Monday, December 17, 2018

He Said It

The new “acting” White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, once offered this opinion of his boss: He’s a terrible human being.

Mick Mulvaney, the Office of Management and Budget director who President Donald Trump tweeted Friday would serve as acting chief of staff after John Kelly departs in January, has been a loyal Trump supporter—but he didn’t always like him so much.

During a debate with his then-congressional challenger, Democrat Fran Person, on Nov. 2 of 2016, less than a week before Trump was elected president, then-congressman Mulvaney was blunt with those gathered at York Middle School in York, South Carolina.

After decrying the Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as a liberal who would take the country in the wrong direction, Mulvaney said he was supporting Trump, essentially by default.

“Yes, I am supporting Donald Trump, but I’m doing so despite the fact that I think he’s a terrible human being,” he said, according to a report in The State newspaper.

In a perverse way, that may actually help him do his job; there’s no point in being a sycophant if your job is to actually run the White House and be the one to tell the president “no” on various occasions.

Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.