last night sam stein tweeted this controversy best saying if tom price were a stock, tom price would have sold all his shares three weeks ago. a leopard doesn't change its stripes. actually, a leopard doesn't have stripes so whatever. that's it for me. for this hour. don't miss "velshi and ruehl" tomorrow. we'll be breaking down what those health care proposals mean for you. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the competence, leadership and capacity for empathy of america's first reality television star president are being tested this afternoon. seemingly incapable of separating his own image and ego from the appraisals of the ongoing suffering of the people of puerto rico. president trump lashed out at media coverage of the federal response to hurricane maria. writing on twitter, fema and first responders are doing a great job in puerto rico. massive food and water delivered. docks and electric grid dead.

locals trying really hard to help but many have lost their homes. military is now on site, and i will be there tuesday. wish press would treat fairly. let's get to some indisputable facts out there. tens of thousands of containers of food, water and medicine are backed up at the port. there aren't enough drivers to distribute those supplies and there isn't enough fuel to power the trucks. adding to the desperation, hospitals are running low on fuel to power their generators but yesterday, the acting homeland security secretary elaine duke described the federal response as a, quote, good news story. something that illicitted this response from san juan's mayor. >> well, maybe from where she's standing that's a good news story. when you're drinking from a creek, it's not a good story. when you don't have food for a baby, it's not a good news story. when you have to pull people down from their buildings because, i'm sorry, but that really upsets me and frustrates

me. i would ask you to come down here and visit the towns and then make a statement like that which, frankly, is an irresponsible statement and at contrast with the statements of support that i've been getting since yesterday when i got that call from the white house. this is -- this is not a good news story. this is a people are dying story. this is a life or death story. >> the homeland security secretary is in san juan today where she tried to walk back those earlier remarks. >> i am proud of the work that's being done. i am proud of americans helping americans, friends and strangers alike. i am proud of the work that dod, fema and the territory along with first responders are doing. clearly the situation here in puerto rico after the devastating hurricane is not satisfactory but together we are getting there and the progress

today is very, very strong. >> for his part, the president did nothing to ease anxiety there when he tweeted this earlier. the fact is that puerto rico has been destroyed by two hurricanes. big decisions will have to be made as to the cost of its rebuilding. and trump had this to say moments ago before leaving washington for a weekend in bedminst bedminster. >> as far as puerto rico is concerned, that's been going, as you know, really well. it's been total devastation. when you look at texas and when you look at florida, you know, it's a whole different level. nobody has ever seen. when you have a category 5 wipe out an island like this because you have nothing. you don't have the roads. you don't have anything, and you don't have the people to operate the equipment. that's why we have, literally, hundreds of truck drivers being brought into the island to operate the trucks because those people have lost their homes. so they are unable to do it. and the police have lost their homes. so they are unable to do it.

so it's a tough situation. >> the white house has appointed a three-star general to focus on faster distribution of supplies and the pentagon is now rushing to send more military assets. but the question remains. why weren't these actions taken sooner? joining me is new york city council speaker melissa feverito. >> i'm so happy to have you here. i've seen your comments. we've watched some of this together. let's watch the mayor again just a few moments ago responding to all of the developments together and talk about it on the other side. >> fema asks for documentation. i think we've given them enough documentation. and they have the gall this morning -- look at this. look at this. they think that weighs enough? we have the gall this morning of asking me, what are your priorities, mayor?

where have you been? and i have been very respectful of the fema employees. i have been patient, but we have no time for patience anymore. so i am asking the president of the united states to make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives. they are up to the task in africa when ebola came over. they were up to the task in haiti, as they should be. because when it comes to saving lives, we are all part of one community of shared values. i will do what i never thought i was going to do.

i am begging. begging anyone that can hear us to save us from dying. if anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency. >> can i ask you to respond? >> it's hard to watch not not feel emotional. literally what's happening is people are dying. it's not as if it was not known that we were going to get hit by a category 5. everybody was tracking this and seeing it and for those of us that have family there, we're concerned. it's not as if we did not know it was going to be a dead straight-on hit. it's not as if we didn't know that puerto rico is an island and that it has its own set of challenges. the fema and this administration was not ready. at the go resources should have

been on the ground to get supplies to the areas that needed it, to be responsive. and the first sign of leadership is to say, you know what? we screwed up. we didn't respond in time. we did not have a plan. and that is not what we're seeing from this president. and what he is doing is continuing to try to make it seem that it is our fault, the people on the island, for what has happened. that somehow they were not prepared for it and it's their responsibility. he wasn't saying that about texas. he wasn't saying that about florida. he's saying that about puerto rico. and let's not forget the u.s. virgin islands. there's a double standard. it's racist, prejudicial and we're not being treated as u.s. citizens, which we are. >> let's break all those down one by one. general honore on the ground after hurricane katrina said that -- he use someday colorful language that i can't repeat and basically called it bs. their excuses at this point one week out. and said that there were more

