“New York is extremely intense and competitive, but it is actually a much smaller pond than Washington, where you have many more players with access to many more sources,” said Howard Wolfson, who has split his career between New York and Washington, advising former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“In New York, you can create a manageable set of relationships in a smaller universe,” Mr. Wolfson said. “In Washington, that becomes a lot more complicated.”…

Linda Stasi, who chronicled Mr. Trump’s up-and-down marriage to Marla Maples in the 1990s for two New York papers, said she could have predicted the presidential agita. “He would plant stories and he would get mad if they didn’t come out exactly as he wanted,” she recalled of earlier dealings with Mr. Trump. “It never occurred to him that he couldn’t control everything.”

Now, Ms. Stasi said, “he is shocked that he is not in control of the press.”