THE “PEOPLE’S HOUSE” NEEDS A “REAL CHIEF OF STAFF”

 

…The way many people see Reince Priebus

 

A White House Chief-of-Staff’s job is to tell the boss when he’s wrong!

 

We all know that the problems of the on-going chaos inside the Trump White house, is not all the fault of the Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus.  But it is clear that he is not doing a very good job.

 

However, Trump isn’t the only US president that has had a problem with a WH Chief of Staff that wouldn’t tell their commander in chief just how completely wrong he is when the situation requires.  And with the personality of a Donald J. Trump, Reince would probably just get his pink slip and be told to “not let the door hit him in the butt as he left,” if he actually did what he is supposed to be doing.

 

Yes, both James Baker as Reagan’s CofS, and Leon Panetta as Clinton’s CofS, were brought in to get their commander-in-chief’s acts together.

 

But the whole concept of what a White House Chief of Staff should and shouldn’t do, goes back to the White House of President Richard M. Nixon.

The idea of a powerful CofS started when Nixon’s personal axman, H.R. Haldeman, who had organized the first modern presidency CofS, but he did not do his job, when he dramatically failed his boss when Nixon went totally haywire.

 

In most White Houses, if not the current one, the Chief of Staff’s toughest job is to tell the commander in chief, to his face, when he is seriously screwing up.

 

Since the days of Baker and Panetta, the White House Chief of Staff’s job has grown even more powerful.

Many of the CofS’s have been drummed out of their job early on, as they have tended to be old friends of the president.  These friends didn’t have or exercise the more “strong arm approach” that was needed for the job. Some presidents have literally chewed through three or four CofS’s inside of their eight years, just because the job is so unforgiving. And once your CofS clout is perceived as lost, notes Mr. Erskine Bowles, who did the job for a time under Bill Clinton, you are little more than an “overblown scheduler.”

 

Every modern presidents learns the hard way that you can’t govern effectively without a totally empowered Chief of Staff.  Being totally oblivious to all history, Trump has no idea that's the case. Until he figures it out, it’s going to be the continuing White House clown show.

 

President Trump's foreign policy critic, Eliot Cohen, reacted to TV appearances of Trump’s Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus appearing on the Sunday shows.  He tweeted that Priebus reminds him "of the colorless, beliefless, spineless functionaries of 20th century totalitarians."

 

Priebus, who happily turned over the GOP to Trump, has much experience from his job as the Republican National Committee Chairman in the "colorless, beliefless, spineless" functionary department.

 

One of the examples of his lack of effectiveness was shown on an interview with Fox News host, Chris Wallace. 

 

What is obvious from all the recent events is how small and unimpressive Priebus is today. He just willingly repeats any Trump line, no matter how inappropriate it is, as he did in dealing with Wallace on "Fox News Sunday": 

 

Here’s how it went:

 

WALLACE: This is what the president tweeted, "The fake news media (failing New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people."  Reince, the president believes that a free and independent press is a threat to the country?

 

PRIEBUS: No, I think — I think for the most part — and I understand where he's coming from — is that there are certain things that are happening in the news that just aren't honest. And we're not talking about everyone, Chris. We're not talking about all news, but we're talking about something that I guess he's termed as “fake news” ... 

WALLACE: Here's the problem Reince, when the president says we're the enemy of the American people, it makes it sounds like, if you are going against him, you are going against the country.

 

PRIEBUS: Here is the problem, Chris — the problem is you're right. Some of these things were covered, but you get about 10% coverage on the fact that you get a very successful meeting with Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of the U.K., the prime minister of Canada.

 

WALLACE: We covered all of those news conference live. Everybody did.

 

PRIEBUS: Right. Sure, yes, for about, yes, right. But then as soon as it was over, the next 20 hours is all about Russian spies.

 

WALLACE: But you don't get to tell us what to do, Reince.

 

PRIEBUS: — nothing is happening. Give me a break.

 

WALLACE: You don't get to tell us what to do any more than Barack Obama did. Barack Obama whined about Fox News all the time, but I got to say, he never said that we were an enemy of the people.

 

PRIEBUS: Let me tell you something, he said a lot of things about Fox News, Chris.  You ought to go check the tape. He blamed you for a lot of things. And I'm surprised, as someone from Fox, that you forget all of the shots that he took —

 

WALLACE: No, he took the shots. And we didn't like it. And, frankly, we don't like this either, because, but he never went as far as President Trump has and that's what's so concerning because it seems like he crosses a line when he talks about that we're an enemy of the people. That is concerning.

 

(Lacking Trump's confidence and bravado, Priebus comes across as bitter and whiny.)

 

The reality is that, Priebus isn't doing his actual job very well, which is to make the White House run smoothly and to establish a clear chain of command. Instead, strategy adviser, Steve Bannon pulls a fast one on the president, getting himself put on the National Security Council.

 

Whether it was the travel ban rollout, or Steve Bannon's repeated vetoes of Cabinet secretaries' deputy picks.  (Please note: Major government departments still do not have a No. 2 individual, let alone lower-level political appointees), the botched phone calls with foreign leaders or the Michael Flynn fiasco, Priebus is not performing the key, critical functions of a White House Chief of Staff.  He is not providing the president with all the information he needs.  He does not set up a clear process for decision-making and actually executing the president's directives in a clear and timely fashion.

 

Priebus is outmaneuvered and outmuscled by Bannon, leaving Reince to clean up the messes rather than setting up a structure to avoid these screw-ups.

 

The Boston Globe has reported:

 

"The president's impulsiveness and reliance on his own gut reactions don't appear to have any real check within the system he's created. He continues to fire off bizarre tweets, including one that he deleted and then reposted Friday evening where he labeled the news media as 'the enemy of the American people.  The White House declined to comment for this story, though on Saturday Trump posted on Twitter his own view: 'The White House is running VERY WELL.'”

With both the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress commenting on everything from “Impeachment to designating a Special Prosecutor”, and all the TV reports of the president interfering in the FBI’s investigation, it is obvious the White House is in chaos and is out of control.

 

But what else should we expect from a Donald J. Trump White House?

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017