Omarosa Manigault and Dina Powell Are Out. Who's Next?

Could we be seeing some voluntary turnover at the White House come New Year? I explore this question in a piece for the new issue of the magazine. Here’s a preview:

Washington was surprised to learn that Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser for strategy, will be leaving her post early in the new year. Powell, one of the few veterans of the George W. Bush administration to take a senior role under Trump, had been something of a rock of normalcy in an abnormal White House. In the administration’s first few weeks, her experience was a prized asset. Powell is, moreover, personally close to both Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump—which is the nearest anyone without the last name “Trump” can get to job security in the West Wing.

Her desire to leave after one year was apparently well known, according to administration officials. Powell’s family remained in New York—where she had been a partner at the investment bank Goldman Sachs—and she commuted back and forth weekly. She timed her exit to follow the release of the president’s national security strategy, on which she worked closely with National Security Council staffer Nadia Schadlow.

Powell’s decision to move on from the White House so early in the administration was her own, and she leaves with many fans. “We are losing an invaluable member of the president’s national security team,” says Defense Secretary James Mattis. “She is one of the most talented and effective leaders with whom I have ever served,” says her boss, H.R. McMaster. But it remains a very unusual choice, and the White House door may only just have started revolving.

Goodbye Paul Ryan?—Via Politico: “Paul Ryan Sees His Wild Washington Journey Coming to An End”