The Trump playbook can seem like a perverse flipping of the standard Washington script. The White House learns of allegations that a speechwriter ran a car over his ex-wife’s foot, put out a cigarette on her hand and threw her into a wall. Another sign of chaos in the White House? Not to Trump: Immediately, although the speechwriter vehemently denied the allegations, he is confronted and his resignation is obtained. As the president sees it, score one for a leader who takes instant, clear action to clean up messes made by others.

A trusted aide is accused of brutal behavior against two former wives. Trump’s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, initially defends the aide; then, as public revulsion swells over a photo of a black eye on one of the women, Kelly reportedly seeks to rewrite the history of how he handled the situation. The White House lets it be known that Kelly is in the doghouse. Yet the president himself goes out of his way to speak publicly in defense of the ousted aide, without so much as a nod toward what the women have suffered.

A royal mess? Not in Trump’s version of reality. As yet another chief of staff twists in the wind, the president makes clear two essential points about how he governs:

1) Always double down on your position. Through the most trying moments of the past two years, Trump has regularly argued in favor of men on his side who’ve been accused of bad behavior against women, whether that was Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama; Fox News figures Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly; last week’s case du jour, Rob Porter; or Trump himself. He weathered the “Access Hollywood” tape that many of his aides thought would sink his campaign, and he successfully batted away allegations from more than a dozen women that he was guilty of sexual misconduct toward them.