hour." thank you for watching. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c., and we begin with breaking news. the president tweeting just moments ago that he has accepted the resignation of epa administrator scott pruitt. the subject of almost daily headlines highlighting one eyebrow raising ethical violation after another. the president sending pruitt off with praise tweeting, quote, within the agency scott has done an outstanding job and i will always be thankful to him for this. the senate confirmed deputy at epa andrew wheeler will on monday assume duties as the acting administrator of the epa. i have no doubt that andy will continue on with our great and lasting epa agenda. we have made tremendous progress and the future of the e palomino, a is very bright. mr. pruitt is the subject of at least 13 -- 13 federal investigations and a government watch dog agency concluded he had broken the law with his purchase of a $43,000 secure

telephone booth. he was also under investigation for his 2017 lease of a bedroom in a condominium linked to a canadian energy company's powerful washington lobbying firm. and for accusations that he demoted or sidelined epa employees who questioned his actions. nbc's hans nichols joins us from the white house along with "the new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker and with us on set careen john pierre senior advisor to move on.org and michael steel, former chairman of the rnc. hans, let's start with you. this news not surprising, but it seemed to take a crush of negative press for donald trump to push out someone with clear flagrant blatant and repeated ethical problems. >> ethical problems, ethical challenges, however you want to couch it, nicolle. it was clear that scott pruitt was causing problems for the trump administration. the only real question was how was he able to last for so long. and the answer to that was always that president donald trump really liked what he was

doing in dismantling the regulatory state and environmental protections. inside conservative movements, inside conservative circles scott pruitt was a hero, he was a champion. he was undoing a lot of the regulations of the obama administration. you heard the president in that tweet flick at that when he said he'd done an excellent job at the epa. fundamentally, trump wanted the epa to change the way business and the environment interact and he got that, even though scott pruitt is resigning today, his legacy will last for generations. and just quickly, nicolle, i'm doing my back of the envelope tabulation here. i count 12 senior officials that have left the trump administration in the first 19 months. four of them cabinet officials. we've had two national security advisors, veterans affairs, hhs. this is yet another departure and we're not even through the first two years. nicolle? >> peter baker, they all seem to come down in or around the 4:00 hour. so i think that was the same number i came up with. can you just take us through the role of chief of staff john

kelly who was also rumored to be on his way out? that this was one of the items on his to-do list, to purge the trump administration of scott pruitt before he leaves. >> yeah, he's been unhappy about scott pruitt's long lasting tenure despite all the ethics and investigations for quite sometime. you know, he had been said, according to people in the white house, to understand that he was on the way out, but that he wasn't going to leave until he had gotten scott pruitt out of there. he thought it was an embarrassment obviously to the administration, a distraction from the things they wanted to accomplish. it's hard to envision another administration where you had a similar official beset not by one, two, three, five, ten, 13 ethics investigations now, his supporters will probably say some of those are trumped up by his opponents. the sheer weight of it is pretty unusual in washington for somebody to survive that long. john kelly has very little sway or thought -- had very little sway left in this white house, but evidently, if -- it looks

like he was listened to one last time at least. >> michael steel, it wasn't just democrats investigating scott pruitt's conduct. the very conservative tip of the spear when it comes to the president's war on d.o.j. and the fbi, trey gowdy also got in on the investigate pruitt for his 13 ethical lapses game. while democrats have criticized mr. pruitt since his nomination in recent months, even conservative republicans had taken the unusual step of questioning his ethics. representative trey gowdy, of south carolina and house oversight committee started an velgs into pruitt's actions at the epa. the first such republican led inquiry into a trump cabinet member. it's almost like a joke, how bad do you have to be for the lemmings in congress to investigate you. this is how bad you have to be. you have to be scott pruitt bad. >> you have to be scott pruitt bad and clearly the number is 13. we now know what the number is. >> we have a floor. >> we have a floor. thank god, we have a floor. >> we do.

>> and so here's the thing that is so amusing and amazing about all of this, nicolle, is that scott pruitt didn't care and neither did donald trump to get to 13. let's not overlook that. thank you. >> he's not getting pushed out because he was corrupt. >> exactly. >> he's not getting pushed out because there were 13. he's not getting pushed out because he was weird enough to wear tactical pants in a phone booth. he's getting pushld out because he was getting bad pr for donald trump. >> as we were talking before, the president said you're getting way too much press now. >> above me. so here's the list. we put this up. so he ordered raises for two aides despite the white house rejecting the request. he spent $3 million of taxpayer funds on a security detail. biometric locks were installed in his office door. i don't know what that means. came under fire for renting the bedroom. how do you spend $43,000 on a private phone booth? i see the ones at the airport.

