Throughout his career and the first 14 months of his presidency, Donald Trump has always worked to manage, frame and preempt the national narrative about himself. But in the last 72 hours, a series of major political news stories have shown the limits of his ability to control his image and dominate the news cycle with his own version of events.
On Friday, Trump made — and then, within hours, reversed — a threat to veto a $1.3 trillion spending bill after facing accusations from his own base that he caved to Democrats and bungled his best chance to win full funding for his border wall. On Saturday, Trump was silent and on the sidelines as huge crowds around the country rallied in support of gun control legislation, promising to punish his party for inaction on the issue in November. On Sunday morning, despite a flurry of Trump’s tweets on the subject, reports of disarray on his legal team grew after two lawyers said to be joining, Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, dropped out, citing conflicts. And of course — most strikingly — on Sunday night, adult film star Stormy Daniels outlined her alleged affair with Trump in detail on national TV as a president famous for striking back at his adversaries was forced to say nothing in response.
As effective as Trump has often been at creating distractions and trying to discredit his detractors, the weekend still showed how his preferred narrative about his presidency can be overwhelmed by outside forces.
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From NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carrie Dann and Andrew Rafferty
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