and i think it was create, shall we say, a problem for him. and i think he felt like in many ways the chief of staff felt today, that he had to get out there and he had to explain himself. and as you see, he really worked very hard to try and make it clear how much he add myers the president and how the president cares about words and all the rest of it the spin on everything, like nobody has been fired from the white house. they have all in his words matriculated. right. that the president has been successful in anything and that yeah, he said fired is a harsh word. right. it s a little aliks in wonderland, but i think tom barrack is ultimately loyal to the president and i think sometimes the president demands that he can see that loyalty, and he was particularly upset about, you know, the headline in
administration. they feel like we re getting the story wrong, but of course that is always what you hear from a white house when your approval rating is mired in the 30s. they can t get out of that territory. i will say just to echo what sarah was saying, i think what john kelly said earlier today to reporters about what he views his job to be is exactly right. that is what we ve been hearing from our sources as well, that one of the frustrations that general kelly has had and one of the things that he s tried to clamp down on is the information coming into the president. the information congress into the oval office. you know, before general kelly was on board, you know, just about anybody could come into the oval office and give counsel to the president. it was sort of a star wars bar of outside advisers. he has clamped down on that and my understanding from talking to sources he feels good about that. the question is what is the outcome of that. at this point is it has not resulted
everybody says he has no experience in government, this president. he actually is a graduate of the george steinbrenner school of governance, who was a friend of his, and ran the yankees with this type of chaos in good times and bad. but they won championships. but then they did not. here s the thing, chris. a lot of tough guys went in there and thought i ll be the one, i beal the one to turn him around, i ll be the one to say no to him, and guess what? they got carried out just like everybody else did. it s interesting you mention the boy scouts and sort of their code of honor. the atlantic wrote, you cannot work directly for trump while adhering to a code of honesty, integrity, and lawfulness. the idea that jep kelly is going to ride in on a white horse and establish discipline in the white house i think is beyond what s reasonable. and i think the reason why i think that s the case is the character question of the person who occupies the white house right now. everything w
other reporters sources are. i can say with a lot of certainty that the reporters you re talking to now have good ones, good sources. also senator corker came out publicly and made some stunning statements as well. well, there s that too. absolutely. look, i think that the idea of this press conference was so fascinating for a lot of reasons, but i think, remember, it was not that long ago that general kelly was in the marines. he was not in politics. and when he was first at the department of homeland security, i interviewed him and brought p a quote that he had given when he retired from the marines saying the thing that he dreaded most was being offered a job where he had to drive up the belt way every day. well, anderson, today proved that not only is he driving up the belt way, he is kind of the ringmaster of the belt way right now. he proved that he is a political force, that he is a political being by going out there and doing very rudimentary political damage control and do
top frustrations is congress, the fact that congress moves very slowly. it s a slow moving body. and in trump s mind he has the solutions to all these problems, whether it s obamacare, whether it is creating jobs, whether it is tax reform, and it s congress that s dragging their feet on implementing them. and this is what we have also been hearing from those sources that john kelly we need to improve upon, that the president is very frustrated because he looks at congress and he sees his legislative agenda stalled. yeah. appreciate that. more now on general kelly s complaint on the reporting right now. quintet, general kelly says basically everything is fine. stories to the contrary are miss reportedment you re in the white house every day. is that in fact the case? well, anderson, i guess being told that we need better sources is better than being told we re the enemy of the people, which is how the president described us earlier is this year. i think general kelly was expressing