Mick Mulvaney: Trump ‘Didn’t Hire Very Well’ or ‘Know How to Put a Team Together’

Appearing Friday on CNN’s New Day, former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney judged President Donald Trump “didn’t hire very well” or “know how to put a team together” when asked why several former administration officials have criticized the president since serving under him.

A transcript is as follows:

JIM SCIUTTO: The consistent portrayal of this president — and not just from John Bolton — you can list them. From the former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, from John Kelly, the former chief of staff, who of course proceeded you, from Rex Tillerson, the former secretary of state, from Richard Spencer, the secretary of the navy, and others, that this is a president who is unfit for the job and who consistently places his own political interests above the country’s interest. I am asking you — and I know you’ll attack John Bolton — are all these people who the president appointed to these positions, by the way, and who volunteered to take those positions and many of them have many years of service in the military or elsewhere in government — are all of them liars when all of them say the president is not up for the job?

MICK MULVANEY: It’s always difficult to tell what somebody else is thinking, so I’m not going to say they are liars. I’m going to say they are wrong. I think if there was one criticism that I would level against the president is that he didn’t hire very well. He did not have experience at running government, and didn’t know how to put together a team that could work well with him.