what does it mean as the national security council is in some ways for people inside the government so central and so important. to people outside the government it seems obscure. what does it mean for american security and preparedness to have this level of turnover, dysfunction in that core function of the white house? since world war ii, the national security council has become the central place where presidential decision making with regard to foreign and security policy takes place. it s that simple. and its staff, sometimes as many as 300 or so, are the people who actually direct the information going to the president for these decisions. to include people from the intelligence community and so forth. so it s central to this sort of decision-making and to have it in chaos like this, to have it in disarray, to have its nationalecurity advisor, its titular head, y will, leave in the middle of already deep
us domestically like chaos. you re right, chris, i was just in paris and in paris i was meeting with germans, french, british, belgians, and i got to tell you, the degree of concern in their minds about where america is going, where it s headed, who it s being led by, what its policies are is as deep as i ve seen it in some 45 years of working with european allies. it s serious. what does it mean as the national security council is in some ways for people inside the government so central and so important. to people outside the government it seems obscure. what does it mean for american security and preparedness to have this level of turnover, disfurchdi dysfunction in that core function of the white house? since world war ii, the national security council has become the central place where presidential decision making with regard to foreign and security policy takes place. it s that simple.
you actually have been forced to learn some things that are going to be essential to your job. and it s a pretty unique situation. this is the biggest business in the world. and we don t even make decisions timely. we re still working on last october 1st s spending billings. there are things that have to be changed and some of them you ll be in a position to do. i ve been impressed with the knowledge you ve already shown with this committee on different things that most of us have never had any experience with. very impressive. now, i ll cover a couple of specific things here. i think the internal revenue service has often strayed from its core function of responsible and efficient revenue collection. i hope the new trump administration will make sure that the internal revenue service stays on track with this purpose while also improving the recent record on how it
learn some things that are going to be essential to your job. and it s a pretty unique situation. this is the biggest business in the world and we don t even make decisions timely. we re still working on last october 1st s spending bills. there are a lot of things around here that have to change and some of them you re going to be in a position to do and i ve been really impressed with the knowledge that you ve already shown with this committee on different things that most of us have never had any experience with. very impressive. now, i ll cover a couple of specific things here because i think the internal revenue service has often strayed from its core function of responsible and efficient revenue collection. i hope the new trump administration will make sure that the internal revenue service stays on track with this purpose while also improving the recent record on how it
this stuff? he drained a swamp with alligators and replaced it with equally dangerous snakes. we have the billionaire corps, we have people placed in charge of agencies that they don t believe in the basic core function of the agency, and we ve got people who have been connected in politics for years and years. we ve got operatives. no, he hasn t drained the swamp at all. if anything, he s just exchanged the dangerous creatures in the swamp. yeah, i think his base and his supporters will give him a little leeway. but i think it must have sent a shiver up everybody s spine who voted for donald trump when it came out that his two sons were selling access to the president on the day after the inauguration to million-dollar donors. they can talk all they want about that not being the signed-off thing, that it was only a concept paper. they registered their names with a state agency, and they sent out something that they would not have sent out if they had not previously consented to it.