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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  July 29, 2017 2:00am-3:00am PDT

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announced his new chief of staff. and now you're up to date. that is the broadcast on friday and for this week. have a good night from all of us at nbc headquarters in new york. . trump to priebus, you're fired! let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm joy reed in los angeles in for chris matthews, after months of speculation, white house chief of staff reince priebus is officially out. last night donald trump announced his replacement on twitter, quote, i am pleased to inform you that i have just named general/secretary john f. kelly as a knew chief of staff. he's a great leader.
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john has done a spectacular job at homeland security, a true star of my administration, after touching down on air force one trump offered these words of praise for his out going and incoming chief of staff. >> why senator kelly? >> reince is a good man. 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 food man, thank you very much. >> the question is, did reince jump or was he pushed? a source close to priebus tells nbc news the embattled top aides to the president had enough and turned in his resignation, claim, it was a failure of the health care bill, the person 1 running that point on that pill was vice president mike pence, we know for sure after priebus
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engaged in a losing battle with anthony scaramucci, named director last week, his infamous conversation on the new yorker on his first official day on the job, he said, quote -- reince is a [ bleep ] paranoid schizophrenic. a pera noiac. he will be asked to resign very shortly. scaramucci predicted he is out, a clear sign the president intends to give his new communications direct contractor free hand despite the embarrassment he has caused the administration, few at the white house are willing to defend the embattled chief of staff. hoarse how kellyanne conway addressed priebus' face this morning. >> is reince priebus if trouble? >> you have to ask the president. we serve at the pleasure of the
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president t. fact is only two people were elected on a set of ideas and promises. >> axios said trump didn't rep bring hand scaramucci. he also made some choice comments about steve bannon. quote, at the moment, scaramucci is embpowered, the president lf the mooch quote. republicans are warning if behavior like this continues, apparently sanctioned be i the president, people will finally leave. priebus' department closure is not only evidence that donald trump sanctioned his behavior, he empowered him to take out those no longer wanted in the white house. kelly the big question, of course, did reince priebus resign because he wanted to resign or shoved out the door? >> reporter: certainly the president wanted to make a change that has been ooumorred so long, our sources were telling us the end is imminent.
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really in the last few days, our sources says there was something different happening, a different atmosphere around reince priebus, a different way the president was treating him. so this was a case in a very protracted public way priebus has suffered the impending doom of knowing his time was short. so it's always a question about, it's almost a chicken andic, do you resign if do you get snierd how does it who,? this was in many ways expected, it was a long, slow end for priebus, i think it is in ways tied to the failure of the health care overhaul, part of the portfolio of reince priebus was to come from the traditional wing of the rnc party, close ties to speaker paul ryan, an ability to speak the language of walk and get things done. we seen that has been very problematic. so the president is really overcorrecting the other direction. we know he likes generals, john kelly issing is kelly, not general kelly, she retired. he also wants someone apparently
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who's got this exterior toughness, who already has an established record from his time at the department of homeland security and someone who doesn't have the political connections that priebus does. the president is taking a pendulum swing. i think it's interesting, when you look at priebus, sean spicer, outgoing secretary katie walsh left the administration early. another staffer from the communications department, you got four people from the reince priebus rnc leadership team who are out. it raises questions about president trump's relationship with the party more broadly, certainly, this is a sake upfrom our sources the family advisers as i like to call them, jared kushner, ivanka trump were certainly wanting to see a change. this was a big change, to have priebus on the plane, air force
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one with the president on a day when all of this was churning adds to the unceremonial add to this. i took a bit of time where the president announced john kelly in his new role before the thank you to priebus, there will be a cabinet meeting after that. they are trying to turn the page. this is one of those changes, one of those shakeups that i guess none of us are entirely surprised by, like a jomt on a friday afternoon, when it happens, it rattles the slate. >> stay with us for a bit. i want to bring if john wasn't, axios reporter, curtis lee, los angeles times reporter. and eli stoke him, white house reporter for the white house journal and with us from phone republican party michael steele defeated by reince priebus. i will start with you first, eli, the timing, obviously, is very convenient with that big
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failure of the health care bill. it's easy for the white house to shaq up reince' ultimate career demise, what scaramucci has been beating him up over name in some cases is over this question of leaks. if you had to guess which of those two things was a bigger factor if reince being pushed out? >> i think there were so many things over time, the president never found reince, he wasn't a rich guy or a military general, the things trump tends to like and respect. a lot of people impressed upon him reince was responsible for the communications department that reince ran, that was responsible for a lot of these leaks. so when scaramucci came in, that was pretty much the beginning of theened for him. we we heard today when scaramucci gave an interview to the new yorker and came after
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reince so strong, that didn't bother the pot and he didn't fight back and played into that notion the president had of being weak, unclear, you can understand why somebody like reince priebus after six months on the job might want the public to believe he resigned, obviously the writing was on the wall, it's hard to see somebody putting themselves on the pace of today, going on the plane, having to walk off the plane, as the president is fired via twitter. certainly the first fired over twitter and being in the motorcade, to be in his own van, leaving the motorcade before the president gets off the plane, an embarrassing final coda for reince priebus chief of staff. it didn't look very voluntary on the pool reports and the images we saw coming back from andrews. >> michael steele, all these guys from wisconsin this sort of one time very important powerful
