palm beach. part of it, i think, is they would have gotten criticized for staying saying, as people typically do with them, they are playing government. what are they doing sticking around trying to fix this government shutdown? they shouldn t be there. they shouldn t be the ones to try and solve this. they have three young children. spend it in mar-a-lago with their other cousins. they come back to washington, i believe they ll be there today. i m of the opposite opinion. jared is filling this power vacuum and having, you could call, a political moment. i worry about him legally still, but politically, he was shep herding this criminal justice reform bill. and he was on the point person team with mike pence and mick mulvaney to try to solve this government shutdown right before it happened which made it odd to me that he went to florida. if you are being the pin point person to resolve the government shutdown, perhaps you shouldn t go on a vacation during a government shutdown. th
how are they getting in touch with the president? well, i m not exactly sure how he s reaching. but he hears from federal employees all the time. how? he hears from them before how does he hear from them? when they re coming in, whether he s going and visiting various agencies. when has he visited any agencies? when has he been traveling? he s been to iraq. well, this week since the shutdown has occurred. but even leading up to the shutdown this was not a this was not a surprise shutdown. we could see the tea leaves but he said he s been hearing from them presently, not in the past. well, and i m not sure. i m not in washington, d.c. i haven t talked to him in the last few days or so. so i don t know exactly how. but we do know that by and large and including a lot of border and customs patrol agents believe walls work. they know it works. and they want a secured border. so that could very well be something he is focused on and he is telling back when he says th
time for others to take over that fight. the president told troops in iraq we re no longer the suckers of the world. and he told reporters he s in no rush to replace mattis. the president s comments abroad come amid a chaotic and frenzied political situation at home where critical government agencies are shut down and democrats are about to unload a barrage of investigations on this white house. when they take over the house in just one week. on capitol hill, meanwhile, there s no end in sight for this partial government shutdown. lawmakers start coming back to washington for possible talks tomorrow. but at this point neither side appears eager to budge. nbc s pentagon correspondent hans nichols is at the white house and nbc s garrett haak sechlt on capitol hill. they join tonight s panelist washington post reporter eugene scott, washington post
escalated and now apparently also wants to draw down. one other note, katy, it looks like we ll have deputy secretary of defense, soon to be acting secretary of defense patrick shanahan, for some time. remember, this is a boeing executive, new to washington, not a lot of experience in world affai affairs. katy? hans, i want to stay with who donald trump is listening to right now. because when we were on the campaign trail we asked him who he gets advice from and he says he listens to the shows. he listens to generals talking on the shows. has that changed? or who is he listening to now if he s admitting that he s ignoring his generals today? yeah, it s a hard question. we know he listens to the president of turkey, who told him and the president apparently made assurances to reaccept erdogan, that erdogan made the assurances that they would finish off the fight on isis. it s clear the president s public statements on isis and their strength are at odds with what his officials are s
became a political liability for their administrations. but as you note, this is not something that is an easy under taking. it s a sophisticated feat to literally sneak the president out of the white house, all the way to andrews air force base, out of washington, d.c., and all the way to a conflict zone, whether it s afghanistan or iraq. i think today we saw the challenge of the modern era come into conflict with this longstanding practice of the president of the united states. it was on twitter this morning when an observer on british soil observed air force one flying overhead. it had a different call sign. it wasn t called air force one, but it was certainly heading east and only later did we learn it was to iraq. so i think this practice is coming into a conflict with modern technology, but it s something that is well overdue. it s something that president trump has been remiss in doing.