Trump to make 'one or two major changes to his government' soon: President's friend
A friend of President Donald Trump said that when he spoke to him yesterday the president said Trump told him "he's expecting to make one or two major changes to his government very soon," but "that's going to be it."
Asked by ABC News "This Week" Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz if more staff changes are coming, Trump friend Christopher Ruddy, an ABC News contributor and the founder and CEO of news and opinion site Newsmax, said Trump is "perplexed by all these reports that there's chaos at the White House or mass staff changes."
"He told me he thinks the White House is operating like a smooth machine -- his words," said Ruddy. "He did say that he's expecting to make one or two major changes to his government very soon and that's going to be it."
Ruddy added that other sources in the White House, not the president, told him that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin will be out "very soon."
But, Ruddy said Trump is happy with both his chief of staff, John Kelly, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
"But other reports, people like Ben Carson, I'm told that the president is happy with the job he's doing, he will be staying; chief of Staff Kelly, the president is happy with the job he is doing, he will be staying," Ruddy said.
Ruddy's comments come after a week in which National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster left the White House, to be replaced by Trump with John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton is the third person to serve in that role since the president took office in January 2017.
And, McMaster's departure came less than a week after the president's firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his naming the current CIA director, Mike Pompeo, to replace him as the top U.S. diplomat.
Other recent staff changes including the firing of a former FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe, and the resignations of Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.
