Trump Wants Four Chiefs of Staff, Because There's Not Enough Turmoil in the White House

Back in 2008, we were subjected to constant talk about Barack Obama’s quest for a “team of rivals” akin to Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet (as written by Doris Kearns Goodwin), a group of people who would challenge his views and give him all sides of the debate before he made the decision. This narrative was flawed in a lot of ways, but given how much the D.C. press loves bipartisanship, it’s not surprising that it was referenced over and over again for the next eight years.

Donald Trump has a different problem: he wants to be surrounded at all times by a thousand grifters jockeying for his favor and competing to see who can agree with him the hardest. This is one reason why he has a seemingly endless roster of lawyers who all make Lionel Hutz look like Clarence Darrow, and still somehow wants more.

This visceral need to constantly be swarmed by egotistical yes men has resulted in never-ending turmoil at the White House and a list of firings and resignations a mile long. Luckily, Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman reports, Trump wants more of that!

Trump is in the midst of completely overhauling his White House; earlier tonight, the White House announced the hiring of Trump’s newest neocon who wants perpetual war with North Korea and Iran. And now, all eyes are turning to frequently embattled other members of the administration — including John Kelly, his incredibly bad chief of staff.

Kelly has been supposedly “on the way out” for months. What’s noteworthy about this is what Trump wants to replace him with. Sherman writes:

One outside adviser to the White House said Trump has recently mulled the concept of creating a new West Wing structure without a chief of staff, one that would instead have four co-equal principals reporting directly to him. Trump seems to be loving his new freedom. “He was fucking excited and jubilant,” said one Trump friend who spoke to him in recent days. “He was like, everything’s great and these fuckers in the media are beside themselves.”

You read that right: Trump wants four chiefs of staff. There are a lot of questions to ask about this, such as: How does this work, exactly? Do they all have their own departments? What are the departments? What happens to the federal agencies who are ostensibly in charge of those departments? Why four? What the fuck?

One thing that’s obvious, however, is that Trump has four specific people in mind. So our best guess is that he wants his administration to be led by his four wonderful children: Ivanka, Donald Jr., Barron, and Jared. Congratulations to our new chiefs of staff!