Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is getting the Trump cold shoulder. Anyone who watches politics knows about the shoulder, and what it is precursor to. He’s headed for that very busy location known as “under the bus,” and it’s pretty much overdue, to be honest.
Mulvaney has blown up Trump’s messaging a hundred times, either cluelessly or maliciously. Or both. And now, judging by recent news, he’s gonna pay for it. And soon.
The Washington Examiner asked Trump on Friday about his, uh, clumsy acting CoS, and in their words he “refused” to “defend him.”
Asked during an Oval Office interview with the Washington Examiner if he is happy with the job Mulvaney is doing for him, Trump demurred.
“Happy?” he said, mulling the question. “I don’t want to comment on it.”
Instead, Trump offered a general defense of his senior team and said some West Wing “bedlam” was the inevitable result of an administration that had been besieged by federal investigations and congressional subpoenas from Day One.
“I could see that,” Trump said when asked about Republican senators expressing unhappiness with Mulvaney.
So he said he didn’t want to comment, and then he said he could “see” how Republicans might be fed up with Mulvaney.
Later in the day, CNN asked Trump about Mulvaney specifically as well.
We asked just now if Trump is weighing replacing Mulvaney. "I like Mick Mulvaney," he says. "I have a very good relationship" with him. https://t.co/ftVezORYc1
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 1, 2019
“I have a good relationship” is not a walk-back in Trump’s circle. If anything, it’s just another sign on the road to bus-town. Right before the end, nearly every time someone is about to get axed, he makes some comment about their personal relationship in this way.
And in this case even more than others, its appropriate. Mulvaney appears to be a genuine Trump guy, on the team. But he should be in the stands wearing the team colors as face paint, not on the field fumbling and muffing passes.
I mean when he blew it on a “quid pro quo” question from Jonathan Karl it should have become clear that, where as normally the fact that a staffer or cabinet member or Nikki Haley say something different or directly contradictory of Trump it is because Trump said it wrong in the first place, in the case of Mulvaney its just that he seems pathologically unable to phrase things the right way to make them match the party and White House line.
He gets tripped up by Chris Wallace every time he goes on the air there.
If Mick can’t make it work at FOX then buddy, he can’t make it work.
The Trump bus is headed right for Mulvaney, no matter what they may say to spin otherwise or keep it under wraps. And this is a bus stop that is earned. The sooner he’s gone, the sooner Trump can get someone in place who can stay on message. Considering we’re reaching the peak of the war against his administration, it’s past time to make it happen.
Hit the road, Mick. You can write nice op-eds for 2020 to help Trump get re-elected. But on TV, and in the White House, you are just another roadblock.