Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, the Trump hand tasked with announcing that next year’s G7 summit was to be held at Donald Trump’s Miami Doral resort, addressed the president’s Saturday night announcement reversing his decision. With the president blaming the media and “Irrational Hostility” from Democrats for the cancellation, Mulvaney was asked by Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace why the president “caved” to the backlash. “I honestly think what you saw in the tweet was real,” the chief of staff replied. “He was honestly surprised at the level of pushback. At the end of the day, you know, he still considers himself to be in the hospitality business, and he saw an opportunity to take the biggest leaders from around the world and he wanted to put on the absolute best show, the best visit that he possibly could.”

Pressing Mulvaney on his description of the president being in the “hospitality business,” Wallace asked if Trump understood why it “looked lousy,” prompting Mulvaney to say: “I think he thinks people think it looks lousy.”