differentiate themselves as well as using that as the background. susan del percio, basil smikel, thank you. president trump is expected to officially nominate mark esper as secretary of defense. hans nichols joins me from the pentagon, for the casual observer they may not know that name. get us to speed. he is the current army secretary. the president made him acting secretary or said he would do that. this makes it official. mark esper will be officially nominated by the president. these are the plans according to three administration officials to have mark esper be the next secretary of defense. there have been some concern on capitol hill about always having these acting. the president has talked about how he likes acting. he would be subject to senate conffirmation and if confirmed have the full authority invested in that position. it s in the nuclear chain of command, there s important
between disruption and implementation. i think there s a lot of political value in coming to washington as he has and saying that i m not going to be locked in to the old ideas. both parties i think republicans and democrats have been sort of used up in old ideas that they have pedaling for 30, 40 years. they may be good ideas but i think they re exhausted. but if you want to get anything done in washington, there s a certain way you go about it and so i think where we ve seen him do well, whether it was the supreme court nomination and conffirmation of neil gorsuch, or more conventional approach to foreign policy, the lesson here is, it s okay to have new ideas and disruptive ideas. it s politically beneficial. some may be accepted and some may be opposed, but there is a way of getting things done. we like to call it blocking and tackling. spread offense, fine, run up the middle, fine. you need a good offensive line that can block and that s where this administration has been lacking
house excluding these cabinet secretaries as well as the state department which is now without a leader, of course, rex tillerson not yet confirmed, what do we know about how they re trying to fix this situation and their close connection with the attorney general senator sessions who is up for conffirmation and apparently working behind the scenes on all of this. reporter: what s notable here, house judiciary aides, not the actual bosses, not the members of congress in the house judiciary committee but their aides were a party to this effort to try to draft the executive order that was announced that s now controversial not only because of the poll at this policy itself but the way it was communicated, jaime meatis, john kelly and rex tillerson had no yld this was coming, had no details, only the wide concept until it was announced. we see him walking up to the podium. quickly pete williams the firing
designed to insulate questions of law, questions of law, excuse me, questions of law from inappropriate political pressure, and presidents and attorneysenrahle who have violated that standard have typically paid a grave price for doing so. do we think that president trump is going to pay any sort of price at all, and if so, why? well he absolutely ought to. look, when attorney general gonzalez crossed the line and fired u.s. attorneys based on political pressure from the white house, he ultimately had to resign over it. i think it s something that senators on capitol hill need to look at with respect to senator sessions and his conffirmation. he said he would be independent but at the same time refused to say he ll recuse himself from investigation into the trump campaign despite the fact he had an official position on that campaign. it s something department of justice rules clearly require and so if he won t take that minimal step it s hard to see how he can be an independent atto
comcast business. built for business. i m atika shubert. an update on the top stories we re following this hour. former egyptian president mohamed morsi has just been sentenced to death for his role in a 2011 prison break. he ll learn his fate in another case involving espionage. his name will be passed to the grand mufti for the conffirmation of the death sentence june 2nd. el we ll have more throughout this hour. also a federal jury in the u.s. sentenced dzhokhar tsarnaev to death for his role in the boston marathon bombings. witnesses say there was no visible reaction from the 20-year-old as the sentence was announced. 2013 bombings killed three people and injured at least 240 others.