The President Who Doesn't Understand His Own Positions

Singed by aides’ and former aides’ portrait of a president not equal to his job, Donald Trump has spent the last few days trying to demonstrate that he’s on top of things.

The results have been mixed. The president was able to garner some positive reviews for his session with congressional leaders on Tuesday—though as one of those reviewers, Peter Baker of The New York Times, acknowledged, “The bar, of course, was historically low given that Democrats and even some Republicans have been describing him as so unstable that he should be removed from office.”

But at the same time—in that Tuesday meeting, over the weekend at Camp David, and on Twitter Thursday morning—Trump has demonstrated that he continues to have no functional grasp of policy, including the putative positions of his administration. He in response to the revelations produced by Edward Snowden.