WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday that President Bush had asked his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to stay on in Bush's second term, and that Card had said yes. It was the first major personnel decision made by the president since his re-election, and it suggested that Bush did not intend any major shakeup of his most senior White House aides.
But the White House had nothing to say about how many Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials might be leaving, either voluntarily or not. Bush met with Card at Camp David over the weekend to begin considering the makeup of the second-term Cabinet, and to secure Card's agreement to continue in his job.
One prominent Republican with ties to the White House said the administration had already put out feelers to people who might replace some of the current Cabinet secretaries. But it is not clear how far into his decision-making process Bush is; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference Monday that he had yet to have a postelection discussion with the president about his job.
Bush now seems certain to start his second term surrounded at the White House by many of the same aides who have been with him since he was governor of Texas, including Karl Rove, his senior adviser; Dan Bartlett, the communications director; and spokesman Scott McClellan.
Other longtime aides, like Margaret Spellings, the domestic policy adviser in the White House, who is often mentioned as a possible education secretary, could move to other top-level jobs within the administration.
The fate of newer faces in the White House, like Stephen Friedman, the former Wall Street executive who has been director of the National Economic Council for the past two years, is less clear to insiders but seems to hinge as much as anything on their own decisions about staying on.
The biggest unanswered question about Bush's inner circle is whether Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and one of the president's closest confidants, will stay in her job, move to a Cabinet post or leave the government. Neither she nor Bush has given any public hint of their intentions.