Sources tell NBC News that Donald Trump was watching news coverage from his Beverly Hills home Thursday and was described as surprised and "irritated" that news organizations were identifying Pence as his choice early in the day. Those sources said that by mid-afternoon, after the initial news reports, he had still "not informed" the other two men on his final list -former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- that a final decision had been reached. Trump spoke to Gov. Christie after 4:00pm in what was described as a "tense" conversation where a Pence pick was discussed but a final decision was not communicated. By about 5:00pm, sources said Trump had not personally made the offer to Pence to join the ticket. But by that time, other signals, movements and the Indiana governor's arrival in the New York City area on a private plane appeared to signal that the choice had been made.

Trump’s brain trust was worried about his discipline and steadfastness, and with good reason. As The Hill revealed last month, "Some of his advisers have expressed concern that he could decide to tweet the announcement without warning." By midday Friday, both MSNBC’s O’Donnell and Dana Bash of CNN were reporting that a frantic Trump wanted to change his pick into the wee hours Thursday night. As O’Donnell confirmed on Twitter:

Sources tell me @realDonaldTrump was on phone till midnight making calls, asking if he could change course on VP pick.

By Friday morning, the 2016 Republican presidential nominee tweeted his selection of Gov. Pence. What his aides once feared they may now have demanded to stop the bleeding from the would-be commander-in-chief:

I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.

But if Commander Trump wavered and waffled over his first executive decision, he showed no hesitation in response to Thursday’s truck attack in Nice that killed more than 80 and wounded hundreds more. Unlearning lesson #1 of George W. Bush’s Iraq disaster—America should wage war against those actually responsible for attacking us—Trump announced he would declare war on, well, somebody and everybody after France’s suffering. With the identity and connections (if any) of the Nice killer still unknown on Thursday night, Donald Trump told Bill O’Reilly of Fox News that as President he would ask Congress for a declaration of war. As ThinkProgress explained:

On the basis of this speculation, Trump said he agreed that this was now a "world war scenario" and, as president, he would seek a formal declaration of world war from Congress. "I would. I would," Trump told O’Reilly. "If you look at it, this is war, coming from all different parts. And frankly, it’s war and we’re dealing with people without uniforms. You know, in the old days, you would have uniforms. You knew who you were fighting."

Warning that the Syrian refugees coming to the United States "could be ISIS" and so "could be the great Trojan horse of all time," Donald Trump was prepared to declare war despite not knowing "who you were fighting." Of course, Trump also seemed not to know that President Obama is already fighting ISIS based on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Al Qaeda. Obama also request an AUMF specifically targeting ISIS, but the Republican-controlled Congress refused to bring it to a vote.

That his own adviser Paul Manafort said Trump "emotionally reacted" to Thursday’s horror in Nice is just one of many reasons the reality TV star must never have his finger on the nuclear trigger. His proposed Muslim ban, his tirades against the NATO alliance, his pledges to commit new war crimes "worse" than waterboarding, and the obvious fright he inspires among U.S. allies are more than cause enough to disqualify him. This week, Donald Trump utterly failed the multi-tasking test any commander-in-chief would face. As then-Sen. Barack Obama explained why he wanted to debate John McCain as planned during the financial crisis of September 2008:

"Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time," he said, "it is not necessary for us to think we can do only one thing and suspend everything else." Expressing concern about infusing "Capitol Hill with presidential politics," Obama said it was his desire to see the debate go forward. "With respect to the debates it is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in roughly 40 days will be responsible for this mess," he said. "I think it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once

Over the past 48 hours, would-be President Donald Trump couldn’t do that. To put it another way, Trump’s 3 AM phone call actually came during the light of day, and he bungled it.