Kelly makes surprise appearance at briefing: ‘I’m not quitting today’ 'And I'm not so frustrated in this job that I'm thinking of leaving,' Trump's chief of staff says, refuting media reports.

White House chief of staff John Kelly said Thursday that he is not resigning, making a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room to push back against media reports that his relationship with President Donald Trump has been approaching a breaking point.

“I would just offer to you that, although I read it all the time, pretty consistently, I'm not quitting today. I don't believe, and I just talked to the president, I don't think I'm being fired today. And I'm not so frustrated in this job that I'm thinking of leaving,” Kelly said during a previously unannounced appearance at the White House press briefing.


“Unless things change, I'm not quitting, I'm not getting fired, and I don't think they'll fire anyone tomorrow.”

Both Vanity Fair and The Washington Post published stories this week about tensions between Kelly and Trump, with the former reporting that their relationship had become "irreparable" and the latter reporting that possible replacements for the chief of staff had been floated within the president's "inner circle."

The swirling rumors seemed to prompt Trump into a defense of Kelly on Twitter, with the president writing on Tuesday that "the Fake News is at it again, this time trying to hurt one of the finest people I know, General John Kelly, by saying he will soon be fired. This story is totally made up by the dishonest media. The Chief is doing a FANTASTIC job for me and, more importantly, for the USA!”

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Kelly accepted the job as White House chief of staff in late July, replacing Reince Priebus, who stepped down amid a particularly turbulent period inside Trump's White House. Since then, the former Marine Corps general has sought to instill discipline and order in what had been a chaotic West Wing. One of Kelly's new policies has been a crackdown on traffic in and out of Trump's office, in an attempt to control attempts by warring aides to influence the president.

Kelly insisted on Thursday that "I restrict no one, by the way, from going in to see him" but that the process of briefing Trump is now more organized and streamlined.

The chief of staff called Trump "decisive" and a "very thoughtful man" who "takes information in from every avenue that he can receive it." The president, Kelly said, "is now presented with options. Well-thought-out options."

Kelly also emphasized that his job is not to control Trump.

"I read in the paper — well you all know, you write it — that, you know, I’ve been a failure at controlling the president or a failure at controlling his tweeting and all that. Again, I was not sent in, or I was not brought to this job to control anything but the flow of information to our president so that he can make the best decisions," Kelly said. "When we go in to see him now, rather than onesies and twosies, we go in and help him collectively understand what he needs to understand to make these vital decisions. "

Asked if Trump's tweets make his job more difficult, Kelly said "no."

"No, no. I mean, the job of the chief of staff is to staff the president. Give him the best advice or go get the best advice I can give him," Kelly said. "Help him consume advice. Help him work through the decision-making process in an informed way. But that's my job and that's what I do."

It was not clear if Kelly was asked to make the appearance at Thursday's White House briefing, or if he suggested the move himself. But his denial that he is on the way out comes a little more than a week after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held his own impromptu news conference to deny an NBC News report that he was on the verge of resigning this past summer. Tillerson did not, however, explicitly deny NBC's reporting that he had referred to Trump as a "moron." A State Department spokeswoman later said Tillerson doesn't use that kind of language.

While many of Kelly's discussion at Thursday's briefing focused on his relationship with the president and other West Wing issues, the chief of staff also fielded questions on a range of subjects from the nation's diplomatic relations with Cuba, the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, FEMA and Trump's feuds with multiple GOP lawmakers. On the last subject, Kelly said that "when members of Congress say things that are unfair or critical, the president has a right to defend himself."

On Thursday, he called the chief of staff position the hardest and most important job he has ever had.

"Is this the iron hand that I brought to the staff?" Kelly said jokingly as he answered a question about the processes he has worked to establish inside the White House.

He also referenced the multiple times photographers have captured him appearing to look exasperated with Trump's comments: "Just put some organization to it. Put a smile on my face. Although you guys with the cameras always catch me when I'm thinking hard and it looks like I'm frustrated and mad."