"It's Vicious": Trump's West Wing Housecleaning Turns Ugly In A Struggle Over John Kelly...

[DonViejo]

“IT’S VICIOUS”: TRUMP’S WEST WING HOUSECLEANING TURNS UGLY IN A STRUGGLE OVER JOHN KELLY’S REPLACEMENT

Prodded by Javanka, Trump had settled on boyish, “nakedly ambitious” Nick Ayers. But then Kelly loyalists went to war.

BY GABRIEL SHERMAN
NOVEMBER 20, 2018 1:14 PM

Today, Donald Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving, and West Wing aides are bracing for the inevitable tweet storms that accompany his unsupervised time in Palm Beach. As the release of Robert Mueller’s report draws closer, and House Democrats hone plans to launch investigations, Trump has been responding in increasingly erratic ways. Recently, his frustration has boiled over in a series of bizarre interviews, during which he talked about the Finnish president’s advice on raking forests and vowed to create a “great climate.”

Following the sting of the midterms—which Trump still insists were a victory—staff housecleaning was supposed to provide some satisfaction. After the defenestration of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, next on the hit list was Trump’s long-suffering chief of staff, John Kelly, possibly accompanied by Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen. Kelly has managed to hang on in part because there was never an obvious replacement. But last week, it appeared Trump had finally settled on Nick Ayers, Mike Pence’s 36-year-old chief of staff. On election night, Ayers attended a White House party and was seen mingling with the president and Melania Trump. A source said the president asked Ayers not to join Pence on his Asia trip last week so he could be in Washington for an announcement. But in recent days, Trump’s plan appears to have hit a snag. Ayers’s appointment has gone from a sure thing to “who knows?” after White House staffers mobilized against him. “They’ve gone to POTUS. There is a campaign against Nick. And it’s vicious,” a former West Wing official said.

Ayers is an unctuously boyish Southerner, known for his strategic acumen—not incidentally in regards to his own career. Ayers’s candidacy has been championed most intensely by Ivanka and Jared Kushner, four sources familiar with internal discussions said. In Ayers, they see a generational peer who possesses a sophisticated understanding of Republican politics at a moment when the White House is turning its focus to the 2020 election. “They think he’s savvy,” a person close to the couple said. “Jared and Ivanka have been telling people Nick will get the role,” a prominent Republican said. One source close to the White House said the president’s sons Don Jr. and Eric also support Nick’s appointment. “Even Kelly’s biggest fans know the guy knows nothing about politics. We’re going to be at loggerheads in Congress and we have to get Trump re-elected. Nick understands politics,” another former West Wing official said.

Ayers is known in Washington as a sharp-elbowed operative who would come to the job with a long list of bitter enemies. “He’s nakedly ambitious,” a former White House colleague said. In advance of the 2012 Republican Primary, Ayers, then 28, sent an e-mail to friends about his decision to join Tim Pawlenty’s campaign that made it appear that Ayers was the one running for president. In 2017, Politico reported that Ayers was eyeing a run for governor in his home state of Georgia. He was 34. Earlier this year, I reported that Ayers was seen by some inside the White House as quietly positioning Pence for a presidential run in the event Trump wasn’t on the ballot in 2020. “Everybody knows Nick is not loyal to the president,” an administration official told me at the time.

more
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/trump-west-wing-housecleaning-turns-ugly-in-a-struggle-over-john-kelly-replacement-nick-ayers

[Guppy]

1. I love it that they don't trust Ayers

I have been in the south for close to 30 years. Nick Ayers is from Cobb County. The most republican and most "evangelical" part of Atlanta. When I first came to Gwinnett in '89 it was almost 100% white and a republican stronghold. In thirty years it is now very diverse and is now blue and went for Clinton and certainly would have Carolyn Bordeausx and its congresswomen if it wasn't so gerrymandered.

We trail by 419 votes and are in a recount. The Gwinnett board of electors is not giving us access to watch the recount. They are all republican and completely untrustworthy. They can't believe what happened to their lily white county.
They threw out a lot of ballots.

That being said Nick Ayers is the type of southerner who would be nice to your face and stab you right in the back. It is a feature and not a bug with that type of southern republican.

DO NOT TRUST THIS GUY.

[FSogol]

2. Well, if Jared Kushner vouches for him!