confident moving forward. why not just fire leandra english? look, she s still the deputy director and has a legal standing in that capacity but not at director. does this white house agree with mick mulvaney when he calmed this agency a joke? look, we think that a lot of the past practices under the previous director and under the previous administration were used more to advance political ambitions and not about protecting american consumers which is what that s supposed to be and our goal is to make sure we get back to that. tha matthew. reporter: does the president still accept authenticity of the access hollywood tape. this was litigated certainly answered during the election by the overwhelming support for the president. and the fact he s sitting here in the oval office today. he s made his position on that clear at that time as have the american people in his support
firmly in charge of the consumer financial protection agency today or is there still a back and forth between him and leandra english, who s actually the boss? director mulvaney has taken charge of that agency, and he has the full cooperation of the staff and appeared there this morning and things went very well on his first day over at cfpb. how did he handle that power struggle when he arrived? i think that the legal outline shows clearly who is in charge of that agency, and both he and the white house as well as the general counsel for cfpb who was appointed by kocondray should be there and feel
something to advance her career. i don t understand why no one s asking that question and why that isn t constantly covered. reporter: that will undoubtably be a response getting scrutiny in its own right of course, elizabeth warren would push back in that characterization and was firm in her interview with you moments before the briefing starting, senator warren saying she found it deeply troubling that president trump would use what she did refer to as a racial slur in that context. so this is something that is now looming here at the white house as the president and the white house make a final push at tax reform. their last best chance to get tax reform finished before the end of the year. the president saying he wants it finished by christmas. sarah huckabee sanders expressing optimism that will happen and answering tough questions about the power sfrtr the at the cfpb believing mick mulvaney has the right to be interim director and the president has the right to
it a sick, sad joke. consumers should be glad they have somebody in there actually fighting for consumers and not their own political ambitions we ve seen in the previous leadership and a very different change under director mulvaney. david? reporter: sarah, at this point senator al franken has allowed that there may be more women coming forward. he doesn t know there are but there might be more women coming forward. at what point does the president condemn him? how many women does it take? how many accusations does it take before the president says al franken should resign and is he holding back because of unresolved accusations against himself? look, the president is not going to weigh in on every single matter like this. every day we have people from the media, from hollywood, from members of congress that have allegations brought against them, and we think that this should go through a due process
with religious liberty has been stalled in the senate has yet to confirm him or a vote on his confirmation. now, at the same time, the national security council staff has a vacant slot that deals with the same issue. religious liberty. that doesn t require senate confirmation. is he going to fill that slot on the nsc? i m not aware of any specific announcement for that position at this time, but if one happens we ll certainly make sure you re aware of it. reporter: the other question is regarding the appointment of director mulvaney to a simultaneous presidential appointme appointment. it seems a little odd, because this has not been done according to many accounts before world war i. you re in an administration that likes to break new ground, john. reporter: the last time, before world war i when the treasury of the secretary was also the first chairman of the