President Trump has reportedly told advisers that White House chief of staff John Kelly’s job is “100 percent safe,” amid fears that the retired Marine general could be the latest to leave the administration amid a series of high-profile firings and resignations.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump and Kelly met Thursday, where they patched up a rift that emerged earlier this week when the president abruptly fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a tweet.
Kelly was reportedly taken aback by Trump’s treatment of Tillerson, and aides worried that he would push the issue with the president, the Journal reported.
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Staff secretary Rob Porter, communications director Hope Hicks and John McEntee, Trump’s personal assistant, are among the White House staffers who have left the administration in the last six weeks alone.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Journal in a statement that “Kelly is not going anywhere.”
Kelly and Trump are known to clash at times, but the president has repeatedly expressed confidence in his chief of staff, telling a gathering of Marines in San Diego this week that Kelly is “doing a great job.”
“He likes what you do better than what he does,” Trump said. “But he’s doing a great job. He misses you.”
Trump raised eyebrows on Tuesday when he unexpectedly announced in a tweet that he had fired Tillerson and tapped CIA Director Mike Pompeo as his next secretary of State.
The White House said Tillerson had been given a heads-up about the news days earlier. But a statement issued by Steven Goldstein, the undersecretary of State for public diplomacy, said that Tillerson learned the news from the president’s tweet.
Goldstein was fired shortly after that for contradicting the official White House account of Tillerson’s ouster.
The Washington Post reported Thursday evening that Trump is currently looking at potential replacements for national security adviser H.R. McMaster.