Mulvaney Suggests Trump Didn’t Know ISIS ‘Point Person’ McGurk Because He Doesn’t ‘Follow This Topic’
On ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, guest host Jon Karl spoke with incoming acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney about President Trump claiming not to know anything about ISIS coalition special presidential envoy Brett McGurk.
Trump blew off McGurk’s resignation in a weekend tweet that downplayed the event and the significance of McGurk.
Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015. Was supposed to leave in February but he just resigned prior to leaving. Grandstander? The Fake News is making such a big deal about this nothing event!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2018
Mulvaney was telling Karl that Gen. James Mattis and the president “just could never get on the same page about foreign policy and national defense, when Karl brought up McGurk.
“But — but it’s not — it’s not just Mattis. We also saw Brett McGurk, who was top U.S. diplomat for the campaign against ISIS. He’s resigned also to protest the president’s sudden withdrawal from Syria,” said Karl. “He said in an e-mail to his staff, ‘the recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of the policy that was articulated to us. It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered.’ Is there any chance the president changes his mind about this, reverses course?”
“No. I think the president has told people from the very beginning that he doesn’t want us to stay in Syria forever. You’re seeing the end result now of two years worth of work,” said Mulvaney. “But keep in mind it’s not unusual for a president to lose members of the cabinet over these types of disagreements.” Although Mulvaney said it was not unusual, he could only come up with one other example, an imperfect one in Chuck Hagel, and was unable to come up with others on the other talks shows as well.
Jon Karl pressed on. “Well, if you look at what the president – how the president responded to McGurk, he said that he had never met him, he doesn’t know him. McGurk’s title is the ‘Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS’. How is it that the president doesn’t know his point person in the battle against ISIS?”
“You know the answer to that,” said Mulvaney, echoing the President’s dismissiveness of McGurk’s role. “The administration is thousands of – the executive branch of government is millions of people– I have no idea who that person is. Never heard of him–”
“You don’t know Brett McGurk?” Karl interrupted.
“Until yesterday. All I know is that there’s an Obama appointee who saw an opportunity–” said Mulvaney.
“He was a Rehnquist clerk-” continued Karl.
“He was,” said Mulvaney.
“He served throughout the Bush administration, he’s a lifelong Republican. He’s not an Obama appointee. He was tapped on–” Karl said.
“He took that – did he take that position under Obama’s administration?” interrupted Mulvaney.
“He was – he was held over from the Bush administration,” Karl clarified.
“But you see my point,” said Mulvaney.
“This is not a Democrat,” said Karl.
That’s when Mulvaney got to what he was really saying: Trump wasn’t paying much attention to it.
“I’m certain – I’m certain he’s well-known within the folks who follow this topic, I think the fact that the president of the United States doesn’t know him,” Mulvaney said, drawing a distinction between Trump and the people who follow the topic, “I just don’t think should cause anybody any concern.”
Watch the clip above, courtesy of ABC News.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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