a person named ellen more and, probably and nobody knew very low profile and had an important and communications director. she was not the spokesperson at the podium on tv every day and she was behind the scenes working on communication strategy overall. she quit, april 21st 2009. word from the white house, it wasn't a good fit. she left the white house but to commerce department what she did is move over where she became chief of staff served happily for years. but she was the first. ellen moran became the first

departure of high profile of the obama administration. day one from january 25th and made it two months and one day to april 21st. three months and one day. sorry. january, february, march, april. three months and one day. you know, nobody is saying first terms are easy particularly when it's a president who hasn't run anything to the federal level before. there is definitely a learning curve and you have to figure out if you have the right people around you and there is turnover. with the brand-new obama administration, the one-temple -- one term u.s. senator coming to be president for the first time. maron wasn't the first white house official that wasn't a good fit. the following month there was the director of the white house military office resigned after he approved a dumb photo op, this is the photo where air force one flew really too close to the statute of liberty and people got nervous when they saw in it.

in new york. so he left a month after the white house communications director. then three months later in july, it was the top advisor on the auto bailout that left and it was obama administration's adviser on cybersecurity who resigned then in september, it was van jones. vans is very well-known now because he's a cnn guy now. he was less well-known then as an advisor to president obama on green jobs and september he resigned, too. so if you were looking for signs of a brand-new administration, having trouble finding its feet, maybe an administration in turmoil, that's what you had in terms of major departures from the obama administration in the first 252 days. when the obama administration was as old as the trump administration is today, they really had their fair share of departures, high-profile departures from the new administration. white house military office, short-lived communications

director, couple advisors out. we are now 252 days into the trump administration. let's see how they are stacking up on the same scale. ready? in the same time period when those were the major departures from the obama administration, the trump administration, we couldn't even keep them the same size. we do not mean to intently imply that any of these smaller heads are less important than the larger heads it's tough to squeeze them in. the trump administration has been here for 252 days and so far, the trump administration has lost or fired, are you ready, the acting attorney general, the national security advisor, deputy white house chief of staff security advisor, the first white house communications director mike there. chief of staff, pitcockk director of government ethics, the press secretary sean spicer,

the assistant white house press secretary, the white house chief of staff, another white house communications director, mr. scaramucci. the senior director for intelligence, the white house chief strategist steve bannon and the special advisor to the president on regulatory reform. they also lost a high-profile deputy assistant to the president who nobody really knew what he did. remember sebastian gorka? nobody knew what he did but he was deputy assistant to the president. we also lost the vice president's press secretary and now today, the secretary of health and human services. everything okay you guys? sorry we couldn't keep all your heads the same size. i realize barack obama, new president losing the green jobs advisor. in the first year. that was of grave concern to like fox news for not just weeks

but months. but what's happened at the trump administration is a order of mag any dude different we never seen anything like this this latest departure tonight from the trump administration is notable because it's a cabinet secretary, tom price. it's the latest in a flood. but, you know, it's also notable because you could see this coming. this time last night, i said we were on resignation watch when it came to tom price. that was right. you could also see it coming a long time ago from the minute he got nominated to the cabinet. tom price was dogged from the beginning by a scandal from his time in congress where he enthusiastically bought and traded health care companies' stock while at the same time taking actions on the health committee he ran that affected

the price of those stocks that he owned. at his confirmation hearing, tom price was questioned about the fact some of those trades he did in health companies were vip deals where only he and a few other select clients were allowed to trade those stocks at those prices. hey, mr. chairman of the health subcommittee, how did you get special deals? tom price when questioned about that in his confirmation hearing denied that he had been in on any vip stock deals. he said oh, no, the public could have been in on any of those deals which absolutely was not true. he was under oath at the time and never went back and corrected those statements. but the republicans on the committee and senate at large were happy to vote for tom price. anyway, and you know what? it turns out when somebody during their confirmation process shows a proclivity for self-dealing in government employment and more than happy to lie about that and not bother to clean it up once they are caught lying on it under oath, when somebody shows you that's what they are, as they say,

