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After just six months in the job, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has exited the building.
His departure follows a series of public attacks from newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, a Washington outsider and former Wall Street financier.
So how did Mr Priebus go from Oval Office gatekeeper to following his political allies in the Trump administration out the door.
Close relationship with power brokers and grassroots
Back in November, Mr Trump appointed Mr Priebus — who had no governing experience in Washington — as his chief of staff, putting him at the power centre of the Trump administration.
The chief of staff typically helps guard access to the president, guide policy and political decisions, and will often be, along with the chief strategist, the last person the president consults before making major decisions.
Mr Priebus's extraordinary ability to build and maintain relationships with his party's power brokers and grassroots set him apart from other prospective chiefs of staff at the time.
The affable and slow-talking Mr Priebus has a particularly close relationship with House Speaker Paul Ryan, who is also from Wisconsin.
They met in the late 1990s when Mr Priebus was a party activist in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, and Mr Ryan was running for Congress — and Mr Priebus has been a friend and adviser to Mr Ryan all these many years.
But he may have been almost as popular among the Republican National Committee's 168 members, who represent many different factions of the GOP and come from every state in the nation.
Mr Priebus was already the longest-serving chairman in party history, having worked in that role since January 2011, but he easily could have been re-elected early next year had he wanted to seek another term.
More than anything, he served as the chief fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, a job he did very well.
He used the tens of millions of dollars he helped raise to create a nationwide voter outreach operation that fuelled Mr Trump's stunning victory.
An establishment leader who stood by Trump
Still, his status as a party insider caught the attention of some Trump supporters, including Tea Party leader Jenny Beth Martin.
She warned against his appointment, saying "no Washington insider, regardless of who it is, should serve as President Trump's chief of staff".
"It's time to drain the swamp, not promote insiders beholden to the Washington establishment who helped create it," she said.
Photo:
Mr Priebus became Mr Trump's regular traveling companion and confidant. (Reuters: Mike Segar)
But Mr Priebus's ability to earn Mr Trump's trust and confidence ultimately outweighed any political concerns.
He was perhaps the only major establishment leader to stand with Mr Trump over the campaign's final weeks as much of the political world predicted the Republican nominee would lose the election.
Mr Priebus became Mr Trump's regular traveling companion and confidant — optimistic until the very end.
"I don't buy this conventional wisdom that somehow or other, things are bad. I think things are going well," he said a few days before the election.
Change to chief of staff role
Mr Priebus has long favoured a "big-tent" political philosophy that encourages the GOP to adopt a more welcoming and inclusive tone.
Back in December 2015, he condemned Mr Trump's plan to ban Muslim immigrants — but by all appearances, the pair mended their relationship.
But then there were rumblings Mr Trump had structured the White House in a way that seemed to undermine Mr Priebus's authority from day one.
Several administration positions that were usually managed by the chief of staff now reported directly to Mr Trump.
Mr Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon also served as "equal partners" under the President — but speaking at a conservative gathering the pair denied there was ongoing tension between the them.
The beginning of the end
The event that triggered the beginning of the end for Mr Priebus was the hiring of Mr Scaramucci as communications director.
His selection, opposed by Mr Priebus, was followed immediately by the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer.
Several days later, Mr Scaramucci tweeted that someone had illegally leaked financial information about him, conspicuously mentioning Mr Priebus's twitter handle.
He later deleted that tweet and said he had only mentioned Mr Priebus to show that all senior leaders were taking the leak crackdown seriously.
Mr Scaramucci also phoned a reporter to unleash a profanity-filled rant against Mr Priebus, whom he called a "paranoid schizophrenic".
Mr Priebus's resignation followed just days later, landing himself in the history books as the shortest-serving chief of staff in modern American political history.
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, donald-trump, united-states
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