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block of the republican party operatives, wisconsin guys. they're all gone now, what do you make of this idea reince could have done good in engage income a cage match with anthony scaramucci, what kind of white house is that? >> that's not reince's personality nor the way he would do something like that. the wisconsin mafia with paul ryan and others, really kind of had their fingers on the political pulse of washington over the last three years and trump has come in and effectively removed that. as of tonight, you would say the establishment wing of the party has very little control or say what's going on in this white house. in fact there is word on the street talking thousand white house wants the white house to be independent of capitol, to be independent of the party. which is something some of us sort of indicated going back to the campaign that this president
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would see himself outside of the party at all times because he's never been a part of it. so this should be very little surprise there. >> i mean, ken, vogue him, if the white house exists outside of capitol and the party, they already have a chief of staff who never worked on the hill doesn't have the relationship, certainly knows all the guys from wisconsin, he's friends with paul rienl. he wasn't the most effective person of negotiating with the co-equal branch of the government down the road. how does the white house improve its performance by going further outside? >> well, they do have some folks in the white house who do have relationships with the republican party establishment, michael short, the legislative affairs director, whose job it is to interface with capitol hill and there are some folks that remain from that rnc contingence, my sources in the white house tell me don't be surprised if we see more blood letting from this faction in the coming days and then you look at the folks who are come income,
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to get to your question, joy, how they can interface with capitol. john kelly zero experience, you know in republican party politics, obviously, you know, he's dealt with the hill and sort of body politics in a broader way during his time in the military, much less experience dealing with the republican establishment tan reince priebus. so if anything it is, as chairman steele suggested, sort of a distancing themselves from both capitol and the republican party establishment. it's hard to see how they can be successful given theorem barrasing setbacks have been from the result to get their way on the hill and work closely with the republican party leadership there. >> a chief of staff job is not primarily to be the liaison, part of it is to give advice and counsel to the president and walk into the oval office and say, that's a bad idea.
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obviously, reince priebus did not have the ability to do that. eli said he may fought have the proper respect, he's fought rich or a general. now you have a general, general kelly, if he moves over and becomes chief of staff, is that someone donald trump would respect enough to hear the word no from? >> yes, certainly more than he has respected reince priebus. the oval office under reince priebus one top republican called a rolling craps game. there was people wandering in and out. you could easily get face time with the president. all you had to do was stroll in everythingively. he had no control over the president another access to information. staff would come in with printed out articles that were detrimental to tear internal enemies, they would get the president to read them. he would take retribution. people didn't know how the president was coming to decisions, it was because there was no system. it was completely sir couple vented. by the end reince was the floated disrespected figure and
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really the only person who was in his corner at a senior level fully in his corner fighting for. was ironically steve bannon who comes from a completely different part of the republican party, if at all from the republican party t. reason i still am. i would love to see i guess we'd take reince priebus at his word, he resigned yesterday, for someone who resigned yesterday, his behavior was australian him. he and steve bannon were scheming at the last minute to destroy mooch. i know that directly. i can tell you the colleagues spending time with reince priebus, he was subtly seeking reassurances and saying the president was fought happy with the things that anthony scaramucci said to the new yorker, which does not strike me, maybe it was all kept secret and he was putting on an act. i guess that's probable. >> you know, curtis, give us the real world, have you the new
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york post putting up a front page that depicts the white house as a survivor, have you the reporter essentially bannon and priebus are banding towing, football one if they didn't want scaramucci hired and he comes in and is attacking the chief of staff on the record in the new yorker, doesn't get not only does he fought get if trouble, his position prevails and he has walk-in provisions to report to the president. this feels like chaos, this an administration folks outside of washington looking in seems like a presidential administration or is it survivor? interest we are here in los angeles, everyone is looking at this as possibly a movie. >> it would not be sold. >> is this fight club, game of thrones? it's played out. people are looking at this like a daily occurrence of saying is this reality tv? you see this profanity laced interview the new yorker anthony scaramucci gave. any other time, he would be fired, he would be out the next
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day he's battling with, reince priebus in that interview is someone on the chopping block. last week sean spicer. who will be next friday? people outside the beltway are looking at this with concern and seeing it as a reality show. president trump has a background on reality tv. he is possibly playing this out as a reality tv show, tweeting this out that john kelly is now his new chief of staff. it will be things like it's kind of like get your popcorn, what's next tomorrow or the week ahead. >> maybe you can answer that question, it does feel like it isn't over yet, the blood-letting in the white house, who is your report of others polishing up their resumes. >> i think there is a lot of tension here, when you are a staffer seeing this development the chaos some have described it or at least few leadership in
