in the health space to do so. we ve heard of these battles before, usually in the national security space between state or and d.o.d. or the nsc. reporter: it s been a series of tit for tat incidents. a source close to verma described the clash. azar undercut her plan to replace obamacare. verma slammed his plan to lower drug costs in front of the president. then azar tried to keep her from flying on air force one to this medicare announcement championed by her team. we are making your medicare even better. reporter: azar s aides, according to politico, said there was no room on the plane. the two also feuded over who would become verma s chief of staff. that prompted a gender discrimination investigation by outside counsel that found no evidence of wrongdoing, the source said. verma reports to azar and her allies believe he undermined her decisions in ways he would not for a man. one criticism of verma is she