It will only get worse in this White House

Here's why.   So far we've been seeing a president Trump relatively restrained by his own ignorance of how to get things done and by the restraining forces of the four adults in his cabinet:  Tillerson, McMaster, Kelly, and Maddis.  Tillerson and McMaster are gone.

Kelly, as Chief of Staff, has tried to restrain some of Trump's worst instinctive inclinations.   But even a four-star Marine general cannot always perform miracles.   For example, he has said that he can't control his tweeting or what Trump watches on TV when he's not there . . . and doesn't try.

That leaves Gen. Mattis, who is not actually in the White House with daily proximity.  He's over running the vast Pentagon and our massive Defense Department.

All replacement appointments seems even less likely to even try to modulate Trump's conviction that his own gut feelings and instinctual inclinations are the best.   And Trump says quite freely that he's tired of being restrained.   He has declared himself "unleashed."

Add to this the tension growing daily in Mueller's investigative operation as it closes in on the Trump organization itself.  If Trump won't even listen to his lawyers about what might sink him in court, why would we expect him to listen to advisers about what's good for the country?

So now we have Trump saying that the DACA deal is dead, and it's the Democrats' fault.  Because Congress wouldn't give him the billions he wanted to build his wall ("It's not a 'fence,' it's a WALL."), he's not going to go along with a compromise for the Dreamers.   But the truth is that the Democrats did offer him a bipartisan compromise, several times -- and he refused every one.

As was mentioned on MSNBC yesterday, Trump's is on pretty safe ground here.   There are two cases in court now, in which judges have issued injunctions against deportation action against these young people pending the court decisions.  After all, our government made promises to these young people, and they've done their part.    To deport them would be to go back on our government's word.   So Trump can rev up his base for the midterms by saying he will, but then the court won't allow it . . . and he's got another issue for his base:   the courts are against him, and the country needs to him to appoint more conservative judges.

Do we have to worry about Trump firing Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller?   Yes.  Do we have to worry about pardons for Manafort and Flynn?    But Flynn has already talked to Mueller's team, as has Gates, and the Dutch guy, and the Lebanese guy.   Mueller's got an awful lot.

And then there is the meeting with Kim Jong-un.   Yes, we have a lot to worry about.  If we thought a "restrained" Trump was bad, now we're going to have an "unleashed" Trump.

Ralph