night. there s no question that the president and steve bannon had a tight relationship during the stretch run of the campaign, although they knew each other before that. and certainly in the first few months of this administration when bannon was a power player in the west wing. it faded over time, but that relationship did not end. they continued to speak even after bannon was fired or left the white house this summer. and i think you re right about this president. he s staffed differently. aides, you grew frustrated over the summer with his scatter shot approach to the health care reform. the republican health care effort and feel like the president hurt as much as he helped. that when they brief him it s often with he prefers briefings orally rather than with written documents. when it is a written document, that they ve grown to learn to highlight his own name in them, knowing that would draw his attention. i reflect back to a story i was part of during the summer when he was
trump for years who have worked in the white house. i think there s no question that we re seeing a pretty major store line for 2018. is the president s mental ability and capacity to have this job. now, certainly i m not in the position to diagnose him one way or the other. it must be said, he is staffed differently than other presidents. it is well-known he has a shaky grasp of policy details and a short attention span. when aides come to him, they do it with briefings largely oral than reading, reading, it s maps, or documents that have his name in it a lot. he is someone whose scatter shot approach for the republican health care initiative back last spring, a lot of republicans on the hill blamed the president or, in part, for its failure, that he wasn t able to stick with one way or the other. he took a backseat role on taxes helped that get through. i do think you re seeing, saw it in the briefing today, those questions are going to continue.
you hear conversations. i have sources who ask me if he s lost a step, if i think he has lost a step. sources who have known donald trump for years who have worked in the white house. i think there s no question that we re seeing a pretty major store line for 2018. is the president s mental ability and capacity to have this job. now, certainly i m not in the position to diagnose him one way or the other. it must be said, he is staffed differently than other presidents. it is well-known he has a shaky grasp of policy details and a short attention span. when aides come to him, they do it with briefings largely oral than reading, reading, it s maps, or documents that have his name in it a lot. he is someone whose scatter shot approach for the republican health care initiative back last spring, a lot of republicans on the hill blamed the president or, in part, for its failure, that he wasn t able to stick with one way or the other.
elected? from there let s turn to our lead-off panel tonight robert costa, shannon pettypiece, and jonathan la mere. welcome to you all. jonathan, you get to go first. laura inning ham was particularly sharp right there in her sarcasm. what just happened? is this a transactional, as people like to call him, moving target president? first of all, it s a president, and we saw this in the confusion whose scatter shot approach, approach of telling people what they want to hear allows other folks, potentially with very, very different varying viewpoints to hear what they want. that he s not going to get pinned down. he s ideologically flexible to
donald trump is constantly using a story to distract from another story. i think they just have a scatter shot approach to what they focus on that s totally dependent on what donald trump feels in a given moment. i think that s exactly what s happening right now. stephanie gosk is in washington. stephanie? hey. what was hundreds of thousands dwindled to a few hundred. you can call these people the die hards of a long day here, in a day that surprised many who came here, including officials in this city. the organizers recall say there