Mulvaney brought a new approach to managing the West Wing. He didn’t manage it. His guiding maxim was: Let Trump be Trump. Mick’s outlook—don’t challenge the president’s impulses, just make them work—represented a sharp departure from his predecessor. No longer would officials play back-in-the-box with the president’s awful ideas. Instead, we were urged to focus on making bad ideas more palatable, to soften their rough edges. This kept the president happy and his acting chief of staff out of Trump’s line of fire. The only problem with the approach is that Trump has not changed since the time
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