{"id":763,"date":"2018-03-23T15:03:09","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=763"},"modified":"2018-03-24T15:06:53","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T19:06:53","slug":"after-another-week-of-chaos-trump-repairs-to-palm-beach-no-one-knows-what-comes-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=763","title":{"rendered":"After Another Week of Chaos, Trump Repairs to Palm Beach. No One Knows What Comes Next."},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0MARK LANDLER<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS<\/span><\/a><\/span>

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President Trump spoke to reporters at the White House on Thursday.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 President Trump decamped to his oceanfront estate here on Friday after a head-spinning series of presidential decisions on\u00a0national security<\/a>,\u00a0trade<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0budget<\/a>\u00a0that left the capital reeling and his advisers nervous about what comes next.<\/p>\n

The decisions attested to a president riled up by cable news and unbound. Mr. Trump appeared heedless of his staff, unconcerned about Washington decorum, or the latest stock market dive, and confident of his instincts. He seemed determined to set the agenda himself, even if that agenda looked like a White House in disarray.<\/p>\n

Inside the West Wing, aides described an atmosphere of bewildered resignation as they grappled with the all-too-familiar task of predicting and reacting in real time to Mr. Trump\u2019s shifting moods.<\/p>\n

Aides said there was no grand strategy to the president\u2019s actions, and that he got up each morning this week not knowing what he would do. Much as he did as a New York businessman at Trump Tower, Mr. Trump watched television, reacted to what he saw on television and then reacted to the reaction.<\/p>\n

Aides said he was still testing his limits as president while also feeling embattled by incoming fire \u2014 from Congress, the Russia investigation, foreign entanglements, a potential trade war and a pornographic film actress and a Playboy model who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump and were paid to keep quiet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The president, furious over the failure of Congress to pay for his wall on the southern border with Mexico, began Friday by threatening in a Twitter post shortly before 9 a.m. to veto a $1.3 trillion spending bill passed hours earlier by Congress. That raised the specter of another government shutdown at midnight, this one precipitated entirely by Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

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By 1:30 p.m.,\u00a0Mr. Trump had begrudgingly signed the bill<\/a>\u00a0and, in a hastily arranged appearance in the Diplomatic Reception Room, called it a \u201cridiculous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the frantic hours before the signing, two senior officials said they were uncertain whether the president would veto the measure and prompt a shutdown or ultimately relent. White House officials raced to schedule an afternoon briefing for the news media, although they had no idea what they would end up telling reporters.<\/p>\n

John F. Kelly, the chief of staff, in the meantime swung into action to pull the president back from the brink of a veto. Mr. Kelly summoned Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to the White House, aides said, to make the case for the military funding included in the bill.<\/p>\n

In the Oval Office, Mr. Mattis; the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen; and Vice President Mike Pence \u2014 who had postponed a trip to Atlanta because of the president\u2019s veto threat \u2014 told Mr. Trump that the military spending level in the bill was historic and urged him to sign. Mr. Trump finally agreed. He then\u00a0tweeted that he would hold a \u201cnews conference\u201d<\/a>\u00a0on the subject himself.<\/p>\n

What followed was a bizarre spectacle that was part-signing ceremony and part venting session as Mr. Trump presented his audiences with his dilemma in real time. He raged against the bill\u2019s contents and the process that yielded it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody more disappointed than me,\u201d Mr. Trump said in a verdict from a president who has called himself a master dealmaker.<\/p>\n

The whipsaw on spending came hours after the president forced out his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, and replaced him with John R. Bolton, a hard-line former American ambassador to the United Nations, catalyzing fears of a sharp turn toward military confrontation on Mr. Trump\u2019s national security team.<\/p>\n