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anthony scaramucci the broad signs he delivered to take out reince priebus as the president has done, those who have been in the previous wing within a white house that has included a lot of outsider sort of spirits, there are clearly people here who are anxious about their jobs, expect to be the next one out or feel appropriate to step aside because they were a part of the priebus wing. also, we have been hearing from the scaramucci corner that he wants to have additional staff shakeup in terms of the communication shop. this kind of a change is in many ways an enormous sort of the plates of the earth shifting here on the 18 acres of the white house grounds. because within you have a chief of staff change, there is really a very strong feeling that goes through the team, the staff, and again, this president has not empowered his first chief of
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staff in the way we would normally expect. it would be much more difficult i think for president trump to challenge, if he leaks to refer to him general kelly as chief of staff kelly in the ways he might have with reince priebus where we have seen in many instances the factions inside the white house were at each other over different issues, ore polit ove politic, over anxiety with the president and the likelihood with what new chief of staff, they have the opportunity to bring in their own team a reset button as they like to say in walk. so it does not feel like it's over yet, joy. >> stay with us, everybody, in a brief gaggle with reporters, press secretary sarah huckaby scanneders said scaramucci had nothing to do with the decision on priebus. >> we all serve at the pleasure of the president. the conversations about this started with the president and reince two weeks ago, if terms
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of timing. i know a lot of people have a lot of questions about that. >> does vitriol anything to do with anthony scaramucci? >> no, it does not. >> is that unbelievable spin? >> oh, man, we described scaramucci as a reince-seeking missile brought in by jared and ivanka. i stand by that zrepgs. i believe it is an entirely accurate description. we laughed as did many people that know both of these men when they came out with this phony show last friday saying they were best friend forever, it went back all these years, anthony scaramucci and reince priebus despise each other. anthony resented the fact that reince blocked him entering the white house. reince thought he was woefully unqualified for the job. he argued strenuously against him getting the job and steve bannon did. as soon as he came in, it was
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entirely predictable they would collide. i would say it happened quicker and more spectacularly than any of us could have predicted. but give me a break. >> just to stay with you one moment to go back where we started. we get they have mutual enmity toward each other. for donald trump what was it about reince he wanted him gone for? is it the fact he is blameing him somehow for a health care bill in jeopardy or the fact that he is manic about all of these leaks and he brought scaramucci in to find the leakers and get rid of them? >> it's actually lots and lots of things. he has long thought of reince as being week. he's never forgotten the fact that when the acce"access holly" tape dropped i believe october 7ing reince privately told him he should drop out of the race. donald trump takes great pleasure of reminding him and others of that fact. they were never close. he used to refer to him during
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the transitions a reincy or my genius, he would say my genius reincy tells me, dripping with contempt, this was never a wonderful relationship. >> why did he hire him? who convinced him to hire him? >> i would love to know the full story of. that some good reporting is required. i still don'tly the we have a pick of how that went down. obviously, there was a misconception, i think, because he was the head of the rnc, the sell was he's impeccably connected in washington and can shepherd everything through the hill. but the reality is, he doesn't have that many relationships on capitol hill in congress, so he has a great relationship with paul ryan. i think that was a little oversold? yeah, clearly. moments ago, reince priebus responses to the charges from anthony scaramucci that he is a leaker. take a listen. >> no reaction because i'm not going to respond it to.
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i'm not going to get into the mud on those sorts of things. look the president and i had an understanding. we talked about this many times and we ultimately decided that yesterday was a good day and we would work together and john kelly was a good pick. i'm not going into the weed on that. >> he's not somebody with deep relationships on the hill that would have made him a legislative force. what is it that he was expected to provide in the white house given the fact that he wasn't very connected on the hill? >> well, picking up on the last point, reince brought to the table the things the president needed namely when the "access hollywood" tape came out the republicans started to bail, reince pulled it together. part of that payoff was the job at the white house. it was the intuition of other things that reince was able to
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do for the president at a time when a lot of republicans were heading for the hills. the president appreciated reince sort of sticking his neck out for him in that regard. there was never really a connection or affinity, he saw reince as someone who was a part of the establishment. this was all for purposes of transition, this was never going to be a permanent arrangement, folks. donald trump wants his own team around him, who get him. reflect him, respond back to the public in terms that he likes. scaramucci going off the rails does not happen unless donald trump signs off on it period 679. >> yes. i think you are absolutely right. go on. >> so if anyone thinks that, you know, scaramucci just kind of went off on his own here, no, this was all a part of the reality tv presidency and the story line that donald trump was out there he failed giving
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control of the things he wants to get control of there okay. so donald trump wants to surround himself by rich guys and million fairs and generals, he wants reality tv guys, people from the breitbart idea ideologue, he doesn't want people around him to get legislation through congress. it's reflective, what does he think the presidency is for? is it clear to you what it is that donald trump wants his staff to do other than engage if cage matches and fight each ought for his amusement? >> well, the simplest way to put it, he wants to win. he was talking about winning, right? it's sort of become a joke all the winning taking place in the first six months, kelly is a winner. he sees that because of his military record and ability to fet things done, one of the things that's impressed him about kelly in cabinet meetings he comes prepared showing what the vhs is doing.
