U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago club on Monday.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press

David Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of U.S. politics.

Way back in 1981, someone deep in the Reagan administration – it’s still not entirely clear who this innovative thinker was – came up with the creative idea of counting ketchup as a vegetable to conform to federal school-lunch requirements. It gave late-night wise-guy commentators and others a field day, especially since a case was made to include pickle relish, too. Suddenly that cafeteria hamburger perspiring on a steam table became the kale and chia seeds of the time.

The condiment controversy of almost a half century ago is nothing. The Trump administration, full of policy pathfinders for the current era, is serving up a feast of rules, regulations, and risible decisions that prompts the question of the age:

Who actually thinks up these things?

David Shribman: Is Trump still leading the MAGA movement or is the movement now leading him?

A couple examples from the past month alone:

First, changing the nameplate of the former Biden-era assistant secretary of health, Rachel Levine, a transgender woman who led the country’s Public Health Corps, on the picture hanging in the hallway of the Department........

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