monday with the president on hand for the ceremony at the barnes of veterans affairs replacing david shulkin who was fired earlier this year. next collar is from mcdaniels, kentucky. >> caller: good morning, how are you? >> host: fine, go ahead please. >> caller: my father died in 1972, he is a va veteran, they never gave him the right burial or play taps or anything on top of him. i put the stone up. that is all they paid for, the stone. my mother had to pay for the funeral and everything and i don't think that was right that they did that to him. >> guest: i don't know why they wouldn't have allowed burial benefits. congress did just pass a bill trying to expand how much money they give for funerals and burials. i hope in the future that won't be a problem. maybe that bill will take care of it. maybe i need to pay more attention going forward if veterans are denied that. >> host: also on our veterans line, jonathan from west virginia. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i got out at walter reed, i was integrated with the dc va hospital. it was really cramped, really busy and a hassle to

donald trump talking to his then veteran's affairs secretary asking him if he, david shulkin plans to be about a meeting at mar-a-lago all about the va. of them elected. none of them were veterans, none of them elected. and none of them confirmed. yet because they are friends there is ike perlmutter. bruce moskowitz and wealthy attorney marc sherman. none of them were veterans, none of them elected. and none of them confirmed. yet because they are friends with trump, and pay dues to his private club, they have been allowed to run the department. take us through the details of this absolutely insane example i am joined by isaac. this is one of the nuttiest stories of the trump era i have read. how involved really are these three gentlemen in overseeing the va? >> they are involved with plans to be about a meeting at mar-a-lago all about the va. so the va secretary wasn't even going to the meeting at mar-a-lago about the va. it seemed odd to me. except it won't. we now know about the true rulers of the va. there is ike perlmutter. bruce moskowitz and wealthy attorney marc sherman. none

donald trump talking to his then veteran's affairs secretary asking him if he, david shulkin plans to be about a meeting at mar-a-lago all about the va. so the va secretary wasn't even going to the meeting at mar-a-lago about the va. it seemed odd to me. except it won't. we now know about the true rulers of the va. there is ike perlmutter. bruce moskowitz and wealthy attorney marc sherman. none of them were veterans, none of them elected. and none of them confirmed. yet because they are friends with trump, and pay dues to his private club, they have been allowed to run the department. take us through the details of this absolutely insane example i am joined by isaac. this is one of the nuttiest stories of the trump era i have read. how involved really are these three gentlemen in overseeing the va? >> they are involved with everything. they speak with va officials every day on the phone. they have a hand in all manner of policy and personnel decisions that have been coming out of the va for the past year and a half. >> every day? >> as often as every day or multip multiple times a day

that includes a former va secretary david shulkin.ethics problems. they grew frustrated with shulkin after disagreeing with various issues, fill us in on what happened. >> over time at the beginning they had sort of an uneasy relationship with shulkin. they met him before he was confirmed. from the beginning they said, we don't have to meet every month, but we're going to talk regularly, and shulkin you could tem from these e-mails i obtained, could you tell he didn't really love the idea of these guys telling them how to do his job. and over time they grew frustrated with him as well, they thought he should be listening to them and he wasn't. what ended up happening was, there were other political appointees at the va who had a political disagreement with shulkin, they teamed up with the mar-a-lago crowd, and that ended up contributing to his downfall. >> i want to get your response to this. we offered voluntary advice, seeking nothing in return. we were always willing to share our thoughts, we did not implement any type of policy, p

reports that he is planning to sign line trump loyalists who used the months since his predecessor, david shulkinnt, to purge longtime veterans affairs and staff contributing to a siege mentality. >> there's a headline this week of "the washington post" that you are planning to remove those political appointees who were part of that purge. is that true? >> no. in fact, i haven't moved anybody. >> he did not rule it out. >> is part of any new leadership organization, you come in with a team, you come into a ss, you come into rearrange. >> firing those who have given the v.a. a bad name isn't always easy. for instance, the disgraced director of the washington v.a. had to be rehired after being fired, even though under his watch, it was found that inventories were so mismanaged that doctors would have to run out med procedure and borrow them from neighboring hospitals after patients were already under anesthesia. >> do you agree with that decision? what are you going to do about that? >> the laws have changed since that time and the laws and i'll you the authority to override most of what i would co

they think they can say, hey, look at scott pruitt, look at tom price, look at david shulkin, look ater people in the trump administration who have had swampy questions about personal finances or the way they've conducted affairs in their department. >> that's exactly fair. they have this broader narrative. that's potentially very effective. i'm skeptical that this is going to be particularly painful politically for congressman collins, if only because we have another example of a member of congress who assaulted a reporter, broke his glasses, and lied about it who is a duly sworn member of congress. it's not really clear to me that voters on that side are particularly swamp intolerant. >> and by the way, the swampy visuals here could not possibly be worse. the fact that we have footage of collins taking these phone calls while he was at the white house attending the congressional picnic surrounded by other people in washington, some of his colleagues. the visuals are so, so terrible. >> and let's remember the last time culture of corruption worked. it was very house centric, which fl

whether it's james comey or david shulkin or here in omarosa's case, the president claims he didn't know was kelly doing the firing, not the president. >> so the firing here was done by john kelly. it was done in the white house situation room, which some find to be -- kelly has his own office. why would he take her in the situation room? she says she was quote/unquote locked in. she brought a recording device into the situation room. you're not supposed to bring any electronics into the most -- what's supposed to be the most secure room in washington, d.c. some people think it's a pen, some sort of recording device. here it is, the voice of john kelly, the white house chief of staff, firing omarosa. >> i mean, as someone who's covered the white house for a decade almost, i just cannot tell you how stunning it is to hear recordings from inside the most secure parts of that building. i just can't. previous white houses have had staff leave amid disagreements. there have been clashes inside. sometimes every now and then they write books. never can i imagine secretly, illicitly recorded con

he replaces david chilton, who was -- he replaces secretary shulkin, who was fired earlier this year. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. how are you? host: find. go ahead --fine. go ahead. caller: my father died in 1972. veteran.v.a. he was an aid in germany. they never gave him the right arburial. they set him in stone. i put it up myself. that is all they paid for was the stone. mother paid for the funeral. i don't think that was right of the veterans to do that to him. guest: i don't know exactly why they wouldn't have allowed burial benefits. congress did pass a bill trying to expand how much money they burials.funerals and i hope in the future that won't your problem. that will -- won't be a problem. that may be something i'd have to be paying more attention to going forward is veterans are denied that. host: good morning. caller: i am an afghanistan veteran. i got out at walter reed in 2013 and was integrated with the d.c. v.a. hospital. you felt like a number. it was very busy. it was a hassle to get to from all of the traffic. when i moved to leesburg, i was integrated w