for the united states military to be involved in a production like this? how much historically is this something they re used to doing? and second of all, what is the level of concern around the possibility of politics to play into an event obviously, we know our military leaders are typically to clear that. so, of course, the military is not allowed to be involved officially in any political event. there are specific rules. can d candidly in the last year or two, we ve seen more guidelines in the last couple of weeks, secretary shanahan put out a memo reminding people that the military is apolitical. fourth of july is not typically a military holiday where you see military leaders spread throughout the country involved in these kind of activities. since the parade, the first of the planning, when we first hurts mention of the parade
remember woorks don t have a confirmed secretary of defense. there has not been someone in the pentagon in the current position since january and the acting secretary shanahan announced this week he was leaving but was in the west wing yesterday. we heard heidi talk about how the republicans to be supporting us on the hill. how could you think of that it is something that doesn t necessarily break down on party lines. what s your read of what he ll get? i think on the democratic side if the president does decide to take action, they will support him at that moment. they may criticize him after the fact but at that moment, they probably will. i think what democrats and republicans are trying to figure out, though, was it his military advisers that talked him down? was it putin sending out a threat not a threat but saying to the u.s. do not engage
they did and were overruled then you have a more serious problem. aren t those questions that armed services committee has to ask? well, there s no question that there are a lot of questions a lot of serious issues here that are involved. because as i said, the vetting process broke down. what did the fbi know? did they present it to responsible people? were there judgments made to by pass that information in the hope it wouldn t come forward? what about the senate itself? normally, a senate committee does its own investigation as well with regards to individuals. that s something that s always taken place at least in my experience. what happened when the senate did not do it? and to a large extent, you know, part of the responsibility here is also with secretary shanahan. because if his reason is he didn t want to bring his family
shanahan s messy divorce could turn into a p.r. disaster. pointing to secretary rob porter forced to resign after abuse allegations from both of his former wives. shanahan and his ex-wife had accused each other of assault nearly a decade ago. she was the only one arrested but the charges were later dropped. we have a very good vetting process and take a look at our cabinet and secretary is very good. but we have a great vetting process. but this is something that came up a little bit over the last short period of time. and as you know, pat was acting. reporter: the president was having second thoughts about nominating shanahan since he lacked military experience and has a more reserved demoaner. and it lets the pentagon without a permanent leader less than a day after the decision to send more troops to the middle east amid increasing tensions with iran. we talked about the set com decision that secretary shanahan and the president approved to