deserves to be told. i'm oliver north. dpood night. >> buy, everyone. happy saturday. [cheers and applause] neil: welcome, everybody, live looking at the implications on what was shaking down in washington and what was not shaking up markets that much. as you know by now, john kelly, the homeland security secretary will be moving to white house chief of staff. the president has been busy tweeting this morning. we will have the fall-out from all of this as well as the agenda and what it means for the president. he has been, of course, changes he would like to see in congress right now to avoid the kind of thing that always happens, the simple majority vote, whether he get into all of that. in the meantime ellison bar we

are -- barber with the very latest. ellison. >> the white house changed course with yet another dramatic staff shake-up, this time reince priebus is out. president trump announced it on twitter. the former rnc chair walked off of air force one shortly after and president trump did the same . >> john kelly will do a fantastic job. general kelly has been a star, done an incredible job thus far, respected by everybody, a great, great american, reince priebus a good man. >> priebus said he quit on thursday. >> hitting a rebet button is a good thing and the president did that and so i think he's happy, i have to tell you, although it's always a little mix when things like this happen. i generally feel pretty good. >> priebus is exiting a week

after sean spicer stepped down as secretary where white house staff seems to frequently and inadvertently steal attention from the legislative agenda. on thursday with new communications director anthony scaramucci surfaced in the new yorker. scaramucci threatened to fire his staff over leaks and use vulgar language to describe colleagues he later apologized. >> it takes about 30 seconds to make a statement like that. there's a lot more hours in the day and this isn't that's consuming for us or the staff. the press and the media may make it focal point of their day but we are not making tit focal point of ours. >> priebus served chief of staff 189 days, one of the shortest tenure since the position was formally established back in 1940, neil. neil: what's amazing about that that priebus said he made up his mind and submitted resignation on thursday that was ahead of

the flight to long island on which not only the president going out there but so was anthony scaramucci. he had already known his fate. do we know if he shared it with anyone else in the plane? >> you to imagine that was an interesting plane ride to say the least. neil: awkward. thank you ellison barber. >> you bet. neil: pat beuchanan was there for george washington. no kidding, former president adviser to richard nixon and was there in so many other capacity with republican presidents. multiple best-selling author pat. ultimately, it settles down but in some cases it doesn't. in this case, where do you see happening in the comparisons to the rapid turnover that was going on in the nixon administration? >> i don't see any -- and won 49

states. neil: last general in that capacity and now we have john kelly. >> we've had general around the time sherman adams went out. let me say this, i think your problem is you have a certain culture in the west wing which is chaotic. look like northern italy, all the separate powers and here comes a general 45 years in service, marine, he believes in discipline, order, chain of command and i tell you if some aide gets in his face using the kind of language scaramucci used -- neil: forget it. he's a good catholic we hear. i don't know if that would be tolerated. chiefs of staff in general are

only as effective as their boss lets them. >> the chaos in the west wing is a consequence on how donald trump runs the presidency, calling one aide and giving them assignment, tweeting himself, he doesn't operate the head of a corporation who has a chief of staff or a general officer who has a staff beneath him, so how this works out is going to be tough to see. my guess is that the general is going to come in and try to impose order and create a hierarchy at the senior staff meeting which is traditional and each individual reports to him and they go through him to get to the president or at least he's told when somebody is in there with the president or someone comes out with instructions from the president. it'll be interesting to see how it works. again, your point. the president of the united states is the perpetrator of the chaos. neil: what's interesting about

john kelly is he's -- he can be as blunt as the president and in that capacity when he was hearing critics of the department of homeland security, you know, he went after them. he said if lawmakers do not laws they passed and we are in charge to enforce them, he was talking about the travel ban, they should change the laws, otherwise shut up and support the men and women on the front line. he's pretty in your face, now, would he be able to do that and be allowed to do that with the president? >> i think -- well, with the president he has to have an understanding that the president, obviously he has total freedom of action, has to inform his chief of staff what he's doing, what he's about to do, what kind of orders he's given and you can't have the chief of staff sitting in that corner office and all of a sudden tweets are coming out which contradicts something that i have -- they've been done.

the president is willing to do that right now. it's not going mesh, i think, with somebody like scaramucci who says i can kill everybody in the west wing. i don't think so. neil: the president has a variety of tweets but they were really on message with frustration with the make up of the senate and how everything should be pushed through with a simple majority. do you think he ran these by john kelly? >> i doubt that he did. i mean, what he said, i saw a list of them, he must have had six or seven tweets. neil: looked like six. by in large -- >> congress, senate. neil: 60 vote make-up of getting any legislation. it was doomed even with a simple majority. but these were i thought on message tweets, they were

actually effective tweets, they didn't go off message. >> i think they are and it's a great issue. sure, i mean, look this is an issue. i agree with the president 100% here, look, the filibuster is gone. we may not like it, traditional conservatives may not like it but if the democrats get in they will do away with it in order to block anything that the president of the united states, so i think -- neil: democrats have done that already before judicial appointments. >> sure. i think that's gone quite frankly and i agree with the president but he ought to have told, general, i'm going say a couple of things this morning, x, y, z and let him know what's coming. neil: pat, let me ask you, talking to former chief of staffs in the bush administration, everything passes through them. if you want to visit or see the president, everyone goes through chief of staff and that was understood not in all presidencies but in many presidencies and establishes an

