White House personnel
Trump is reportedly eyeing Mick Mulvaney as a possible replacement for John Kelly
John Kelly is still the White House chief of staff and has made no moves to leave, but that doesn't mean President Trump's not already looking for his replacement.
Over the last several weeks, Trump has been asking current and former advisers and aides what they think about Mick Mulvaney, the conservative former congressman who oversees the Office of Management and Budget and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, Politico reports. Mulvaney and Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, are the two leading candidates to take Kelly's place, should he make an exit, several people said. "No one can imagine what the end of John Kelly looks like," one former White House official told Politico, but "if the president sees plausible people next in line for the job, that does change his calculus a bit."
Mulvaney has reportedly been telling Republicans outside of the White House to put in a good word for him with Trump, and he's gone golfing with the president several times. When former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was ousted last July, Trump already knew he wanted Kelly to replace him, and he is not that certain now, officials said. "Mulvaney is not a big personality and is not someone everyone in the building will rally around, but I don't see a big personality coming in either," a former administration official told Politico. "Trump takes all of the oxygen in the room."