ANALYSIS: Amid departures and feuds, Trump lonelier than ever at top

— -- President Donald Trump has often been at his most comfortable in the midst of the fight. From here on, he might be lonely in his bunker.

Trump finds himself increasingly isolated inside his own West Wing – an angry and mistrustful figure facing down an intense stretch of his presidency with fewer friends than ever at his side.

A confluence of revelations, investigations, and scandals has robbed Trump of the counsel of many of those with whom he’s been closest during his still-brief political career. He now has multiple major positions to fill inside his West Wing, even as he clashes – publicly and privately – with everyone from his chief of staff to his attorney general to his secretary of state.

Chief of staff John Kelly seemed to reference the dark mood inside the White House on Thursday, joking that he never thought he’d leave his old job as secretary of homeland security.

“The last thing I wanted to do is walk away from one of the great honors of my life,” Kelly said, “but I did something wrong and God punished me, I guess.”

The departure of White House communications director Hope Hicks puts an exclamation point on a period of turmoil unusual even for the Trump White House. Hicks’ portfolio is vast, and she stands out, not just for her relative youth, but for the close relationship she developed with the president.

She has served as a confidante, and Trump translator - a combination that could come only through long and loyal service to the president that began before he even launched his campaign.

More broadly, the concern among Trump allies is that the departures suggest an unraveling of the White House discipline that helped deliver the president a massive tax cut – easily his biggest legislative victory – as 2017 wound to a close.

In its wake have come two months lost to infighting and staff turmoil that remind some White House veterans of last summer, when the revolving door cycled through names including Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, and Anthony Scaramucci.

2018 began with the self-immolation of Steve Bannon, the president’s onetime chief strategist, whose comments about Trump in an explosive book led to a public breakup with Trump that’s left him politically sidelined.

Since then, things have only snowballed. Revelations about former White House staff secretary Rob Porter’s domestic violence accusations - that he denies- forced his departure. It appears to have also hastened Hicks’ exit, given her personal relationship with Porter and her attempts to control messaging around the episode.

The Porter mess also put a spotlight on security clearances for White House aides. Kelly issued new directives that cost the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, of his top-secret clearances. New revelations about his apparent mixing of business and official meetings have further sidelined Kushner and his wife, Ivanka.

Scaramucci came out publicly this week to blame Kelly for ruling “by fear and intimidation.”

“The morale is terrible” in the West Wing, he said on CNN Thursday. “I predict more departures.”

Meanwhile, the president’s private and public rage directed at Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a turn for the worse in recent days. And that comes as reports emerge that special counsel Robert Mueller is interested in the circumstances surrounding Trump’s apparent efforts to push Sessions out last summer.

Trump has been known to thrive on chaos. But unlike past White House crises, he’ll have fewer familiar faces to control his impulses, commiserate with, and plot his next steps.