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Trump Names Mark Meadows Chief of Staff, Ousting Mick Mulvaney – The New York Times, Nytimes.com

Trump Names Mark Meadows Chief of Staff, Ousting Mick Mulvaney – The New York Times, Nytimes.com
Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, is a stalwart ally of the president’s.
Credit … Erin Schaff / The New York Times
(March 6, , (9:) PM ET
  • WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Trump on Friday pushed out Mick Mulvaney, his acting White House chief of staff, and replaced him with Representative Mark Meadows, a stalwart conservative ally, shaking up his team in the middle of one of the biggest crises of his presidency.

    Mr. Trump announced the change on Twitter after arriving in Florida for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate, choosing to make one of the most significant switches he can make in his White House on a Friday night when most of the country had tuned out news for the weekend. As a consolation prize, the president named Mr. Mulvaney a special envoy for Northern Ireland.

    I am pleased to announce that Congressman Mark Meadows will become White House Chief of Staff. I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one …. – Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7,
    Mr. Trump’s decision to push out Mr. Mulvaney came as the president confronted a coronavirus outbreak that has unsettled much of the country, threatened the economy and posed a new challenge to his re-election campaign. But the decision was seen as a long-delayed move cleaning up in the aftermath of the Senate impeachment trial as he shuffles his inner circle for the eight-month sprint to Election Day.

    Trump called Mr. Meadows on Thursday to offer him the job, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Mr. Mulvaney, who took an annual trip to Nevada this week, learned of the decision on Friday, another person familiar with the events said. Mr. Mulvaney did not travel with Mr. Trump to Florida; Instead, he sent his top deputy, Emma Doyle.

    The replacement was widely seen in the West Wing as a chance for the president to reinvigorate his staff, over which Mr. Mulvaney was seen as losing control. In Mr. Meadows, Mr. Trump will have an ally whom he has treated as a confidant and a bellwether of congressional conservatives for much of his term.

    Meadows takes over as Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director, returns on Monday in a new role working for Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. . Meadows, a founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, has been one of the president’s most vocal supporters, fiercely advocating his agenda on Capitol Hill and serving as one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent defenders during the House impeachment inquiry and Senate trial. (First elected in) , Mr. Meadows announced in December that he did not plan to seek re-election, hinting at the time that he might work for Mr. Trump in some capacity. “My work with President Trump and his administration is only beginning,” he said.

    But both he and the president have been coy, refusing to say whether Mr. Meadows might join the re-election campaign in a senior position or take a top job at the White House. In response to speculation that he might become chief of staff, Mr. Meadows repeatedly demurred. For months, Mr. Meadows – who served on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which led many of the investigations into Mr. Trump’s administration – was a ubiquitous face on television arguing forcefully that the president had done nothing wrong. Those appearances helped cement his relationship with Mr. Trump. The president soured on Mr. Mulvaney long ago but was warned by advisers not to get rid of him until after his trial in the Senate, which ended with his acquittal on Feb. 6 Throughout the impeachment battle, Mr. Mulvaney was at near-open war with the White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone, who at one point was seen as a potential successor as chief of staff. Mulvaney was a central player in Mr. Trump’s campaign to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats. At one point, Mr. Mulvaney publicly contradicted the president’s version of events . Yet he followed Mr. Trump’s orders to defy a House subpoena to testify and was never called by the Senate. Peter Baker. Mulvaney, , a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, was the third person to run Mr . Trump’s White House in three years and served in that role for more than 16 months in an “acting” capacity without ever formally being given the title. No president has had four chiefs of staff in such a short amount of time, underscoring the record turnover that has marked Mr. Trump’s West Wing since he took office.

    In testimony to House investigators, current and former administration officials placed Mr. Mulvaney at the heart of the events that led to the impeachment inquiry that threatened Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. Mulvaney carried out Mr. Trump’s order to suspend the aid to Ukraine in July without explanation even though it had been approved by Congress, an action later declared illegal by the Government Accountability Office Peter Baker. At the news briefing in October, Mr. Mulvaney

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