WASHINGTON _ When President Donald Trump brought 55 teachers of the year from around the country into the Oval Office, Arizona's top teacher, Michelle Doherty, began to cry, apparently in happiness.
"Sorry, I'm always crying," she said.
"You know the Oval Office can do that," Trump said, smiling.
That vignette, one of thousands in the blur of Trump's 100 days in office, gave a brief glimpse of a softer side of Trump, whose record-low approval ratings for a new president in the modern era are reflective of his controversial policies and the combative nature of his personality.
But the interchange also provided a glimpse of another aspect: how the office can humble, sometimes to tears.
In a flurry of briefings by top aides this past week leading into the president's 100th day in office Saturday, Trump's top advisers tried to frame them as days of promise and accomplishment. His critics point to sub-40 percent approval ratings and early stumbles on national security and health care as proof of a presidency is in trouble.
The truth is somewhere in between, hostage to events and challenges yet to unfold, most lately the tense showdown with North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, whose nuclear ambitions created the first foreign policy crisis of the Trump administration.
"I know that there are narratives out there that say otherwise, but we look at it and see our president is working at breakneck speed ... running through that punch list of promises that he made during the campaign," White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said.
On the plus side for Trump supporters: He has followed through on promises to begin rolling back what Republicans deride as the "regulatory state." His Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch could be a conservative jurist on the highest court for decades.
Trump ordered an attack on an air base of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime after the world community recoiled in shock at chemical attacks on civilians in that civil war. And in his 97th day in office, Trump claimed in a tweet that he has gotten neighboring Canada and Mexico to agree to a reassessment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a moment that his supporters immediately touted as his "art of the deal" approach to the job.
On the negative side: His first national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, lasted just 21 days, and Flynn's ties to Russian interests are now being investigated. The first attempt to repeal and replace Obama's Affordable Care Act, a major campaign promise, fell under the weight of conservative Freedom Caucus opposition in the House. Relations with Russia have reminded some of the Cold War. And Trump's promises to "drain the swamp" in Washington have been undercut by Cabinet appointments of people with Wall Street connections and Trump's continued refusal to release his tax returns.
"We have seen a real swamp Cabinet if we ever have seen one," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
The biggest test for Trump, a senior administration official said, has been to translate a businessman's expectations into a government that has three branches and is surrounded by bitter, often vicious, partisan politics, some of which Trump contributed to in a scorched earth campaign in which he personally attacked political foes.
Trump's lack of patience is a net positive, said this senior official who spoke without attribution to speak more freely about his boss. "He is not going to sit around and dilly-dally like most politicians," the adviser said.
But that trait also led to criticism that Trump governs by tweet and is susceptible to making decisions based on the last byte of information he consumes. His advisers say he takes opinions and gathers from a wide array of sources, ranging from top military advisers to golf buddies to "Fox and Friends" and other cable TV news shows.
In that regard, the funnel of information to the chief executive is far larger than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, whose "no drama Obama" persona was built around fewer channels in the decision-making process.
Trump's dealings with Congress have included a subtle, but perpetual, undercurrent of the new-guy-on-the-block vs. old-hands-on-the-corner.
Republicans, and even some Democrats, have praised him for reaching out to Congress far more overtly than Obama did. But some have pushed back, the latest example being grumbling among some Senate Democrats about being called to the White House on Wednesday to get secret briefings about the North Korean threat when it would have been easier to send top aides to their turf.
But ironically, that North Korean briefing, while outlining serious threats to the United States from Kim, also reassured one key Democrat that the Trump foreign policy apparatus was in good hands. It was a suggestion that despite Trump's often confrontational rhetoric toward China, Japan and other nations that are now important in the standoff with North Korea, the Trump administration was leading a united international front against Kim.
"As a candidate, now-President Trump said a number of things about our relationship with South Korea, our relationship with Japan, our relationship with other vital allies that I think at the time didn't contribute to civility," Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said as he left the meeting. "In recent days and weeks, I think (Defense Secretary James) Mattis and (Secretary of State Rex) Tillerson have taken some important actions and steps to reassure our vital allies. "
Coons, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was "more reassured" after the meeting that Trump and his advisers were doing the right things in building a united front against the threat.
In briefings leading into Trump's 100th day in office, top Trump aides stressed the roles that Trump's senior national security advisers, which also include CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, and Homeland Security Director John Kelly had played in confronting the crises in Syria and North Korea.
The inference: Trump may be new to the job, and some question his temperament, but seasoned hands are in the room.
Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to build a wall on the southern border, eventually said he would accept an agreement to keep the government open that did not include initial funding for the wall with Mexico, so long as Congress agreed to discuss wall funding later in the summer.
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, said those were "helpful" remarks.
"This is that moment where the president has to determine that you need some Democrat votes in the Senate to get the bill done," Blunt told The Washington Post. "And the Democrats have to determine that there are a lot of things in that bill that they want as well."
Trump was attacked from left and right for abandoning a campaign promise on wall funding. But Priebus argued Trump was "showing some reasonableness on the wall and on border security" that discombobulated Democrats expecting a more rigid stance.
Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., who was one of Trump's biggest Republican critics during the campaign, has been in meetings with him at least a half dozen times over the first 100 days. She said she has detected how the weight of the office has affected Trump.
"It always is an evolution. It is an evolution for a member of Congress, also," she said. "The weighty responsibility once you are sworn in begins to set in. You become briefed on issues to a deeper level than you ever were, certainly, as a candidate for office."
But, Wagner added: "I like Trump being Trump," and she pointed out Trump's NAFTA tweets _ he had threatened to pull out of NAFTA before saying Canada and Mexico wanted to talk _ as an example of Trump's art-of-the-deal style.
"Everybody says he is switching positions on NAFTA with what he did with that strong statement," Wagner said. "Guess what? In no time short we had the leaders of both Mexico and Canada on the phone saying, 'Whoa, wait, we will negotiate.'"
