Former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is criticizing his onetime boss for his handling of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Mulvaney, who served as chief of staff for former President Donald Trump following the departure of John Kelly in 2019, said Trump’s Thursday claim that the insurrection posed “zero threat” because the rioters were “hugging and kissing the guards” was “manifestly false” during an interview on CNN on Saturday evening.
“I saw it differently than the president. I was surprised to hear the president say that. … Clearly, there were people who were behaving themselves, and then there were people who absolutely were not. To come out and say that everybody was fine and there was no risk is just manifestly false. People died. Other people were severely injured. To say there was no risk is just wrong,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown.
Mulvaney hasn’t been afraid to break with Trump in the past. As Brown noted, he resigned from his position of special envoy to Northern Ireland the day after the riot.
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“I called [then-secretary of state] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that,” he told CNBC on Jan. 7. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay.”
Mulvaney alluded to other resignations in his remarks at the time, claiming that those who will remain in their official capacities are motivated predominantly by fear.
“Those who choose to stay, and I have talked with some of them, are choosing to stay because they’re worried the president might put someone worse in,” he said.
A handful of other Trump administration officials left their positions in early January, citing disagreements with the then-president’s handling of the riot as the impetus for their decisions. Among the departures were Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump; deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews; deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger; and White House social secretary Rickie Niceta.
Trump was later impeached in the House on the charge of inciting an insurrection before he was acquitted in the Senate. He had previously been impeached on two Ukraine-related charges in 2019 before he was acquitted of both in the Senate.
Mulvaney was ousted from his position as chief of staff in December 2020 in favor of former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a Trump loyalist who joined networking “hub” Conservative Partnership Institute after the Biden administration took office.
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Despite the criticism, Mulvaney said he would “absolutely” vote for Trump if he ran in 2024.
“Sure, if the president was the Republican nominee for president, I absolutely would,” Mulvaney said, noting that 2024 is a long way off. “I think the more interesting question is, ‘What does the Republican primary look like?’ And nobody knows up to and including the president.”
