Six Months and Out

Pressure on White House chief of staff John Kelly was intensifying on Saturday after a series of missteps, most notably his defence of a senior official accused of domestic violence.

Ominously Donald Trump has been grumbling about Kelly’s performance and weighing up possible replacements, according to media reports.

Reports in the New York Times suggested that Kelly told staff on Friday he was willing to resign over his mishandling of the domestic violence allegations that led to staff secretary Rob Porter’s resignation, and that simultaneously Trump was now considering Mick Mulvaney, currently White House budget director and head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as a possible successor.

That's shaping up to be the tour length for a Chief of Staff under Trump.

A chief of staff is supposed to run the White House bureaucracy and the day-to-day operations of the place. He's supposed to protect the president from being bothered by drop-ins so that the president can do what he needs to. Part of that implies that he has some control over the president's daily routine.

But Trump is ungovernable. There is no plan or strategy with Trump.

The other thing is that Trump essentially does not believe the stories of either women or minorities. If he wasn't inclined to do so, he would almost have to, as he's been accused of sexual harassment, if not assault, by enough women to sink a normal politician. No other politician could readily survive paying off a porn star, but that's Trump.

(Minorities because after DNA evidence cleared the Central Park Five, Trump still thought that they were guilty and should have been executed.)