White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is featured on TIME magazine’s latest cover; “GENERAL JOHN KELLY – TRUMP’S LAST BEST HOPE.” Kelly recently replaced Reince Priebus for the position.
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TIME’s Michael Duffy, the magazine’s deputy editor, joins five other writers in composing a roughly 3000-word article ostensibly examining the White House’s switch from Reince Priebus to John Kelly.
Duffy hypes “daily chaos” in the White House, forwarding a narrative pushed by news media outlets such as CNN, The New York Times, Politico, and MSNBC; he frames left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media consensus as reflective of reality.
Unnamed sources allegedly describe the “mood” in the White House as “at rock bottom.”
Kelly was selected by Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster to move to the White House to save the nation from President Donald Trump, suggests Duffy:
The deep bonds and know-how of that team may have already done the nation a great service. This summer, as the threats from North Korea increased while confusion dominated in the White House, the generals quietly launched a mission of their own. Mattis, McMaster and Dunford (as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson) were concerned enough about the conduct of foreign policy to work together to convince a skeptical Kelly to become chief of staff. Their argument: unless someone else takes over, this White House cannot handle a real crisis. Which means that when Trump asked Kelly for the third time to be his chief of staff, it wasn’t just a job offer. It was a call of duty.
Kelly’s “influence” may be damaged by Trump’s praise of him, alleges Duffy, framing presidential praise as somehow politically toxic.
Duffy frames Democrats as necessary to avoid a global financial crisis with respect to increasing the debt ceiling:
The extended but failed Republican campaign to repeal Obamacare left the GOP with only 12 legislative days to manage the ritual of raising the debt ceiling by Sept. 29 and passing a budget by Sept. 30. The betting is against them: many GOP lawmakers will likely oppose both measures, which means House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate leader Mitch McConnell will have to rely on the mercy of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to keep the troops paid, the Social Security checks coming and the Treasury borrowing. Failure to do so could plunge the U.S. and global economies into a tailspin.
Duffy makes many claims about internal White House operations without evidence, presenting himself as connected to internal White House goings on.
H/T Axios.
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