WASHINGTON — With President Donald Trump searching for his third chief of staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel — President Barack Obama’s first chief-of-staff — wrote that whoever replaces the departing John Kelly “won’t really be the chief of staff, even if that’s what it says on his door; Trump is unwilling to give anyone the authority they would need to perform that job.”
Emanuel’s essay in The Atlantic, posted Monday, came after the presumed frontrunner to replace Kelly, White House staffer Nick Ayers — who ran Gov. Bruce Rauner’s first campaign — dropped out.
Emanuel’s points:
What Trump needs, with the looming Mueller probes coming to a head and the re-election campaign gearing up: “A chief of staff who can reassert control over cabinet agencies, containing these potential scandals minimizing the potential for more, regardless of whether he or she has an interesting take on the latest polling out of Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“To survive, Trump will need a true wartime consigliere — someone capable of managing the substantive, political, and public-relations challenges of what is likely to be an incredibly damaging set of allegations. There’s no reason to believe that true wisdom about when to stand tall and when to duck coincides with the capacity to conjure up quippy dog whistles. In moments of chaos, the White House will need a steady hand.”
Trump won’t change: “We should stop asking who’s finally going to get Donald Trump under control. No one is. Self-discipline is not in the guy’s DNA. This is a White House unlike any other, and it will be for at least another two years. Kelly’s replacement won’t really be the chief of staff, even if that’s what it says on his door; Trump is unwilling to give anyone the authority they would need to perform that job.”
Best to hope for: “But with Trump unlikely to choose the chief of staff he needs for this moment, what’s important is that the next chief of staff be unusually good at protecting the rest of us from the president’s penchant for self-destruction. That, more than anything else, should be the primary gauge of his or her success. To whomever gets the job, I simply say, ‘Godspeed.'”