Once a loyal member of the Trump administration, Mick Mulvaney said things changed after a violent mob broke into the U.S. Capitol Wednesday.
During a Sunday morning appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," President Donald Trump's former chief of staff and budget director said "I never thought I'd see what I saw on Wednesday."
That was the violent mob of roughly 1,000 pro-Trump supporters, who pushed past Capitol police and broke into offices and the House and Senate chambers, briefly disrupting the Electoral College vote that affirmed Joe Biden's win over Trump in November's presidential election. The mob was urged by Trump during a rally near the White House earlier Wednesday to head to Capitol Hill.
"Yes, the rhetoric was very high and very fiery. (This was) different though ... that people took him literally. I never thought I'd see that," Mulvaney told show host Chuck Todd of the incident where five people died.
"I never thought I'd see a day in our country where people from any side of the political spectrum would storm the Capitol in order to intentionally stop the constitutional transfer of power. That's what's different."
A day after the riot, Mulvaney resigned as the Trump administration's special envoy to Northern Ireland.
"That's the reason I thought we'd never be here, I thought the president would be presidential," Mulvaney said.
During another Sunday appearance, on Fox News, Mulvaney said the incident was stunning.
"I feel a lot of emotions this week, I was shocked, I was angered, I was sad, I was embarrassed, I was frustrated," Mulvaney told host Chris Wallace. "And I'm still trying to figure out what I could have done differently. I've been out of the White House for eight months."
The former South Carolina congressman from Indian Land defended himself from challenges that he could have taken a stand earlier and resigned from the administration. Prior to Wednesday's riot in Washington, much of the criticism of Trump was caused by the negative filter the media used to cover the president, according to Mulvaney.
He also deflected criticism that he was a "yes man," something implied this week by John Kelly, his predecessor as chief of staff.
"The president was the elected leader of the nation. It's not the job of the chief of staff to undo that," Mulvaney said. "... One of the things I'm afraid of is that the West Wing is different now than when John (Kelly) or I was there. The president used to love debate. He would love to get information from all different sides. I'm not sure that's happening now, and if there just aren't people there reaffirming and reamplifying what they think he wants them to say."
Mulvaney said he expects Trump will continue to be ostracized by other Republicans. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said Sunday that Trump should resign.
"I think if you have any role at all in what happened on Wednesday, you don't deserve to lead the party anymore," Mulvaney said on NBC. "I have people telling me ... Wednesday was a bridge too far. They love Trump, they love the policies, they were real pleased with the successes of the first four years, but he lost them on Wednesday."
