Transitioning over an entire government from one president to the next is a task that's often full of confusion, but this one appears particularly so.

If you read The Washington Post or New York Times on Wednesday, you got the impression from people quoted that President-elect Donald Trump's transition is consumed by infighting and paranoia.

Elliot Cohen, a leading voice of opposition to Trump during the campaign, boosted that narrative when, on Tuesday, he very publicly reversed his advice to conservatives to take jobs in the Trump administration, calling the transition “ugly”:

“It became clear to me that they view jobs as lollipops, things you give out to good boys and girls, instead of the sense that actually what you’re trying to do is recruit the best possible talent to fill the most important, demanding, ­lowest-paying executive jobs in the world.”

But if you follow Trump on Twitter, the exact opposite seems to be true.

It's possible the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Philip D. Zelikow, a senior figure in the George W. Bush transition team, told my Post colleagues the Trump team is likely trying to hit the right mark with its top Cabinet picks. And it's hard when the right mark is somewhere between positive disruption of the regular order and chaos:

“They feel like their election was a lot of the American people wanting to throw a brick through a window,” Zelikow said. “They want to make appointments that make it sound like glass is being broken.”

Who's in Trump's inner circle?

One thing about Trump's transition is clear. There is bloodletting, most prominently (but not limited to) the departure of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) who lost the job of leading the entire transition last week. (Few politicians' careers have had as many ups and downs as Christie, writes Fix Boss Chris Cillizza. But I digress.)

The broader point is that Trump appears to be relying on an increasingly shrinking circle of people to make the decisions that will shape his presidency. Here's a quick rundown of four of his top advisers:

1. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.): Sessions was one of Trump's first supporters on Capitol Hill. In the two decades he's been in the Senate, he's made a name for himself as a fighter of immigration — both legal and illegal. His views are so hard line, The Post's Isaac-Stanley Baker wrote, that “Sessions has spent his time in Washington largely on the edges of Republican politics.” And he's being considered for any number of Cabinet jobs, including Secretary of Defense.

Sen. Jeff Sessions and Trump at an Alabama rally in February. (REUTERS/Marvin Gentry)

2. Steve Bannon: We covered Bannon some on Monday. He's the former head of conservative, anti-immigrant, nationalist site Breitbart News, and he'll be one of President Trump's top advisers. Bannon has come in for a lot of criticism from civil rights advocates and Democrats for steering Breitbart toward content embraced by white nationalists.