John Kelly -- Bringing Order to the West Wing?

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘When you lose that power’: How John Kelly faded as White House disciplinarian "

Spoiler

After White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly pressured President Trump last fall to install his top deputy, Kirstjen Nielsen, atop the Department of Homeland Security, the president lost his temper when conservative allies argued that she wasn’t sufficiently hard line on immigration. “You didn’t tell me she was a [expletive] George W. Bush person,” Trump growled.

After Kelly told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier in a January interview that Trump’s immigration views had not been “fully informed” during the campaign and had since “evolved,” the president berated Kelly in the Oval Office — his shouts so loud they could be heard through the doors.

And less than two weeks ago, Kelly grew so frustrated on the day that Trump fired Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin that Nielsen and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis both tried to calm him and offered pep talks, according to three people with knowledge of the incident.

“I’m out of here, guys,” Kelly said — comments some interpreted as a resignation threat, but according to a senior administration official, he was venting his anger and leaving work an hour or two early to head home. 

The recurring and escalating clashes between the president and his chief of staff trace the downward arc of Kelly’s eight months in the White House. Both his credibility and his influence have been severely diminished, administration officials said, a clear decline for the retired four-star Marine Corps general who arrived with a reputation for integrity and a mandate to bring order to a chaotic West Wing.

Kelly neither lurks around the Oval Office nor listens in on as many of the president’s calls, even with foreign leaders. He has not been fully consulted on several recent key personnel decisions. And he has lost the trust and support of some of the staff, as well as angered first lady Melania Trump, who officials said was upset over his sudden dismissal of Johnny McEntee, the president’s 27-year-old personal aide.

“When you lose that power,” said Leon Panetta, a Democratic former White House chief of staff, “you become a virtual White House intern, being told where to go and what to do.”

This portrait of Kelly’s trajectory is based on interviews with 16 administration officials, outside advisers and presidential confidants, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to assess the chief of staff. Kelly declined interview requests.

In large part because of his military credentials, Kelly still commands a level of respect from Trump that sometimes eluded his predecessor, Reince Priebus, whom the president would derisively refer to as “Reincey.” On issues such as national security and immigration, Trump continues to listen to Kelly. And for all the evident chaos, the West Wing now features less knife fighting and dysfunction than in the early months, when Trump set Priebus on coequal footing with then-chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

One senior White House official disputed that Kelly’s relationship with Trump has been especially turbulent in recent weeks, noting that the president still talks to Kelly more than any other official. This official explained that Kelly initially viewed his job as babysitting, but now feels less of a need to be omnipresent, while Trump, who once considered Kelly a security blanket, feels increasingly emboldened to act alone.

But inside and outside the White House, Kelly’s credibility has suffered from a string of misstatements, most recently over his management of domestic abuse allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter and of Trump’s decision to oust Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as national security adviser. And for all the structure he has brought to the bureaucracy, colleagues still view Kelly as tone deaf in dealing with politics. 

Kelly is the latest high-profile example of a West Wing Icarus — swept high into Trump’s orbit, only to be singed and cast low. Nearly everyone who has entered the White House has emerged battered — rendered a punchline (former press secretary Sean Spicer), a Justice Department target (former national security adviser Michael Flynn) or a diminished shell, fired by presidential tweet (former secretary of state Rex Tillerson). 

No one knows how many days remain for Kelly, but when he leaves — either by the president’s hand or because of his own mounting frustration — he is almost certain to limp away damaged.

“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.” 

‘How’s Kelly doing?’

When Kelly, then the homeland security secretary, was appointed chief of staff late last July, the news was met with enthusiasm. Many Trump watchers hoped Kelly would prove a voice of reason and restraint in an administration often perceived to be teetering out of control. And many West Wing aides similarly welcomed the new discipline, thinking Kelly’s regimen would free them to do their jobs.

Initially, at least, Kelly was successful. He began closing the door to the Oval Office, so aides couldn’t loiter or wander in and out hoping to sway the president on issues outside their purview. He made meetings smaller, which helped reduce leaks to the press and make conversations more efficient. And he limited the number of aides who had Oval Office walk-in privileges to a small group.

“I didn’t know the Oval Office even had a door,” one staffer joked to Kelly, several months after he’d taken over. Kelly, meanwhile, marveled that in the early days staffers sometimes entered still chatting on their cellphones.

Under Kelly’s watch, the president now has “Policy Time,” sessions once or twice a day where advisers present and argue their competing views over a specific issue, with Trump presiding. He has also implemented bimonthly Cabinet meetings, with a focused agenda, as well as restored order to the morning senior staff meeting. And attendance for most Oval Office meetings is still run through Kelly’s office.

But about a month into Kelly’s tenure, Trump began to chafe at the strictures. The president invited staff and Cabinet secretaries into the Oval Office without scheduled appointments and called friends and advisers late at night, without Kelly’s sign-off. An early sign of trouble came when Trump polled confidants about his enforcer: “What do you think of Kelly? How’s Kelly doing?” the president asked.

Kelly was an intimidating presence, confiding to some colleagues that he preferred to be feared rather than loved. Yet he was reluctant to be the bearer of bad news. Enter Nielsen, who centralized power as his enforcer, earning her internal enemies.

Kelly requested that staffers back-brief him when the president violated his processes — for instance, by calling a staffer to demand action after watching a Fox News segment. But several aides said they found Kelly difficult when they retroactively filled him in. He often repeated a version of the same response: “I guess you’re the chief of staff now, so why don’t you handle it?”