believe them. if that's what you paid for in a cabinet secretary, that is what you will get as a cabinet secretary. but thanks to investigative reporting and dan diamond at politico, tom price will not go down in history as the health secretary that tried to take away health insurance coverage from tens of millions of americans and will go down as the second casualty relating to direct and serious allegations of corruption. they made it 252 days and only lost two people to corruption scandals. the first was carl icahn who left his position under a cloud of allegations how he appeared to have use that position for his own enrichment. for tom price, the proximate cause of his resignation is the embarrassment over his extensive and enthusiastic private jet travel, which was all charged to taxpayers. as they published scoop after

scoop after tom price's million dollar plus luxury private aviation including hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of flights he took with his wife on military aircraft that cost taxpayers up to $25,000 an hour, after those scoops mounted at politico.com, over the last ten days the white house got dragged into it, too. the president himself told reporters he was bothered by what he heard about tom price and flights. then the white house press secretary took care to say yesterday that the white house had had no role in approving any of tom price's private flights but then at 7:00 last night, there was yet another scoop about more than a half million dollars in military flights for tom price and his family, that the white house did in fact approve. which makes it harder for this to get written off as some case where the president was very upset to hear about this terrible, wasteful behavior by tom price given that his white house approved it, that will be harder to get away with or at least it should be.

so trump's health secretary is out which means maybe the focus will shift to trump's epa director with not only the same private jet fetish but also lined himself up an 18-man 24-hour a day security detail and bizarrely, he is having the epa pay to build a secure sound-proof phone booth in his office, which apparently is costing taxpayers about $25,000. now his agency first tried to say the magic sound proof room was a security necessity. it's a skiff. they tried to say this is just the epa building it self-a sensitive compartmented information facility so employees can handle super top secret epa materials. but it turns out the epa already has a skiff. already built. already exists on a separate floor. what they are building for scott

pruett is just what the contract calls a privacy booth for the ad -- administrator where he will be safeguarded by 18 body guards and to which he will be thrown -- flown on one of several private jets. if it not epa administrator scott pruett who gets the attention next, it may instead turn to interior secretary ryan who doesn't always use a horse. for his commute sometimes he pays for a private jet flight on an aircraft owned by an executive from an oil and gas exploration company in wyoming. while as interior secretary, he's also moving to give away more federally controlled public land for oil and gas exploration. that one private jet flight, the taxpayers paid for on the oil and gas executives' plane, that

one started in las vegas where secretary zinky had been giving a motivational speech to a hockey team owned by his biggest campaign donor. it ended in montana. at his house. and taxpayers paid for that to be a private jet flight on an oil executive's plane. secretary zinky charged taxpayers to pay for republican fundraisers. and then there were the multiple private jet flights he charged to taxpayers for flights to and around the u.s. virgin islands. and, you know, to be fair, that's the one where you think that may make sense. we know how hard hit the u.s. virgin islands were by the hurricanes but in this case, ryan zinke charged for flights to and from and around the virgin islands in march. way before the hurricanes when everything was fine. what he did was go on a

snorkeling tour. which the taxpayers paid to fly him to on a chartered private jet. and with ryan zinke, could have seen this coming. southerns apparently decided they did not mind that official report on him from his time in the navy when he got in big trouble in the navy because he, according to the navy, had fiddled expenses to get the government to pay for his personal travel. i mean, if you decide you don't care about ethics issues like that when you nominate people to things, you get headlines like this. once those people are in office. you get behavior like this. and you can just keep going on this same theme. this really is a very deep, deep theme in this new administration. there is also trump's treasury secretary who famously requested a $25,000 an hour military flight for his european honeymoon. he didn't get it. he did have to settle for flying his new bride on a military jet

