why did you recall the u.s. ambassador to ukraine? was she a problem? why did you recall her? i heard very bad things about her. i don t know if i recalled her or somebody recalled her. i heard very, very bad things about her for a very long time. not good. from rudy giuliani. i don t know if i recalled her or somebody recalled her. this is a purge. this is what happens. this is a president who doesn t trust people in government who haven t taken a loyalty oath to him. and he s allowed to appoint his own ambassadors and he as allowed to say i want my friends in an ambassadorial post. by all accounts she s a professional diplomat. who served in democratic administrations and republican administrations and had an outstanding career. and the wall street journal story says that, you know, the suspicion was that she was so-called close to biden. biden people say they didn t really know her. but, you know, giuliani had to keep this moving.
matter. i think the reality is in this case, i think what the more appropriate action is for the national security adviser, if he s been directed to remove her, that it s his decision. i think unfortunately what makes this more complicated is the national security adviser actually oversees travel with the vice president so ideally, this is something that would have happened when john bolton was here and it would have been his to make that decision and take care of that action more so than the president. kate? i will say the first lady has become more and more vocal about her influence on the president. she did say in an abc news interview in africa that she does tell the president when she doesn t trust people on his staff and she said she was asked, well, what happens, and she said, some of those people don t work here anymore. and you know, i think for sure, if she felt strongly i don t necessarily find it s a rift between the president and the first lady. i think this is c
agreement standard procedure? is it legitimately enforceable? unheard of until now. and it wasn t standard procedure. look, most people who serve in the white house serve because they feel a desire to serve the country and because they have deep loyalty and respect for the president. and so, you know, at least in the white house i served and i suspect in the other white houses that preceded us, there wasn t a sense that those were necessary wouldn t have crossed anyone s mind. notwithstanding the fact they may not be enforceable. but this is how donald trump ran his business, and this goes back to what i said before. this is what he demanded of everyone who was involved with him in his business because he doesn t trust people. he doesn t show them loyalty, and they don t trust him. and therefore they don t show him loyalty. it is a den of vipers. yeah, and you see that with the recordings. so, frank, you call this a
houses that preceded us, there wasn t a sense that those were necessary wouldn t have crossed anyone s mind. notwithstanding the fact they may not be enforceable. but this is how donald trump ran his business, and this goes back to what i said before. this is what he demanded of everyone who was involved with him in his business because he doesn t trust people. he doesn t show them loyalty, and they don t trust him. and therefore they don t show him loyalty. it is a den of vipers. yeah, and you see that with the recordings. so, frank, you call this a crisis of professionalism within the white house. talk to me about that. i think you can look at any number of things. we have seen any number of examples of terrible vetting. let s not forget the whole dr. rani fiasco, and rob porter regarding security clearance and jared kushner.
this white house or on this campaign or on his legal team, it s simple. because donald trump is an almost impossible boss and client. he doesn t really take counsel or doesn t listen to too many advisers. he thinks he s his own best communicator, his own best strategist, the smartest guy in any ram. but he gets agitated and set off by media coverage in most cases about what s going on there. and then he wants to talk to other people. is this hurting me? what s going on? what should i do? he s always floating to other people on the outside, what do you think of this person on the inside? it s this sort of endless cycle of upheaval, where he kind of always wants the people back who he s let go. why doesn t he trust anybody, though, when they re in the white house or when they re one of his advisers in the moment? why is he constantly looking to the people that he may have swept aside previously or his outside friends? that s a big question and it probably does differ a little bit, ba