There's been a rather extraordinary shift coming from the White House over the past week or so, as Donald Trump has been repeatedly forced to back down. This isn't normal for him, of course, which is why it is so notable a development. It has happened on big issues and small, and may signal a shift within his own party away from mindlessly following everything Trump does in lockstep. Or it may just be Trump having a bad week -- it's really too soon to tell.

The first indications of this came from two issues which are rather low-level, in the grand scheme of things. The first was Trump's loss in court on his planned complete overhaul of the Kennedy Center. The judge ruled that Trump's name had to be removed from the building and any official documents or statements or websites. A while back, without any real warning, the name displayed on the building was changed to read: "The Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts" (apparently nobody took the time to explain to Trump what the word "memorial" usually means).

The backlash to this egotistical overreach was swift. Artist after artist announced they were cancelling planned shows at the center, and ticket sales plummeted. Trump, in a snit, then decided that he was going to close the whole thing down for two years, gut the interior, and turn it into yet another monument to tackiness and bad taste (as he has done to the Oval Office as well as pretty much anything else he's had a hand in redesigning). The judge's order will also end all of these plans.

Trump, instead of doubling down and figuring out some way to defy the judge and go ahead and do whatever he wanted anyway (or immediately appeal the matter to the Supreme Court), amazingly then just backed down. He petulantly announced that he was going to wash his hands of the Kennedy Center and turn control of running it over to Congress.

That was in the face of a judicial order. But the other things he's been forced to back down on have more to do with politics.

Plans had been made to begin, at the end of June, a series of concerts and celebrations on the National Mall that were supposed to be a sort of national version of a state fair. It was initially billed as being part of the 250th anniversary of July 4th, and was supposed to be solely about celebrating America in a patriotic and non-partisan way. However, at some point, it seems to have turned into a "praise Trump" party, which led something like two-thirds of the announced entertainers to pull out of the project. They had signed up for a rally for America, not a rally for Trump, they all explained.

Unsurprisingly, Trump then exploded in a fit of petulance. He badmouthed all the artists and announced that rather than giving the crowd some music to enjoy, instead he would just headline the event himself and hold a giant political rally. As usual, he displayed his planetary-sized ego in this post, saying he was so popular he drew bigger crowds than Elvis Presley. He also managed to get the day of the week wrong in his social media post, saying it would take place on "Wednesday" when the original plan was to kick things off on Thursday. Trump also hinted that he might just cancel the entire thing. So the organizers of the event have been scrambling ever since, and now nobody has any clue what is actually going to happen. Since nobody can ever tell Trump he made a simple mistake, perhaps the event will kick off on the Wednesday (instead of Thursday), and perhaps it will only consist of a pro-Trump political rally? Or maybe the artists who haven't pulled out yet will perform? Will Kid Rock just fill in all the empty slots on the schedule? Or will it just collapse altogether and not happen at all (people are already comparing it to the Fyre Festival)?

As mentioned, those are both fairly low-level issues to back down on. But Trump also seems to be backing down today on two much larger issues as well. Last week, a judge issued a ruling that froze any action (until an upcoming hearing on the issue, at the very least) on Trump's new $1.776 billion fund to pay off his supporters with a free gift of taxpayer money -- including all the cop-beaters from January 6th, apparently. This fund has caused a huge outcry in Congress, and (astonishingly) this is coming not just from Democrats but from some within Trump's own party. Here's a rather extraordinary statement from Senate Majority Leader John Thune today:

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and majority leader, told reporters on Monday that he had spoken to White House officials over the weekend and made his position clear to them: that they needed to drop the [$1.8 billion] fund or it would hold up passage of the reconciliation bill. "I've made my view clear on that for several days now," he said. Thune said he also wanted the White House to drop the request for $1 billion in funds for the president's ballroom project in the reconciliation bill, which he said should stay a narrow bill to fund two government agencies. He called that "the clearest path to ultimately getting a bill on the president's desk."

