WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Having been turned down by several previous choices for the job, Donald J. Trump broke with tradition on Monday by picking his television remote to be his new chief of staff.

While some in Washington wondered whether an inanimate object was up to the rigors of working for the mercurial Trump, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended the unorthodox selection. “The President and the remote have demonstrated an excellent ability to work together, often for ten or twelve hours a day,” Sanders said.

But even as the White House touted the remote’s qualifications, its tenure as chief of staff appeared to get off to a rocky start on Monday morning.

After the remote got stuck and failed to change the channel when CNN’s Jim Acosta appeared on the television screen, Trump reportedly threw his new chief of staff across the room, narrowly missing Mike Pence’s head.

“I’ll be surprised if the remote makes it through the year,” a White House source said.