From Cosmopolitan

The New York Times' Glenn Thrush (yes, that "Glenn") and Maggie Haberman published a report Feb. 5 of what life has been like the past couple of weeks for President Donald Trump and his staff. As they get settled into the White House, they're figuring out how to do their new jobs and getting used to their new offices. Generally, it sounds like things have been nutty.

Here are the juiciest revelations from the story:

1. No one knows how to work the lights. "Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room."

2. Trump didn't realize he was signing an executive order to put his chief strategist Steve Bannon on the National Security Council. And the president is angry "that he was not fully briefed" about it. This apparently made Trump more upset than the bungled travel ban rollout, but it doesn't seem to have diminished Bannon's power as Trump's most important advisor.

Photo credit: Getty

3. Trump is "obsessed with the décor" of the White House." He is especially into the gold drapes. The president "was delighted to page through a book that offered him 17 window covering options." He chose Bill Clinton's old curtains but incorrectly told a visitor they had been used by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

4. The only photo behind Trump's Oval Office desk is one of his father, Frederick Christ Trump. The desk itself is "now heaped, in Trump Tower fashion, with memos and newspapers."

Photo credit: Getty

5. Trump is even more isolated now. He goes upstairs around 6:30 and then "he is almost always by himself." No Melania, no Barron, but occasionally his former security chief Keith Schiller is there to keep company.

6. He finds out what's happening in the world by watching cable TV. As much as he claims to hate the media, Trump is a heavy consumer of it. He watches TV "in his bathrobe," he watches TV "while eating lunch," and he watches TV "both at night and during the day - too much in the eyes of some aides - often offering a bitter play-by-play of critics like CNN's Don Lemon."

Story continues

I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017

7. Trump pays special attention to Sean Spicer's press briefings. The press secretary gets monitored and then Trump gives "praise or criticism." Together, Trump and Spicer go through news clips and Trump uses a black Sharpie to mark what he doesn't like "with a big arrow."

Photo credit: Getty

8. There was no long-term plan. "One former staff member likened the aggressive approach of the first two weeks to D-Day, but said the president's team had stormed the beaches without any plan for a longer war." This might have to do with Bannon's belief that there would only be a short period during which he could most efficiently enact his vision. ""We are moving big and we are moving fast," Bannon told the Times.

9. Actually, there was a plan, but it got torn up. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie put together a "detailed staffing and implementation plan" before he was fired from the transition team. Then, "a senior Trump aide made a show of tossing it into a garbage can."

10. There is now a process for new initiatives. The messiness of the first few weeks has prompted chief of staff Reince Priebus to create a more formal process, a "10-point checklist" that requires getting different people to sign off. This is "a new set of checks on the previously unfettered power enjoyed by Mr. Bannon and the White House policy director, Stephen Miller."

Photo credit: Getty

11. The backlash is getting to Trump. The president, up until very recently, thought things were going well with his administration, but the protests and bad headlines have been getting to him. He reportedly asked an aide, "What are we going to do about this?"

Follow Helin on Instagram.

You Might Also Like