Name the president who said the following: “I like acting.” The obvious answer would be Ronald Reagan, fondly recalling his Hollywood career prior to the White House. But that would be the wrong television star chief executive. The correct answer to this trivia question is Donald Trump, referring to how he likes his Cabinet secretaries.

President Trump has fought a pitched battle to gain control of the executive branch ever since he assumed the presidency in 2017. Members of the administration have published op-eds in major newspapers, claiming to be involved in the internal “resistance,” secretly thwarting his policy choices and undercutting his authority. Democrats and permanent bureaucrats have tried to steer the ship of state in their own direction when the president wasn’t looking. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election portrayed even some of the veteran party men in Trump’s circle as ignoring and rebelling against him. The Senate has slow-walked some of his nominees. There were even reports that Cabinet members, instigated by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, might have floated removing Trump under an obscure provision of the 25th Amendment.