Let's remember while assessing the following report that these people signed up to work for Donald Trump in the first place. Now, apparently, there is some hard scrabble competition among them to take over as director of communications, a post that has a life expectancy of ... er... minutes. In fact, the most defining characteristic of the position is that it's buzzsawed through more people in Trump's first year than any other high-profile position in Trump's White House—and that's saying something for an administration that has been defined by a continual hemorrhaging of staff. The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Nicholas writes:
Inside the West Wing, aides are uneasy about a competition playing out between two colleagues: Mercedes Schlapp, now a top White House communications adviser, and Tony Sayegh, who heads the public affairs department under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and is a former Fox News contributor.
Both are in the running to succeed Ms. Hicks, though Mr. Trump is also considering installing another top adviser, Kellyanne Conway, at least on an interim basis, people familiar with the matter said. Ms. Conway could be a consensus choice who helps Mr. Trump sidestep the fissures between the Schlapp and Sayegh factions.
The job isn’t an easy one, as some alumni have said. Speaking at Georgetown University last year after serving just three months in the communications post, Michael Dubke said he felt he was “always looking over both shoulders”—at what the news media was reporting and what Mr. Trump was tweeting.
Now doesn't that sound appealing? No. Not to anyone with one iota of sanity, which is likely why Dubke left within months (no accounting for taking the post in the first place, of course).
Oh please, please let Trump pick Kellyanne. As much as his White House comms team has already trashed all credibility, the one person who could surely take Team Trump lower is the proud birth mama of the "alternative fact" and recent perpetrator of a federal ethics violation. She’s the “consensus candidate,” don’t ya know.