Trump says John Kelly to leave White House post by end of year
The tribe has spoken!
John Kelly, President Trump’s chief of staff, is leaving the administration after months of rumors about his imminent departure.
Trump said Saturday that Kelly would step down by the end of the year.
“John Kelly will be leaving—I don’t know if I can say ‘retiring.’ But, he’s a great guy,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “John Kelly will be leaving toward the end of the year, at the end of the year.”
Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, struggled to bring discipline to the Trump administration throughout his time at the White House.
The president, 72, chafed as the chief of staff, 68, tried to manage Trump’s schedule and control fighting among competing factions at the White House.
Kelly took the job in July 2017, moving from the Department of Homeland Security, where he was secretary, when Reince Priebus flamed out as chief of staff out after just six months.
Kelly immediately infuriated Trump loyalists by tightly restricting their access to the Oval Office, where the boss had held an open-door policy.
And Kelly had a hard time hiding his distaste for some of Trump’s public actions—like the time Kelly made a facepalm when Trump called North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “Rocket Man” in a 2017 speech before the U.N. General Assembly.
Still, Kelly frequently appeared as Trump’s representative at sensitive moments like Sen. John McCain’s September funeral, where Trump was not welcome, and a World War I ceremony at the Belleau Wood battlefield in France last month.
Kelly heatedly defended the president at several points, most memorably in October 2017, when Trump’s condolence call to the widow of an Army sergeant killed in action was criticized by the press.
It’s not unusual for a president to take stock of his staff halfway through his first term.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was bounced just hours after Election Day, when Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives. He’d endured months of blistering public criticism from Trump for recusing himself from the investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
But the Trump administration has seen a perhaps unprecedented level of turnover. Nearly 40 high-level officials have passed through the executive branch’s revolving door over the past two years.
Nikki Haley resigned as US ambassador to the UN in October.
But most other ex-Trump officials were forced out, with varying degrees of dignity.
Trump fired Rex Tillerson as secretary of state by tweet in March, and James Comey, a holdover from the Obama administration, learned of his firing from live TV while he was giving a speech in May 2017.
Ex-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt got the boot amid national scandal. He was fired in July as investigations of improper travel and other alleged ethics violations were underway.
In announcing Kelly’s departure as he made his way to the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Trump did not name a successor.
But media reports say Nick Ayers, the current top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, is a leading candidate.
Ayers, a 36-year-old Republican operative, could bring the kind of political savvy Kelly lacked.
As for the next official to be kicked off Trump Island, all eyes are on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen—a close ally of Kelly’s.
Trump has fumed over her handling of immigration, blaming her for a spike in illegal border crossings in October.
But her tougher stance in recent weeks, including efforts to hold back migrant caravans may have won her immunity —for now.