Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, would like everyone to know that any mention of the “C” word in connection with Donald Trump’s White House is mere anti-Trump propaganda. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, McDaniel, who is Mitt Romney’s niece, said that many of the individuals who recently departed the Trump Administration were business leaders who always said they would go to Washington for a year to serve the country and then move on. Trump is “a change agent,” McDaniel went on. “He likes new ideas in front of him. There is no chaos in the White House, let me tell you.”

In McDaniel’s telling, the entire White-House-in-chaos narrative is currently being pushed by Trump’s critics, because their other favored narrative—the one that says that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians during the 2016 campaign—has collapsed. The “collusion theory has been debunked,” McDaniel insisted. “Now they are pushing the chaos theory.” Citing her own recent visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she said that the White House is “a well-run machine” and “the President is laser-focussed on the U.S. people.”

This was all most reassuring. It clearly explains why, in the past few days, Trump has lost his senior economic adviser, Gary Cohn; fired his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, via Twitter; hired a conservative television commentator, Larry Kudlow, of CNBC, to replace Cohn; hinted at a further staff shakeup, saying that he was “getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want”; and then criticized the stories that appeared heralding such a shakeup, calling them “very exaggerated and false,” while adding, “There will always be change. I think you want to see change.”

The first reports of further personnel changes being imminent emerged on Tuesday, just hours after Tillerson’s firing. “People close to the White House say they expect more major personnel shifts this week. An effort to rip off the bandaid fast on a number of fronts is likely,” Maggie Haberman, a Times correspondent known for her excellent sources in the Trump camp, tweeted. CNN’s Jim Acosta also weighed in on Twitter, saying, “Hearing more staff shakeups at WH this week not out of the question. ‘Winds of change,’ a source close to WH says.”

Other stories ensued. Some of them said that Trump wants to replace David Shulkin, the embattled Secretary of Veterans Affairs, with Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy, and also oust Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. (Both Shulkin and Carson are embroiled in scandals about the possible misuse of tax dollars.) On Wednesday, CBS News’ Major Garrett reported that the coming reshuffle could also take down H. R. McMaster, the national-security adviser, and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, although Trump made a point of praising Kelly this week during a trip to California.

Perhaps the most incendiary suggestion came via Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, who reported that Trump “discussed a plan to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions.” Sherman’s story went on: “According to two Republicans in regular contact with the White House, there have been talks that Trump could replace Sessions with E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt, who would not be recused from overseeing the Russia probe.” This report inevitably sparked speculation that Trump could employ Pruitt to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel—speculation that is sure to increase with a new Times report that Mueller’s team has subpoenaed business records from the Trump Organization, including some related to Russia.

It should be noted that virtually all of these reports cite unnamed sources, which makes it hard to assess their reliability. Certainly, some in-the-know White House officials talk to the press on background. But there is also, floating around Trump, a largish circle of cronies, associates, and former aides, some of whom tend to exaggerate what they know. And even if Trump himself were the source of these stories, they wouldn’t necessarily be reliable. He often floats ideas, only to change his mind, or get talked out of them. (Perhaps the most famous instance came last summer, when Don McGahn, the White House counsel, reportedly persuaded him to reverse an order to fire Mueller.)

About the only constants with Trump are impetuosity, a distant relationship with the truth, and a pathological need to be at the center of attention. Lately, these traits appear to have been accentuated. In a tweet on Thursday afternoon, Haberman wrote: “What is point of predicting with him beyond an hour out? That’s the view his own staff takes now.”

The spin from the White House is that the increased turnover, the decision to meet with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports all reflect a President who is finally getting on top of the job and asserting himself. Much more persuasive is an interpretation offered by Jack O’Donnell, a gaming-industry veteran who for years was the president of Trump Plaza and Casino in Atlantic City. “When he’s under pressure is when he tends to do this impulsive stuff,” O’Donnell told the Washington Post earlier this week. “That’s what I saw in the business. When he began to have pressure with debts, when the [Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City] was underperforming, is when he began acting very erratically.”

As I’ve noted before, “Trumped!,” O’Donnell’s 1991 book about his time working at the Plaza, provides an invaluable insight into how Trump thinks and acts. In his interview with the Post, O’Donnell pointed to the progress of the Mueller investigation and the scandal surrounding his alleged affair with the porn actress Stormy Daniels as factors increasing the pressure on Trump. “I think he likes the vision of himself being in control,” he said. “I doubt he realizes the consequences of North Korea, just like he didn’t realize the consequences in business of walking in and firing someone at the Taj without thinking about it. It’s Trump.”

In these circumstances, one can only pity the poor souls who are still working for Trump at the White House. “This is the most toxic working environment on the planet,” one of them told the news site Axios. “Usually tough times bring people together. But right now this atmosphere is ripping people apart. There’s no leadership, no trust, no direction, and at this point there’s very little hope. Would you want to go to work every day not knowing whether your future career was going to be destroyed without explanation?”

There is no letup in the uncertainty or the media speculation about further upheaval. At her daily briefing on Thursday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said, “the President wants to make sure he has the right people in the right places for the right time.” Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that Pete Hegseth, a conservative spokesman for veterans’ groups who is also a co-host of the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” one of Trump’s favorite shows, was being lined up as a possible replacement for Shulkin.