John Kelly Reportedly Held Meeting Where Senior Staffers Joked About Firings
“John Kelly’s day from hell,” blares the headline for a fresh-n-scoopy report from Axios, which details the White House chief of staff’s Friday — from a morning packed with reports of administration chaos to an evening in which his embarrassing comments about Rex Tillerson leaked.
According to Axios, in the 8 a.m. meeting with 20 senior staffers, John Kelly addressed reports speculating that President Donald Trump was considering firing any number of WH officials.
“This is on the record, since you’re all going to go out and tell the press, anyway,” Kelly said in the meeting, per Axios.
“Contrary to what’s been reported, H.R. and I are still here,” he added, referencing reports that Trump was considering ousting both his chief of staff and national security adviser HR McMaster.
Kelly then apparently delivered a what sounds like a Trump White House take on the St Crispin’s Day Speech:
The press’s worst day was when I came in. The press wants to take down the president. I stand between the press and the president. They have to take me down first.
And other officials in the room responded defeatedly:
Lindsay Reynolds, the first lady’s chief of staff, broke the tension by joking: “We thought this was Black Friday — everybody gets fired.”
Economic adviser Gary Cohn topped her: “I can’t get fired. I already resigned.”
McMaster, who usually makes a number of points in these meetings, Axios notes, declined to say anything on Friday morning when it was his turn.
And that’s how Kelly started his day. As we know now, he would go on to hold an off-the-record meeting with reporters to tamp down rumors of White House turmoil and imminent staff shakeups.
But outlets that weren’t invited to the shindig reported on the meeting, including the Daily Beast, which dropped a painfully embarrassing story about Kelly: he told reporters that when he called Tillerson to tell him the president wanted to fire him, the secretary of state was on the toilet battling a raging stomach bug.
[image via screengrab]
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