from robert mueller. is that the reason that donald trump put him in the job? our reporting, the new york times reporting, has been that whitaker was the eyes and ears of the white house in the justice department. so both on a constitutional level and on a practical level, this is a big concern. it seems to be only getting bigger. new revelations are coming forward about past statements whitaker has made about the role of the judicial branch and who should be judges. we ll talk about that a little bit later. jamie, great to see you. chris, shimon, thanks. got to get to breaking news. this just coming in to us, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg has been discharged from the hospital. that s the latest we re hearing after a fall this week. she fell in her office and felt some discomfort. went home, went to the hospital, and they figured out she had fractured three ribs. a supreme court spokesperson telling cnn, quote, she is doing
judiciary chairman in the house, jerry nadler, last night. he says whitaker is not fit. he is not fit because he has expressed very negative opinions of the investigation. he s prejudged. he s also illegal because he cannot be attorney general until he is confirmed by the senate. he cannot act as attorney general until he s confirmed by the senate because the constitutional requires that. that s what he believes. what does the new house majority, democratic majority, what can they and will they do about it? joining me now, wo members of the incoming freshman class in the house. two members who just flipped red seats to blue in the midterm election. virginia s jennifer wexton, and michigan s alyssa slotcon. thank you for being here. thanks for having us. congresswoman elect wexton, matt whitaker, what is your reaction to the president making him acting attorney general? well, we re not quite sure
brooke. they seem to be worried if he stays in the headlines and those are neg touative headlines, president trump could sour on him. that seems to be backed up, the president saying i don t know matt whitaker, he was jeff session s guy. he could be there for up to 210 days. you heard him say there i don t know him even though that completely contradicts what he said to fox not that long ago, i do know matt whitaker, he s a great guy. we know there is a relationship between president trump and matt whitaker. he s been in the oval office several times to brief the president, they ve had several phone calls and the president has praised matt whitaker to people he knows. he also caught his high by talking about the russia investigation on television, something that has come under intense scrutiny amid questions about whether he s the person to be in charge of this probe. several senior white house
it shouldn t it be an easy one for a president to answer? it is fair, it is easy, it is the question of the day, because why he picked whitaker is important. i think the gentleman doth protest too much. how many times did he say he didn t know matt whitaker? that s simply not true. number one. number two, it s not credible because this, to donald trump, the attorney general is the most important position right now, because what bothers him more than anything else in the world, except maybe immigration and the wall, not really. it is the mueller investigation. and finally, he picked matt whitaker. nobody else did. donald trump did, out of no place. rod rosenstein was next in line. there were a whole line of people. matt whitaker got scooped out and put in this position. abby s question pushed his button. because it was the question of
that in a different the national labor relations board. we don t want to get too wonky, but there s an example of it being a problem before. look, it could be a problem. and that is a concern with people in the department of justice. there are career people there. there are senior level people that have been placed there by the white house that are concerned. it s on all levels. really, it s going to be interesting to see down the line who meets with whitaker. does the fbi director meet with him. do other senior level law enforcement people meet with him? because the question is, can this man be trusted? and for however long he s going to be there, that s a serious issue. and certainly, when it comes to the russia investigation, does mueller sit down with him and give him a full briefing of that investigation? because you have to know, and you have to know that these people know such as mueller and wray, that there s a chance he s going to go back to the white house and tell them e