In Donald Trump’s first year in office, his West Wing has been repeatedly roiled by his impulsiveness. So it’s striking that when it comes to resolving the months-long standoff with his chief of staff, Trump is displaying uncharacteristic realism. According to five Republicans close to the White House, Trump has told advisers that he won’t fire John Kelly for the time being despite intense lobbying by son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka. “The president doesn’t have the balls to fire Kelly,” one Trump friend said.

Sources told me Trump’s reluctance to fire his chief is driven by several factors. For one, Trump has expressed concern that dismissing Kelly now would ignite days of negative news cycles at a moment when the White House is still recovering from the Rob Porter domestic abuse scandal and his approval ratings have clicked back down. Trump also faces a more immediate problem that he doesn’t have a vetted person available to step in. The president feels he was too quick to appoint Kelly last summer when he forced out Reince Priebus. “He’s told people he was too impulsive to get Kelly. He bought into Kelly’s resume, and not his personality,” the Trump friend said. (The White House declined to comment for this article.)

Lastly, if Trump fired Kelly now, it would appear that the decision was made in part to benefit Kushner. On Monday, according to Kelly’s new rules for security clearances, Kushner would apparently have had his clearance revoked, but the White House declined to say whether this had occurred. Two sources said White House counsel Don McGahn has advised Trump he shouldn’t give Kushner a special waiver. Last week, Trump told reporters that Kushner’s clearance would “be up to General Kelly.” Kushner has been pushing behind the scenes to get Kelly removed. He’s told people that Kelly is partly responsible for having his security clearance held up. “Jared feels like he’s being slow-rolled by Kelly’s cronies,” a Kushner friend said. “He’s confident he has paperwork to get the clearance.”

Kelly’s memo about security clearances in the wake of the Rob Porter scandal, issued when his job seemed to be hanging by a thread, completely changed the inside game and has effectively boxed Trump in. The memo made firing Kelly more difficult. But the underlying tensions haven’t dissipated. This week, Trump was once again fuming about Kelly, the occasion being a New York Times Magazine profile of the chief. In the piece, former C.I.A. director Leon Panetta was quoted as saying, “You never run into somebody like Trump in the military . . . They’d usually get kicked out.” “I heard Trump threw something,” one Republican tied to the White House said.

What has emerged, however, is a sort of detente, with Trump trying to renegotiate the relationship on his own terms. The president has in recent days told Kelly that he can no longer bar Trump loyalists like Corey Lewandowski, Anthony Scaramucci, and Dave Bossie from the White House. Last week, as Axios reported, Trump held an Oval Office meeting with Kelly and Lewandowski. According to two sources with knowledge of the meeting, things got heated when Trump informed Kelly that he needed to “get along” with Lewandowski. After the meeting, Trump told Kelly that he wanted to “find a role“ for Lewandowski in the West Wing, a source briefed on the conversation said. Kelly, according to a source, replied that Lewandowski couldn’t pass a security clearance. Scaramucci’s return to the fold also represents something of a rebuke of Kelly, given that firing the Mooch was one of Kelly’s first moves as chief. Trump is also elevating advisers that have been marginalized in the Kelly era. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is set to promote China trade hawk Peter Navarro to assistant to the president.

Another theory that’s being discussed is that Trump may oust National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, a Kelly ally with whom he’s long clashed. Firing McMaster would have the effect of pressuring Kelly to resign. Two sources told me that Trump has instructed the White House personnel office to begin vetting possible candidates. One name on the list is John Bolton, the hawkish former U.N. ambassador under George W. Bush. Trump had initially been averse to Bolton because he didn’t like the look of Bolton’s Wilford Brimley–esque mustache. “Now he’s over the mustache. He’s fine with it,” a Republican close to Trump told me.