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trump really likes that. he refers to him as a killer because of the way he commands and presents in these meetings. scaramucci, he's there because this is also a big rolling reality show the drama, scaramucci is great on tv and this is you know a televised presidency, almost every second of it. so they're both there for different reasons and i think you know the question is donald trump has to decide what winning is, is it winning in the ratings or accomplishing things? he'd like to be able to do both t. question is which one survives longer, how did they get along? scaramucci the word is he will still be reporting to the president directly and then you have kelly coming in, he has free reign to run the west wing, shut down the revolving door of walk-in privileges in the oval office, but if scaramucci doesn't think he has to report to kelly, there's going to be some tension there, these two
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sort of you know number twos in the white house, it's financial to be very interesting to see how that plays out. >> how did that play out if you are on the staff, you have two guys reporting to the president. you would think he would report to the chief of staff. he doesn't. they each have power centers. that's not to talk about the children, the ivanka and jared kushner faction. who thinks they need to, who should they please in the white house between scaramucci and kelly if they want to survive? >> well, think think right now there is a lot of soul searching and feelinging out in the white house staff about that very question. because you correctly described it as sort of two competing -- the potential for two competing fivesomes very provocative in the campaign when cory lewandowski was there, that ended up evolving at two parallel campaigns that were running at the same time. sometimes giving conflicting
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instructions to the staff and the states, it was very amusing, provided a lot of fodder for the press and created this sort of runger games like environment as eli and i described it while we were at politico together. you potentially have the same sort of circumstances here, not just because you have two presently structures of both having direct reporting privileges, two very different folks at the time, john kelly very reg imted, military background, gets stuff done. anthony scaramucci very off the cuff kind of free wheeling we saw from the first press conference and the now info pus interview with ryan liza at the new yorker, personality clashes in addition to structural issues. >> a director who doesn't know he's on the record. it is sort of perplexing,
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general kelly, an able guy. donald trump is impressed with what he has done at homeland security. >> that doesn't mean he knows more than reince priebus, maybe less, of doing the functions of government, getting bills, dealing with the hill. in this we talked about it beinghold, it's very well orchestrated from the cosmetic point of view. this is so sloppy. so i mean does it surprise you that somebody who does come from a background where he has experience just in the entertainment industry, he's not sort of orchestrating you know the presidency if a way that seems, i don't know, it doesn't even seem planned, it does seem to be pure chaos. >> we saw donald trump in this position, a true outsider, it's one thing to run for office and through all these staff shakeups, we see the back and forth, sessions, all this stuff, what is being lost is the fact that there is a number of policy issues that the president and
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this administration is just not wing on or they're having trouble with. is there at what point did they lose their welcome matt? at some point, does this administration have to actually decide it has things to try to do and do them? >> it's one of those things we passed the six month park the president has trouble with that immigration ban, that has gone back and forth. he's created this voter fraud commission, democrats have liked the sale, it's nonsense, not needed. we seen it in health care, this is someone for seven years republicans talked about getting rid of obamacare, we saw pike pence on camille i capitol hill trying to meet with as far as to get this passed. >> that ultimately did not. it's one of those things, we are six months in, this administration isn't racking up too many victories. out front they say they are doing a lot it remains to be
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true. >> the chief of staff would theoretically be advising on the strategy, who had advised ryan zinke threaten lisa murkowski or wheret the strategy not befriending john mccain, donald trump an tag fiezs the people he needs, do you see evidence that john kelly is financial to have a more subtle hand at that kind of advising of the president? >> well, i would offer this, if you are a four star marine general, that is the rank at which john kelly left his service to the united states military that is a very political accomplishment. it is an accomplishment with a lot of discipline and there is a lot of management experience when are you a general. so it's not in the policy and politics world, but anyone that reaches that level of a general has had to deal with bernal excushion with plan and did work
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as a liaison to congress if uniform. as to there are a couple building blocks there, that are areas where the president can look for new structure. he wants it to be well received publicly. he found when he makes decisions with people broadly respected lick people if both parties respect someone of john kelly's stature, that's something the president likes. he wants to hear this was a good decision. he was frustrated from the reporting we've done in the early days of going from campaign to transition, finally taking office, he was given a lot of counsel from priebus and that team from the travel ban to beginning with health care the different sort of building administration and many blue up on him. that's been a part of a simmering frustration the guidance he thought he was
