By Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny, CNN

Washington (CNN) — It was as if he’d never left.

The Oval Office that President Donald Trump begrudgingly departed four years ago was reassembled in almost identical fashion over the course of a few hours Monday, right down to the cream wool rug with the olive branch border, designed by Nancy Reagan for her husband.

The wooden box with a red button, used to summon a valet for a Diet Coke, was back on the desk. A portrait of President Andrew Jackson — albeit a different painting — was back on the wall. The sole reminder of the man who beat him four years ago was a letter in his top drawer, which Trump seemed to forget about until he was reminded to look by a reporter.

A deep familiarity with the trappings of the West Wing and the Executive Residence helped keep the president in a good mood all week, several people who spoke with him said, a sentiment that came alive in one appearance after another.

“Oh, what a great feeling,” Trump said of his return to the Oval Office, basking in the grandeur of one of the world’s most powerful rooms. “One of the better feelings I’ve ever had.”

Controlling the chaos

A familiarity with the gears of government also helped Trump’s team move with much more speed and sweep in their first week than they did eight years ago, issuing a blizzard of executive actions and reaching down into agencies across Washington to put his agenda and personnel plans in place.

It’s far too early, of course, to know whether the perpetual sense of chaos that hung over the West Wing during the first four years will ultimately return during Trump’s second term.

Some Trump allies remain skeptical the president will be able to avoid it, given his own appetite for pitting advisers against each other. In some ways, the chaos is now just part of the program as Trump tests the bounds of his presidential authority, inviting legal challenges and backlash even from Republicans.

But if the opening days signaled fewer attempts to control Trump, a concerted effort to instill discipline among staff was palpable.

That task rests with Susie Wiles, the new White House chief of staff, who ran Trump’s campaign with a discipline that’s mostly been lacking in Trumpworld and developed a loyal following along the way. She arrived inside the building well ahead of Trump on Monday to begin the job in earnest, settling into her corner office with a fireplace and back patio. She has spent considerable time in the Oval Office this week, watching a few steps away from the Resolute Desk during executive order signings, meetings with Congressional leaders and Cabinet nominees.

“That’s all Susie can do — control what she can control — and that is zero tolerance for staff infighting,” a veteran of the fractious first Trump administration told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to openly discuss the dynamics of the West Wing.

A critical question facing Trump in his second term was not answered during his first week back in power: Will he devote more time and energy to the future or the past? It was a mix of both, but backward-looking recriminations were more present than Wiles and some other advisers would prefer.

For every new executive action on immigration or federal workplace policy, there were parallel attempts at settling scores or exacting revenge – including stripping former officials under threat from Iran of their security details or issuing a blanket pardon for January 6 rioters. Earning relatively little attention was the state of the economy, with Day 1 promises for tariffs deferred and almost no concrete steps taken on lowering costs.

Even at a speech Saturday in Las Vegas ostensibly meant to discuss his proposal to eliminate taxes on tips, Trump took 25 minutes to arrive at the issue at hand. It was only after he spent time lambasting his predecessor, whom he accused of being a “lunatic” and sleeping through telephone calls from foreign leaders, that he mentioned the tax plan.

This balance between looking forward and back will play an outsized role in the trajectory of Trump’s second term and the degree to which he is able to capitalize on a full – but narrow – Republican Congressional majority in accomplishing his legislative agenda.

A brighter mood

Eight years ago, the grievance Trump displayed over the size of his inaugural crowd was among the factors that got his previous term off to a rocky and defensive start. This time, the mood inside the West Wing was far more jubilant and upbeat, with the president visibly pleased at the decision to move his ceremony indoors from the frigid conditions outside.

“That was a beautiful place to have an inauguration,” Trump said shortly after leaving the Capitol Rotunda, an assessment he shared repeatedly all week long. “The sound was so good. The temperature was 72 degrees.”

The learning curve that welcomes all new presidents — but which seemed especially steep for Trump the first time around — has been flattened by the experiences of eight years ago.

Instead of crossed wires and stumbles, which defined the first weeks of 2017 as Trump entered office with zero government experience, White House officials appeared to be working mostly in unison to advance the agenda Trump vowed to enact as a candidate and to pull the levers of power in ways they didn’t know existed eight years ago.

Four years of conservative effort to plan for another Trump presidency have been realized in the span of a few days, with stacks of executive orders ready for Trump’s signature minutes after he was sworn in.

Aides who didn’t serve in Trump’s first administration were still learning their way through the warren of offices in the West Wing by the end of the week, unpacking Amazon boxes of supplies and figuring out how to find cable news on their televisions.

Trump himself had little need for a tour. Instead, he was the one playing guide — including for Vice President JD Vance, who had never stepped into the Oval Office until Trump brought him in a day after his swearing-in.

“This is incredible,” Vance said in awe, the moment captured on video by House Speaker Mike Johnson, as Trump proudly looked on.

Musk tensions

To be sure, the havoc that governed Trump’s earlier term hasn’t evaporated entirely. An on-camera event Tuesday meant to announce new investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure was almost immediately obscured by an assertion from Elon Musk, the billionaire installed in the West Wing, that the companies didn’t have the money to make Trump’s project a reality.

Some White House officials were angered by the online outburst, in disbelief Musk would undermine the president’s first major announcement the day after he was sworn in. The Tesla founder’s presence in the building — including the Oval Office — in the early days of the presidency had already raised hackles among some aides.

It was the type of open disagreement that, in another time, would have thrown Trump’s operation well off course as factions formed and backs stabbed.

Now, the spats seem to have become just another part of the scenery.

“Elon, one of the people, he happens to hate,” Trump said, shrugging off the dust-up. “But I have certain hatreds of people too.”

Already, Trump’s interlocutors were adapting to the new regime. After the president said in the Oval Office on Monday he would consider making Saudi Arabia his first stop abroad if Riyadh purchased $500 billion in American products, the kingdom’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman got on the phone to say he was ready to spend $600 billion over the next four years.

A day later, Trump had upped his price.

“I’ll be asking the crown prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion,” he told the World Economic Forum in Davos. The crowd gently laughed.

If there were obstacles in his first week, Trump largely blew past them. On Friday night, one of his most controversial Cabinet nominees – Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary – squeaked through the Senate on a 51-50 vote, with Vance serving as the tiebreaker.

Pressed to respond to the news that former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell voted against Hegseth’s confirmation, Trump brushed it off.

“No, I didn’t even know that — no, I didn’t know,” he said. “I just heard that we won. Winning is what matters, right?”

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