Three Va News Today

First trip to the white house. ainsley: you might remember the fast food tradition started in january when president trump personally paid for the spread when clemson won the national championship and they went to the white house to visit. steve: i think yesterday they had representatives from if i can which i lay and they had mcdonalds on board. ainsley: probably better than a fancy meal, right? steve: a lot of them are used to it because they have it in college. brian: lets bring in v.a. secre...

Numbers. i know you have your hands full trying to get the v.a. streamlined and more efficient. congratulations, mr. secretary. glad we are taking some action. i hope it works. >> thank you, brian, may i add one thing? last week we had terrible incident at palm beach. three v.a. professionals dr. federer, dr. alba, and technician johnson stopped a veteran from committing suicide. they put their lives on the line. two of them were shot. but that veteran was saved. and every day our v.a. employees...

And what the president will do today is convene a task force. i think i will being the co-chair with my partners at the department of defense and other departments of the government. and we will bring out best medicine, the best social science in addition to going to the congress and asking for grants and moneys to give to our states and locations so they can help us in this fight. ainsley: mr. secretaries, is there anything we can do? because when you hear these numbers. these are individuals t...

Place to start would be getting rid of about 699 of them and hire doctors in their place. >> although that would be easier said than done, removing shinseki would be easy but making wholesale leadership changes at the v.a. would require the senate to take up a house-passed bill creating that authority. bret? >> mike, thank you. more on that with the panel. for just the second time as we said at the front of the show, the second time since june of 2009, the economy posted a quarterly decline in t...

Mostly on their goals, irradical, expanding the government, intruding into peoples lives. then you get to a point where you get three factors, as you say, the most important underlying all of it is the economy. the recession lasted 18 months. the so-called recovery has been on for five years. we now have a quarter of contraction. you compare it with the reagan recovery, the average for the six years after his recession was a growth of over 4%. he was between 1% and 2%. so we have high unemployme...

Under way. chairman jeff miller, who had called three v.a. officials to speak to the committee who have not appeared said he did receive a series of e-mails from the v.a. early this morning but he said his patience is, quote, wearing thin and hes tired of asking for information from the v.a. and not getting it or it taking a long time. paul rieckhoff, have you changed your position on general shinseki? >> no, but i think the membership is getting more and more outraged by the day. were going to ...

Remains to be scene. >> last night the house veterans affairs committee grilled three v.a. officials and key lawmakers seemed struck by a lack of urgency. >> responded to over 100,000 requests -- >> maam, maam, maam, veterans died. get us the answers, please? >> there are also attempts to get answers about yesterdays inspector generals report revealing veterans were at risk of being lost or forgotten with at least 1700 being kept off the official list. >> these secret waiting lists could be at e...

Strategic sweep. many still doubt he fully appreciates the leverage the united states has even in a changing world. falling back on hackneyed phrases like america is the indispensable nation told us little. a harsh review from the man who oversaw the wars in iraq and afghanistan, the head of u.s. central command, retired general james mat igs saying, we want to crush the enemys hope to win through violence, yet we have now given the enemy hope that if they hang on until our announced withdrawal ...

Preliminary report. thank you, ed. we got a report yesterday. the president found the report extremely troubling. >> reporter: jay carney repeatedly deflected by saying the president is waiting for a second report as early as friday from shinseki and a third report from the v.a. health care system weeks from now by rob neighbaib. republicans note the president has a tough time firing top officials. >> hes decisively indecisive. i think were going to continue to see him indecisive on the v.a. >> ...

>> reporter: president obama finds his team scrambling to deal with the series of missteps on national security for blowing the cover of kabul to growing criticism at his attempt at a foreign policy reset at west point and mushrooming scandal at the v.a. as a white house aide refused to answer whether the president still has confidence in eric shinseki. >> the president wants to see the results of these reports and he, as you know, made clear there ought to be accountability once we establish al...