robert: a stunning staff shakeup at the white house. chief of staff reince priebus is out. : security chief john kelly steps in. i'm robert costa. we take you inside the west wing where power intentions are boiling over tonight on washington week. unplugged. incoming communications director anthony scaramucci launched a vulgar rant. that fight comes as the president slams the attorney general, calling jeff sessions beleaguered. president trump: i want the attorney general to be much tougher. robert: leaders are warning the president to back off. >> there will be hell to pay.

>> this was a disappointment. robert: seven year republican quest to dismantle the affordable care act goes down to defeat after three gop senators joined democrats to vote down the latest measure. gop leaders say it is time to move on and democrats see the failure as a chance to start over. >> we are relieved that millions and millions of people who have been so drastically hurt by the proposals put forward with police retain their health care. robert: we tackle at all with nancy cordes of cbs news, geoff bennett of npr, alexis simendinger of real clear politics, and jus just jeff zeleny of cnn. announcer: washington week. funding is prevente provided by-

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costa. robert: good evening. president trump announced a major staff shakeup friday afternoon. john kelly will be white house chief of staff. ending the rocky six-month tenure of reince priebus. he made the announcement on twitter, calling kelly a great leader and a true star of the administration. a knock to priebus saying i would like to thank reince priebus for his dedication to the service. we accomplished a lot together. alexis, tell me about the timing of this decision by president trump. alexis: in this particular case, the president had a long string of disappointments and so the idea that the president was already unhappy with his staff and the chief of and we have seen them already make a change in the communications, we can tell whether it was the russian investigation, the way health care is going, his poll

numbers, how the communications and the staff were operating, the president was already deeply frustrated. the timing coming immediately after what the president considered an exasperating, frustrating loss in the senate over the health care bill is not that shocking, especially when you consider the president is being perched to look ahead and looking ahead to his domestic agenda, whether it is moving to tax reform or maybe infrastructure. this idea that he has to put something up on the board. the international situation is not getting simpler, it is getting more complicated. the timing does not seem to be that serious. robert: the republicans were looking ahead today. it was the first time talking to members after this -- before kelly was announced, but before this whole brouhaha with scaramucci, but you heard them openly criticizing the president and creating distance bu

between themselves and the president. kelly will be welcomed. he is a known quality on the hill because of all the hearings and meetings. he's well-respected by democrats and republicans. democrats thought he would be a far more moderating force during his tenure, but he has not been. he has been more conservative and more aligned with the president's vision. but i think this will be warmly welcomed. robert: it probably will be welcomed by some republicans on the hill but he is not bringing in a republican, he is bringing a general. with the departure of reince priebus, we are seeing the cornerstone of the republican party inside of this white house being removed. nancy: there were a lot of republicans who put out statements saying what a good job they thought reince priebus had done. they made it clear they had his support until the end. there were probably a lot of

republicans that think maybe this white house could use a little more military order at this point because they seem so chaotic. we did not notice any pushback to the notion of john kelly being chief of staff. there is a great deal of uneasiness about the constant turnover. we are only six months into this white house and we now have a new communications director, and you press secretary, new chief of staff, new national security adviser, new deputy chief of staff. the question is does he now have the team that he wants or is this going to be something that continues to churn and will this white house ever reach some level of stability where the people who were in these jobs can really focus on what the republican party wants to get done? robert: we know that the president loves generals. he also loves these new yorkers, the loyalists, like anthony scaramucci. are we seeing these two groups taking over the white house. alexis: it is interesting

because in the first six months, the president thought i will drain the swamp but play the game the way washington is supposed to do it. he tried to do it with the establishment figures thinking that would be the right way to do it. his fallback position has been bringing in more campaign people. i will not be surprised to see more people into the white house that worked on the campaign. you have to be wealthy and a man, business success, and generals. the president has made it no mystery for his admiration for military types. during the campaign, his reverence for them was quite adamant. it's not surprising that he thinks, this is maybe what he needs but i want to add to what they are saying, there is no evidence that the president is looking for somebody to tell him no. he wants to have in a coach n echo chamber and we have seen him hire people to tell him yes. nancy: you wonder how these

different groups will work with one another. it is hard they will be much different from general kelly and anthony scaramucci. but as far as we know, they both report to the president. they are equals in a way which is already an unusual situation. given all of the conflict that scaramucci has managed to bring to the surface in his first week on the job, the question is does kelly somehow managed to sort of get a handle on that and bring some change about? does scaramucci calm down now that his arch nemesis is gone? will he find a new nemesis? geoff: scaramucci reports right to the president and any other white house he would report to the chief of staff. as a general, kelly is far more familiar with chain of command.

