Why Mulvaney matters as chief of staff: He’s in Trump’s corner
We’ve often said President Donald Trump is one of the most instinctually gifted political minds ever to sit behind the Resolute Desk. He bulldozed his way into Washington as the ultimate outsider but, somehow, walked off the inaugural dais in 2017 with a level of insight that usually is reserved for seasoned political hands.
While the election of President Trump has been unquestionably great for our country, it ups the stakes for those who wish to serve as effective aides for a president who won his first political race entirely on his own ideas, guts and hard work. Presidential advisers come and go, as in any administration, and while this president listens to advice as successful leaders do, few aides “serving at the pleasure of the president” have made an impact that provides President Trump with a skillset that he does not already possess. Suffice to say, the bar for being an effective aide to a president of such natural political instinct is a tough one to reach.
Our friend Mick Mulvaney, however, has risen to the challenge to become one of the unsung heroes of the Trump administration. President Trump has a long-term strategic vision for the country not seen in decades, and in Mulvaney he’s found an aide whose advice is worth listening to and who he can trust to execute his decisions. Mulvaney isn’t a glorified body man who simply wants to orbit the president, nor does he think his job is to act as a “check” because of a grossly mistaken belief that a modern chief of staff drives the agenda. Mulvaney knows that he is the “chief of staff” but that the two words “of staff” are the bolded text — and he knows the importance of letting Trump be Trump.
From his time on Capitol Hill as a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, to the directorship of the Office of Management and Budget, to his emergence as acting chief of staff, Mulvaney has served the president loyally and with a degree of capability few others in the administration can claim. He believes in the president’s conservative “America First” agenda and has worked indefatigably to ensure that, every day in his office, he moves the ball forward for conservative values and policies — some days an inch, some days a few yards, but always forward and always for the president. It’s the type of work that is done quietly and diligently, and receives little press, because few mainstream media outlets want to cover good things going on inside the Trump administration.
In fact, Mulvaney has effectively nullified one of the media’s favorite attacks on the president, the constant blitz of Page Six-like reporting on fake palace intrigue inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Mulvaney always acts in the interests of the president, and he’s helped to bring an end to the petty, irrelevant stories that proliferated under previous aides who were more interested in their own political clout and name recognition. Commendably, he reorganized the White House staff to resemble an operation solely dedicated toward furthering the president’s agenda, rather than a loose confederation of political power centers that saw the president’s success as an afterthought. This is critically important as the Trump team heads into the 2020 reelection campaign.
Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation’s unemployment rate is at a historically low 3.7 percent, with African-American and Hispanic unemployment reaching their lowest levels of all-time. The economy is thriving at a level the previous administration claimed was no longer possible, and leaders around the world, from China to the Korean peninsula to the far reaches of Afghanistan, know that, for the first time in years, the United States has a leader who will never bend under outside political pressure.
The credit for this historic American comeback unquestionably belongs to the president — but Mulvaney is the first chief of staff who is truly in the president’s corner, a loyal conservative doing everything he can politically and administratively to help the president succeed and make America great again.
The citizens of South Carolina lost an outstanding conservative legislator when President Trump hired Mulvaney to serve in the executive branch, but it’s undeniable that South Carolina’s loss is America’s — and the president’s — gain.
Corey R. Lewandowski is President Trump’s former campaign manager and current senior adviser to the Great America Committee, Vice President Mike Pence’s political action committee. Follow him on Twitter @CLewandowski_.
David N. Bossie is President Trump’s former deputy campaign manager and president of Citizens United. Follow him on Twitter @david_bossie.
They are co-authors of the books “Trump’s Enemies” and “Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency.”