clinton, the scandals around him made him a liability for democrats. he didn t campaign that much for al gore in the 2000 race. george h.w. bush defeated for re-election. basically, there isn t a lot for what it s like for a relatively young, popular president to leave office while the other party is in control and the involvement he could have. the president is someone that could be an asset to candidates. the numbers are better than president trump s numbers. there are questions of norms. generally, one president at a time. you want to have deference. donald trump has shattered a lot of other norms. that impulse might not be as strong as if it was a normal republican president. barack obama spent eight years doing a difficult job, has been relishing his sitting retirement a bit. i don t know that he wants to be a very active politician
for putting them through this process. i mean, just to get this job, they had to come to the white house, to the oval office and get grilled by the president and first lady. i m sorry. i m so sorry. so, it wasn t lost on us, how unnerving this experience was for each and every one of them. when amy came in and it was her turn, i have to admit, i was intrigued. i was intrigued before she walked into the room. i had seen her work and i was blown away by the boldness of her colors and uniqueness of her subject matter. i was wondering, who is this woman? and she s so cute, too. then, she walked in and she was fly and poised and i just wanted to stare at her for a minute. she had this lightness and freshness of personality. she was hip and cool, in that
looked like? the same at this? different? i have to tell you, steve, this makes no sense, whatsoever. that job of staff secretary is the most sensitive behind-the-scenes job. it makes no sense for it to have taken a full year to reach this point. the president talking about due process. i don t know what process is due other than a year s worth of investigation. it s hard to imagine what more folks were waiting for to decide if he was worthy or not of staying in that role. it s something people were hearing about for the first time. a lot of people, white house staff secretary. one of the most sensitive positions. take us through the bullet point. what does that job do? what interfacing do you have with the president? you see the president every day and travel with him on air force one. it s the job of managing and reviewing all written materials that go to the president of the united states. think of decision memos, highly
an effort to make the president less erratic. porter was executing that strategy. i suspect kelly viewed porter as essential to the manner of running the white house. it s been hard to hire talented staff for the white house because so many don t want to work there. that led him to make a bad judgment. he thought it was going to be difficult to do his job without porter. in addition to what portest most likely had done and is morally wrong, this is likely to come out when you have two ex-wives angry over abuse in prior marriages. they should have known, if they didn t have moral objectives, it would be a problem for the white house. they feel under siege. the fact there are allegations against president trump, their mentality is, they are out to get us and these accusations are going to take us down. because they are out to get you doesn t mean you didn t beat your wife.
like previous infrastructure weeks, attention will focus, instead, on another distraction for the white house, this time, a scandal over a top staffer s history of spousal abuse. steve? jeff bennet with the latest at the white house. thank you for that. with us is raj, the former white house security for president obama and political reporter, caitlin hughey burns. raj, let me start with you. you were in that role of rob porter. take us in. we are understanding there was an issue getting permanent security clearance with his job. unclear exactly what he was telling superiors until these photographs came out last week. if this had been a case in the white house that you worked in, where somebody in your position was having issues getting security clearance what would have happened? what would the process have