resources in new orleans, and it was a much smaller scale catastrophe. >> exactly. >> what do you think the reason is today? i mean, we've now had an after action report at our ready for more than a week. what could the possible explanation be and how do they begin to mitigate all the damage that's already been done? i imagine there's a lot of contaminated water. i imagine with fuel running short on generators, there are a lot of people who the elderly or very young that without cooling or access to cool spaces, their health will be compromised. what is the most urgent need in your view. you've been there. i saw you do some interviews right when you got back. was was it tuesday night? >> yes. >> what from your trip and your family still there, how are they doing? >> they're fine, obviously, and i'm lucky that my mother lives in the greater metropolitan area so there's some access to immediate resources but the people in the remote areas. this is an island, 100 by 35, and it has mountainous and

remote areas that are hard to access. people that do need medical attention, people that are on ventilators. people that have asthma or other debilitating diseases are having a hard time. and people are, as the mayor is saying, dying. hospitals are running on generators. that cannot happen endlessly. generators burn out. access to fuel. it's just layer upon layer of challenge. and right now, we only have 10,000 between troops and relief workers, 10,000 people on the ground. that general that you spoke to that dealt with katrina said right now he'd have 50,000 troops on the ground. >> not federal workers, troops. >> let me bring in the rest of our panel and please stay. joining us white house reporter and msnbc political analyst jonathan la mere, former communications director jen palmieri and the reverend al sharpton and president of the national action network. i want to let the others ask you questions as well. but i want to -- i have one more

for you. is there anything about the president talking about his own press coverage and his own reviews that is just like rubbing salt in the wound for you? i mean, i want to just sort of tick through some of his responses. a few days ago he talked about puerto rico's debt as though it was some of the problems were puerto rico's fault. i can't get inside his mind. i'm not sure i would want to, if i could. it seemed to imply there was something -- that there was some fault to be laid at the feet of puerto rico. what's your response to that? >> this is the most ignorant president that we've had sitting in the white house. this is an individual who does not have an attention span and does not understand complex issues, refuses to understand context. and so i cannot respond to that. obviously, his fragile ego is what matters here about the attention that he's getting or the lack of proper coverage. people are dying. we need attention.

we need more resources on the ground. we need the department of defense to step up. we need every single federal agency to have more responsibility and more involvement on what's happening. that is what we need most immediately because every second counts. we're hearing the horror stories from people on the island. we're hearing people just not having access to food. dehydration. the agriculture, 80% decimated. if you go through the island as i did and you see how the agriculture and the vegetation was literally sucked dry, right, that -- you are seeing it. and that is just layer upon layer of complexity and challenge and it's horrifying. it's horrifying to sit at the sidelines and say, you know, what can we do? the level of response here stateside has been incredible but if there's no infrastructure being developed on an interim basis to facilitate those resources getting to where they need, to then all of what we're collecting is, what do we do with it? the mayor has demonstrated great

leadership, and i really am a friend of hers. we're providing assistance to her from new york city. we're also providing assistance to the central government but more needs to be done, and the pressure needs to come from us, those of us stateside have to take action and continue to put pressure on this administration. >> rev, the mayor saying i am begging crow. we are dying. >> i think if you have any sense of humanity at all, when you hear the statement as you played it, she is beyond politics, beyond our feelings of president trump. she said we're dying. and you are sending someone out in front of the cameras on the garage of the west wing to say this is a good news story? people are dying. this is way past president bush saying in catrin abrownie, you're doing a good job. people are literally dying while she's standing in the driveway saying this is a good news

story. and it is absolutely insulting. when you look at the fact, and the mayor said it right. the reaction to ebola. the reaction that president obama had to haiti. >> yeah, i think we have -- we're going to put some of that up. in haiti -- >> before dawn, they were sending troops into haiti. these are american citizens. >> 22 -- so here we have it. you talk and we have this ready. 22,000 troops sent to haiti. and, you know -- >> 8,000, i think, within two days. >> a earthquake is not forecast. >> we knew that there was a hurricane headed to puerto rico. >> 300 helicopters in haiti because there was a similar challenge to infrastructure and distribution. 25 federal helicopters. >> and president obama didn't say, oh, you had a lot of debt there. you had a lot of poverty. it's your fault. we knew a hurricane was coming. we knew there was debt in puerto rico, which we did not do all we

