New Leaks Reveal POTUS Sending Strong Message About Reince’s Future in WH

Rumors of Reince Priebus’ job security at the White House have been swirling for quite a while. New leaks from the White House have reignited those rumors on the heels of Anthony Scaramucci’s appointment to White House Communications Director.

Axios reported on a much-discussed question at the top of the White House: just what magnitude of indignity would it take for Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to resign?

Via Axios:

• President Trump knew that appointing Anthony Scaramucci as communications director would humiliate Reince, who fought hard against it.
• Scaramucci was smuggled into the meeting with the President on Thursday so Reince wouldn’t know about it. Trump had already taken pains to hide the discussions from his Chief of Staff, knowing Reince would try to foil the move.
• Trump also knew that inserting a line in the press release saying Scaramucci would report directly to the President — doing an end-run around Reince — was perhaps an unendurable public humiliation.

If we’ve learned anything so far about this President, it’s that in real life he actually hates saying “you’re fired.” So what might it take for Reince to quit?

• Reince has very few true allies inside the building. At this point, they don’t stretch much further than his personal assistant and the RNC holdovers on the press team.
• At the senior level, the only WH official who will go to the mat for Reince’s survival is Steve Bannon. They’ve become allies of convenience in a feud against Jared and Ivanka (“Jivanka,” as Bannon calls them to associates.) Jared and Ivanka distrust Reince, think he’s incompetent, and want him gone ASAP.
• Still, there’s no obvious replacement, though a number of names have been tossed around. (This is why I’ve never written a Reince-is-terminal story in this newsletter.)

 

In a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, newly-minted White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci, continued to lay out his plans to strengthen the administration’s messaging.

Scaramucci touched on the difficulties of being flexible and changing one’s mind in D.C., while issuing a stern warning to his staff – “[I]f we don’t stop the leaks, I’m going to stop you. It’s really that simple.”

This isn’t the first time President Trump kept Priebus in the dark about his plans to hire or fire someone to prevent leaks. TGP previously reported back in May that Trump not only fired Comey to send a message to McCain, but that Trump kept the news of his decision to fire Comey from Reince Priebus and Press Secretary, Sean Spicer to avoid leaks to the press.

And what do you know? No leaks! Hmmmm

Reince Priebus was also suspected of being a part of a source of leaking info to the press prior to the Comey firing. TGP reported on the story of the Kate Walsh leaks with perhaps Priebus’ involvement back in February of this year.