that he is a president who is unleashed and uncontrolled by those around him? >> reporter: it's interesting. i was just talking to a white house advisor, i guess we'll call this person who said in the early days there was a sense you could team up with someone else. you could do an end run around, you could be the last person to get to the president's ear and you could change his opinion or flip his mind on something. these days in the white house there's not a sense you can really do that anymore. the sense is this president is going to do what he wants to do. you can make your argument to him. and people do that, people express their opinion. there are different opinions about china in this white house. you see steve mnuchin and robert lighthizer pushing for a deal. you see mike pompeo who wants to see him go hard on china. peter navarro, one of the lone survivors from the early days of this white house, they can all make their arguments. there's an acceptance that in the end the president will do