Congratulations to Donald Trump’s new Chief of Staff for lasting zero days on the job
Because the Donald Trump saga has become so over the top absurd, some aspects of it can only be relayed as if they were fiction. There’s a scene in The Office where the corporate boss asks branch manager Michael Scott about a disgruntled employee, and the Michael Scott says “Everyone here is extremely gruntled.” That scene was frankly all that came to mind while I was watching the zero-day career of Donald Trump’s new White House Chief of Staff Nick Ayers play out yesterday.
Remember back when Anthony Scaramucci was brought in as Donald Trump’s new White House Communications Director, and he flamed out after just eleven days, while taking a bunch of Trump’s other people down with him? For such a short career, that’s turned out to be quite a long running punchline. Whenever Trump hires someone who doesn’t last long, which is often, that person’s tenure is popularly measured in “Scaramuccis.” If someone only lasts thirty-three days, they’re said to have lasted three Scaramuccis.
Then there’s the matter of Nick Ayers, who was such a lock for the White House Chief of Staff job, Donald Trump went so far as to publicly announce that John Kelly was a goner. Then, on the day Ayers was supposed to be formally taking the job, he decided he didn’t want it. He lasted zero days. Because there’s no dividing by zero, you can’t even measure this one in Scaramuccis.
Obviously we’re having some fun with this one. But there’s a serious upshot here. Donald Trump basically lost his second Chief of Staff in a twenty-four hour period. Mike Pence just lost his Chief of Staff. The Attorney General was fired just a month ago, and now his replacement Matthew Whitaker is being replaced with William Barr, who doesn’t seem to want the job.
Thanks to controversies, scandals, bad hiring, and the fact that the boss is the world’s most pathetically flaky criminal, Donald Trump’s White House has always been defined by chaotic personnel turnover. But this is now something different. This isn’t just a sinking ship, it’s one that’s on fire, and is being abandoned by everyone who thinks they have a chance of not going down with it. In hindsight, the eleven day tenure of Anthony Scaramucci was the picture of stability in comparison to what’s playing out now.
