Was Trump actually out of the loop?

I had noticed that Trump was not on this Signal chat and no one seemed to be directly representing him there. And the decision whether to attack the Houthis seemed to have been finalized in that conversation. So Trump was out of the loop on what is basically an act of war. He claimed he didn't know this and he didn't know that. That's his go to lie in many bad situations. But there may be more to it.

Trump ran for reelection to stay out of jail. His personal agenda seems to be, consolidate all of North America and call it Trumpistan, kick all the brown people out of Trumpistan and endlessly torment everyone who ever crossed him. Aside from that he just wants to play golf.

He's surrounded by two factions who are working to dismantle the federal government. The Project 2025/Federalist Society crowd because 'Government Bad', and the Tech Bros because 'We should be running things with our AI because we're smarter and richer.'

Meanwhile Nero fiddles. He may actually be uniformed about a lot that's going on. You get the feeling that he has delegated a lot of his power away and doesn't want to be bothered with the details.

I think he's maddest about Signal Gate because he's had to leave the golf course. He doesn't want the job, he just wants to wear the crown. It's something to keep in mind as things go forward.