Sarah Sandars, Raj Shah could be leaving the White House team this year - CBS News

As is being reported by CBS News, unnamed sources within the White House administration have confirmed that Sarah Sanders, Donald Trump's close confidant, Press Secretary, and head interference-runner for the POTUS, along with Raj Shah, the principle deputy press secretary, will be leaving the White House team.

Key quotes

"Press secretary Sarah Sanders and principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah are both heading for the exits, according to sources inside the White House and close to the administration. Sanders, who has become a confidante of President Trump since the departure of former communications director Hope Hicks, has told friends that she plans to leave the administration at the end of the year.

Shah is also considering his exit, but he has not yet settled on an exact date. Neither Sanders nor Shah immediately responded to repeated requests for comment.

Numerous staffers have left the White House over the last several months, some voluntarily and others having been forced out. Those departures include Hicks; Jared Kushner's top communications aide, Josh Raffel; homeland security adviser Tom Bossert; National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton; Trump personal aide John McEntee; director of White House message strategy Cliff Simms; communications aide Steven Cheung; congressional communications director Kaelan Dorr; assistant press secretary Natalie Strom; and deputy director of media affairs Tyler Ross.

"There will be even more people leaving the White House sooner rather than later, laid off or just leaving out of exhaustion. And it is going to be harder to find good people to replace them," a source close to the administration told CBS News. "I do think they're going to have a harder time getting the second wave of people in than the first, because those people were loyalists, and [new] folks will have to be recruited and encouraged and then survive the vetting process. In addition to all of that, the president prefers to have a small communications staff."

The White House has been plagued by leaks that have infuriated top White House officials, including one about communications aide Kelly Sadler making an insulting joke about Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is suffering from brain cancer. The incident spawned an Oval Office meeting with Sadler and senior communications aide Mercedes Schlapp that ended in recriminations and expletives over leaking. Many staffers have described the White House as a dysfunctional and toxic place to work. Sadler, too, recently left the White House."