Incredibly, the first official duty of the new chief of staff was to get rid of someone else the president wouldn’t fire himself, Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived White House communications director. The day he was sworn in, John Kelly told Scaramucci his eleven-day tenure was finished. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d have to deliver bad news that Trump wouldn’t.
Kelly’s ascent to the White House was generally met with optimism, albeit with pockets of trepidation from those who sensed he wasn’t as politically astute as others on the team. Regardless, officials prayed for a new sense of order. They got it for a time. Access to the president was more tightly controlled, preventing unnecessary distractions. The day became more structured. The new chief of staff was also willing to be frank with the president when Trump lurched toward a bad decision. As a result, the anxiety level went down a few notches, and a false sense of security set in.
Kelly also tried to curb ad-hoc decision making and spontaneous presidential directives. John told agency heads he was establishing a system to make sure the president heard all sides of a debate so he could make informed choices. That usually required pleading for time with the commander in chief so that a subject could be considered at lower levels of government and fleshed out into a set of sensible options.
Afghanistan was a prime example. Donald Trump announced before his presidency that the United States should pull out of this “total disaster” and “endless” war. Once in office, he didn’t seem interested in contrary opinions. Security officials feared that pulling out suddenly would plunge Afghanistan back into chaos, and they urged him not to make a wartime decision right away. They persuaded him to wait. In the meantime, a process was put in place to develop options, which were battle-tested by the national security team.
Toward the end of the summer, a special Camp David retreat was organized to walk the president through the proposals. Trump was starting to allow Kelly to manage the process—and to manage him. The results were atypical. The team laid out the pros and cons of each option over the course of an hours-long discussion. Trump asked tough questions, and he got nuanced answers. The conversation was mostly cool-headed, organized, and rational. It was everything other decisions hadn’t been. In the end, the president agreed to a more thoughtful strategy focused on a long-term solution, rather than immediate withdrawal or capitulation to the murderous Taliban regime. Steady Staters silently declared victory. Maybe the administration could be stabilized after all.
Of course, as we all feared, the newfound sense of order didn’t last long. Trump grew to despise the insinuation that he needed to be managed at all and began circumventing the new structures that had been put in place. As spring 2018 rolled around, the president agitated for additional personnel changes in his still-young administration. Top advisors were forced to spend inordinate time persuading the president not to fire fellow members of his team, usually the ones who were more comfortable telling him “No.” Over time, a feeling of insecurity returned to the administration, and the Steady State recognized that Trump’s demeanor couldn’t be moderated.
It got harder and harder to convince the president to avoid reckless decisions. Improving the “process” wasn’t a durable solution. It was just a wet Band-Aid that wouldn’t hold together a gaping wound. We realized as year two wore on that we couldn’t rely on any system to instill in the president the leadership traits he’d never developed. We returned to running interference against gross impulsivity, confronting each third-rate presidential contrivance as it came and trying to make the best of it.
Senior advisors and cabinet-level officials pondered a mass resignation, a “midnight self-massacre,” as noted earlier, to draw the public’s attention to the disarray. At any given time during the Trump administration, there are at least a handful of top aides on the brink of resigning, either out of principle or exhaustion. Several departure timelines appeared to be converging in 2018, creating the possibility for a simultaneous walkout to prove our point about the president’s faltering administration. Every time this was contemplated, it was rejected. The move was deemed too risky because it would shake public confidence and destabilize an already teetering government. We also didn’t want to litter the executive branch with vacancies. Maybe, we thought, it could still get better. It didn’t. It went downhill, and the vacancies followed anyway.
Disaffected officials were picked off by the president, one by one. Trump is adept at identifying anyone with an independent streak who might challenge him. Others departed of their own accord. The ranks of experienced leaders started thinning fast. Economic advisor Gary Cohn announced his resignation shortly after the one-year mark. Then the president fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Then he forced out national security advisor H. R. McMaster, followed by homeland security advisor Tom Bossert. Then UN ambassador Nikki Haley said she was resigning. Then the president fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Then he announced that John Kelly would be out the door soon. Then Jim Mattis resigned. And with the New Year approaching, more heads were reported to be on the chopping block.
As 2018 came to a close, the president could scarcely find a replacement chief of staff. Trump was in crisis mode when his first and only choice for the job, Pence aide Nick Ayers, declined. Once Ayers was out, Trump turned to Chris Christie. After Christie showed disinterest, Trump finally settled on budget director Mick Mulvaney, but only in an “acting” capacity. Such is life in the Trump White House that what is usually the most coveted and powerful staff job in Washington cannot be reliably filled and, when it is, only by a temporary figure. Smart candidates know that the president’s whims become his chief’s life, and the person is never really in charge. Trump’s children are his chiefs of staff. Random Fox News hosts are his chiefs of staff. Everyone is the chief of staff but the chief of staff. It’s no wonder people aren’t jumping at the opportunity.
The high rate of turnover was a direct result of the president’s leadership. He ejected people who were willing to stand up to him. He got bored with officials who weren’t dynamic enough or didn’t defend him on television. Some escaped the administration because of policy differences, and still others departed to avoid what they perceived to be an inevitably sinking ship. For certain people, it was a combination of all of these factors. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security advisor, saved the president many times from irresponsible decisions but grew weary of the turbulence and Trump’s fumbling in foreign policy. He resigned of his own volition, but the president still tried to make it look like a firing.
Trump is not bothered by an administration strewn with vacancies. In fact, he says, it’s good to have “acting” officials in the top slots. “My ‘actings’ are doing really great,” he told reporters. “I sort of like ‘acting.’ It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like ‘acting.’ So we have a few that are ‘acting.’ We have a great, great cabinet.” Translation: Acting officials are less inclined to ask questions and more inclined to do what they are told. This best explains the slow but systematic purge of the Steady State. With the guardrails disappearing, the road ahead looked all the more ominous.
“God grant that men of principle be our principal men,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote.
Good people are needed in government to administer our laws. But the Founders did not want us to put our faith in them exclusively. Public servants are corruptible and expendable. As we will discuss later, that’s why the Founders proposed a system of checks and balances, so that negative human impulses would be ameliorated and the power of one branch would be kept in line by another.