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u.s. defense secretary austin did undergo minimally invasive surgical procedure to treat and cure prostate cancer, he was admitted to the hospital with complications from that procedure on january 1st. he was under general anesthesia during the initial procedure, on december 22nd. so the procedure, december 22nd, he was admitted due to complications january 1st. he underwent surgery to treat prostate cancer and also the postoperative symptoms he had included nausea, severe abdominal, hip and leg pain. urinary tract infection, these are just some of the details we are getting right now. let me continue to go through this as i bring in general keane. general, your thoughts on this. obviously the story has been we are thankful he's out of the icu
so fragile. when does it crash? i hope it's going to be during this next 12 months, because i don't want to be herbert hoover. the one president i just don't want to be is herbert hoover. >> let's bring in cnn's vanessa yurkevich to fact check what trump is saying about a certain crash. walk us through what a crash is, vanessa. actually, we will stop right there because we have breaking news from the pentagon secretary of defense lloyd austin's condition. oren liebermann is there for us. some big news coming out of the pentagon, oren? >> reporter: absolutely. walter reed national military medical center, where defense secretary lloyd austin has just been the course of the past eight days, has just put out a statement saying that defense secretary lloyd austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer last month. that is why he went to the hospital on december 22nd. it is from discomfort from that hospitalization on december 22nd, and overnight stay, that he was then we admitted to the
from the military medical center about the degree to which the secretary was incapacitated. that he had this cancer diagnosis, that he had had a procedure done on december 22nd and this complication on january 1st. we know that secretary austin had been working. on christmas day, he was involved in a national security conversation with the president ahead of a strike ordered to happen on christmas night. then again on january 1st while we were with the president in the virgin islands, there was a national security call in which the president spoke with secretary austin to the best of our knowledge, as well as other key members of his national security team. so the secretary had been involved with the national security apparatus. he had been obviously in contact with president biden and yet it appears at this point that no one at the white house was aware of either the diagnosis, the surgery that happened on december 22nd or the
so i really think this review is going to help us get to ground truth in a holistic way so that we can learn from it importantly, but also ensure that we are doing better next time. so i think we really need to allow this review to run its course in order to do that. in the meantime, we have taken some immediate steps as i highlighted at the top. >> under procedure for the sma to notify the white house national security adviser? >> again, certainly we want to make sure that notifications are happening in a timely way and as we have acknowledged, some shortfalls to it's important to look at what the shortfalls were, what could have been done better and make sure that going forward we are improving the processes. so again, this review will help us. >> do you still think it's appropriate to call his medical procedure on december 22nd prostatectomy if it was treating prostate cancer? >> we released this information
required a tube to be placed through his nose into his stomach to drain the fluid but he was never under general anesthesia. the statement also says his prognosis is excellent, he's expected to recover fully but there may be a long recovery period. >> sorry to interrupt you. i'm readying the statement, too. it says he was under general anesthesia during this procedure. >> during the initial procedure, excuse me, on december 22nd, he was. forgive me. during the second time he's been in the hospital for the last eight days or so, he was not placed under general anesthesia. on december 22nd for the original procedure, he did transfer his authorities to deputy secretary kathleen hicks. that's been one of our big questions here. why was the decision made on tuesday, january 2nd, to transfer the authorities to kathleen hicks? what was the nature of his
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sullivan i believe found out about the fact that secretary austin was hospitalized on thursday morning. so just want to clarify. are you saying the president found out a day later? >> jake was informed that secretary austin was in the hospital and had been for some time. he found out late thursday afternoon. and he informed he and the chief of staff informed the president later this evening, early that evening. not long after they learned, they informed the president directly. thursday evening. >> we learned also today that secretary austin when he went into the hospital for the first time on december 22nd, he knew he was going to be under general anesthesia, spending the night, and transferred authority to his deputy secretary. was the white house informed then that the authority was
start wanted december 22nd when he first went to the hospital? writers answer is the lessons learned from january 1st on will be applicable in reverse. they will still apply on notification procedures. is also unclear when the chief of staff and senior advisor new on january second within 24 hours why did they not pass this on or know how. at this point the chief of staff had the flu and for some reason was not able to make notification or pass on the responsibility of notifying the president and others. there are still some questions about the notification process but also worth pointing out that the person ordering the review, the chief of staff is the person that ryder said had the responsibility. the person at fault initiated the review. we will have to see what comes
out our mission. >> so if the white house wasn't told of the december 22nd surgery when austin was under general anesthesia and the authority in the powers have transferred to the deputy secretary what is the thinking there of what if the white house needs to contact the defense foreman, the secretary, issue an order. what was the rationale for behind not contacting them? >> as i highlighted, part of the changes effective immediately will be providing an understanding of why authority are being transferred. the transfer of authorities in conducting the day to day business of the department in and of itself are not that common. so it wouldn't -- when the white house -- again, i'm going to -- i don't want to say speculate but give a scenario. if the white house needs to contact the department, they're going to contact the department and if the deputy secretary is in charge at that moment because
walter reed officials out with a statement announcing that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. it was identified in early december, and on december 22nd, austin underwent a minimally invasive surgical procedure to treat it. he was readmitted due to a resulting infection. a statement on the diagnosis coming days after the public and more importantly the white house learned that they were kept in the dark about his stay in the hospital. i want to bring in nbc news national security and pentagon correspondent courtney kube who's following this story. it's a story that's a little more complicated than we all thought. until you know these things, you don't know that the defense secretary is unique. they've got more power in certain circumstances than any other cabinet secretary. >> right, let's say some of the worst case scenarios, there's an attack coming to the united states, to washington, d.c. he would be one of the people who would get on an urgent phone call and make a decision about a potential response option. or after the attack, he would be