Trump’s New Chief of Staff Is a Birther From North Carolina

Rep. Mark Meadows is the president’s fourth pick for the top White House position in 38 months.

On Friday, President Donald Trump informed Mick Mulvaney that he would no longer serve as acting chief of staff—a day after offering the position to conservative North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows. 

Mulvaney was embroiled in the activities that led to Trump’s impeachment trial, including carrying out the president’s order to suspend over a million dollars in aid to Ukraine and contradicting Trump’s assertion that there was no quid pro quo requested in the scandal. 

Meadows, who rode the Tea Party wave into his first election of 2012, announced last year he would not run for re-election to represent North Carolina’s 11th District. At the time, he said: “I’m going to be working closer with the president, not less so. Without getting into any specifics, I’ve had ongoing conversations with the president about helping with his team in a closer environment. And I felt like it would be disingenuous to file and then resign at some point in the future and leave my district searching for a nominee.”

Like Trump, Meadows also has a history of furthering the racist birther conspiracy against former President Obama, and had joked about sending Obama “back to Kenya.”

Meadows is Trump’s fourth chief of staff in 38 months, the most of any president in that short a time period.