The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

by Chris Whipple

“Jimmy was good at sayin’, ‘Hey, boss, you’re wrong.’ He learned one thing from me: You can stand up to a president who is a secure individual in his own right.”

Grueling as the chief’s job was, Panetta could be misty-eyed about it. “Sometimes the president would leave for a meeting, and I’d be alone in the Oval Office and I’d say to myself, ‘Man, what a great country—where a son of immigrants can be next to the most powerful position on the face of the earth.’

“You simply can’t get it done in what anybody would call a normal day because you live in a twenty-four-hour news cycle,” Bowles says. “When something might not be going on here, something is going on in Europe or Asia or the Middle East. In an average day you would deal with things like Bosnia, Northern Ireland, the budget, taxation, the environment—and then you’d have lunch. And people would always joke, ‘Thank God it’s Friday, only two more workdays till Monday.’ ”

“As Don Rumsfeld told me, ‘You’ve got to be prepared to be fired,’ ” Bowles says. “ ‘Because if you’re not, then you’re not going to give him the right advice. And the right advice is not always yes.’

“I can’t tell you how many guys tell me, ‘Look, it’s great that we’re talking. Let’s just not let anybody know,’ ” he says. “It’s different than when Leon was here, and it’s different than even when Podesta was here.” Part of it, he says, is that Congress is never around. “These guys get here on Monday night or Tuesday night and they leave on Thursday night. Right? So that leaves you Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights for when the president presumably can schmooze with these guys. Why doesn’t the president go golfing with these guys on the weekend? Well, because they’re not here.”

“Every one of these guys at different times told me something that pissed me off,” Obama said, flashing his familiar grin. “They weren’t always right; sometimes I was. But they were right to do that because they knew they had to tell me what I needed to hear rather than what I wanted to hear.” Obama looked at Priebus. “That’s the most important function of a chief of staff. Presidents need that. And I hope you will do that for President Trump.” With that, Obama said his good-byes and exited.