Hallmarks of President Donald Trump’s free-wheeling, unconventional campaign style have long been expected to carry over to the White House, but what remained to be seen was whether his promises of acting “so presidential” would come to pass.
Trump’s speech on Saturday at the Central Intelligence Agency left many wondering, since he used the bulk of his time standing in from the CIA Memorial Wall to inaccurately slam the media for their coverage of his inauguration and incorrectly denied ever having a rift with the intelligence community.
Roughly 24 hours later, though, Trump’s speech before the swearing in of his senior staff was more measured and strikingly less combative.
To be sure, there were plenty of Trump hallmarks in the Sunday speech: The President needled the media by holding up a letter Obama wrote him and pledging not to tell the press what was in it.
But the remarks stood in stark contrast to what the President said at the CIA a day earlier.
“As I said during my inaugural address, this is not about party, this is not about ideology, this is about country, our country,” Trump said, reading from notes. “And it is about serving the American people.”
Trump added that he and his senior aides will “face many challenges but with the faith in each other and the faith in God we will get the job done.”
Trump did not relitigate any of his campaign against Hillary Clinton — something he is wont to do — or complain about how the media covered his inauguration.
Instead, Trump announced that he had talked to Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal about the deadly tornadoes that have killed nearly a dozen people. He also said he was scheduled to talk about the weather emergency with Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
“They all got hit hard,” Trump said of the tornadoes. “Looks like Georgia’s lost at least 11 people as of this moment, a lot of people. So on behalf of all of us, Gov. Deal, condolences.”
The President also announced that he was scheduled to meet with the leaders of Canada and Mexico soon, where he planned to begin the process for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, beginning concrete work on one of his key campaign promises.
Trump’s unpredictability was, in itself, a trademark of his presidential campaign.
“I don’t rule anything out,” Kellyanne Conway, his senior adviser, said last week about predicting something her boss would do. “This is Donald Trump.”