that expensive to kentucky to fort knox where the publication coin world reports, the happy couple inspected the gold but there is more. there is also trump's veteran's affairs chief and wife who taxpayers apparently paid to send on a ten-day european work trip that included a championship tennis match at wimbledon and i do mean championship. it was the women's final. we're talking serena williams. the trip also included a tour of westminster abby and a river cruise and a canal tour in copehagen and trips to four separate palaces in the middle of this trip, trump's v.a. secretary reportedly had four straight days with no daytime business whatsoever on the calendar. they were very efficient. he and his wife made the most of it. four palaces is a lot. washington post points out he

took the taxpayer shaw other stuff at the v.a. telling them to please review their planned travel to determine if it was really truly necessarily. quote, i expect this will result in decreased employee travel and generate savings with the department. signed secretary shulkin. he signs that and then on his way out the door bye, got to go. i'm going to four different palaces. i'm going to wimbledon. you get the travel costs under control. i got to go. my wife is waiting. so trump's health secretary is gone. as of tonight, his a.r secretary, secretary and epa have done the same stuff. as the health secretary. so i guess theoretically, if the administration says tom price's behavior was a problem, we should be watching to see if those other four officials from the trump cabinet are going to go now, too. to encourage you not to hold

your breath on that after tom price resigned today, the president chose to display his personal disapproval of tom price's terrible taxpayer funded conspeckous waste flying to his golf resort in new jersey. on faair force one. today as the white house absorbed the plans and expected effect which would be to shovel lots more money to the richest people in the country and corporations, today as one of the multiple trump cabinet members caught up in a private jet and corruption scandal had to resign, today the ninth day of a legitimate crisis continued to unfold for the 3.5 million americans who are the victims of a terrible storm that hit more than a week ago now but who continued to be victims of what thus far is a botched and traumatically inadequate federal response. president over the past few days has been insisting like a bizarre fantasy mantra that everything is going great in

puerto rico. >> our team has been incredible. we have had tremendous reviews from government officials. we're doing a great job. everybody said it's amazing the job that we've done in puerto rico. we're very proud of it. >> as far as puerto rico is concerned that's been going as you noe going really well. i think it's going really well. we made tremendous strides. it been an incredible, the results that we've had. people can't believe how successful that has been. we have done an incredible job. we've done a really good job. i'm there to help. i can tell you that. >> this is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water. we will not rest, however, until the people of puerto rico are safe. >> after saying today that he would not rest until the people of puerto rico are safe, then right after that is when the president flew to his golf resort, which is where he is now. presumably he is not resting. we'll be live from puerto rico

with the mayor of san juan. we just found the body of a woman last night. her head... is missing. [ stirring music playing throughout ] who does he leave the snowmen for? this killer is completely insane. [ gasp ] [ distorted voice ] i gave you all the clues. you could have saved her. he's been watching us the whole time. no. [ screaming ] [ distorted voice ] this is just the beginning. [ screaming ] the snowman.

the good life comes from the moments you live, not the things you own. ♪ if you've got the time welcome to the high life. ♪ we've got the beer ♪ ♪ miller beer ♪ we cthen we are toldrld it's braver to go it alone. ♪ that independence is the way to accomplish. ♪ but there is another way to live. ♪

a way that sees the only path to fulfillment- is through others. ♪ that our time here can be deep beyond measure. ♪ no one who chose interdependence ever found despair. ♪ because what the world taught as weakness, is in fact our greatest virtue. ♪

witness katy perry. witness katy perry become a legal witness. witness katy perry and left shark. or a card shark. grandma? witness katy perry work. witness katy perry firework. witness katy perry swish. witness katy perry... aaaaaaw look at that dog! katy perry: with music videos and behind the scenes footage, xfinity lets you witness all things me. so as a country, we do not have a health secretary and do not have a secretary of homeland

