"I COULD HAVE COMPROMISED MYSELF MORE!":

The chief of staff criticised the implementation of the family separations policy at the border, which in the summer "brought down a greater deal of thunder on the president".

Of Trump's demanded wall, for which he has shut down the US government despite campaigning on a promise to make Mexico pay, Kelly said: "To be honest, it's not a wall."

"The president still says 'wall'," he said. "Oftentimes frankly he'll say 'barrier' or 'fencing,' now he's tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it."

Citing the thorny question of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Trump's urge to pull out of Nato, the Times said Kelly "defended his rocky tenure, arguing that it is best measured by what the president did not do when Kelly was at his side".

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