order that's been respected through democratic and republican administrations alike but, of course, there are some people who -- who can be deemed above that, for example, i can't imagine ivanka trump or jared kushner asking permission to see donald trump. i guess what i'm asking, will that work, that's when it breaks down when the chief of staff can't control who is take up the president's time. >> i think obviously the chief of staff cannot control ivanka and jared and i think he's going to have to sit down with them, look, we all know we have a problem here and if the president tells you have to do x, y, z you have will clear that with mcmaster and secretary of state. you have to get an orderly process going where everybody is aboard here. i was in clash with bob for 40 years, he ran an honest white house. when i sent over to the president, he disagreed, it went right into the president and as long as aides knew that and some of his communicated by paper,

you've got an ideal situation. your problem comes when there are individuals who communicate best talking right to the president. again, i bring up scaramucci, want to sit down with the president, talk to him and go out and issue some blast at someone and the fellow in the corner office general kelly doesn't know it, you're going to have problems there. and i think they are coming and inevitable and my guess is you haven't seen the last heads the roll up there. neil: we have seen a lot of heads to roll already. it began with general flynn, fbi director james comey, of course, the holdover acting attorney general from the obama administration, sean spicer, deputy chief of staff. there has been a great deal of turnover. is that unusual so early on? other administrations pile a great deal of departures, voluntary or not voluntary. >> let me talk about nixon administration, a number of us

in the campaign, when they came in you had basically the president gave authority to germans as we call it, many of us in the campaign didn't survive. some of them went out, they were appointed to other things. that's a shakedown cruise in the first six to nine months. i've not seen one where you had so many people go like this but the shakedown where the campaign is run as a different structure. it's much more like a -- much more like a news room. when you get into the white house, everybody gets into a structure with the chief of staff, someone like general kelly. neil: and, you know, you talk about the set-up, say if you will, it work effectively in securing the reelection of president nixon at the time. >> 49 states with unpopular -- richard nixon, two-time loser

deeply unpopular, put together the greatest landslide in history with the city against him, both houses against him, the press against him. it was incredible achievement all, of course, wiped out in the public mind by what happened in watergate in '73 with saturday night massacre, shades of which -- [laughter] neil: let's not get ahead of ourselves. pat buchanan. some of the good news you might not be hearing the ongoing accumulation with market wealth. this is staggering myself. if wall street were worried about all the drama in the white house and does seem to fixate the media, we want to step back and look at that, $4 trillion in added wealth in the markets and they are still going higher even with the failure of health care, so what do they see and what are they betting on with their own money that maybe others are not appreciating here? we are on that.

the half glads of the -- glass of the story and the back and forth with reince priebus and forth with reince priebus and anthony scaramucci, whethe listen.

i realize that i am not perfect but it all really started to change because you judge me for having a problem. no one is going to know that i need help-- i need help. i know that no one is going to judge me for having a problem. i realize that i am not perfect but it all really started to change because you listen.

>> i think the intrigue stuff is annoying and takes away from the president's agenda. what everybody needs to do is focus on the president, focus on the things that he wants to get done for the american people, those other things, you know, some of that stuff this week, i just think it's an annoying distraction that, it's not right for people to talk about it specially employees to have west wing. neil: all right, reince priebus dig at anthony scaramucci, bad-mouthing him, of course, scaramucci using language that i had never seen used in that combination before. so i thought, who do i know who would be familiar with this kind of language and knows it well,

charlie gasparino. charlie: thank you. neil good to see you, my friend. charlie: do i get to -- neil: no, you don't get to use that language. more or less saying that this was a distraction referring to scaramucci, reince, all of that, what do you think? charlie: i mean, it is a distraction, i mean, think about what we were talking about all last week more than health care, more than tax cuts, more than anything else, it was like this sort of palace and weird palace intrigue, it's not like palace intrigue that somebody wants someone out and there's an argument over policy. it was just very, very, you know, surreal palace intrigue going on and i think, you know, that is -- listen, there's no doubt, you and i have said this a thousand times, the more we are talking about stupid things and not tax cuts and health care, the worst this country is

off and, you know, and that is a huge problem. now, the question is does it change now that you have general kelly as chief of staff and the only way it changes is if the president of the united states and i said this yesterday, we actually said this when we were first to report on your fox business show yesterday that priebus was likely out by the end of the day and i said this, it doesn't matter who you replace him with unless you empower him. chief of staff is supposed to be the gate gatekeeper and normal administrations have power oh as to who see it is president and how the agenda is set. neil: do you think the general will have that -- he has an incredible stelar record and well known to speak his mind bluntly and clearly, not to the point of using any language but