security anymore. we haven't had one since july when the head of home land security left that job because the white house chief of staff got fired and he got that guy's job. kind of been like that. the acting director of homeland security is elaine duke. >> the relief effort is under control. it is proceeding very well the response today has been phenomenal. it has been strong today and we got committed to continue making it, keeping it strong until recovery is complete. the feedback from the governor, the mayor of san juan has been positive. i know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people. >> the mayor of san juan is carmen julian cruz. administration should stop citing her as back up for assertions how great they are

doing. >> maybe from where she's standing it's a good news story. when you're drinking from a creek, it's not a good news 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 -- i'm sorry, that upsets me and frustrates me. dam it, this is not a good news story. this is people are dying story. this is a life or death story. this is there is a truckload of stuff that cannot be taken to people story. this is a story of a devastation that continues to worsen because people are not getting food and water. >> the mayor of puerto rico's largest city has been sounding the alarm all week long. today she very clearly hit her limit. >> we are dying here. and i cannot fathom the thought

that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out logistics for a small island of 100 miles by 35 miles long. so mayday, we are in trouble. fema asks for documentation. i think we've given them enough documentation. and they have the gal this morning morning, look at this, look at this. they think that weighs enough? they have the gul 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 were up to the task when ebola came over. from africa. 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 and the bureaucracy.

we will make it with or without you because what stands behind me is all due to the generosity of other people. again, this is what we got last night, four palates of water, three palates of meals and three -- 12 pallets of infant food, which i gave them where people are drinking off a creek. so i am done being polite. i am done being politically correct. i am mad as hell. because my people's lives are at stake. and we are but one nation. we may be small but we are huge in dignity and zealous for life.

i'm asking the members of the press to send a mayday call all over the world. we are dying here. and if we don't stop and if we don't get the food and water into people's hands, what we are going to see is something close to a genocide. so mr. trump,, i beg you to take charge and save lives. after all, that is one of the founding principles of the united states of north america.

if not the world will see how we are treated not as second class citizens but as animals that can be disposed of. enough is enough. >> day nine of this crisis. mayor carmen cruz. after safer we ev

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for 3.5 million americans, this is their second week living in darkness. wondering when food, water and fuel they need will arrive. tuesday tuesday the mayor of san juan, the mayor told us the dire situation specifically inside hospitals and puerto rico's capital city, people needing to be evacuated out of nursing homes that were going day after day after day with no power, no running water and ability to provide food to patients and despite what are now insistent references from this administration and president how great the rescue effort is going, the reality on the ground is different and there is nobody trying to sound the alarm louder than the mayor of san juan. mayor cruz, i know you have a million things to do and places to be.

thank you for helping us understand tonight. >> thank you for helping us get the voice out and have some connection between what is said and the reality of what people are living in the streets and hospitals and in their homes. >> you told us earlier this week on tuesday that the problems seem to be the chain of command. seemed to be bureaucracy. not that there wasn't supplies in puerto rico and people that seemed like capable people willing to help, it seemed there was no plan or organization that allowed things to get to people that needed them. how has that improved at all? >> no, it hasn't actually and gotten worse. yesterday i got the visit from the mayor very late at night asking me if i had any leftovers that he could have for his people that were drinking from a creek. today i got a mayday call from two different neighboring mayors

saying look, we have gone to the fema distribution centers and we get there and they gave us one palate. the water or they tell us, we have nothing to give you, please call us next week. the other thing is they are asking people to -- you're not going to believe this. everybody knows the power grid is down so internet connection is almost null. they are asking people if they want to be, you know, just helped by fema to register via internet or to call. well, for heaven's sake, what don't you understand like we don't have any power, so our internet connection is limited. there is such a thing, there is a marine corps, you adapt, imp -- improvise, you overcome it seems simple. if you do not have internet, don't ask people to register using internet. you adapt and you do a different way so they said well,

