One of the enduring characteristics of Donald Trump’s short but high-flying political career has been his ability to put behind him stories that would have sunk any other candidate. A news item that would dominate headlines for months in any other presidency can barely last through a day or two before it gets subsumed. (Case in point: Remember that time that Trump told Russian officials that firing “that nut job [James] Comey” took pressure off him? It’s largely forgotten, less than a year later.) The sheer volume of news is one part of that—there are just so many enormous stories—but the progress of the story of Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Putin seems like a useful case study in how a story quickly degrades from a novel one about substance (Trump’s dubious call to Putin) to one about process (how did this happen?) until it becomes just another typical Trump story.

First came the phone call, described in a brief White House readout and confirmed by Trump during a Tuesday afternoon appearance with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Then came Sanders’s weird press briefing.

Later in the evening on Tuesday, The Washington Post added a significant new piece of information: The president had been warned, in all caps, not to congratulate Putin during the call. But Trump decided to do so anyway, for whatever reason—continued affection for Putin, simple contrarianism, or his well-known aversion to actually reading briefing materials, or anything else.

Then, Wednesday morning, crack Axios reporter Jonathan Swan reported that “One of the most startling leaks—and stunning revelations—of this whole administration has left President Trump and his senior staff furious and rattled.” Is this one of the most stunning revelations of this administration? That certainly seems arguable. In any case, Swan continued, “The speed and sensitivity of the leak prompted immediate finger-pointing within the administration, as aides reeled from a leak that could only have come from a small group of people, each of whom is trusted with sensitive national secrets.”

This is interesting reporting—one certainly can’t fault Swan for publishing new details about what’s going on inside the White House—but it’s also where the slippage starts to appear. Suddenly a story about Trump’s weird approach to Russia has become a story about White House backbiting and disorganization, which is hardly fresh.

The Axios scoop opened up a whole flood of new information.

“Trump was fuming Tuesday night, asking his allies and outside advisers who they thought had leaked the information, noting that only a small group of staffers have access to those materials and would have known what guidance was included for the Putin call, the source said,” CNN reported. Another official told CNN—anonymously, ironically enough, “If this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the President’s briefing papers. Leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal.”