Kelly Jane Torrance

Angus King said today that he hasn’t made up his mind about President Donald Trump’s new pick for secretary of state, current CIA director Mike Pompeo. “I am legitimately undecided,” the Maine senator, who sits as an independent but caucuses with the Democrats, told CNN this morning. Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul has declared he won’t vote for Pompeo. And since Republicans have a slim 51-49 majority -- with Senator John McCain being treated back in Arizona for brain cancer -- the administration has been looking for Democratic votes to secure Pompeo’s confirmation. King seemed like a natural choice, as he voted to confirm Pompeo as CIA director at the beginning of the Trump administration. “That is a very different job.

Donald Trump finally had something positive to say on Twitter. After nearly a week of dithering, the president made a decision and announced it, to a fair amount of surprise, on national television on Friday night: The United States, in concert with the United Kingdom and France, would launch targeted strikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities, in response to a heartbreaking attack a week earlier in a Damascus suburb that killed dozens of civilians, including children. “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!” Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. Those last two words gave many pause.

President Donald Trump must have a lot on his mind as an eventful week—even by the new standard he’s created in Washington—comes to an end. He has now met the deadline he set himself on Monday, when he promised to make “major decisions” within 24 to 48 hours on Syria, after “Animal Assad,” as he calls that country’s dictator, unleashed a chemical weapon attack on civilians including children. A trade war between the United States and China is still brewing, with American farmers worried their livelihoods are at risk after China vowed to stamp tariffs on their products in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on aluminium and steel—and Trump reconsidering his rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to help them.

Almost from the moment Donald Trump was inaugurated the 45th president of the United States, his supporters have complained about the existence of a “deep state” within the bureaucracy that’s out to get him. There might be something to this, but not in the way its theorisers imagine. Civil servants have a lot more to do with the making and implementation of foreign policy, for example, than most outsiders appreciate. But a personal, targeted, organised campaign aimed at destroying the president? Those who believe such a conspiracy exists pointed, as further evidence, to the bombshell news this week that the FBI raided the offices and temporary home of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. But if this is the deep state at work, it goes very deep indeed.

Anyone who hadn’t heard about the Washington Post story on the increasing problems facing White House chief of staff John Kelly shortly after it was published Saturday evening certainly had by Sunday morning. That’s when America’s most-watched tweeter drew the world’s attention to it.“The Washington Post is far more fiction than fact. Story after story is made up garbage - more like a poorly written novel than good reporting. Always quoting sources (not names), many of which don’t exist. Story on John Kelly isn’t true, just another hit job!” Donald Trump declared in a rare tweet in recent days that didn’t include any words in all caps.The president had some points. Parts of the piece did read a bit like an overheated work of fiction.

Commentators in many mainstream media outlets started criticising Melania Trump’s tenure as first lady as soon as she moved into the White House. No, scratch that—the commentariat began predicting first lady failure as soon as Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017, while his wife didn’t move back in with him for nearly five months. “Her choice to remain in the couple's New York City penthouse until their son, Barron, 11, finished the school year,” a CNN story said, was “unprecedented.” But even after Melania and Barron joined Donald in the White House that June, critics complained she was little seen and, worse, couldn’t be taken seriously on the issue she’d chosen to highlight—cyberbullying.

Context is everything. But if you’re a busy person trying to navigate the personal and professional traps of modern life – and aren’t we all? – you don’t always have time to read a lot on every topic. You rely on the media to tell you succinctly what you most need to know. But that might be one of the worst traps into which you can fall in Donald Trump’s Washington. Take the latest news as an example. “Trump picks his doctor to replace Shulkin as veterans secretary,” the BBC announced. The Washington Post headline was similar: “Trump ousts Veterans Affairs chief Shulkin, nominates personal physician to replace him.

“President Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian officials from the United States and ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, the White House announced Monday” was how NPR started its report on the surprise story that started the week in Washington, and most outlets followed suit. In this way, the press emphasised the White House’s preferred narrative of the news. Donald Trump hasn’t uttered a word on Twitter, his favorite medium of communication, about the attempted assassination in Britain of a former Russian spy with a Soviet-era nerve agent. Neither did he bring it up during his phone call to Vladimir Putin last week, in which he congratulated the Russian president on his recent reelection.

Michael Barbaro, host of the New York Times podcast The Daily, opened Wednesday’s episode with the story of the sacking of the Secretary of State: ‘His relationship with President Trump was rocky from the start, but in the end, nobody was more surprised that Rex Tillerson was fired than Rex Tillerson’. Really? If that’s true, then Tillerson was even more out of touch than anyone realised. American functionaries on the other side of the globe knew last month that a Rexit was imminent. I was in Seoul for the tail end of the Olympics and met with some U.S. Forces Korea officials. One spoke - almost in passing - as though Mike Pompeo was going to replace Rex Tillerson rather soon. He referred to Pompeo by name and his colleagues didn’t contradict him.