New York Times: “Air Force One has become a flying call center, the Oval Office, a revolving door of journalists, dignitaries and celebrities. Rock stars and cabinet secretaries wander the White House driveway, a place that at any given moment can be the site of an impromptu news conference.”

“When President Trump enters one of the more talkative cycles of his presidency — and ahead of the midterms, post-Supreme Court confirmation, he is definitely in one — the environment around him becomes a stage, and inevitable questions of a grand strategy arise.”

“But there is none, people close to him say. His aides are simply clearing a path as the president speaks — and speaks, and speaks, and speaks — up for himself.”

Daily Beast: “In the middle of September, Donald Trump wanted to make something very clear to his senior staff: He didn’t feel like he was talking to enough reporters, and he needed to talk to as many as humanly possible in the coming weeks.”

“According to two knowledgeable sources, the president told some of his top lieutenants, including White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Bill Shine, that he was frustrated and believed he wasn’t getting his message out enough on mainstream channels in the weeks leading up to the critical midterm elections.”

“Trump then directed his top comms brass to make sure he would get on the phone and facetime with more journalists from various outlets (not simply Fox), to supplement his increasingly busy 2018 campaign-trail schedule. He wanted a media strategy for “flood[ing] the zone,” as one senior administration official put it, and to make himself an even grander presence on the TV shows and print publications he so addictively consumes.”

Andrew Sullivan: “As I’ve noted before, Trump’s record as a force of destruction is profound, whether it be the sabotage of Obamacare, the devastation of democratic norms, or the rattling of NATO. But as the months tick by, there’s a decent case that Trump’s proactive accomplishments are beginning to add up as well: a huge tax cut, two Supreme Court justices, wholesale deregulation, renegotiation of NAFTA, isolation of Iran, and a broader reboot of bilateral nationalism on the world stage.”

“But I’m not talking merely about policy — he has also shifted the entire polity more decisively toward the authoritarian style of government. In this respect, yes, the Trump administration has indeed accomplished much more than many of us want to believe.”