WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION...:

For a president who declared on Thursday he had assembled "one of the great Cabinets in American history," sidelining Tillerson was an unorthodox way to utilize one of his top-tier picks. But it follows a pattern from Trump's first month in office, where the president is operating without seeking much input from his more experienced Cabinet secretaries -- including Defense Secretary James Mattis and Tillerson, as well as Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and CIA Director Mike Pompeo -- a group one GOP source called "the grownups."

Trump's West Wing, a team of rivals marked by seemingly endless infighting, leaking and inexperience, has helped unify the partially formed Cabinet into an actual team, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior staffers inside the agencies and the White House who were not authorized to speak on the record.

In their first weeks on the job, the heads of these sometimes competitive departments and agencies are working together, fighting to staff the agencies they lead and to maximize their collective influence over an administration struggling to find stability. Their shared hope: that things will get better.

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