placed on leave. but by the time that she had been fired essentially, forced out by vilsack, that the president hadn t been briefed yet. it s really i mean, there is a difference of stories here. sherrod is under one impression. the white house multiple officials i ve talked to insist we did not drive this. the really fascinating thing about all of it initially the white house said it was vilsack s decision but we re going to stand by him and vilsack stood by his decision further explaining it. overnight the white house calls to agriculture and directs them to reconsider. now, according to the white house they are involved and have asked vilsack to take another look at these facts. unclear whether or not they will actually reinstate sherrod. of course, according to the woman who was fired, the white house was driving it. well, i mean, the issue, we will get to aus ten austin about that in a moment.
different media groups. i will give you one group of media types that looked at this tape edited and ran with it, but what you re sitting at the newspaper editor and i come and hand you a statement from the secretary of agriculture. ask chris lick that question. a statement from this lady. and i say, hey, mr. editor, it looks like the secretary of agriculture just fired a lady accused her of racism. do we run with it? ask chris lick. by the way, here is the naacp. boom. they valso released a statement. at that point, you run. don t we split news organizations into two groups, those who responded to vilsack and did at the time right way like chris did it and those who respond to do a tape that was edited. let s wake chris up in the control room. chris, yesterday morning, when did this become a story in your mind? once we heard directly from the usda.