Cornered ex-Trump staffer gives bonkers answer to defend president’s lies

President Donald Trump gestures during an event at The Villages Charter School at The Villages, Florida, May 1, 2026. REUTERS_Nathan Howard

President Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mick Mulveney was ready on Monday with a list of excuses to explain away the fact that Trump fabricates the existence of inter-global ceasefires — even when raging wars are still clearly destroying global supply chains.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of striking a Ukrainian power plant just hours after Trump claimed Russia and Ukraine had agreed to pause attacks on each other’s power infrastructure.

The Times Radio podcast host Darryl Morris invited Mulvaney to explain the phenomenon of purported ceasefires that don’t actually exist in a show posted Monday.

“What’s going on, Mick? Help me understand this,” said Morris.

“This is Donald Trump trying to visualize his way to success,” insisted Mulvaney. “This is what Donald Trump does. It’s the power of positive thinking. If he says there’s a deal enough, he feels this will self-manifest itself.”

“So, the president is self-manifesting?” demanded Morris, looking doubtful.

“Yeah. He does this a lot,” insisted Mulvaney. “He sells optimism. He sells enthusiasm. He sells momentum, and if he thinks he has a deal, he thinks one of the ways to seal that is to say ‘he has a deal.’ He’s done this from the very beginning. How many times have we heard him say he thinks the war will be over in a day?”

Morris responded that it’s one thing “if you're 13 and you want to get a puppy, and you go around saying you've got a puppy and then manifest it.”

“That's relatively low stakes and fairly harmless,” said Morris. “But he is the president of the United States of America. He can't just make up stuff, can he?”

“Well, he’s not making stuff up,” countered Mulveney.

“Well, he appears to have made up the existence of a ceasefire, hasn’t he?” said Morris.

“But if there was the kernel of a ceasefire, this is him trying to get it over the last sort of over the Finish Line,” argued Mulveney. “I've had this conversation when I was in the White House many, many times, and he would always look at me and say, ‘Look, Mick, this always works for me.’

“Do you think that's wise?” demanded Morris.

“I don't get to make that call,” said Mulvaney. “… because I'm not the president

“But is it a wise way of running the most powerful office in the world?” Morris pressed.

“Look, we used to talk about the tax bill in 2017 when nobody thought he could get that done and he got it done. People didn't think he had a snowball's chance to get reelected, including me, by the way. I thought it would lose early in the Republican primaries but he said he was going to win. He said he was going to win, and it worked out for him so many times in his life, both in his business career and politics.”

From there, Morris veered into the dangerous waters of Trump’s comparable denial over upcoming midterm devastation as Democrats are poised to wipe Republicans off the maps. Trump’s fabricated ceasefire, Morris suggested, is the result of a “rattled” president needing “to do something so desperately that he will announce a ceasefire that doesn't exist.”

This, Mulvaney scoffed, suggests that Trump cares nothing about the midterms.

“Donald Trump actually said about 6 or 8 weeks ago that he didn't care about the midterms,” said Mulvaney. “I think he's just decided that his life doesn't change that much if the Democrats take the House or the Senate, and he's unwilling to change anything in the war because of the midterms.”

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