Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace that he had misjudged President Donald Trump.
Mulvaney, who resigned from his position as Special Envoy to Ireland after Wednesday’s riots, told Wallace that President Trump had always been a different person behind the scenes than he had been in the media. But he also noted that Trump had changed since the presidential election as well. (RELATED: ‘A Little Concerned’: Mick Mulvaney Discusses Rudy Giuliani’s Role In Election Lawsuits)
WATCH:
Wallace pointed out an article Mulvaney had written for the Wall Street Journal just four days after the election in which the former chief of staff had said that he had every expectation that Trump’s behavior, win or lose, would be fitting of his office.
“You said the U.S. needs to know that the winner is actually the winner and once Americans know that, ‘I have every expectation that Mr. Trump will be, act, and speak like a great president should, win or lose,'” Wallace said. “Mick, how could someone who worked with the president so closely for three years be so wrong about who Donald Trump was?”
“I wrote that article for a reason, because I had seen the examples,” Mulvaney said, explaining that in his view, President Trump had definitely changed. “If you go read the piece I give couple of examples and this one is another example that I’ve never talked about publicly, which is that during the impeachment, the president tweeted something during the testimony and there was concern that it might rise to the level of of tampering with witnesses.”
Mulvaney went on to say that, after reading the offending tweet, he advised Trump to change course.
“He got a bunch of different opinions and then fixed it, reversed course and did the right thing. That was the president that we saw time and again,” Mulvaney continued. “You saw him through the media, you saw him in the light you wanted to see him. We saw the real President Trump who had that ability to pivot when he knew something had gone off the rails. That didn’t happen on Wednesday. It hasn’t happened much since the election, and that’s what I think the difference is and that’s why I got that piece so wrong six weeks ago.”