jabber box. they couldn snl couldn't makeup a skit -- >> reading this, what is wrong with him? i think the thing, too, is that how, like how did it take so long? in any -- i know we're talking about we found the floor, but in any regular administration, whether it's a republican or democratic presidential administration, he would have been gone a long time ago. what i do want to say, he is the swamp. but the cabinet itself of the trump administration is problematic. you have interior secretary, the education secretary, you have the commerce secretary. i'm sure i'm missing one so somewhere there. and they are a walking conflict of interest. they are a walking ethical black hole. he was just the worst of the worst. >> hans, it's a good point. you cover the pentagon and the white house for us, but you look at h.r. mcmaster, arguably a man of significantly greater

character, credential and honor than scott pruitt. he got pushed out before scott pruitt did. it's remarkable. >> he apparently didn't have the touch with the president. in a lot of ways mcmaster didn't lead to the president the decisions the president already wanted. and that's what scott pruitt did so masterfully. he told president trump according to all kinds of reporting the regulatory state is harming business. it's holding back animal spirits and that resonated with donald trump. just real quickly andrew wheeler who will be acting, leon caldwell sent an interesting notah round. he was confirmed, 53-45. the new epa acting administrator is a former lawyer and lobbyist for the coal industry. previously he was chief of staff, andrew wheeler, for center enhoff in oklahoma. a big climate change i don't want to sigh r say deny error s. it is in the mold ideological of scott pruitt. we'll see if he's in the same mode ethically. nicolle? >> peter baker, you and your

colleagues have been reporting on scott pruitt for longer than just about anybody. and scott pruitt was interesting because he was president just doing donald trump's bidding at epa. he was a very ambitious politician in his own right and there is some reporting in recent weeks that has bubbled out, he thought he was ascend ant in donald trump's orbit. he was on such good standing with the president that he -- it's been reported he pitched himself as the next attorney general should jeff sessions not go the distance. >> it's pretty remarkable, right? he did not seem to be a man who thought his footing was about to slip. he thought he was on the way up. you know, he told the president, supposedly, that you should get rid of jeff sessions. if you do get rid of jeff segsz, i'm happy to step in there. he of course had been the attorney general of oklahoma. >> a guy under 13 investigations thought he was a good fit to run the justice department. i mean, where are we? we're like at the bottom of alice and wonder land's -- where

are we? >> that will certainly take care of some of the investigations, right? might as well be the guy in charge of the investigating department if you're going to be under so many of them. it's a remarkable thing. it tells you a lot about his attitude and his view of himself. all these scandals, in fact, a lot of them anyway indicate somebody who had a great deal of self-regard, somebody who thought he was entitled to not just first class air service and a $43,000 phone booth or what have you. he thought he was entitled to be the attorney general of the united states. that's the job he wanted when he came to washington. i think he only took this one thinking it would be a stepping stone to that one. he even harbored, some people said, ambitions of running for president of the united states. this is not somebody who came here with a head down determined to do a job quietly and industriously, but somebody who thought he was a rising star and now, of course, that star has fallen. >> it's such a remarkable disgrace for republicans who

with the rare exception of what we just read about trey gowdy, looked the other way. i'm old enough to remember as are you when republicans used to not tolerate this from democrats or from members of their own party. it's really a disgrace that scott pruitt went unmolested and, you know, uninvestigated -- >> nicolle, it starts at the top. and the reason republicans in the past have had more of a backbone around these things is that they've had an administration that did not obstruct or expressed words other than, well, he's doing a great job. so let's leave him in. so that's the truth of it. you have a situation where republicans on the hill are so beholden to the shadow and the tweets and the inklings of this administration that their legislative independence is more than compromised. it does not exist. and i think that for a lot of people looking, going into this november and beyond, a lot of

voters are assessing that. what kind of check is there on this administration with respect to individuals like this cabinet member, or the president himself? not seeing any, the question becomes will the public put one in place. >> i want to stay with you on this. it is remarkable. it wasn't pressure from congress -- >> no. >> it was a crush of negative press. we put up a wall last week or earlier this week of all the bad headlines. and no doubt, it was the president feeling -- the president at his core is thin skinned and vain. this was somebody making him look bad, making him look foolish. this guy was a dope. he wanted a phone booth, wore tactical pants. i had to google what that was. this guy was freaky. >> he was doing and sailing things that were well beyond donald trump himself. trump was out there -- >> unethical. >> he was crazy. this was like a whole new level. and i think people starting with the president, started to get a little bit uncomfortable, as odd

as that is to say, 13 investigations into it. you're right, i think it was the headlines. you know what i think also kind of tweaked this a little bit? citizens coming out now and sort of expressing their concern about this. and even among some in that republican base that has been so beholden to the president, there were some cracks beginning because they saw a bigger picture in which this could not be tolerated. >> legalities' look at the president defending him then we'll get your thoughts. >> scott pruitt is doing a great job within the walls of the epa. we're setting records. outside he's being attacked very viciously by the press. and i'm not saying that he's blameless, but we'll see what happens. >> that was just less than a month ago, the president standing by his man. he already had the phone booth, 13 investigations, tactical pants. >> that list. i think one of the things that turned the tide as well was fox news. when you have laura ingraham and

others on fox news which we know -- yes, that's the crack in the base. we know donald trump watches fox news. it's an addiction for him. once you have that, the constant, well, pruitt needs to resign. he's the swamp. he's the swamp. and he saw that and he internalized that and took it in. we have to remember, where did we get all of this information? we got this information, a lot of it, from his own staff in epa. they were just tired of -- >> it's a great point, though. hans, if you could weigh in, there are other -- it's funny, when you cover donald trump, there are always fox headlines. it's like a subbeat. the other fox headline isn't that laura ingraham represented a crack in the base as corrine said, but also that former fox news president bill shine is a brand-new assistant to the president, deputies chief of staff overseeing all coms and press at this white house. >> you know how important titles are at the white house. if you're deputy chief of staff, i don't mean mere -- >> no insult, right.

