A Trump administration official explained why President Donald Trump's inner circle keeps shrinking by pointing to "shaky object permanence," a skill infants learn.
White House correspondent Shelby Talcott reported Monday that Semafor spoke with more than a half-dozen current and former Trump officials about the power structure around the president.
Two of the five aides pictured as his core advisers at the end of 2025 are already gone. Two more who hold the president's trust leave within weeks, Talcott reported.
Some officials "argued that Trump's reality is one of shaky object permanence," Talcott wrote.
"Once the president has not seen someone for a while, especially if they're not people he has a longstanding relationship with," the official said, "he's not really going to be hungry to call them."
The official attached one condition to that judgment, according to Semafor, and it was the length of the relationship rather than the seniority of the aide. That matters because, as Talcott reported, "only a handful of advisers have direct, frequent access to him."
Eight White House aides announced their exits during this summer alone, Semafor reported, including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair. Leavitt said that she is leaving to focus on her small children.
Legislative affairs director James Braid departs next month, and White House counsel David Warrington is about to step down, according to Semafor.
"[T]he people that have been with POTUS the longest will benefit," the administration official said of the consolidation now underway, according to Semafor.
Mental health experts say object permanence is a key milestone that babies reach in their first months and becomes a building block for becoming a healthy adult.
"If you've ever played peekaboo with your little one, you've helped them work on object permanence," Kendall K. Morgan wrote in a WebMD explainer reviewed by Dr. Renee A. Alli. "Your baby is learning that people and objects exist even when they can't see or hear them."
"Understanding that people and items still exist even when they aren't in view is an important concept that your baby will learn during their first year of life," Morgan added.
Imi Lo noted in Psychology Today that object permanence is crucial for developing object constancy, which allows an adult to maintain a bond across distance and conflict.
"Without object constancy, one tends to relate to others as 'parts,' rather than 'whole,'" Lo wrote.
"They may experience relationships as unreliable, vulnerable, and heavily dependent on the mood of the moment," Lo wrote. "There seems to be no continuity in the way they view their partner—it shifts moment to moment and is either good or bad."
Semafor's Talcott reported that Trump's small circle has a tight roster "by design, after a chaotic revolving door of first-term administration departures that ingrained Trump's intense focus on loyalty."
The risk of that design surfaced in late June, when chief of staff Susie Wiles left the capital for her daughter's wedding, according to Semafor. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin used the opening to pitch Trump directly on his choice to run Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"You've begun to see a deterioration of the tight ship that was run in the first year," one person close to the White House said, according to Semafor.
"A lot of people are f— obese now, from the power and from the influence," that person added.
The impact of Trump's management style can be seen well beyond the West Wing, where 27 Senate-confirmed officials left Cabinet departments during the administration's first 18 months, according to the Partnership for Public Service, more than double the 11 who left by the same point in Trump's first term.
Trump now faces a tough midterm election with record-low approval ratings, a trade war to the north and an unresolved war in the Middle East, Semafor reported, with a smaller group of people he trusts.
"This movement is bigger than any one staff member, and the President's mission to make America greater than ever before will continue unabated," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement.