But later in the hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill, the ranking Democrat on the committee, took up Merkley’s mantel, telling Mulvaney that she is “worried about data coming out of your shop.”
“I’ve got to be honest with you, this is an awkward and uncomfortable line of questioning for me, but I think it’s really important to put it on the record,” she said. “I have been astounded over the last few days at what has occurred, that the president sent his press secretary out to utter falsehoods in a press briefing.”
McCaskill also mentioned Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway’s use of the term “alternative facts.”
“And then, yesterday, [Trump] says he was denied the popular vote because of millions of illegal immigrants, and there is not one iota of evidence of that claim,” McCaskill said. “Now, I get campaigning, I get campaign promises. But I want to ask you, congressman, if the president asks you to not issue real data or asks you to alter data according to his narrative, what would your reaction be?”
“The credibility that I think I bring to this job is that I believe very firmly in real numbers,” Mulvaney replied. “My job is to tell the president the truth, my job is to tell you the truth.”
McCaskill continued to press Mulvaney on the issue, asking if he would resign if the president told him “to say something other than the truth.”
“I don’t imagine the President of the United States would tell me to lie,” Mulvaney responded.
“I beg your pardon!” McCaskill said. “He told Sean Spicer to go out there and say things that were demonstrably untrue.”
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