staff, Mulvaney appointed several individuals with views similar to his to White House positions, most notably Joe Grogan to lead the United States Domestic Policy Council. In March 2019, Mulvaney said, "every single (health care) plan that this White House has ever put forward since Donald Trump was elected covered pre-existing conditions." The Associated Press described the claim as "misleading" and PolitiFact rated this assertion "mostly false", stating that all the health care proposals supported by the White House would have weakened protections for individuals with preexisting conditions, and led to gaps in health insurance coverage and higher premium rates. On March 6, 2020, Trump tweeted that Republican North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows would succeed Mulvaney as White House Chief of Staff. Meadows began serving at the end of March, thus replacing Mulvaney. Mulvaney wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal three days after the November 2020 election day, saying "If He Loses, Trump Will Concede Gracefully: He'll fight hard to make sure the results are fair, and in the end he'll accept the result whatever it is." Trump did not do so after his loss in the 2020 United States presidential election. Trump–Ukraine scandal Mulvaney was closely involved in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. In an October 17, 2019, press conference, Mulvaney said that military aid to Ukraine was in fact tied to President Trump's demand for an investigation into the 2016 election. Several hours later, in a statement released by the White House, Mulvaney sought to deny or reinterpret his earlier statements, stating "there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election". OMB emails released On January 22, 2020, Mulvaney released a series of heavily redacted Office of Management and Budget (OMB) emails revealing details about how the OMB worked to carry out the freeze of aid for Ukraine. Conspiracy beliefs regarding COVID In February 2020, Mulvaney alleged that claims of a deep state working against President Trump were "absolutely 100% true". Later that month, Mulvaney suggested that the media was exaggerating the dangers of COVID-19 in order to "bring down" President Trump. Subsequent career Upon his resignation as chief of staff, Mulvaney was named special envoy for Northern Ireland, a role which had last been held by Gary Hart, but had gone unfilled since Trump's inauguration. His swearing-in was delayed due to the coronavirus epidemic, which also prevented him