Failed firings and threats of resignation: Donald Trump’s disastrous White House spins out of control
There’s a job search underway to replace Donald Trump’s second White House Chief Staff with his third White House Chief of Staff, even though the second guy is still on the job. The FBI Director is threatening to resign, after refusing to fire the Deputy FBI Director, after the last FBI Director was illegally fired. And the cabinet member who keeps falling asleep in meetings just saw the resignation of his top deputy.
In Trump’s chaotic, amateurish, and failing White House, all of the above is known simply as “Monday.” All of these revelations surfaced in the same day. After ego-based feuding between Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly spilled over into public view, Trump put his daughter Ivanka in charge of finding a replacement for Kelly, even though he hasn’t resigned or been fired (link). Someone leaked to the media that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is going senile and keeps dozing off during meetings (link), prompting his deputy Israel Hernandez to resign today (link). Then came the FBI mess.
Trump and his allies have tried to sabotage the investigation into his Russia scandal by falsely scapegoating FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Somewhere along the way Trump lost track of the fact that it was all supposed to be just a diversion, and demanded that FBI Director Christopher Wray actually fire McCabe. Wray refused to do it, and threatened to resign if Trump didn’t back down (link). That’s a problem for Trump, because he previously fired FBI Director James Comey and replaced him with Wray, in the hope that Wray would protect him in the scandal. Comey’s firing was illegal, and McCabe’s firing would have been illegal as well.
The one norm in Donald Trump’s erratic joke of a White House has been the constant and controversial turnover among his senior staff. Now he’s about to be on his third Chief of Staff, and he just narrowly avoided being on his third FBI Director, even as he appears to be on the verge of his second Commerce Secretary. Again, all this ridiculousness took place in just one day. Who else will quit or resign tomorrow?