>> clearly you and peter would be well equipped to talk about this. when carl rove was deputy chief of staff in the tail end of the bush administration, there were many republicans who thought he had too much power. having a deputy chief of staff in charge of coms empowers that person, the third most important person in the white house, accelerates and greases the palomino pipeline to the fox news and to the conservative right wing media outlets so the echo chamber going to echo louder. it's clear that heading into 2018 they're going to try to amplify that echo chamber and they're going to be talking to their base. i think that's crucial when we look forward at what way president trump is going to go on a supreme court nomination. he's going to be talking to his base. just one quick note, guys. the epa administrator, former epa administrator, he was here last night at the white house on the south lawn watching the fireworks. i want to figure out just when he submitted his resignation and when it was accepted. was it before, was it after the fireworks, was it on his way

out? did he come to work this morning thinking he still had a job? tell peter baker, get to work on your tick to be. >> peter baker, do you have anything to add to that? you're on the receiving end of a lot of your tick tocks. you'll have the answer at the end of the day. >> hans is a great assignment editor. we'll try to get these answers. it's exactly right. what was the precipitating event, what was the hammer that finally fell. my colleagues who have been reporting on this stuff a long time came out with the story shortly before this dropped about, you know, a scheduler who was fired because she questioned deletions from his schedule that she thought might be illegal. that's just one more drip, drip, drip of all of these investigations that were coming on. but you can imagine inside the white house, there was a feeling that this is just not going to end until they finally pull the plug. we'll have to get working on that tick tock, hans, as soon as we know. >> go ahead. hans.

>> was he wearing tactical pants? that's your lead. he buckled his tactical pants. >> it's bleak. >> somebody with tactical pants in washington. >> let me add as long as we're pulling back the curtain tick tocks on assignment editors, we will had scott pruitt so many days, he was bumped out because of other breaking news. scott pruitt benefited from all the chaos either around the russia investigation or the white house itself. do you think, peter that gave him a little more cover to sort of survive in trump world even with -- everything you cite is in and of itself sort of a front page scandal in any other white house. democratic or republican. >> oh, certainly. yeah, time price in this white house, secretary of health and human services was bounced for a whole lot less. he took some expensive plane flights. the president said i can't put up with that and he was out. scott pruitt, for some reason, manage today hold on a lot longer. maybe because as you say other things kept coming up.

maybe his brash style appealed to the president. maybe because the president resented, as a lot of presidents do, the chattering class, including us, seechlting to tmi him what to do. scott pruitt lasted longer than anybody i can imagine in similar circumstances ever has. the thing that's amazing, our friend martha kumar, nicolle, you know martha quite well, scholar studies these things. 61% of the people closest around the president have left since he took office. the same figure, your administration, george w. bush administration, 5%. this is a white house that has been, you know, just bleeding people because of all sorts of reasons. ethical things like this. conflicts, tribal rivalries, volatile president, what have you. and it's a remarkable thing to think about how administration does business with that kind of constant churn, constant, you know, dysfunction. >> peter, let me get you on the record with the other headline coming out of the white house

today about bill shine joining the senior staff. i was told by a senior white house official that the president used him as a pieer. this title deputy chief of staff was given to him because the president views him as hans reported, as one of the key members of his team now. and that it is a job much bigger than the one i held. it is bigger than overseeing communications in press. it is to be one of the deciders, if you will, to recycle a bush era term, and to help this president run the white house, run the government. we joked over the last few months it's not state-run media on fox news, it's fox run news in the west wing seems to be a proof point in that theory. >> he's the first to graduate from fox to the white house. obviously larry kudlow had been on fox, obviously john bolton had been on fox. we've said again and again, the president sees the world through the lens of fox television. bill shine is seen as a peer, that is the intent of that

title. as you know, you and hans are right. this is not what you normally do with a communications director to elevate them to this title of deputy chief of staff. how much it really makes a difference, we don't know. this is a president who thinks he's his own best communications director. hasn't had one now in several months. this is the 6th or seventh person to fill that role in this white house because the other ones never quite lasted for one reason or another. so we'll see how this works. and perhaps he has a larger, more strategic role that will really bear itself out. there is some talk about whether he might in fact be there to sort of bolster -- now that john kelly in theory might be on his way out, that he could be somebody who will help then run the operation. we'll see. you know, this is a white house where nothing is predictable except for the fact that nothing is predictable. >> all right. joining us by phone on the breaking news this hour, the epa administrator scott pruitt has resigned, the president has accepted his resignation, is msnbc's chris hayes, host of all-in. he's been following the pruitt story closely with almost daily

updates. chris, your thoughts? >> i mean, the first thought is it's gratifying that there is some accountability for the kind of behavior that he showed. that i think -- >> do you think that's what this is, though? is this accountability for behavior? is this punishment for getting bad press for the president? >> well, you know what -- oh, it's almost certainly the latter. i mean, the behavior, no, but i do think it does strike me as important that there was a universe that i saw as we would do the story night after night after night after night, and it was not the same story t would always be a new story about some possibly petty thing this cabinet secretary was up to. he was going to kind of sort of steal it out the president had a rapport with him because he thinks the press is fake news. and then eventually go away, he'd resign after two years, go back to oklahoma and try to run for office. and i think these conditions make that impossible. i think he has now resigned in

disgrace. i think there is a kind much cross-ideological consensus what he was up to was totally unacceptable. there is some basic good news here. i mean, the system, you know, the wheels of justice turn slow, but they grind exceedingly fine. this is a very slow wheel turning, but it does matter to me that the kinds of flagrant abuses of public trust do end up in some way producing this result. >> and what do you think about, about john kelly, chief of staff john kelly's role in this? it's been reported in multiple news organizations that this was something that he wanted to get done before he leaves and the "wall street journal" and others have reported that john kelly is likely to depart his post as white house chief of staff at some point this summer. what role do you think kelly played and how much of his remaining capital did he use to get pruitt out? >> you know, i believe the reporting that kelly has been working on this, but i also feel like it has been clearly the case for several months now that he has very little say over what

