that industries and lobbyists that give campaign donations have a little more action to those lawmakers. to acknowledge that was the practice in his office is remarkable and i think he feels free to do it, because the president has shown in a number of other instances that he does not hold his cabinet members to a high ethical or moral standard. look at all the problems that scott pruitt as administrator at the epa had over the last few months without consequences from the president, from his boss. let me go over that. several cabinet, right? epa administrator, scott pruitt facing at least ten congressional investigations linked to a koncondo and soundpf room and a flight from las vegas to montana. the man who preceded him, shulkin, given walking papers after revealed he traveled to europe with his wife on the
charter from las vegas to montana. the report says, quote it would have been avoided. it goes on to point out that i guess the circumstances surrounding why he was even there. those circumstances were called into question. what s happening on the cabinet level? it s largely free range cabinet secretary. they re in these agencies, administering them in a way that is counter to anything we ve seen before. i think jim is right, in terms of how the reaction would have played out in the obama administration. we know how it would have played out in the bush administration. and, you know, previous republican administrations. so this is an operation. it is one, again, that is allowed to exist because that s how the president sees it. he doesn t care about those things. his attitude is largely, well, as long as you re doing what i need you to do, okay, if you want an suv that has kevlar seats, fine. if you want a $32,000 dining
members and other and administration officials. bret? bret: john roberts live on the north lawn. let s take a close look at the private flight controversy him, who is involved. what s happened before. he was correspondent doug mckelway. i would just like to address in the words of general schwarzkopf a little b.s. on travel. new allegations of taxpayer-funded travel abuses surfaced today. this time, against interior secretary ryan zinke. washington post reporting he and staffers tried in a plane for $12,000 to fly from las vegas to montana. today, zinke pushed back. all of this travel was done only after determined by multiple career professionals at the department that no commercial options existed to meet the promulgated schedule. the interior department noted the plane was chartered through a company on contract with the federal government. the epa administrator scott pruitt also contesting reports
discovered the montana special election about ten days ago. and this has been a continuing, i think, push-pull in the democratic party more so than the republican party. the republicans see, they see wind against them and they throw money at it. democrats see wind and they run away. see, i think what you re trying to balance is do i go all in in a race in, for one seat in a race in montana in early, relatively early 2017. and then you get to 2018th and we ve got a bunch of seats that are competitive and we blow a bunch of money there. and this is what they re always balancing and how helpful is it for the national party to come into montana and get involved. i get that explanation. it seems like a weak explanation. i know that s think thing. that s the thinking. is it outstated thinking?
that statement last night. and based on the voters i was talking to today, that strategy might actually work for him. we spoke to vote takers polling place in bozeman that i would say was probably more friendly to rob quist, the democrat in this race. i ve talked to probably two dozen voters, admittedly not a very big sample. but nobody told me they were changing their vote. some of the quist people said they were pumped up. they felt like they had to defend montana. but even those who were more cautiously defending him said this might make me question his character a little bit fwufl policy differences were so stark, they were going on pull the letter for him anyway. what you didn t see was anybody sayi this moved me from one camp to the other. you said that gianforte has been silent and quist has barely mentioned this, has he? yeah. i was with the quist campaign yesterday when this happened. and his campaign staff sort of scrambled to respond at all.