Once again at the briefing Kelly expressed confidence in diplomacy to resolve a potential nuclear standoff with North Korea. He said, “Right now there is great concern about a lot of Americans that live in Guam. Right now we think the threat is manageable but over time, if it grows beyond where it is today, well, let’s hope that diplomacy works.” Well, the president less than two weeks ago tweeted to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that diplomacy was a waste of time. So which is it? Maybe Tillerson and Kelly should ignore him these days. However, it is easy to see how both allies and foes could take him at his word, react accordingly and put us, as Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) put it, on the road to World War III.

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Then there is the matter of the State Department budget, which Trump has slashed, and the flock of unfilled positions, which Trump said (along with other departments’ unfilled political appointments) he may not fill since there are hundreds of thousands of people working in government. (Alas, not a permanent assistant secretary for state or any regional area.) Here again Kelly seems to have an altogether different view of things. “As Jim Mattis and I have many, many times said when we were in uniform: If we don’t fund the State Department properly, buy us more bullets,” he said. But wait. Trump proposed eviscerating the State Department’s budget (with Tillerson meekly going along) and Tillerson is working on downsizing the State Department (which sounds ridiculous, but alas is accurate and frightful). So is the administration for a robust State Department or not? I suppose it depends on whom you ask.

This all occurred at one press briefing, with one senior aide. Multiply the number of disconnects to accounts for dozens of key advisers and hundreds of issues. We would honestly like to know if every senior adviser simply ignores Trump’s public outbursts and tweets, and if so, how do they know what policy to follow? One of two things (maybe there are other explanations) is happening. Either Kelly is running the show and Trump isn’t really directing the government or setting policy; or Trump says different things in private to aides than he does in public utterances (for reasons we don’t fully understand).