It appeared that there wasn't anybody minding the store when Air Force One went wheels up en route to the Middle East. All the big name advisors were on board, from Tillerson, to Bannon, to Kushner. But late last night--only 24 hours into the tour--The New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman tweeted that someone was cutting his trip short:
Priebus is said to be leaving the traveling White House caravan early, returning this week instead of staying the full foreign trip.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 21, 2017
And then she followed up with this:
There is likely to be one other who leaves early on the most crowded trips on AF1 of this presidency.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 21, 2017
To date, no other media outlet has confirmed this news. And Priebus was visible during Trump's speech this morning in Saudi Arabia, so clearly he didn't hightail it out of there after the rather horrifying view of Trump, Tillerson and Ross dancing with swords.
Priebus has been one of Trump's staff that was rumored to be on the way out, due to Trump's petulance over increasingly negative coverage of his own self-induced chaos.
Could Priebus be leaving because Trump has lashed out and fired him?
Could he be going home early to lawyer up?
To get an early start on shredding incriminating documents?
At this point, we don't know. But history has shown that with the Trump administration, where's there smoke, there's inevitably a raging dumpster fire.
