Reince Priebus has been fired. How do I know? Trump announced his replacement in a tweet, of course.
I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017
Isn’t this administration professional?
In other fun news, Anthony Scaramucci’s wife, Deidre Ball, has filed for divorce, citing his excessive ambition and connection to Donald Trump.
It’s like everything The Donald touches turns to ashes and slime. Or is it just that ashes and slime are attracted to The Donald?
If true(!), the whole divorce thing is *amazing* in a (very) weird way.
Has any other previous American administration had this much firings in such a short amount of time (less than a year)?
Why do people still want to work for him? Isn’t it obvious by now how he treats people?
My only hope at this point is for the Joint Chiefs to stage a coup in Washington, along with the deportation, imprisonment and execution of the traitorous group known as the Trump Mafia. But I’m not holding my breath.
Moochylini announced he would fire “three or four” other WH employees today.
Who are the other two or three?
Worst. Superpower. Ever.
LykeX @3: First, personal charm. The Donald will say the things you want to hear in order to get you to work for him. “It was the other guy”, “I only said those things to get the vote, I really believe in the other thing”, “I meant those things, but the other guys stopped me from doing them”, etc. We see him doing it on the TV and it’s not as effective, partly because we don’t believe him, and partly because we’re not in the room with him so it’s not directed at us, so he can’t do the little social monkey things that make us want to agree with him. On the other hand, what he does on TV does work on some people, alas.
Secondly, greed. Someone with their hands on the reigns of power who promises — or appears to promise — to give you some of that power, well, maybe that’s what you want to hear. Even if you don’t trust him as far as you can throw him, just putting you in the position temporarily will enable you to meet people, steal things, do things that you can’t normally. If you’re a complete sociopath, even being abused actively by the man won’t necessarily put you off, you’ll just put up with it as long as it’s useful, you’ll let him sack you and then go on to other things.
Poor Mooch. Guess he’ll have to take some yoga classes from Steve Bannon now.
I was thinking of something else a little more scatalogical.
coreyschlueter @ #2 — I bet someone is keeping a tally that could be compared to previous presidents. Some that have left have “resigned,” of course, rather than be fired but you know how that goes. Here’s a quick list: Sally Yates, James Comey, Preet Bharara, Angela Reid, Chris Christie, Mike Flynn, Monica Crowley, Sean Spicer, and now Reince Priebus.
Pierce R. Butler @ #5 — “Who are the other two or three?” Bannon is one of them. Scaramucci had some ugly things to say about him in the Lizza interview. Jeff Sessions’s head is on the block, also Tom Price (H&HS Secty), and Nicki Haley. Robert Mueller is clearly in T-beau’s sights, and he may have to fire Rod Rosenstein to do it. There are even rumors that DT-Jr and Eric are on the bubble. Rumors circulated last week that Rex Tillerson my leave, which could be legitimate or T-beau testing the waters.
Is the POTUS chief of staff that important a position? I thought it was something like a glorified personal assistant – manage the POTUS schedule, stand in for the President for certain meetings… To go from Secretary in charge of one of the branches of the Administration to Chief of Staff sounds to me like a demotion. Am I missing something?
Still, given his history of opposition to closing Guantanamo and cracking down on immigration, maybe it’s for the best that someone else will be heading Homeland Security.
We do not know the contents of Deirdre Ball’s divorce application or what it cites. The linked article quotes two anonymous sources. With quotes that make it unlikely that the sources are at all close to Deirdre Ball. This puts it on the level of the average gossip mag article.
Closing with “Ball could not immediately be reached and a rep for ‘The Mooch’ didn’t comment” says it all, really.
daemonios: my understanding is that the Chief of Staff effectively controls who has access to the president, and thus has influence that far outstrips the nominal powers of the office.
The Reverse Midas.
The CoS not only controls access to the Prez, but runs the Executive Office of the President. This is a business with a staff on the order of 4000-5000 people. Many in EOPOTUS are policy experts, so they are effectively researching and setting the agenda of the President on a lot of levels. Most of them are not required to have Senate confirmation.
Within EOPOTUS, the CoS is responsible for the White House Office which is about 150 people. This staff manages the daily affairs of the White House, of course, and they are the folks that know what’s going on from the inside.
Priebus and Kelly have a tough job, I suspect. There are a lot of loose cannons around Trump, especially Trump himself but also Bannon, Kelly Ann, and obviously Scaramucci. It’s difficult enough to research and determine recommendations for policy positions, implement programs, and work with Congress when everyone is onboard. When the president himself Tweets an ad hoc policy position in the middle of the night, all bets are off.
The degree of leaks (there are always some leaks) are a sign of dissatisfaction and dysfunction. Kelly and Scaramucci can fire everyone if they want but by the time they get restaffed and retrained, which could take months, they will be right back where they started.
Well, shit.
I cannot believe I’m saying this but Priebus was the most reasonable person there so I expect more implosions to come.
Also strangely, I’ve become addicted to following this dysfunctional soap opera of presidency. Makes game of thrones look like a well-managed Kingdome in comparison.
As the Liberal Redneck put it, Trump has a bizarro Midas Touch. Everything he touches turns to shit.
Not Mattis? Let’s be clear here: Mattis has next-to-nothing going for him except he does not seem to be a hair furoriod, albeit be does seem to be dalek. He’s ordered weddings to be bombed, he’s said it’s fun to shoot people, and so on. And whilst he agreed to be hair furor’s war minister, and was approved by a 98–1 charade by the billionaires auxiliary, he does not strike me as having the same level of absolute craven toadiness as Priebus or the rest of the thugs & dalekocracy.
Re: LykeX (#3):
It’s a (shortish) window of opportunity to fill your coffers. It may cost you your integrity, dignity and any semblence of a good reputation you may have had, but if your purse is sufficiently heavy noone will care about that.
In fact, while writing this it occurs to me that the US government has effectively been turned into a gameshow. The longer you stay in the game, the more cash you win.
Re: Joey Maloney (#13):
If memory serves, Midas was cursed by Bacchus for being an annoying and greedy twit. What on earth do you have to say to that guy to be rewarded by him by being turned into someone like Trump?
“Why do people still want to work for him?”
Scary Moocher will get a *HUGE* tax break if Trumpelstiltskin hires him. He sold his company and he will have to pay a very large tax unless he can claim that he had to sell to avoid a conflict of interest.
What a shit-show. It’s amusing in a very dark sort of way, but wow. Wow. A total clusterfuck.
We’re doomed.
DOOMED.