soon president trump will be meeting behind closed doors with his cabinet and we re waiting to see if we ll be able to hear from the president during that meeting. but he s holding this cabinet meeting and it s the first cabinet meeting since losing yet another member of the cabinet. labor secretary alexander acosta resigning last week. since taking office, trump has seen record turnover among his cabinet, more than any president in recent history, and some of those around the table today still aren t even senate confirmed. they re not permanent, just acting members of the cabinet. and the result is a personnel crisis and serious questions about the administration s ability to function. joining me right now is a man who knows a little about this, a former member of george w. bush s cabinet. secretary, thank you for being here. thank you. i want to get to functioning and not functioning and what it means inside a cabinet meeting. but i do first need to ask you about the discussion w
terrific guy, adding, it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as i do, and many of them are on the younger side. did you have any suspicions that he was molesting young women, underage women? no, i had no idea. i had no idea. i haven t spoken to him in many, many years. i didn t want anything to do with him. kyra phillips asking the president that question today. she s live with us at the white house. and kyra, this resignation means there s seven cabinet level officials serving in an acting capacity. there s been record turnover in this administration, making news again tonight. reporter: that s exactly right, david. it s unprecedented. at least 25 senior administration officials have left this white house in just the first 2 1/2 years. we should note that alex acosta, well, he was the only latino member of president trump s cabinet. david? kyra, thank you. it was a very unsettling day for millions in the west. yet another round of earthquakes. this time shaki
yesterday on its 23rd day. this is now the longest government shutdown in u.s. history. the previous record was set when bill clinton was president. a clash for 21 days between 1995 and 1996. michelle, i will go to you first here. on the matter of record, yes, but also the president s approach to this. looking back at the last shutdown in 1995-96 there was at least an effort to make it seem like the goal was to get out of the shutdown. i m struck how we hit the record and nothing much happened as a result. not like there is much concern. there s never been a shutdown that was initiated by the president. in every past shutdown it was presidents desperately trying to deal with a recalcitrant congress, not congress trying to deal with the recalcitrant president. this isn t the only record by any means trump has set. he s had record low approval ratings, has a record deficit, had record turnover. he sets all sorts of records for
trail was that he only hires the best people. however, his cabinet has had record turnover and trump is currently searching for a new defense secretary after jim mattis handed in his residence i resignation letter. we have a wonderful man in there now. he could be there for a long time. i m in no rush. i ve got everybody, everybody and his uncle wants that position. and also by the way, everybody and her aunt, just so i won t be criticized for that last statement. everybody wants that position. everybody. so many people want to be who wouldn t want to be secretary of defense? i think there are a lot of people who are very well qualified to be secretary of defense who would not want to be
there. i ve put out ten years of taxes, my hiring records, all the papers that anybody could find. i put out my family story. shoot, i even took a dna test. it is there. i am an open book. some people think that open book hurt herself. some people wish that particular chapter had not been written or had come later in the midterm election. donald trump is setting the script for these 2020 hopefuls, that they are responding to him and he has called her pocahontas so she takes a dna test to prove she s not faking her native american history. it s not surprising to see them coalescing around this debate. never start too soon? i don t know about that. pretty good election this year. there we go. hear hear! record turnover at the white