US President Donald Trump praised his chief of staff, John Kelly, in response to press reports about the controls the retired general has established in the White House to stop the rivalries.
“General John Kelly is doing a fantastic job as Chief of Staff. There is tremendous spirit and talent in the W.H. Don’t believe the Fake News,” Trump said in one of his usual morning tweets.
The head of state did not specify which reports he was talking about, but his message came after media like the New York Times said Thursday that Kelly has established a system for vetting every piece of information and every person before they are admitted to the Oval Office.
Since the respected general was named White House chief of staff last July 28, the word in Washington has been that his mission is to put order in a White House shaken by opposing factions and rivalries to influence the president.
Another of Kelly’s jobs is to halt the constant leaks from the West Wing, which irritates Trump enormously.
What is most difficult, however, is convincing Trump to calm his rhetoric, which continues to spark almost unanimous criticism by the media, Democrats and even some important members of his own party.
Kelly himself was an example of how hard that is on August 15, when the President, during a spontaneous outburst to the press, repeated his position that “many sides” (the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and those protesting against them) were guilty of the racial violence on August 12 at Charlottesville, Virginia.
Photos of the general’s glum expression during Trump’s combative encounter with the press went viral on social networks, where users – perhaps like Kelly – could scarcely believe that the president had just said there were “very fine people” among the white supremacists demonstrating in that city.