How many times have we seen that statement right before someody got shit-canned?In a statement, the White House said Mulvaney's "standing in the White House has not changed."
"He is still the acting chief of staff and has the President's confidence," deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement to CNN.
CNN
Rats in a cage.Since the impeachment inquiry began, Mulvaney has been locked in a feud with White House counsel Pat Cipollone. One person familiar with the quarrel said Mulvaney was frustrated because he felt Cipollone wasn't reading him in on the appropriate legal matters that a chief of staff needs to know about. The person familiar with White House strategy said that is partly because Cipollone is treating the impeachment inquiry as a legal matter, rather than a political one.
A key hallmark of the Trump administration is that he engenders "competition" amongst his staff, not cooperation.
UPDATE:Mulvaney also believed he was attempting to undermine him so Cipollone could eventually take his job. A person familiar with the dynamic said that Cipollone isn't angling for Mulvaney's job, but more influence, and because of the subject at hand -- impeachment -- more influence is within his grasp.
The two argued at length over the decision to publish an eight-page letter declaring that the White House wouldn't cooperate with an impeachment inquiry because they saw it as illegitimate -- a clash CNN reported on earlier.
[...]
[A]fter last week's remarks, which were seen as an admission that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo, Trump himself made clear that Mulvaney needed to issue a clarification. One source said Trump's confidence in Mulvaney has fluctuated in recent months, though another said the President wasn't that angry with his chief because he recognized Mulvaney was defending him in the briefing room.
"We all get turned into a pretzel defending Trump. That's the sad reality," a separate source close to the White House said.
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