Mark Meadows moves to Trump’s White House. Will his new job help NC?
Mark Meadows started his political career as the chairman of the Macon County Republican Party in far western North Carolina.
He’ll take the next step in the White House as President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, helping the president navigate a global pandemic that threatens to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, derail the nation’s economy and become the central issues in the president’s re-election bid.
Meadows resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday evening in a short letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He will officially start as chief of staff Tuesday morning, according to an aide, though Meadows has been transitioning to the role in the three weeks since Trump tapped him. He participated in negotiations over the latest coronavirus aid package with administration officials and members of Congress.
It’s been a rapid rise for the 60-year-old Meadows, whose small band of House conservatives proved a thorn in the side of Republican leadership and who, with the election of Trump, pivoted to become one of the new president’s staunchest defenders.
Fourth chief of staff
“This President and his administration have a long list of incredible victories they’ve delivered to the country during this first term, with the best yet to come — and I look forward to helping build on that success and staying in the fight for the forgotten men and women of America,” Meadows said in a statement after he was named to the post via a Trump tweet.
Meadows announced in December that he would not be running for re-election in his far-western North Carolina district. Meadows, whose name was linked to the chief of staff job previously, hinted at getting a job in the Trump administration during that announcement.
He took a prominent role in defending Trump throughout the impeachment hearings and Senate trial, becoming a fixture on television and Twitter pressing the case for the embattled president.
Now he steps into one of the most volatile jobs in Washington. Meadows is Trump’s fourth White House chief of staff, following Reince Priebus, John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney, who held the job for more than a year with the “acting” title.
“It’s always been one of the most fraught positions in government. It demands someone who is loyal to and in tune with the president. But succeeding at the job requires telling the president no or restraining his worst impulses,” said Asher Hildebrand, an associate professor at Duke’s Stanford School of Public Policy and former chief of staff to Rep. David Price.
“Managing up and managing down can be a rare combination. I’ve seen chiefs of staff succeed at one and not the other. It’s pretty rare to succeed at both.”
Could it help North Carolina?
The role of chief of staff was created in the 1940s with President Harry Truman naming the first one in 1946, though it was Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 who re-titled the position as White House Chief of Staff.
President Barack Obama had four chiefs of staff during his first term in office including an acting chief, but just one for his entire final term. George W. Bush had two in his eight years as president. Under Bill Clinton, North Carolina’s Erskine Bowles held the job for one year and nine months.
Brian Lewis, a Raleigh lobbyist for New Frame, said having a North Carolinian in the role was equivalent to having a third senator from the state.
“When North Carolina is in need of anything — with the need for first responders to get the hazmat suits or to get the medical supplies or to get the workers’ compensation whey they eventually get sick from this (coronavirus) — it is good that we have someone from our state,” Lewis said.
“You can’t tell me that having a guy from North Carolina as chief of staff to the president is a negative. It’s all good.”
North Carolina’s position as a pivotal state for Trump’s re-election bid has prompted the president to pay pretty close attention to North Carolina throughout his presidency.
Mulvaney’s record on South Carolina issues is mixed.
He was able to help the state on tariffs and the administration requested additional funding for deepening the port of Charleston, a huge priority for South Carolina politicians. But he was unable to help protect a job-producing nuclear construction project in the state nor were South Carolina military bases spared when funds were diverted to pay for Trump’s promised border wall.
“I want to thank the people of western North Carolina. Serving you in Congress has been the honor of my life. It may be in a different role, but I’ll continue working every day to deliver results for you — and main street Americans all over the country — in the months and years to come,” Meadows said in his statement.
‘A fat nerd’
Born at a U.S. Army hospital in France, Meadows grew up in Florida. His mom was a surgical nurse and his father an in-and-out of work draftsman, according to a 2012 Smoky Mountain News article.
Meadows described himself as a “fat nerd,” who forced himself into an exercise routine after a classmate rejected his request for a date. He and his wife, Debbie, attended the same high school and dated after he lost the weight. The couple moved to North Carolina in their mid-20s.
Meadows owned Aunt D’s restaurant in Highlands for two decades before selling it. He then became a real estate investor before getting into politics. Meadows and his wife have two children and one granddaughter.
Debbie Meadows has been an ally of Trump’s as well. She was among the scheduled speakers at this year’s CPAC event. In 2016, she defended Trump after the tape recording of him bragging about assaulting women became public.
“Is it offensive? Yes. Can we forgive it? Yes!” she said at a public event in October 2016, according to The Washington Post.
‘Birtherism’ and a charged hearing
Meadows ran for U.S. House in 2012 for a seat then held by Democrat Heath Shuler, who opted not to run for re-election in the redrawn district.
Instead Meadows faced a crowded field in the Republican primary. He topped the eight-candidate race in 2012 with 37.8% of the vote, then trounced second-place finisher Vance Patterson in a run-off with 76% of the vote. Meadows defeated Democrat Hayden Rogers in the general election by nearly 15 points.
