Contemporary Presidency: The Office of the Chief of Staff in the Trump White House, 2017-2019

Focusing on White House chiefs of staff and the Office of the Chief of Staff during the first three years of the Donald Trump administration, we examine the office and its occupants in the context of past scholarship on White House structuring and staffing. We discuss four major roles performed by chiefs of staff and their deputies (administrator, advisor, guardian, proxy), exploring their participation in management and in policy processes. We also look at the larger chief of staff's office, noting continuities with, and changes from, previous presidencies. Probing the roles, activities, and performance of President Donald Trump's first three chiefs of staff underscores both the significance of individual presidents in governing and the apparent constraints on their doing so.