David Sanger: W.H. ‘Not Terribly Data-Driven ... They’re Driven by What the President Has Heard’

EXCERPT:

SANGER: "There are moments when they come. This is one of those seasonal moments. You get accustomed to it in a normal policy process, you have something set in place so when these seasonal changes happen, you are ready for going off to do it. You don’t do it in response to something you hear on TV or something that you heard anecdotally over dinner. And that’s fundamentally the problem and the issue with this White House, which is they’re not terribly data driven, which then leads you to consistent policy, they’re driven by what the president has heard, and then he makes a pronouncement. And then the policy makers scramble to create a policy to give some rationality to something he has just heard."