gone after the press and critics of homeland security and obama administration to shutting down gitmo and can the question is can he and will he have the same sort of freedom with president trump? >> we should point out he's not the president of the united states and we have a very strong-will president of the united states that likes this, don't ask me why he likes all of this distraction, he definitely like it is palace intrigue. neil: he likes to pin people against one another. charlie: yeah. neil: there's a limit. charlie: some of them like it. actually i don't know ceo's in public companies that indulge in palace intrigue. they definitely don't like it when it goes public. every ceo has a mission. what is that mission? generally keep his job and, b, have the company run well and when you have your senior staff

killing each other in public that doesn't work. now, i think this is a great segment for jack welch, jack welch, if you look at it specially going retire for ge, he had three or four guys, three guys, bob and immelt, they were all strong-willed guys but they all played the team game, okay, he eventually picked immelt over the other two. you didn't see it boil over. neil: you're receiver to go lower levels where promising executives weren't pinned against each other, not like survivor. they were in duels to see who looked promising. front page, i don't know if you still have that. we've already seen one voted off the island here, are we going see more? [laughter] charlie: you know, i don't know. we are in unchartered territory

with this white house. never before has, you know, has a white house had, you know, so much at stake which is rebuilding the economy, getting rid of obamacare, have a majority in congress and diverted itself to stupidity like what's going on here and, you know, maybe kelly can put the genie back in the bottle. maybe donald trump likes this sort of stuff and maybe he doesn't take the job serious enough. neil: we shall see. it's hard to take advice. you defied everyone and got elected on your own so i can understand reluctance. we shall see, charlie gasparino,

neil: i want to show you something. if the new york post doesn't win a pulitzer prize, more people have sort of taken off the island here, the latest is reince priebus, the chief of staff is gone now and everyone wonders who is going to be the next on survivor to go. that's where this is sort of, i guess, morphed, so what happens now. sometimes you don't have to leave the island, you can switch place tons island. that was an argument on our secretary guest dana, dana, your argument that everyone tried to get rid of jeff sessions, since he's so strong on immigration issue and very good at it in el salvador and maybe move in to homeland position that general john kelly is leaving, i think i got the jest of that, right? >> yes, hi, good morning. i had an idea.

this is something that could actually do something that president trump wants to do and not irritate conservatives and republicans who love jeff sessions and that is what if as he's bringing the loamland -- homeland secretary chief of staff, taking him off that island, how about you put him at homeland security where he can execute on the policy that means most to them which is immigration and replace the attorney general with somebody that president trump would have confidence in and wouldn't be so mad at regarding the russia investigation. now, that's just an idea. i did hear, however, neil, that it is possible that the white house is looking at tom to go over to homeland security division. he is a very experienced person. he has been working on homeland

security issues for the president and the white house for the last six months and so that is also a name that's floated up this morning. neil: dana, help me through the process and you know this so well, you have a communications director, you have a chief of staff, who did you go through to communicate with the president, would it be andy, how did it work? >> there were only two chiefs of staff in the bush administration, bush 43 administration. i worked for both, andy card and john bolton. as assistant to the president woe could go to the president whenever we wanted but that's a chaotic process so all of us, we all coordinated everything through the chief of staff and that is good for a couple of reasons. it's good for the president because you have a one-stop filter and it's good for the staff to know that you have somebody you can go to.

it's very important that that person have the confidence of the staff, that you know the chief of staff is an honest broker that you can go to them with concerns or ideas or requests to see the president or requests to talk to the cabinet, whatever it might be, the fact that they're an honest broker makes a huge difference and i think one of the things that happened unfortunately for reince priebus is it was clear because that the president did not have his back, that he didn't have full confidence in him which then allowed the staff to sort of all melt away and figure out a way to get around the chief of staff to get to the president. i think that john kelly because of the public servant that he is and the training that he's had and all the experience in all of the years working for the government, i think he has a strong opportunity to be strong chief of staff with the backing of the president. neil: it seems to me that the president has to give him that power.

i know in the case of jared kushner and ivanka trump, they can probably knock on the president's door any time they want, but there should be an understanding with them, right, let's go through john kelly on this. how was it handled in the bush white house? were there some who were above checking with the chief of staff or -- >> no. well, there was a process and it was because the president enforced it and it wasn't a question. it just made the white house work very well and very smoothly. i would also say the other people who tried to get to the president is the rest of the cabinet and -- neil: interesting. >> so important for the chief of staff to be managing up to the president and then down throughout the staff. it doesn't mean that if it's a situation where you had to know the secret password to see the president. we were very welcomed into policy meetings and in some ways, you know, it's not really appropriate to compare

administrations because president trump wanted to be a disruptive type of person in washington and he has done that and how we did it in the bush administration isn't necessarily applicable, of course, comparison helps you make sense of the world but i do hope that the president would even say to somebody like jared or ivanka, i hear you but you to run that through john first. if he does that, that will help. >> one of the things every president has kitchen cabinet or close advisers that are not cabinet officials per se but they rely, ronald reagan had his buddies out in california who would advise him on ad hoc basis but it never got, i don't think it got to to the point of being disruptive that replaced the powers that be and that's where the issue of order has to come back in. do you think that general kelly