Trump scrambles to find a new chief of staff

White House

The president does not have a ready backup after Nick Ayers turned down the post that John Kelly will vacate at the end of this month.

President Donald Trump was hunting for a new chief of staff Monday, a day after the leading candidate for the job unexpectedly dropped out of the running and set off a new round of staffing confusion at the White House.

After White House aide Nick Ayers told Trump on Sunday that he would not accept the post, speculation centered on Monday around one of the president’s preferred options for the position, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). Following a CNN report that Meadows had told associates he was “absolutely not” interested in the job, the conservative House Freedom Caucus chairman sounded more positive in a statement to POLITICO’s Playbook PM.

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“Serving as Chief of Staff would be an incredible honor. The President has a long list of qualified candidates and I know he’ll make the best selection for his administration and for the country,” Meadows said.

Meanwhile, another candidate whose name was circulating in political circles, New York Yankees president Randy Levine, told POLITICO that he was not in the mix.

“Nobody has talked to me about this. Nobody,” said Levine, who served in the Reagan Justice Department and as deputy to then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. “I respect the president, but I’m very happy being president of the Yankees.”

POLITICO reported Sunday night that three other people under consideration for the job — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer — were also reluctant to accept it, though White House aides held out hope that they could be persuaded.

The surprise decision by Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, to turn down the promotion set off a scramble in the White House. Many senior aides were certain that Ayers would ultimately take the job, even though he had told associates that he hoped to return to his home state of Georgia.

The chain of events was triggered by Trump’s Saturday announcement that his long-beleaguered chief of staff, John Kelly, will be leaving by the end of the year.

The uncertainty set off a scramble among Trump’s allies to push their favored candidates, with some people close to the president making the case that David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, should be considered.

But White House officials downplayed the possibility that Bossie would become chief of staff, noting that his candidacy would likely face strong opposition from the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. People familiar with the matter said Bossie had not yet had any conversations with Trump about the job as of early Monday.

Although Trump once considered then-deputy national security adviser Dina Powell to replace then-chief of staff Reince Priebus, the current crop of candidates is — so far — uniformly male and white. Senior aide Kellyanne Conway, a trusted Trump adviser, is said to not be interested in the position.

Ayers, who had been quietly talking to Trump about becoming chief of staff for months, spent the last few days in negotiations with the president about the terms of his service. Ayers would only agree to serve until the spring, even as he pushed for the full authorities granted a permanent chief of staff, like firing aides. Trump, for his part, wanted a two-year commitment.

Some in the White House speculated that Ayers’ demands were aimed at self-preservation. A fixed, shorter term would limit speculation about how long he’d last and give him an opportunity to shift the inevitable blame for anything that goes wrong to others. Ayers is said to want to eventually run for office in Georgia, and people close to him said he was concerned about the risks associated with accepting the job, which has tarred the reputations of his predecessors, Reince Priebus and John Kelly.

Nancy Cook, Gabby Orr and Eliana Johnson contributed to this report.