Donald Trump forced to go crying back to John Kelly
In the three days since Donald Trump publicly announced that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was departing, we’ve seen one person after another turn the job down, leaving egg all over Trump’s face. Even as he’s insisting on Twitter that ten or more people are vying for the job, it’s become clear that no one wants to take the helm of Trump’s sinking ship. So now Trump has gone crying back to John Kelly.
Donald Trump originally announced that John Kelly would be departing by the “end of the year.” But now that no one wants the job, the Trump White House announced today that Kelly will instead remain on the job through January 2nd, “or longer.” Clearly, Trump has had to go back to Kelly and ask him to stay longer than originally planned.
This is remarkable. It’s the equivalent of very publicly firing someone but telling them they can stick around for their final two weeks, and then, after not being able to find anyone as a replacement, having to go back to the person you just fired and ask them to stick around indefinitely.
What makes this even more awkward is that the same day reports first surfaced that Donald Trump was kicking John Kelly to the curb, it was reported that Kelly had previously testified about Trump’s obstruction of justice to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. That wasn’t a coincidence. Trump pretty clearly booted Kelly after learning that Kelly had sold him out to Mueller. Now Trump is being forced to keep a fired employee around longer who has testified against him in a criminal matter. Ouch.
