Rinse, Repeat: Mick Mulvaney Latest Trump Flunky to Get Media Image Rehab
Plus: My interview with Nina Turner
The news media spent much of the last administration railing against the norm-destroying approach to government practiced by President Donald Trump and wondering how to prevent something like that from ever happening again.
They could start at home.
This morning, CBS News announced that Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney—who also served in the administration as the director of the Office of Management and Budget and Special Envoy to Northern Ireland—would join the network as a contributor. Mulvaney’s first task was to break down a tax on the rich.
As Daily Show producer Matt Negrin pointed out on Twitter, CBS didn’t once mention Mulvaney’s past working with Trump.
“CBS News is legitimately lying to the public to rehabilitate the image of a Trump official,” Negrin said.
CBS is hardly alone. Mulvaney is now a co-chair of lobbying group Actum alongside former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, among others. His bio proudly declares he “served in more and varied positions than likely any other person,” but doesn’t mention who he served under in the White House.
Same old story
This is nothing new. As I’ve written about many, many times, US media institutions regularly rehabilitate the images of politicians—even those they’ve spent years attacking.
George W. Bush is a prime example of this phenomenon; 14 years after the end of his presidency, he’s seen as a cuddly elder statesman type, never mind crashing the economy, using homophobia and conspiracy theories to get elected, and starting a global war which has killed, wounded, and displaced millions of people.
After Trump’s defeat in 2020 and subsequent attempt to overturn the results of the election, liberal pundits declared they’d hold the former president accountable and anyone who helped him cause near-irreparable damage to the US and its institutions.
Fast forward just over a year and Mulvaney is on CBS, John Bolton is making the rounds to talk about foreign policy, and Bill Barr is fielding softballs on Meet the Press to promote his book.
Liberals in the media often wonder how we got here, how the American far right was normalized. The call is coming from inside the house.
Talking with Nina Turner
On Monday, I interviewed former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner on her campaign for Congress. The progressive star is running in the Democratic primary to represent Ohio’s 11th District.
We talked about the race as well as the state of the progressive movement and Democratic politics. Listen to the full conversation here.
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