happens in that white house. i mean -- and i think it's frankly a bigger deal than kelly is -- laura ingraham, we were talking about this being state-run media. a lot of people in the conservative movement right, a lot of folks, we ran an interview on tuesday night with the whistleblower kevin who was at epa who served as a body man, advance man in the campaign of the president. we sent a truck to his house and he did the interview in a room where he had trump signs up behind him in the shot. wanting to make very clear at the top that he was a 100% supporter of the president and thought scott pruitt was serving him poorly. i think ultimately that may have played as billing as role as anything. you have people that are massive supporters of the president turning against the guy in terms of the way to donald trump's heart or the way to persuade him, that has anything as big an

effect as anything happening in the white house. >> you chalk this up to the base busting element of pruitt's negative press which wasn't just unethical. it bordered on weird. we were talking about his affinity for tactical pants. something i had to google. you probably know about them. his installation of a $43,000 phone booth. the only thing i can attach to the image of that, those little booths at laguardia you can go in and make a phone call. the guy wasn't just corrupt, he was weird. >> that's a great point. he what corrupt and weird and i think kind of pathetic. that's the other thing we know about the psychology of the president. he's got this obsession with sort of projections of strength and he likes generals because they project strength. this is a guy who seems desperate. i don't know his financial situation. his behavior is someone in a desperate straits. you would get into office as cabinet secretary of the epa and have your taxpayer fund assistant call the ceo of

chick-fil-a to hook your wife up with a chick-fil-a franchise is insane. that's like one of 40 sort of similar kind of things. >> we have a list. we're going to put it back up while you're talking. it's a good point. i've got nothing but love for chick-fil-a, but i have never heard of anybody using a government post to try to get one for their wife. he put out a rather pathetic resignation letter. we got this from scott pruitt who signs off as your faithful friend. he's playing the victim card. the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family are unprecedented and have taken a sizeable toll on us. i'm sorry, so were the unprecedented ethical lapses. so was the bizarre conduct. so was sort of the paranoia of someone wanting, you know, bullet proof doors and biometric locks. this guy wasn't just attacked by the press for his policy making, which was controversial at best, almost outside the mainstream even of conservative sort of

anti-climate denying -- being a climate denier. but it was far from being a vick it will of negative press. i said before that many days there were headlines from the white house that pushed scott pruitt off our run down. you did a much better job staying folk used on the story than a lot of others. he was far from a victim of bad headlines. he was a victim of his own corruption. >> two things have to be said here. first of all, that many of the complaints and much of the information we learned came from people at the upper echelons of e palomino, epa who were not civil servants, who were political appointees of the united states and trump supporters who shared the agenda, probably shared the denial of the climate crisis and watched this person conduct himself in such a abjectly horrifying way that this he were basically duty bound to talk to people about it. it was clearly shocking and abhorrent to everyone around

him, even those that shared his political projects, number one. and number two, when you look into his history in oklahoma -- you've been around state houses, nicolle. i've done some reporting in state politics. there is a level of sort of -- you want to talk about the swamp, right? go out to a lobbyist bar in a state capital and sort of watch the interactions between, you know, the people looking for favors, the folks that are in state government, and we know that there was a kind of pattern here established in oklahoma before he came to washington with much of a scrutiny that both up in terms of his brazenness when he came to washington and also there is a level of scrutiny that would not let that stuff fly. >> chris hayes, part of your legacy will be never letting up on the pruitt story. you are vindicated $today. we'll be watching at 8:00. chris hayes. there is a good point he was making, he was so bad it wasn't just republicans like you and me

who were critical. it was people inside -- not even inside the trump base, not even just, you know, part of the echo chamber, laura ingraham. it was people on scott pruitt's staff who told the story of scott pruitt's freaky behavior and his ethical lapses. and what may turnout to be violations of law. >> i think to chris's point, the key thing about that and what's interesting is that you're talking about these public servants, all right, who were brought in by the administration, by the president, to serve out the president's agenda on climate change and a whole host of other issues before the epa. so they were dedicate today that go -- dedicated to that goal and that principle, only to watch it beside lined by the swamp and the scandal and the $43,000 phone booths. and for a lot of them, again, going back to the point about the floor. the floor approached them very quickly because what was happening was despite some successes, they were getting bogged down. and so they started to report

out these narratives because they wanted to push scott pruitt out. even though the president was firm in keeping him because scott was doing exactly what he wanted done. >> is there a lesson for democrats here? is it that even the sort of policies that are out of the mainstream, you can't do anything about that. there is too much of that. but it's the corruption, stupid, is that the new it's the economy stupid? >> i think we've seen that already as election data has shown us that the democrat -- the base has been energized and a lot of that is that, the corruption, it is very much anti-trump even though we need to run on other things than trump. there is part of that where the base is just gined up. we saw that last year. we haven't seen that since the 2016 election. there is that. the one thing i do want to say about scott pruitt is he's always been weird. if you go back to oklahoma, we just -- he's on the national stage that we're seeing this now. but there were signs, clear signs when he was going through his hearing, there were questionable things about him. it just blew up and exploded as

