What’s interesting about this statement by Mulvaney is that he wants everyone to believe that in taking on two enormous jobs, one as the White House chief of staff AND as the head of the Office of Management and Budget, his labor (in his estimation) is only worth $20k more.

Now, we can talk about how government officials, particularly those in our highest offices right now, have been able to make lots of money outside of their government salaries. But let’s just take Mulvaney at his word: $20,000 is not chump change—but if this $20K is truly worth it to Mulvaney, it means one of four things:

Mulvaney believes that he will be doing the same amount of work regardless of his job title because the Trump administration is a amorphous blob of incompetence and corruption.

Mulvaney had already been doing the job of chief of staff long before he was given the “acting” title, and so would rather have a few more dollars to show for it.

Mulvaney has no intention of doing much more work because being chief of staff for Donald Trump isn’t a real job, because one has zero agency.

Mulvaney is so tragically terrible at managing money and doing math that he thinks $20K extra for doing two jobs is worth it just to be close to the bright garbage fire that is the Trump administration.

Whatever the answer is, it is not a good one. Sadly, the rest of the “wide-ranging discussion” shows that Trump administration officials like Mulvaney don’t even seem to care about covering up their hypocrisies or morally bankrupt stances anymore.