openpolitics.com

President Trump was in an especially ornery mood after staff members gently suggested he refrain from injecting politics into day-to-day issues of governing after last month’s raucous rally in Arizona, and he responded by lashing out at the most senior aide in his presence.

It happened to be his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly.

Mr. Kelly, the former Marine general brought in five weeks ago as the successor to Reince Priebus, reacted calmly, but he later told other White House staff members that he had never been spoken to like that during 35 years of serving his country. In the future, he said, he would not abide such treatment, according to three people familiar with the exchange.

Like every other new sheriff in town Mr. Trump has hired to turn things around at the White House or in his presidential campaign, Mr. Kelly has gradually diminished in his appeal to his restless boss. What is different this time is that Mr. Trump, mired in self-destructive controversies and record-low approval ratings, needs Mr. Kelly more than Mr. Kelly needs him.

.. The question now is how long Mr. Kelly will stay, with estimates ranging from a month to a year at the most.

.. He has thrown himself into long-term planning of the administration’s tax reform push, the president’s Asia trip in November and scheduling for the next several months

.. The president, for his part, has marveled at the installation of management controls that would have been considered routine in any other White House.

 .. “I now have time to think,” a surprised Mr. Trump has told one of his senior aides repeatedly over the last few weeks.

Mr. Kelly cannot stop Mr. Trump from binge-watching Fox News, which aides describe as the president’s primary source of information gathering. But Mr. Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.

.. Mr. Kelly has usually listened in on the calls

.. Mr. Kelly has his critics outside the administration, notably Mr. Stone, who has accused Mr. Kelly of keeping the president from his friends and allies. He also has critics inside the White House, who have begun to complain that their access to Mr. Kelly has been limited. But Mr. Kelly’s biggest accomplishments are ones that people outside the West Wing cannot see.

.. confides to an even smaller circle, which includes Leon E. Panetta, for whom he served as a top aide when Mr. Panetta was defense secretary in the Obama administration.

.. But how long Mr. Kelly and the president, two men with such divergent approaches to the common goal of Mr. Trump’s success, will be able to coexist is unclear.