Thune is not saying he is personally opposed to the funding, but rather that so many Republicans in his caucus are against it that it is simply not going to pass. He doesn't have the votes, because it's not just Democrats who are incensed about this slush fund, plenty of Republicans are also disgusted by the entire concept (of handing cop-beaters free taxpayer money for no reason at all).

In the face of pushback from judges and his own party in Congress, the story leaked today that Trump is just going to back down on the idea of creating the fund in the first place. There has been no official statement (as of this writing), so it is unclear whether he is completely giving up on the idea or whether he's just setting it aside for now, but the fact that he is backing down (temporarily or not) is certainly a setback for Trump.

And finally, on the biggest issue Trump faces in the world right now, Trump also seems to be noticeably backing down -- or at least not threatening to escalate things. Today a statement was released from a semiofficial Iranian state news agency affiliated with their Revolutionary Guards which said that Iran was going to halt all negotiations with Trump to end the war.

This announcement signals the Iranians' frustration with the fact that the ceasefire that is supposed to be in place between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is being widely ignored. There are also signs that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is also in danger of falling apart as well. Both sides have been exchanging fire in a low-level way over the past week or so, but widespread warfare hasn't broken out again.

Trump teased the world (and the oil markets) over a week ago, claiming that an agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz was imminent -- only hours away! Stay tuned! Trump kept this drumbeat up for all of last week, but when he was given the chance to agree to a deal on Friday, he balked. He then sent new demands to Iran over the weekend. Iran has now rejected this proposal, which puts everything back to square one. This was the backdrop of the occasional potshots both sides were taking at each other militarily all week long.

Astoundingly, Trump did not react in his usual fashion, which would have been to threaten to wipe out Iran as a civilization with renewed bombing. Instead, Trump actually spoke to both sides of the Hezbollah/Israeli conflict and reportedly warned both of them to back off -- which is exactly what Iran was demanding. Trump posted on social media: "Israel will not attack them [Hezbollah], and they will not attack Israel."

As far as Iran is concerned, there are not two ceasefires, there is only one -- all fighting needs to stop between the U.S., Iran, Israel, and Iran's proxies such as Hezbollah, all at once. Which Trump is now making moves to facilitate.

All of this is ongoing, and there haven't been official statements on most of it, so it's debatable whether Trump truly is backing down, or just desperately trying to salvage his goal of seeing the Strait of Hormuz open back up again. But it was notable that Trump did not throw a tantrum and start making his usual (and increasingly unbelievable) threats to ramp up the bombing campaign once again.

Obviously, the confusion with Iran is far more important than what happens on the National Mall at the end of this month, but even though all of these issues are unrelated to each other, it is notable seeing Trump backing down so many times in such a short period. Within two weeks, the sign on the Kennedy Center will be restored to honor only J.F.K., and Trump's massive construction plans for it will (hopefully) remain on hold forever. Due to fierce resistance from his own Republicans in Congress (as well as federal judges), Trump might have to entirely give up on the idea of rewarding would-be insurrectionists with gobs of taxpayer money. Eventually, Trump is likely to sign some sort of agreement with Iran which is going to create a lot of political pushback on him from both the left and the hawkish right.

As I said, it is hard to tell whether this is the beginning of a new power dynamic in Washington or not. What will be interesting to watch is whether Senate Democrats will be able to get an amendment into the reconciliation bill Republicans are trying to pass which will completely ban Trump from creating that $1.8 billion slush fund. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted online: "If Trump and the Republicans are truly abandoning this corrupt scheme, they should have zero problem banning it in law.... Trump's word is nowhere near enough." If Schumer does succeed in getting this into an amendment, it would be a real slap in the face to Trump, if it passes. It also might signal a revival of Senate Republicans' independence from the craziest of Trump's schemes.

If that is true, then this won't just be one bad week for Trump -- he might have to get used to backing down on a regular basis, from ideas that go too far for even his fellow Republicans to support. Time will tell, but it certainly would be a positive development, if it does happen.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant