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

by Chris Whipple

Daley was a bad fit from the start; to the president’s true believers, his arrival felt like a hostile takeover. The chief made it painfully clear that there was a new CEO in town. He canceled the traditional 8:30 a.m. staff meeting, leaving people out of the loop, and barred key aides from others. “The doors to the chief of staff office were shut all the time—that’s never the way it was with Rahm,” says a former senior staffer. “Daley looked at all of the young Obama people like we were part of the problem,” says another former aide. “We were enablers—there were very few advisers that he found common cause with.”