everything is going according to the plan. well, maybe when you're sitting in air conditioning everything is going to plan. today i had to rant and rave and thank the region manager for helping because i was still getting questions from fema of what are my priorities? it seems simple. you save lives with food and water and medical supplies it doesn't seem like the most powerful nation in the world to be incapable of just having in the 100 by 35 mile long the ability to just put fuel into hospitals and i was told hospitals have to request to be put on the list for heaven's sake. >> wow. >> there is a list of all the hospitals in puerto rico. you just don't have time for any of those. it appalling. you know why, rachel? it a disconnect to the reality of the heart of the american

people. i lived in boston. i lived in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. i gave birth there. i know the american people are brave people. they are whole hearted people and just charge when something is not wrong, they invented when you have to move it, you move it. when you have to go around it, you go around it. i have no idea why this is going on and there is a disconnect between what the fema people are saying is happening and what the mayors and the people in the towns know that is happening so i was promised tomorrow from mr. john raven himself, miraculously, i was told i would get two containers of food and water and low and behold after i ranted and raved, i got a lot more. but do you know what? that's not the way things should happen -- they're scared. >> when you say you ranted and raved mayor, i'm sorry to

interrupt you, you're saying you had to pay cash to rent a semi tractor, an 18-wheeler to move containers? >> no, i moved some of the containers. i said -- i screamed and shouted literally and said, you know, my people are dying here. what do you want to do? we have given fema piles and piles of information but you got to fill out this form and fill out the other form and, you know, i understand there is a process but there are lives at stake. when you are at war, let me see if i can land the plane to rescue somebody. no, you land the field. you land in the baseball parking whatever needs to be done, you do it. there seems to be in this emergency management, a lot of management and very little sense of emergency. >> the one thing that i saw today that made me feel like there was a change in the organizational approach to this,

mayor, was that the army started to send out releases about dispatching teams by helicopter into far flung towns. obviously the army took control of the relief effort as of today. have you seen evidence of change because of the army taking over? are you hopeful about that? >> not today. i'm hopeful that the logistics the army is providing in this humanitarian mission is going to provide for much-needed relief and also for the continuing of this relief. you can't just feed people one time a day, one day a week. you have to do it continuously. we are hopeful as we are and we keep pushing on. we keep seeing communities come together and just doing a lot of the cleanup themselves or cooking for 400 people and so forth. we keep getting people from different counties and cities and mayor of boston, the mayor of columbus, ohio. they are reaching out and saying

mayor, what do you need and whatever i get, i will share with the rest of the municipalities in puerto rico because we're just one. we're just one. and we're doing -- giving an s.o.s. this is for you. i'll give this to production because you've been very helpful in getting out the s.o.s. call for everybody and making sure that our voices are heard so we thank you very much for that. >> san juan mayor carmen cruz. thank you for talking to us. please keep us apprised and tell us what else people need to know and take good care of yourself. you're doing a lot of work, you got to make it through this, too. >> thank you very much. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. when you have a cold...

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whentrust the brand doctors trust for themselves. nexium 24hr is the number one choice of doctors and pharmacists for their own frequent heartburn. and all day all night protection. when it comes to frequent heartburn, trust nexium 24hr. sorry. i need to make a correction from the top of the show. it's friday. there was one whole night this week i didn't get sleep because my back hurt and i got the knock where you're not really tired the next day but the day after. sorry. so that's my excuse. here is what i screwed up. i said at the top of the show that when the veterans' affairs chief went to wimbledon this year, serena williams was playing in the final. here is what i have to correct. the veterans affairs chief and his wife did take a taxpayer funded 10 day trip that included four different palaces and a tour of westminster abby and a river cruise and canal cruise and

four straight days of no scheduled events on their vation -- trip -- veteran secretary did on this taxpayer funded trip with his wife to europe, he did go to wimbledon where he did see a championship match and it was the ladies' final and it was one of the williams sister in the final but it wasn't serena. it was venus. and i need to watch more tennis, clearly. my mistake. my apologies. very sorry. we'll be right back. americans, 83% try to eat healthy, yet up to 90% fall short on getting key nutrients.

