More Than a Management Problem at the White House

Jonathan Swan: “West Wingers are excited and nervous about what his arrival means, but one told me it won’t be enough for Kelly to fix processes and lines of authority; he needs to change the culture. For six months, White House officials have leaked unflattering anecdotes about the President and planted hit pieces on their colleagues. Officials wander freely in and out of the Oval, and some, like Omarosa, never worried about protocol, and used their personal relationships with Trump to subvert Reince’s authority.”

Said one White House official: “We’ve got a culture problem right now. Now you have Kelly come into this. Is it a new power center or someone without a dog in the fight? Is that level of respect that he comes in with, what it takes to have some kind of calming presence in the West Wing? Reince didn’t have the credibility to broker peace between anybody.”