Thanks but no thanks: Pence's top aide Nick Ayers, 36, turns down Trump's chief of staff role because he 'didn't want to commit for two years'

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Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's top aide, will not be President Donald Trump's new chief of staff in the wake of John Kelly's departure, it was revealed on Sunday.

Ayers, who served in the chief of staff job for Pence, was a top contender for the gig but he and the president were unable to agree on a time frame for the position.

Trump wanted Ayers to commit to two years - taking him through the 2020 presidential election - The Wall Street Journal reported, but Ayers wanted a shorter period, citing family concerns.

He is the father of triplets and is said to want to move back to Georgia. 

He told the president he only wanted the gig on an interim basis, for the first three months of 2019.  

President Trump will announce his replacement for White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, it has been revealed 

Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's current chief of staff, was a top contender but is not taking the job out of family concerns.

Instead, Ayers will be leaving the administration to run America First, a pro-Trump super PAC, ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

That means both Trump and Pence will be looking for new chiefs - the top job in each office. 

And the president looking for a top aide to guide him through a rocky 2019 and 2020 when Democrats control the House of Representatives and are warning Trump of dangerous waters ahead. 

Trump is considering four other names and will announce his choice by the end of the year.

One of those names is Republican lawmaker Mark Meadows, the chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, Axios reported. 

A top Trump ally on Capitol Hill, Meadows has been one of Trump's most ardent defenders in Russia investigation and has called for an audit of the finances in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and has threatened Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with a subpoena. 

And others under consideration include Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Director of Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, and the United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, according to the New York Times. 

And Bloomberg reports acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker is said to be in consideration.

Mnuchin and Lighthizer accompanied Trump on his recent G20 trip to Argentina. 

Mulvaney's name has come up for the chief job before with reports differing on how much he wants it. 

White House sources told CBS News that Trump and Ayers had been talking about the details for the appointment.  

Trump wants his next chief of staff to hold the position through the 2020 election, which sources said could be an issue for 36-year-old Ayers. 

A father of six-year-old triplets, it has long been known that Ayers wants to leave the Trump administration and move his family back to Georgia by the end of the year. 

Trump revealed on Saturday that Kelly would be 'leaving at the end of the year'. 

'John Kelly will be leaving - I don't know if I can say retiring - but he's a great guy,' Trump told reporters as he was leaving the White House to attend the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia.  

'We'll be announcing who will be taking John's place - it might be on an interim basis. I'll be announcing that over the next day or two, but John will be leaving at the end of the year. I appreciate his service very much.' 

Ayers took to twitter Sunday to thank the president.

'Thank you @realDonaldTrump, @VP, and my great colleagues for the honor to serve our Nation at The White House. I will be departing at the end of the year but will work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause. #Georgia,' he wrote.

Nick Ayers took to twitter to thank the president and announce his departure

Trump is said to be considering four other names  - including conservative Congressman Mark Meadows (left) and United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (right)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (left) and Director of Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney (right) are said to be in consideration for the chief of staff job

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker is also said to be in consideration for the job

Vice President Pence took to Twitter to thank Ayers

And Pence tweeted his thanks to his outgoing chief.

'.@nick_ayers has done an outstanding job as my Chief of Staff and I will always be grateful for his friendship, dedication to the @VP team and his efforts to advance the @POTUS agenda. Thank you Nick! Karen and I wish you, Jamie and the kids every blessing in the years ahead,' he wrote. 

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on 'Fox News Sunday' Trump had kind words for Kelly at a White House staff holiday party. 

'President Trump at our senior staff Christmas dinner Friday night had some wonderful, complimentary things to say about the chief. I heartily concur,' he said.

Kudlow said he didn't know if Kelly had been forced out or left the job voluntarily. 

' I don't know, to be perfectly honest. I think it was very amicable. That's what I understand,' he said. 'Everybody is going to have disagreements, that's the way life works. But was he fired? I don't think he was fired. I wasn't privy to that final conversation with the president had great things to say about him.' 

Ayers showed up late to the dinner as he had been meeting with Trump, Pence and Kelly about the job, Axios reported.

In that meeting, the decision was to announce Kelly's departure on Monday but Trump announced it Saturday before he left for the Army-Navy game.

Two guests told Axios the dinner was 'awkward.'

'We all knew something was up, but nobody talked about it,' one attendee said. 

Ayers worked as a lobbyist before he became the national chairman for Pence's vice president campaign in 2016. He also served as a senior adviser to Trump's transition team. 

He was strongly backed by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who frequently clashed with Kelly and reportedly fought to get him booted from the Oval Office.   

Trump's announcement came on the heels of a report by DailyMail.com on Friday that Kelly was 'expected' to leave the White House before the end of the year.

