President Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly is on “solid footing” inside the West Wing and has no plans to leave unless he’s asked to, a senior White House official said Monday after NBC reported that Kelly has repeatedly called the president an “idiot” and plans to make his exit in July.
“He’s on solid footing, but if the president asked him to move on, he would say, ‘I’ve served my country three times now,’ move on, and be perfectly happy,” Zach Fuentes, a special assistant to Trump and Kelly’s deputy, told the Washington Examiner in an interview Monday evening.
Fuentes, who is present for “every single one of [Kelly’s] meetings” with the president, lawmakers, and other White House officials, said the chief of staff was with Trump on Monday afternoon when the NBC story broke and has full confidence in his relationship with the president.
“The president has no intention of asking him to move on and he has no intention of leaving,” Fuentes said. “He plans to serve the country until he feels he’s no longer having an impact on the good of the nation.”
Anonymous sources told NBC Kelly had routinely disparaged Trump behind closed doors, including during a meeting on immigration when he allegedly called the president an “idiot” over his understanding of a program that protects undocumented youth from deportation. The report also claimed Kelly urged ex-staff secretary Rob Porter, who was fired earlier this year, to temporarily remain in his post following allegations of spousal abuse, among other damaging claims.
Kelly himself called the story “total BS” in an on-the-record statement Monday evening.
“I am committed to the President, his agenda, and our country,” the top White House official said.
Fuentes accused unnamed colleagues who see Kelly “as an obstacle to their own agendas” of trying to anger Trump by planting negative stories about his chief of staff in the press. He likened the situation to the one Rex Tillerson faced during his tumultuous tenure as secretary of state, claiming the former Exxon executive was deliberately tormented by stories that infuriated Trump until the president ultimately fired him in March.
“He’s a Marine general. He would never disparage the commander-in-chief like this and the president knows that,” Fuentes said, adding Kelly would “never tolerate” someone else on staff disparaging the president either.
“I think there are a couple of people here at the White House who would like to see him gone and every time things start to go right, they try to knife him like this,” Fuentes said.
The NBC story comes days after separate reports suggested Kelly’s influence was waning amid the rise of Trump’s newest senior aides: National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow and national security adviser John Bolton. Kelly has sought to screen all information making its way to the Oval Office, and those reports claimed Kudlow and Bolton had begun bypassing him to report directly to Trump.
However, Fuentes denied that any tension exists between the three men.
“I think they see him as an ally. We spend a lot of time with them, trying to make sure we’re all on the same page and Ambassador Bolton and Mr. Kudlow talk to the chief very frequently,” he said.
