Among some senior White House officials, Mick Mulvaney had long been considered the “Original Plan B.” Al Drago for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced on Friday that he had selected Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to serve as acting White House chief of staff, putting a halt — at least for now — to his consideration of a parade of possible candidates, including several who turned him down, to take over one of the most important positions in the federal government.
In Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Trump made a safe choice for a Republican administration — a hard-line conservative and former congressman from South Carolina with a deep understanding of how Congress works and a personal chemistry with the president. Among some senior White House officials, Mr. Mulvaney had long been considered the “Original Plan B.”
Mr. Trump made the announcement on Twitter, one week after his first choice for the job, Nick Ayers, a Georgia political operative who is now Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, took himself out of the running, citing family considerations. The sometimes chaotic search process that went on in between served as another measure of the often frenetic manner of decision making in the Trump White House.
“For the record,” the president tweeted later Friday evening, “there were MANY people who wanted to be the White House Chief of Staff. Mick M will do a GREAT job!”
At the beginning of the week, the president said there were 10 to 12 candidates actively vying for the position, but that list seemed to shrink by the day during what was often a highly public audition. Just hours before the announcement about Mr. Mulvaney, Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, whom the president was strongly considering, took himself out of contention.
Mr. Trump met with members of his family and one of his top political advisers, Brad Parscale, before making his decision on Mr. Mulvaney.
For whatever period he serves, Mr. Mulvaney will be trying to succeed where John F. Kelly, the current chief of staff, and Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s first, struggled. Mr. Kelly is set to leave the White House by the end of the year.
While Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine general, was initially seen as someone who could work well with Democrats and Republicans, Mr. Mulvaney has a reputation as a sharp-elbowed partisan, who as both the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pursued a strongly conservative agenda.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Mr. Mulvaney was “hardly the kind of peacemaker” needed to smooth relations between the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill.
“What he did at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was destroy an agency and undermine its mission,” Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview. “He seems to be a Trump surrogate with a clear agenda, and my fear is he will exacerbate divisions at a time when they need to be bridged.”
Last year, Mr. Trump asked him to oversee the consumer…
