WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Friday pushed out Mick Mulvaney, his acting White House chief of staff, and replaced him with Representative Mark Meadows, a stalwart conservative ally, shaking up his team in the middle of one of the biggest crises of his presidency.
Mr. Trump announced the change on Twitter after arriving in Florida for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate, choosing to make one of the most significant switches he can make in his White House on a Friday night when most of the country had tuned out news for the weekend. As a consolation prize, the president named Mr. Mulvaney a special envoy for Northern Ireland.
I am pleased to announce that Congressman Mark Meadows will become White House Chief of Staff. I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one....
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Mr. Trump’s decision to push out Mr. Mulvaney came as the president confronted a coronavirus outbreak that has unsettled much of the country, threatened the economy and posed a new challenge to his re-election campaign. But the decision was seen as a long-delayed move cleaning up in the aftermath of the Senate impeachment trial as he shuffles his inner circle for the eight-month sprint to Election Day.
In taking over the White House, Mr. Meadows, 60, a retiring Republican from North Carolina, becomes Mr. Trump’s fourth chief of staff in 38 months, the most that any president has had in such a short time. His arrival almost surely signals more changes to follow, as most of Mr. Mulvaney’s deputies and others on his team are expected to leave, too, possibly including Emma Doyle, his top lieutenant, and Joe Grogan, the domestic policy adviser.
The Turnover at the Top of the Trump Administration
Since President Trump’s inauguration, White House staffers and cabinet officials have left in firings and resignations, one after the other.
Hope Hicks, one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted advisers, returns on Monday in a new role working for Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. Mr. Mulvaney, who technically retained his post as budget director while serving as acting chief of staff, will surrender that, too, and the acting director, Russell T. Vought, appears poised to take the job permanently, an appointment he has quietly lobbied for for months.
The change has been a long time coming. The president soured on Mr. Mulvaney a while ago but was warned by advisers not to get rid of him until after his Senate trial, which ended with Mr. Trump’s acquittal on Feb. 6. Throughout the impeachment battle, Mr. Mulvaney was at near-open war with the White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone, at one point seen as a potential successor as chief of staff.