could have to help and you are going to blame the -- in the middle of people dying. >> why, though? what's the why? >> the why is it's a double standard. >> what? >> i think the speaker is right that when it comes to black and brown people, this president sends every signal that he does not care. it is not a priority. for him to sit up and rationalize a slow to no response, he would not do it if it was anywhere else, dealing with anybody else, and i don't think you can sugarcoat that. >> i'm not going to try to sugarcoat it. i want to ask you, jen, is there any chance that they just dropped the ball, or does this just look so different? >> it looks so different from the response to harvey and irma that the rev's explanation is the only plausible one? >> no, i think it is. like every opportunity he's seeking to divide us, whether it's the nfl or singling out puerto rico as not worthy of the same response that you had in texas. and, you know, i thought it was

telling when the mayor said we need somebody in charge because no matter how good fema is, maybe they're not so great, you have -- >> just a branch agency. >> dennis mcdonagh went to haiti. not part of the united states but we were concerned about it to run the operation there. and then during sandy, you know, which is right before the re-election, we had a very tightly run white house-led because it has to be the white house. we've got to coordinate with dod and fema and the other agencies. and we were so hands-on. gene sperling was calling through to find gas stations open in new jersey to plot out how gas trucks would make it to new york city. that's how hands-on the white house has to be and it's got to come from the top. but he is sending the signal that is doesn't matter. >> there's a growing sense they know this is a problem but the president himself is -- >> what kind of problem? a political and press problem or humanitarian crisis? >> i think among senior staff,

both. but the president, only in recent days, has become personally engaged on this issue. unlike texas and florida -- >> why? >> i think some of the reasons discussed at this table could potentially be valid. we always hear about his base and who he -- states he won. he won texas and florida. these are places he's much more familiar with than puerto rico. able to grasp that idea. up until the last 48 hours, most of his private discussions were not about this. they were about the nfl. telling people around him he found a good issue for him. he found something he believes he can rally the base around. this is only the last few days has he suggested like, okay, we put pressure on here. he's obviously touted several times now that he's going down there on tuesday to inspect the damage. and let's remember this. as the speaker said, what matters here are the lives on the ground. presidencies are often judged by the response to natural disasters. the second term of george w. bush never really recovered from hurricane katrina. >> i lived through it and that

is true. and the other thing you don't recover from is the first impression that you make. so the truth is that after the impression was left, after the inexcusable initial reaction, we as senior staffers spent every day rebuilding. so the question for you before we go to a live report from san juan is, what can happen today? i mean, obviously, the people in puerto rico don't even have power. they're not watching him congratulate himself. they're not watching him sing his own praises. >> 95% of the island still does not have power. think about that. we're talking about puerto rico that has a population larger than gon states in this united states. do you think that if connecticut as the mayor of new york said, do you think if connecticut was going through a similar situation that we would not see a response that is very different than the response? >> trump might leave connecticut in the dark but he'd definitely get dallas back up. >> now in terms of puerto ricans, more than 1 million live

in florida and that's a swing state and that does become a political issue and liability. unfortunately that's the language we're using but that's probably for them what they are thinking. the congressional reps, the senators are going to understand this is a problem. in the meantime, we need more resources and troops on the ground. more relief works or the ground. life and death every minute they are not doing what they need to do, we are losing out and we are losing lives. >> let me add to the discussion mariana atencio just south of san juan in bayamon. we heard from the mayor of san juan that she is begging for help, that people are dying. what is your latest reporting telling you? >> nicolle, i can tell you the last bags of ice in the city of bayamon outside san juan are being given to these folks right here. there was no more ice left, according to this ice plant, and this lady here started

complaining. she says she has not had her insulin in two days. she needs the ice. all these people here need the ice to preserve the little food they have left. as you were discussing, most of the island is without power. they need the ice to be able to feed their children. they need the ice for their medicine. that's why you have the mayor of san juan saying this is a life and death situation. hector, i was chatting with you here at the front of the line. how dire is this situation here in puerto rico and how much worse could it get? >> it's going to get worse if we don't get help as soon as possible because not only do we need help, but they need help also because they depend on electricity and water and if they don't get it fast enough, they won't be able to help us. so it's very critical. >> usually ten days in you expect things to start to get better. that's what we've seen in

hurricane harvey and irma. but here, things seem to get worse every day that goes by. >> that is correct. i don't know why. i see gas trucks are moving but this help isn't moving fast enough. >> supplies aren't moving fast enough. thank you, hector. this young mom is in the front of the line. she started crying when they said there was no more ice for her. her child is sick and now she's happy because at least she's going to get two bags today. tomorrow they have to stand in line again to continue to live here in puerto rico. >> mariana, thank you so much. let me get your quick reaction to just seeing that. seeing what was just described for us. we are dying. we are begging. >> it's just incredible. i don't think people really get the scope of it. and if people are pass away and dying, talk about morgues

overflowing. what do we do where first responders and media personnel are still trying to save other people. the health hazards. water that is still stagnant and what happens in those situations. that's happening in smaller towns. there's still the possibility of a major dam breaking and 70,000 individuals were being evacuated. lowered down about to 50,000 being evacuated. an area that's going to have a major problem if that dam breaks and who knows what work is being done to safeguard that. >> and how do you even tell them what's coming? >> that was what's happening last week. the governor did do that. was evacuating and making sure people left that area because the breach is possible. so there's a lot happening at the same time and we're not getting enough support. it's not coming fast enough. i definitely would want to see those numbers of troops and relief personnel increase substantially, immediately. >> thank you for coming by.