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getting kept backfiring, one of the things he had enormous conference in is those who have gone through the military, i think, don't underestimate the management stills i skills of a four star general as something new for this white house. >> very interesting. let's bring in ali, my friend and within of our famous people here on ms nbc. you know anthony scar mump. i want to ask you, you have two power centers, two number twos, scaramucci who reports directly to the president and the chief of staff who in near e theory scaramucci should be reporting to, but he doesn't. how does that ends up working out? >> i think one has to look at the motivations, he expected a big job early on, arranged to sell his fund of funds as it's called, sky bridge capital to a chinese firm that has a very murky own wereship structure
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some suggest might be tried to the chinese government. >> that hasn't been established. the u.s. regulators haven't approved the sale. there is about there are 90 million hanging in the balance for scaramucci and donald trump and steve mnuchin can override any regulatory approval or disapproval of this. the bottom line is anthony scaramucci could be fear him. reince priebus kept him away from that prize for a long time. this isn't just about ambition or what the country needs, this is about what anthony scaramucci had to happen. if you are antony scaramucci, you are probably not all that concern thad john kelly is going to be the chief of staff. your problem was reince priebus. anthony scaramucci is, i don't mean this in a way, this she a chameleon, he learned donald trump's head movements to do very well. so anthony scaramucci will figure et all out. i hard he would have liked that
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job, himself. the bottom line is john kelly and anthony scaramucci both have said they think leaks are the absolute worst thing that can happen to this administration so if they can get a hand him on that they will consider it a success. i don't think they will get a hand him on it. there are reasons administrations leak. they are both going towards that goal. >> if he achieves his goal of getting his main rival out of the way, other than trying to figure when he's on the record and not on the record with reporters, what is it that his mission is now? clearly communications steam lining and making it smooth and adult feeling is not his strength? >> so i'm of that group that doesn't think this is the priority, an thine scaramucci came in for different reasons, he sticks up for the mr. president and his family. he's a strong guy to have on the president's side of the side that might seize steve bannon or the republican party don't form the same group formally on the
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other side. i don't think this is about communications skill necessarily, anthony scaramucci is a good guest to have on a tv show, he's fought particularly expert at i. remember, i don't know that i or a lot of people believe that anthony scar mump thought he was talking off the record. he never made any mention of this he has no history of speaking to the press and saying he thought it was off the record. if he was supposed to be off the record and didn't make that clear, that makes him the worst communications director ever. if he intended it to be the way it went down that makes him a as a result gar, profane individual. so this isn't about the communications strategy, this is about getting reince priebus and sean spicer and the rnc folks out of the white house. >> yeah, i we heard the wording that he wanted to be chief of staff, it's amazing, you think of james baker, the people in that business, the interesting choices made here. i want the viewers to hear more of reince priebus exit interview tonight. >> can you cheer off the other
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charge it was a bitter charge scaramucci levelled against you, you are a leaker and you are not that loyal to the president. you got your own agenda. he made some bitter accusations against you, specifically the leaking. >> it's ridiculous, washington, c'mon, give me a break. i'm not going to get into his -- >> why not respond? >> i'm not going to, it doesn't honor the president. >> ken vogle, you know, this idea of leakser, journalists, we love them. the media likes to get them. there is a few night number of people that can talk inside the white house? do you expect the leak wells to run dry people are afraid being named or accused by scar mump could get you out? >> no because there is sort of the dissent we talk about and the feuding and the fights. that's what leads to the leaks is people trying to sell out rivals with an embarrassed rivals within the
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administration. i should point out the idea that anthony scaramucci as a disciplined communicator will crack down a leak is laughable. there is a guy that developed a reputation in politics since he got involved if republican politics way pack if 2012, which remember he supported barack obama if 28. so this is not, he doesn't have a long history there, since he has been involved in republican politics, he's had a reputation hugely to the points jeb bush campaign which he was in early back in 2016 actually kept him off donor conference calls, they were anxious, they were nervous, they had reason to believe once he got off the calls he would share the contents, in 2012 he would tweet from romney campaign finance meetings sensitive information about how much main they had raised that the campaign would keep close to the vest at least until fcc reports came out. he has a history of leaking, not of cracking down on leaks. >> not to mention the guy in the
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white house 1,600 pennsylvania avenue used to be john baron, his own publicist. he leaked things about himself. if chris were here today, i feel i can channel him. he would say at the end of the day government is supposed to be about doing things, having an agenda and doing them. it feels like 80, 90% of this white house' time and energy is consumed with infighting, back biting, back stabbing, or as scaramucci says front stabbing. at some point, who is the person in the administration that knows anything about actually getting bills passed, bills written, dealing with capitol hill and governing? is there anyone that can do it? general kelly pay be a brilliant guy. he doesn't have a background in that either. >> you assume that's the goal here. i'll not kholie convinced it is.
