Surprise! After months of reportedly not even speaking directly to Donald Trump, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has had enough and is stepping aside. What’s worse is, the man Trump assumed would jump at the chance to be Kelly’s immediate replacement has told Trump “Thanks, but no thanks!”
Politics
Gen. John Kelly spent 40 years in the US Marines and completed 3 tours in Iraq. However, a year and a half of trying to control and manage Donald Trump has proven to be even too much for this career military man.
Kelly took on the position of Trump’s “manager” during the summer of 2017 when the West Wing was a zoo and Trump was an undisciplined whack job with no boundaries and no one willing to tell him NO. Kelly immediately became the “grown-up in the room” who enforced discipline, but, in the end, even he couldn’t curb the vindictive, culturally ignorant, “I hate to read anything,” tweeting Trump.
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Now, the 4-Star General with the pristine military record has become just another Trump casualty.
“Everybody in the orbit of Donald Trump gets sucked in and tarnished or destroyed,” said Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers,” a history of White House chiefs of staff. “Kelly has been tarnished, no doubt about it.”
So, with Kelly on the way out, who was at the top of ‘The Donald’s’ wish-list to mind the store?
Nick Ayers, the current chief of staff to VP Mike Pence was Trump’s first and only choice to succeed John Kelly. The only problem is, Ayers had ZERO interest in the job.
Utilizing the most polite language he could muster, Ayers told Trump some mumbo-jumbo about him wanting to move back to Georgia with his wife and infant triplets. However, political pundits are presuming that Ayers wanted no part of Trump and his toxic West Wing.
With the Robert Mueller investigation seemingly closing in on ‘The Donald’ by the day, combined with the revolving door of personnel inside the Trump administration as well as Trump’s own agitated personality and penchant for never wanting to be told NO, Ayers was simply smart enough to pass on the suicide mission of becoming Trump’s next chief of staff.
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Donald Trump has frequently bragged that he (and he alone) has the ability to hire the best and the brightest to surround him in his quest to “Make America Great Again.” However, the stark reality is this: no one is lining up to work for him. In fact, Trump doesn’t have a Plan B now that Ayers has taken a pass on the post.
So, who exactly can Trump call on now to replace Gen. John Kelly? On Monday, The White House floated the names of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows as surefire possibilities. However, by Monday afternoon, all 4 men were tripping over each other to deliver Trump a very public and polite “NO THANK YOU!”
Oh, what will ‘The Donald’ do now? Considering his history, he’s probably already on the phone with Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie.
