Rumors of Reince Priebus’s political demise have, at times, been exaggerated. For months, Donald Trump’s beleaguered chief of staff has endured a nonstop whisper campaign from within the White House, where he has been described as cringing and ineffectual. And yet Priebus continues to show up for work each day, trying in vain to bring order to a chaotic West Wing, win the respect of colleagues who don’t want him, and serve as gatekeeper for a president who is largely uncontrollable. Though he has been described as a dead man walking, there was nobody on deck to actually replace him. Or there wasn’t, anyway, until Friday, when Trump announced the appointment of communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who is seen as being groomed to take Priebus’s job. Not only was the White House chief of staff kept in the dark about the decision, which was made over his objection, but Scaramucci quickly twisted the knife by announcing that he would report directly to the president.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who had also opposed hiring Scaramucci, promptly resigned. Now, all eyes are on Priebus to see whether he’ll follow one of his few political allies in the Trump administration out the door.

The writing is on the wall. “This was a murdering of Reince and [Steve Bannon]. They said Anthony would get this job over their dead bodies,” one top White House official told Politico. Another official suggested that nudging Priebus to resign was precisely the point. “Just hiring Anthony is telling Reince beat it, go find another job.” White House advisers note that Spicer is the third senior staffer brought on by Priebus to depart the West Wing in the last six months. “His strength was in his people,” one adviser said. “He didn't have personal clout, he had organizational clout, so losing another staffer is eroding his organizational clout.”

Video: Reince Priebus: White House Chief of Staff

As has been repeatedly pointed out, Trump doesn’t actually like firing people. He famously waited until James Comey was on the other side of the country, in Los Angeles, before having a henchman deliver the pink slip to the F.B.I. director’s office. He appears to be trying to force Attorney General Jeff Sessions to quit by repeatedly humiliating him in the press and on Twitter (“why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?” he wrote Monday). “West Wing confidants” told Axios this week that the president has discussed nominating former New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani to serve as his replacement, another leak that bears all the trappings of a coordinated campaign.

Priebus is clearly receiving a similar push. “One White House official and two outside advisers said that while Scaramucci was brought into the White House for the communications job, he’s considered an internal candidate to eventually succeed Priebus as chief of staff,” Politico’s Tara Palmeri reported Monday. “There are also a handful of outside candidates.”