White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he’s not sure whether chief of staff John Kelly resigned or was fired, but said he believes it was probably time for Kelly to move on.
“I don’t know, to be perfectly honest,” Kudlow said when asked if Kelly was fired. “I think it was very amicable, all right? That’s what I understand.”
“The president is saying good things about the chief,” Kudlow added on Fox News. He said Trump praised Kelly at a Christmas dinner for White House staffers late last week.
“I don’t think he was fired,” he said. “I wasn’t privy to that final conversation, but the president’s had great thinks to say about him.”
Kelly was rumored to have been increasingly frustrated in Trump’s White House, and some reports said he was no longer on speaking terms with Trump. But Kudlow dismissed those rumors.
“I think a lot of the gossip is just wrong,” he said.
Kudlow also said Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, would be a welcome pick. Trump is expected to announce Ayers as his choice to replace Kelly in the coming days.
“I think quite a lot of Nick Ayers,” he said. “I think the world of him.”
[New: Nick Ayers won’t replace John Kelly as White House chief of staff]