There were other signs of tensions, as well. Early on, Kelly convened a video conference with aides who were with Trump on vacation at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J. He was beamed in from Washington but erupted when the audio didn’t work. “This is [expletive] ridiculous,” he said, canceling the meeting and storming out of the room. Aides who had not been aware of his temper were stunned.

Days after the publication of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” — a devastating portrayal of the West Wing, informed by Wolff’s hours of unsupervised time there — Kelly berated senior staff, saying the book should have never happened. “This place was a [expletive] before I got here,” Kelly fumed.

Though some staffers felt unfairly critiqued, others agreed with his assessment.

During the Porter crisis, Kelly found himself under intense scrutiny for the veracity of his whipsaw statements. He publicly praised Porter and privately urged him to stay. But Kelly later claimed that he had demanded Porter’s resignation just 40 minutes after learning the details of the allegations, which conflicted with the White House’s official account delivered by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Many senior staffers were convinced that Kelly was distorting the facts to try to exonerate himself, though some others say his account was accurate.

In March, Kelly again offered contradictory explanations. He privately told staffers that Trump had decided to oust McMaster. But after The Washington Post reported that Trump had made his decision, Kelly began telling others the opposite — while still maintaining to some Trump advisers that the president’s decision had been made. Some advisers thought that Kelly was using the president to push a personal vendetta against McMaster.

In an off-the-record session with reporters, parts of which later were reported, Kelly also said that when he called Tillerson to let him know he was fired, the secretary of state was on the toilet with “Montezuma’s revenge.” Though White House aides said Kelly was simply joking — and the State Department contested his version of the phone call — many staffers found the comment crude and demeaning. 

“At the top, you have someone who consistently does not tell the truth,” said James K. Glassman, the founding executive director of the George W. Bush Institute. “That’s a signal to the people below him that they don’t have to tell the truth either, that this is the way we conduct government — we lie when we have to, we mistreat people when we have to, we humiliate them.”

Irritation and respect

In many ways, the Trump-Kelly alliance was always going to be strained. As a business executive, Trump is flexible and freewheeling, prone to impulse and whim. As a retired general, Kelly is structured and partial to hierarchies and rigor.

As chief of staff, Kelly was thrust into the role of disciplinarian. He faced bitter factions, especially among those whose White House access he had cut off (such as Anthony Scaramucci, whose 11-day run as communications director was ended by Kelly) or curtailed (such as Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager).

Kelly’s tensions with Lewandowski boiled over near the end of February, during a meeting with the president. Kelly entered the Oval Office, saw Lewandowski and griped that Lewandowski had been attacking him on television over the Porter fallout but was unwilling to say it to his face. A blowup ensued, with Trump ordering the two to get along. They left the Oval Office for less heated conversation, then reentered and announced a truce.

Asked about the incident, Lewandowski said only, “I am on President Trump’s team and every person who’s supporting this president, which includes John Kelly, is on the team that I’m on.”

Since last fall, tensions between Kelly and Trump have blossomed in episodic bursts. 

In one contentious incident in autumn, when Trump moved to fire Tillerson, Kelly dissuaded him during a heated argument in which he threatened to resign. Trump told Kelly he could keep “his guy,” but soon had his revenge, tweeting “Save your energy Rex” on North Korea.

In fact, Kelly has threatened to resign on multiple occasions — “It’s sort of a weekly event,” one senior White House official quipped — though officials explained his declarations as expressions of momentary frustration. (Axios first reported some details surrounding Kelly’s March resignation threat).

More recently, Trump has told friends he is eager to stage more energetic, frenzied rallies — yet another realm where he can theoretically slip Kelly’s shackles. 

“There has to be a bond here between the chief of staff and the staff and the president, and that fundamental bond has been broken,” said Panetta, also a former defense secretary and CIA director. “When that happens, it’s just a matter of time.”

One Trump adviser said the president “doesn’t like a lot of the stuff he has done. He often gets angry and says, ‘Who does this guy think he is?’ But Kelly has a longer chance of surviving because Trump respects him.”

And there are signs that Kelly is adapting to Trump’s world. Last month, the chief of staff who once fumed about the access given to Wolff carved out time in his schedule for a book interview of his own. For about 30 minutes, Kelly sat down with Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro for her forthcoming tome. 

 

[fraurosena]

It looks like Kelly's days of bringing order to the West Wing are numbered. 

From the article:

Quote

For months, Donald Trump has discussed replacing his chief of staff, John Kelly, who has attempted, with increasing futility, to rein in the president’s impulses since ascending to the job last year. For the past few weeks, Trump has often governed as if Kelly weren’t there, as evidenced by yesterday’s Fox & Friends interview, during which the president essentially undermined his own legal defense. The cringe-inducing telephone interview was precisely the kind of unscripted media appearance the chief of staff had made a point of preventing.

Now, talk of Kelly being jettisoned is ramping up again. According to sources familiar with the situation, White House officials and Trump confidantes are currently discussing the possibility of moving Kelly to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. These people say that the collapse of Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson’s nomination has created an opening for Trump to slide Kelly into the role. It would give Kelly a soft landing, while also having the benefit of putting a qualified official in charge of the sprawling department. “They’re looking for a place for Kelly to land that won’t be embarrassing for him,” one Republican briefed on the conversations said.

It’s unclear how actively Trump is considering the shake-up. (A White House spokesperson said Kelly is not being considered for the V.A.) Such a move, after all, would magnify the fact that Trump hasn’t settled on a viable successor for Kelly’s job. “That’s the issue: how to structure the White House,” the Republican said. The names that have surfaced in the past—lobbyist David Urban, Blackstone senior adviser Wayne Berman, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney—don’t appear any closer to being Trump’s pick.

