Nick Ayers, Mike Pence's right hand, likely to be Trump's next chief of staff

By artappraiser on Sun, 12/09/2018 - 11:12am |

President Trump appears poised to replace current Chief of Staff John Kelly with a 36-year-old multi-millionaire who has a reputation as a polarizing and hard-charging fixture in Republican politics, multiple officials tell @NBCNews https://t.co/WgtbhHJmIF
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 9, 2018

URL:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/nick-ayers-mike-pence-s-right-hand-likely-be-trump-n945656?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma

4571 reads

Comments

Mnuchin, Mulvaney and Lighthizer are potential chief of staffs if Ayers does not work out, per @maggieNYT @anniekarni https://t.co/WjQ6a12IOe pic.twitter.com/iBR3tdKVVA
— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) December 9, 2018

by artappraiser on Sun, 12/09/2018 - 12:44pm

Guess again, MSNBC, it's thanks but no thanks:

Confirmed, Ayers told Trump he won’t take the chief of staff role. He’s still leaving the administration and is likely to have a role with the super PAC backing Trump.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 9, 2018

!!! https://t.co/58AwhEWya3
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) December 9, 2018

by artappraiser on Sun, 12/09/2018 - 7:51pm

Scoop: Trump considering Mark Meadows for chief of staff

By Jonathan Swan @ Axios.com, 3 hrs. ago

Over the past 24 hours, President Trump has been privately asking many people who they think should be his new chief of staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge.

What's happening: Trump has asked confidants what they think about the idea of installing Rep. Mark Meadows, the chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, as John Kelly's permanent replacement, according to these three sources. Trump has also mentioned three other candidates besides Meadows, according to a source with direct knowledge. I don't yet have their names.

Nick Ayers, previously considered the favorite, is out of the running to be Kelly's replacement, according to sources with direct knowledge.

"Nick couldn't give POTUS a two-year commitment, so he's going to help him on the outside instead," one of these sources told me. (This news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.)

Ayers is expected to run the pro-Trump outside group America First, according to another source with direct knowledge. Trump will make a decision on Kelly's replacement by the end of the year, the source said.

Between the lines: Trump doesn't know what he's going to do. Ayers, the vice president's chief of staff, was his first choice for the job. Jared and Ivanka, who have been determined to get rid of Kelly, have advocated for Ayers, who has been secretly discussing the job with Trump in the executive residence for months [....]

by artappraiser on Sun, 12/09/2018 - 7:56pm

All 4 names a no go! ‘There was no Plan B’: Trump scrambles to find chief of staff after top candidate turns him down

By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey & Robert Costa @ WashingtonPost.com, Dec. 10 @ 7:51 pm

[....] Three members of Trump’s Cabinet who have been discussed inside the West Wing as possible chiefs of staff — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer — each signaled Monday that they were not interested in the position.

Considerable buzz has centered on two other contenders. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) noted his interest in the job by issuing a statement saying that “serving as Chief of Staff would be an incredible honor.”

“It is not something I have been campaigning for,” Meadows told reporters Monday on Capitol Hill, adding that his phone “blew up” after the Ayers news broke. “The president has a good list of candidates. I’m honored to be one of those.”

And acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker, who traveled with Trump to Kansas City, Mo., last week , is seen by the president and his allies as a loyalist.

But Trump’s advisers and aides cautioned that there was not yet a front-runner. Although aides said the president is committed to finding a replacement for Kelly before the Christmas holiday, they said he has been vacillating — casting about in all corners for potential picks and frustrated by news coverage depicting his White House as a place where talented people do not want to work.

In a flurry of private conversations with family members, friends and staffers, Trump has been crowdsourcing various names to solicit feedback, according to people who have spoken with him. In turn, some of those names have wound up in media reports as candidates for the job.

Among the people seen as contenders, in addition to Meadows and Whitaker, are David N. Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager and an outside adviser; White House counselor Kellyanne Conway; Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and former Trump transition chairman; Energy Secretary Rick Perry, a former Texas governor; Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania; and Wayne Berman, an executive at the investment firm Blackstone and a veteran Republican operative.

There are a few other people under serious consideration by Trump whose names have not been revealed in the media, according to people familiar with the president’s deliberations [....]

by artappraiser on Mon, 12/10/2018 - 9:25pm

I'd like to put my name in the running. I think I have the necessary qualifications. For that kind of money I'm willing to be a lickspittle. And since I have no further political ambitions the stench of working for Trump wouldn't bother me at all.

by ocean-kat on Mon, 12/10/2018 - 10:02pm

Hey now you gave me ideas. But I looked it up: highest salary possible is $179,700. Even though that would do me way more than fine, maybe $7,500 a month take home, not worth it, you can have it.

by artappraiser on Mon, 12/10/2018 - 10:23pm

That's just the base salary. In the Trump administration the opportunities for corruption and theft make that base salary look like a pittance.

by ocean-kat on Tue, 12/11/2018 - 12:17am

Why not Javanka? Would be a huge 1st for civil rights, a corrupt marital couple unit occupies something beneath the top junta spot (I.e. we can be functionaries too, not just top banana Juan & Evita or the Noriega pair in Nicaragua now). And it'll be so cute to hears Donald sY "my chiefs of staffses".

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/11/2018 - 2:08am

Bill Kristol:

Nick Ayers doesn’t need more money, doesn’t need to return to Georgia, and hasn’t suddenly developed moral scruples about associating with Trump. There’s only one reason he avoids taking WH chief of staff and suddenly leaves as VP chief of staff: He’s fleeing the Trump ship.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 10, 2018

For what it’s worth, I hope that someone competent and responsible takes the WH chief of staff job. Containing the damage Trump does over the next two years (or for as long as he’s there) is important for the sake of the country.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 10, 2018

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/11/2018 - 12:03am

Preet Bharara got better:

This may be a little inside baseball but tonight @nick_ayers & Rachel Brand are drinking scotch because they might live to serve another day. And @nikkihaley is picking up the tab. Leaving is #winning in the Trump era.
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) December 11, 2018

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/11/2018 - 12:12am

Piers Morgan: He hired me once when I won Celebrity Apprentice. We know each other. We’ve worked together a long time."

After all the bad news, some good!https://t.co/NZLwwMi87c
— Brexitshambles (@brexit_sham) December 12, 2018

by artappraiser on Wed, 12/12/2018 - 1:19pm

Well we now know where Christie draws the line on corrupt politics and craziness:

Christie asked Trump to “no longer keep me in any of his considerations” for the chief of staff. https://t.co/IQcZRu64mS
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 14, 2018

by artappraiser on Fri, 12/14/2018 - 5:27pm

BREAKING NEWS @ WaPo: Trump names budget director Mick Mulvaney as acting White House chief of staff

The announcement came after nearly a week of jockeying in which several possible picks turned down the job.

By Philip Rucker
21 minutes ago

by artappraiser on Fri, 12/14/2018 - 5:49pm

From calling Trump "a terrible human being" to serving as his chief of staff in two years flat https://t.co/jrZM9xpD35 pic.twitter.com/f3VaNq794d
— Harry Siegel (@harrysiegel) December 15, 2018

by artappraiser on Sat, 12/15/2018 - 1:27am

Mulvaney isn't serving as Trump's chief of staff. Trump never actually had a chief of staff except for perhaps a few months when Kelly first started. As the headline clearly states he'll only be acting.

by ocean-kat on Sat, 12/15/2018 - 1:42am

Nick Ayers, Mike Pence's right hand, likely to be Trump's next chief of staff

Comments

Sections

Bloggers