As a candidate, Donald Trump bemoaned America’s “crumbling roads and bridges,” “dilapidated airports,” and “factories moving overseas to Mexico.” He reportedly flies into a rage at the sight of a pothole. Yet as president, Trump quickly lost focus, and an opportunity to win Democratic support. First, he decided to direct his energies toward repealing Obamacare. When that failed, there was a historically unpopular tax bill to pass. Now, with those two out of his system, the former real-estate developer will finally turn to infrastructure. But the politics aren’t looking nearly as rosy as when Trump first stepped into the Oval. For one, the odds of him securing bipartisan support for a deal are nil. Even if Trump were to propose $200 billion in new government spending, he’d be radioactive. Meanwhile, his attempts to formulate a coherent policy are going about as well as you’d expect from the administration that brought you “infrastructure week.”

Trump has frequently described himself as a builder, regaling audiences with stories from his real-estate days, and donning hard hats with aplomb. Last summer he looked in his element unfurling a long paper flowchart showing all the permissions purportedly required to build a highway. So you would think that he and the rest of Team Trump would have their A-games ready to go. But of course you would think wrong.

The Washington Post reports that at Camp David on Friday, the president “expressed misgivings about his administration’s infrastructure plan . . . telling Republican leaders that building projects through public-private partnerships is unlikely to work—and that it may be better for the government to pursue a different path.” All of which was apparently news to Gary Cohn:

On Saturday morning, Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser, delivered a detailed proposal on infrastructure and public-private partnerships that seemed to contradict the president. He said the administration hoped $200 billion in new federal government spending would trigger almost $1 trillion in private spending and local and state spending, according to people familiar with his comments. Cohn seemed to present the plan as the administration’s approach, although the president had suggested such an approach might not work.

According to the Post, Trump’s repeated grumbling about the workability of public-private partnerships has “infuriated and surprised some administration aides who have worked on the plans for months,” especially as they were aiming to release their goals later this month. In short, it looks like this rollout is set to go about as well for Cohn as the one that preceded tax reform. Perhaps having heard that Cohn wouldn’t commit to sticking around the White House for more than five days, on Saturday Trump pulled his economic adviser up on stage and asked, “Are you happy Gary?” “Yes, I’m happy,” Cohn replied with all the enthusiasm of a hostage. “How’s that?”