was really close to resigning when president trump said he would withdraw from syria. vice president mike pence asked him to stay on until the summer, which is now. there were other points he got frustrated with the president and the president got frustrated with him. he thought that he didn t respect him, that he was kind of crazy. early on one of the first things the president asked dan coats to do was find evidence that former president obama wire tapped him and dan coats wouldn t do that and was baffle ed by it. it s been a rocky relationship for many months, for basically his entire tenure. we re seeing the ultimate result of that. finally coming to a boil. b ben, i m curious to get your thoughts on this. obviously, this white house runs on a very different frequency than the one that you served in. what are your concerns, as a former deputy, national security adviser on the inside, of having a team that includes people like john bolton, mike pompeo and
wow! get $4,500 total cash allowance on select equinox vehicles in stock when you finance with gm financial. that s 16% below msrp on this chevy equinox. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. timing now for my favorite part of the show, money, power, politics. with the partial government shutdown nearing the end of its fourth week, it is looking less like a blip on the political radar and more like a potentially serious economic crisis. according to s&p, the economy has already lost nearly 5 billion bucks in lost productivity and decreasing demand for contractors. and even if those 800,000 workers eventually get paid, analysts are warning the damage has been done. politico s chief economic correspondent ben white wrote about all of this. he joins me now. b ben, it is not just about those workers getting back pay.
them. let me just ask you a question. b ben, a question. who do you blame for the budget cuts we re in. 38%, republicans. 33%, the president. 19%, both. more blame republicans, but let me show you what it was two weeks ago. it was nearly half of people. 49% of republicans. that s dropped to 38 and people who blame them both has surged. that s not good for a president. well, look. workers are being furloughed services are being cut. i think americans are seeing the impact of the sequester and they re not going to blame an individual or party. thai going to blame all of washington. but the president has a trump card, which is that the american people agree we should reduce the deficit in a balanced way with a mix of revenue and spending cuts and they re going to be calling their members of congress and pressing them for action and even if the republican leadership doesn t want to sit down, speaker boehner made clear he s not going to go behind doors and