In any case, Kelly himself could still leave before too long. The chief of staff has been said to be clashing with Trump more or less since he took the job in August 2017, but repeated impending-departure stories have come to naught. He’s now lasted about as long in the job as Reince Priebus, and even in more conventional administrations, chiefs of staff have often stayed in the role for only a year or two. On Thursday, Kelly joked about how little fun he was having. “The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the secretary of homeland security, but I did something wrong and God punished me, I guess,” he said at an event celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security.

The reasons why Gary Cohn, who leads the National Economic Council, is said to be considering leaving are specific to this week. In a strange meltdown Wednesday night, the White House (or parts of it) announced that Trump would put forth new sanctions Thursday, taking other parts of the White House by surprise. Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs and Democrat who practically embodies the globalist free-trade establishment against which Trump ran, fiercely opposes this kind of protectionism, and Politico reported that Cohn was on the verge of leaving.

Yes, you’ve heard this before. Cohn was going to leave the White House after Trump offered kind words for white-supremacist marchers in Charlottesville in August; after he was passed over for chair of the Federal Reserve; and after the president’s tax plan was complete. Each moment passed, and Cohn remains. Perhaps this will really be the breaking point, but it’s hard to tell.

Trump also rekindled his feud with Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week, once again attacking him on Twitter. In this case, the president offered a factually challenged demand for Sessions to circumvent the investigative process at the Department of Justice. Faced with these attacks in the past, Sessions has taken a variety of approaches: He reportedly offered to resign, but was denied; he has sometimes simply ignored them. This time, he fired back, sort of. Sessions was seen at dinner with his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, and the solicitor general, Noel Francisco, in what looked like a united DOJ front. He also issued a statement:

We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary. As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.

That reads almost like a dare to Trump: If you’re so unhappy, why don’t you fire me? But the president has proven extremely reluctant to actually terminate anyone, catchphrase notwithstanding. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s exit has been foretold so many times that it’s easy to forget he’s still at Foggy Bottom, though based on his influence in discussions like tariffs, perhaps he might as well not be.