Ex-Trump Chief Of Staff Reveals The Simple Question That Kept America Out Of War With Iran In 2019

Former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Wednesday that he had helped talk President Donald Trump out of a war with Iran in 2019.

Mulvaney wrote on X that whenever someone pushed for war with Iran that year, he or a member of his team would ask Trump if he “really wanted to be in a war in Iran going into an election.”

“And he wisely decided against the action,” he added. “Too bad no one was there to make that argument this time around.”

Trump tapped Mulvaney for the job in December 2018, and the White House said he would stay on as director of the Office of Management and Budget, NPR reported at the time.

The White House and Mulvaney did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Trump replaced him with then-Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows in March 2020, according to the Associated Press.

The president called off strikes on Iran in June 2019 after Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone. Trump wrote at the time that he asked a general “how many will die” and was told 150 people, so he stopped the strikes with 10 minutes to spare, the AP reported.

Mulvaney was still in the job in January 2020, when the Pentagon said the U.S. military killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani at Trump’s direction.

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The Fox News Voter Poll found about six in 10 voters thought the U.S. was wrong to take military action against Iran in 2026. Those voters supported Democratic House candidates.