White House senior aide Kellyanne Conway said she suggested to colleagues on Friday that they not treat President Donald Trump and other senior officials like their peer, The Hill reported.
Conway's advice followed a major staff shakeup Friday when the president announced Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was stepping down and would be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. She explained to Fox News when she began as Trump's campaign manager last August she told him she would "never" address him by his first name and that she didn't "consider myself your peer."
"The reason I said that is because I do think that it is important to set up that level of deference and humility when you've got someone who's your boss, now the president of the United States, now the chief of staff, a general, a secretary, who is clearly your senior, your superior," Conway said.
"I think it's very important that people not treat elected officials like the president and the vice president as their peers," she added.
CNN reported Priebus privately submitted his resignation on Thursday. It followed a profanity-laced interview earlier in the week with new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci and a reporter from The New Yorker. In the interview he attacked Priebus and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.