How President Trump derails his own message, over and over again

Gregory Korte | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump: Blame both sides for violence in Charlottesville From Trump Tower in New York City, President Trump told reporters that both sides were to blame for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia.

WASHINGTON — The White House wants to talk about tax reform, repealing Obamacare, and infrastructure proposals – all the policy initiatives administration officials insist will "make America great again." Yet one person, operating with impunity within the West Wing, repeatedly derails that effort.

It's President Trump himself.

Time and time again, Trump has been off-message, sidetracking the national conversation away from the business of government and toward all manner of controversies and squabbles.

Trump's penchant for becoming his own greatest distraction peaked last week, when the president — during what was supposed to be a "working vacation" — came to the lobby of Trump Tower to announce he had just signed an executive order to speed up infrastructure permitting.

But when he opened it up to questions, Trump said left wing protesters were just as violent as neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, saying "both sides" were to blame for the resulting violence that killed one protester and injured 19 others. The comments reopened a firestorm that Trump had just started to put out with more moderate comments the day before, and resulted in mass resignations from various presidential commissions and advisory boards.

White House aides acknowledge that the president is going to speak his mind — especially when he feels he's under attack.

"I think he’s been very clear that when he gets attacked he’s going to hit back," said then-deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in June, explaining why Trump was attacking two MSNBC's morning show personalities on Twitter the same day the White House was trying to roll out its energy policy.

"I think the President would love for us all to focus on the legislative agenda a whole lot more," she said, rattling off statistics on how little the broadcast networks devoted to policy issues compared to the Russia controversy. "The numbers don't lie. The media’s focus on priorities, they don't line up with the rest of America."

But the president's own focus hasn't always been on his own priorities. Since Inauguration Day, Trump has posted 82 tweets with the words "fake news" and 75 about Russia. That's more than he's tweeted about "jobs" (66 times), "energy" (nine times), or infrastructure (seven times).

Even on health care — a subject Trump tweets about more than any other — Trump's freewheeling has drawn attention away from his actual efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

As the Senate was debating the so-called "skinny repeal" bill to repeal Obamacare in July, Trump launched a series of extraordinary attacks on his own attorney general, in interviews, tweets, and press conferences. He said Jeff Sessions was "very weak" in not ordering an investigation of his election rival Hillary Clinton, for not firing the acting FBI director, and for recusing himself from the investigation into Russian collusion.

Yet nowhere is this Trump effect more stark than during the several "theme weeks" the White House has held to draw attention to infrastructure, workforce development, technology, energy, manufacturing, American heroes and the American dream.

As Trump heads back to Washington, and the White House is once again trying to change the conversation, here's a look back at other times this summer when Trump derailed his own message:

June 5: Infrastructure week

The White House had briefed reporters, prepared speeches and lined up a series of events to promote the president's $1 billion infrastructure plan.

But no sooner did the White House open for business on Monday morning than the president was already off message, criticizing his own Justice Department for an executive order he signed restricting travel from six Muslim majority countries.

"The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to (the Supreme Court)," Trump tweeted at 6:29 a.m.

The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017

Here was the president undermining his own argument in the Supreme Court, and the news overshadowed his carefully choreographed ceremony to propose privatizing air traffic control. The tweet caused such a kerfuffle that he followed it up the next day with a defense of his use of Twitter.

"The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out," he tweeted.

Trump also met with congressmen, mayors and governors, traveled to Cincinnati and held an infrastructure summit at the Department of Transportation.

But the biggest news of the week was outside of Trump's control: James Comey testified to Congress that Thursday about his tenure as FBI director before Trump fired him in May.

June 12: Workforce Development Week

First daughter Ivanka Trump conceded on the Monday after Infrastructure Week that the theme "didn't get the level of headlines" the White House would have hoped.

"This coming week is about workforce development," she told Fox News. "So with all the noise, with all the intensity of the media coverage and obviously what makes headlines, ultimately, we are really focused on why the American people elected Donald Trump as their president.”

On Twitter, however, Trump was focused on "fake news," former attorney general Loretta Lynch, a Russian collusion "witch hunt," Hillary Clinton's emails, and Comey's firing.

But here, too, the biggest news of the week was outside Trump's control: A man opened fire on a softball field in Alexandria, Va., critically injuring Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and wounding two Capitol Police officers.

June 19: Technology Week

"To touch on the theme of this week, we want to do what we can to really focus on technology, helping our government bring back jobs, create new opportunities for our country, for jobs," then-press secretary Sean Spicer said June 20.

Events included the inaugural meeting of the White House Technology Council, a listening session with tech CEOs, a trip to Iowa to talk about agricultural technology, and a technology demonstration event.

Congressional politics dominated the week, with the Senate unveiling a new Obamacare repeal bill and special elections to fill seats vacated by Trump's cabinet picks.

Meanwhile, the Comey saga continued to play out, with Trump finally revealing — through a tweet — that he had no tapes of his conversations with the FBI director after all. Since he waited 41 days to clear up the confusion, this story dominated headlines.