 

[AmazonGrace]

I hear Milo might be available

[fraurosena]

More signs Kelly could be on his way out:

Kelly thinks he's saving U.S. from disaster, calls Trump 'idiot,' say White House staffers

Quote

White House chief of staff John Kelly has eroded morale in the West Wing in recent months with comments to aides that include insulting the president's intelligence and casting himself as the savior of the country, according to eight current and former White House officials.

The officials said Kelly portrays himself to Trump administration aides as the lone bulwark against catastrophe, curbing the erratic urges of a president who has a questionable grasp on policy issues and the functions of government. He has referred to Trump as "an idiot" multiple times to underscore his point, according to four officials who say they've witnessed the comments.

Three White House spokespeople said they don't believe it's accurate that Kelly called the president an "idiot," adding that none of them has ever heard him do that or otherwise use that word.

Officials said Kelly's public image as a retired four-star general instilling discipline on a chaotic White House and an impulsive president belies what they describe as the undisciplined and indiscreet approach he's employed as chief of staff. The private manner aides describe may shed new light on why Kelly now finds himself — just nine months into the job — grappling with diminished influence and a drumbeat of questions about how long he'll remain at the White House.

"He says stuff you can't believe," said one senior White House official. "He'll say it and you think, 'That is not what you should be saying.'"

Trump, who aides said has soured on his second chief of staff, is aware of some though not all of Kelly's comments, according to the current and former officials.

The White House spokespeople said they haven't heard Kelly talk about himself as the one saving the country, and that if anything he may have spoken in jest along those lines.

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said Kelly's comments about Trump, when compared to previous White House chiefs of staff, "suggest a lack of respect for the sitting president of a kind that we haven't seen before." Beschloss said the closest similarity would be President Ronald Reagan's chief of staff during his second term, Don Regan, who "somewhat looked down on" his boss and eventually lost the support of the staff and the president. Regan was replaced after two years by Howard Baker.

The last time it became public that one of Trump's top advisers insulted his intelligence behind his back, it didn't go over well with the president. White House aides have said Trump never got over former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling him a "moron" in front of colleagues, which was first reported by NBC News. Trump later challenged Tillerson to an IQ test and fired him several months after the remark became public.

Current and former White House officials said Kelly has at times made remarks that have rattled female staffers. Kelly has told aides multiple times that women are more emotional than men, including at least once in front of the president, four current and former officials said.

And during a firestorm in February over accusations of domestic abuse against then-White House staff secretary Rob Porter, Kelly wondered aloud how much more Porter would have to endure before his honor could be restored, according to three officials who were present for the comments. He also questioned why Porter's ex-wives wouldn't just move on based on the information he said he had about his marriages, the officials said.

Some current and former White House officials said they expect Kelly to leave by July, his one-year mark. But others say it's anyone's guess. What's clear is both Trump and Kelly seem to have tired of each other.

"Kelly appears to be less engaged, which may be to the president's detriment," a second senior White House official said.

Kelly has maintained at least two close allies in the West Wing — Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, and White House counsel Don McGahn, current and former officials said.

The White House spokespeople conceded that Trump gets frustrated at times with Kelly, particularly when he feels Kelly is not giving him all the information he needs and wants. They said Kelly and Trump have an open, candid relationship.

The spokespeople disputed that staff has lost confidence in Kelly, saying he's still chief of staff so when he issues an order aides comply and that "for the most part the staff still respects and genuinely likes Kelly."

The White House spokespeople said they haven't seen Kelly have a negative effect on the morale of women staffers. If anything, they said during meetings Kelly is the "bigger gentleman" who steps in when aides use foul language to note "a lady is present" and similarly says he shouldn't use foul language in front of a lady if he's used an expletive. The spokespeople, who would not speak for the record, said it's possible Kelly may have said women are more emotional than men, with one of them agreeing that "generally speaking, women are more emotional than men."

"WE'VE GOT TO SAVE HIM FROM HIMSELF"

Kelly entered the White House with a mandate to instill order in a West Wing where aides regularly had unfettered access to the president. He adopted some key changes, such as shrinking the number of people in meetings and limiting access to the Oval Office.

He has also pushed back against the president on some foreign policy and military issues, current and former White House officials said.

In one heated exchange between the two men before February's Winter Olympics in South Korea, Kelly strongly — and successfully — dissuaded Trump from ordering the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, according to two officials.

For Kelly, the exchange underscored the reasoning behind one of his common refrains, which multiple officials described as some version of "I'm the one saving the country."

"The strong implication being 'if I weren't here we would've entered WWIII or the president would have been impeached,'" one former senior White House official said.

Kelly has made similar comments to lawmakers, at times making fun of what he sees as Trump's lack of knowledge about policy and government, current and former officials said.

He's been particularly cutting when it comes to immigration issues, which he considers one of his policy strong suits, having served as Homeland Security secretary and head of the combatant command for U.S. military operations in Central America and South America, the officials said.

Kelly held a series of meetings in his office with White House officials during negotiations with lawmakers on funding for the president's border wall and a resolution on a program — known as DACA — that allows some people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children to remain in the country, according to four officials who either attended or were briefed on the meetings.

He often used the settings to express concern that Trump would agree to a deal that's not hardline enough on immigration and criticized the president's knowledge of the issues to underscore his point, the officials said.

"He doesn't even understand what DACA is. He's an idiot," Kelly said in one meeting, according to two officials who were present. "We've got to save him from himself."

