This Trump Unchained era is merely proof that no aide, not even a brusque Marine general with a chest full of medals, is going to bring order to a President determined to have his own way. It’s now clear that Trump is making major decisions without even a nod to the process and order that Kelly was supposedly bringing to his office; no one pretends that major moves, such as the risky nuclear summit with North Korea or recent conflicts with Congress over immigration and the budget, are the result of anything other than the President’s own spur-of-the-moment strategizing. At the same time, Trump has systematically undermined Kelly’s authority, telling both his new national-security adviser, John Bolton, and his chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, that they should report to him directly, not to Kelly. White House officials have also confirmed to reporters that many of the visible signs of Kelly’s authority—such as controlling access to Trump and the list of callers who can be put through to the President—are no more. Trump has, at times, gone to extreme lengths to get around his chief of staff, such as by conducting government business on his unsecured personal cell phone to avoid Kelly’s rules. (“An example,” CNN reported, of Kelly’s “waning influence.”) When I interviewed an outside Trump adviser whom the President consulted on a pressing national-security issue, the Republican told me a similar story: Trump, he recounted, had called him on a personal cell phone. When the adviser learned that the call wasn’t on a secure line, he warned Trump not to tell him what he was planning, but simply to listen. The President, who made so much of Hillary Clinton’s sloppy handling of confidential communications, was now apparently so eager to get around his own chief of staff that he was willing to take such risks.
Kelly, Pruitt, and the epic turnover of the Trump administration
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