and john kelly told him that he wasn t aware of any plan for that. now, kelly had to call shulkin again hours later and say that plans had changed. that s the phone call you heard shulkin talk about. so i don t think shulkin had the chance to submit a resignation letter before the president issued a tweet at 5:31 p.m. that afternoon. the white house had wanted the president to hold off on firing shulkin because they wanted to fire his deputy bowman who would go into that top job if he fired shulkin rather than shulkin resigning, because they ve had a lot of problems with him in terms of his loyalty to the white house, his fuel to the trump agenda. people were not aware he would fire off a tweet getting rid of shulkin when he did. and now they re in a mess because nobody knows how long this will go on.
public. leland: do you think they re firing shulkin was a good idea and by that you applaud the president for nominating ronnie jackson. you fill that s a good choice? i think the vetting process will show the qualifications. we know he is a clinician. he understands clinical medicine, which i think it s high time we had somebody like that in the secretary s position. we put together a list of the past three secretaries of veteran affairs. very different backgrounds. you talk about a clinician. it appears as though it david shulkin was a clinician in the beginning parts of his career. bob mcdonald who was a west point graduate, highly decorated member of the west point class and an army captain. general shin seki was a four-star general and a decorated vietnam veteran. what about admiral jackson? what qualities does he not have or does he have that the other three men don t have that you
are so dissatisfied with? well, i think the fact he s actively practicing clinical medicine, secretary shulkin used to make a big show about. i ve worked under all the secretaries. general shin seki, mr. mcdonald and chopin. i find it refreshing that somebody at such clinical import would be put in that position. is being va secretary, i don t know anything about that. you worked in it. is it about being a clinician or a manager of the second-largest iraq received in american government? i think it s both. the emphasis is on taking care of patients as far as vha is concerned. there were other jobs of the va. the cemetery, benefits. but from what i understand, that
just before the break, we talked about a president increasingly going it alone. confident it seems in his own gut level decision making. compounding that process, his shrinking inner circle. the departure of people who at least know what they are actually doing. today was the president s first full day in office without hope hicks. on known who will replace her as communication director or in anyone will. unclear if anyone can replace her. which as we have been discussing is vital. as is being qualified for the job which gets straight to mr. trump s latest personnel move. firing shulkin and replaced him
we ll never have to use those words. we ll never have to use those words on our david. and according to nbc news, president trump who built his career in part on telling people you re fired on reality television, he tasked john kelly with firing shulkin before the president tweeted the news himself. i m joined by kristen welker, white house correspondent with nbc news, nick confessore with the new york times and a political analyst and elise jordan. kristin, over to you first where the news happened yesterday and the president put that tweet out. that s a pattern we turn on twitter and learn something big happened through the president s account. when and why the president turned on david shulkin because you heard the praise before this. when and why he turned on the va secretary and how it was he then turned to his personal physician.