With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017

...whether there are "tapes" or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017

June 26: Energy Week

The keynote of the week came in a June 29 speech in which Trump laid out an energy agenda focusing on expanding nuclear energy, speeding the construction of coal plants, oil pipelines, natural gas exports and offshore drilling.

"This is all just the beginning," Trump said. "The golden era of American energy is now underway."

But the same day as that speech, Trump unleashed a Twitter broadside against MSNBC morning show hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. He called them "Psycho Joe" and "low I.Q. Crazy Mika," and said Brzezinski was "bleeding badly from a face-lift" when he saw her at Mar-a-Lago.

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

Trump would continue that feud with two more tweets, plus eight others about "fake news" at CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

July 17: Made in America Week

Spicer began the week with an announcement: "For the rest of July, this administration is going to be honoring the people, the products, and the principles that have made America a global leader. This week, we will be spotlighting American-made products and industries."

By and large, that's not what Trump was tweeting. He defended his son's meeting with a Russian agent, blasted Democrats after another Obamacare repeal vote failed, and raised the possibility that he could pardon himself.

While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017

Even the spotlight on American products largely backfired, drawing attention to Trump-branded products made overseas. And on Thursday of "Made in America" week, the Labor Department received an application to hire foreign workers — from Trump's own Mar-a-Lago resort.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer called it "the epitome of hypocrisy."

"These attempts by the White House to message through weekly themes only highlights the disconnect between a candidate who ran on promises to expand opportunity to more Americans and a President whose term has so far been mired in scandal and investigation," Hoyer said.

On Wednesday, Trump undermined his own attorney general by telling the New York Times that he never would have nominated Jeff Sessions if he had known that Sessions would recuse himself from the investigation into Russia's election meddling.

By Friday, Trump tried to shake up his communications operation, replacing press secretary Sean Spicer and hiring Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.

July 24: American heroes week

President Trump's schedule: Addressing the Boy Scouts of America, visiting an Amvets post in Struthers, Ohio, inviting the American Legion to the Rose Garden, awarding the Medal of Valor to two Capitol police officers, holding a ceremony for first responders in the East Room, speaking to police officers on Long Island.

This was also the fateful week for Trump's push to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Trump's tweets: Calling for an investigation into "Crooked Hillary," blasting the Washington Post as "fake news" and suggesting its owner wasn't paying enough taxes, declaring the Russia investigation a "witch hunt," calling his own attorney general "very weak", attacking the acting FBI director, and suddenly banning "transgender individuals" from serving in the military without any policy in place.

Even the Boy Scouts speech sparked a big controversy, since it was filled with attacks on the press, polls, and his former predecessor Barack Obama. "We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the scouting program," the head of the Boy Scouts of America said days after the speech.

On Friday, he also fired his chief of staff.

July 31: American Dream Week

From a policy perspective, American Dream Week ended up being a grab-bag of a theme week: A Medal of Honor ceremony, a listening session with military spouses, a discussion with small business owners — and an invitation to a 10-year-old Virginia boy to help mow the lawn at the White House.

The major policy rollout was a legislative proposal to reduce legal immigration and adopt what the White House calls a merit-based system. In a widely watched press briefing, Trump adviser Stephen Miller repudiated what he called a "Statue of Liberty poem" approach to immigration.

Distractions also included a Golf Magazine account in which Trump reportedly called the White House a "dump," (which Trump later denied on Twitter). Trump begrudgingly signed a bill that ties the president's hands on relaxing Russia sanctions – and blamed Congress for bad relations with Moscow. After a turbulent 10-day term, his newly hired communications director Anthony Scaramucci left the White House after an expletive-filled rant bashing his colleagues.

August: 'Working vacation'

Presidential vacations usually mark an August lull in the Washington news cycle. Congress is on recess, and most Americans are returning from vacations and preparing for the school year.

But Trump said from the beginning that his two-week retreat from Washington would be a "working vacation," and kept a busy schedule at his New Jersey golf course, his New York office building and at the presidential retreat at Camp David.

In between rounds of golf, Trump met with officials about the North Korea threat, the opioid crisis, the political situation in Venezuela, terrorism, Afghanistan and more.

Yet the most notable moment came at a signing ceremony for a veterans health bill last Saturday, when Trump addressed the violence in Charlottesville, saying "many sides" were responsible for the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence."

Two days later, last Monday, Trump condemned white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. He said the Justice Department would investigate the deadly car attack carried out by an alleged white nationalist that left one woman dead.

But then on Tuesday, after a meeting on infrastructure at Trump Tower, Trump reignited the controversy all over again when he was asked why he waited so long to condemn neo-Nazis, by saying not all those who marched in the "Unite the Right" rally were racists, and that counter-protesters also had some culpability.

Trump begged for an infrastructure question three times, but clearly came prepared to discuss Charlottesville — even pulling a transcript of his highly criticized initial statement from his jacket pocket.

Even after getting and answering an infrastructure question, he came back to Charlottesville. And as he walked away, he turned again to reporters. "I own a house in Charlottesville. Does anyone know I own a house in Charlottesville?" he said. "I own, actually, one of the largest wineries in the United States. It's in Charlottesville."