WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump announced Friday that he had selected Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to serve as his acting chief of staff, temporarily halting a week of speculation about who would take over one of the most important positions in the federal government.
Trump tweeted that Mulvaney "will be named Acting White House Chief of Staff, replacing General John Kelly, who has served our Country with distinction."
"Mick has done an outstanding job while in the Administration," Trump posted. "I look forward to working with him in this new capacity as we continue to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! John will be staying until the end of the year. He is a GREAT PATRIOT and I want to personally thank him for his service!"
Mulvaney, a hard-line conservative and former congressman from South Carolina, is a fiscal hawk who has produced budgets that cut federal spending only to see congressional Republicans and Democrats ignore them.
He was more successful in a rare, dual-hatted role that Trump had given him, overseeing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he scaled back the mission, in keeping with the president's view of the agency.
Still, unlike the two others who have served as Trump's chief of staff, he brings an understanding of the intersection between the White House and Congress.
Mulvaney emerged as the president's choice for a position that, in other administrations, has been akin to the chief operating officer of the country, after high-profile announcements from others that they were not interested in the job to replace Kelly. Kelly is set to leave the position by the end of the year.
Trump and Mulvaney met face to face Friday afternoon at a meeting that was supposed to be about the budget and spoke by phone in the evening, according to a second White House official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the personnel matter on the record.
"This is a tremendous honor," Mulvaney tweeted. "I look forward to working with the President and the entire team. It's going to be a great 2019!"
On Friday, a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there would be no end date to Mulvaney's role despite his "acting" title.
"There's no time limit. He's the acting chief of staff, which means he's the chief of staff," the official said. "He got picked because the president liked him -- they get along."
Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, took himself out of the running for the job Friday, saying in a statement that he had asked to no longer be considered a day after he met with Trump at the White House about it. Trump did not offer it to him, but they had what was described as a good discussion.
Trump's first choice to replace Kelly, Nick Ayers, a political operative from Georgia who is now Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, turned down an offer from the president last weekend and plans to leave the administration.
Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Lemire, Catherine Lucey, Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller of The Associated Press; and by Michael Tackett and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.
A Section on 12/15/2018