His fate seemingly foregone conclusion. Are you going to stay . Are you staying . And when reporter from abc news finally got mcmaster to respond, heres what happened. I just wanted to ask you about the reports that you might be leaving the white house. Sarah sanders set it straight yesterday. Everybody has to leave the white house sometime. Hey, thats true. We have term limits. Right. Perhaps most graceful way for mcmaster to deal with the fact that his boss is talking to a whole lot of people in negative ways about firing him. It isnt as if the president hasnt cut down mcmaster too. Via public forum for shaming heres the tweet when he slammed mcmaster for slamming russia for meddling in the u. S. Election. Quote, general mcmaster forgot to say the results of the election were not changed by russians. And only collusion was by crooked h. Remember the dirty dossier and podesta company. That tweet slamming mcmaster was one month ago. So the president has been fuming and complaining for
At the state department. Rex tillerson is out. Weve just learned so too is a very vocal top aide who contradicts the white houses version of events. Cia director mike pompeo, the president s pick to replace tillerson. A lot of reports of how and when the call came down to replace the secretary of state. A lot of versions about why as well. Admittedly, a decision that appears to have been a long time coming. Yet with the president touting the end of the house Russian Investigation in big bold capital letters today. Not to mention that big photo op trip to california. Why now is an equally big mystery laying in the rubble of tillersons firing. Lets start with our reporters. Nbcs Peter Alexander is at the white house. Msnbcs Garrett Haake is on capitol hill. Lets start with you, mr mr. Alexander. Break down the why, the when and the how of it, if you can, as we understand, the facts to be, at 1 01 on the east coast. First, the why this happened now. Certainly a stunning announcement. The
Pompeos post as cia director has been promised to the deputy cia director gina haspel. Before heading to california, the president spoke about his reasons for this very dramatic change. Rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. We got along actually quite well, but we disagreed on things. When you look at the iran deal, i think its terrible. I guess he thought it was okay. I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently. So we were not really thinking the same. With mike, mike pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think its going to go very well. Rex is a very goodm man. I like rex a lot. I really appreciate his commitment to his service, and i will be speaking to rex over a long period of time. Lets go to our senior White House Correspondent jeff zeleny. Jeff, do we know when the president made this decision of what the white house is now saying about how secretary tillerson was actually informed . Reporter well, just to walk
Kremlinology style coverage and speculation about who is in favor and who is out of favor and who has been able to move their desk closer to the oval office and who might some day be fired and who is angling. The government is not supposed to be conducted like the gong show, right . It has been a weird 24 hours in the news because of this word that went out prfrom the white house last night. H. R. Mcmaster was to be fired. Why did the white house put that word out last night . I dont know. And neither do you. But you should know that right before the white house put out that word last night, this is the last public thing that National Security advisor h. R. Mcmaster did yesterday afternoon. Russia is also coproviding political cover for assads crimes, from february 24th to february 28th, russia conducted 20 Bombing Missions every day in the eastern guda and damascus areas. Russia also twocondemned russiar using chemical weapons. This morning, the United States, france, germany and the
Presidency. Publicly he says he respects h. R. Mcmaster, but privately their relationship has been rocky. Its the adults in the room that talked him down. Its scary to see those guys leaving. What it tells the world is we are in chaos here at home. Thank you for letting me get out of washington. Its a thrill a minute up there. Anyone who works for the white house is inherently on borrowed time. Mcmasters exit is just one part of a broader shakeup under consideration by trump that is likely to include senior officials at the white house. So who else might be on their way out . The bottle is spinning. Chief of staff kelly, attorney general Jeff Sessions, va secretary jeff shulkin and epa administrator are a few of the names being floated as possible casualties, but who knows . And that is exactly why this white house is a hard time staying on message and getting anything done. No one is sure of their future. No one is sure of whos in charge. And no one is sure what the president wants. S