Trump Blasts 'Fake News' For Predicting John Kelly’s Dismissal Amid Widening Rift

President Donald Trump on Tuesday termed as "fake news" reports that said Chief of Staff John Kelly could be the next to exit the White House. Trump tweeted there was no truth to the story and was "totally made up by the dishonest media."

Although Trump didn't mention any specific report he was referring to in his tweet, the Hill stated they could have been in response to a Vanity Fair article Monday, which claimed that things were not well between the president and his White House chief of staff, saying the two men fight often and their relationship was "irreparable."

Vanity Fair also reported there was friction between POTUS and Kelly after the latter was photographed face-palming during Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September, where he threatened to wipe out North Korea and referred to its leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man."

There were also reports of Kelly struggling to contain Trump’s rage after it was reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had called him a “moron” during a national security meeting.

Kelly, who replaced former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus as Trump’s right-hand man, has been working to rein in the West Wing since the time he joined in July: making changes in the kind of visitors that are allowed in the Oval Office and also filtering the information that reaches the president.

"There’s no question there's friction in how Kelly approaches how the White House should run and how Trump approaches it. it does make sense to me that John Kelly would try to prevent additional disruption from occurring," Leon Panetta, White House chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton and a former defense secretary who worked closely with Kelly during his time at the Pentagon, told CNN.

In the middle of the ever-changing White House staff, with Trump losing two communications directors, a press secretary, a chief strategist, a national security adviser, a health and human services secretary and countless other officials, the president has repeatedly expressed his belief publicly in Kelly since he joined the White House.

Trump also told reporters at the White House, “John Kelly is one of the best people I've ever worked with. He's doing an incredible job and he told me for the last two months, he loves it more than anything he's ever done. He's a military man, but he loves doing this, which is chief of staff, more than anything he's ever done. He'll be here, in my opinion, for the entire remaining seven years,” the Hill reported.

This is not the first time that Trump has tweeted in favor of Kelly and made it clear that he had faith in his chief of staff.
POTUS, on Sept. 1, was very vocal about his opinion when he tweeted that he couldn’t be more impressed with Kelly’s performance. “General John Kelly is doing a great job as Chief of Staff. I could not be happier or more impressed - and this Administration continues to get things done at a record clip. Many big decisions to be made over the coming days and weeks. AMERICA FIRST!”