Second, the president refuses to learn in office or master any level of detail. He therefore is far less influential in pressing lawmakers to pass his initiatives. Without understanding individual lawmakers’ objections, his ability to persuade and cajole them is limited to repeating empty talking points. The same problem that afflicted him in the health-care debate will be evident no matter what the topic.

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Third, Kelly cannot and should not attempt to defend Trump’s actions regarding Russia. (Kelly doesn’t want to be part of any conspiracy to cover up actions that are now the subject of an FBI investigation.) Moreover, it seems no one — not even Trump’s relatives and lawyers — can prevent him from digging himself a deeper hole. With regard to the revelation that he dictated a misleading statement regarding Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian officials in 2016, my colleague Aaron Blake notes that the leaked story is a sign of desperation:

In this story, [advisers are] admitting that he is personally responsible for deliberately misleading the American people about a major topic of the Russia investigation. They’re saying that he did something that could very well be construed as a cover-up and could damage his legal defense. The reason? Because they apparently can’t prevail upon him in person and they think he simply doesn’t get what kind of jeopardy he is putting himself in.

Fourth, Kelly is more likely to accentuate Trump’s alienation from Republicans. Already strained because of health reform, the president’s serial outbursts and the Russia scandal, the relationship between Congress and Trump seems more like that between a president and the majority of the other party. In point of fact, Trump’s never really been a Republican (except insofar as he inhabited the party), so this may have been the inevitable course of his presidency. Nevertheless, Kelly has no particular ideological leanings, no ties to the conservative movement and no experience in domestic policy. That leaves Trump even less tethered to his party than he was at the onset of his term. For those rooting for Trump to be stymied and ultimately ejected from the party, this is good news. (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) rationalized support for Trump on the grounds he’d help get the GOP agenda through. That goes down as one of the worst political misjudgments in years.)