After Kelly is shown the door, Ayers emerges as his likely replacement
John Kelly, the chief of staff for US President Donald Trump, will exit this month end as part of a continuing churn of White House personnel that has reached unparalleled levels.
Trump announced Kelly’s upcoming departure while speaking to reporters before leaving the city, confirming what was being widely anticipated over the past few days.
“John Kelly will be leaving. I don’t know if I can say retiring,” Trump said, adding that will be leaving at the end of the year. “We’ll be announcing who will be taking John’s place,” he said.
Nicky Ayers, currently chief of staff for vice-president Mike Pence, leads the race with the reported backing of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who are said to have been responsible for Kelly’s ouster.
Kelly had tried to regulate Ivanka and Kushner’s access to the president as he sought to bring discipline to what he felt was a chaotic White House.
Kelly is Trump’s second chief of staff, hauled over from the department of homeland security to replace Reince Priebus, a top Republican party official who never quite gained the president’s trust.
Routine departures from the White House started within weeks of the US president’s inauguration in January 2017.
Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was the first to go, after barely three weeks in office. Recent high-profile exits include US ambassador to UN Nikki Haley, attorney general Jeff Sessions.
“President Trump is breaking records,” said an analysis by Brookings, a US think-tank, with reference to the departures from top positions in the Trump administration. “Ten (or 83 percent) of the most senior-ranking White House advisers have departed,” the analysis said.
According to the think-tank, at this stage of the presidency, with two years under the belt, Ronald Reagan (in office from 1981-1989) had a turnover of 59%; while George H W Bush had an incredibly low turnover of 17%.
Bill Clinton, who was president from 1993-2001, had sent out over half of his staff by that stage, recording 58%. George W Bush, who was president from 20012009, was quite loyal to them, recording a turnover of 17%.
Barack Obama, who was president from 2008-2016, secured an attrition rate of 41%.
Other personnel changes in the Trump administration have included multiple White House communications directors and national security advisers, White House press secretary, secretary of state, White House counsel, head of the department of homeland security and chief economic advisers.