Why General John Kelly Is Trump’s Last Hope

Why a four-star Marine general signed up to save the foundering Trump Presidency.

Hundreds of people, including dozens who have been exiled from the West Wing for a sorely needed renovation, turned up to meet the new boss.

No introduction was needed. John Kelly simply stepped to the microphone and said, “Hi. Nice to meet you. I’m from Boston.” As the President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and other senior aides watched from the wings, the retired four-star Marine general then rallied the embattled troops and laid down new rules of engagement. He urged his staff to stop the infighting and set their egos and agendas (and any leaking) aside. With a nod to the Marine credo–God, Country, Corps–he told his audience that they must start serving a hierarchy that put the nation, and not the President, first: “Country, President, Self,” he said.

So began a new era at Donald Trump’s White House, one that might be his best, or last, chance for success. Almost overnight, Kelly shut the always-open door to the Oval Office, sent hangers-on back to their desks, fired the combustible communications director Anthony Scaramucci and told all the leaders of all the many White House factions to report to him, not to the President. No one knows whether Kelly will succeed, how long he might last or if the general’s starched-shirt discipline will be rejected by the client. Early results were mixed, and skeptics are not hard to find. But Kelly clearly arrived with a mission: to fix a broken system that the nation and the world depends on every day to keep the ship called Earth in the middle of the channel.

Of course, almost any new order is better than the chaos that reigned in the White House before July 31. “It’s at rock bottom,” said one White House aide of the mood when Kelly took over. That doesn’t mean brighter days ahead. “Well, with this White House, it could always get worse.”

But under Kelly, 67, that seems unlikely, both because Kelly won’t permit it and because Trump, who defers to virtually no one, shows a clear preference for, and deference to, the military brass. It’s a bit of a mystery why. Perhaps because he went to a military academy for five years, or because he imagines that they will do whatever he says, or because he just likes tough guys with a killer instinct, Trump likes generals. Rarely in U.S. history has a clutch of senior brass played such an outsize role in the affairs of state as they do now. The President’s chief of staff, his Defense Secretary James Mattis and his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster are all either active-duty or retired generals. What makes the arrangement all the more interesting is that the three men are not only friends but longtime allies. Two of the three are Marines, and when you add Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (who, with Kelly, served under Mattis), it is safe to say the scrappy Marine Corps has never had so much clout in the chain of command.

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