president trump is liking the spokes in the wheel chain of command and he is the one person who has all the information. the traditional chief of staff is the ultimate gatekeeper. manages the president's schedule and strategize is the agenda. the president has shown no willingness. robert: tell us about kelly. geoff: he is the longest-serving marine corps general in history. his dedication to the country is not a career pursuit. he's also lost a son who was 29, a first lieutenant in the marine corps who died in 2010 in afghanistan in combat. robert: it seems that the president does not actually have deep relationship with general kelly. i remember when i ran into then-nominee kelly, he said he didn't really know president-elect trump at the time and was trying to build a bond. it seems his actions at dhs have

impressed the white house, pursuing aggressively a defensive travel ban. alexis: the president has called john kelly a star because part of it is because the president is warmly disposed to the results of the department of homeland security with regard to the border and protection has been a net plus. i have covered previous presidents and i've seen all presidents make changes with their cheats. often times, they will make a change thinking also of the portfolio that they want to work on. one of the challenges to me watching general kelly with his deep experience in the military and with immigration and relationships with the border is the president wants to turn to completely different topics, right? taxes and domestic and infrastructure. i have normally seen presidents turned and change cheeks when

they want success on the next legislative, or international challenge. i'm watching to see what the president get out of that. robert: let's remember this is just the friday afternoon, friday evening drama. it was just 24 hours ago, anthony scaramucci sparked a firestorm with his very coarse and startling interview with a reporter at the new yorker. he said that reince priebus would soon resign and some salty language describing steve bannon, accusing him of leveraging his relationship with the president to build his personal brand. he later admitted he might have crossed the line, writing, sometimes i use colorful language. he later shifted blame to the media, saying i made a mistake in trusting a reporter. perhaps the president wants to move a different direction in his agenda, but also wants a new message. alexis: anthony scaramucci fits the mold that president trump really likes which is somebody

who is combative on tv, good on tv, willing to promote the boss as far as the day is long. love him deeply. nancy: love him a lot. i don't know if the president knew the extent to which is scaramucci might create some of his own controversy. i think that may have come as something as a surprise to the president. while you does like people that can get out there and do a great pr job, he doesn't like anyone overshadowing him either. it will be interesting to see -- the president has refrained from saying anything negative about scaramucci's role in some of these controversies and some of his bizarre comments, accusing everyone around him of leaking when he seems to leak something to a different reporter on a daily basis. w'e're watching to see how all f this plays out and it is very

troubling to republicans who, while they have no love lost for someone like steve bannon, don't like to see someone coming into the white house and creating more conflict. robert: was reince priebus basically done as chief of staff when the president remained silent? jeff: i think so. reince priebus' allies have told reporters that that day he decided he was done. what was interesting about the interview that scaramucci gave to cnn yesterday morning, he said there are people in the administration who feel like they need to save america from this president. i thought that was profoundly startling and stunning. for the president to have done nothing to suggest that he is at issue with what scaramucci said both in the substance and words he used to describe reince

priebus and bannon, it was as if it was coming. alexis: one of the things that reince priebus suffered from was anytime there was a leak -- constant leaks in this white house -- he got the side eye because he was the one power center coming from the outside. he was not part of the trump campaign team, the organization. there was this assumption that all of these leaks must be coming from him. whether that is true or not, it created a level of distress within the white house. robert: we are going to go right now to our friend jeff zleleny. thank you for joining us. what is the scene over there tonight, friday night? is priebus there?> is general kelly already reordering the operation? jeff: this was a remarkable evening, particularly in the looks of the staffers inside the west wing who were quite simply

shocked. reince priebus has been here throughout the evening. he was doing an interview with wolf blitzer on cnn a short time ago. if he has not left yet, he will be leaving shortly. general kelly is not here. he will officially start next week on a monday and he is going to start getting his hands around the organizational structures here. i think a question here tonight is we know that reince priebus will be taking his leave. he is vowing to work with general kelly as well, but how many more people from the rnc will be going with him? i think that is something that this is about, clearing house. robert: you mentioned the rnc wing and the other wings of the white house, steve bannon, jared kushner, more established

republican wing. how is general kelly going to fit into that order? jeff: that is a great question. i think we will have to see how it works before we know the answer completely. there are so many wings, more wings that always here in the west wing. i think one thing that general kelly brings in, one thing the president trusts about him is his organizational structure and his strength. one thing the president likes is wealth and like strength. he found reince priebus as weak. that is how he viewed him. we are seeing once the president makes up his mind, it is hard to change his mind. i think general kelly is a longtime washington man as well and has been involved in the military. he's a four-star general. his politics and background does not come from the halls of congress. he knows military as well.

