Ramesh Ponnuru, Columnist

Does Anyone on Trump's Team Take Him Seriously?

It isn't always clear which of the president's comments are orders and which are just self-expression.

August 31, 2017 at 5:05 PM UTC

Ramesh Ponnuru is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Pundit or POTUS?
Photographer: Cheriss May/Nurphoto/Getty

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It’s hard to find good help these days, at least if you’re President Donald Trump. People who work for the executive branch — people he’s appointed — feel free to criticize him, distance themselves from him, disagree with him, or just refrain from defending him and his policies.

Writing in Politico Magazine, Rich Lowry says that Trump has an “insubordination problem.” His evidence includes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s pointed refusal to say that President Trump speaks for American values and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s contradiction of him on North Korea.