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i think when you create reality tv presidency, it's not about those types of objectives, which have been fairly traditional. it is about the moment. and this president has been consistently about creating moments, whether they serve as a distraction or whether they serve as an opportunity to further another narrative and that's our new reality. this is a presidency that is going to be continually transitioning towards whatever donald trump is feeling or tweeting at that moment. so the policy and the agenda on legislation, you are talking big stuff like infrastructure and tax reform. that's going to have to rest with republican leaders on the hill. >> they're going to have to get their collective acts together and be the driver and bring the president along to that. even that's not a germany tee, one minute he can like you, bill the next minute he can call it
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mean. so you know, you are going to have to do this in a measured way, so i would not expect a whole lot of policy getting done the rest of this year. >> he already said he doesn't want skin my tax reform, he wants big tax reform, thank you very much. let's bring in white house correspondent for daily mail.com and a fashlg political reporter at plume burg politics, fr frances francesca, i'll start with you the republican party is obviously having a frustrating week as is donald trump. who does, do people on the hill think they have to call? if they pick up the phone and want to get answers from the white house, who is the person they call they think is knowledgeable about what the president wants? >> well, the person in the white house that is the liaison to capitol hill at this point. the answer is vice president mike pence, he is the one who the white house has been sending to capitol hill to these policy luncheons to work with
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lawmakers. he's a former legislator, so he does have that experience when it comes to that, when you talk about whether or not we will get anything done, we will see congress get anything done the rest of this year, certainly reince priebus, he wasn't a law maker or work on capitol hill per se, he had been the republican national committee chair. he was close to house speaker powell ryan. he was going to be critical to getting packs reform passed this year. >> so now we also are going to be facing confirmation hearings for a replacement for general kelly in the midst of all this chaos, how will that work? >> it's a good yes question, there are several nominations that will be coming up on the floor, now, after that, the senate is been for three weeks, it's highly unlikely they will confirm a nom nyeem, we don't have one yet, and send them to
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the floor in the next three weeks, we look at fall or so before the department of homeland security has a new homeland secretary. it seems to be an abrupt decision by a mer can you recall president. it's almost poetic it came on the day the signature legislative accomplishments crashed into a brick wall. >> he was so emphasized things leak the ban on travelers from seven muslim countries. now he's vacated the officer of homeland security. how cause work out? >> it's one of those things where the president was not thinking two steps ahead, making the decision on the fly, john kelly is in this position i put him in to do things like the travel ban and also things with the border wall, president trump was a key pill larger of this
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campaign, now they have to think who is next and where do we go from here? when you look at jeff session and the president attacking him, well, now who could possibly be ag if next friday jeff sessions is there. >> that's right. it's one of these things, are they thinking things through? >> there are badly enough establishment in the state department. i want to bring in erica martinson, she is the walk reporter for the alaska dispatch news, thank you for being here, i want to talk to you about the weird strategies employed by the white house this week in an attempt to force through the repeal of obamacare t. threat made to lisa murkowski and to the state of alaska, both senators, if she doesn't p didn't go along with it, maybe the alaska economy would suffer the attack, how did that wind going over with the two as far as and people in the states?
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>> obviously, it didn't go very well. it didn't cause her to change her vote. you could say it back fired a little bit. obviously, she, you know, urged for power a little bit and she's cramer of the senate merge committee. she runs the ae proepiations and made it clear she wasn't bothered. so they might have to try a different tactic next time. >> obviously, for versus a role to play in doing things like confirming new members of the president's cabinet. he has now vacated a pretty important candidacy. now he has a chief of city of that doesn't have experience on the hill, talk about how this will work? he was going to liaison with the senators and repair the relationship. is that going to ends up beinging is kelly? >> you know that's an excellent question. it has been clear week the white house has focused or president
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trump focused on politics instead of policy, when it comes to health care, the senators care very much about the details of the policy and how things impact their state and they're not ready to play ball on elections, they got particular concerns. they want the president to be able to speak to those. he hasn't shown much of a willingness to do that. >> have you in your reporting, detected any desire by the white house to try to reach out to senator murkowski, maybe to walk back what was done, the kind of negative contact they had with her. >> i haven't we heard anything of that yet, no. >> interesting time. i want to go quickly to michael steele, obviously, one of the wings that is shrirnging in the orbit of donald trump is the rnc wing and everyone associated with it a. former chairman of the rnc. where does that leave the organization now? you already have donors eassume they are going to donald trump's legal bills and issues like
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that? where is the rnc at this point? >> a good question. i think a lot of people are asking themselves that and trying to figure out exactly what it means. certainly this is a disruption in the party flow. i don't think it will impact money or organizations or things that the chair woman is doing at the moment. but it does lead to a proder disruption that the party has to face in dealing with, you know, grass roots activists, how they feel about what's going on, whether they're pro trump or fought pro trump and that's going to be a very delicate thing. this instability in the west wing makes it very difficult for the party, to organize itself and to begin to sort of put in place the building blocks they will need for next year. >> when you say the word instability. you know who hates instability? wall street, it likes the idea of donald trump, they thought they'd ged get big tax reform,
