President Trump announced on Saturday that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was leaving. The two men had very different styles<\/b>
\nPresident Donald Trump is losing his chief of staff, John Kelly, after a difficult \u2014 some say failed \u2014 16-month stint to try and bring order to a chaotic West Wing.
\u201cHe\u2019ll not be remembered as a great chief of staff and maybe not even a good one simply because he failed to control the administration\u2019s worst impulses,\u201d said Mike Carpenter, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense until early last year. \u201cSo those are now his worst policies. He\u2019s associated with them for better or worse.\u201d
Trump made the announcement on the South Lawn of the White House before departing Saturday for the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. He said he would announce a replacement soon.
\u201cJohn Kelly will be leaving \u2014 I don\u2019t know if I can say \u2018retiring,\u2019\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut he\u2019s a great guy. John Kelly will be leaving at the end of the year.\u201d
Trump frequently referred to Kelly as one of \u201cmy generals\u201d and recruited the retired four-star Marine Corps general to the White House in July 2017 after serving as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Kelly quickly became a star for Trump, who showered Kelly with praise for his work to help reduce immigration to the lowest levels in years.
His charge was to bring order to a West Wing that was besieged with chaos and disorder. Many staffers expressed relief about his appointment and welcomed his calls to install military order. He was preceeded by former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.
On his first day in the White House, Kelly fired Anthony Scaramucci, the communications director hired only 11 days before, after he made vulgar criticism against other members of the president\u2019s staff, including Priebus, and Stephen K. Bannon, then the chief White House strategist.
Trump had previously said Kelly would serve as his chief of staff through 2020, but their differences became too much. Kelly\u2019s buttoned-up style clashed with Trump\u2019s free-wheeling, open door preferences.
Kelly reportedly offered Trump his resignation earlier this year after allowing his former staff secretary Rob Porter to remain at the White House even after Porter\u2019s ex-wives accused him of domestic abuse. Porter later resigned amid photos of his ex-wife with a black eye.
In October, Kelly and Trump\u2019s national security adviser, John Bolton, reportedly got into a shouting match over immigration, border crossings and the performance of the Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, a former deputy of Kelly who he supported to replace him at the department.
Nicholas Rostow, who served as a national security aide to George W. Bush, said Kelly had a good military reputation and credited Kelly with restoring order to the degree he could, but he said it was unclear whether the two ever had the right chemistry.
\u201cThis president\u2019s not the easiest guy to work for,\u201d Rostow said.
Carpenter described Kelly\u2019s job as \u201cmission impossible,\u201d but said now Kelly\u2019s legacy will be tied to the White House and Trump\u2019s most controversial policies. Those include separating migrant children from their parents at the border and diplomatic mishaps such as his stunning rebuke of U. S. intelligence during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump questioned U. S. government\u2019s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying he doesn\u2019t \u201csee any reason why\u201d Russia would be responsible.
\u201cHe tried to impose discipline on the White House and largely failed simply because no one could control Trump,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cHe may have introduced a little more of a process and a little more rigor as compared to Reince Priebus. But on the whole I think he was unsuccessful in reigning in Trump when his worst excesses were on display.\u201d
The decision is expected to cause aftershocks among leaders domestically and abroad who will be concerned about a return to White House that is even more undisciplined and chaotic. Some leaders have long worried privately that Kelly and also Defense Secretary James N. Mattis were the only senior advisers who could guide Trump away from potentially disastrous scenarios brought on by Trump\u2019s inexperience on the world stage.
\u201cAsia-Pacific leaders would be worried by the departure of Kelly or Mattis,\u201d said Douglas H. Paal, a former staff member on the National Security Council under former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. \u201cThat worry would be attenuated or increased depending on who is named to replace them, whom they will judge by their maturity and range of experience.\u201d
Paal said Asian leaders serve long terms and try to forge relationships with Americans who hold a long view.
\u201cThey expect experienced personnel with mature judgment to assist US decision-making,\u201d he said.
At this point, the leading candidate to replace Kelly is Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence\u2019s chief of staff. Other names that have been discussed include Mick Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who now serves as President Donald Trump\u2019s budget director, House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.
Franco Ordo\u00f1ez: 202-383-6155, @francoordonez<\/p>\n