Asked during an Oval Office interview with the Washington Examiner if he is happy with the job Mulvaney is doing for him, Trump demurred.

“Happy?” he said, mulling the question. “I don’t want to comment on it.”

Instead, Trump offered a general defense of his senior team and said some West Wing “bedlam” was the inevitable result of an administration that had been besieged by federal investigations and congressional subpoenas from Day One.

“I could see that,” Trump said when asked about Republican senators expressing unhappiness with Mulvaney.