CBS under fire for hiring ex-Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney

The former acting White House Chief of Staff was involved in Donald Trump’s plot to withhold military aid to Ukraine

CBS News is under fire for hiring former Donald Trump’s former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney as its newest contributor.

Mr Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina and founding member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, made his first appearance on the network on Tuesday morning to break down a new budget proposal from President Joe Biden that includes a tax on the wealthiest American households.

“So happy to have you here,” the CBS News host said by way of introducing Mr Mulvaney. “You’re the guy to ask about this.”

Mr Mulvaney, who also served as Mr Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, played an outsize role in his former boss’ attempt to extort Ukraine into investigating his presidential rival Mr Biden by threatening to withhold military aid from the country in the summer of 2019.

Mr Trump ultimately did withhold aid, but not before Mr Mulvaney reportedly asked his former colleagues in the budget office following a phone call between Mr Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky whether there was any legal justification for doing so.

Mr Mulvaney later confirmed at a press conference in October 2019 that the US was making military aid to Ukraine dependent on the European country’s cooperation in investigations, saying, “whether or not [a country] is cooperating in an ongoing investigation with the Department of Justice” is “completely legitimate” grounds for holding up aid, that the US engages in such quid-pro-quos “all the time,” and that reporters should “get over it”. He later walked those comments back.

Rick Wilson, a former Republican political strategist, hit out at CBS’ hiring decision.

Mr Mulvaney eventually resigned as White House chief of staff and was appointed US special envoy for Northern Ireland, where he served until resigning following the 6 January Capitol riot. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Mr Mulvaney penned a column for the Wall Street Journal in which he promised that Mr Trump would concede if he lost the election. He did not.

Former senior aide to Barack Obama Dan Pfeiffer called the network’s hiring “embarrassing for every journalist that works at CBS”.

Mr Mulvaney, who has largely stayed out of public life since the tumultuous end of the Trump administration, joined the program onMonday morning from Key West, Florida. In 2020, he launched a hedge fund – meaning he may end up being affected by Mr Biden’s plans to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.