Ivanka Trump is shopping for a replacement for Chief of Staff John Kelly, Vanity Fair reported, as his relationship with President Trump has soured, even more in recent days.
‘I’ve got another nut job here who thinks he’s running things,’ Trump told one friend, who in turn told a Republican source that Vanity Fair talked to. ‘This guy thinks he’s running the show,’ Trump reportedly told another pal.
Trump is known for getting especially steamed when his staff members try to make themselves out to be the adults in the room, while suggesting the president is spending his time tweeting and watching TV.
Vanity Fair reported that Ivanka Trump is assisting her father in finding a replacement for Chief of Staff John Kelly (pictured), on the heels of him telling members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus President Trump was ‘not informed’ on the border wall
Both President Trump (left) and Ivanka Trump (right) have asked people for advice on replacing Chief of Staff John Kelly, Vanity Fair reported Monday. Though the magazine’s sources did not expect his ouster to occur anytime soon
During last week’s heated immigration debate, Kelly did that and more, by describing the president’s view on the proposed U.S.-Mexican border wall as ‘not informed,’ and suggested his position was ‘evolving’ to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The New York Times, which described the riff, said the president was initially ‘calm,’ but soon believed Kelly had undermined him.
Now Vanity Fair is openly questioning if the two men’s relationship has gone beyond the point of no return.
Two prominent Republican sources told the magazine that Trump has discussed Kelly’s successor, asking a friend what he thought of David Urban, a GOP lobbyist who assisted Trump’s presidential campaign, helping the candidate in the swing stage of Pennsylvania, which he won.
At the same time, first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump is taking a prominent role.
‘Ivanka is the most worried about it,’ a source who talked to the first daughter said to Vanity Fair. ‘She’s trying to figure who replaces Kelly.’
Sources also told the magazine that Kelly won’t be out by the end of the week, or anything like that.
‘He wants to stay longer than Reince,’ an outside adviser told Vanity Fair.
Reince Priebus, the president’s first chief of staff and a former Republican National Committee chair, started alongside Trump last January and was out on the last day of July, the day Kelly was sworn in.
The politics of Trump having another high-level staff departure also look bleak.
‘This could be like Sessions,’ one Republican explained.
Trump has long considered getting rid of his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, over the former senator’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe, but so far Sessions has remained.
But while Sessions has seemingly tried to get back into the president’s good graces, Kelly’s attitude has remained unchanged.
As the New York Times described, Kelly often is ‘positioning himself as a one-man check against dangerous or reckless moves by the commander in chief,’ as he says his loyalty is not to this particular executive, but to the Constitution.
Kelly has managed the president, not by taking away his phone so he cannot tweet, but rather by strictly enforcing which aides get face time with Trump each day.
‘I was put in the job to make sure the staff process better informs him on a range of issues,’ the chief of staff said on Fox News.
He’s also worked hard to manage the flow of news and information into the Oval Office.
‘I have said many times I was not put in this job to change the way the president of the United States does business,’ Kelly also said.
The White House has pushed back on Vanity Fair’s reporting saying there’s no beef between Kelly and Trump.
‘[I]t’s categorically false that Trump is unhappy with Kelly,’ a spokesperson said.
Kelly, too, has said, ‘I am in this for the long haul.’
‘It is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life,’ said the retired general and ex-secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to Fox’s Bret Baier. ‘Because if the administration fails, if the president of the United States is uninformed one time and makes the wrong decision, that’s on me.’