Trump summoned Reince Priebus to the Oval Office to make him swat a fly

2025-04-28 07:35:36admin

President Donald Trump fired his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, via tweet on Friday after a long battle between factions at the Trump White House.

It was a fitting end to the rocky relationship between Priebus and Trump—one marked by Trump's lack of respect for the former Republican National Committee chairman.

SEE ALSO: All the stuff in my fridge that lasted longer than Reince Priebus

An anecdote in a Washington Post story outlining what led to Priebus's firing shows exactly how tenuous Priebus's position in the White House was.

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Trump's demeaning of Priebus came through in other ways, too. At one point, during a meeting in the Oval Office, a fly began buzzing overhead, distracting the president. As the fly continued to circle, Trump summoned his chief of staff and tasked him with killing the insect, according to someone familiar with the incident. (The West Wing has a regular fly problem.)

Yep: Trump made his chief of staff kill flies for him. It's not that surprising when you consider how Trump generally treated Priebus.

Per the Washington Post:

“It reached a fever pitch of the president complaining about Reince to all of us,” said one senior White House official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “If we heard it once, we heard it 20 times in the last week — this erosion of confidence. The word was 'weak' — 'weak,' 'weak,' 'weak.' 'Can’t get it done.'”

Nevertheless, Priebus appeared on Hannity Friday night and voiced his continued confidence in Trump. The president, Priebus said, will definitely get reelected in 2020.

Maybe not if he continues to be distracted by bugs. How is John Kelly at fly-swatting?

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