Can't anyone in this deplorable White House play this game?

I keep reading these news reports about how Trump keeps calling his buddies and asking why this story won't go away. It's because he has a completely incompetent, paranoid staff who insists on treating every issue as an all-out political war, of course.

Any other administration would have dumped Porter as soon as the FBI check came back -- the background check FBI director Chris Wray said this morning was completed .... in July.

No other administration would have responded to the black eye photos by scheduling an off-the-record meeting with reporters to let Porter try to talk his way around the scandal, nor would any other administration have the White House chief of staff blatantly lie to the press and get caught tripping over his own contradictory stories.

And finally, in no other administration would the president have neglected to express his concern over the woman with the black eye, and not the guy who did it.