Reince Priebus has no regrets about his time as chief of staff to President Trump, and has made peace with the more uncomfortable aspects of his former boss because, in his view, it’s hard to argue with success.
Priebus spent an hour with “Behind Closed Doors,” a new podcast from the Washington Examiner.
In the interview, among the most expansive he’s granted since leaving the White House, Priebus looked back on the wild 2016 presidential campaign, during which he was serving in his fifth and sixth years as Republican National Committee chairman, and his tenure in the chaotic West Wing (that characterization is a media creation, he insisted).
“President Trump is not Bush 43 or Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. He is a guy who fears nothing; he fears no man. And, he’s about as tough as it gets,” Priebus said, comparing the 45th president to former President George W. Bush; Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, and Ryan, the House speaker who, like Priebus, hails from Southeast Wisconsin.
“The president, I think in a healthy way, is not overly patient to the point of allowing a process to slow down a decision-making process,” Priebus added, when asked to elaborate. “He’s a person who, at some point, after three months of talking about the Paris agreement, is going to make a decision.”
Priebus, 45, lasted six months in the White House, before being replaced by John Kelly, a retired Marine general who at the time was serving as Homeland Security secretary.
The consummate establishment Republican, Priebus was in some respects an odd choice to serve as Trump’s chief of staff, given the president’s strong populist streak — at least at the outset. In other respects, Priebus was the perfect choice. He knew, and had good relationships with, almost every important Republican in Washington — the very Republicans Trump needed if his agenda was to be successful in Congress.
Priebus shouldered much of the blame for Trump’s rocky first six months, an annoyance he works hard to dismiss but alluded to when Behind Closed Doors asked him how competing with Steve Bannon, then the president’s chief strategist, impacted his ability to do his job.
“I had a co-equal,” Priebus said. “I would prefer a president choosing one person in power, complete authority within the West Wing.”
Priebus’ reign was tumultuous. Daily, he found himself dodging opposition factions in the White House and trying to steady an administration rocked from within by Trump’s tweets, posted at all hours and without warning.
Like the scandal surrounding Rob Porter that has enveloped the West Wing for nearly 10 days, some were a product of Trump, some were a product of Trump’s mismanagement, some a combination of both. Porter resigned as White House staff secretary, a senior position with proximity to the Oval Office, after it was revealed that he allegedly physically abused his two ex-wives.
Priebus said flatly that he was unaware of any problems with Porter’s background during his six months as chief of staff: “No.”
Perhaps no self-generated controversy so rankled Republicans as that surrounding Trump’s reaction to the white supremacists’ march in Charlottesville, Va., last August.
Trump, always quick to comment on violence perpetrated by illegal immigrants or radical Islamic terrorists, delayed commenting on Charlottesville, which was joined by counter-protesters and resulted in the death of a counter-protester. Then, when the president finally did speak out, he condemned both the white supremacists and the counter-protesters as equally responsible.
The episode generated charges of racism from the Left, and on the Right, perhaps the most frustration with Trump since his inauguration. Even Priebus was mildly critical of the president’s handling of the matter, among the few instances during the interview in which he said anything overtly negative regarding his old boss.
Still, Priebus defended Trump from those who believe he is a racist, or insensitive on racial matters, saying that is not the man he knows and worked with.
“The president has broken a lot of barriers when it comes to diversity, when it comes to the women that work for him. And I always thought he should highlight his actions as a person and a business guy over many years as opposed to just words,” Priebus said. “And, I think he should highlight his actions throughout his life that show a person that isn’t a racist-type person — is not a bigot. I never experienced that, by the way, with the president.”
“I think he sees the need for him to lead on issues of race,” Priebus added. “I think he will and I think as more opportunities come — which hopefully they don’t — but if more opportunities come where he can lead in tragic moments, that he’ll be able to hit that, and hit it out of the park. I know he can — his heart’s in the right place.”