thanks for spending time with us. you have a seat at this table any day. come back. that's melissa mark favorito. will hhs secretary tom price pay for the nearly $1 million of private air travel he passed off to taxpayers with his job? the president teasing that a big decision is coming tonight. also ahead, a former special prosecutor predicts, quote, a number of indictments before the investigation into russian meddling and potential collusion with the trump campaign is over. and the president is just getting started. more insults from more players and their owners as the nfl gets ready for gameday. how do you chase what you love with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it's proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation

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i want to say to the speaker, don't you fly over our country in your luxury jet and lecture us on what it means to

be an american. >> i think we made it halfway where we ought to and that's cut it from 8 to 4 jets. now from 4 jets to 0 jets. this is just another example of fiscal irresponsibility run amok in congress right now. >> so he was against jets before he was for them. that was hhs secretary tom price back in 2009 railing against the fiscal irresponsibility of government officials using private planes. that was eight years ago. but this was the health and human services secretary last night trying to explain his use of chartered flights since taking the job in february. >> in the statement, the taxpayers won't pay a dime for my seat on those planes but you're writing a check, we understand, for $51,887. the total cost is estimated at more than $400,000 for the 26 flights since may. is that okay?

>> well, as i said, there's an ongoing review being done by the inspector general. it's important that we wait for that review. all of the trips, as i mentioned, had been approved. >> what were you thinking at those moments? some of these flights clearly were to places that had commercial air possibilities. one flight to philadelphia that you drive 45 minutes to dulles. you get on a private flight to fly to philadelphia for $25,000. you take amtrak here, you can be there in an hour and a half for about 100 bucks. >> that particular trip we had a meeting that morning on the hurricanes that i needed to be at and a meeting in the afternoon at the white house. and again, these trips were approved through the normal process. >> the former georgia congressman is hoping his plan to pay back $52,000 for his seats on those private jets is enough to save his job. but reporting today suggests

that on top of the previously reported $400,000 worth of private travel, they have uncovered another $500,000 in military and private flights to europe, asia and africa. from politico. the overseas trips bring the total cost to taxpayers of price's travel to more than $1 million since may. and the president is not happy about it. according to reporting from our friend here, jonathan lamere. he thinks price has become a distraction and is considering firing him. the president told the press corps he'd be making a decision on price today. jonathan? >> there were moments it feels like the president still thinks he has a reality tv show and has to fire someone every week. the weekly dismissal. all signs are pointing to this being tom price's turn. the president is, what he said publicly is what he's saying privately for days. he's furious with price. he feels he's become a distraction. that he has takine stepped on the launch of the tax plan, that

roll-out this week. flies in the face of the whole drain the swamp ethos the president ran on. this feels like washington corruption. also the president has in recent -- we know he's been unhappy. he feels like he was pushed into the wrong side. he is upset about the health care. another health care defeat and while most of his ang ber that still goes to congress, tom price gets some of it. he did not do enough to sell this plan. that price has been on somewhat thin ice for a while. trump is furious at the headlines this week. he is telling people close to him he has not made up his mind. he has said a decision is coming any moment. >> the big tease. he's better at teases than i. joining the table is adam mcmullan, former cia operative and a former independent presidential candidate. my, my, what might have been. what could have been. tell me what you make of how much of the president's ire is

because someone else is in the headlines and how much of it is because he's disturbed at a moral or ethical level? >> it would be hard to believe it's the latter. the irony here, but one of the points of irony is that i think the president has set a tone in the administration in which not only secretary price but other cabinet level officials feel -- >> let's name them all. so i think we have secretary zinke who has flown private. betsy devos. she flies private but pays for it. pruitt. these are just the ones we know of. >> the president has set a tone in which adherence to normal -- to norms of our democracy, ethical norms is no longer important. he hasn't disclosed his taxes. there's no law requiring that but it's a norm. it's a modern norm. he didn't divest of his holdings domestically or internationally. he's done a series of things