After the talks on a bipartisan deal fell apart, a collapse Kelly helped orchestrate with some conservative Republicans, he told aides in his office: "If it weren't for me the president was going to agree to some hasty deal," according to two officials who were present at the time.

Three White House press spokespeople said Kelly did express concern in meetings that Trump would agree to a deal that was too soft on immigration, and after bipartisan talks collapsed told staff that if it weren't for him the president would have cut a bad deal. The spokespeople also said Kelly may have said something along the lines of, "The president doesn't know the full impact of DACA." But they said they don't believe he called him an "idiot."

The spokespeople disputed that Kelly is less engaged in his job. They said he still sees the president and is in the Oval Office more than anyone else. They said Kelly put a much-needed system in place in the West Wing and has over time felt the need to hover less over the president. They said Kelly is still the first person in the White House at 6 a.m. "The president talks to a lot of people but no one talks to him more than the chief of staff," one of them said.

The spokespeople said they have not heard Trump talk seriously about withdrawing all troops from the Korean Peninsula.

One person who has known and worked with Kelly over the years said he uses "coarse language" when he is in what he believes to be trusted company.

The public has seen some glimpses of the Kelly that White House officials describe privately. In October, he made comments about a Florida congresswoman that were not accurate. He also remarked that when he was growing up "women were sacred," suggesting he holds some antiquated views of women's roles. And Kelly angered the president in January when he suggested on Fox News that Trump wasn't fully informed on immigration issues.

TRUMP "FELT MISLED"

Multiple White House staff pointed to the controversy over the allegations against Porter as an instance where the frustrations aides have had with Kelly intersected to make a bad problem worse. They said aides were particularly taken aback by his attempt to inaccurately portray his role in Porter's ouster.

While Kelly initially defended Porter publicly, he was even more emphatic in private, four current and former officials said. Kelly, who had access to Porter's FBI file, suggested to aides that he had information that told a different story than news reports and urged Porter for some 18 hours not to resign, the officials said.

Once Porter resigned, Kelly stunned aides when he urged senior White House officials in a staff meeting to advance the false narrative that he had ousted Porter less than an hour after learning the details of the allegations, the officials said.

One official said that aides who have details that others may not say Kelly is correct that he moved within less than an hour to fire Porter.

Kelly has similarly been less than forthcoming at times with the president, officials said. The two men clashed early on over who would replace Kelly as Homeland Security secretary, three current and former officials said. Trump had wanted to consider Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and tasked Kelly with bringing him a short list of candidates, the officials said.

After some informal interviews with potential nominees, Kelly gave Trump two choices, according to the officials: Kobach and Kelly's deputy Kirstjen Nielsen.

Trump later became convinced Kelly had manipulated the process so he'd pick Nielsen, given the doubts that Kobach could get confirmed, the officials said. "He felt misled," said a senior White House official who was there at the time.

Trump was suspicious that Kelly would similarly try to ensure someone he favored would replace former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, three current and former officials said. Trump had for months complained that McMaster's briefing style was irritating and would do impressions of the three-star general bellowing out a list of points in staccato, his body puffing up and down as he spoke, the officials said. Sometimes Trump would see McMaster on his schedule and ask aides to have him write up a memo instead, the officials said, so he didn't have to meet with him. The president ultimately settled on a successor for McMaster whom officials said was not a Kelly pick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

Most recently, Trump fumed over reports on a passage in former FBI Director James Comey's book about Kelly calling Comey, after the president unceremoniously fired him, to say he didn't want to work for "dishonorable" people, according to five officials.

When reports of the phone call first surfaced last summer, Kelly denied disparaging the president, three officials said.

The White House spokespeople said the list of candidates the Office of Presidential Personnel had to succeed Kelly was longer than Kobach and Nielsen, but that doesn't mean it didn't come down to those two once it went to the president. They said after Trump chose Nielsen he saw criticism of her from conservatives and confronted Kelly about it.

They did not dispute that Trump imitated McMaster and pushed him off his schedule at times in favor of a memo. They confirmed that Bolton was not Kelly's preferred choice.

The spokespeople said Kelly denies saying anything negative about the president to Comey and that it was merely a call to wish him luck.

 

[Cartmann99]

On 4/28/2018 at 3:15 AM, AmazonGrace said:

I hear Milo might be available

I'm imagining Sarah and Kellyanne fawning over him like they did Scaramucci. 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the wonderful Alexandra Petri: "It was the cheese that let John Kelly down"

Spoiler

Why did White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly shift and grimace in discomfort when President Trump spoke about Germany being “totally controlled” by Russia?

“[Kelly] was displeased because he was expecting a full breakfast and there were only pastries and cheese,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told The Post.

But it was nothing the president said, of course.

Kelly no longer hears anything the president says. Trump’s words are a kind of soothing low dog-whistle that plays in the background at all times, a sort of mosquito hum that he checks only periodically to make certain it is still complaining that anyone not from Norway would have the temerity to come to America seeking a better life, and then goes back to ignoring.

The reason Kelly shifted and bobbed uncomfortably in his seat while the president spoke about Russia and Germany, the reason Kelly wore the facial expression of someone who had hungrily devoured a mouthful of expired egg salad, was certainly not anything the president said. It was not shame or chagrin that we were saying this right in front of our allies. It is just that Kelly was enraged by cheese. And pastries!

