Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Sunday pressed former acting White House chief of staff\u00a0Mick Mulvaney\u00a0to explain why he resigned from his role as U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland this week after the insurrection at the Capitol, after enabling Donald Trump\u00a0throughout his presidency.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all of the controversial things Donald Trump did over the past four years, why was this week the final straw? Why now say that you can no longer be part of his administration?\u201d Wallace asked on \u201cFox News Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mulvaney said he could defend \u201calmost all\u201d of the things Trump was criticized for, arguing that they were mostly policy and \u201cstylistic\u201d differences.<\/p>\n
But \u201cWednesday was different, Wednesday was existential,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was wrong. And I think it was important for those of us who used to be on the inner circle … who was not a never Trumper to come out and say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were chief of staff for more than a year. Do you feel any responsibility for enabling Donald Trump?\u201d Wallace asked later in the interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel a lot of emotions this week. I was shocked, I was angered, I was sad, I was angered, I was embarrassed, I was frustrated,\u201d Mulvaney said, adding that he was still \u201ctrying to figure out what I could have done differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
He admitted that he was wrong to argue, in\u00a0a Wall Street Journal op-ed published six weeks ago, that Trump would concede gracefully. He said he really believed at the time that Trump would leave in a \u201cpresidential manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mulvaney then suggested to Wallace that Trump and his advisers had changed since he left the acting chief of staff position nine months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cMick, respectfully, there are people who say he isn\u2019t different, this is the Donald Trump you worked for,\u201d Wallace responded, before bringing up comments made by John Kelly, who preceded Mulvaney as chief of staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cKelly says specifically that you and others didn\u2019t have the spine to tell the president \u2018no,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mulvaney disagreed and defended himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very proud of the work that we were doing. Very proud of letting the president be the president because he was elected as the president,\u201d he said. \u201cBut again, all of that changed on Wednesday and I don\u2019t know why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wallace went on to press Mulvaney for defending the president during other controversies. He noted that Trump was impeached for pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on his opponent, President-elect Joe Biden, while Mulvaney was chief of staff. He also asked why Mulvaney did not resign from his role as director of the Office of Management and Budget after Trump defended white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, or after the administration separated parents from children at the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris, these are policy differences,\u201d Mulvaney said. \u201cThese are things that you think the country should look one way, we think it should look another.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are differences of style, the way the president speaks,\u201d he added. \u201cDid he misspeak at Charlottesville? Yes. Should he have corrected it? Yes. Did he handle it poorly? Yes. It\u2019s not something people resign over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview on Fox News below:<\/strong><\/p>\n