A Great Day at the White House?

The Briefing Room

It's been a tumultuous week in Washington - but to what extent does the chaos in Trump's West Wing matter?

Anthony 'The Mooch' Scaramucci was gone in 900,000 seconds - but whoever replaces him will be President Trump's third communications director. His press secretary has resigned, he’s fired his acting attorney general, and he’s on his second chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired general who many hope will bring discipline to a leaky White House.

By the standards of almost all modern American politics this seems bizarre, if not catastrophic. But then by the standards of almost all modern American politics Donald Trump would not be president.

In this week's edition of The Briefing Room David Aaronovitch takes a step back, and tries to find out what the actual consequences of the dramas of Trump’s West Wing might be.

CONTRIBUTORS

Jonny Dymond, BBC Correspondent

Adam Gingrich, worked on Donald Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania

Stephan Halper, former foreign policy advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan and now Emeritus Senior Fellow of the Centre of International Studies

Leslie Vinjamuri, Associate Fellow of the Americas programme at Chatham House

Anthony Zurcher, BBC senior North America reporter