dreams to. so it was a well-deserved honor did you tear up? i bawled like a baby when i saw it. i was in an uber on my way home, and i was in the back of the uber. so it was well deserved. he was very surprised. and it s just an honor. i m definitely going to miss the obamas. i know kayleigh mcenany s very emotional. i m sure she cried as well. what did you think, kayleigh? i didn t cry. but what i will say is that is a special relationship and i hope that president-elect trump and mike pence are able to maintain a relationship like that because not every pair has that. you look back at the clinton days and there was some friction between al gore and hillary clinton and some power struggles. you never got that sense with joe biden and barack obama. they were definitely an enviable pair, and we would be lucky to have a vice president and president who have a similar closeness in the white house in the coming four to eight years. well said. well said. david, of course you kno
let s watch. for the final time as president i am pleased to award our nation s highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom. [ applause ] [ applause ] and and for for the first and only time in my presidency i
in fact, paul ryan tried to prevent his caucus from defunding the office of congressional ethics as their first issue right out of the gate. but yet was almost powerless to do so. in the end they decided not to do it. and they stepped back. i ve got to tell you what. it s not very smart. specifically when you have donald trump coming in right now, who has all his own ethics questions, talking about draining the swamp here in washington, don. and don, could i just interview you on this? this is one where i have pretty strong opinions. there was a lot of news this week and i think this has gotten a little bit buried, but you have this guy who runs the office of government ethics. this is the sleepy agency that in most presidencies you never hear about, right? what this guy does is he works with nominees to make sure that they comply with all of the complicated ethics laws. and a lot of his job is going to very wealthy people who are asked to join the government and
are taking that position. the house of representatives, the over sight committee has made a prep to pull the appropriations. it could get shut down next year because the office of government ethics is doing its job and insisting that all officials of this administration including the president will be free of conflicts of interests. that s most disturbing that it is happening. this is the same committee that posted james comey s letter on the internet a week before the election and hoping to hand the election over president-elect trump. it is zero credibility at this point of the house over sight committee. the chairman, mark, do you have a response to this? yes. i mean look, this is a tricky issue for republicans on many fronts because at the time we are facing very important issues. right now with the nation whether it is domestic or the
decent people and i don t think they try intentionally to skew the evidence one way or another. but remember, they re relying on sources, many of whom are unreliable, some of whom are double agents. it s a very tough game out there, intelligence. and you have to appreciate the efforts that they re undertaking but you also have to view it with skepticism. john kennedy learned that lesson very hard after the bay of pigs and stopped really giving as much credibility to intelligence. and i think a president has to be both respectful and skeptical at the same time. and if i can just add one thing, when you look back to major intelligence failures in american history, it is usually the politicians who are cooking the books, who are trying to skew the intelligence toward their political agenda. this obviously was a very big deal in the leadup to the iraq war. the intelligence professionals themselves tend to be more cautious and less certain, whereas the politicians are the