Report: Kelly Can't Stop Trump From ‘Binge-Watching Fox News’

John Kelly, President Trump

President Trump was in an ornery mood recently after staff members suggested he refrain from injecting politics into day-to-day issues of governing and he responded by lashing out at the most senior aide in his presence.

It happened to be his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, reports The NYTimes.

Kelly, the former Marine general brought in five weeks ago reacted calmly, but he later told other White House staff members that he had never been spoken to like that during 35 years of serving his country.

Like every other new sheriff in town Trump has hired to turn things around at the White House. What is different this time is that Trump, mired in self-destructive controversies and record-low approval ratings, needs Kelly more than Kelly needs him.

In his short time at the White House, Kelly, a 67-year-old native of Boston, has regimented, as no one has ever done before, the flow of paper, people and information inundating an omnivorous and undisciplined Mr. Trump.

“I now have time to think,” a surprised Mr. Trump has told one of his senior aides repeatedly over the last few weeks.

The NYTimes reports Kelly cannot stop Trump from binge-watching Fox News, which aides describe as the president’s primary source of information gathering. But Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.

Now Mr. Kelly has thinned out his package of printouts so much that Mr. Trump plaintively asked a friend recently where The Daily Caller and Breitbart were.