Donald Trump’s White House suffers another key resignation today, with two more on the way
Of all the various ways in which Donald Trump’s White House is failing, its constant and controversial turnover of top personnel has been one of the most conspicuous. Trump has already lost his Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser, Chief Strategist, multiple Communications Directors, and too many other senior advisers to list. Now Trump has just lost a key staffer today, with at least one and maybe two more high profile resignations and/or firings reportedly on the way.
Today marked the departure of Israel Hernandez, a senior adviser to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. This is almost certainly related to yesterday’s leak about Ross supposedly being in mental decline and repeatedly falling asleep in meetings. The best guess would be that Hernandez no longer believes Ross has job security, and is bailing before the inevitable takes place. As we wait to see whether Ross indeed joins Hernandez in leaving the building, another even higher profile departure appears to be on tap.
After a week of Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly publicly sniping at each other, now comes word that Trump is searching for his replacement (link). Incredibly, Trump supposedly has his daughter Ivanka leading the search for the replacement. We’ll see if Trump actually fires Kelly or if this is yet another instance where Trump simply keeps making empty threats, as he’s done with the still-not-fired Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson.
As it stands, Donald Trump has lost one key adviser from his administration so far today, and it appears that two bigger fish are also on their way out. If John Kelly is ousted, Trump will be on his third White House Chief of Staff in a year. Wilbur Ross would be Trump’s second cabinet member to bite the dust after the ouster of HHS Secretary Tom Price.
