sally yates and permitted flynn to stay on for 18 days after being told that the national security adviser was seriously compromised by the russians. sally yates was fired because she was trying to save the president from embarrassment over general flynn. if the white house can t vet someone who, a, was actively involved in lobbying for the turkish government and b was involved in a form kidnapping plot how would they catch rob porter porter? kelly clearly knew this was going to be revealed and this white house is failing in the most fundamental level which is its internal staffing. to be continued, unfortunately. thank you so much, rick tyler. coming you have, all about that base. how the bipartisan budget bill might play with midterm voters. you re watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc.
manafort and jogeorge papadopous scandals overhanging but also rob porter being the last and tom price over his plane travels, secretary zinke has had to apologize for plane use. who s in charge? ultimately the president is in charge. i have to think back because it fits back into a pattern. if you look back into the new york city skyline, you can t pick out trump buildings in the skyline unless you look carefully because it s dwarfed by other real estate there yet he always makes himself to be an outsized players but his real business is a relatively small business and the people who are close to him are family members. now, notice the family members have all survived and everybody else seems to come and go which was his role in the apprentice. i hate to say it, it sounds so trite, but the only way i can explain it is the president runs his oval office like a reality show. he tweets like it s a reality show, many of his actions are like a reality show, calling the
steve bannon about that. and in particular he s been frustrated by, as was just said, that kelly seems to have suggested that on the border wall that the president s views may have been evolving and our reporting trump has told people around him that he doesn t like that, he doesn t like it when any aide thinks he s managing the president, a subject he s sensitive about after the unflattering portrayal of trump in the michael wolff book. and john kelly has very few supporters in the white house top staff, especially the family because he s been controlling their access and establishing more order. right. according to sources, he has sort of been frustrated with jared kushner and ivanka trump, the president s daughter and son-in-law who of course have very powerful positions in the white house. he has curtailed he s done his best to curtail their influence in the west wing. now people around that couple
according to the fbi? andrea, i would hope not and i do not believe we would. i do think a chief of staff has to rely on his staff. the general counsel, that was our point person with lloyd cutler and joel klein who got that backlog of security clearances cleared up but when someone doesn t have a security clearance in a critical position like staff secretary that is controlling all of the paperwork going to the president and seeing the most sensitive material, i don t think there s any question that would have been brought to my attention if i would not been aware of it. theed have demanded my immediate attention and i believe we would have taken action. joining us as well, ruth marcus, washington post deputy editorial page editor. ruth, the fact of keeping him on the job, don mcgahn must have told kelly, kelly had to know he didn t have a full clearance
suggest that they have not been behind any effort to push kelly out, they re disputing that line of report iing but there s no question this isp precarious how kelly s hold on this job has been. he came in to clamp down on who the president could see and talk to and to get policy rolling in a better way. our reporting, the president isn t ready to make a change but there s no question his frustration level has grown. mack mcclarty, as a former chief of staff to a white house that had its own share of controversies in the first year, would you or nip around you have tolerated having someone in that post seeing the most top-secret documents without a full clearance but who had been credibly accused of domestic abuse by two former wives,