you don't rise to that level without having a good political antenna. he's mainly here to keep the trains running and try to bring more structure to this white house. we will see if that is possible given the president is different from anyone we have seen. robert: we appreciate you being here. alexis, i want to turn for a second about another drama in this administration because remember until yesterday, attorney general jeff sessions was not seemingly the only administration official caught in this intense public drama. fox news caught up with sessions in el salvador and asked him if he thought the president repeated public criticism was fair. mr. sessions: it is kind of hurtful but the president of the united states is a strong leader. he's determined to move this country in the direction he believes it needs to go. he's steadfastly determined to get his job done and wants all

of us to do our jobs and that is what i intend to do. robert: how much longer can this painful process for the attorney general later on? alexis: i thought what was interesting this week and i think jeff was hinting at this, there were no people stepping up for reince priebus. none of his allies were trying to find cameras. but are plenty of allies in the senate and washington whoever known jeff sessions for a long time, and they stepped right up to the cameras to say if the president does not stop this, we have something to say about this. senator graham was one of them and went on to say i'm interested in introducing legislation to build a wall around the special counsel, robert mueller. in this particular case, sessions is taking a tact which others have tried which is the president may move onto another victim and let me do my job. what he is emphasizing is yeah,

it is a personal thing but i'm focused on the job. he's trying to show the deliverables. that is what the president liked about john kelly at dhs. robert: few republicans running to the cameras and also going to twitter. chuck grassley, all it said is if jeff sessions is fired or resigned, he will not hold a replacement hearing for a replacement, signaling to the president he will not knock it off. geoff: you have all of these tensions and staff shakeups but on the other end of pennsylvania avenue, they are having problems in the republican party. senator john mccain surprising many when he joined fellow republican senator susan collins of maine and lisa murkowski of alaska to kill the legislation to repeal the affordable care act. the defeat of the so-called skinny bill is a significant blow to president trump's agenda and right now it is unclear if

republicans will try again. democrats are hopeful there is a way to repair obama care. >> i regret that our efforts were simply not enough this time. so now, mr. president, it is time to move on. >> on health care, i hope we can work together to make the system better in a bipartisan way. robert: president trump took aim at the republicans and mccain, tweeting that three republicans let the americans down. as i said from the beginning, let obama care implode and then deal. watch. nancy, you have been covering the hill. you saw this unfold up close. what is the next step for the republican party on this signature promise? nancy: i'm emotionally drained from watching that play out. it was incredibly suspenseful, stressful. the challenge of trying to read lips to figure out who was

talking to. it was like nothing i have ever seen on capitol hill. what's next? some republicans, some moderates and some institutional lists say it is time to work with the other party. let's be realistic. we have a razor thin margin in the senate. it's going to be very difficult for us to do something alone. let's work with democrats to come up with a package of fixes to obama care that we can agree on. you heard that from a lot of republicans who were nevertheless disappointed but said it was time to turn the page. you have house republicans that are so angry. they passed their legislation in may and came out saying, hey, go back to the drawing board, senate republicans. keep trying. robert: jeff zeleny, the senate wants to take a pause. what about the white house?

the president was livid in his promotion of health care. does he want to move on? jeff: in the short-term, they have realized health care is so difficult. despite what he said running for president, that this would be so easy, they know this is difficult. we were talking to the legislative affairs director mark short and he suggested the white house wants to move on to tax reform, as something they want to put together. start talking about the outlines with more specifics as early as next week actually. the challenge of all of this, as you well know, they are linked. the idea of tax reform was initially built around doing health care reform as well. that is what some of the tax policies and tax rates were designed to follow. that is why they picked the sequence -- health care first

and then tax reform. then health care is very difficult to do. it may come later. it may be something they are working on in committee, but there is a lot of second-guessing around here if this is the order this should have gone. what would have happened if president trump started with infrastructure? it would divide the democratic party by bringing the labor unions over and what he get a different place as he enters august? we will never know but that is the big question. robert: we will never know. you think about the white house, they did not just sell the bill, but they were not able to translate their political capital into legislation. there were allies of the trump administration who threatened the moderates in the senate. why weren't these threats from the trunmp side of active?/ effective? alexis: the clear answer i kept getting was the result one that

feared donald trump. there was not a feeling that he could do something to them politically except maybe in the negative and they are so wary now about him. we know the freedom caucus has said we put you in the white house, not you. robert: has the republican party just accepted the a portable care act as law? geoff: it seems that way. congress has to do something to prop the exchanges, particularly for people in rural areas. insurers are pulling out and people don't have any real options. you heard some republicans talk about repairing the bill. republicans learned a message. paul ryan said he learned things as well. robert: we learned a lot of lessons this week. we have to leave it there. jeff, thank you for joining us from the white house. thanks to everybody, nancy, geoff, alexis.

our conversation will continue online on washington week extra. we will talk about the president surprise military announcement of banning transgender people from serving. you can watch that later tonight. i'm robert costa. thanks for watching and have a great weekend. ♪ announcer: funding for washington week is provided by -- >> their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of today. and research the technologies of tomorrow.

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