Page 2 - Rob Porter Issue News Today

Different factions. this feels more free fall and its been accelerated in large part by the rob porter issue, both because youre absent a staffer, a key one. he helped move a lot of policy and was playing a bunch of crucial rolls and an adviser to john kelly. it exposes that if you dont have systems in place, such as the security clearances, a lot of problems arise and its taken the air of command and control that john kelly had managed to create around himself as bringing order to the white hou...

Yeah. >> it was that bad and so, yes, there is an issue here obviously john kelly took some fire over his handling of the rob porter issue. hes now been taking more internal fire over this decision to change the security clearance question, which has robbed jared kushner of classified clearance and there are discussions about whether hes going to go. look, i think kelly is continuing to try to impose order there, consistent rules. thats why he came out with the new security rules. there are prob...

Get done, if only because republicans need to vote for something. >> well, thats right. i think the republicans are under a lot of pressure, and whether hes breaking the gridlock or not, i mean, lets say no one would ever mistake donald trump with lyndon johnson in terms of being a political animal, you just cannot wave your hand and change the politics of an entire country. and bill just described some of the political pressures that weigh in against merely transforming the gun control debate. ...

Week, he will change his mind. kind of like a prison warden saying i will withdraw rations and then saying a day later no no its okay guys and it creates this chaos. this issue involves the entire international trading block of nations. paul: right. >> i think the damage its done here no matter what he does next week is that his credibility is going to be eroded in the future on any trade agreements that he tries to cut with anybody. i think in particular of the idea that were going to have a bi...

She was also, despite, that i know she got a lot of criticism. she was one of the people who could deflect some of his dicier requests or things he wanted to do. she would push back and she would also absorb a lot of screaming, the venting, the anger that he would direct at reporters or at other staffers. and she would not roll it back down hill. absent that kind of a filter, it will get uglier in an already pretty low morale situation. >> and is there anyone who could step in? it doesnt seem as...

Very hard for a communications person whose job is to deal with the media to be saying, well, yeah, i mean, i tell some things that arent true. its nothing substantive. >> how do we know what to believe? >> credibilitywise, youre left in a lurch. >> trump himself adheres to the roy kohn standard of always attack, never admit any wrongdoing. trump himself will never admit hes lied, never apologized, and he expects that from his staff too. >> april, this is your beat, what are you hearing? >> im h...

Guns, a bipartisan meeting in the white house that probably surprised a lot of people, pushing against republicans, saying to their face theyre afraid of the nra and theyve got to push back, talking about comprehensive gun reform. and then not an hour later or so, this announcement from hope hicks overshadowing the meeting they just had. >> its like example a of bad communication strategy. there is no logical reason that this should have come out today because that is not in anybodys communicati...

Communication strategy. there is no logical reason that this should have come out today because that is not in anybodys communications plan would be for that to happen. so it raises the question of, well, just how much, then? even if this was in the works, how much did yesterdays testimony before the house intelligence committee and the headlines about white lies- and we know from our reporting that the president was none too pleased about that. how much did that play into any acceleration of th...

This is like finding a guy who failed medical school, letting him perform surgery on you without a scalpel. having him in there. he has no function. im glad you raised the question about ivanka. theyre married. if it was a financial entanglement that caused this, that probably affects ivanka. the thing boggles my mind, we probably would not be drawing close scrutiny to these issues had it not been for the rob porter issue. this is what opened it all up. so everyone probably knew that he had issu...

We still have going back to john kelly and the whole rob porter issue and going through the mueller indictments. and i think it behooves the white house to stand there and answer these questions and in the have an abbreviated ten-minute session. >> which is looking like what it will be. my eyes are on the clock. >> unless it gets bumped again. >> unless it does. i want to get to breaking news while we await sarah sanders. this lawyer for rick gates is in court right now, expected to plead guilty...