Kelly had been insulted with a continental breakfast — Barely! Barely! — rather than a full, hot one. The organizers of this summit had clearly treated the critical problem of breakfast with scarcely more regard than this administration gives to reuniting children with their families. It had been an afterthought — or less! Kelly was right to shake with rage.

Someone had “or whatever-ed” the essential question of what Kelly might consume that morning, instead of saving this laissez-faire attitude for the fate of children, where it more properly belonged. No wonder he quivered with discomfort. No wonder he shifted gloomily in his seat as though he wished the earth to swallow him whole. No wonder he looked embarrassed and sad, like a dog in a sweater.

That expression of shock and distaste — one that normally a chief of staff might wear when the president said something that embarrassed us on the world stage and alienated our allies to no clear end — is one Kelly reserves for the thought that he will not have any access to an omelet station. Think of being denied an omelet and see if you can make any possible face other than the one Kelly made. He had no English muffins, nor any French toast.

A pastry and cheese. This was as insulting as being told your country belonged to Russia, hypothetically, if anyone had said something like that. But to Kelly’s mind, no one did.

John Kelly sat writhing in the unspeakable agony of a remembered breakfast. He is not ashamed of the president’s remarks at all.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

12 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

From the wonderful Alexandra Petri: "It was the cheese that let John Kelly down"

  Hide contents

 

That expression of shock and distaste — one that normally a chief of staff might wear when the president said something that embarrassed us on the world stage and alienated our allies to no clear end — is one Kelly reserves for the thought that he will not have any access to an omelet station. Think of being denied an omelet and see if you can make any possible face other than the one Kelly made. He had no English muffins, nor any French toast.

A pastry and cheese. This was as insulting as being told your country belonged to Russia, hypothetically, if anyone had said something like that. But to Kelly’s mind, no one did.

John Kelly sat writhing in the unspeakable agony of a remembered breakfast. He is not ashamed of the president’s remarks at all.

 

Maybe it was gas? Lactose intoleraaaaance!

[AmazonGrace]

 Narrator : he is gone in a few mooches

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Day John Kelly and Corey Lewandowski Squared Off Outside the Oval Office"

Spoiler

An argument last February between the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and Corey Lewandowski, an informal adviser to President Trump, turned into a physical altercation that required Secret Service intervention just outside the Oval Office, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the events.

The episode, details of which have not been previously reported, is the latest illustration of the often chaotic atmosphere Mr. Trump is willing to tolerate in the White House as well as a reflection of the degree to which Mr. Kelly’s temper can be provoked.

The near brawl — during which Mr. Kelly grabbed Mr. Lewandowski by the collar and tried to have him ejected from the West Wing — came at a time when the chief of staff was facing uncertainty about how long Mr. Trump would keep him in his job. A guessing game over his departure has colored his tenure ever since.

Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, was widely hailed as the lone grown-up who could corral a staff full of bombastic and competing personalities when he was appointed in summer 2017. But Mr. Kelly has shown little inclination to curb his own instinct for confrontation, from scuffling with a Chinese official during a visit to Beijing last year to last week’s profanity-laced shouting match with John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, after a meeting with the president.

White House officials declined to comment for this article. Mr. Lewandowski did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

But the altercation on Feb. 21 was among the ugliest known to have taken place in a West Wing that has been characterized by constant drama and heated skirmishes — all forms of behavior that the president has long tolerated among his aides.

While Mr. Kelly’s initial appointment was widely seen as a move to restore a sense of order, he has instead been at the center of a succession of conflicts, from his contradictory statements about Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary who left after previous allegations of domestic violence were made public, to his heated interactions with other aides.

Anthony Scaramucci, who has written a book about being Mr. Trump’s communications director for 11 days until Mr. Kelly fired him after the release of a recording of his own profanity-laced call with a reporter, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Mr. Kelly had “hurt the morale inside the place.”

“And he’s hurt the president. And he has hissy fits,” Mr. Scaramucci said, adding that “he’s demonstrating his personality now the way he really is.”

Mr. Kelly’s defenders argue that he has been effective at ridding the White House of problematic personalities, such as Omarosa Manigault Newman, and that he has put in place a degree of order that did not exist before his arrival, despite the challenges of the work environment that Mr. Trump creates. And a person who witnessed the exchange between Mr. Kelly and Mr. Bolton last week insisted there was never a shouting match as described in many accounts.

Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary, defended Mr. Kelly, who served as his senior military assistant when he was at the Pentagon, as a “fine person” and a “good Marine” who would “walk off a cliff” for people who earned his loyalty.

But, Mr. Panetta said, “there’s no question that the level of frustration must be rising if he’s getting into shouting matches and starting to really take on other people.”

“That doesn’t happen unless he is totally frustrated,” Mr. Panetta continued.

On the day Mr. Kelly grabbed Mr. Lewandowski, families of the shooting victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., were streaming into the White House for an event with the president in the East Room. Mr. Trump had both men in his office, according to those briefed on the event. Mr. Lewandowski, the president’s first campaign manager, was there for a previously scheduled appointment.

Mr. Kelly criticized Mr. Lewandowski to Mr. Trump for making so much money off the president in the form of his contract with the super PAC supporting the president’s re-election. Mr. Kelly also expressed his anger that Mr. Lewandowski had been criticizing him on television for his handling of the security clearance controversy related to Mr. Porter.

At some point, Mr. Trump took a phone call, and both men left the room, those briefed on the episode said.

As Mr. Kelly walked toward a hallway leading back to his office, he called to someone to remove Mr. Lewandowski from the building. The two then began arguing, with Mr. Lewandowski speaking loudly. Mr. Kelly grabbed Mr. Lewandowski by his collar, trying to push him against a wall, according to a person with direct knowledge of the episode.

