Trump's week: Moments of calm amid the chaos
President Donald Trump pressed ahead with his promised conservative agenda, including his selection of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, steps to repeal financial sector rules and other moves to advance his priorities through executive orders and on Capitol Hill.
[...] for good measure, Trump chose the National Prayer Breakfast as the setting to renew his ribbing of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the "Celebrity Apprentice" ratings slide after the actor replaced Trump on the show.
There was conflicting commentary about whether Trump's lack of restraint was an intentional tactic by the avowed disrupter of the status quo or fresh evidence that top aides have been unable to rein him in.
The week opened with worldwide confusion over the rollout of Trump's order to suspend the country's refugee program and block visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, including questions about exactly who was covered by the edict and what to do with those already in transit.
Homeland Security and State Department officials took charge of the effort to clear up the confusion and manage the travel restrictions in a more orderly fashion.
In all that clamor, one could almost miss that on Monday, Trump also summarily fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, after she said she wouldn't enforce the president's order on refugees and immigrants.
At week's end, there was more tension over the immigration order as Trump pushed back hard against a federal judge's move to temporarily block it, with the president tweeting that it was "ridiculous" and that "many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country."
[...] rather than keep the spotlight trained on Gorsuch the next day, the White House brought out national security adviser Michael Flynn to deliver a cryptic message putting Iran "on notice" for testing ballistic missiles and supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen.
A cleanup campaign was necessary Thursday after it emerged that Trump, in a phone call Jan. 28, had gotten into a tense conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in which the president ranted about an Obama-era deal to accept some of about 1,600 asylum-seekers Australia has refused to resettle.