Ryan Lizza: “Seven days may not be enough time to fully assess any new leader, especially in the case of Trump, whose first week was marked by seeming chaos in his efforts to put together an Administration. But what we’ve learned so far about the least-experienced President-elect in history is as troubling and ominous as his critics have feared.”

“The Greeks have a word for the emerging Trump Administration: kakistocracy. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as a ‘government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.’ Webster’s is simpler: ‘government by the worst people.'”

A Democratic source tells the Huffington Post that Trump transition officials “had been informally asking Obama political appointees to recommend Republicans to take over their jobs.”

President-elect Donald J. Trump “denied that his transition was in disarray, assailing news media reports about firings and infighting,” the New York Times reports.

Said Trump: “It is going so smoothly.”

“But legal and procedural delays by Mr. Trump’s transition team continued on Wednesday, all but freezing the traditional handoff of critical information from the current administration more than a week after Mr. Trump won the presidential election.”

“The overwhelming majority of House Democrats have signed a letter urging Donald Trump to rescind his appointment of Stephen Bannon to a senior White House post, calling the Breitbart boss a purveyor of anti-Semitism, misogyny and racism,” Politico reports.

From the letter: “Millions of Americans have expressed fear and concern about how they will be treated by the Trump Administration and your appointment of Mr. Bannon only exacerbates and validates their concerns.”

Rick Klein: “It’s fair to say that there has been no presidential transition in history where we’ve seen so little of the president-elect, yet so much of the people who want to populate his Cabinet. In other words, President-elect Donald Trump is overseeing his transition much like he ran his campaign – as a freewheeling series of conversations among interconnected circles of advisers who are jealous of each other’s influence.”

“That means Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton and company are incentivized to lobby for top jobs on cable news shows, knowing that the intended audience of one is probably watching – unless he slipped away for dinner, or decided to Tweet about the suddenly discovered genius of the Electoral College. Trump’s calculation, if that’s what it is, is that the messy process won’t matter when it delivers results. It’s time to get used to this, folks.”

“In a highly unusual move, President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday night left his Manhattan residence without notifying the reporters covering him or giving any indication of where he was going,” NBC News reports.

“The maneuver seemed to deliberately limit access to the media… This came after Hicks had told his press pool the day had ended, and the only indication of his departure was an unannounced motorcade. Trump’s communications team did not respond to emails from the pooler requesting guidance.”

First Read: “Okay, we get it: It’s hard to get fired up about a man deciding to have dinner with his family without a bevy of reporters in tow. But the most fundamental purpose of the protective pool is to be present to document an unexpected emergency or catastrophic event that could involve the president of the United States. (Remember the outcry about the Clinton team’s media blackout during the Democratic nominee’s health scare this fall?) Trump’s not the president yet, and his team acknowledges that it is still working out the kinks in how it handles reporters. But if they continue to ignore the traditions of press access, it’ll mean further additions to a list of norms Trump has dismissed. And that list has been getting very long already.”

“As the president-elect conducts a chaotic search for his government’s top officials, one person — Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama — is wielding outsize influence, according to those familiar with deliberations on the 26th floor of Trump Tower,” the New York Times reports.

“Not only is Mr. Sessions a candidate to become secretary of defense or attorney general, having been one of Mr. Trump’s most ferocious allies on the campaign trail, but his top aides are in key positions of influence.”

“It is unclear whether Mr. Sessions will be tapped for the Trump cabinet, a move that could cause years-old accusations that he made racist remarks — which he denies — to resurface. But at least one influential Republican colleague in the Senate says such a nomination could happen.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition operation “plunged into disarray on Tuesday with the abrupt resignation of Mike Rogers, who had handled national security matters, the second shake-up in a week on a team that has not yet begun to execute the daunting task of taking over the government,” the New York Times reports.

“Gov. Mike Pence took the helm of the effort on Friday after Mr. Trump unceremoniously removed Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had been preparing with Obama administration officials for months to put the complex transition process into motion. Now the effort is frozen, senior White House officials say, because Mr. Pence has yet to sign legally required paperwork to allow his team to begin collaborating with President Obama’s aides on the handover.”

“In naming Stephen K. Bannon to a senior White House post, President-elect Donald J. Trump has elevated the hard-right nationalist movement that Mr. Bannon has nurtured for years from the fringes of American politics to its very heart, a remarkable shift that has further intensified concern about the new administration’s direction,” the New York Times reports.