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it looks like an endless game of survivor in the white house. >> it's interesting the market versus de coupled temss from this administration, strangely, we seen some records being set this week. itative sort of decided under the obama administration they felt like they lived under constant threat of new regulation, with that not the case, with the chief regulator or the person who had her eye on wall street, elizabeth warren now in a minority senate position, fought with the ear of the president. they're not all that worried about. that so the general feeling is that while president trump may not succeed in his massive tax reform and active deregulation, there is not a threat of more regulation, for wefr reason, wages have been going up as unemployment guess down, consumers are out there shopping. now, donald trump will remind you it's all because of him,
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record levels and unemployment is low. those are all things that were trending in that direction for a while. i guess donald trump get some of the credit for the market janet yellin gets most of it. the moment they worried is when it looks like a constitutional crisis. the jeff sessions stuff has become of concern. >> it's almost sort of a white house-free world, where the white house almost becomes irrelevant. that the president tweets about changing the policy on transservice members and the pentagon dismisses it. donald trump, appears to be melting down personally over russian-gate. he fired the chief of staff after 189 days the world goes chugging along, are we sort of reaching a point the white house is becoming irrelevant? >> certainly not on the
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legislative fund. he hamstrung through congress. i think it was chairman steele who mentioned the mean quote he had about the senate health care bill and him calling out republicans by name for not supporting the bill, that's sort of the opposite of what we have seen from white house being successful and that's what you are measured by, there are some things around the edges his administration can do that do have an impact. in fact, it's notable that general kelly coming from dhs is one of those agencies that had really implemented this hard line on immigration, had created this new office for the victims of crimes perpetrated undocumented imdrants. so this is an example of how things can occur and this administration can make progress in pete is of donald trump. he is doing himself no favors
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after the failure to pass he tweeted three republicans and 48 democrats let the american people down, as i said from the dpining, let obamacare implode. then deem, watch. he delivered a similar message this afternoon. >> hay should have approved health care last night. but you can't have everything. boy, oh, boy. they have been working on that one for seven years, can you believe that? the swamp. but we'll get it done. we're going to get it done. i said from the beginning let obamacare implode and then do it. i turned out to be right. let obamacare implode. >> okay. that is not what he said. he was going around saying he was going p going to repeal and replace the first 100 days and made it and throwing his senate
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colleagues under the bus how does he go back to them on fax reform and ask them to get his wins. >> it's easy to go back to him. they both need each other. they sometimes he says let's let the law implode, which is what he just said in that video clip you played. sometimes he says we need to repeal it, and then, you know, look down the road and replace it later. sometimes he says it needs to be repealed and replaced at the same time. that lack of focus, that lack of discipline and clarity has muddied things up a lot on capitol hill. it's up to speaker ryan and leader mcconnell to know what the politics are in their conferences, and i think mcconnell in particular really misjudged it, which is why we had this spectacular vote late last night, early this morning where senator mccain diagnosed
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just days ago with brain cancer unexpectedly became the deciding vote to essentially kill this effort and it's not clear it's coming back. yes, speaker ryan and leader mcconnell want to move next to tax reform, but that whole process is still in its infancy. republicans are no further along on tax reform than they were on health care when this started, and that is not clearly been an easy effort. >> who are paul ryan's allies now inside of the white house? i mean, obviously his closest allies were his fellow members of isco mafia, the wisconsin guys. the vice president didn't do such a bang-up job of getting john mccain to go along. >> you are right about that, but that is the answer. the vice president is the one person that he could look to in this instance. it's clear that the president is ready to move on from the health care fiasco. you mentioned already earlier this week he started to distance himself from what was going on in capitol hill. he was saying they, the republicans should. not really mentioning himself in
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that. saying it was their last chance even. it's very clear when the white house put out a tax policy, a joint statement on tax policy with house speaker ryan, with the senate majority leader yesterday, before those votes had finished with obama care repeal, that they were already ready to start moving on to something else. the president just wants a win, and whether that's on health care or taxes or something else, it's clear that he is willing to take what he can get. >> that is sort of a sad statement of affairs. john than, i want to ask because you talked earlier about the factionalism inside the white house. if now the vice president becomes the focus, if that's the person they're negotiating with, how fast before he becomes the object of the division and hatred of these various factors
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that are squabbling for power, and where does that leave donald trump? >> just make a few points aon that. one, this is how it's envisioned. general kelly was putting this role knowing full well he doesn't have the relationships on the hill. mike pence will be elevated, and mark short, bhos currently the legislative director on a personal level very close to mike pence, used to be his chief of staff. that will be the team mostly leading the interactions with capitol hill, so, yes, his profile is going to be raised. ultimately, who knows what that will do? it's going to cause more scrutiny from the media. he is going to be a more high profile vp than he has been so far. maybe it will arouse people's jealousies internally. these are all hypotheticals. the other point i would just make is i don't think we know yet. i was just thinking to a senior administration official in the car on the way here, and they said don't be so sure that that
