https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/19/trump-white-house-staff-051393

By DANIEL LIPPMAN

10/19/2019 06:31 AM EDT

Former Trump White House officials and other Republicans close to the White House are increasingly worried about President Trump’s erratic behavior and say there are no longer enough safeguards around him to prevent self-inflicted disasters large and small.

Just in the last two weeks, Trump precipitously withdrew U.S. troops from northern Syria and attacked America’s Kurdish allies as “no angels,” sparking outrage among GOP lawmakers; released a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose undiplomatic language was widely mocked; called his former defense secretary “the world’s most overrated general”; and blew up at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a meeting his own White House had called.

His acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, also admitted on national television that the administration had held up aid to Ukraine for political purposes, before reversing himself hours later on Trump’s orders and claiming his remarks had been “misconstrued.”

Under the strain of a metastasizing impeachment probe on Capitol Hill and helming an administration run by a diminishing number of heavyweight officials of independent stature, the president is displaying the kind of capricious behavior that once might have been contained or at least mitigated, former officials say.

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Now it’s become more of a one-man White House and government.

Trying to constrain Trump is “a pipe dream,” said one current White House official. “Everyone who has tried had eventually failed in some way.”

“It’s just looking like everything is coming apart,” said a former White House official. Another former senior West Wing aide agreed that the White House seemed to be “a little bit unraveling” in recent days.

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