Troubles past and future hinder Trump’s search for chief of staff
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s troubled search for his third chief of staff reflects the sharp decline in power and appeal of a job that long was among the most prestigious in politics — either the capstone for a prominent career or a launching point for one.
But as with so much Trump touches, he has changed that calculus.
The disruptive president has made clear he prefers to operate as his own chief of staff, rebuffing attempts to streamline White House communications and decision-making as he goes his own way. That makes filling the highprofile post especially difficult.
Both Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff, and his replacement, John F. Kelly, were mauled by the experience, battered and belittled as a frequent target of Trump’s ire. Trump announced Saturday that Kelly “will be leaving — I don’t know if I can say ‘retiring’” at the end of the year.
“Both have been humiliated publicly,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a researcher at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution who studies White House staffing issues. “The position under Trump will never be what it was with other administrations, given his impulsiveness and inability to delegate to others.”
The chief of staff, a political appointment that does not require Senate approval, traditionally serves as gatekeeper to the Oval Office and enforcer for the White House staff as it tries to deliver on the president’s legislative and political agenda.
Over the decades — President Harry S. Truman first appointed a senior deputy in 1946 — the job has drawn officials with stature.
“Trump simply hasn’t turned in those directions because of how unusual and how different he is,” said David Gergen, a top adviser to presidents in both parties since Richard Nixon in the 1970s. “He’s his own chief of staff, just like he’s his own secretary of state and his own Treasury secretary.”
Gergen said it’s surprising Trump would let Kelly go without a replacement ready while the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has the potential to inflict great damage on the president.
“To have a lame duck chief of staff who will be out the door trying to manage the response and counterattack will be very difficult,” he said.
Under Trump, however, the chief of staff’s job has become “pointless, an exercise in futility,” said a former White House official.
“No rational qualified person would jeopardize their reputation,” said the former official, who requested anonymity to avoid upsetting his employer and relationships in the administration. “And you just can’t manage” Trump.
Trump’s first choice to replace Kelly, Nick Ayers, abruptly withdrew his name over the weekend and will leave the White House to return to his home in Georgia and work on Trump’s re-election campaign.
Since Ayers is chief of staff to Vice President Pence, his impending departure — as well as Kelly’s — will leaves two gaping holes near the top of the White House lineup, portending further turmoil in an administration that already has seen record-breaking staff turnover.
Ayers’ appointment had appeared so certain that aides prepared an official press release last week, according to a White House official who asked for anonymity to discuss internal planning. Trump also alerted Pence to the plan.
The official said Ayers worried about the growing threat to Trump from the investigation led by Mueller and a related federal probe in Manhattan, which last week said Trump — identified as Individual 1 — had directed an illegal scheme to pay hush money during the 2016 election.
“Ayers didn’t want to be chief of staff to Individual 1 and get walked all over once Kelly left,” the official said.
Ayers told Trump he would take the job for a few months but Trump wanted him to remain until the 2020 election, according to another White House official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Normally, an ambitious operative like Ayers, 36, would have jumped at the chance to be White House chief of staff, historically a career builder that has catapulted powerful officials into even more powerful positions.