STEVE MNUCHIN/TREASURY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP FAMILY/WHITE HOUSE STAFF: “President Trump has often bragged about having his pick of only the best people to serve in his administration. Being publicly rejected by his first choice for chief of staff — and embarking on a very public search for someone else — has made Mr. Trump’s claim harder to back up. A shortlist of last-ditch possibilities has emerged, including family-vetted officials like Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, but only one possibility — Representative Mark Meadows, the hard-right Republican congressman from North Carolina who is so far not quite inside the Trump children’s circle of trust — has voiced interest. After Nick Ayers, the Georgia political operative who was the president’s top pick, declined the job — something of a plot twist in a presidency notorious for its episodic cliffhangers — Mr. Trump is without a Plan B. Several of his aides expressed frustration that months of intense campaigning to replace John F. Kelly — an effort led by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s elder daughter and son-in-law — resulted in yet another chaotic staffing scramble in a White House splintered by factions and rife with turnover.”
–Katie Rogers, Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni, “After Ayers Turns Down Chief of Staff Job, Trump Is Left Without a Plan B,” The New York Times online, December 10, 2018