he was in western iraq when i had northern iraq. he was in fallujah, i had my headquarters in tikrit. we had a seam between us, a border between us, so we would work combat operations together along that border to get after the enemy. so he s very meticulous in the way he approaches things. he s got a great sense of humor, and i found him to be fun to work with, because he s common sense and pragmatic. you know, i was listening to you earlier, half hour engagement with the rest of the panel, and it s interesting, because i think john s going to get in there, and he will not put up with some of the b.s. that s been going on in the white house. so he will exude a management style. he will help the president, i believe, and get some things under control that we all know have been completely out of control since the president took office. and he ll put a lot of discipline into the operation. he won t take the crap from some of the people that have been dishing it out.
earlier, how much authority the president gives him and whether he listens to him. i mean, the president is a 71-year-old man who gets up in the morning and tweets multiple times every day, and sometimes changes the news flow as a result. generals don t like surprises. nobody does, to a degree. but the question is whether he s going to have any impact on the all pull sa impulsiveness of the president. i have no way to know the answer to that, and also how he s going to deal with the other power centers in the white house. whether he deal with mcmaster differently? will he deal with jared differently? jared kushner differently? and how will he deal with steve bannon? because i think steve bannon is there, and will remain. and so i think he s got to navigate this, and i think the president has to listen to him
so there is a sense of the moment that this was revealed about 5:00 or so, when the president announced this, suddenly then some allies of reince priebus who were telling us all day long nothing is happening, oh, he resigned last night. i ve talked to several officials who are skeptical of that version of events. they believe that reince priebus was trying to hold on and trying to remain in this position. they thought he could weather this storm, but that was not to be. and now as they look back at it, they believe some of reince priebus s allies that anthony scaramucci was brought in to be sort of a hit man to put all of this in public, and he wanted him out. it s only been a week since anthony scaramucci has been here. so certainly a big change in seven days. that s fascinating, the idea that he was brought in to be a hit man, in your words. reince priebus, from all the reporting, tried to stop anthony
still, priebus kept up a brave face. i m not in any trouble. i ve got a great relationship with the president. we talk all the time. in fact, just before coming on the set, he gave me a call. reporter: reince priebus who was never an outside enand always a republican party guy lost an important ally when press secretary sean spicer resigned. and now just days later he, too, is out of the trump white house. randi kaye, cnn, new york. joining me now is our panel. jeff, does this decision getting rid of priebus, and bringing in kelley, solve any of the dysfunction in the white house? i think it may. anderson, i don t want to do a news bulletin, but you may have heard i m a fan of president reagan s? yes. i ve heard that. i have to tell you, i was there in the iran contra situation in which president
how divided and ugly this is, tonight at the trump hotel, people on team scaramucci, scaramucci himself was not in washington i believe, but people that supported scaramucci and on poz and opposed priebus will be celebrating priebus demise at the trump hotel bar. that s how ugly and messy this has gotten. maybe kelly can fix that. that s something that shouldn t be tolerated if you re a chief of staff. david, you can talk about this more. remember, it wasn t long ago when the president said to jared kushner and steve bannon, boys, work it out. they were feuding publicly. and he told them to work it out. that is what a chief of staff needles to be doing in this white house. we ve got to take a break. up next, what we know about the new white house chief of staff, retired marine corps general john kelly. the question tonight, can he