The president had reportedly stopped speaking to Kelly, the latest development in a relationship that frayed over the 16 months that the retired Marine four-star general presided over the West Wing. 

Kelly's future in the Trump administration had been uncertain for nearly a year after a DailyMail.com report in February revealed domestic abuse allegations against former White House staff secretary Rob Porter and raised questions about Kelly's handling of the affair. 

The staff shake up allows Trump to start fresh in anticipation of Democrats' ascension to power in the House in January and and his re-election campaign in 2020. 

Kelly had some success early on with imposing a more disciplined structure to the West Wing after his appointment to the position in July of 2017. 

But his management style upset some allies of the president, including Anthony Scaramucci, a major donor to Trump who Kelly sent packing his first week on the job. 

The Homeland Security secretary at the time, Kelly replaced Reince Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, becoming Trump's second chief of staff in under two years.   

Ayers was seen celebrating at the president's Washington DC hotel on Friday night with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Scaramucci.

Trump is seen with Kelly in his first day on the job as chief of staff on July 31, 2017. Kelly replaced Reince Priebus in the role as was initially expected to bring order to the West Wing

Aides to the president decamped to Trump International Hotel following a dinner that the president and first lady hosted for senior staff earlier in the evening, sources told DailyMail.com.

While they toasted to the president and to one another, they did not raise a glass to Ayers specifically, a White House official added.

Scaramucci said his presence was 'totally accidental' at the celebration - he was holding a book signing and presentation when his former colleagues came through and he greeted them. 

A source familiar with the situation told DailyMail.com that the dinner at the White House was supposed to serve as an appreciation event for Kelly and other departing senior officials.

'They were trying to give John the out he deserved for his service to the country. That was the plan,' the source said. 

The timeline for an announcement was said to have been expedited after Kelly's exit leaked to the media.   

CNN reported Friday morning that Trump and Kelly were no longer on speaking terms.

They 'know that they are 17 months into what has been a very tumultuous relationship. It is no longer seen as sustainable by either party,' the network reported.

Trump announced during a senior staff meeting in July that he had asked Kelly to stay through the 2020 election, and that he agreed

'Their relationship has deteriorated so much in the last couple weeks, where John Kelly's job security has essentially been seen as permanently in danger.'

And The Washington Post reported that Trump was only spending six or seven hours in the Oval Office daily, instead preferring to be in the residence, where he could do what he wanted.

And Kelly told colleagues the less time Trump spent in the Oval Office some days, the better. 

As the White House tried to regain control of the narrative, The Daily Caller, a favored Trump news outlet, reported Friday that an unnamed source had said the idea of an impending Kelly resignation was 'absolutely untrue,' and that the chief of staff had merely taken a day off.     

The president has been telling people for the past several days to call Ayers if they have a request. The directive has spread so far that senior aides are no longer regarding Ayers' ascension as a secret, an insider said.   

Trump had insisted in October, as the White House attempted to project confidence in advance of the midterms, that he was not going to ditch Kelly for Ayers or other rumored candidates for the job.

Trump brought a New York Magazine reporter into the Oval Office for a parade of denials that ended with Kelly and Ayers giving each other a bear hug.

Since the election, the relationship between Trump and Kelly has apparently soured. 

Kelly had clashed with top Trump advisers inside and outside the White House, getting into West Wing screaming matches with National Security Adviser John Bolton and others.  

His claim in January of 2018 that Trump had 'evolved' in the way he looks at issues since he became the nation's chief executive and become 'fully informed' also served as an irritant to the president.

Trump swatted back in a tweet the next morning that declared: 'The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.'

Kelly is seen in the Oval Office last month. His relationship with Trump had reportedly grown so frayed that in recent days the two men were no longer on speaking terms

The latest White House shakeup inspired some Trump critics to dig up this 2012 tweet

Kelly once joked that he had been removed as Homeland Security secretary and shifted to the White House because 'God punished me.'  

Even so, Trump announced during a senior staff meeting in July that he had asked Kelly to stay through the 2020 election, and his chief of staff had agreed.

The two men even discussed a commitment at the time for Kelly to agree to run the West Wing until 2024 if Trump were to win a second term. 

Since then Trump had backtracked, arguing at a post-election news conference that people leave and it can't be helped.  

'As we make changes, we'll sit down and talk to you about it. I mean, there's no great secret. A lot of administrations make changes after midterms. I will say that, for the most part, I'm very, very happy with this Cabinet. We're doing a great job,' the president said.

Pressed to confirm that Kelly was staying, Trump said: 'People leave. I haven't heard about John Kelly. But, no, people - people leave. They come in, they're here. It's a very exhausting job.'

Trump went further in a Fox News Sunday interview later in the month, in which he admitted: 'There are certain things that I don't like that he does.'

'There are a couple of things where it's just not his strength. It's not his fault. It's not his strength.'