Trump chastised Mulvaney during shutdown meeting: report

President Trump chastised his new acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, during a recent meeting about the ongoing partial government shutdown, Axios reported on Sunday. 

One source told the news outlet that Trump interrupted Mulvaney to say, “You just f—ed it all up, Mick.” 

{mosads}Trump on Jan. 4 met with Democratic leaders and White House negotiators in the Situation Room to try to hammer out a deal that would end the government shutdown, which on Saturday became the longest in U.S. history at 22 days.

Mulvaney was reportedly in the middle of telling Trump that the White House and Democrats should try to come to a compromise when Trump interrupted him.

One source, paraphrasing Mulvaney’s remarks, told Axios that Mulvaney was saying “that if Dems weren’t OK with $5.7 [billion] and the president wasn’t OK with $1.3 [billion] … he was trying to say we should find a middle ground.”

“Trump cut him off,” the source said. “‘You just f—ed it all up, Mick,'” the source said, quoting Trump. “It was kind of weird.”

Another source confirmed the account.

A White House source told Axios that the recollection was “exaggerated.”

“This is an exaggerated account of the exchange that doesn’t reflect the good relationship Mulvaney has built over the last two years with the president,” the source told the outlet, but did not deny that the exchange happened. “The president and Mulvaney joked about it afterwards.”

A video clip circulated at the end of 2018 showing Mulvaney calling Trump’s call for a border wall “absurd and almost childish.” Mulvaney earlier this month said he has changed his mind on the issue. 

Trump’s demand for $5 billion in funding for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has spurred the partial government shutdown as Democrats refuse to give money for the structure.

Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for broader border security measures.

Trump in December named Mulvaney as his acting chief of staff, bringing him on to succeed former chief of staff John Kelly. 

Mulvaney is also the director of the Office of Management and Budget. 

Reports have indicated that Kelly left the White House amid stark disagreements with Trump, with veteran journalist Bob Woodward reporting in his tell-all Trump presidency memoir that Kelly once called the chief of staff position “the worst job I’ve ever had.”