nielsen drafted a resignation letter but has not submitted it and, quote, ms. nielsen viewed the president s rant as directed mostly at her, and she told associates after the meeting that she should not continue in the job if he did not view her as effective. one person close to ms. nielsen said she is miserable in her job. after the times story was published, the homeland security secretary said in a statement she s not leaving her post and will continue to implement the president s security-focused agenda. here to talk about it, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the new york times and an msnbc political analyst. jackie kaumz, white house editor. and matthew nussbaum, white house reporter for politico. peter, is this potentially a case of misdirected anger at congress, say, for not funding the signature program of the campaign? yeah, it s interesting.
know her, and for all this talk of her that she should be fired, i m a little puzzled by that given that the tone is set by the man at the top. and you don t have to even go back to his campaign to comments that trump made against john mccain. it s almost become a staple of his appearances on the stump these days that he will make a comment, remember that one vote, thumbs down on the health care bill. we would have had the health care, obamacare repeal if not for that one vote in the senate. and everybody knows that he means john mccain. and they know he knows he means john mccain. it s become a laugh line of his speeches and the man is in arizona dying of cancer. matthew, i m coming to you after a break. all of our guests have agreed to stick around. we ll shift the topic to the vice president among others when we come back.
the paper is consistently coming out and saying, no, this is scheduled repair of a long existing fence at the border. and if i could, i agree completely with my former colleague peter there about the fact that none of this has really gotten under way yet. if i could put it in perspective, this week the president the white house has put forward $15 billion worth of rescissions as a sort of sign that it is fiscally conservative and get the deficits down, which is frankly a rounding error in terms of the deficit. but $15 billion, if they re going to cut that from the budget, he s complaining that he s not getting $25 billion for the border wall. it s just you know, it s an expense that congress, even republican-controlled congress is balking at, and that doesn t even get to the feasibility of putting a wall across the southern border. matthew, the washington post has added to the reporting from that cabinet meeting, and
you ve spurred an optimism in this country that s setting records. i m deeply humbled as your vice president to be able to be here. i want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of america. matthew, a number of people come away saying he is not of this world. question to you is who is mike pence in your view? well, it s really hard to say. i mean the on sbsequiousness an the flattery are such a constant now, and they have been ever since he was named to donald trump s ticket in july of 2016. like you said, i covered him on the campaign. the cadences, the lines, they re all the same. you know, he just sort of is on repeat. he sticks to the script, and he makes sure he s always praising president trump. who is mike pence? i don t know. he doesn t really seem to have core convictions or beliefs beyond whatever donald trump s decided they are. he used to be for the
they have a quote that the president apparently said out loud. why don t you have solutions? how is this still happening, he asked, adding later, we need to shut it down. we re closed, meaning the border, meaning editorial cartoonists are scrambling to put we re closed at the p pedestal of the statue of liberty, no doubt. matthew, is this core donald trump, or is what we re hearing channeled core stephen miller and maybe others? i think this is core donald trump through and through. this has been one of the messages that he s been most consistent on, that he s been most animated by. he talked about immigration and illegal immigration soon after he came down that infamous escalator, and he s been talking about it ever since. he loves to talk about the wall at these campaign rallies. he knows that animates his base. so i don t think it s any