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“Trump was new to DC, sideswiped brutally and the full force of several powerful groups were thrown at him.

Not impressed.”

I assume you mean; his opposition.
You’re quite right if you’re implying Trump was on the naive side when he began his campaign. Trump *did* make a campaign swing or at least an appearance or two in California. They were of course Trump rallies and of course were populated by Trump supporters. Among others, he was accompanied by Devin Nunes. After the rally, on his plane, he asked Nunes, [paraphrasing] “what do you think, do I have any kind of chance in California?” To which Nunes replied, “are you f***ing kidding”?

It all changed with the Comey meeting.

Picture the following:

Suppose you are Donald Trump. You are sworn into office Jan 20, 2017. In mid-February, your FBI director James Comey comes to visit you. You talk about this, that, and the other. Sometime during this meeting, Comey pulls out his famous dossier; and, calling it salacious and unverified, relates one piece of the contents: That you have been reported to have hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed 0bama once slept in.

You’re still Donald Trump. There are two paths. You either know this happened and you’re IC blackmail food and always will be; or it never happened. You probably cannot resolve whether Comey would be so insolent as so as to release such an outrageous report, but you cannot dismiss the threat out of hand. You HAVE been threatened. You probably think about what you would have to do to combat this allegation, especially as released by the FBI, and you may well come up blank. At that moment. Then you start to figure it out.

If you know with metaphysical certainty this never happened; you now know some ominous and probably completely startling things. You know that at least Comey but perhaps some other portion of the FBI is willing to basically extort you. You know that since this information must have come from overseas where the FBI typically does not operate that the CIA is very likely to be in exactly the same position. You know that John Brennan, head of the CIA, has denounced you as a menace to the country. You know that Comey is holding this over your head even while telling you you are not the target of any investigation. Comey tells you “don’t worry”. Don’t worry what? “We don’t intend to release this?” “This will never get out?” Comey calls it “salacious and unverified” meaning, it’s bunk. Yet he’s still holding it over you with the implied threat without regard to whether it is true or false.

[side note] For one thing; if you are going to say that Trump saying to Comey “I hope you can find a way to go easy on Flynn” is an implied threat or an implied command; you cannot take Comey’s holding the dossier over Trump’s head anything but a tacit threat: The threat of releasing the dossier. [end side note]

So my question is: What, as Trump, do you do? You could follow the Bush (either one) model and just sit back and take it, knowing that at any moment the FBI and CIA could pull the pin. You know that if the info was released from such official sources with nothing but your denial to counter it; you’d probably be impeached by sufficient numbers of outraged Republicans that your removal from office would be a near-certainty. Your only hope would be to discredit the IC and that would put you at total, mortal war with elements of your own government.