title:  CHAOS In Washington As Trump Avoids Real Work And His Transition Team Eats Itself Alive
text: A mere four days after Trump got exactly what he claimed he wanted, his transition team is plagued with infighting, shake-ups and general chaos, just like his campaign. Chris Christie was heading up the transition team, but now that job has gone to Mike Pence. There s also little evidence that Trump himself is even working all that much.He couldn t run a campaign, now he can t run his transition team, so how can anybody expect him to run a country? Already, reports are coming out that he s hinting he d rather stay in his gilded castle at the top of Trump Tower, or down at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Trump s terror at the drastic change his life is about to undergo, along with his general incompetence at, well, pretty much everything, mean he could easily become an absentee president.Those reports are also alleging that Trump wants to spend a lot of time doing exactly what he did on the campaign trail: Holding huge rallies. He needs the applause. He needs the adoration. He needs to be seen and heralded and worshiped like the god he s not. Some are trying to spin this as a good thing: I think Trump has discovered that these rallies are tremendous opportunities for him to get his message out,  said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media, a conservative website.  It s actually sort of old-fashioned, that you want to actually meet people and press the flesh with him. We re sure that s the reason. What about the actual work of being president, though? That s possibly not even on his radar right now.He s already an absentee president-elect   the only contact he s had with his transition team has been through Christie. Fissures are appearing between New Yorkers who worked on the campaign and think of themselves as outsiders and Washington team-builders who ve been quietly laying the groundwork for an actual administration.The New Yorkers view those people as nothing more than pencil-pushers, while the Washington group views the New Yorkers as interlopers.There s a rift emerging between Corey Lewandowski and Reince Priebus over who s going to head the RNC. Lewandowski s allies also see Priebus, who s up for White House Chief of Staff, as the very establishment insider they supposedly don t want.Social and fiscal conservatives from places like The Heritage Foundation find themselves annoyed with Chris Christie and his allies, whom they view as not conservative enough to even be there.Then there are his kids, who are playing pivotal roles in the transition and raising eyebrows about how they re going to manage a blind trust while working directly with or even leading the transition team and administration. Their involvement with the transition is creating some serious problems: That s a fight you can t win,  one of the people said.  The Christie people are from New Jersey, they act like they re in charge, and Jared Kushner is like,  You re not really in charge.' Trump has praised some of his closest allies from the campaign, but the transition is shaping up to look like his campaign. Actually, it will be multiplied by about a billion since this team is responsible for several thousand hires and placements within the administration, and Trump can t run a bare-bones administration while still doing whatever he wants.And Trump has quietly retreated, like he always does, seemingly under the assumption that since he s the boss, he just has to stand around, look pretty, and listen to the loudly cheering crowds, and doesn t have to be around and actually do any real work.Featured image by Zach Gibson via Getty Images