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tais really quite simple.est it comes in the mail, you pull out the tube and you spit in it, which is something southern girls are taught you're not supposed to do. you seal it and send it back and then you wait for your results. it's that simple.

their response was frankly inadequate on almost every level. >> mark warner is the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee among a lot of lawmakers who emerged from much herolded private meetings with twitter executives yesterday to pronounce themselves disatisfied about the russian activity on twitter during our presidential election last year. well, today twitter defended their conduct in response to this criticism from congress. they said today the congressional committees hadn't actually requested any specific information from us. like, i know you guys didn't get what you wanted but we didn't know what you wanted. we already knew from reporting in the wall street journal and elsewhere twitter's limited disclosures angered investigators but tonight have a detail to report about why congressional investigators were so annoyed. a source familiar with twitter's

presentation on capitol hill yesterday tells us that twitter did disclose to investigators that there were roughly 200 twitter accounts active during the election that have been linked to russian actors. that seems like a low number. well, congressional investigators are annoyed about is twitter didn't discover those twitter accounts themselves. facebook did and so they just got that information from facebook. and what is worse, twitter did not come prepared to tell congress anything about those fake accounts used by the russians at all. according to our source when twitter executives turned up with great fanfare to brief on what they discovered how russia used their platform during the presidential election, twitter executives would not provide lawmakers with the names of any of these accounts they now say were linked to russia. nor would they describe any of the content that was spread by any of those accounts.

so then who cares, right? as the wall street journal reported, people close to twitter say the company is months behind facebook in determining the scope of both -- bot activity. on its social network. they are behind facebook? facebook is only barely admitting that russia was operating on their platform at all. anybody who was observing anything having to do with the american political election last year knows from experience an truth there were plenty of bots and identifiable fake accounts that were absolutely messing with everybody's streams of information both on facebook and twitter. facebook and twitter appear to be complete he convince that we're going to have no serious questions about why that happened and they appear to have done almost no work on their own behalf to help investigators understand how their platforms were used as the scenes of a

significant crime. the question is why they don't care. joining us now is georgia well reported for the wall street journal. >> i don't know about the internal guts of how they see their rights clashing with investigators here. but it seems twitter appears to have had no information about russian activity to hand over to congress. >> i think it has to be uncomfortable. one thing to keep in mind, twitter thinks of its constituency as broader than the u.s. and capitol hill. they see it as a place for people to anonymously share their opinions. i think they care about the

privacy of the users on the platform where at the same time there's a allegation they were actors attempting to interfere with the american political process. i think this is a point where in many minds i think the privacy concerns of these foreign act ifs will be outweighed by the american, you know, political concerns. and i think this is the equation that twitter is having a hard time with. >> if -- it's one thing if we're talking about individual anonymous speech rights and how twitter engages with those. in this case it seems to be the conclusion of intelligence agencies that twitter wasn't used by individual actors to express unpopular opinions, it was used as a venue for state sponsored actions that were run by foreign governments to effectively illegally influence a american election using large

scale approaches to their platform, automated approaches to their platform. given that's clear even from a distance, even if you're nowhere near that company, you can see that because we experienced what that was like during the campaign. why is twitter months behind facebook in your estimation in terms of sorting this out? >> yeah. we've reported that people close to twitter say that -- their understanding of the problem is months behind facebook. but i think also twitter would point out that they have shared more information now than they've ever shared on it previously including data and the longest blog post they've ever written about it. >> i love that they're bragging about the length of their blog post like we're supposed to marvel at its height. >> i think i've been caught

somewhat flat footed which is hard to understand since these concerns emerged months and months ago after the election. i think the understanding of the problem among tech companies has changed a bit. we've seen this with facebook where right after the election, mark zuckerberg made a comment that misinformation on facebook could have influence the election is crazy and now he's rolling that back. he's saying he shouldn't have dismissed those concerns because these issues are far too serious. it will be interesting to see how their understanding of this evolves. >> and if it evolves in time for investigators to catch the bad guys. we'll be right back. we come into this world needing others.

then we are told it's braver to go it alone. ♪ that independence is the way to accomplish. ♪ but there is another way to live. ♪ a way that sees the only path to fulfillment- is through others. ♪ that our time here can be deep beyond measure. ♪ no one who chose interdependence ever found despair. ♪ because what the world taught as weakness, is in fact our greatest virtue. ♪ it's easy-drinking... it's refreshing...

