Lord God, we pray for President Trump to select God-fearing men and women who will recognize that they are accountable to You for each decision and act.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
(Pr  9:10)

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Mick Mulvaney showed up for a shutdown planning meeting with President Trump on Friday afternoon as his budget chief. Soon afterward, the president surprised the country — and apparently his own advisers — by tweeting that he had made Mr. Mulvaney his chief of staff.

It was classic Trump: announcing the biggest of moves in 280-character bites on Twitter and leaving his staff to play catch-up, working on the fly to carry out the surprise decision.

Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Trump struck again. He took to Twitter to detail the ouster of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who left under a cloud of ethics accusations and a Justice Department investigation.

“Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation,” Mr. Trump tweeted. He said a replacement will be named this week.

The moves are part of a dizzying year-end shake-up as Mr. Trump retools the White House ahead of his confrontation with divided government in Washington….

The president has hinted that other staff changes are on the way, although he said that for the most part he “loves” his Cabinet secretaries.

Mr. Zinke was in the crosshairs for months.

The former congressman was dogged by scandals, including high-priced travel on government planes and reports of a shady land deal in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, that involved the Zinke family and Halliburton Chairman David J. Lesar.

The Interior Department inspector general referred the land deal investigation to the Justice Department.

Mr. Zinke has denied any wrongdoing….

Environmentalists cheered Mr. Zinke’s departure but were unhappy that Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, a former oil executive, would be stepping into the job even temporarily.

“Zinke will go down as the worst interior secretary in history,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “His slash-and-burn approach was absolutely destructive for public lands and wildlife. Allowing David Bernhardt to continue to call the shots will still be just as ugly. Different people, same appetite for greed and profit.”

For the chief of staff position, Mr. Trump turned to Mr. Mulvaney after the job was declined by two other top contenders, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Mr. Mulvaney, a former House member from South Carolina, is one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted lieutenants and has frequently been in the running for top administration jobs.

“Mick has done an outstanding job while in the administration,” tweeted Mr. Trump. “I look forward to working with him in this new capacity as we continue to make America great again!”

He called Mr. Kelly “a great patriot.”…

“Mick Mulvaney will not resign from the Office of Management and Budget but will spend all of his time devoted to his role as the acting chief of staff for the president. Russ Vought will handle day-to-day operations and run OMB,” she said.

Soon after the announcement, a video emerged in which Mr. Mulvaney called Mr. Trump a “terrible human being.”…

“Yes, I am supporting Donald Trump, but I’m doing so as enthusiastically as I can, given the fact that I think he’s a terrible human being. But the choice on the other side is just as bad,” said Mr. Mulvaney.

He made a similar comment on Twitter that was deleted when he took the OMB job, according to The New York Times.

Mr. Mulvaney has been doing double duty for the past year as chief of the Office of Management and Budget, which is the nerve center of the administration, and as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau….

“If Trump was looking to bring more scandal into the White House, this last minute, sixth-string pick was the right choice,” he said. (Excerpts from  S.A. Miller aricle in The Washington Times – Alex Swoyer and Andrew Blake contributed to this report.)

December 18, 2018 Alert PDF