Trump’s admis­sion of a ‘pub­lic rela­tions’ prob­lem tests claim he’s his own best mes­sen­ger

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has spent much of his polit­i­cal career blam­ing the media when vot­ers sour on him. But with Repub­li­cans fac­ing a dif­fi­cult final month before the midterm elec­tions, Trump is increas­ing­ly acknowl­edg­ing a prob­lem inside his own oper­a­tion: He and his admin­is­tra­tion have failed to sell their record, even as the White House main­tains that Trump remains its most effec­tive mes­sen­ger.
Trump has repeat­ed­ly con­ced­ed this week that the White House has done a “bad pub­lic rela­tions job,” at times putting the respon­si­bil­i­ty square­ly on him­self and at oth­ers fault­ing the admin­is­tra­tion more broad­ly for fail­ing t …