the secretary. >> i think what's critical about that point is taking that history from oklahoma and bringing it into washington. the one thing that gave him the most runway was the fact that he could get away with all of that as long as he was doing what the president wanted done. >> exactly. >> we played that clip from less than a month ago. >> so that was the key thing for him. what he did not expect was the bubble up inside his own ranks. not just the folks downstream, the permanent staff at the epa, but those other appointees coming in the door who are sitting there going, dude, this is just like really crazy, and pushing back against that. >> the way he ran his politics was, if i get along with the president, if he likes me, i'm good. >> which is pretty sound. and gunning jeff sessions' job, the inverse is true, if you get aside from the president, your own conduct with russia, you're -- let me go back to hands nichols who has reaction

on the resignation of scott pruitt from the epa. >> the sad part of this, i don't want to read this verbatim because i don't want to look down at my notes. he wassant brought down by the little sleazy acts of corruption. this is according to the white house. but because of his unrelenting support for the coal industry. i think what you're getting at and starting to hear from capitol hill is a recognition that the policy will remain the same, especially with andrew wheeler. the sort of pro-coal core of what the trump administration wants to do on the environment isn't going to change and you're starting to see congressional democrats realizing that while, yes, they have a bit of a victory with scott pruitt resigning, but they don't have a fundamental policy change and that's not going to happen until there is an election. nicolle? >> peter baker, it's a great point. there will be no shift in environmental policy with this handing of the baton from pruitt to wheeler. there may be, we never know with trump appointees, but there may be a lessening of the corruption

and the ethical scandals. is that a fair assessment? >> look, absolutely. andrew wheeler, deputy filling in for the time being, shares scott pruitt's philosophy about regulation. he thinks the government is doing it when it comes to regulation. he will continue the same policies scott pruitt was trying to put into place. if you're a conservative in some ways this is a victory for you, too, because this means you can have your policies that you want without the distraction and the political flack that scott pruitt was drawing in. and, in fact, you know, it removes from the democrats, you know, a convenient and easy target because he had become such an obvious lightning rod for controversy. it presumably allows the epa to get down to the things that donald trump wants it to do without quite so much attention paid to it. >> let me bridge into the conversation former u.s. attorney joyce vance. joyce, we were going to talk about other things. this news broke before we came on the air. i'd like to get your thoughts on the line between not just --

we've been talking about some of the conduct that's weird. but the ethical lapses were more than just improper use of federal resources. there are some legal questions. trey gowdy questioning his conduct seems to suggest mr. pruitt could be in for some ongoing legal questions about his conduct as a federal employee. >> there are absolutely lapses that are certainly ethical and maybe go beyond that, maybe go into the area of potential criminal prosecution. so, what would seem likely to be happening here, what would happen in any other administration is that the local u.s. attorney with jurisdiction, whether that's the district of columbia or the eastern district of virginia, would have a public corruption investigation opened, possibly in connection with the public integrity serks and main justice. they would be looking at pruitt's conduct and scrutinizing in at least two areas.

one is whether there is any fraud involved in his misuse of taxpayer money, and the other would be whether any of his actions taken against his own employees were retaliatory and violated federal law. some of those actions might be inspector general, encouraging discipline against him, while other areas of his conduct might come in for prosecution, but i don't think that today is the last we'll hear of mr. pruitt. >> let me get your thoughts and your reaction to news that's broken in the last couple days, that not only did mr. pruitt think that being under investigation for 13 separate ethical scandals made his job secure, he believed himself to be ascendant. he pitched himself as a successor to jeff sessions should the president make a change there at the justice department. what do you think about just the delusional nature of scott pruitt who was under investigation even by republicans, thinking he'd be a suitable candidate to be the nation's attorney general?

>> it's exactly the kind of delusion that this president fosters. you know, it's the whole gaslighting of america where two and two equal five, not four. any other administration, an administrator or other cabinet level secretary who had done this would have been fired, would have been shamed, would be under investigation with the president trying to distance himself from him. instead, trump sends pruitt on his way with a tweet lauding his outstanding work. and as you said earlier in the show, we're just at the bottom of alice and wonderland. >> we're at the bottom of a lot of things. i started this show by saying the bottom is calling and it wants to know if we're there yet. i never made that mistake again. we have a long way to go. let me ask you about some of the more recent scandals that have come to light. he had employees put hotel rooms on their personal credit card. i worked at the federal government. i can't think of a single example. i went to the campaign where you allocated spending was even more

complicated. the campaign paid for my seat in air force one. i can't think of a single explanation for a federal employee, someone who worked for a political appointee, cabinet secretary, to put his expenses on their personal credit card. is that the kind much investigation that an i.g. would need to open up to make sure that the epa is cleansed from the stench of scott pruitt? >> absolutely. it is a terrible stench. there's no possible justification for doing this. and the idea that you as a manager in the federal government would ask your employees to put your personal expenses on their personal credit cards, and then refuse to pay them back, it's just jaw-dropping. as a federal employee, i could not charge personal expenses on my government credit card. they would have called me and said, if you do this it's going to be a problem. you don't charge personal expenses on your government

credit card. you certainly don't tell a government employee, go ahead and pay my $600 personal hotel expense. it's incomprehensible. >> let me get you in on this idea the president has different standards for different members of the cabinet. and he -- if you follow him on twitter, as we all do as part of our self-loathing condition, constantly holding out the i.g. report about the justice department. but i've never heard him call for any sort of internal investigation of the conduct of scott pruitt. >> well, joyce hit on something and i had to write it down real quick because it really struck me in listening to her what this really boiled down to. when you look at what the president has been doing in this latest example, he's clearing out the story lines that could be problematic for him going into november. that could weigh down the campaigns this fall. so now scott pruitt is no longer part of the conversation this fall. the supreme court, let's get it done before the first term begins in october.

