“The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems,” the Washington Post reports.

Playbook: “The prevailing sense at the end of week one was that Trump 2.0 was altogether more polished and professional than Trump 1.0. This time around, so the thinking went, the administration would be able to execute on its goals with strategic precision — an impression bolstered by the blitz of well-prepared executive actions that defined his initial days back on the job.”

“At the end of week two, though, things appear a bit different: Trump 2.0 suddenly looks less like a break from the occasional half-cocked chaos of Trump 1.0 than simply its more grown-up sequel. Rather than an altogether different administration, it seems to have some of the same flaws of Trump’s first go-around.”

“President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for a landmark confrontation over his authority to strike federal spending and regulation, as the White House looks to reconfigure vast swaths of the U.S. government even without approval from Congress,” the Washington Post reports.

“Only days into his second term, Trump’s extraordinary steps have challenged a fundamental principle of the Constitution: control over the power of the purse, which the president has looked to partly wrest away from lawmakers so that he can shape the federal budget as he wishes.”

Peter Baker: “Mr. Trump has never been like other presidents. He does not follow many of the rituals and traditions of his office. He practices the politics of division rather than unity. Where past presidents have sought to project a comforting, paternal presence for a stricken nation in moments of crisis, Mr. Trump’s instinct is to move quickly from grief to grievance. He has long demonstrated that he is more comfortable as the blamer in chief than consoler in chief.”

“His decision to use the bully pulpit of the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a shred of evidence was, even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And it was no off-the-cuff comment. He followed up by signing an order directing a review of ‘problematic and likely illegal decisions’ by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.”