“At the end of the day, he still considers himself to be in the hospitality business,” Mulvaney told Wallace about Trump’s original decision to hold the next G-7 summit at his resort in Doral, Fla. — a decision he reversed late Saturday.

“I just have to pick up: You say he considers himself in the hospitality business?” Wallace asked. “He’s the president of the United States.”

Mulvaney’s interview did not play well among Trump allies and advisers, with one calling it a “self-immolation.”

More broadly, it was the latest sign of turbulence during the acting chief of staff’s roughly 10-month tenure. It was also a symbol of the struggle within this White House to manage and fight back against Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, all while facing deep criticism from fellow Republicans over the administration’s handling of Syria and the G-7 venue. During the past week, White House aides have felt under siege. One former administration official called it one of the White House’s worst weeks during Trump’s presidency, and aides and allies started to contemplate the length of Mulvaney’s tenure in the West Wing.

In recent months, Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, has grown fed up with Mulvaney at various points and has spoken poorly of his laissez-faire management style, one Republican close to the White House said. At first, Kushner was quite pleased with Mulvaney’s hands-off approach because of its departure from the tense reign of Gen. John Kelly, Mulvaney’s immediate predecessor, and because it allowed Kushner to operate freely. Yet that sentiment has waned in recent months, the Republican said, as the White House has started to feel more chaotic.

A senior administration official said Kushner is supportive of Mulvaney as the acting chief of staff and that when there have been complications in the White House, Mulvaney and Kushner have a close enough relationship to “hash it out.”

The White House press office declined to comment on the record Sunday. Later, it did not respond when asked whether White House aides or allies were drawing up lists for Mulvaney’s replacement.

On ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos," former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a longtime friend of the president’s, called Trump’s since-reversed decision to hold the G-7 at Doral an “unforced error” and Mulvaney’s Thursday briefing “a mistake.”

Rahm Emanuel, a former chief of staff to President Barack Obama and a former mayor of Chicago, had his own advice for Mulvaney on the same program: “Get yourself a lawyer, and do it fast.”

Christie added: “I’ve said this to the president as recently as this week. We have to be in friend-making mode. OK? There’s a time to be combative and there’s a time to be in friend-making mode, vis-à-vis your own party. And right now, when you’re facing impeachment — which by the way, is predetermined, as I’ve said before.”

Mulvaney tried to help on that front by hosting Republican lawmakers at Camp David over the weekend.

He appeared on TV twice this past week to publicly defend the president at a time when few other top officials are willing to go on-air, and he agreed on Thursday to go on camera to deliver the news that the president was intending to hold the G-7 at one of his resorts, even though several White House officials, from lawyers to advance staff to operations aides, were looped in on the decision.

“It’s not lost on me that if we had made the decision [on Doral] on Thursday, we would not have had the press conference on Thursday regarding everything else. That is fine,” Mulvaney told Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

Another senior administration official said some White House aides had been frustrated by the media’s reaction to Mulvaney’s appearances, but that Mulvaney himself was still focused on his job and fighting for the president.

Several White House aides and Trump allies presume Mulvaney’s job is safe during the impeachment proceedings. That’s in part, they say, because no one else would want the chief of staff job right now and partly because Mulvaney is too much at the center of the Ukraine scandal for Trump to unceremoniously dump him as he has done with other senior aides like John Bolton, his former national security adviser.