Word has it that Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, one of the alleged adults in the regime now squatting in the White House, had a screaming match in the Oval Office with his boss last month and, while walking back to his office, muttered something interpreted as a threat to quit.
A source told Axios, which was first with the story, that Kelly had even packed a few personal items before a number of colleagues, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who like Kelly is a former Marine general, came around to talk him down. But a senior White House official said Kelly was just venting.
If Kelly really did mean what he said on March 28—“I’m out of here, guys”—according to reporters at The Washington Post, it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d made such a threat.
In January, The New York Times reported:
Early in his tenure, Mr. Kelly frequently threatened to quit as a way of getting people, particularly the president, to follow his orders, according to four people close to Mr. Trump. One adviser to the president said that it was among the few weapons in Mr. Kelly’s arsenal, and another said that he used it less regularly now. Mr. Kelly has denied in the past to The New York Times that he ever threatened to quit.
Kelly didn’t want the chief of staff post, which he has labeled “the hardest job I have ever had.” But he had his chance to keep out of it, and now his public stance is one of sticking to it. In that January story, he was quoted as saying to Foxaganda: “I am in this for the long haul. It is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. Because if the administration fails, if the president of the United States is uninformed one time and makes the wrong decision, that’s on me.”
Some may rouse some empathy for Kelly. Trying to inform a guy who actively seeks to be uninformed is, indeed, a hard job. But the general took this position knowing full well the tenor of the guy who was hiring him. Kelly surely knows from his military days that even making a single threat that isn’t carried out weakens one’s position on the field. If he actually has made several and repeatedly retreated, it probably won’t be long before he will have to leave, either on his own steam or because he’s been given the boot.