Chris Ruddy, a friend and political ally of Donald Trump, said the president considers his legal and political apparatus to be a “smooth running machine.”

Really? Yes, really. The president’s self-delusion and lack of self-awareness has presented itself again.

Get a load of this sequence.

He sought out the legal services of former federal prosecutor and Fox News TV “contributor” Joe diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing. Then his lead lawyer, the guy who’s representing him in the “Russia thing” probe — John Dowd — quits, claiming that Trump doesn’t listen to his legal advice.

This weekend, moreover, Trump decided that diGenova and Toensing wouldn’t be joining his team after all. It seems they had some “conflict of interest” issues that needed to be resolved.

Oh, but the president said — via Twitter, of course — that he has no shortage of brilliant legal minds begging to join the Trump legal team to defend him against the investigation into collusion with Russians who meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Oh … really? Honestly, Mr. President?

Who in the name of juris prudence is this guy trying to kid?

He cannot hire a good lawyer to save his life, let alone his political  backside. Nor can the president retain a national security team. He cannot fill important posts within the State Department. Washington is bursting with rumors that if White House chief of staff John Kelly quits, that the president won’t hire a new person to run the executive branch “ship of state”; Trump will do it himself.

There you go. He told the nation at the Republican National Convention that “I, alone” can solve every problem under the sun.

It is beginning to look as though he’ll get a chance to deliver on that bold bit of boastfulness.

Good luck with that, Mr. President, as you handle the controls of your “smooth-running machine.”