The real reason Donald Trump is shipping Mick Mulvaney out of the country

| 11:00 pm EST March 6, 2020
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Donald Trump didn’t just remove Mick Mulvaney from the Acting White House Chief of Staff position today. He announced that he’s appointing Mulvaney as the “United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland.” This has raised a lot of eyebrows, to say the least. So what’s really going on?

Based on what Trump has leaked about Mulvaney over the past few months, it’s been clear that Trump wanted to move on from him. In fact when you look at the timing of Mark Meadows’ December 19th announcement that he wasn’t going to seek House reelection, it’s been clear that Trump was simply waiting for the impeachment trial to be in the rear view mirror before dumping Mulvaney. But why Northern Ireland?

Let’s be clear. Mulvaney isn’t being shipped overseas as some kind of punishment. Mulvaney wouldn’t have to accept such an assignment, and could instead resign. The fact that he’s being appointed to such an oddly specific position suggests that Mulvaney was told he could have any position he wanted so long as it wasn’t in the White House, and he asked to be sent on what (in Trump’s dysfunctional diplomatic corps) will essentially be an all expenses paid long-term vacation to Northern Ireland.

Donald Trump still has to worry that if he angers Mick Mulvaney too much, he could see Mulvaney run to the House and testify about the Ukraine scandal. Impeachment is over for now, but the House can start it back up again any time it wants. It appears that when Trump decided to fire Mulvaney, he crafted this new position specifically to Mulvaney’s liking. By the way, this is all such a dysfunctional mess, no one is even sure if this means Mulvaney is still the head of the OMB.