Why is Trump letting himself get jerked around by his budget director?

So much for the smart president

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

President Trump forced Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to hold a press conference on Wednesday morning to proclaim that the president is "smart," after NBC News reported that Tillerson had called him a "moron" back in June. On the same day, White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney directly contradicted Trump, after the president casually remarked that "we're going to have to wipe out" Puerto Rico's gigantic $73 billion debt and said, "You’re going to say goodbye to that, I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs but whoever it is you can wave goodbye to that." Mulvaney quickly responded that "we're absolutely not going to bail them out," and emphasized that Puerto Rico would have to pay up.

Yet Trump has so far not forced Mulvaney to recant, or given any sign of sticking to his guns. Why is the president allowing himself to be jerked around like this?

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.