he s great. he is great. he s our best. they say he s the closest thing to general george patton that we have. and it is about time. it s about time. you remember that. that was president trump 18 months ago heaping praise on his newly nominated defense secretary. but, that was then. this is now. nbc news reports that the president is increasingly leaving general james mattis out of the loop on key policy decisions, from iran, to north korea, even outer space. officials say general mattis keeps getting caught off guard. courtney kube joins me with some exclusive reporting here. we knew these two men had
disagreements, sharp internal disagreements about not only key cabinet appointments, but also just general direction of this administration. and the two camps, on the one side, a more establishment republican party camp, and keep in mind, you have reince priebus, appointed to chief of staff, against a more non-traditional bent, and think of steve bannons of the world who now has this key advisory role. and in addition to that, there s real questions and real confusion. the word buffoonery was used for me inside the transition, because it s not clear who s in charge. you have steve bannon and jared kushner with a senior advisory role and a lot of chiefs and not many indians, in terms of making those key policy decisions. so people inside the campaign talking about that as a real problem right now. you d imagine that for at least some of trump s supporters, they would have little patience in him picking
real questions and real confusion. the word buffoonery was used for me inside the transition, because it s not clear who s in charge. you have steve bannon and jared kushner with a senior advisory role and a lot of chiefs and not many indians, in terms of making those key policy decisions. so people inside the campaign talking about that as a real problem right now. you d imagine that for at least some of trump s supporters, they would have little patience in him picking any kind of establishment type. it certainly kind of runs counter to the whole idea of change and draining the swamp. no question. and it s pretty interesting to watch, just how quickly you ve had a pullback, not only on those appointments, but also, you know, some of these positions. you have donald trump saying, maybe there are parts of obamacare that he might keep. you have obama saying today in his press conference that when he spoke to donald trump, that donald trump said he would remain committed to the nat