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the -- this will be sorted out on monday. that up with sentence that the press put out saying that scaramucci was going to -- that was a huge middle finger to reince priebus. that was the purpose of that sentence. it waen because anthony refuses to work under anyone else. it was really saying to reince priebus, you know, go jump in a lake. >> wow. >> or using more profane language. >> yes, he would. thank you for not doing it. >> even though we are on cable. thank you for not doing that. is it a possibility now that you wind up seeing mike pence become donald trump's dick cheney, as chris would say? >> no, because it didn't work yesterday. >> you have donald trump, the deal maker president. you have mitch mccom, who can keep his conference in line, and they couldn't pass a bill that they had all campaigned on for
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seven years and four elections, and they have the majority in every piece of legislative -- every legislative body that exists. it's not going to get done. we talk about tax reform. you remember i have long referred to the repeal of obama care as a tax bill. not a health care bill. even president trump in his speech today, he doesn't even know how to refer to it. in that speech he gave, he talked about they couldn't even pass health care last night. there was no health care on the table to pass. there was the repeal of a bill that also involved tax incentives. the earlier bill was all about tax. they can't do tax reform now because a lot of the revenue that they were going to save was in this health bill. no, i don't see -- mike pence couldn't get it done last night. nothing actually mattered more than getting it done last night.
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this has been a bad 24 hours for mike pence and president trump. >> a teenager might have known better than -- and not make nice saying do you like people better when they weren't caught, and you were never made to be friends with them again. >> i want to get through one more thing because i have to let the audience listen to this extraordinary piece of sound. this is donald trump today, and this was a speech he was giving about combatting gang violence, and in that speech he encouraged police to rough up suspects. take a listen. >> when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, roughed, i said please don't be too nice. like when you guys put somebody in the car and you are protecting their head, you know? the way you put their hand. don't hit their head, and they've just killed somebody. don't hit their head. i said you can take the hand away, okay? >> late today, the police
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department in suffolk county, new york, where trump was speaking pushed back. pretty good sub-tweet tweeting the scpd has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. violating those rules rsh those violating those rules are treated extremely seriously or violations are treated seriously. as a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners. the lapd has its own history with police abuse and with periods in which their relationship with the communities were terrible. what kind of a message does it send with the commander in chief and the president of the united states as essentially encouraging, so encouraging roughing up of suspects that the police department has to push back? >> before i came over here, i was on the phone with some immigrants rights groups, and people were just, like, what's going on? some were just saying, hey, this is continued rhetoric from the president that goes back years, and with this, i mean, yeah, i mean, we saw freddy graham in baltimore.
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i talked to some lawyers before i came here at civil rights groups, and people are just concerned. this language is emboldening police, and there's a concern for that. some are reassured when they see the police -- the police department pushing back against trump, but others are very concerned that this is emboldening police to act violately and towards specifically blacks and latinos. >> when have an administration full of people who if anything, now seem to be done to those that have the philosophy of let donald trump be donald trump. you have anthony scaramucci who has hin own issues and colorful hot language. maybe he will listen to general kelly. who knows? i guess the factions and the banner will love threat rick. does it help donald trump? >> well, it helps him with the people who already love him. it doesn't help him with the more than half the country that don't love him or, you know,
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much stronger you know, as far as the let trump be trump thing, i would say one thing. general kelly does not strike me as a let trump be trump kind of guy. i do think that there will be some pushback there. whether it's successful as a whole other question. this is very much base first, raw meat that bannon loves and does nothing to reach out to the 54% or whatever it is that pence -- >> having -- go on. >> it's similar to the rhetoric that he used during the campaign at rallies when there were protesters. he would encourage his supporters to rough them up. he would say get them out even. at one point, a couple of points, offered to pay the legal bills of supporters and i would point out that there are pieces right now working their way through federal courts in kentucky and alabama, i believe, from protesters who were roughed up, who were suing not just the supporters who were the ones
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sort of laying hands on them, but also donald trump and donald trump's campaign, and there was a real possibility in one of these cases that he could end or certainly people around him maybe even president trump could end up having to answer questions for the lawyers for the protesters' lawyers. it's not like a harmless thing. >> not wise. thank you so much. curtis lee, jonathan swan, jessica chambers. ken vogel, ali velshey. super pabl. that's hardball for now. thanks for being with us. all new with chris hayes is right now. tonight on "all in." obama care is alive, and the white house is in chaos. >> get over here. >> just hours after president trump's greatest failure to date, his chief of staff, is out. >> reince is a superstar. >> and replaced with a jonathan. >> john kelly, one of our real stars. >> tonight a new low for the trump