Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Trump Is Running the White House Like a Democrat

Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter didn't think they needed a powerful chief of staff -- and suffered the consequences.

January 25, 2017 at 11:30 AM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

Jimmy Carter struggled before calling on Hamilton Jordan.
Photographer: Corbis via Getty Images

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It's safe to say the new Donald Trump administration has shattered all records for reports of internal turmoil in the first week.1485278447744 See, for example, here and here. Some of this could be Trump himself -- several stories are just brutal about his inability to focus and about how unprepared he seems to be. And some of it could be media overkill, since once a story is out there, it tends to feed on itself.

But another potential explanation -- especially considering the jaw-dropping leaks coming from within the White House -- is that there is something seriously wrong with the way Trump has structured his new staff.