Author: Meadows is history’s worst White House chief of staff

The author of a book on the history of White House chiefs of staff said in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed that Mark Meadows is the worst to ever hold the position.

Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency,” acknowledged what he said was stiff competition, including former President Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, who went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.

However, he said, “Meadows, Trump’s fourth chief of staff, has been a yes-man straight from central casting, the see-no-evil West Wing minder Trump wanted but could never find.”

Whipple included harsh words for President Trump’s previous chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus, John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney, but wrote that “Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina, has raised sycophancy to an art form. When Trump chose paths that were destructive to himself and to the country, there is little evidence that Meadows forced him to reconsider.”

Whipple went on to castigate the current chief of staff for his part in the White House handling of the coronavirus pandemic as well as Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election.

He also highlighted Meadows’s participation in a call in which Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) “find” enough votes for the president to win the Peach State, calling it the former congressman’s “lowest moment.”

Whipple concludes by lambasting Meadows’s handling of the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“As the insurrectionists sacked the Capitol, chanting ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ Meadows reportedly tried to persuade the president to do something to quell the crisis. He couldn’t get through to Trump. By then, the monster Meadows had helped to create was beyond anyone’s control,” Whipple wrote.