THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Donald Trump did his best Officer Barbrady imitation last night to pretend nothing is wrong in his transition debacle where nothing is going right. As usual, Donny Dumbass took to the Tweety to rant about the New York Times for their accurate reporting of the disaster.

President-elect Donald J. Trump denied Wednesday that his transition was in disarray, assailing news media reports about firings and infighting and insisting in an early-morning Twitter burst that everything was going “so smoothly.”

But legal and procedural delays by Mr. Trump’s transition team continued on Wednesday, all but freezing the traditional handoff of critical information from the current administration more than a week after Mr. Trump won the presidential election.

The president-elect criticized a report in The New York Times about his early telephone contacts with foreign leaders. In a post on Twitter, he said he had made and received “calls from many foreign leaders despite what the failing @nytimes said. Russia, U.K., China, Saudi Arabia, Japan.”

The Times reported that Mr. Trump had taken calls from the leaders of Egypt, Israel, Russia and Britain, but said they had been conducted haphazardly and without State Department briefings that traditionally guide conversations with foreign leaders.

Of the transition effort, Mr. Trump wrote: “It is going so smoothly.”

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the effort to fill staff positions in the new administration was “very calm, it’s very structured.” He said that reports of chaos were being spread by disgruntled former members of the transition or people bitter about the election results.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who was put in charge of the transition last Friday, has counseled Mr. Trump not to feel pressured to make announcements rashly, according to people familiar with the deliberations inside Trump Tower in Manhattan. Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump was taking a “a very structured, methodical approach” to staffing.

Mr. Miller also rejected as “completely inaccurate” reports that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, had been purging the transition team of people allied with Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, who was removed last week as head of the transition effort. “Couldn’t be further from the truth,” Mr. Miller said.

But Mr. Miller confirmed that Mr. Pence had directed that the transition should not include lobbyists, confirming reports that some existing members of the team had been asked to leave.

So putting Mike Pence in charge will result in a cleaner administration having gotten rid of the Christie crowd and the lobbyists. However the evangelical Pence loyalists will probably make it a holier-than-thou crowd. Let us pray.