that have sent a message to his administration that this kind of activity is okay. and then what's interesting is then people follow that and then he gets into a situation where he's embarrassed and the limelight is being stolen from him. so he tries to clear it up by firing them. but it's a loop that he creates that results in poor governance that goes even beyond what would be expected in a trump administration. >> jen, i think this is even simpler than that. the character of the president dictates the character of everyone who works for him. and when we elect a guy who says he's going to grab him -- don't worry. i'm not going to say it. what kind of character does the president have and what does everyone else do? >> it's surprising that he's so offended by what price did except i suspect there's something about price being not that rich and flying around on private planes that offends someone who owns their own plane that trump does. but the -- i get why he

thinks -- i get why trump thinks this hurts him with voters because the whole drain the swamp thing is a real deal. what's also going to hurt him is gary cohn standing up and being like, i can't guarantee there's a middle class tax cut or people might be able to get $1,000 tax cut and not understanding that $1,000 spent over the course of a year is not that much to a working class family. so i think it is -- and voters seeing headline after headline about this tax package that just benefits the weltsy. headlines saying he could get a billion dollars, trump could get a billion dollar tax cut. his family with the estate tax, we can put a family -- attach a family to it and he serves to benefit from the tax plan. and i feel like ultimately, that's the kind of thing that's really going to hurt him with voters. anything that's about drain the swamp and looks like his family hurts him, too. but it's bigger than that. >> i feel like my hair is always

on fire when there are these massive administrationwide lapses in ethics, and you sort of say, i've known the guy forever and this is what he does. you think it's a big deal? >> when you're dealing with someone who has set a climate that the rules don't apply, i'm not giving you my tax returns. i'm not doing this. i think that he is as upset and concerned and angry as jonathan says because it's an issue. if it wasn't an issue, he would not care. >> the bad press. >> especially the week that he got his tail handed to him in alabama. he's getting killed rightfully so by all of us about puerto rico on and on and on. so if he does fire, and he probably will fire price, price is paying the price, pun intended, because it's a bad week for trump, not because price did something that is out of character with trump's entourage. >> you're exactly right. i want to put everyone on the spot with a prediction.

i think he sees this as sort of -- it's a classic tactic. he used it during the campaigns. pay attention -- he's going to try to take some of the oxygen out of this news cycle which is undeniably terrible for him and say, wait, wait, wait for it. wait for it. and at some hour tonight after watching he's going to tweet out a decision to fire the guy. >> he is the "stay tuned" president. >> i love that. >> certainly trump has mused publicly about firing people before and some folks have kept their jobs. jeff sessions. >> but he didn't have a backup plan. >> and jeff sessions had real support among the base that perhaps tom price does not. >> predictions? >> i'll predict and say he goes. >> he's gone. >> prediction? >> yeah, he's gone. >> time? >> you're fired. >> perfect. >> when we come back, one of the men investigating russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential collusion between russia and the trump campaign joins us after the broadcast. haven't you ever wanted something more, barry?

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some breaking news, as if on command from the rev. the white house press secretary issuing a statement just now saying secretary of health and human services thomas price offered his resignation earlier today and the president accepted. the president intends to designate don j. wright of virginia to be acting secretary effective at 11:59 p.m. mr. wright currently serves as the deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the office of disease prevention and health promotion. there you have it. >> we all got our prediction right. >> there's that. >> this is -- seemed inevitable. he was not going to survive this. trump was too angry at him. the president has no qualms about casting aside people who have been a disappointment or creating bad headlines. he feels the price story has drowned out everything else thus week and this is something that

i think had price not done this now, all the signs were pointing to the president firing him tonight. >> does this suggest that if the puerto rico crisis generates enough bad headlines he'll hold someone in his cabinet responsibility for that bad press or was this the personal failure, the personal lack of discretion, getting caught flying private for a million bucks on the taxpayers' dime? >> it's about stealing the limelight from president trump. it's about everything that's happening now. there's puerto rico, there's the russia investigation, there's kushner's private e-mails. there's north korea continuing. this has been a really tough period for news for the president, and that leaves him vulnerable in the way he thinks about vulnerability. as long as that's the case, his team has to watch out. that everybody is vulnerable because he'll look for scapegoats. >> kristen welker is joining us at the white house. what do you know? >> i've been talking to my sources who tell me the president has been fuming over

this for days, which is not a surprise. he said as much effectively. he's been pressed over and over again if he's going to fire secretary price. in one instance he said, we'll see. that was really the first indication that he was incredibly upset by this behavior. i just spoke to a source moments ago who brought up a couple of points. one, the political timing of this. this comes on the heels not only of all of these bad headlines in terms of his spending money on charters, but also in the wake of the failure to repeal and replace obamacare. and, remember, secretary price was one of the first voices telling him to take up health care first. he didn't want to do it. it went against what he thought was the best course of action but he was among those convincing him that this was the way to proceed. and so i was told again just moments ago that the president was still angry about that. that was one of the things that continued to be a thorn in his side when it comes to secretary

