critics during the campaign. let me read you a tweet that we got from kellyanne conway. some trump loyalists warned against mitt romney as secretary of state. why is that so critical and interesting? well we are reading between the tea leaves, there seems to be a dividing others who want to see mitt romney and kellyanne conway, one of his closest advisers seem to be pointing al rudy giuliani . traditionally, we don t see all the drama and the dynamic from the tradition. that woman s middle name is strategy. the fact that we are focused on her i think we have to take a step back and look at the full range of things that has to happened here. there are 4,000 picks that the president has to make here and the secretary of state is
remarkable. remarkable from somebody who covers the campaign. you can hear the competing voices from the campaign. i think bill clinton reference is so significant. it is going to upset a lot of people who wanted to hear trump loyalists who wanted to hear a real apology and leave it at the first 45 seconds and move on. he talked about the clinton thing. there is chatter if he will show up at the debate. he will be in st. louis sunday night and he will talk about bill clinton. this gives hillary clinton an opportunity and her team to map out their plan and line of defense and offense for the next 48 hours because they know this is coming. it puts trump in a position where he will be on defense on sunday when you need to be on offense. his campaign stabilized. we had three days. we were talking about hurricanes. now he is in the line of fire. that is a remarkable piece of stage craft and fascinating to
well, i think it s clearly that. there s no doubt this is a make or break moment. listen, i think what you just heard from corey lewandowski and ana navaro represents the trump loyalists and the never trump movement. those two factions, are not going to have an impact. so you ve got to go back to donald trump was still on a quest to grow beyond his base of loyalists. so even his key loyalists, corey lewandowski says is this defensible? i don t think so. and then tries to reframe it. but the thing that we need to focus on politically in terms of its impact on the election is the voters in the middle that donald trump is still this sunday night, his mission going into that debate was to give them assurances that he fits the office he s seeking. and this completely up-ends that argument for those voters. that is why it is a bombshell in
reporter: trump loyalists. the president put out a flowery statement, the media would criticize it saying it s not consistent with things said in the past. reporter: it was a sign of the times for the gop as he claimed barack obama was not born in the u.s., it was the senator who took the high road and told the truth. he s an arab. he is not no? no, ma am. no, ma am. reporter: instead of taking time to praise mccain, the president phoned the leaders in mexico. i believe the president is on the phone. enrique? reporter: the white house tried to change the subject, pointing to a trade deal with mexico, that is aimed at replacing nafta. i think nafta had a lot of bad con notations with the united states because it was a rip off. it was a horrible deal for our country.
this was official business on nights and weekends. i went out, never used government money for that. the single expenditure spent was on a coach airfare for my wife who was officially invited. the trip he s talking about ended up in wimbledon and he was criticized by the inspector general, but he certainly is not alone in terms of members of the trump cabinet who had flights and other questionable expenses like this. but it was actual other divisions at the va, some trump loyalists there who were supportive of privatizing some of these services. he was against that. and he, of course, was a holdover from the obama administration who the president was hailing as one of his favorite members of the cabinet, just last summer. that, of course, all changed. but the biggest surprise was not the firing of secretary shulkin, it was indeed the hiring of dr. ronny jackson. so tell us about this pick