President Donald Trump is too focused on how he looks to others, and is still adjusting to being president, according to Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
"This is who he is. This is a guy obsessed with his own self-image; how his numbers are doing, whether everything is playing to a narrative he has developed in his own head," Steele said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Trump is not used to working with people who have different agendas than his, he said.
"Not everyone listens to you just because you're president. You have 535 members of Congress who have a different view. You have Cabinet secretaries who, while they work for you, still carry out different agendas.
"You've got the voters, the press and all those other interests out there who have a say about what you just said, and that's not something Donald deals with too well."
As a businessman, Trump did not have to deal with pushback against his decisions, according to Steele.
"When he said he wanted something done at Trump Tower, it got done. No one said, 'No sir, I really don't think we should do that,' because if you did, you didn't come into work the next day, as there was no job. That is not the way Washington works and that is certainly not the way the president works."
However, he said he believed Trump would remain president despite investigations and other issues. "I think the president will be here for as long as he wants to be here."
Steele has been critical of Trump and his administration before. At the end of July, he said the firing of former chief of staff Reince Priebus was "karma."
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