Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney insisted that “a lot of the tension” reported in the White House between chief strategist Stephen Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner is “misreported” and “blown out of proportion,” during an interview Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”
Mulvaney, who noted that he is in the White House every day, downplayed the widespread media reporting indicating that Kushner and Bannon have engaged in constant clashes that have jeopardized Bannon’s place in the White House. The OMB director also insisted that he hasn’t heard anything indicating that Bannon is on his way out of the White House.
“The team functions extraordinarily well, and I haven’t seen a single one of these supposed outbursts or breakdowns or whatever that the media reports.”
“I think a lot of that tension is misreported, blown out of proportion,” Mulvaney said. “In fact, the team works probably better than I expected, given the fact that a lot of these folks knew each other before they were here.”
“The team functions extraordinarily well, and I haven’t seen a single one of these supposed outbursts or breakdowns or whatever that the media reports,” Mulvaney added. “[White House Chief of Staff] Reince [Priebus] gets along with Bannon. Bannon gets along with Jared. I just don’t see it.”
Insisting that Bannon “is a great member of the team” in the White House, Mulvaney said that “Bannon should stay.”
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“I haven’t heard anything to the contrary within the White House. I obviously read about it in the media,” Mulvaney said. “But the bottom line is the president is the one who makes the policy around here, and we just help him get it done.”
When Ingraham asked Mulvaney if Trump's populist-conservative agenda and "America first" policies would be "imperiled" should Bannon leave the White House, Mulvaney's answer was unequivocal: "No."
"Because the president's populism is real," Mulvaney said. "This is really who he is, and I've seen examples of that already as I've walked through budget proposals with him, tax reform proposals, seen him talk about it. His populism is real. It's not something that Steve Bannon forced on him."
