speculation that conway, who is the president s first transfer of press secretary, but turned it down, is now trying t. insights say that it s not true. today come on fox & friends, conway actually praised spicer repeatedly. meanwhile, politico is reporting that the president has a shadow cabinet of top aides who are camping out at federal agencies. critics say this is where the white house loyalists were were reporting back to jared kushner and could undermine the authority of the cabinet secretaries. white house insiders tell me that these aids are meant to bring some discipline over these cabinet departments and they there fast budgets which fits into the president s message of bringing accountability to these message a federal agency and how they spend the tax money. martha prayed to martha: thank you, ed. he and i with some inside perspective is omarosa manigault. she is an assistant and director communications. good to see you tonight. thank you for being with us.
and he has never said i m a smart guy the way that donald trump does all the time. one person, who would never claim to be smarter than barack obama s energy secretary is rick perry himself who had to confess that up until now he didn t really know what the energy secretary does. my past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the department of energy do not reflect my current thinking. in fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the department of energy, i regret recommending it s elimination. all you had to do was to get rick perry to change his mind about abolishing the energy department and nominate him to be energy secretary and tell him what the department actually does. the energy department, state department, all the cabinet departments are filled with under secretary and assistant secretary positions that need to
be energy secretary and tell him what the department actually does. the energy department, state department, all the cabinet departments are filled with under secretary and assistant secretary positions that need to be confirmed by the senate, none of whom have been chosen or named by donald trump. and the trump campaign has not announced staff appointments for the national security council. joining us is the executive director and cofounder of and also joining us jeremy bash, former chief of staff leon panetta, cia and defense department. jeremy bash,s your view of this administration especially as it effects state department, defense department, cia and all of the unfilled appointments there? three big challenges i see for this transition, for this handoff, lawrence. first, of course has been the feud with the intelligence agencies. donald trump is going to need those intelligence officers to defend the country, to assess
security is much like a combat command, perhaps the most complex such command defending our nation and our people. among its diverse responsibilities are protecting us from terrorism, guarding our borders and coasts, deciding who gets into the country, protecting our transportation networks and infrastructure, defense against cyber attacks, and providing help when disaster strikes. i can think of no one more qualified, more familiar with these threats and challenges or better prepared to lead our homeland defense than john kelly. the department of homeland security as this committee well knows is a complicated mix of multiple agencies and organizations with different cultures and histories. yet as commander of southern command, general kelly successfully managed relationships and partnerships with seven different cabinet departments and in all more than 20 civilian organizations. leading and combatant command
to suck up to all of these politicians. if federal governments spent less money, there would be less people trying to buy congressmen and get influence with these cabinet departments. so we ll see if trump is able to succeed in that. and if not, there s going to be a whole bunch of people in michigan and wisconsin who voted for him who are going to be quite disappointed. nina, what do you think of ira s point there, that you have to change the policies that would give washington power to reduce some of the money flowing in. well, let me add ohio to his list. this really comes down to political will. now, president-elect trump ran on the whole notion of draining the swamp. yet, as you highlighted in an earlier segment, his cabinet is worth about $4.5 billion, with a b, the fact that they are selling off and i put that in air quotes, opportunities to either talk about to the