During that run, Meadows, on at least two public occasions, referenced President Barack Obama being from Kenya. Trump, too, has made extensive claims that Obama was not an U.S. citizen.
Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother. His father was born in Kenya.
“2012 is the time we’re that going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is. We’re gonna do it,” Meadows said to cheers at an event in June of that year.
Days later at a tea party forum, Meadows used the same language while affirmatively answering a question about whether he would “pursue some kind of investigation” into Obama’s citizenship.
“We’ll send him back to Kenya or wherever it is. We’ll send him back home,” Meadows told a tea party crowd before discussing rebuilding the military.
The episodes came back to public light in 2019 when Meadows defended Trump against allegations that he was a racist during a House committee hearing.
Meadows brought Lynne Patton, a former Trump Organization employee and political appointee to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to the hearing to defend Trump.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib said bringing Patton to the hearing “is alone racist in itself.” Meadows, visibly upset, defended himself, as did the committee’s chairman, the late Elijah Cummings. Cummings, who was black, called Meadows “one of my best friends.”
““I’ve addressed that dozens of times, and candidly, apologized for that a number of times,” Meadows told The Washington Post last year after the Kenya remarks resurfaced.
Meadows delivered an emotional eulogy for his “dear friend” Cummings at the Capitol and discussed their “unexpected friendship.”
“For those of us that know Elijah, it’s not unexpected or surprising,” Meadows said.
House Freedom Caucus
Meadows co-founded the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 along with several other conservative Republicans House members, including Mulvaney of South Carolina.
The group nearly immediately created problems with Republican leadership. It eventually led to the ouster of House Speaker John Boehner and helped block Rep. Kevin McCarthy from getting the job that eventually went to Paul Ryan.
Meadows’ call to defund programs created by the Affordable Care Act led, in part, to the government shutdown in 2013.
Meadows served as chairman of the group from 2017 through Oct. 1, and gained clout in Congress.
Though Trump sparred with the group early in his tenure, the House Freedom Caucus has largely been his biggest fans in the House — especially since Democrats became the majority party after the 2018 election.
And members of the group have ascended into leadership positions within the Republican Party: Mulvaney at the Office of Management and Budget, Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan to ranking members of important committees.
Meadows was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
Throughout Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump and his impeachment by the House, Meadows has been one of the harshest critics of the leadership of the FBI, including James Comey and Andrew McCabe, for its investigation into the Trump campaign and associates.
Despite his sharp ideological leanings, Meadows earned a reputation in Congress as someone who could work with Democrats. Unlike Trump, Meadows doesn’t feud with the media. He was easily one of the most available members of Congress, attracting huge gatherings of reporters and taking time to answer just about every question. Now his role will be more behind the scenes.
“He’s a very shrewd operator. He has made the most of his moment in our politics,” said Hildebrand, who worked for a Democrat in Congress and said Meadows was always cordial and interactions with him or his staff were positive.
“He was for keeping lines of bipartisan communication open, even when he was at the leading edge of some of the more partisan fights in the House. He’s a smart, successful politician who knows what he’s getting into.”
Issues in Congress
The House Ethics Committee reprimanded Meadows in late 2018 for how he handled sexual harassment allegations against his former chief of staff, Kenny West. West was among the candidates Meadows defeated in the 2012 GOP primary.
The committee found Meadows did not do enough to address or prevent the harassment and said he must repay $40,000 that was paid to West after Meadows demoted and reassigned him.
“Making sure my team feels safe and secure in our office is the highest priority for me and I’m truly sorry for any stress this situation caused them,” he said in a statement at the time.
In August, The News & Observer reported on unpaid property taxes that Meadows owed on land in Bertie County. Meadows’ office said he was unaware of the delinquent taxes and quickly paid them, The News & Observer confirmed. The properties were not listed on Meadows’ congressional financial disclosure forms.
In October, The New Yorker reported about property Meadows bought and then sold in Colorado where dinosaur fossils are prevalent. Meadows sold the land to a group “dedicated to promoting young-Earth creationism,” according to the magazine. Meadows’ daughter reportedly found a dinosaur skull on the property during a trip in 2002. Neither the property nor its sale were included on Meadows’ financial disclosure documents, according to the piece.
Meadows’ Christian faith is one of the core parts of his identity. In his official biography, Meadows calls himself “above all ... a deeply committed Christian, and someone who has demonstrated a devotion to his faith even in the highest pressure environments.” He said helping secure the release of a Christian imprisoned by the Sudanese government was one of his proudest accomplishments.
Meadows’ active Twitter account often calls out those he thinks are ”mocking people of faith.”
Meadows’ departure leaves a vacancy in the 11th district in far western North Carolina. The state has 13 seats in the House of Representatives.
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This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Mark Meadows moves to Trump’s White House. Will his new job help NC?."
