eric herschmann and many others were appalled. jason miller: the way it was communicated to me was that pat cipollone thought the idea was nutty and had, at one point, confronted eastman, basically, with the same sentiment. speaker: what were your prior interactions with eastman? eric herschmann: he described for me what he thought the ambiguity was in the statute and he was walking through it at that time. and i said to hold on a second. i want to understand what you're saying. you're saying that you believe the vice president acting as president of the senate can be the sole decision maker as to, under your theory, who becomes the next president of united states? and he said, yes. and i said, are you out of your effing mind? jake tapper: the vice president decided he could not buy in to eastman's theories.