Mike Pence’s chief of staff won’t take White House job

As President Donald Trump heads into the fight of his political life, the man he had hoped would help guide him through it has now turned him down, and he finds himself in the unaccustomed position of having no obvious second option.

Nick Ayers, the main focus of Trump’s search to replace John Kelly as chief of staff in recent weeks, said Sunday that he was leaving the administration at the end of the year. Ayers, 36, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, is returning to Georgia with his family, which includes young triplets, according to people familiar with his plans.

The decision leaves Trump contending with fresh uncertainty as he enters the 2020 campaign confronting growing danger from the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference and from Democrats who have vowed tougher oversight after they take control of the House next month.

As the president restarted the search process, speculation focused on a group that was led by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, who is chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but also included Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney; and the U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. Some Trump allies were pushing for David N. Bossie, the deputy campaign manager in 2016.

Trump’s ultimate choice will be faced with a president whom the two previous chiefs of staff found nearly impossible to manage.

As the news broke Sunday that Ayers was declining the role, advisers to Trump were stunned by the turn of events.

One former senior administration official called it a humiliation for Trump and his adult children, an emotion that the president tries to avoid at all costs.

For more than six months, Ayers had been viewed as the favored candidate of the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have been seen as maneuvering for greater control and influence around the president. They had clashed repeatedly with Kelly as he tried to establish more regulated channels to the president, and believed that he was trying to undermine them.

Before turning down the job, Ayers told the president that he would be willing to do it only on an interim basis, through the spring. But Trump wants a long-term chief of staff, given the difficult period approaching, and he and Ayers were unable to agree on certain other terms, including whom he could dispose of from the current staff, three people familiar with the events said.

But other factors may also have weighed on Ayers. His move to the top West Wing job would have meant scrutiny of his personal finances - last year he reported net worth of $12.2 million to $54.8 million, a sizable sum for a political operative in his 30s who has amassed his own fortune.

Trump is facing a potential impeachment battle as House Democrats take over after a sweeping election victory last month. On Friday, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said in court filings that Trump had directed his former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to make illegal hush payments in the 2016 campaign. And the special counsel investigation continues to edge closer to the president.

Those who remain in the White House past the end of the year will have to face a fraught and uncertain dynamic. Several potential outcomes of the battles Trump confronts may not have been advantageous for Ayers if he makes a run for office.

Kelly is expected to stay on only another three weeks, at least one of which the president is scheduled to spend at his private club in Florida.

Hiring to fill several open jobs in the West Wing has been on hold for weeks, as people waited to see whether Kelly would depart and Ayers would replace him and bring in his own team.