Mr. Lewandowski did not get physical in response, according to multiple people familiar with the episode. But Secret Service agents were called in. Ultimately, the two men agreed to move on, those briefed on the episode said.

Still, people in the West Wing who learned at the time what had happened were stunned.

In the months since the altercation, Mr. Lewandowski has traveled frequently with Mr. Trump aboard Air Force One to his political rallies and has continued to meet frequently with the president in the White House, though West Wing aides now try to make sure he steers clear of Mr. Kelly’s corner of the West Wing.

He is also writing a book, “Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency,” which is scheduled to be published in the weeks after the election and which some in Mr. Trump’s circle fear will take swipes at some of his aides.

On the other hand, Mr. Kelly, who is called “the general” or “the chief” by his allies inside the West Wing, is widely seen as a diminished presence among the president’s advisers. Though Mr. Kelly has repeatedly said he expresses his honest opinions to Mr. Trump, he has shown little inclination or ability to curb some of the president’s impulses.

He is not the first chief of staff to struggle with his image inside and outside the White House: Administration observers compare Mr. Kelly to Donald T. Regan, President Reagan’s former chief of staff, who amassed power in the West Wing only to squander it in clashes with other advisers and the president’s wife.

With his legacy in mind, Mr. Kelly tends carefully to his press coverage, and keeps his eye on those he considers to be friendly to him in print and on the broader White House staff, according to multiple current and former aides. The president, who publicly maintains that his West Wing runs like a well-oiled machine, recently invited a reporter for New York magazine — along with his vice president, secretary of state and Mr. Kelly — into the Oval Office to show just how much faith he has in his chief of staff.

“There is, to the best of my knowledge, no chaos in this building,” Mr. Kelly said during that interview. “We’ve gotten rid of a few bad actors, but everyone works very, very well together.”

In July, Mr. Kelly told aides that Mr. Trump had asked him to stay on in his role until 2020, but reports of his conflicts with other staff members have continually raised questions about how long he will last. Even Mr. Trump has privately indicated to people that he was skeptical that Mr. Kelly would remain that long.

“I think John does this out of loyalty to the country,” Mr. Panetta said, “and the hope that, somehow, for all of the difficulty that he’s confronting, that somehow he’s serving a purpose.”

The president, for his part, has shown a certain reverence for men willing to engage in physical scuffles. Last fall, when Mr. Kelly was newly in his role, his willingness to engage angrily in meetings with Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who at the time was the national security adviser, thrilled Mr. Trump. The president, who did not like General McMaster, gleefully told people about the skirmishes between the two men for weeks, saying it showed how tough Mr. Kelly was, a person familiar with the discussions said.

And The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Mr. Kelly got into a physical altercation with a Chinese official trying to gain access the so-called nuclear football during Mr. Trump’s trip there last year. Axios had reported the story several months ago, but officials had denied it.

But recently, Mr. Kelly has gone from enjoying Mr. Trump’s public praise — “He has been a true star of my Administration,” the president said of Mr. Kelly last summer — to someone often sidelined by a president who believes he is his own best chief of staff.

Mr. Kelly, meanwhile, has chosen to stay in the role despite Mr. Trump’s clear interest in keeping Mr. Lewandowski around in some fashion.

“I think Trump has decided it’s really a bad marriage,” said Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers,” a history of White House chiefs of staff, “that he has decided to muddle through.”

 

[Howl]

I saw a picture recently of John Kelly walking beside Bolton, who was kind of slouching along.   Kelly is 6'3", retains his military bearing and obviously spends time at the gym. I'm fantasizing about Kelly bench pressing Stephen Miller and making him cry. 

I've always thought Bolton was a complete putz, from way back when he was (briefly) the UN Ambassador under Bush, and cringed when he came on board at the White House.  This March 2018 Time article sums him up as a complete asshole who mistreats subordinates (sucks up and kicks down), and mean as a junk yard dog. Why John Bolton Couldn't Get Confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

The Senate refused to confirm Bolton and Bush got him there by using a recess appointment. 

[AnywhereButHere]

Quote

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-clashes-with-first-lady-and-others-kelly-may-soon-exit-white-house/ar-BBPF94x?ocid=ientp

Quote

"The East Wing is very focused on the First Lady's initiatives and works independently," Grisham said in a statement to NBC News. "However, we do collaborate on a variety of projects and work alongside many departments within the west wing. We have a very positive working relationship," she said.

The first lady also took issue with Kelly over the ousting in March of her director of operations, Justin Caporale, and of John McEntee, the president's personal aide who had become close with the Trump family since working for him during the 2016 campaign, people familiar with the matter said.

The first lady liked and trusted both of them, according to current and former White House officials, and viewed forcing them out "as personal affronts."

Some people close to the president believe Kelly's handling of the East Wing at times is a significant threat to him maintaining his job.

"There's one problem John Kelly has that'll do him in, and that's the first lady," one of them said.

A White House official said the first lady has not pushed for his departure, noting that she likes Kelly personally and gets along with him. But tensions with her office, on top of his intensifying power struggle with Bolton, have reignited speculation that Trump will replace him before the end of the year.

Once again, rumors are circulating on John Kelly being resigned from his position (since in this administration resigned is just another word for fired...) Given that he's supposedly been clashing with everyone since early this year and Cheetoh Caligula isn't exactly know for his patience, I'm not sure Kelly is actually going anywhere, but hey, spin the wheel and win a prize!

