By Lisa Lerer
Dec. 10, 2018

... For answers, we turned to our ace White House correspondent Katie Rogers.

Part of the problem, she said, comes down to two people: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law. Unlike a typical White House, Mr. Trump runs his administration like the family business he left behind in New York.

Here’s what she told us ...

The president’s children are likely to remain a significant hurdle for anyone on the shortlist to replace Mr. Kelly. Factions exist in any White House, but the key difference here is that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have signaled in recent months that they are here to stay, and that family members are more likely to outlast any other staffer ...

Joshua Jongsma, North Jersey Record
Published 5:18 p.m. ET Dec. 10, 2018
Updated 6:46 p.m. ET Dec. 10, 2018

... Other contenders for chief of staff include Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, CNN said.

CNN lists Christie's time as a prosecutor as a pro to his candidacy as chief of staff. However, in 2004, Christie prosecuted the father of Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions. Charles Kushner pleaded guilty ...

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2018/12/10/chris-christie-chief-staff/2271052002/

Besides, he and Jared can't work together. That's why Christie got stiffed on running the transition and being Attorney General. (Manafort is why he wasn't VP.)

How about leprous, necrotic, covered in their own shit?

At the present moment, when our opponents are trying to make us look unhinged with anger, such approaches may help us communicate well with our allies, without exciting the uninformed and perhaps without even alerting our opponents to the actual content of our discourse

Posted: Dec 10, 2018 02:26 PM EST
Updated: Dec 10, 2018 08:10 PM EST

... Trump has privately told confidants he wants his new chief of staff to shift the goals of the West Wing away from legislation and toward politics, sources said. He did not outline specific things he wanted Ayers to change in the West Wing, but was generally relying on the politically savvy young aide to make changes on his own that could bolster the White House ahead of what is expected to be a tumultuous year.

Trump has remarked on several occasions that his West Wing needs aides who are more politically adept. That problem is only exacerbated by the departures of two White House aides in recent days: the political director Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, the director of the office of public liaison. Both are leaving the administration to work on Trump's re-election campaign.

And multiple White House officials have complained privately that Shahira Knight, the legislative affairs director, is more focused on the policy than navigating the political realities of Washington, including managing relationships with lawmakers.

Trump is now embarking on a hasty search for a new chief of staff with no obvious choice in mind ...

http://www.wfmz.com/news/politics/amid-chief-of-staff-search-trump-seeks-west-wing-review/923668181

By Editorial Board
December 10 at 5:39 PM

PRESIDENT TRUMP told the nation Sunday it was all “Fake News.” Reports were swirling that Nick Ayers, who leads Vice President Pence’s team, had been in line to become the next White House chief of staff, only to decline when Mr. Trump offered him the job. Perhaps unhappy with stories revealing the continuing disorder in his administration, the president attacked the messenger.

Unfair? Made up? Fake news? Go back almost exactly one year. Similar stories were published about Mr. Trump’s feelings toward then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, reporting that the president was preparing to fire Mr. Tillerson and replace him with then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo. All lies, Mr. Trump insisted. “The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - FAKE NEWS!” the president tweeted on Dec. 1, 2017. “He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!”

Mr. Trump dismissed Mr. Tillerson and replaced him with Mr. Pompeo a few months later. And last week, after Mr. Tillerson criticized the president for his lack of discipline and disinclination to read, Mr. Trump said that the two of them did not have a good relationship, after all. Mr. Tillerson “didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell,” Mr. Trump tweeted Friday.

We are left with two options. Either Mr. Trump was lying last year, when he disparaged reports of his unhappiness with Mr. Tillerson as fake news. Or he is lying now, when he says he couldn’t get rid of his former secretary of state fast enough. Given that he fired Mr. Tillerson just as the reporting had predicted he would, we can be pretty confident that the initial stories were correct ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-fake-insistence-of-fake-news/2018/12/10/00e8c8bc-fc9b-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html?utm_term=.f5738265e791

It's probably a career killer - and you have to be in close contact with Boss Tweet and his spawn.

By Jennifer Jacobs and Shannon Pettypiece
December 10, 2018, 5:18 PM EST
Updated on December 10, 2018, 7:29 PM EST

Allies of Republican Representative Mark Meadows are pressing for him to be Donald Trump’s new chief of staff as the White House weighed other serious contenders, including U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, for the vital leadership post.

... Budget director Mick Mulvaney, another candidate Trump has weighed, let White House aides know he definitely doesn’t want the job. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also told White House officials Monday he is committed to his current job. Picking Mnuchin would come with a price: another confirmation battle to replace him at Treasury while the Senate is already gearing up for a fight to confirm William Barr as the next attorney general ...

... people Trump is actively weighing include Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; and David Bossie, a former Trump deputy campaign manager and long-time conservative political operative ...

Meadows has been playing a leading role among House Republicans, recently penning a confidential memo to his colleagues about how to counter Democratic subpoenas and impeachment talk when they take over as the majority party next month ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/trump-weighs-meadows-lighthizer-in-search-for-chief-of-staff

And used it.

By Nestor Ramos
GLOBE STAFF
DECEMBER 10, 2018

... It has come to my attention that you are once again in need of a chief of staff. This job is vitally important to the success of your presidency, as you indicated when you tweeted, in 2012: “3 Chief of Staffs in less than 3 years of being President: Part of the reason why @BarackObama can’t manage to pass his agenda” ...

Your administration has been notable for its backbiting, turf wars, petty jealousy, and nonsensical tantrums. You don’t need a general. You need an extremely tired dad.

As the father of both a 2-year-old and a 2-month-old, I am accustomed to dealing with exactly the kind of infighting that reportedly dominates the day-to-day in the West Wing. You need a stern father-figure type for your top advisers — some of whom, by mere coincidence I’m sure, happen to be your own children. You’re the first president in history who could resign to spend less time with his family ...

... spending time with a toddler has taught me the art of maintaining a neutral facial expression, even when someone is saying something totally bonkers directly to my face, again and again. I guess that’s the difference between a four-star general and a five-star dad ...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/12/10/president-please-consider-application-your-chief-staff/Cxe7mS6BOnPbbCY9cUSEjL/story.html

By Dana Milbank
December 10 at 5:47 PM

I awoke on Monday to find myself in complete agreement with President Trump ... Though Trump appears to be in considerable legal trouble, no one investigating the president is believed to have found a smocking gun ...

... Trump has fallen into that old Washington trap of looking for a chief of staff who is “qualified” or “competent,” when he really needs a chief of staff who is more like him.

The Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey reported this year that White House officials have been drafting tweets for Trump using “suspect grammar” and Random Capitalization, “believing that debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch.”

... Trump needs a chief of staff who will fortify this belief, not one who is proficient in common English usage. In this spirit, I offer the president the following cover letter, in which every sentence uses a spelling first deployed by the president or his enterprising staff ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-perfect-cover-letter-for-aspiring-white-house-chiefs-of-staff/2018/12/10/7ad735f0-fcbe-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html?utm_term=.a53bc5c2f76a

Betcha can't follow all the links in that letter. Well, maybe someone trained in the Marine Core of West Virginina could do so.

Lasting peach, y'all.