Last Friday, December 14, President Donald Trump named budget director Mick Mulvaney as the acting White House chief of staff. The announcement came one week after Trump said that his second chief of staff, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly, would be leaving his job soon. Does it matter who serves as the president's chief of staff? Not unless the president wants it to, writes Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government Andrew Rudalevige.
Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government Andrew Rudalevige
Rudalevige was writing in The Washington Post's political science blog The Monkey Cage two days before the Mulvaney announcement. Amid speculation over who would replace Kelly, Rudalevige says no matter who gets the job, it is unlikely to make much difference in the way the White House is run. The reason for this? "[Trump] has always seen himself as his only chief of staff," he writes.
Read Andrew Rudalevige in The Monkey Cage.
