Trump Replaces Mulvaney With Meadows as His Chief of Staff
Trump said on Twitter that Mulvaney would become the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney would be replaced by Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, changing the top leadership of the White House in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump said on Twitter that Mulvaney -- who was in South Carolina on Friday night following a personal trip to Las Vegas, according to three people familiar with the matter -- would become the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland.
Meadows, a Trump ally and loyal defender of the president during the impeachment trial, had declined to run for re-election this fall. Mulvaney has had the job in an acting capacity for more than a year, but Trump said Meadows would be “chief of staff.”
The White House declined to comment.
”It’s an honor to be selected by President Trump to serve alongside him and his team,” Meadows said in a statement. “This president and his administration have a long list of incredible victories they’ve delivered to the country during this first term, with the best yet to come.”
Meadows added that he wanted “to recognize my friend Mick Mulvaney” who “did a great job leading the president’s team through a tremendous period of accomplishment over the last year plus.”
The announcement caught much of the White House by surprise. Several aides and close associates said that while they believed Mulvaney’s tenure was coming to an end, they only learned of Trump’s decision when he posted his tweet.
Mulvaney’s Fall
Meadows has long been rumored as a successor to Mulvaney, who had fallen out of favor at the White House. Last week, after Trump held a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, both men returned with the president to Washington aboard Air Force One -- a situation some aides found awkward, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mulvaney also didn’t accompany Trump on his recent state visit to India. Aides said at the time that he was fighting off a cold. He also was not on a tour of western states.
In the last few days, several of Trump’s aides downplayed rumors that he would replace his chief of staff, saying they didn’t think it made sense for the president to make the move before the election or during the coronavirus crisis. Two aides pointed out that polling has shown that chaos in the White House is one of voters’ top complaints about Trump’s presidency.
They asked not to be identified discussing a personnel matter. Meadows will be Trump’s fourth chief of staff in less than four years.
Mulvaney’s presence has diminished in the West Wing and he had been expected to depart following Trump’s impeachment trial, which ended last month in acquittal. He has been absent from daily news briefings on the coronavirus outbreak that have been led by Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump offered only tepid support for Mulvaney recently, days after the acting chief of staff made candid comments during a closed-door speech in the U.K. that were at odds with administration policies on the budget and immigration.
“Yeah, he’s here now, sure, no problem,” Trump told reporters outside the White House as he prepared to depart for India, when asked if he still had confidence in the former South Carolina congressman.
Trump picked Mulvaney, the White House budget director, as his top aide in December 2018 and he has served in an acting capacity ever since.
Conservative Leader
Meadows, 60, was first elected to Congress in 2012. He’s a former chairman and co-founder of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.
He had been discussed as a potential White House chief of staff after John Kelly left the post in late 2018. At that time, Meadows told reporters it would be an “incredible honor” to serve as the president’s top aide.
Meadows and the Freedom Caucus, of which Mulvaney was also a founder, helped to engineer a federal government shutdown in 2013 in hopes of de-funding the Affordable Care Act. He and the group also played a key role in pushing former House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, into retirement in 2015. Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan made a point of seeking the group’s support before agreeing to succeed Boehner as speaker that same year.
Meadows was a prominent defender of the president throughout the FBI’s and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigations into Russian election interference in 2016, and then again during the House’s impeachment inquiry and Senate trial. He is a regular surrogate for Trump on conservative media outlets.
Cummings Friend
Though fiercely partisan, Meadows has been able to develop some close relationships with congressional Democrats. The late Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who was chairman of the Oversight Committee, said he considered Meadows “a good friend.”
The former real estate developer has experienced personal controversy in Congress. There have been questions about the accuracy of his academic credentials -- whether he earned a “B.A.,” or Bachelor of Arts, from the University of South Florida, or instead an “associate of arts.”
In November 2018, the House Committee on Ethics announced it was issuing a letter of “reproval” against Meadows for his handling of sexual harassment complaints some of his staffers had made against his then-chief of staff beginning in 2013.
Born in an Army hospital in Verdun, France, when his father was stationed there, Meadows, he grew up in Florida and moved with his wife, Debbie, to North Carolina in 1986. They have two children.
His district includes most of western North Carolina. He won an open-seat race for the district in 2012 when Democrat Heath Shuler, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback at the University of Tennessee and later the Washington Redskins, retired.
A dozen Republicans jumped into the race for Meadows’ seat after he announced he would retire. A May 12 runoff between the top vote-getters, Lynda Bennett and Madison Cawthorn, will decide the party’s nominee. Democrats have nominated retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Moe Davis.
Meadows has made no secret that he often talks directly with the president several times a day by telephone. In recent weeks, those close to Meadows were saying it was not a question of whether Trump would pick him as his next chief, but rather how soon.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net, Alex Wayne, John Harney
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