Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says the quiet part out loud while reacting to Trump's racist Truth Social post depicting the Obamas as apes.
Mulvaney made an appearance on this Friday's Connell Mcshane on NewsNation and was asked about the White House's original ridiculous spin that it was supposedly a staffer that posted the video and not Trump himself, and Mulvaney threw cold water on that notion before stating the obvious on what this will mean for the midterm elections:
MCSHANE: The only one question, Mick, that I was thinking about that I wanted to ask you about this, and it's kind of a practical one from your time as chief of staff. We used to hear that the president himself handled his social media posts like late at night and early in the morning.
Were you ever aware of a time when a staffer would have access to or be posting from the president's account, again, late at night or early in morning?
MULVANEY: Not at late at night. Typically there'd be one other staffer, Dan Scavino, who very often posted on the president's X account. I understand there's one other staffer now in this second administration, Natalie, somebody, who I don't know as well, who also might have access to his account.
But that being said, that would be during business hours. My understanding is that this was posted at 11:44 at night. So sort of the default setting amongst anybody would be that this was the president himself.
By the way, I'm having difficulty with the video, but, I've gotta ask you, Connell, did you show the picture?
MCSHANE: Did we show it on the air? That's a good question. Claudine, did we show it on the air earlier? Because we talked about it. Our show has not. No, our show has not shown it on the air.
MULVANEY: Exactly. Because it's so offensive. Think about that. It's so offensive, we won't put it on the air.
MCSHANE: It's very offensive. I... I obviously watched it like everyone else did. By the way, the only reason I asked Claudine is just to make sure, because sometimes something flashed up at the... earlier you know when I wasn't watching. But no, I watched it, but finish your point about about the offensive images.
MULVANEY: My point is this... is that we won't show it, and I respect that, and I agree with that decision. But people are going to see it.
This ad is going to be replayed in every single one of the House and Senate races going into these midterms.
First thing that came to my mind after I got over the shock of this is oh my goodness you can kiss the midterms goodbye. This is going to be something that is going to be seen again and again and again.
I know the White House is doing a little bit of damage control here today. We talked maybe a little bit about what they should be doing, but there's been a lot of damage done and it's going to take a lot of work to undo it at all.
After Mcshane asked him about Leavitt attacking the media for covering the story at all, telling them there are "more important things" they should be talking about, and telling Mulvaney he did not feel it was an "either/or" decision on what they're covering, Mulvaney responded by explaining what should have happened if it were actually a staffer that posted the racist crap we all know Trump posted himself.
MULVANEY: It isn't. And of course, that initial statement seems to imply that it was the president. It was the second statement they put out that said, oh, by the way, it was just a staffer.
Look, let me put my old chief of staff hat on for a second, because it's entirely possible this was a staffer. There are other people in the White House who do have access to the president's Twitter or social media accounts.
But if I'm the chief of staff, I'm coming out today on television, I'm saying, look, it was a staffer. This is the staffer. I would name the staffer, and this staffer is no longer working here. [...]
And at the end of the day, I would go to the president and tender my resignation, offer to resign, because if you're the chief of staff and the staff is doing this, then you have a problem amongst your staff. That's how you handle this situation.
Mulvaney went onto say "This is clearly a self-inflicted wound that's been handled... you couldn't handle it any more badly than they have," before the host changed the topic.
That's an understatement, but then you could say that about a thousand different things Trump has done since taking office again.
There is no staffer. Trump posted this, and he's not going to fire himself and resign, and I wouldn't doubt it if he decides to just start defending it if the media keeps hounding him about it.
He doesn't care because he knows his racist base loves this crap, and he can't stop himself. He has the maturity level of a five year old and zero self control.
