Trump clamps down on first-term chaos, but media missteps remain

President Trump has tightened the lid on the leaks and infighting that plagued his first term, but his familiar zeal for clashing with news media is amassing his own verbal mistakes and miscommunications.

During Mr. Trump’s first 100 days, his administration operated with more noticeable organization and discipline than in his first term. The president quickly enacted his agenda upon taking office through sweeping executive orders to slash the federal workforce and government spending and crack down on illegal immigration.

He has reeled off a series of victories, including an unprecedented securing of the southern border and two better-than-expected jobs reports. He even announced that the NFL draft would return to Washington after more than eight decades.

Much of the infighting and staff clashes during Mr. Trump’s first term have disappeared or been kept out of the press. His hiring of loyalists rather than veteran Washington officials has led to fewer internal disputes.

Yet Mr. Trump has added to an alarming list of communications missteps in recent days. In less than one week, the president insisted that children should cut back on toys as a solution to the impact of his tariffs and said he didn’t know whether it was his job to uphold the Constitution in the legal battles over his deportation policies.

A controversial image of Mr. Trump dressed as the pope, generated by artificial intelligence, was posted on social media, including the official White House account.

After a whirlwind 100 days in which many of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises were fulfilled, perhaps the president’s honeymoon is over. Media watchers say Mr. Trump has lost some of his earlier discipline.

A peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine remains elusive. Mr. Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would deliver a deal in his first 24 hours in office. His tariff plan, the signature piece of his economic agenda, has rattled the stock markets and unleashed economic uncertainty.

Mr. Trump’s approval rating has dropped 14 percentage points since he entered office. According to aggregate polling from RealClearPolitics, he is now 6 points underwater, with 45% of voters approving of his performance and 51% disapproving. Voters give him the weakest ratings on his handling of the economy.

“It’s been a messy week. I think part of this is that he is now having to account for the results of his administration’s policies, and before it was braggadocious,” said Robert Rowland, who teaches presidential rhetoric at the University of Kansas. “He has to defend his actions, and one of those tactics has been to say outlandish things in part to obfuscate and in part to distract.”

Peter Loge, who teaches political communication at George Washington University, said making controversial remarks has always been how Mr. Trump operates, even as a real estate developer in New York.

“This is Trump being Trump,” he said. “Even before this week, he’s talked about running for a third term, making Canada the 51st state and invading Greenland.”

The White House blamed media for generating controversy when there wasn’t any and pointed to Mr. Trump’s actions over the past week, including his ban on gain-of-function research, participation in a FIFA World Cup task force meeting and announcement that the nation’s capital would host the 2027 NFL draft.

“The public would be better served if the legacy media spent less time manufacturing controversy and more time reporting on all the president is doing to deliver on his promises including over 140 executive orders in just over 100 days,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to The Washington Times.

Still, the list of missteps has grown.

Mr. Trump triggered backlash by saying at a Cabinet meeting last week that children could do with fewer toys if his sweeping tariff plan drives up costs. During an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he doubled down by adding that children could also get by with fewer pencils.

“I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t have to have 250 pencils. They can have five,” he said.

Critics on both sides of the aisle said the comment showed that Mr. Trump was out of touch with everyday Americans.

Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, said the president doesn’t “have a clue about what it means for a working-class family trying to buy presents for the kids or to take care of basic necessities.”

He said, “It’s an incredible arrogance and ignorance.”

Republican strategist Karl Rove, on Fox News, compared the president to “Mr. Scrooge” for advocating fewer toys for American children.

Mr. Rowland compared the comments to President Carter’s 1977 suggestion that Americans turn down their thermostats because of the energy crisis and wear sweaters if they’re too cold.

“People don’t want less stuff,” he said.

In the “Meet the Press” interview, Mr. Trump questioned whether he had a duty to uphold the Constitution and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. He expressed frustration at the judicial pushback to his mass deportation effort.

When asked whether he needed to uphold the Constitution as president, Mr. Trump deflected.

“I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are obviously going to follow what the Supreme Court says,” he said.

Legal scholars noted that Mr. Trump swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20.

Between those messy statements was the White House posting of an AI picture of Mr. Trump dressed as the pope. The move was widely condemned as tone-deaf and disrespectful after Pope Francis’ death a few days earlier.

Mr. Trump brushed off the backlash, saying it was a harmless joke overblown by his media critics. He insisted that he had nothing to do with it, but the White House did not respond to questions about who posted to Mr. Trump’s social media account besides the president.

Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the image “offends believers, insults institutions and shows the leader of the global right enjoys being a clown.”

Mr. Trump’s frustration appeared to boil over Sunday when he erupted aboard Air Force One at The Wall Street Journal, which has been highly critical of his tariff proposals.

“You people treat us so badly. The Wall Street Journal has truly gone to hell. A rotten newspaper. You hear me, what I said. It’s a rotten newspaper,” he told the reporter after asking a question.

He declined to answer the reporter’s question, saying talking to the outlet would be “wasting time.”