Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said all the recent staffing shakeups at the White House marked the “bottom” of the Trump administration thus far.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer recently resigned after then-Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci was hired. Not long after he took up that role, however, he went on a profanity-laced tirade against then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. Priebus was then replaced by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, and not long after, Scaramucci was given the boot.
There is good news, though.
Krauthammer believes the hiring of Kelly as chief of staff with all White House staff reporting to him means the administration has “bounced off the bottom.”
“Kelly is exerting his authority, he’s been given authority,” he said. “This is an obvious signal from the president and from Kelly that he’s in charge."
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders misspoke slightly when she talked about the line of succession, Krauthammer said. "What she meant was the line of command. And if the line of command, and I would have imagined that Kelly would have demanded this, he's a guy from the Marines, he's a guy of order … that he would demand that it all goes through him. I think then you have the beginnings of a White House that can really function.”
If Kelly has control over the White House, and could possibly even check some of the president’s “unrestrained impulses” on Twitter, perhaps then the administration will have “a chance of succeeding,” Krauthammer argued. \