Mick Mulvaney's advancement from acting to permanent chief of staff would be a vote of confidence in his ability to navigate a tumultuous West Wing. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo White House Mulvaney on cusp of permanent status upgrade 'He has stayed out of a lot of people’s way,' said one senior administration official. 'No one is saying he is killing it but staying out of people’s way has helped.'

The White House plans to drop the word “acting” from Mick Mulvaney’s title, officially making him President Donald Trump’s third chief of staff, according to four current and former senior administration officials.

It’s a recognition that Mulvaney has successfully navigated a tumultuous West Wing. The former South Carolina congressman and White House budget chief talks to the president multiple times a day and maintains good relations with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — Trump family members who also happen to be the White House’s two most powerful staffers — while giving them and other top staffers more leeway to operate than his predecessor, John Kelly. Mulvaney has also quietly installed roughly eight loyal aides within the West Wing.


“He has stayed out of a lot of people’s way,” said one senior administration official. “No one is saying he is killing it but staying out of people’s way has helped.”

Several Republicans close to the White House say the president does not want to go through another drawn-out process to search for a permanent chief after being turned down in December by Nick Ayers, the vice president’s former chief of staff, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over a six-day period.

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Trump will ultimately make the final call on Mulvaney’s title change, and longtime White House allies caution he can be mercurial on personnel matters.

Trump’s rotating chief of staff has been a subject of unusual fascination because the turnover — three chiefs in just over two years — is part of a larger story about the administration’s constant personnel changes, the president’s unique management style and the general failure of efforts by Trump aides to restrain his impulses.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hinted that Mulvaney might be in for a title change during her recent briefing when a reporter asked about the possibility of removing “acting” from Mulvaney’s title. “Certainly a lot of possibility there,” Sanders said.

The White House press shop declined to comment on Monday.

“As a formal matter, dropping the acting title does not change the authority of the individual,” said Max Stier, the founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that advocates for better management within government. “But it does signal a different level of commitment from the president.”

Historically, there’s never been another acting chief of staff, according to Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers,” a book about former White House chiefs of staff and the history of the position.

“Like many other things in the Trump administration, this is a first,” Whipple said. “I don’t really think it makes any difference to drop the acting title. At the end of the day, everyone who works for Trump is ‘acting,’ I suppose. The title never made any sense in the first place.”

Over the past three months, Mulvaney has been detailed to the White House from the Office of Management and Budget, which he headed as Trump’s budget chief — adding to the temporary sense of his position.

But that seeming lack of permanence has not stopped him from building a large White House footprint.

Mulvaney meets with the president at least twice a day, golfed with him in Florida one weekend and traveled with him to Vietnam, where he attended an intimate dinner with top U.S. officials and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He’s also installed roughly eight staffers at the White House in the chief of staff’s office, communications shop and Domestic Policy Council, which crafts policy on issues like health care, drug prices, welfare, education and transportation.

Just last week, Mulvaney brought over Michael Williams to the West Wing. Williams, a former assistant deputy general counsel of the OMB, now works in his office as the assistant to the principal deputy chief of staff.

Some White House staff have grumbled that Mulvaney is building a clique within the West Wing, but Mulvaney allies argue he’s simply filling out his team with trusted aides much the same way Kelly or Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, did.

It’s unclear whether the push to make Mulvaney the permanent chief of staff comes more from Mulvaney or from the president himself. The president has said he is not bothered by the large swath of acting officials in his Cabinet, saying the acting titles gives him “more flexibility.”

Mulvaney landed the job in an ad hoc manner in mid-December. Late afternoon on a Friday, Trump made the offer during a routine meeting with Mulvaney about budget matters. Mulvaney had been privately lobbying for the chief of staff job for months — and had pitched himself as someone who would let Trump act as Trumpian as he wants. But he was also eyeing other top positions in the administration, including Commerce secretary.

Prior to offering Mulvaney the position, Trump asked North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows if he wanted to job, but revoked his overture when Meadows expressed some hesitation, said a former administration official.

When Mulvaney later accepted the role, he and Trump agreed on the title of acting chief of staff, said the former official. Mulvaney told allies and friends the temporary title would allow him to slide back to OMB without too much fuss if his relationship with Trump soured at some point, as it did with his two prior chiefs of staff.

“Mulvaney does have a role and part of that is managing down, but it is pretty clear Trump is running the show,” said a second former administration official.