In most administrations, Personnel Is Policy to an almost perfectly predictable degree. You just have to look at who the President puts in what place to understand how things are going to go in a given area.
What makes Trump 2.0 difficult for many people is that he purposely appoints people who are loyal (or profess to be anyway) but who come from different ideological factions and backgrounds and strongly disagree with each other. *Trump* is the common denominator between them.
He also maintains friends and political allies and advisors who are similarly across the board and allows them *transient* influence on himself when they interact because he respects them and their takes on things.
Because Trump's not ideological himself, and entertains everyone's opinions, if only for the moment, if you don't have a good grasp of Trump's fundamental mindsets and core intentions, you'll end up believing a false Madman Who Might Do Anything persona impression of him.
Yes, he's playing it by feel to a degree more often than some think ~ He's also far and away more calculating and deeply planned out through his teams than his haters can bear to give him credit for.
He'll hear opposing sides out and echo their points and even try things each camp's way for a while, and often simultaneously. However, it's always eventually bent and reoriented and adapted to serve his desired end goals, and the vehicle of state always bounces back off the guardrails of what he Doesn't Want To Happen whenever one camp steers things awry for too long.
This purposeful creative "chaos" ultimately gives President Trump that much more to bargain with, more room to maneuver in everything he attempts, creates emergent opportunities, enables unorthodox problem-solving, and also has the effect of forcing his opponents into making errors and losing morale.
