Trump reportedly told John Kelly to fire Jared and Ivanka because they 'didn't know how to play the game'

When President Trump brought on John Kelly as his chief of staff in 2017, he reportedly had a task for him: "Get rid of my kids."

This is according to the new book Kushner Inc., in which reporter Vicky Ward describes the president asking Kelly to remove Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner from the White House early on in his tenure as chief of staff, telling him to get his children "back to New York," per The New York Times. The president reportedly fumed that they "didn't know how to play the game" and were generating negative news coverage.

Kelly, the Times writes, told Trump it would "be difficult" to fire them, so instead, the two came up with another solution: They would simply "make life difficult enough to force the pair to offer their resignations."

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This, of course, never happened, and it ended up being Kelly who offered his resignation in December 2018. Trump's desire to fire his daughter and son-in-law, according to this report, has "come and gone in waves."

The book Kushner Inc, according to the Times, will also portray Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as being the president's "chief enablers" and describe them "disregarding protocol and skirting the rules when they can." Kushner is already denying the account through his lawyer, whose spokesman said in a statement that it's "a book of fiction."