As things heat up for John Kelly in the White House, rumors are flying that he may be replaced by a figure from Trump’s recent past: Corey Lewandowski.
Lewandowski, if you’ve forgotten, was the first of Trump’s many campaign managers. He was forced from that position in 2016 after a number of scandals. Most famously, Lewandowski allegedly battered aside a Breitbart reporter (Michelle Fields) at a Trump rally.
But that was all in the past. Now, Corey may be the man on-deck to take over as the next White House chief of staff.
Sources are reporting that the once-disgraced Lewandowski is back in Trump’s good graces. Trump recently brought Corey along to a campaign rally in Michigan, and even called him up on stage to address the audience.
Of course, it’s very difficult to predict what Trump will do in the future. But he has praised Lewandowski recently, and with the midterms coming up he may be looking for someone like Lewandowski, famously combative and hard-charging, to instill order in the White House.
Corey has spent the years since his dismissal doing consulting work and making TV appearances, and throughout that time he’s been a pretty strong supporter of the President’s policies. And Trump has made it clear that he wants Lewandowski to continue accompanying him on political missions.
Trump’s well-publicized desire to be surrounded by people he likes and trusts may mean that Lewandowski will be taking a White House job in the near future. (Although it would likely mean a loss of income for Corey, who has spent the last few years building a lucrative consulting operation.)
Along with Lewandowski’s possible aversion to giving up his business, he has voiced admiration in the past for the current chief of staff, John Kelly. But Kelly’s day’s are surely numbered; he has reportedly called President Trump “an idiot” more than once.
Remember what happened to Rexy Texy Tilly-Willerson when he called The Donald a “moron?” (Here’s a hint: it involved Trump’s famous catch phrase.) Kelly’s sure to get the same treatment soon.
Additionally, troubling reports about John Kelly continue to leak from the White House like toxic waste leaking from Scott Pruitt’s dismantled EPA. Kelly’s clashes with Trump’s other advisors, like Jared Kushner and Steven Miller, seem to be increasing in severity and frequency.
So it looks like John Kelly’s tour of duty in the Trump White House is drawing to a close. Kelly has widely been thought to be a moderating influence on the president. With him gone, there will be few people left in the administration to check Trump’s more volatile impulses.
Corey Lewandowski certainly won’t serve as a moderator. It was his strategy to indulge Trump from the very beginning, because he understood that Trump’s outbursts made him a more interesting and compelling candidate.
But now that The Donald has won his throne, he has to rule his kingdom. And frequent damaging outbursts, chaotic clashes between aggressive personalities, and a constant media circus (which Trump arguably solicits in order to stay in the news) are probably not conducive to running a stable government.
We’ve seen many people come and go from Trump’s orbit. It will be interesting to see whether Lewandowski, having come, gone, and come again, will now stick around for longer than his contemporaries and predecessors have.
