DONALD Trump wants a new FBI director named by next week as claims of infighting sees the White House descend into “total chaos”.

“That is possible,” he told reporters when asked whether he could announce his nominee by Friday, when he is scheduled to leave for the Middle East and Europe.

Four candidates to be the bureau’s director were in line for the first interviews with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, at Justice Department headquarters overnight.

They are among nearly a dozen candidates Mr Trump is considering, including lawyer Alice Fisher, who would be the first woman to head the FBI.

“I think the process is going to go quickly. Almost all of them are very well known,” mr Trump said while flying to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he was giving the commencement address at Liberty University. “They’ve been vetted over their lifetime essentially, but very well known, highly respected, really talented people. And that’s what we want for the FBI.”

It comes as a Trump insider said his communications team “s**t the bed” on James Comey’s sacking as director of the FBI.

The Hill reports that “it’s total chaos” inside the White House after the communications team were only given an hour after being told about Comey’s firing before they had to front the media with a unified explanation.

The Washington Post reported that White House press secretary Sean Spicer was “hiding in the bushes” and away from the media while he got the Comey story straight.

Mr Trump’s team insisted on a retraction to the story and the Washington Post was forced to amend Spicer’s proximity to the bushes, saying he was “among” them but not “in” them.

This story has been updated to more precisely describe Spicer's location near White House bushes on Tuesday night https://t.co/kRwAq4lLeo — Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 11, 2017

Spicer spent most of the week on Navy duty, meaning his deputy Sarah Huckabee Sanders took the podium for the daily media briefing.

However, she too found herself in trouble when she said “countless” FBI agents had lost faith in Mr Comey. That contradicted acting FBI director Andrew McCabe’s comments that Mr Comey enjoyed broad support within the organisation.

Kellyanne Conway, Counsellor to the President and Mr Trump’s mouth piece during his campaign, also misstepped when she explained that the president was just working on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when he fired Mr Comey.

Mr Rosenstein was reportedly furious that the sacking call had been attributed to him that Mr Trump did a round of media interviews where he said he was “going to fire Comey anyway”.

Now, a Trump insider says finger pointing in the team is rife.

“It’s image-making on the inside and people trying to protect themselves. There is a deep streak of paranoia among staff,” the insider said. “The communications team s**t the bed on the Comey firing and now the war with the FBI has them all scared and throwing each other under the bus.”

“Thank God I don’t work there. If I did, I’d be dialling up my attorney,” the official said.

Mr Trump has tried to defend his communications team and even threatened to cancel the daily press briefing and give written statements to help “accuracy”.

“Sarah Huckabee is a lovely, young woman. You know Sean Spicer, he is a wonderful human being, he’s a nice man,” he said.

Both Spicer and Huckabee Sanders have defended their comments, saying they try to get the most accurate information and provide it to the media.

“We get here early. We work beyond being here at this podium. As many of you know we get here early. We work pretty late. We do what we can,” Spicer said.

Mr Trump was also out at Liberty University in Virginia overnight giving a commencement speech where he told graduates to follow their convictions and never give up.

“Remember this: Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy,” Mr Trump said. “Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right, and they know what is right but they don’t have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it.”

Mr Trump told graduates to “treat the word ‘impossible’ as nothing more than motivation” and to embrace being called an “outsider” because “It’s the outsiders who change the world.”

“The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you must be that you must keep pushing ahead,” added Mr Trump, who often complains about being underestimated during the presidential campaign.

“Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic. The future belongs to the dreamers not to the critics. The future belongs to the people who follow their hearts not to the critics,” Mr Trump said in an apparent message to his detractors.