The Trump White House’s problems transcend Flynn

Michael Flynn’s sudden resignation as national security adviser does not mean the lingering questions about his contacts — and Donald Trump’s contacts — with Russia before Trump became president will go away. House and Senate investigations are certainly appropriate, and White House and national security officials should also make themselves available to the media to explain what they knew — and what the president knew — and when.

But the Trump administration’s problems go far beyond Flynn. The administration is off to a chaotic start, with the botched execution of the president’s travel ban the prime example. Every day, rival power blocs leak selected information in attempts to push the president one way or the other, or, as columnist Michael Gerson notes, to display their loyalty. There is little sense of forward momentum.

The Washington Times’ Wesley Pruden, a big admirer of the president, suggests what seems like disarray is actually a strategy — setting up an administration with forceful personalities who are empowered by Trump to speak their minds. Calling him “comfortable with controversy,” Pruden compares the president’s unorthodox approach to the styles of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

But there is no precedent for a modern presidency operating in such a fashion and succeeding. The example that Pruden could have cited is Bill Clinton. His administration got off to a disorganized start in January 1993, with the highest disapproval ratings for any president since the Gallup poll began 40 years earlier and senior aides squabbling over access to the president and his influential wife, Hillary Clinton. White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty, a former Arkansas utility executive and a friend of Clinton’s since kindergarten, was in over his head — an observation that’s also been made about Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Preibus. But McClarty and other top officials were also stymied by what The New York Times called Clinton’s “anguished indecisiveness.” This led to an extraordinary moment in July 1993, reported by Bob Woodward, in which Clinton’s dithering over whether and when he should unfold his broad economic plan led Vice President Al Gore to urge him to “get with the (expletive) program!” The Clinton presidency remained rocky until Leon Panetta, a tough, disciplined former Democratic congressman from Monterey, took over as chief of staff in July 1994 and helped bring coherence to the White House.

The Trump administration cannot afford such a long delay before hitting its stride. It’s not just public approval the president should worry about. It’s the Republican Congress, which is going to be asked by the administration to work together on bold initiatives in health care and financial regulation and to possibly support a reorientation of U.S. alliances and foreign policy. Clinton got nowhere with a Democratic Congress in 1993-94 with his push for broad health reform partly because of doubts about the White House’s competence and agenda, and then he was further weakened by the 1994 Republican Revolution. A similar fate could await Trump if his administration doesn’t find its bearings.

Donald Trump’s decisions have the potential to affect the lives of everyday Americans and many people around the world. It would be reassuring to finally get the sense that these decisions are made after informed deliberation — not because the president was looking to make a splash on Twitter.

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