Once hoped for as a reset, Trump’s foreign trip now bogged in White House crises

A White House reeling from parallel crises won’t find respite anytime soon: President Donald Trump, joined by first lady Melania Trump, will embark Friday on his first foreign trip, a five-country grind where the very issues of credibility and competence exposed by the past week’s chaos will reverberate widely.

White House officials originally regarded the international swing as a reset for a beleaguered President and his staff. Instead, the problems stemming from Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, his reported disclosure of highly classified information to Russian officials and his alleged urging of Comey to end his investigation into now-fired national security adviser Michael Flynn seem destined to shadow him as he travels abroad for the first time.

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For a President who hasn’t spent a single night in office away from one of his homes, the eight-day trip will prove a daunting entry into foreign diplomacy. For his team of advisers still gripped by self-doubt, the trip will become a proving ground for their own performance.

“This has to go well,” one official involved in the planning of the trip said on Tuesday evening. “There’s not a lot of room to fail.”

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Many of Trump’s senior-most aides will pack into the staff cabins on Air Force One for the 14-hour flight to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Friday, even as Trump himself is contemplating firing some of them. The close quarters and long flights could fuel tensions with the President, even as it tests a camaraderie among the staff that aides say has been developing with the whiplash of recent events.

Originally designed as a high-drama debut for a President who still draws wide skepticism from much of the world, the trip has now taken on new scrutiny for a White House in desperate need of a win. The logistical and diplomatic efforts to execute the trip have occupied wide swaths of the already-slim White House staff, according to people who work there.

Trump himself previewed his objectives Wednesday during a commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

“I will strengthen old friendships and seek new partners, but partners who also help us, not partners who take, and take, and take,” Trump said. “Partners who help pay for whatever we are doing and all of the good that we doing for them. Which is something that a lot of people have not gotten used to, and they just can’t get used to it.”

“Get used to it folks,” he said.

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The risks and rewards of Trump's upcoming trip

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Ambitious itinerary

Aside from Saudi Arabia, Trump plans to stop in Israel, the Vatican, Brussels and Sicily during his trip. The itinerary reflects an ambitious departure from past presidents, who traveled only to Canada or Mexico on their first foreign visits. It’s also rife with pitfalls for a President known to speak candidly and without regard for protocol.

A person familiar with the trip’s planning says Trump has expressed some concern at the length of the foreign swing. But he is not pressuring his team to change around the schedule at this late stage.

Already, tensions with host governments were showing.

Leaders attending the NATO and G7 summits at the tail end of Trump’s trip have been told by organizers to keep their presentations brief – a request made with Trump’s short attention span in mind.

A minor diplomatic spat emerged between US and Israeli officials Monday while preparing for Trump’s visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem – the first stop by a sitting US president to one of the holiest sites in Judaism. The White House was forced to disavow comments by a US official planning Trump’s stop who claimed the Western Wall was in the West Bank and not a part of Israeli territory.

In Saudi Arabia, some officials have privately complained the White House isn’t sharing important information about Trump’s schedule ahead of his stop. The Trump administration was also forced to disavow an invitation extended by the Saudi government to Sudan’s genocidal president, Omar al-Bashir, to a meeting of leaders of majority Muslim nations set to take place during Trump’s visit.

“We oppose invitations, facilitation, or support for travel by any person subject to outstanding (International Criminal Court) arrest warrants, including President Bashir,” a senior State Department official said.

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Toobin: If true, it's obstruction of justice

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Rampant distractions

Last week, as Trump remained mainly behind closed doors, his aides presented him with briefings on each of his stops and the takeaways they hope will emerge, according to a White House official. But distractions were rampant, none as large as Trump’s abrupt dismissal of Comey as FBI director.

On Monday, a second interruption emerged: the revelation that Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian officials, who visited him in the Oval Office last week.

Western diplomats have already raised the possibility of curtailing their intelligence sharing with the United States in the wake of Trump’s disclosures. And an already-fraught visit to Israel became epically more complicated with the revelation that the country was the source of the information Trump revealed to his Russian visitors.

A third damaging report Tuesday that Trump asked Comey to drop the FBI’s investigation into fired Flynn only fueled the impression of a White House in crisis.

“When you have sort of this combination of all the politics and the questioning about the decision on the Comey front, plus this communication stuff, plus there not being a whole lot of interlocutors for foreign governments, the question that is raised is: how are national security decisions made in this administration?” said Richard Fontaine, the president of the Center for a New American Security in Washington and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain.

President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.

Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.

Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.

Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.

Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.

Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.

Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.

Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.

Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.

The Trump family, circa 1986.

Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.

Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.

Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.

Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."

Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.

Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.

Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.

An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."

A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.

Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.

Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.

Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.

For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.

Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.

Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.

In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.

Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.

In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run.

Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.

The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.

Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.

Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."

Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September.

Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.

Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.

Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.

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Final details

As the series of brutal headlines emerged this week, Trump aides were still scrambling to finalize Trump’s itinerary in the days leading up to the President’s departure, and some final details were still awaiting sign-off by the President on Tuesday evening.

A speech was added in Saudi Arabia to provide an “inspiring yet direct” message to the Islamic world, according to national security adviser H.R. McMaster. That’s an echo of Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, who addressed Muslims in Cairo in his first major speech on foreign soil.

A second address in Israel, which local newspapers reported would take place at the ancient archeological site of Masada, was moved indoors to a museum. Transporting Trump to the mountaintop overlooking the Dead Sea would have required the use of a cable car.

Both speeches were being drafted by Trump’s policy adviser Stephen Miller, who helped write Trump’s convention and inaugural addresses, with input from the large collection of advisers who are helping to plan the trip: son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, McMaster and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell.

That group met last with with Sen. Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to discuss aspects of the trip, Corker’s office said.

Large blocs of the President’s schedule over the past two weeks have been given over to trip preparation, an effort led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has acted as a primary coordinator with foreign governments to plan Trump’s schedule abroad.

Kushner has led daily morning meetings to discuss the trip’s agenda and objectives, according to a senior administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity. Ordinarily heavily involved in nearly all West Wing happenings, Kushner has become largely consumed by the foreign trip and not as involved with day-to-day White House matters.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Dan Merica contributed to this report.