Trump scrambles as his choice to run the White House says no

Nick Ayers, the main focus of Trump’s search to replace John Kelly as chief of staff in recent weeks, said Sunday that he was leaving the administration at the end of the year. Ayers, 36, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, is returning to Georgia with his wife and three young children, according to people familiar with his plans.

The decision leaves Trump to contend with fresh uncertainty as he enters the 2020 campaign amid growing danger from the Russia investigation and from Democrats who have vowed tougher oversight, and could even pursue impeachment, after they take over the House next month.

As the president hastily restarted the search process, speculation focused on a group that was led by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who is the hard-edge chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but also included Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney; and the U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer.

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who as a onetime U.S. attorney could help Trump in an impeachment fight, was also being mentioned. And some Trump allies were pushing for David N. Bossie, the deputy campaign manager in 2016.

Trump’s ultimate choice will be faced with a president whom the two previous chiefs of staff found nearly impossible to manage. But Meadows, for instance, could still aid Trump in the coming political battle with congressional leaders, despite his own frayed relationships on Capitol Hill. Weeks ago, Trump started asking people what they would think of Meadows, a fierce supporter of the president, as a chief of staff, before moving on to Ayers.

The president on Sunday disputed news reports that he had settled on Ayers as his pick. “I am in the process of interviewing some really great people for the position of White House Chief of Staff,” he said on Twitter. “Fake News has been saying with certainty it was Nick Ayers, a spectacular person who will always be with our #MAGA agenda. I will be making a decision soon!”

But two people close to Trump said that a news release announcing Ayers’ appointment had been drafted, and that the president had wanted to announce it as soon as possible.

Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to the president, said Ayers’ “unique qualification was that he had been doing the same job for the vice president.” But “those of us with young kids very well understand the personal decision he made,” she said.

Other advisers to Trump were stunned by the turn of events. One former senior administration official called it a humiliation for Trump and his adult children, an emotion that the president tries to avoid at all costs.

For more than six months, Ayers had been viewed as the favored candidate of the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have been seen as maneuvering for greater control and influence around the president. They had clashed repeatedly with Kelly as he tried to establish more regulated channels to the president. Matt Drudge, an ally of Kushner, weeks ago posted a photo of Ayers on The Drudge Report as the next chief of staff.

But some West Wing officials said Ayers had been measured and cautious in recent days as he negotiated with Trump and his family. Before turning down the job, Ayers told the president that he would be willing to do it only on an interim basis, through the spring.

But Trump wants a long-term chief of staff, given the difficult period approaching, and he and Ayers were unable to agree on certain other terms, including whom he could dispose of from the current staff, three people familiar with the events said.

Other factors may also have weighed on Ayers. His ascension to the top West Wing job would have meant newfound scrutiny of his personal finances — last year he reported a net worth of $12.2 million to $54.8 million, a sizable sum for a political operative in his 30s who has amassed his own fortune. He accumulated his wealth partly through a web of political and consulting companies in which he has held ownership stakes.

And Ayers, who has been seen as a potential candidate for statewide office in Georgia, could have potentially faced a fate shared by many who have left the administration: a diminished public standing after an ugly parting with a mercurial president who often insults his former aides on Twitter.

Those who remain in the White House past the end of the year will have to face a fraught and uncertain dynamic. Several potential outcomes of the battles Trump confronts — on impeachment, in the special counsel inquiry and over allegations that he directed illegal hush payments in 2016 — may not have been advantageous for Ayers if he makes a run for office.

On Sunday, Ayers took to Twitter to say that it had been an “honor to serve our Nation at The White House.” “I will be departing at the end of the year but will work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause,” he wrote.

The monthslong process to replace Kelly, whom Trump announced Saturday is leaving at the end of the year, is a rare instance in which the president has not been courting candidates simultaneously. Historically, he has signaled to competing prospects that each one is his choice, and then picks one even as he tells both that they are still in the running.

But this time, Ayers was the only person Trump had focused on since he made up his mind to part ways with Kelly. With a head of blond hair, Ayers somewhat resembles Trump in his younger days, a fact that the president often looks for as a positive signal. The president had an unusual affinity for Ayers, telling aides who expressed concern about Ayers that he liked him.

And after barreling from a chief of staff recommended by Republican congressional leaders (Reince Priebus) to a military general who shared some of Trump’s personality traits (Kelly), the president seemed intent this time on simply picking someone he personally liked.

Kelly is expected to stay on only another three weeks, at least one of which the president is scheduled to spend at his private club in Florida. Hiring to fill several open jobs in the West Wing has been on hold for weeks, as people waited to see whether Kelly would depart and Ayers would replace him and bring in his own team.

Ayers replaced Pence’s initial chief of staff, Josh Pitcock, in 2017. A former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, he is the type of raw political operative whom Trump had felt he needed as he heads into what will almost certainly be a brutal re-election campaign.

While Kelly and Trump were barely talking in recent weeks, the retired four-star Marine general was a figure the president had difficulty firing. Kelly fought loudly with the president over some of Trump’s most incendiary ideas.

One such shouting match came earlier this year, when Trump wanted to pull security clearances from up to a dozen former national security officials or Cabinet secretaries who had criticized him. Kelly argued vociferously against it, according to people familiar with what took place.

The New York Times

Trump scrambles as his choice to run the White House says no

As President Donald Trump heads into the fight of his political life, the man he had hoped would help guide him through it has now turned him down, and he finds himself in the unaccustomed position of having no obvious second option.

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