Former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said it will be important for the next occupant of that office to be "unusually good at protecting the rest of us from the president’s penchant for self-destruction.” | Kiichiro Sato/AP photo white house Rahm Emanuel: 'Godspeed' to Trump's next chief of staff

Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has one wish for the person President Donald Trump selects to be his next chief of staff: “Godspeed.”

Emanuel, who sandwiched five years in the House between stints in the White House as a senior adviser in the Clinton administration and President Barack Obama's first chief of staff, wrote in The Atlantic that successful White House chiefs of staff are paired closely to the challenges the administration they serve is facing. Emanuel warned that Trump appears poised to misfire in making his pick to replace the outgoing chief of staff, John Kelly.


"There’s nothing magical about the chief of staff’s corner office in the West Wing," Emanuel wrote. "It appears that Trump is choosing a chief of staff based primarily on whether he’s equipped to help with his reelection effort. But let’s be honest — that shouldn’t be the president’s most immediate concern."

Trump announced over the weekend that Kelly, his embattled chief of staff, would leave the administration at the end of the year. Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, was reportedly Trump’s top pick to replace Kelly but turned down the position, setting off a scramble inside the White House to fill the soon-to-be-vacant job.

COUNTDOWN TO 2020 The race for 2020 starts now. Stay in the know. Follow our presidential election coverage. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The Chicago mayor dismissed the notion that any chief of staff should be expected to control Trump’s unpredictable tendencies and bring discipline to the West Wing, writing of the president that “self-discipline is not in the guy’s DNA.”

Still, Emanuel wrote, no chief of staff to Trump will be successful if the president is unwilling to cede more control to Kelly's successor.

“It wouldn’t matter whom you put in the job—George Patton, Angelo Dundee, Judge Judy, Darth Vader,” Emanuel writes. “If the president is going to outsource significant authority to Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and other staffers, and allow them to report directly to him, no chief of staff can perform the role as other presidents have utilized it.”

As he searches for a new chief of staff, Emanuel wrote that the president should keep in mind that any incoming chief will likely be faced with fallout from special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on his investigation of Trump's 2016 campaign, “a challenge unique in the history of the modern presidency” that will require a “wartime consigliere.” Outside of Mueller fallout, Emanuel wrote that Kelly's replacement will also face a Democratic House intent on investigating the administration, and a Cabinet that has struggled thus far to steer clear of controversy.

“Trump needs a chief of staff who can reassert control over Cabinet agencies, containing these potential scandals and minimizing the potential for more, regardless of whether he or she has an interesting take on the latest polling out of Michigan and Pennsylvania,” Emanuel suggests.

He acknowledged that Trump would not be likely to heed his advice, writing that “what’s important is that the next chief of staff be unusually good at protecting the rest of us from the president’s penchant for self-destruction.”