it's not a sticking point for us going into the fall. but the idea of clearing -- cleaning the swamp, everyone thought this was about an ethical thing. this was not ethics, it was not about government spending, abuse of power. it was always about the programs. it was about clearing out and cleaning out those regulations that prevented, you know, in their view, government -- preventing people from doing the things they want to do back in their communities, et cetera, businesses, for example. so, it was a very different -- >> let's be specific. coal. >> things like that, right. >> these weren't policy preferences. these were crass political calculations. >> this was never about the things -- we sit back on our heels and go, that's such an ethical violation, let's get an i.g. report going. why would we do that? that's not an issue. >> not that swamp, silly, the clean air swamp. >> yes. it's that regulation that stops,

you know, companies from polluting local rivers. that's what we need to clear out. so it's a very different approach to this than what we thought it would be. >> it's a great point. and it's about definitions. and we talk about the president's base, which it's always important to point out it wasn't enough for donald trump to have written a victory speech. it's not some, you know, insurance policy. it's not some sort of guarantee for him. but it does explain how they see the swamp. and you're exactly right. they think of the swamp as people who are conflicted. they saw the swamp as government regulation. >> that's exactly right. we have to think about who donald trump is governing for. it's not about the majority of us who want clean air and clean water. he's looking at that 40%. >> they very well represent a threat to the election. it's about the 38% big enough to write a victory speech. >> that's who he's focusing on. he's looking at the mid terms several months away.

deregulation, we have that. the lower courts, they've been stacking the lower court with conservative judges. now they're going to have the scotus pick. that's why he's doubling down on this awful immigration policy and it's going to get worse because he's thinking about that 38% and that's what this is all about. >> and that point on the courts, his backup plan is when the administration gets sued, and it will, the court's in play for them. i guess from a political standpoint, that's part of the strategery. the democrats have just fallen asleep at the switch at because they didn't see this story line evolving on the court the way it did because they thought they would take the high ground and trump and republicans have always taken the very straightforward political line, which is this election is about the supreme court, nothing else. >> and that's how he won in 2016. it was about that scotus. >> i went out and interviewed, i covered the mom vote in the fall of 2016. all sorts of women. it was right after the access

hollywood tape came out. republican women who were galled by his personal conduct but they voted for him because of the supreme court. hans, i understand you're getting new reaction and new up dates. what do you know? >> we have two updates. number one we just heard from the congressional oversight committee ranking member cummings saying they have learned of additional allegations. congress is indicating they are investigating. let me read it to you real quick. we have obtained additional evidence mr. pruitt routinely asked senior epa staff to help his family members, including his wife and his daughter, while they were on epa premises during official work hours. that is from mr. cummings. he is the ranching member on the house oversight committee. we also have a copy of the resignation letter. politico and others have reported it. this is the first time we've heard from scott pruitt. what he is doing is he is blaming others for his resignation. he is making and casting himself as the victim. i'm going to read it to you here, nicolle. the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unpress departmented and have

taken a sizeable toll on all of us. that is scott pruitt saying he's not resigning because of anything he did wrong, but because he's been attacked in public life. nicolle? >> which is, of course, joyce, ludicrous. i mean, the attacks on his family didn't come in a vacuum. they came because he wanted a chick-fil-a franchise for his wife and wanted federal employees help him get one. >> there is a difference between attacks on your family and allegations of misconduct. an attack on your family is making fun of chelsea clinton's appearance as a child. it's not an attack on your family to point out unethical lapses that happen to occur with family members. i think this is nothing but a disingenuous effort to have a good letter on the way out the door to try to distract attention from the real misconduct that he engaged in. >> peter baker, any thoughts on the idea that there are new allegations today? sometimes when someone engulfed in scandal resigns, the embers

die down and leave with them. it doesn't seem like that's going to be the case with mr. pruitt who even on the day of his resignation, we have new flames, new fires breaking out. >> well, that circles whack to hans's assignment. what we need to know, with these new allegations that were being made today part of the equation that went into this? the tipping point that finally pushed him over the edge, or was it something that came up despite the fact he was already on the way out? it's hard to know at this point by reporting what was happening inside the white house. but there's no question that he's been on the edge at least for weeks if not months. and at a certain point, you know, the gravity in washington ultimately does finally apply and it does apply if there's too many things to keep going forward. and that's clearly what happened here and not the attacks on the family so much as the inability to do your job, the inability to satisfy a president who doesn't want to be questioned about this every time he sits there and talks to reporters. >> all right. joining us on set is a former

direct her of t director of the epa, john brennan, in the interest of disclosure here to talk about other things. you're a student of human behavior, human conduct, human miss behavior, misconduct. your thoughts. >> every day my eyebrows keep going up over what's going on. it was pointed out it's hard to believe this has gone on so long with all of the allegations involving scott pruitt. clearly he does not have the ethical standards that we expect of our senior officials. but it's not surprising because we have somebody in the oval office who doesn't have a strong ethical record. >> right. >> and so this feeling of self-entitlement, which i think shows what scott pruitt has been doing for the past several months, last year and a half, i think it just really underscores the cancer that is within this administration that really needs to be addressed. and unfortunately, i don't think mr. trump is setting the type of example for senior officials in the u.s. government that all americans should be expecting. >> and isn't it more than

