Mick Mulvaney’s three-month tenure as acting White House chief of staff has earned him plaudits from President Trump’s allies, who say the former Republican congressman has ushered in a period of less drama and more focus.
“There’s a lot less palace intrigue, a lot less drama, and a lot of focus on the agenda,” said former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, a central figure in the turbulent early days of the administration.
Mulvaney remains the president’s budget director and was tapped by Trump to serve as his acting chief of staff in December after the departure of John Kelly, who held the position for more than a year. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was Trump’s first chief of staff.
Mulvaney, 51, stepped into the role at a turning point for the White House. Democrats, now with subpoena power, took control of the House in January and have wasted no time in launching a slew of investigations.
Where Kelly, a former four-star Marine general, brought a background of military order, Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, has the political experience.
A White House official said Mulvaney was well-equipped to deal with Democrats and anticipate their moves. “And because he knows all of their personalities, he can cut through their rhetoric,” the official said.
Mulvaney has put his own stamp on the West Wing by hiring several former aides to work with him in the White House.
Kelly tried to streamline operations and bring structure to the West Wing, but his relationship with the president appeared to fray. He limited access to the Oval Office, including by senior advisers Ivanka Trump, Trump’s daughter, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law.
More White House officials now have access to the president, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said. While Kelly attempted to stem the flow of staffers going in and out of the Oval Office, Mulvaney is allowing officials to speak directly with Trump whenever they need to.
“The president has the ability now to hear directly from people who work in the building and should have direct access to the president,” Lewandowski, who speaks with Trump regularly, said.
Chris Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, said the selection of Mulvaney to replace Kelly is most beneficial to Ivanka Trump and Kushner.
“If there are any winners in this arrangement, the winners might be Jared and Ivanka, because I think that they now have unfettered access, which they did not have under Kelly,” he said. Mulvaney was wise “not to try to impose some kind of control over two people that Donald Trump obviously values.”
“The biggest problem for any White House chief of staff at this point is that this is a guy, Donald Trump, for whom focus and process and discipline are anathema,” he said. “And it’s a chief of staff’s job to instill those things so it makes it almost mission impossible for anybody to do that.”
