for it, memorabilia. according to the new york times, pruitt wanted leather bound notebooks, fountain pens and even commemorative coins to feature symbols that represent him. him, scott pruitt. and the agency more or less, his proposals included featuring his name more prominently on the items and adding symbols of personal relevance like a buffalo for his home state of oklahoma. pruitt is also proposed to be removing the agency s seal from memorabilia, claiming it looked too much like a marijuana leaf, said it looked like weed. ben stevens back with me. his request was shot down by officials who said it s not only too expensive but it s a breach in protocol. as these things pile up, when did republicans start to take notice? because i talked to people inside the epa, brett, and they said there s three camps. inside the epa, there s sort of the epa lives who are holding on
the new york times reports the top ethics official in the trump administration just sent a letter to the head of ethics at the epa questioning scott pruitt s actions and asking the agency to take, quote, appropriate action to address any violations. this is a highly unusual step. the acting director of the office of government ethics, the oge, lists three areas of concern. pruitt s $50 a night rental at a lobbyists condo, his air travel specifically to his home state of oklahoma as well as staff who questioned him were demoted or reassigned. as for life inside the epa, politico is out with a new report quoting a staffer who calls the situation a slow-motion train wreck in which employees are out for themselves. the president tweeted over the weekend in support of pruitt saying he s doing a great job and that he s taking bold actions at the epa and saved the u.s. billions. he also mentioned that the rent he paid was about market rate. maybe for a place with bed bugs. for more on all t
the president s lawyer filing new papers in their legal battle with a porn star, asking for more time to respond to stormy daniels lawsuit. this, of course, as president trump is praising his embattled epa chief despite growing questions of how scott pruitt is spending taxpayer money. some of the newest criticism, the costly proposals, also what happened when staffers have questioned that spending. that s right. what we re learning is that at least three senior epa officials were either sidelined or demoted in some way after disagreeing with scott pruitt in some of the decisions that he was making with regards to spending. a lot of these decisions regard his international travel, some of his frequent travel back home to his home state of oklahoma, as well as spending, expensive spending he saw to make regarding his office here in washington. two sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell me
trying to reach and having been successful looks at this and smells corruption. it is corruption. trump is probably scott pruitt s home state of oklahoma that specializes in fracking and drilling, not rebuilding an electrical grid got a $200 million contract. a lot of swamp not getting drained. that is our show for today. a.m. joy will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. keep it right here on msnbc. what started as a passion.
deal. that s a flat out lie. other agencies did. when it s this cartoonishly obvious, howard dean, why is it so difficult to message against these people? why do we have such bad messaging? yes. partly because we don t have a central message. in fairness to the democratic party, it s very hard to have a message when you re not in power. we re not really going to get one until we have a candidate who is for president of the united states. which is okay. we re going to win in 2018 because the trump brand is so awful and the republican brand is really awful, too. this whitefish stuff has real legs. the average person who we re trying to reach and haven t been successful, looks at this and smells corruption. cobra electric in scott pruitt s home state of oklahoma specializes in fracking and drilling. they got a $200 million contract. a lot of swamp not getting