His cabinet choices have been bizarre. He has catered exclusively to his base of voters many of whom responded to his campaign of hate and fear and to his friends in the one percent.
His Education Secretary, narrowly approved, brings to her post a lifetime of support for private and religious schools and a disinterest in public education.
His Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, also narrowly approved, has a record of opposition to minority rights.
On Wednesday, Trump's choice for Labor Secretary, Andrew Puzder, announced his withdrawal for consideration.
Puzder had been mired with a history of illegal business practices and open contempt for his employees. Puzder has been CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc., the parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. He was clearly hostile to the work of the agency he was appointed to lead.
Another blot on his record was a 30-year-old video tape of his wife describing abuse. The tape was recorded as the couple was embroiled in divorce proceedings. Puzder's wife subsequently withdrew the allegations.
These stumbles in the cabinet approval process demonstrated a lack of experience and planning by the Trump administration. That same weakness was made even more apparent when Trump's National Security adviser, General Michael Flynn, resigned before the Wednesday Trump-Netanyahu meeting.
What had been planned as a public boost for the two leaders, was radically transformed into a disaster on both sides of the Atlantic. Israeli media shifted its focus to the chaos in Washington.
Ha'aretz columnist Bradley Burston wrote:
"Television broadcasts suggested that Trump's primary hope for the meeting was to distract the U.S. public from what Yedioth Ahronoth called in a banner headline an 'Administration in Crisis.'
"'Donald Trump is becoming increasingly embroiled and bogged down in that scandal involving Russia,' reported Israel Channel Two correspondent Udi Segal, adding that Trump's predicament 'is also casting dark clouds over the Netanyahu visit, following the Michael Flynn resignation'...
"Off screen, you could hear hardline settlement activists breathing a welcome if tentative sigh of relief. This has been an arduous, anxious, humiliating and painful period for the settlement enterprise, punctuated by abrupt disappointment in Trump and what his presidency might mean for what had just recently seemed to be their sky's-the-limit future."
In short, the hard-line settler movement in Israel now rejoices over Donald Trump's role as Delmar, an American leader who demonstrated both ignorance and a dangerous naivety, in a central Middle East problem.
President Trump appears to have no clear understanding of the impact his public statements (nor his tweets) have on foreign or domestic opinion. So this Delmar exchange he has just had in front of a world public, may just be today's Trumpism.
Elsewhere, Palestinian and Israelis, accustomed to U.S. policy impacting their daily lives, are reading the tea leaves. What they see, to use a Jewish meme, "good for the Jews" and bad for the Palestinians.
Palestinian media outlet Maan Newsreported:
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