New York Times: “Attacking the news media, which has an abysmal approval rating among Republican voters, is sound politics in the short term. But Mr. Trump’s fury is less strategic than heartfelt… “

“His anger is compounded by his belief that he should still be able to plant and steer stories. That was a lot easier to do when he was running a close-knit real estate and branding business with an aggressive legal team that demanded that nearly everyone in his orbit sign nondisclosure agreements.”

“For the first time in his life, Mr. Trump is on the public payroll and subject to a tangle of laws and rules no businessman — especially one accustomed to overseeing every aspect of a relatively small family business — would tolerate.”

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 44% of Americans approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 48% disapprove, “making him the first president of the post-World War II era with a net negative approval rating in his first gauge of public opinion.”

Very interesting: “Mr. Trump’s approval rating may have been worse were it not for support from a surprising corner of the electorate. His job performance won positive reviews from 55% of respondents who had voted for a third-party candidate in November, who didn’t vote at all or said they supported Mr. Trump mostly to oppose Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.”

Washington Post: “One of the unofficial duties of Trump’s Cabinet, it seems, is cleaning up the statements of the man they serve. Five weeks into Trump’s tenure in office, his deputies have found themselves softening, explaining and sometimes outright contradicting the president.”

“This public and often yawning gulf between Trump and his agency heads has added to the sense of chaos and turmoil emanating from the White House, sending his secretaries scrambling to interpret their boss’s exact positions and leaving other nations confused as to who, exactly, speaks on behalf of the administration.”