What kind of president will Trump be? His erratic transition keeps us guessing

All this fits with Trumps habit of nurturing internal competition in his organisations as well as his role of the showman, the circus master, forever bending the spotlight in his direction with a surprise meeting here or diverting tweet there. In 1990 he told Playboy magazine: The show is Trump. And it is sold-out performances everywhere. In this he is the polar opposite of the cool, at times professorial, Barack Obama.

Tobe Berkovitz, a political media consultant, told The Hill website: Trump has again demonstrated that all he has to do is send out a tweet and the media will just go crazy and its good for at least two news cycles. [He has] a total understanding of what celebrity is, how do you capitalise on celebrity, how do you profit from celebrity. Its Celebrity Apprentice except now its Celebrity President.

Two Trumps have been on display to the media this week. In a meeting with broadcasting executives and anchors, he reportedly caused outrage with a series of self-righteous rants at liars! in their ranks. But then, visiting the office of the New York Times, he struck a magnanimous tone. A coherent ideology was elusive, however, as he backpedalled from several assertions forcefully made during the election campaign.

Last month, for example, he told election rival Hillary Clinton: If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. To the New York Times, he said this week: I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont Its just not something that I feel very strongly about.

Does human activity cause climate change? In March, Trump told the Washington Post: I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. To the New York Times he said: I think there is some connectivity. Some, something.

And in a speech in North Dakota in May, he said: Were going to cancel the Paris climate agreement. To the New York Times he said: I have an open mind to it.

Perhaps one of the most telling U-turns came on the issue of torture. In a speech in South Carolina in February, Trump insisted: Torture works. OK, folks? You know, I have these guys Torture doesnt work! believe me, it works. And waterboarding is your minor form … we should go much stronger than waterboarding.

Then he told the New York Times that retired marine general James Mattis, who is under serious consideration for secretary of state, had told him waterboarding is not such a good idea. I was surprised he said, Ive never found it to be useful. He said, Ive always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture. And I was very impressed by that answer.

To the president-elects defenders, this could be evidence that he is flexible, pragmatic and willing to change his mind. To his detractors, it suggests that he is like a cushion, bearing the impression of the last person he meets.

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, noting that Trump veered within hours from slamming the the Gray Lady as a failing news organisation to lavishing praise on it as a world jewel, commented: There was a lesson here about his desire to be approved of and his hunger to be loved. There was another about the shockingly unformed, pliable nature of the clay that is our 70-year-old president-elect.

That diagnosis makes the cast of characters surrounding him even more important. So far there has been scant consolation for Democrats, although Mattis does have some admirers. Panetta, who was Pentagon chief under Obama, said: He knows military issues, hes very thoughtful about how to use the military and I always found him to be a very good adviser. I certainly have no criticism of him as a military leader.

Trump is managing to strike a delicate balance, believes George Ajjan, a Republican consultant and strategist. Trumps appointments thus far indicate that he wants to reward loyalty and stake out ideological ground on a few issues, but also appear as a magnanimous unifier and avoid reinventing the Washington wheel, he said. The transition seems well planned and on track, despite the fact that allegations of nepotism and conflicts of interest will hamper him constantly.

As for those conflicts of interest involving his business, Trump had an answer this week that echoed Richard Nixon: The laws totally on my side, the president cant have a conflict of interest. Nixon became the first president to resign while facing impeachment.

Trump spent the Thanksgiving holiday at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, a luxury estate that was opened in 1927 by one of the richest women in the world, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and donated to the US government in 1973 for use as a winter White House. Trump bought the 128-room property in 1985, opening a private members club; a portrait of him in a tennis sweater hangs over the bar.

The familys Thanksgiving dinner included stone crabs, oysters, jumbo shrimp as well as the traditional turkey, stuffing, sweet mashed potatoes and gravy and, for dessert, selections including the tantalising Three Layer Trump Chocolate Cake.

The billionaire businessman could not resist Twitter for an entire day, however,posting: I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S. (Indiana). MAKING PROGRESS – Will know soon! Carrier, a manufacturing company, announced earlier this year that it would move 2,000 jobs at two of its Indiana plants to Mexico.

After his break he was due to return to Trump Tower in New York to continue the shaping his team, which is still essentially an enigma, his presidency still maddeningly hard to predict.

Obama is leading optimists who believe the presidency will cut him down to size but others point to evidence that Trump will always be Trump: at 70, he is a man who is used to getting his way and not likely to change. Speaking at the Montclair Film Festival, TV talk show host and political satirist Stephen Colbert said: Im all for give him a chance but dont give him an inch. I believe everything he said and I remember everything he said. And its horrifying.

He added: Everyone tried to stop him and they didnt. He owes them nothing. He goes on a balcony and he says to the crowd, Shall I do it? And they say Yes. It shall be so. And the balcony is Twitter thats the balcony for him and thats what scares me, is that he owes the checks and balances of Washington nothing because they tried to stop him and they couldnt. Hes a vindictive person. So its all going to be fine.