AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump sits at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017.
According to a report from The Washington Post published on Monday night, people within the Trump administration have described a new president who was unsettled about protests against him and reports that attendance at his inauguration ceremony was low.
The Post reporters, Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker, and Matea Gold wrote, citing unnamed White House sources, that there was internal disagreement about how Trump would respond to the reports about attendance at his Friday inauguration, with at least one staffer suggesting Trump address it with a tweet - as he is often known to do.
"But Trump was adamant," The Post wrote, citing aides close to the president. "Over the objections of his aides and advisers - who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency ... [Trump] issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary."
Spicer's remarks Saturday, which included dubious claims about attendance at Trump's inauguration, set off 48 hours of nonstop coverage.
Associated Press
White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks in the press briefing room at the White House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017 in Washington.
That coverage included interviews from senior Trump adviser, Kellyanne Conway, who spurred another round of wall-to-wall coverage when she used the phrase "alternative facts" to describe Spicer's Saturday comments.
The apparent ongoing power struggles, The Post reported, have reached "everything from the new administration's communications shop to the expansive role of the president's son-in-law to the formation of Trump's political organization."
People within Trump's close circle of allies and advisers have been the subject of alleged infighting before - most notably at a critical time for the then-candidate's presidential campaign in April 2016. At the time, Trump reshuffled key positions amid concerns he might lose the Republican nomination. He again rejiggered his staff in August, bringing on Conway and chief strategist Steve Bannon to run his campaign.