If Donald Trump believes his first foreign trip as President will help distract attention from the chaos engulfing his White House, he has another think coming.

Any turbulence on board Air Force One when it takes off for Saudi Arabia on Friday evening will be nothing compared to the week its passengers have just had.

And the ride’s unlikely to get smoother anytime soon.

Usually a new President’s first overseas trip is a chance to burnish the image both of the leader of the free world and the country he represents, as well as getting a chance to shift press coverage from domestic to diplomatic matters. There are some similarities to President Obama’s debut on the global stage – also a visit to both Europe and the Middle East.

For the Trump administration, though, the timing could hardly be more challenging, with Special Counsel Robert Mueller set to start work investigating Russia’s influence on last year’s election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

While Trump has called the investigation a “witch hunt,” Reuters reported on Thursday there were “at least 18 undisclosed calls and emails” between Trump campaign advisers and Russian officials in the final months of the campaign. The Washington Post, New York Times and others, meanwhile, continue their relentless reporting on the fallout from the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

This would have been a difficult trip diplomatically even without controversial domestic issues to distract attention. US allies are understandably cautious, with success – on both sides – largely depending on how much the president can focus on the business at hand.

But the whole circus is going with him, with a big White House delegation and traveling press corps, so he might find little respite over the next eight days. Indeed, the additional scrutiny of the foreign press at each destination makes it even more imperative that Trump is prepared, patient and, well, diplomatic.

While it was reported that ahead of next week’s summit in Brussels, Nato had taken steps to deal with the President’s short attention span, Trump’s briefers have apparently been adopting some interesting techniques to make sure he stays engaged with the political scenarios he will encounter.

After all, who doesn’t like reading about themselves?

The early part of the trip is billed as a tour of global religious centres, with Trump set to deliver a speech on Islam in Riyadh on Sunday, aiming to show the US as encouraging greater regional co-operation in the fight against extremism.  But controversy is already swirling around a $100billion arms dealwith the Saudi government. While Trump is in town, there will be a men-only Toby Keith concert, because, of course.

On Monday it’s on to Israel, which was rocked this week by the alleged compromise of their sensitive intelligence during Trump’s Oval Office meeting with the Russians. Trump will meet separately with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem. One speech has already been cancelled after Trump was told he couldn’t land his personal helicopter at the site.

Trump will meet the Pope on Wednesday at the Vatican – where he is expected to name Newt Gingrich’s wife Callista as Ambassador – before moving on to Brussels to meet EU leaders and attend the Nato summit. He’s expected to reaffirm his support for the organization despite criticizing its funding structure. He’ll also have lunch with new French President Emmanuel Macron, whose opponent, Marine Le Pen, Trump tacitly supported in their recent election.

The final commitment of the trip is the G7 meeting in Sicily on May 26 and 27, a second opportunity for a handshake with Angela Merkel.

He’ll return to Washington to most likely find that the rampant crises he left are still raging.

Amid preparations for the trip, Vice President Mike Pence chose this week to set up his own Political Action Committee, as the White House pushed back on stories that former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had informed the Trump transition team – led by Pence – that he, Flynn, was under FBI investigation before he was appointed.

Meanwhile, Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight committee who just on Tuesday requested all of Comey’s memos related to conversations with Trump, said he is to resign from Congress at the end of June.

This week’s cover of Time Magazine.

With all the fevered talk of Watergate, the 25th Amendment or even the “I-word”, is what’s happening the beginning of the end? Maybe. It might be more accurate to say it could be the beginning of a spiral that could accelerate the end. A lot will depend on whether Robert Mueller can figure out why Trump has been so protective of Flynn.

The FT said in an editorial on Thursday that Trump’s Presidency is in shambles and the nation’s institutions need to be protected.

But the paper warned that Congress “should still tread carefully before setting in motion the steps to remove the president. Intervention cannot be justified by presidential incompetence, however gross. The only possible rationale is defence of the constitution.”

And that’s where we are for now.

The Comey memo and any further revelations of possible obstruction of justice may not turn out to be decisive in and of themselves. Certainly, judging by the online reaction of Trump’s supporters, they would see it as their hero being brought down by the liberal media and political establishment. If you come at the King, I guess…

Even as his approval rating slipped to a new low this week, he’s still getting cover from Congressional Republicans and Fox News, but that could change if the GOP were to suffer a setback in a series of special elections over the next few weeks.

Given the past few days, it’s hard not to be reminded of that quote from Lenin about the Bolshevik revolution: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” Or as historian Jon Meacham put it on MSNBC the other day, what we’re witnessing is “history in hyperdrive.”

But while revelations may continue to tumble ever more swiftly, any formal process will appear glacial by comparison. There is no timeline for Mueller’s Russia investigation, which could possibly take years.

Trump’s “woe-is-me” speech to the Coast Guard graduation ceremony this week hinted at a presidential mindset that is defiant and defensive yet remains, predictably, unpredictable. This trip will give a signal of how well the president is able to put domestic issues aside in order to deliver some diplomatic PR successes.

However the coming days play out, though, at least Paddy Power seems more sure of the eventual outcome – the bookmaker is now offering even money on Trump being impeached in his first term, with a range of prices for why: Treason 5/1, Perjury 8/1, Tax Evasion 9/1 and Bribery the longshot at 20/1.

They’re also offering 6/4 for him to resign.