LAUGHINGSTOCK:

"Priebus has made rookie mistake after rookie mistake, and he started by making the biggest one of all: not insisting he be the first among equals," Mr. Whipple said. "Fatal mistake. I'm not sure anybody could make that demand, but he didn't even really try."

"At some point, the president is either going to embrace failure or pick a grown-up, like a C.E.O. or maybe Mattis, as his chief," he added, referring to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The signature image of Mr. Trump's first 100 days in office, people close to the president said, is that of Mr. Priebus standing just inside the open door of the Oval Office, agitated and rolling his eyes, as Mr. Trump beckons another seemingly random gaggle of aides, friends, family, visitors, reporters -- even the White House decorator -- in for an unstructured chat or, worst of all, policy discussions.

Mr. Priebus, who has said he has self-diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder, tried at first to restrict these interactions, often by keeping the president busy with ceremonial events like executive order signings and meetings with business leaders.

Over time, Mr. Trump bridled and demanded the unstructured time he had so valued as an executive at Trump Tower. Mr. Priebus, who initially outsourced the details of Oval Office scheduling and paper flow to a deputy, has now taken over those tasks himself. He has reduced the pace of public events and, like a Montessori teacher, modulates structured work time with the slack periods Mr. Trump craves.

In recent days, Mr. Priebus cut back on his stalking-butler tendency to hover over the president, realizing his antsy boss had grown resentful of his constant companionship. "What are you doing in here? Don't you have health care to take care of?" Mr. Trump asked Mr. Priebus at one recent meeting around his desk, according to a senior White House official.

Mr. Priebus is increasingly focused on big-picture issues like improving the "interagency" process linking the West Wing to the federal bureaucracy. He has also tried to reduce what he calls inputs -- the number of people talking to the president each day -- to 20 or so from about 50, and to keep Mr. Trump to a tighter schedule through short, agenda-driven meetings: a suggestion made by many outside advisers he consulted, including John H. Sununu, the chief of staff to President George Bush.

That entails trying to cut the number of Oval Office meeting attendees from 15 to eight or fewer, according to an aide.

One small but significant recent victory: excluding Omarosa Manigault, the former "Apprentice" contestant and Trump favorite, from as many meetings as possible.

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