price. you'll recall that at a rally before one of the health care votes he said if he doesn't get it done, i'll fire him. all of those things together are what made the president effectively, i'm guessing, ask for his resignation. we're trying to drill down how this came about. but there were a whole host of factors that went into what seemed like was going to be an inevitability for days. >> let me bring into the conversation eric swallow of california, member of the house intel committee. congressman, i wonder if i can gettior reaction to the news that the president's hhs secretary has resigned amid a scandal about private air travel. >> good afternoon, nicolle. it was right for him to go. he had abused the taxpayers' dollars by taking these flights so excessively. he'd lost the confidence of the president. and whether it's a republican or democrat, you can't lose the confidence of the president.

the american people were very disappointed, and they need a health and human services secretary who the president has confidence in, and it was right for him to go. hopefully the next person who comes in can work with republicans and democrats in the house and senate to strengthen the affordable care act. that's my hope. >> do you think that the president's calculation was about the kinds of things you describe? losing the confidence of the taxpayer for a clear ethical lapse? i worked in a white house for six years. people didn't just fly around the country or to international locations on private jets when you could get there just as easily on a commercial flight. or do you think this was the president exasperated and frustrated by the bad headlines that secretary price was generating for him? >> it certainly is not following any consistent policy of norms or ethics at the white house because jeff sessions wasn't forthcoming with the senate about his prior russia contacts.

jared kushner failed to disclose dozens of foreign contacts and still keeps a security clearance. and so there are a number of people in the administration who have -- you look at steve mnuchin seeking to use a private plane on his honeymoon. so i think it's just a temperamental president and this just happened to be bad luck for tom price. i think bad judgment by all of those individuals warrants leaving the white house or the administration but just happened to be a bad week for the president and a worse week for tom price. >> let me quickly while i have you, ask you about the russia investigation. ken starr, former special prosecutor, was on with brian williams last night on the 11th hour and he said he had the sense that indictments were all but certain by the end of both the mueller probe and the congressional investigations. and he reminded our viewers that sometimes, oftentimes, it's the congressional probes that yield the outcomes that are often the most dramatic.

can you tell us, one if it's your sense that any indictments are imminent and, two, if it's your sense that those congressional investigations, the one that your committee is undertaking and others are closing in on any of the subjects of these investigations? >> it appears that former director mueller is making tremendous progress and is closing in on senior white house officials. and this is a classic bottom up investigation where you start at the outside individuals and start to work your way closer and closer to the target. i believe the president is probably being investigated for obstruction of justice because of the firing of james comey. and i also believe that there is damaging evidence that people on his team sought to and were eager to work with the russians in the interference campaign. what we're trying to figure out is whether that materialized to an actual working relationship. now our congressional investigations have made a lot of progress as well.

we interviewed two witnesses this week and there's a number of key witnesses who will have to come in, but i'll credit, nicolle, i believe it was that march 20th hearing that was the turning point where james comey came in and the house democrats punctuate his telling the country there was an investigation by putting forward the evidence we'd already gathered. >> we're lucky to have you on such a big day. thank you for spend something time with us. we appreciate it. rev, let me get you to weigh in again. not just on the sort of lighthearted point this is what you predicted but just on this question for everybody here. is the president making a judgment about a lack of morales, a lack of ethics? is he signaling to the rest of the cabinet, mnuchin, zinke, cut it out. my brand is draining the swamp, flying over the swamp in a private charter, or was he simply at sort of a basic cellular human level peeved?

>> i think that the indications we can go by so far is that he was peeved because what has not been -- >> when is he not peeved? >> well, that's a good question. but what has not been delts walh is something that is very interesting. price said that every trip he took was approved. well, the president -- >> by whom? >> the president was cleaning this up he'd say, i want to know who approved it and what was the basis of the approval. if it just goes with a resignation and a firing then we know this is just him being peeved and not really trying to deal with the swamp that he has now got private jets flying over. >> do we still have kristen welker? >> indeed. >> do you know the answer to that question? >> i am not entirely sure. actually, i was talking to a source at the time. repeat the question and i'll let you know. >> i've got jonathan at the table, too, if you're on the phone with a source we'll give you a hall pass. but the question was whether or not the president wants to get

to the bottom of who is approving private jet travel for members of his cabinet when commercial travel will do? obviously we know philadelphia, you can easily hop on a train or a plane. no jet needed. is there any investigation internally under way? >> there is. and that's an important question. the administration has been very clear that they are condublthsicondublths i -- conducting an internal review of this, of how these types of trips are approved and does there need to be some type of change in the system? that is going to be, i think, a key part of the review that's under way. sarah huckabee sanders talked about that yesterday in the briefing. because this has gotten so much attention, i am told there is an urgency to get to the bottom of it, although i wasn't given a specific timeline for when the review would be finished. >> kristen willikelker, thank y. i'm going to let you go. jonathan, what are you hearing? >> the white house is making a