[GreyhoundFan]

From the delightfully snarky Alexandra Petri: "Every John Kelly piece I’ve read for eight months, but maybe it’s real this time?"

Spoiler

I apologize, but I have read at least 30 of these, and I don’t know how to get the time back. 

In the tumultuous Trump White House, reports swirl that Chief of Staff John F. Kelly may be on his way out.

Although the president stated on the record that John Kelly was his best friend ever, that he was literally holding John Kelly’s hand as he was speaking, and that he hoped Kelly would stay until at least 2050, if not longer, because a day without Kelly was like a day without sunshine (after which he gave Kelly a noogie while Kelly laughed and said, “Oh, you”), sources painted a different picture.

Behind the scenes, all is not smooth sailing with the chief of staff, whose exit has been rumored in stories identical to this for the past year.

According to a senior staffer, Trump no longer obeys Kelly’s commands and has started to run loose through the White House grounds at night, sometimes biting the heads off small rodents and refusing to give them up even when Kelly holds out the promise of a rally at which the president won’t have to denounce any white supremacists.

Kelly is frequently frustrated, the staffer says, because his preferred issues, including Cool, Fun Things ICE Could Maybe Do, have been placed on the back burner, and although Kelly painstakingly reviews a PowerPoint presentation with the president every night before Executive Time, doing a special voice for each policy area, Trump is generally unresponsive and makes lip farts until he has finished, sometimes even addressing him as “Reince,” the ultimate sign of disrespect.

Trump no longer trusts Kelly, a staffer confirmed, and to get the president’s attention, Kelly has reportedly resorted to arriving at meetings on a scooter, claiming Vladimir Putin is on the phone and throwing pieces of steak across the room. The president has further strained his relationship with Kelly by hiding television remotes around the White House so Kelly cannot take them all away from him. When Kelly tries to build Policy Time into his schedule, Trump runs down the clock of a two-hour meeting by telling a long-winded story that turns out to be the plot of an infomercial aired on Fox Business at 3 a.m., then demanding immediate action on it.

Kelly is only staying, one senior official confirmed, because he feels he can still make certain immigrants’ lives hell and believes so strongly in the administration’s mission of wanton cruelty that he is willing to bear almost any indignity.

Trump has also taken Kelly’s cherished conch and smashed his glasses, and he is letting Roger Stone throw small rocks at him from a distance, according to the same senior staffer, who said he would stake his life, his fortune and his sacred name on Kelly’s guaranteed exodus, on background.

One person familiar with West Wing goings-on who sounds a lot like Stephen K. Bannon, and I won’t say for sure is not Stephen K. Bannon, insisted that things in the White House were literally worse than they had ever been and that Kelly was sure to be beheaded within the hour, like Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII. Also the source wanted me to note that Stephen K. Bannon is doing something different and much better with his hair and is in, just, a really good place and soon even Jared and Ivanka will notice that they need him.

Kelly is barely keeping it together, according to another senior official, and the only thing that keeps him motivated is shouting F-bombs at an effigy of John Bolton each night until he is so exhausted he drops to the floor in a swoon, murmuring, “I don’t know that I can take much more of this,” as dreamless slumber claims him.

“He is not going anywhere, and Donald Trump gives thanks every day to God for putting a man like General Kelly in his path,” a White House spokesman said on the record while off-the-record screaming could be heard from inside the Oval Office before Kelly was flung through a plate-glass window, exited the grounds shaking his fist and vowed that he was done, done for good this time.

 

[Howl]

Heh, John Kelly will be out but James Ayers (Pence's Chief of Staff) realizes that Everything Trump Touches Dies, is resigning at the end of the year and moving to Georgia to (likely) work on the Trump re-election campaign.  Apparently, he and his wife are the parents of new triplets, so yeah.  He's seen what Kelly experienced, won't go there, and is fleeing a sinking ship.  Apparently, he's ambitious to the point of arrogance, but at least has the common sense to put distance between himself and the Trump admin. 

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

Heh, John Kelly will be out but James Ayers (Pence's Chief of Staff) realizes that Everything Trump Touches Dies, is resigning at the end of the year and moving to Georgia to (likely) work on the Trump re-election campaign.  Apparently, he and his wife are the parents of new triplets, so yeah.  He's seen what Kelly experienced, won't go there, and is fleeing a sinking ship.  Apparently, he's ambitious to the point of arrogance, but at least has the common sense to put distance between himself and the Trump admin. 

If he knows everybody who comes in contact with Trump turns to puke, then why is he going to work on his re-election?

I wondering if he isn't going to keep working for Pence under cover for Pence's 2020 run.

[Howl]

13 hours ago, Howl said:

Apparently, he and his wife are the parents of new triplets, so yeah. 

I just remembered this morning, this is just a variation of resigning to "spend more time with his family."  Heh. 

 

11 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

I wondering if he isn't going to keep working for Pence under cover for Pence's 2020 run.

The speculation was that he was going to work for a Trump re-election super PAC.  This would be where the $$$ would be for Ayers, or else he'll be back to running his own business as a political consultant and strategist, where there's also big $$$.

As the Trump dumpster fire goes five alarm, he'll be safely sequestered in GA, but still be seen as a loyalist. 

We haven't seen the last of this guy; he's the essence of GOP Blond Ambition. He knows that Trump is going down and Pence is a maybe (may be torpedoed, may be a turd that floats to the top of the bowl) and act accordingly. 

