Politics

With John Kelly said to be on his way out, Trump is considering who will be next White House chief of staff

Discussing the possibility of John Kelly's White House exit
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Discussing the possibility of John Kelly's White House exit

With John Kelly’s tenure as White House chief of staff possibly winding down, President Donald Trump has been consulting with some of his advisers on who should succeed Kelly in that post, a source familiar with the situation said on Thursday.

Kelly, a retired general, is nearing a year in the job and could be leaving soon, the source said.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told reporters aboard Air Force One on the president’s flight to Washington from Milwaukee that both Trump and Kelly had denied that Kelly was on his way out.

Trump called the report “fake news” and Kelly said that “this was news to him,” she said.

Trump has occasionally chafed at the restrictions Kelly has placed on who gets access to see him and has wondered aloud whether he needs someone with more political experience for the job as congressional elections approach, two sources said.

But he frequently praises Kelly publicly and has expressed admiration of him.

The Trump White House has generated major turnover since he took office in January 2017.

Figures compiled by Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University scholar who researches White House transitions and staffing, said Trump had the highest turnover of top-tier staff of any recent president at the 17-month mark.

The figures for losses among designated high-level staff were 61 percent for Trump, compared with 14 percent for President Barack Obama and 5 percent for George W. Bush, her studies found.