Ivanka Trump Looking For John Kelly's Replacement In White House, Reports Say

According to a breaking report by Vanity Fair Magazine, Chief of Staff John Kelly’s days at the White House might be numbered and Ivanka Trump is playing a central role in finding a replacement.

Special correspondent for Vanity Fair Gabriel Sherman said two prominent Republicans in close touch with the White House told him that in recent times Donald Trump had discussed choosing a successor for Kelly and that the president asked a close friend what he thought about David Urban.

Urban helped engineer Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania and is a veteran lobbyist and political operative in Washington.

“Ivanka is also playing a central role in the search, quietly field-testing ideas with people. ‘Ivanka is the most worried about it. She’s trying to figure who replaces Kelly,’ a person who’s spoken with her said,” Sherman wrote.

The article also noted that sources said Kelly’s departure isn’t imminent. “He wants to stay longer than Reince [Priebus],” Sherman quoted an outside adviser as saying.

The Trump administration has been plagued by high-level staff departures. Sherman also wrote that one of the Republicans told him that “this could be like [Jeff] Sessions,” with regard to Trump's increasing frustration at not being able to replace his attorney general.

Tensions between Trump and Kelly came to a boil last week when Kelly told Fox News, Trump has evolved in the way he now looks at a border wall on the southern border — a central promise of his election campaign.

“He has evolved in the way he looks at things,” the Chief of Staff said. “Campaign to governing are two different things, and this president has been very flexible in terms of what’s in the realm of the possible.”

Those comments came as confirmation of his comments a day earlier, when Kelly told Democratic lawmakers that Trump was “uninformed” during his election campaign with regard to some of the hard-line immigration policies he was advocating then.

Trump retorted in a morning tweet: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water.....”

According to the Vanity Fair article, a “Republican close to the White House,” referring to the four-star general, said: “The more Kelly plays up that he’s being the adult in the room — that it’s basically combat duty and he’s serving the country — that kind of thing drives Trump nuts.”

Kelly has not particularly gelled well with the administration. Sherman said a Republican in the know said Trump told a friend “I’ve got another nut job here who thinks he’s running things,” with regard to Kelly.

He also said a second source confirmed Trump has expressed frustration with his chief of staff, saying the president remarked: “This guy thinks he’s running the show.”

“A White House official said ‘it’s categorically false that Trump is unhappy with Kelly. He’s only ever referred to him as the general, tough, can be rough, and commands respect,” Sherman reported.