Certainty and predictability. Thats the best way to make business decisions. Having the president make this controversial announcement, then indicate right away they may or may not be committed to it is not the kind of certainty Corporate America is looking for. Those are some of the broader impacts. Whats the potential impact inside his own administration, and for his own Press Secretary who has to go out and defend a policy shes not sure is etched in stone . Obviously shes in an impossible situation. I think what it does inside the white house, its corrosive to any effort to put in place a process to make decisions. Because people know that the Decision Making process is precarious at best, that theres never a final decision thats made and theres an opportunity to influence it at a variety of junctures or to go in and intervene with the president at the last minute. It means theres no coherent process in place and the result is you have decisions that are halfbaked at best. This has
and he is in a difficult position, and joining me is the security analyst michael lighter, a military the veteran himself, and, so the secretary is trying to talk the around the fact that the president said that the troops would fire on stone-throwing migrants, and first of all, nobody says that there are stone-throwing migrant, and the troops cannot engage vol untarily. and unless that stone can go 800 miles. and so he did not give it a military code name, and he is trying the work around a mess that was put in his lap. yes, and jim mat tis is doing the right thing as the secretary of defense. he has to listen to commander in chief, and he has to keep the moral up for the troops, and he has to make sure that the troops are operating within the domestic laws, and the like. and so let s be clear, the military s involvement in the southwestern border is not
job today in iowa as the justice department has released the legal opinion that he has every right to be appointed acting attorney general, although, he is the first in history not to have held a job previously confirmed by the senate. joining me now is msnbc analyst mimi rocah, and southern district attorney in the new york, and security analyst matt miller who was former chief spokesman for eric hoelder in te doj. and so now, the justice department has issued an opinion, but it is not match ing that of a number of expatriots that we have interviewed to say nothing of the george conway op-ed. and in fact, the justice department should not be led by someone who has never been confirmed by the senate. that is right, andrea. look, i think that the fact that we have this memo with a different opinion is important, and obviously, it is the department of justice office of
director of national intelligence saying russia is doing this. when you have an occupant in the oval office that refuses to admit that and see it, it s really hard to be his adviser. i have had so many conversations about the fact the messages on russia coming out of the white house and other branches of government are so different. that undercuts their efforts. let me ask about the other big piece of news. jared kushner has come under a microscope this week. his security clearance has been significantly downgraded. we learned there s a lot of scrutiny over some companies profiting after they actually had meetings at the white house with jared kushner. has he became a liability and could that actually threaten national security? whether he s a political liability, i won t touch that one, but i think the two pieces that he s really started to run afoul of, security and standard ethics. on the ethics piece, it s exactly why we ask people to separate themselves from business interests
another possible staff shakeup at the white house. nbc news has learned that national security adviser h.r. mcmaster could be replaced as early as the end of this month, but this morning, white house press secretary sarah sanders disputed there was any plan for mcmaster s departure. joining me now, nbc news senior national security analyst, michael lighter, former director of the national counterterrorism center. thank you so much. great to see you. great to be here. let s just talk about this and the implications of it. we know that there have been some tensions simmering between mcmaster and the president, some of them have spilled out into the public. what is the significance of a potential departure and why now, do you think? it s really huge. the only position that this is sort of subservient to is the chief of staff.