PoliticoHow John Kelly became Donald Trump’s ‘chief in name only’
The retired Marine general was brought in to tame the president, but in the end Trump boxed him in
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Elania Johnson on politico.com on July 30, 2018.
John Kelly got the official news of his promotion a year ago the same way a select few in the Trump administration have – by presidential tweet.
Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security, had talked with the president about coming on board as White House chief of staff, but the two had yet to discuss the timing of an announcement or an official roll-out when Trump tweeted from aboard Air Force One: “I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American ….”
The announcement’s unexpected timing and the unorthodox forum may have represented a feature of the Trump presidency that Kelly sought to normalise when he took the job, but those hopes have not materialised. (A White House spokeswoman said that at the time of Trump’s tweet, Kelly had received a formal job offer and “was aware his promotion would be announced in the coming days”.)
A year into the job, Kelly’s attempts to implement traditional processes in an untraditional White House have failed, according to a dozen people in and outside the administration – though virtually all concede the West Wing runs better than it used to.
Kelly’s allies say he took the job out of a sense of duty, and he has suggested he doesn’t enjoy it much. “It is not the best job I ever had,” he told reporters in October.
Increasingly, the sober-minded Marine seems to be in on the joke about the relative futility of his labours: “I’m leaving and I’m not coming back,” he has told his aides, only to show up for work the following day.