self-entitlement? isn't itself-dealing? haven't we crossed that boundary? self-entitlement is, you know, i want things for myself and i want -- self-dealing is sort of the stench of what's gone on at the epa, calling around to get businesses for your wife, taking a free room from a lobbyist. this seems to have crossed over from what looks like self-entitlement to be flagrant corruption and self-dealing. >> i think he feels entitled to these things e. feels he can reach out and get these types of perks for himself as well as his wife. and that is just mind blowing in so many respects. it's not just one instance. i think in the past we've seen individuals who unfortunately have gone astray and they pull back. but time after time after time, even when he was called on it publicly, he continues to do it. so, i think this is long overdue. unfortunately the damage has been done to the environment, it is r

is going to be long lasting after his departure. we have public servants who are going to do these things, self-dealing, self-entitlement, whatever. >> can you think of an example of an american cabinet secretary with this quantity of scandal, this quantity -- 13 federal investigations into his conduct, and these are republican-led institutions. he's under investigation by republican-led house and senate. >> i'm not a scholar of cabinet secretaries over the years. it is certainly in my lifetime in terms of my recollection, i don't know of anybody who has had so many allegations in such a short period of time. that i think just reveal and reflect his lack of ethics almost in everything he does. so if there were additional allegations, i wouldn't be surprised if things are going to be coming out in weeks and months and whether or not it is going to move past unethical dealings, but also into the area of things that might have violated some not just policies and practices, but also laws. who knows. >> all right, who knows is right.

peter baker, thank you for spending some time with us. when we come back, the spectacle of republican lawmakers spending the 4th of july in russia as the investigation into russian meddling continues. thanks for the ride-along, captain! i've never been in one of these before, even though geico has been- ohhh. ooh ohh here we go, here we go. you got cut off there, what were you saying? oooo. oh no no. maybe that geico has been proudly serving the military for over 75 years?

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nasty nighttime heartburn? try new alka-seltzer pm gummies. the only fast, powerful heartburn relief plus melatonin so you can fall asleep quickly. ♪ oh, what a relief it is! we've been covering that breaking news that crossed the wire at the top of the hour. the resignation of embattled epa chief scott pruitt. we also have this. instead of marching in 4th of july parades and shaking hands and kissing babies at backyard barbecues, members of congress spent their 4th of july behind putin's curtain. while in russia they sounded what the washington post is describing as a conciliatory tone in their meeting with officials. richard shelby said the u.s. and russia don't need to be adversaries. he added, quote, i'm not here today to accuse russia of this or that. those comments of verbal waving of the white flag on the

question of russian election interference, the post reporting the read out confirms this with one russian official describing the meeting as, quote, one of the easiest ones in my life. the washington post also reporting, the republicans' rep meeting in moscow coming after the lawmakers visited st. petersburg and took in the ballet "sleeping beauty" helped set the tone for the july 16th p putin-trump summit in helsinki. this is setting the tone for the summit? >> it is very scary. it would have been much better if this was a bipartisan delegation. also if there's a little more insight that the u.s. press could have into this as opposed to being done behind closed doors. but then the comment of the russian official that this is one of the easiest ones in memory, have we forgotten what the russians did in the 2016 election? have we forgotten what the russians did in crimea? i'm all for an improvement of relations between moscow and washington, but on whose terms and how are we going to do that?

i just feel as though mr. trump is dealing away whether to the north koreans or the russians, all of the things in the u.s. national interest and giving them what they want. this is very concerning. >> you know what it did, though, this is a broader picture of why they go along with and participate in the war on the justice department and the fbi. they clearly have had lobotomies. this is no longer the republican party of john mccain or joe lieberman or people skeptical of russia, this is now the party of donald trump. you're right, no one goes to a war zone or any other country that we view as a geopolitical adversary with just one party and with zero presence of press. >> they have attached themselves wholly to donald trump. i think that they see the results of the 2018 election as being a -- basically a decision on trump. and so i think what they're trying to do is pave the way and also lend their support as well as lend their reputations and credibility to this. but i must tell you, the

russians will feign sincerity better than anyone i've ever dealt with in my life so they need to be very careful about being swept in. mr. trump is not sophisticated enough, unfortunately, to deal with these foreign leaders in a manner that is going to protect u.s. national security interests. i think he's naive in these issues. >> but that's trump and we've been having that conversation for months. but does it worry you that we're absent any guardrails in congress? >> well, i don't see the guardrails right now, as you pointed out. unfortunately, john mccain is not there to help to tell his republican colleagues that this is not the way that you conduct u.s. national security and foreign policy. unfortunately, i think there are individuals who are just trying to think about what their political interests are as opposed to what the national security interests are. >> what do you think about the idea that these are the republican members who may at some point have to contemplate a report from bob mueller about russian interference in the 2016 election?

