I worked to elevate the White House – Trump has trashed it

Welcome to Trump’s America, The i Paper’s World Insight series presenting the sharpest, deepest thinking on an era-defining shift in history and politics, investigating how Donald Trump and his administration have changed the US and the world – and where we go from here. • America can’t afford to retire• The US is becoming impossible to live in• The White House I worked for would have condemned this image. Trump refuses• Maga leaders want ‘traditional American families’ – but can’t stop having affairs• Sin City has lost its shine. It shows how far America has fallen• The Florida street that exposes America’s growing homophobia• Inside America’s most loyal Trump town – where people still think he’s ‘a good man’ Donald Trump is governing like a president drunk on power. The shift is unmistakeable. He no longer faces the constraints that once shaped his behaviour. He does not have to run for re-election. He is surrounded by loyalists who reinforce his worst impulses. The Supreme Court has granted him sweeping immunity. The guardrails that once restrained him have fallen away, leaving a president operating with a sense of freedom that has pushed him further from the responsibilities of the office and deeper into his own preoccupations. That absence of restraint has coincided with the erosion of the political instincts he once relied on. In 2016, he could read a room. He could sense an audience. He could calibrate his provocations. That instinct has faded. His recent public behaviour feels disconnected from the moment he is in. His comments drift away from the purpose of the setting and toward his internal concerns. The combination of unchecked power and diminished political instinct has created a president whose conduct reflects isolation rather than leadership. His reaction to Senator Lindsey Graham’s sudden death made that change visible. He returned repeatedly to themes of fate and decline – comments that did not sound like political messaging but his unfiltered musings, shaped by an environment that no longer moderates him. During the funeral service, he fidgeted with Tic Tacs, tapped the casket like someone seeing off a taxi and debated Graham’s likeability. Shorts That inward turn has begun to shape his broader conduct. Trump has always used grievance as a political tool, but the tone has shifted. His off-the-rails approach to governing now appears completely divorced from the demands of his role as president. The shift was visible at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The event is designed to show steadiness under scrutiny. Trump used it to revisit personal resentments. He attacked journalists in the room and repeated claims about his legal troubles. Earlier in his political life, his provocations were loud and theatrical. At the dinner, they felt anxious and unfocused. As White House press secretary during the Biden era, I helped oversee the event from the administration’s side, ensuring the president was prepared and the tenor of the evening was dignified and elevated, demonstrating perspective and control. Trump demonstrated neither. His behaviour, instead, showed an absence of constraint and a president intoxicated by the power he now holds and detached from the responsibilities that come with it. He asserted that CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins did not deserve an award she won for coverage of his tense February 2025 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, complaining about how she “never smiles”. He told the room he intended to “run for a fourth term” because he “won three times” and “did very well the second time, by the way. It’s a rigged election, but we don’t have to talk about it”. The pattern extends across his public commentary. His language swings between grandiosity and complaint. His posts – such as a recent AI-generated video parodying the cartoon Rick and Morty – appear reactive and untethered from context. Trump’s behaviour at the funeral service for the late US Senator Lindsey Graham was deeply unconventional (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) The difference between now and his first term is not the presence of grievance but the fact the people around him now encourage rather than temper his whims. The feedback loop is closed. The volatility is amplified. Without political incentives and institutional boundaries to check him, he has the freedom that comes from unchecked power. The details of Washington rituals matter less than the conduct of the person who holds the presidency. What stands out now is the gap between the steadiness the office is meant to embody and the behaviour Trump has shown in recent weeks. The dinner was only one moment when that gap was visible. The larger issue is a president who has become increasingly reactive and whose commentary often appears untethered from context. This is not a continuation of past behaviour. It is a presidency operating not only without constraint but without the political instincts that once grounded him. It is also a presidency shaped by a leader who appears drunk on power and increasingly detached from the realities of governing. That gap between the demands of the office and the conduct he displays is now the defining reality of his presidency. It is sustained by an environment that rewards loyalty over judgement and grievance over steadiness. The familiar combativeness remains, but the distance from the responsibilities of the role has widened. His commentary drifts away from governing and toward his own concerns. The absence of guardrails and the erosion of his political instincts have produced a president operating outside the boundaries of the office he holds. A president detached from reality is always a danger to our country and to the world. A president detached from reality in a time of war is particularly troubling and extremely dangerous. That is the reality the United States must confront and the world must understand.