him, ‘Mr. President, you can’t do that,’” said one former White House official. [...]
“Part of it is he’s gaining confidence in terms of how he makes decisions,” said a former administration official. “He’s now been thinking about a lot of these issues for more than a year and he doesn’t feel it’s necessary to deliberate.”
In other bad news, Trump has reportedly been "personally invigorated" by the West Wing additions of Larry Kudlow and John Bolton—two of the last people we want making consequential decisions about the economy and foreign policy, respectively.
Two of the last because Trump himself is the very last, as has been exceedingly evident in the last several weeks if it wasn't already before.