♪ if you've got the time ♪ it's what american lager was born to be. ♪ we've got the beer. ♪ welcome to the high life. ♪ miller beer.

we first learned something was wrong two months ago when cbs radio found something worrying sounding but also sort of too vague to worry about. cbs said american diplomats in cuba reporting, quote, incidents which have caused a variety of physical symptoms. oh, incidents. a variety of symptoms, do you say? that was all the information we got in that initial report. cbs radio definitely had the scoop but raised a lot more questions than it did even worries. it wasn't clear what the injuries were and our government, the state department, was the opposite of forthcoming on this matter. we have since learned and not from the state department that the mysterious attacks have injured more than 20 americans and the effects serious, ranging from permanent hearing loss to mild traumatic brain injury.

we have no ideas how these injuries were inflicted and some of the attack occurred at diplomats' residences and cuban hotels. and we know that the cuban government are adamant they're not behind the attacks and they've offered to let the fbi come to cuba and investigate. cuban government is not in that habit. we know the fbi has been down to cuba to investigate and reportedly visit the home of diplomats and reviewed security footage but apparently, didn't detect anything suspicious. and this is interesting. they were also unable to duplicate in a lab anything that would cause the symptoms that diplomats have experienced in cuba. so we know these incidents started in the fall of last year and then stopped for a while and then this summer, apparently, they picked up again. the most recent reportedly happened in late august. and we know all of that stuff from reporting, not from our government, not from the state department. they've been tight lipped an

unhelpful in providing any real details about exactly what's going on. today, even though the state department is not sharing much of what's happening in cuba, they did take a big dramatic step. they announced they're pulling about 60% of the u.s. embassy staff out of the embassy of the united states and cuba. about 50 americans working at the havana embassy and the only ones to stay behind now are so-called essential staff, people there just to carry out emergency services. the state department has also announced they'll stop processing visas in cuba indefinitely. as of monday, no more visas issued. from the embassy in havana. warning americans against traveling to cuba saying, quote, we are unable to identify the source of the attacks. so this is a very strange story. the administration has not blamed cuba for the attacks. as of now, there appears to be no evidence of culpability that we know of by any particular country or actor, by cuba or

anybody else. it's just a really weird spooky mystery whatever has been happening to u.s. diplomats in cuba and some of the injuries they've sustained are serious and some are permanent. today's actions would have been a big step for the state department to have taken towards cuba in general in normal circumstances but it's a giant leap given no one will really explain what's going on here. we still have the state department's general reluctance. to say if they're continuing now. how they're investigating it and don't know why they've taken this big set of dramatic new measures. did they learn something new? just got around to the stuff they meant to do before? imagine if one of your family members is one of those state department people left behind, how do you feel about that? is the state department ensuring they're safety? it was weird with cuba or some

other government was attacking american diplomats but without any explanation, it's just weird. it's just weird. lots of unanswered questions. >> every single thing about this administration's hemispheric relations is strange, i have to say. >> you know, we have the mayor of san juan on tonight and she was talking about the, having so much admiration for the u.s. response in haiti. talking about the u.s. being able to display incredible capacity for dealing with something like the patient earthquake, for all the trouble there, i envy that response. >> it's heartbreaking listening to her speak on your show and that long sound bite of what she said earlier today. it's heartbreaking as an american to see this happening. >> absolutely bizarre. thank you so much, rachel. >> have a great weekend. donald trump says tom price is a good man and the trump administration is