distinction. the private charter domestic flights that frankly is what got price in trouble at the beginning of the week, the white house has nothing to do with those. the white house has not approved those. those are done by the individual agencies. that's why price was being held responsible for those flights. the military flights that we talked about earlier, the international flights, those are approved by the white house. to this point, they are defending them. we have a process behind these. the deputy chief staff for operations joe haguen is the one at the end of the day that says yes or no based on whether there's a security need to have a plane like that or whether -- if there are multiple requests, who gets priority? but that is what they are saying defending the military planes. but the private charter domestic stuff, they are saying, you're on your own. >> if you are curious about how trump really feels about this. look what he does in regard to his own activities. does he divest? does he stop promoting his own businesses using his presidential platform? as long as he still sort of violates these norms himself,

then any time he punishes someone else for doing it, it's not because he has some deep conviction about those norms. it's because it's embarrassing to him or in some way gets in the way of what he's doing. that's how you'll know. you'll know by what he does. >> jen, i want to ask you about the significance of losing one more bridge to congress. reince priebus is gone. this was another one of those sort of life lines, if you will. someone who had active -- you can argue whether or not they were fruitful when it came to health care, but he had relationships, at least on the house side. i wonder what you think about the president becoming increasingly isolated. >> i can't imagine what number this is of somebody being fired and how many officials -- it's been a lot. also the person in charge is a deputy assistant secretary. here's how it goes. here's the pecking order just in case we're not clear. it's secretary, then there's a deputy secretary, then a series of under secretaries, then there are a series of assistant

secretaries and then there are deputy assistant secretaries. so that is how badly staffed hhs is. that a deputy assistant secretary is now the acting secretary of getting rid of ev, don't have an infrastructure let alone connections to congress. >> jen make as great point and something i thought of as i've watched the response to hurricane maria. that sometimes you learn that there's a price to be paid when you don't prioritize the recruitment of experienced people to staff these agencies. and the white house staffers have almost become household names. they really sort of mimic in realtime the characters on his reality show. you're fire hired, you're fired. but it's serious work at the agencies and can you react to jen's point, how low down the pecking order he has to go just for an hhs secretary.

>> it's stunning if you understand the pecking order how far down we see this replacement. but if you look at how you don't see a lot of appointments in the state department, while we're in this rhetorical war with north korea, and other hot spots around the world. we are dealing with a white house that has left vacant many key positions that are detrimental to our safety as well as our services, and we shouldn't take that for granted, and those that he's put there has done the most public display of on-the-job training in power that i've ever seen. i mean, i was in europe and africa this week. people are laughing at us, because these guys are obviously learning as they go, and fumbling through most of it. when you look at their background, there's no reason to believe they would have known what to do at the level they're at. they don't even have enough sensitivity surrounding themselves with people that know what they're doing.

>> let me add to the conversation. jason johnsing, politics editor for "the root." thanks for being with us what turned out to be a bigger breaking news day than we thought. first, your reaction to the resignation of secretary price? >> i have to ask rev for lottery numbers. a great prediction. five minutes later. >> i get those. he's my date. >> look, this is probably general kelly coming in to play, because remember, we've got a president who has spent more in the first eight months of his presidency on his security detail for his family to go on vacation than obama spent in eight years. i don't think he's morally opposed to what tom price has done but has a chief of staff, look, clean this place up. have symbolic heads rolling from time to time and that's what i think this resignation/firing is really about. >> let me ask. this was a former member of congress who obviously had existed in a normal system, to the degree that you think the house of representatives is

normal. we've give it that, compared to the trump white house. i wonder if you can weigh in on a conversation we've had about whether the president has set a tone at the top from the character, and if the character and sort of lack of a moral or ethical compass, frankly, disregard for the taxpayer dollars, i'm guessesing the only part of the story that resonates with his base, if you think any of that drove it, or if you think it was what you started with -- a big media distraction? >> i think it's a mixture of both, nicolle. the president establishes what kinds of relationships and what's going to be acceptable in his white house. right? george bush was like, hey, about loyalty. be loyal to me, loyal to me i'll work with you. barack obama, don't cause trouble. be practical. donald trump established you can do whatever you want, because you never know if you can trust me one way or another. when you have that work environment, everybody is out for themselves. they don't if they'll be held accountable, insulted, insulted and then brought back in to the inner circle.

