President Donald Trump's simmering anger at his own staff has a new target inside the West Wing, according to a fresh report.
The president is weighing whether to fire White House Cabinet Secretary Meghan Bauer, MS NOW White House reporter Jake Traylor reported Tuesday, citing two current White House officials and one former official. One of the current officials said Trump's irritation with Bauer has been building for months, and that he has spoken with top-level aides this week about removing her.
"One of the current officials said Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Bauer over the past few months," Traylor wrote. "Trump has held discussions with senior level staffers this week about her removal."
Bauer leads the Office of Cabinet Affairs, which makes her the president's main point of contact with the heads of federal departments and keeps her in close orbit with Trump and his chief of staff. In a profile published last month by the Independent Women's Forum, Bauer described overseeing Trump's 24-member Cabinet, including coordinating secretaries' meetings with the president, their media interviews and their travel across the country.
Traylor wrote that in Bauer's "high-ranking role," she serves as "a liaison between the president and the cabinet secretaries and works closely alongside the president and chief of staff."
The report comes just days after Trump announced that chief of staff Susie Wiles would leave the job and that longtime adviser Stephen Miller would replace her. Bauer told the Independent Women's Forum she considered it a privilege to work under Wiles, the first woman ever to hold the chief of staff role.
Trump has signaled more departures are on the way after midterm elections that handed Democrats control of both the House and Senate. In a preview clip from CBS News' "60 Minutes," the president said he expects "maybe a few changes" to his team.
The turmoil is not limited to the people Trump wants gone. Traylor and his MS NOW colleagues reported last week that some aides fed up with the GOP's losses are already plotting their own departures, with some in Trump's orbit doubting it's worth sticking out the administration's last two years. "It's going to be hell," one person close to the White House told MS NOW.