President Trump: "I got this now"

I was very struck by this quote:

[President Trump] was more easily swayed by advisers, more easily put in one direction or another. And now, sometime around the turn of the new year you could feel, really, him feeling more emboldened, more understanding of what the job was, sort of some level of, "I got this now," and that is what has changed and that's not small.

Problem is, as this announcement by the Press Secretary very clearly demonstrates, the President doesn’t “have it” at all. He’s no more responsible or aware of the needs of the office or has any more gravitas then when he was first inaugurated. As Think Progress starts off:

Perhaps three of the most consistent hallmarks of Donald Trump’s administration were on display Monday at Sarah Sanders’ press briefing. In a single announcement, the administration demonstrated wild hypocrisy, pettiness toward critics, and total incompetence.

Their first justification was that security clearances have been “politicized.” This is right after it was revealed by the just-released justification for the FISA Court to authorize surveillance of Carter Page that the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes lied for explicitly political purposes. Nunes complained that the FBI had covered up the political origins of the Steele Dossier. The just-released applications showed that they did no such thing.

Another charge was that several people with clearances “monetized, their public service and security clearances.” This is from an administration where the President’s daughter has received copyrights from China for “baby blankets, towels, curtains, picture frames, furniture and rugs.“ Also, Donald Trump owns a hotel in Washington DC that many feel violates the Emoluments Clause. So the Trump Administration really does not have the moral high ground here.

This charge is such a complete and utter joke -

Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia — or being influenced by Russia — against the President is extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making baseless these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.

We’ll have to wait for the final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is actively investigating these precise charges, but the Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had to recuse himself from any Russia dealings because of numerous unreported contacts between himself and Russian officials.

Was the President “influenced by Russia”? Well, consider that a week after the President and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, spent over two hours in a private discussion and that members of the President’s own staff know virtually nothing about what the two of them said, yeah, I’d say that falls under the heading of improper influence.

Lots of miscellaneous problems here as well, including the criteria for revoking security clearances. Merely criticizing the President isn’t one of the legitimate reasons for pulling someone’s security clearance. Sorry, I just don't think the President has "got this now" at all!