does it give you any pause that there they're with the russians, going to "sleeping beauty," no press, no democrats, saying things like i'm not there to question about this or that. this or that is meddling in our 2016 election and doing it in 2018. that's this and that's that. >> it doesn't give me confidence that they're going to deal with it in an objective and fair fashion. they haven't demonstrated backbone yet. by going out to russia in this manner, it has not shown the american people that we are going to deal with russia in a manner that protects our interests. on july 4th moreover, it just -- it does not make sense -- >> and the pr -- the former flak in me died a thousand deaths. can we flip the script? does putin go back and high five his schedulers for getting a bunch of republicans from the senate in moscow on the fourth of july? >> i think putin must be very, very pleased with how this is going. less than two weeks before the summit with donald trump, to have this delegation of republican senators actually

being wined and dined and saying nice things about russia and russian officials saying this is a very easy meeting. clearly i think putin feels that everything is smooth now and then reports that whether or not there's going to be a one-on-one meeting and who's going to be in the meeting with trump and putin is very, very important to make sure that there's going to be no funny business, let me put it that way, that's going on there. >> and there's precedent for the president wanting to meet one-on-one with vladimir putin. he did so on the sidelines of nato. there wasn't even an american translator there. he relied on vladimir putin's translator. >> that's unheard of. i think it shows his inexperience as well as the lack of controls on him. you know, presidents i worked for in the past, the chiefs of staff and others would be right there making sure that the president understood what are the equities at stake and what's the important thing to do? but it seems like donald trump is the one that's going to make these decisions. unfortunately, it's frequently at the expense of our national

security. >> you coined the term with itting or unwitting when you were testifying before congress about the role or potential role of trump campaign officials in russian meddling or russian shenanigans in the election. did these members of congress, these senators, become witting or unwitting agents of the russian efforts to sort of snow what their role was in 2016? did they give them some cover? >> they didn't have to go to moscow. it's one thing being in a situation and all of a sudden you find out that it's not what you expected. but they were the ones that went on their own to moscow. they're the ones that actually sat down with russian officials. they're the ones that are, i think, allowing themselves to be used and exploited even just from a public relations standpoint right now. i don't know what was discussed behind the scenes. i'm hoping some of those senators were tough. maybe they were. but at least the perception is that they are giving in at this point to the russians to just pave the way for the trump/putin summit. >> let me bring into the

conversation chuck rosenberg. bob mueller is in the middle -- we don't know where he is, but there's an investigation into russia's role in the 2016 election that's very much alive and well. reports today in bloomberg that he's added more prosecutors to his team and to that investigation. what do you make of, as director brennan said, just the optics of seven republicans being in moscow on the fourth of july? not from a pr standpoint, but from -- the president is under investigation for his role for possible collusion, for obstruction of justice. do you really want your political allies in moscow yucking it up with vladimir putin's allies in government? >> a normal universe, nicolle, absolutely not. this is, as john said, something we just don't see. it's hard to even gauge or baseline it. in a way i feel a little bit like you're asking me about hitting and ted williams is on the panel as well and nobody knows more about this than john brennan. but i can also tell you from a prosecutor's perspective, this

just raises additional questions. why are they there? how did they get there? who invited them? what were the discussions? did any of that link back to the things we know bob mueller is looking at? so in terms of creating more trouble for yourself, this may be another chapter in the book. >> and what about the role of republicans in the house, especially, and their questioning of deputy attorney general rosenstein and of senators to a slightly lesser degree, the senate intelligence committee in a bipartisan manner affirmed the assessment of russia's role in the 2016 campaign but none of these members did. does that give you concern that we don't have any guardrails left in congress? >> i haven't seen the guardrails. if they're there, i haven't seen them. so you're right to point out that the senate select committee on intelligence did concur with the intelligence community assessment. it would have been amazing if they did not, because the intelligence community assessment was so well done, so thoughtful, and as i recall, and john would correct me if i'm wrong, unanimous among the nsa,

the cia and the fbi. these are done with great time and effort and thought. and so, yes, the senate select committee on intelligence disagreed. hallelujah. it shouldn't be a big deal. it would be remarkable if they did not. but there don't appear to be guardrails. there doesn't appear to be a lot of thought given to the optics and i believe it raises more questions than it answers. >> do you think that bob mueller -- we talk about how he's oblivious to the cable news, but he's not oblivious to the sort of geopolitical trends and the republican party is no longer suspicious of vladimir putin in the way that john mccain was. >> right. so one -- i'll take issue with one word you used. i don't believe that bob is oblivious. he knows exactly what's going on, he just doesn't care what we say about him, right? but to your larger point, absolutely. he's looking at this very carefully. he's talking to people who either were there or have intelligence about what's going on there. he's going full into what he's

doing, no question. >> does this make bob mueller's mission more vital to the national security of this country? >> absolutely, absolutely. and when his report is issued and whatever it says, and if there is information in there that really is implicating of those either around donald trump or donald trump himself, it's going to be up to those members of congress, both the house and maybe even ultimately the senate, to do what is right for this country and to stop putting partisan or personal, parochial interests ahead of this country's interests. so this is -- bob mueller, as chuck well knows, he is one of the true treasures of this country. he is pursuing his job with great vigor as well as diligence and objectivity. and so i am very concerned that the lack of backbone i've seen so far to stand up and to call it what it is, which was that russian interference, the fact that people are giving -- making excuses for their activities and that donald trump refuses still to unequivocally say russia was

attempting to interfere in the election and they better cut it out. and by having this delegation out in moscow right now it's not sending a signal to russia that there are going to be costs to pay for any type of continued interference, it's going to be we're going to forgive and forget. that's the message that comes across. >> they said we're not going to raise this or that. we should also point out that the senate committee found that the meddling also helped donald trump and hurt hillary clinton. my thanks to john brennan, michael steele, chuck rosenfield. i'm nicolle wallace. mtp daily starts right now with chris jansing in for chuck. >> just another day at the anchor desk for nicolle wallace. and if it's thursday, scott pruitt is out. good evening, i'm c