President’s announcement came after widespread speculation and a selection process some compared with a reality TV contest
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Eliana Johnson on politico.com on December 14,2018.
President Donald Trump announced on Twitter late Friday that Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, will become acting White House chief of staff.
Mulvaney will replace chief of staff John Kelly, who is leaving the White House at the end of the year. The president did not elaborate on how long Mulvaney would serve in the role.
“I look forward to working with [Mulvaney] in this new capacity as we continue to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” the president wrote in a tweet. “John will be staying until the end of the year. He is a GREAT PATRIOT and I want to personally thank him for his service!”
The president’s announcement was initially seen as a stopgap solution to the sweepstakes reality show that was underway for the position.
The decision comes hours after former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said that he does not want to be Trump’s next chief of staff, leaving the president with a dwindling list of candidates and underscoring the chaos of the search for the top West Wing aide.
Christie, an early Trump supporter who led the White House transition effort before being ousted, made the announcement just a day after he met the president to discuss possibly taking the role. Christie’s firm statement also came shortly after reports emerged that he was the front-runner for the job, showing how quickly contenders’ odds can rise and fall.
“It’s an honour to have the president consider me as he looks to choose a new White House chief of staff,” Christie wrote in a statement. “However, I’ve told the president that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment. As a result, I have asked him to no longer keep me in any of his considerations of this post.”
Christie has had a tumultuous relationship with Trump and his family – even though he and the president have been friends for over 15 years. Christie tangled with Trump on the campaign trail before dropping out of the 2016 presidential race, and he has long had tension with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner for helping put Kushner’s father in prison more than a decade ago when he was a US attorney.
