The one big clue that Donald Trump thinks the end of his presidency is near

| 3:57 pm EDT August 30, 2017
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There are any number of reasons why you and I might conclude that Donald Trump’s presidency isn’t built to last: his historically low approval rating, his exploding scandals, his shrinking mental capacity, his feuds with his own party, you name it. But the other half of the equation is whether Trump himself has figured it out. There’s one big clue that he does indeed think his remaining time in office is short.

Here’s who replaced Steve Bannon as White House Chief Strategist after he was fired: no one. Here’s who replaced John Kelly as DHS Director after he moved over to Chief of Staff: no one. Here’s who replaced Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director after he was fired: no one, basically, as Hope Hicks is now being forced to pull double duty. Here’s who replaced Sebastian Gorka and Ezra Cohen-Watnick: you guessed it, no one.

There is a larger pattern in which Donald Trump has failed to fill more than eighty percent of the appointed positions in the federal government. But Trump doesn’t care about those lower level jobs, because those vacancies only mean that the agencies are having a difficult time operating; it’s no skin off his back. However, Trump very much does care whom he’s personally surrounded with in the White House. And as he’s begun booting the various people from his inner circle he’s come to see as liabilities, he hasn’t lifted a finger to replace almost any of them.

Donald Trump has now reached the point where he’s no longer even bothering to reload his own vanishing White House senior staff with new people. He has an endless supply of personal sycophants who would love to take these vacated White House jobs so they can begin kissing up to him from up close. Yet Trump isn’t even bothering, because he no longer expects to be in office much longer. If you find Palmer Report valuable, make a donation.