when you have a poor leadership standard, it doesn't establish a ground level for what people think they're supposed to do in that job. tom price should no better as a member of congress but it's a virus spreading from donald trump. people think they can do whatever they want unless they get in trouble. >> i asked you the question about distractions because we started the week together on monday talking about how the president himself created a massive distraction. to sort of provoke and poke the most divisive elements of his own base. so i find it ironic when people posit the theory someone else is getting fired for messing up his media cycle when it's usually donald trump on twitter ruining his own media cycles? >> right. running his mouth, distracting from important issues. 2.3. me people toughering in puerto rico and he's tweeting about the nfl.

and screaming whether or not puerto rico paid its debts and whether or not nfl players are respectful. at the air force academy prep school five enters cadets had racial slurs written over their dorm doors and a huge investigation and a week where the president demanded mostly african-american athlete kneel and appreciate the military, yore reminder the military hasn't also been an open place for black people and that's not something he wants to talk about. >> haven't heard from the president, but i think he's about to land in new jersey. do we expect to? already landed, i think. >> just talking to a colleague there with him in the pool. we are waiting word. certainly there's confusion here. earlier today the white house suggested tom price had not offered his resignation. as of an hour ago, that was the word. >> do you think they bungled the firing? let me read the statement again. let me give it a time stamp. 4:36 p.m. >> and if the resignation letter come in a short window, then, otherwise, misleading us in the earlier statement. >> imagine that?

let me read the statement one more time. 4:36 a statement from the press secretary, certainly holds herself out as being in the loop mow soar than her predecessor saying secretary of health and human services offered his resignation earlier today. you're saying the president went out on departure, set i don't know, giving him the benefit of doubt, maybe he hadn't decided whether or not to accept it? maybe that's the only explanation? >> the possible. i see he's deplaned. ed president has not cleared up this discrepancy nor weighed in yet on price's departure. >> i think he will, though, and i think -- again, you're seeing on-the-job training. somebody could have bungled. somebody may not have done it. may have done in a short window, but that's the kind of administration we are looking at here. so why are we in any way surprised that they don't know how to handle puerto rico?

because their heart's not there, passion's not there. only seemed to try to get when it's something that deals with their base of their preference, and that is bad. >> and i have to say, we can't forget the context of this in terms of this administration's firings over time. include the campaign itself, there have been a few different buckets of a lot of firings. right? you have russia-related firings. you have the functioning -- >> black male related firing. put flynn that that category. >> right, exactly. functioning of the administration, russia, blackmail, whatever you want to call it and this is corruption. i call this corruption. >> yeah. >> so it's just a new -- a new category, perhaps related to the others, but this white house and this team, if you include the campaign as well, has lost an insane number of people, due to issues in these categories, and i don't remember another administration where it's been this bad. >> jen a good point.

i know people working in there. they -- i don't want to call them out because i don't want any of their bosses to know i know them, but it's not a happy workplace, and anyone that knows anything about how to staff these agencies is deeply distrusted because they're from the establishment, yet all sort of cowboys that have come in, the people that don't know hue to fill out a form without simultaneouslying it three tries, have garnered a lot of bad headlines for the president. >> but it matters who is -- as the rev said, matters who staffing the government. i lived through it with healthcare.gov. hoop working on those computer programs deep in the bowels of cns matters and they don't appreciate that, how this varied of that until on the stage of like puerto rico or a big crisis like that. >> and the administration is failing to serve the american people as a result.

that's the net result there. >> jonathan, is there any sense on your part, running out of time. a quick answer for me. the white house will sort of have the audacity to spin this as cleaning hout kind of move? couldn't tolerate private travel on our watch? >> i think spin it this way. honestly, long-term problem is this. football analogy. the ownership changing, coaches changing every six months it makes the white house a less attractive place for competent people to come work and we all need a functional white house's in regards to the spin they use, if this means bright men and women don't want to serve this country in this administration because they think it's a mess we all suffer. >> last reporting on your phone? i'm staring at it. >> right now i have donald trump's twitter feed up and waiting for him to weigh in on price's reresignation. we expect to hear from sources inside the white house with more context and background. this is, again, clear a couple of days. he wasn't going to survive this and the president in ways

perhaps looking for a scapegoat, sending a message to the cabinet, knock it off. this is not draining the swamp and also tom price found the president's wrath. time to go. >> jen, big news. a new book out. we'll spend time talking about it next time you're here. will you come back monday, or any day that works for you? >> sure. >> and thank you to you all. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" strarts right now. hi, chuck. >> hi, nicolle. let you know, friday at 5:00 p.m. -- >> happy fun day. >> shocker, right? >> i guess. >> well, if it's friday, private jet travel comes at a price. a steep one. hhs secretary tom price steps down. good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington. we begin tonight with the breaking news. health and human services secretary tom price has resigned. after being engulf in a controve