Six weeks of staff churn and pronouncement shocks from Donald Trump reflect a president who has grown increasingly confident on the job and more trusting of his instincts after 14 months in the Oval Office.
Trump may have an even more dramatic shake-up in mind for his administration.
The US president has floated to outside advisers a plan to do away with the traditional West Wing power structure, including the formal chief of staff role, to create the more free-wheeling atmosphere he relished while running his business and later his presidential campaign at Trump Tower.
In the West Wing, tempers are running short and uneasy aides discuss their future employment prospects behind closed doors, according to White House officials and outside advisers.
Recent blows to staff confidence have been almost exclusively instigated by the president himself.
He congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election and didn't chide him about the tainted vote or the poisoning of a spy on British soil.
He pushed forward with steel and aluminium tariffs, prompting his chief economic adviser to quit.
And he agreed to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to the surprise of many national security officials.
Thursday's announcement of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster's impending exit continued the trend. The two men never clicked personally, and Trump was known to complain when he saw extended meetings with the national security adviser on his schedule.
Trump is not entirely unmoored from his aides.
After threatening on Friday to veto a $1.3 trillion spending agreement his staffers had already promised he would sign, Trump came back around after a concerted lobbying effort by his legislative team and Cabinet secretaries.
He has long chafed at how chief of staff John Kelly has curbed access to him in the Oval Office and has mused about doing away with the gatekeepers.
Trump, who frequently muses about staff shake-ups without following through, appears to have tabled the idea for now.
But it received a ringing endorsement from his former chief strategist Steve Bannon during a panel discussion in New York, who suggested a system of "five or six direct reports" to the Oval Office would fit the president's preferred management style.
"I think the president is a very hands-on manager and feels more comfortable" with such a style, said Bannon , who spoke admiringly of Kelly but said the chief of staff put "too much structure into the White House."