 

Edited December 10, 2018 by Howl

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"John Kelly and the myth of the ‘adult in the room’"

Spoiler

President Trump always seemed like he was collecting generals the way some children collect Barbie dolls — not necessarily because he liked interacting with them but because he liked having them, all lined up in their best outfits, ready to be admired by popular world leaders who might come for a play date. Here is my National Security Adviser. Here are my Secretary of Defense and my Chief of Staff.

He likes men in uniform, their titles and stripes. He likes the act of saluting and never seems to have more of an attention span than while doing it himself, at George H.W. Bush’s casket, or a Bastille Day celebration in France, or in Singapore to meet dictator Kim Jong Un where he returned a North Korean general’s salute in a way that appeared more reflexive than treasonous: The man had epaulets, so Trump saluted him.

He likes these men, and he admires them, and then something happens. He realizes they’re not playthings? He discovers their elbows aren’t bent in permanent salute? And then we land in a situation like Saturday, when Trump announced that his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, a retired Marine general, would be stepping down.

If you can remember back to Kelly’s appointment, six thousand years ago in 2017, the event was met with hopefulness bordering on fan fiction. “The kind of discipline he’s going to bring is important,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told CNN. “He will bring some plain-spoken discipline,” The Washington Post offered. It quoted an anonymous friend of Kelly’s who heralded the appointment as “the end of the chaos.” He would be — as Washington’s most favored way of describing non-Trumpish White House employees would have it — the adult in the room.

After Trump’s infamous “very fine people” comments regarding the violent 2017 alt-right rally in Charlottesville, a photo circulated of Kelly listening to the remarks, arms folded and head bowed. This body language, perhaps typical of any human listening to any speech, was presented online as evidence of his disapproval and his noble adult-in-the-room status.

In July another image circulated, of Kelly glowering into his plate at a NATO summit: Trump, down the table, had just accused Germany of being under Russia’s thumb. While the White House’s explanation was nonsensical — Kelly “was displeased because he was expecting a full breakfast and there were only pastries and cheese” — the response from Kelly-believers was just as fantastic. Behold: Kelly, the disciplined chaos-ender, was registering his disappointment with the entire administration in the form of a mournful staring contest with flatware.

It’s amazing how many of us are like Trump when it comes to older men in uniform. We automatically assume they’re altruistic and trustworthy. We automatically assume they’re infallible.

Amid tumult and partisanship, Kelly was appointed, and here was an upstanding father-figure for us all, ready to take on rancor, sloppiness and general ineptitude. He could fix things. He had epaulets.

As his tenure progressed, of course, he couldn’t bring discipline. Nobody could. There’s simply no way to enforce structure on a commander in chief who apparently abhors it.

And as Kelly’s tenure progressed, it also became clear that he couldn’t bring an end to rancor and controversy either. Because, it turns out, he brought controversy with him.

In the course of his 16-month appointment, Kelly defended the policy of separating migrant families at the U.S. border because, he said, the children could go to “foster care or whatever.” He spread an untruth about Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) and then refused to apologize or recant. When White House staffer Rob Porter was accused of domestic violence — accompanied by photos of his ex’s horrifically bruised face — news leaked that Kelly had known about the allegations for months before they became public and privately urged Porter to stay in the job.

I wonder if we get distracted by epaulets. And by epaulets, I’m really thinking of the things that accompany them: a steadfast demeanor. A dignified poker face. A man who looks like he could be your father or your friend’s father.

Because when a person has these things, it’s easy to confuse being “the adult in the room” with a set of behaviors instead of a set of principles. Being the real adult in the room means acting with nuance, compassion and humility — and admitting the times when you’ve failed to do so. It doesn’t mean doing bad things in a really dignified way.

It’s possible that in a few years, Kelly will join the lecture circuit, write a tell-all memoir, and reveal a hundred ways in which he helped America avert crises, in which he saved an impulsive president from his worst instincts. He was a hero in his military career; perhaps he was a hero in the White House, too. He certainly seemed to approach the role from a place of public service.

But meanwhile, let’s be careful about how much we preemptively applaud the next adult in the room. No matter how impressive the résumé or the uniform, no matter how official and reassuring they look. Sometimes, an adult in the room just provides the veneer of maturity that helps a toddler in the room get away with everything.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

Is it an Onion article or is Chris Cristie going to be the last man standing for Trump's CoS?  Everybody else sees the position (with good reason) as totally radioactive. 

[AmazonGrace]

How about the Mooch? 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Ayers has some shady deals because of course he has

 

[onekidanddone]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

How about the Mooch? 

 

Didn't need the rigidity of a military man eh? So what did Trump need? The bat poop crazy, flaming pile of excrement, Daffy Duck insane, Jerry Springer contestant, washed up Z list celebrity nutter, like the Mooch?  Yea Mooch we see how long you lasted.

It looks like he is begging for the job.

Edited December 11, 2018 by onekidanddone

[Howl]

The Mooch is so......moochy.  How does anything he says have any relevance?  It's the power of the Tweet, I guess and the MSM's gullibility and greed for viewers leading them to give him some kind of platform. 

[AmazonGrace]

Everyone wants to be my chief of staff! I can have more chiefs ofs staffs than anybody! I can change chiefs ofs staffs faster than Obama! I am super popular! 

 

[Howl]

Chris Christie would be insane to take the CoS job if it's offered to him.  Trump would shit on him every second of every day and make his life a living hell.  That said, it could go one of two ways. Christie would stress eat from Day 1, gaining more weight, which would send Trump into overdrive on daily humiliations, or Christie would be too stressed to eat, becoming a shadow of his former self.  Neither of those scenarios sound good to me.  Run, Chris, run!