Mulvaney will be looking for a new job

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney first learned about the U.S. military raid against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after the operation was already underway, according to five current and former senior administration officials.

Mulvaney was at home in South Carolina when President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday night that “Something very big has just happened!” He was briefed on the raid that night, officials said.

  NBC

I assume he's watching Trump's Twitter account closely.

The extraordinary move by Trump to leave his chief of staff out of the most significant U.S. military operation against the world’s most wanted terrorist since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 represents a major blow to Mulvaney, suggesting that he is increasingly sidelined inside the White House.

And that bus is barreling down the highway.

The White House chief of staff typically would be central to such a momentous gambit for a president, coordinating logistics, public statements and notifications of congressional leaders and allies. Bill Daley, who was White House chief of staff during the bin Laden raid, was seated next to then-President Barack Obama as he monitored the raid in a secure White House room with a small group of senior officials.

Andrew Card, former President George W. Bush’s longtime chief of staff, said the exclusion of Mulvaney from a moment of such magnitude in the presidency is difficult to grasp because the chief of staff typically would be in national security meetings leading up to it and tasked with coordinating with other top officials on everything from a communications strategy to a plan in case the raid failed.

The writing is on the wall, Mick.

“I’m baffled by it,” Card said. “It’s hard for me to imagine."

[...]

“It’s really unprecedented, and to me it’s just a symptom of a total breakdown in the White House functions,” said Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.”

Honestly, I think it's pretty easy to understand. Mulvaney blew it on national TV when he admitted to a quid pro quo in Trump's dealings with Ukraine a couple of weeks ago.

“Only in a completely dysfunctional White House would the White House chief of staff be out of the loop on something so significant,” he added.

And that's what we have. A completely dysfunctional White House.

Trump has been actively considering possible replacements for Mulvaney, officials said. On Monday, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley repeatedly declined to say whether the president has confidence in Mulvaney when pressed by NBC News.

“Mick has done a good job implementing the president’s policies at OMB and as acting chief of staff,” Gidley said, referring to Mulvaney’s role as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

[...]

[A] person close to the president said Mulvaney was “cooked” after that performance.

“Mick self-immolated,” this person said. “He got up there, poured lighter fluid on himself and lit the match.”

UPDATE 11/13:

President Trump has been threatening for weeks to fire acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, but senior advisers have counseled him to hold off on such a drastic step amid a high-stakes impeachment probe, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Trump has expressed particular anger over Mulvaney’s performance in an Oct. 17 news conference in which Mulvaney stunned White House aides by saying military aid to Ukraine was withheld to pressure its government to launch investigations that could politically benefit Trump, two of the people said.

[...]

Senior advisers have cautioned Trump that removing Mulvaney at such a sensitive time could be perilous, the people said — both because Mulvaney played an integral role in the decision to freeze the aid, and because of the disruption that would be caused by replacing one of Trump’s most senior aides.

“I don’t think you’ll see him going anywhere until after December,” said one Trump adviser. [...] “But the president was very unhappy with that press conference. That was a very bad day for the president.”

  WaPo