Heading for the exits

 Several people who have been major players during the Trump administration have finally come to their bridge too far.

Mick Mulvaney:

Mick Mulvaney, former White House chief of staff and current special envoy to Northern Ireland, announced he is stepping down in what appears to be the latest in a stream of resignations following the chaos that was unleashed at the US Capitol by supporters of President Trump.

“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney told CNBC in an interviewThursday.

“Those who choose to stay, and I have talked with some of them, are choosing to stay because they’re worried the president might put someone worse in,” Mulvaney said.

Betsy DeVos:

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sent a letter to President Trump on Thursday announcing her resignation. She is the latest administration official to quit in protest of Wednesday's violence at the U.S. Capitol. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

For four years, DeVos has been one of Trump's steadiest allies in a Cabinet with revolving doors, but in a letter to the president, DeVos said she was tendering her resignation, effective Friday, because she had seen enough this week:

"We should be highlighting and celebrating your Administration's many accomplishments on behalf of the American people. Instead, we are left to clean up the mess caused by violent protesters overrunning the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to undermine the people's business."

She called the riots "unconscionable," and contrary to the president's efforts to downplay his role in fomenting the unrest, DeVos said she believed "there is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me."

"Impressionable children are watching all of this," she wrote of Trump's role in Wednesday's events, "and they are learning from us. I believe we each have a moral obligation to exercise good judgment and model the behavior we hope they would emulate."

Elaine Chao:

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced that she will resign following Wednesday’s vandalism of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.

“Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the President stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed,” she said in a statement addressed to her colleagues. “As I’m sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”

Chao, who called her appointment “the honor of a lifetime,” said her last day will be on Monday. 

John Kelly has been gone for a while, and he's been fairly self-restrained in remarks since his departure. But he's decided the time is now to be bracingly forthright about what ought to happen:

• John Kelly, who served as President Donald Trump's chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019, called for the president's removal via the 25th Amendment on Thursday.

• "What happened on Capitol Hill yesterday is a direct result of his poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the fraud," Kelly told CNN's Jake Tapper.

• When Tapper asked if Kelly would vote to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment if he were still chief of staff, he replied "Yes, I would."

• "When you first meet or start working with him — in my case, no idea of the flaws — and you start working for him and begin to understand how flawed he is, then it's a matter of staying in the job as long as you can to prevent some sort of disaster."

Several others have said they've had a bellyful as well:

 . . . several White House staffers — including Stephanie Grisham, first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff, and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews — have said they would step down.

White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger also reportedly stepped down Wednesday.

Other resignations reportedly include: Ryan Tully, a senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, John Costello, deputy secretary of Commerce, and Tyler Goodspeed, acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Fewer grownups than ever who might be able to get the president's ear. If he listens to anybody, it's more likely than ever to be a wack-job. 

We're in for a tricky couple of weeks if the Very Stable Genius isn't gone within a matter of hours.