“Let’s remember, General Kelly executed the travel ban,” said one senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly. “It’s not like he walked away and said, ‘I’m a conscientious objector to the president’s agenda.’ ”

Kelly’s confidants say the general took the job in Trump’s White House out of a deep sense of patriotism — a belief that he could help this president and thus the country.

“He has a lot of credibility,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. But, he added, “Trump better not double-cross him, because if he says, ‘I can’t work with this president’ and walks from the Oval Office, then everybody’s going to believe General Kelly. He’s very much like [ousted FBI director James B.] Comey. The integrity is so high.”