john kelly has not apologized to john kelly for actually fighting back is what he did.e actually fought back against what she had to say by defiantly saying, rob porter is a great guy. jenny willoughby the former wife of rob porter, she's also a writer and speaker. thank you for joining us tonight. i'm very sorry that the discussion we're going to have and the reason you're hear is because of the difficulties you experienced in your marriage but i think we're all learning a lot from it, so thank you for joining us and sharing your feelings about it. >> thank you, lawrence. thank you for the opportunity to hopefully educate and shed light on the conversation of domestic violence. >> your month into this experience of it being public. i want to give you a forum here to expand on your op-ed piece that you really directed to john kelly because of the way john kelly dismissed your revelations when they became public, and then continues to now say that all he -- all he got from what you said was what he called, the stuff that happens in a messy divorce. >> so i wrote the op-e

john kelly came in the summer. apparently, he was told in the fall somebody was told in the fall he wasn't going to be getting his clearance. so it was john kelly not told about that or not known the details? none of this hangs together. and i think it's really reflective of the fact that john kelly is on thin ice, he felt compelled to go back to the well, five or six scandals already and try to clean that up. >> so here's jennifer responding for jessica. i want to get your response to this. didn't feel rob should resign until he was accused of physical abuse. i'd file add protective order and called the police on several occasions and i detailed pulled naked from the shower. there's a substantive point where what john kelly understands as fireable or disqualifying for the white house, right? >> he's saying he was only aware that it was emotional abuse at first and some sort of a messy divorce but i cannot stress enough that the daily mail told the white house press office that it was domestic violence and it was p

chief of staff john kelly left white house staffers puzzled when he tried to relitigate the mistakes made here at the white house in the rob porter scandal. one official told us the timing was quote odd for kelly to resurrect the controversy and more chaos on the policy side as trump is doubling down on his call for new tariffs inviting a trade war that officials are acknowledging will cost americans more money to buy the products they need. when president trump stepped away from the white house he left behind an administration that's in utter turmoil. his chief of staff reignited it over rob porter. while kelly said he is not quieting over the controversy, he admitted to reporters that growing statements from the white house praising reporter just z at staff secretary was stepping down were a mistake. he said quote, we didn't cover ourselves in glory in terms of how we handled that. he also tried to clean up the time line. insisting he only learned of the red flags february 6. sources tell cnn a different story. that they were becoming aware of the allegations last november. kelly at

john kelly came in the summer.pparently, he was told in the fall somebody was told in the fall he wasn't going to be getting his clearance. so was john kelly not told about that or not known the details? none of this hangs together. and i think it's really reflective of the fact that john kelly is on thin ice, he felt compelled to go back to the well, five or six scandals already and try to clean that up. >> so here's jennifer responding for jessica. i want to get your response to this. didn't feel rob should resign until he was accused of physical abuse. i'd filed a protective order and called the police on several occasions and i detailed pulled naked from the shower. there's a substantive point where what john kelly understands as fireable or disqualifying for the white house, right? >> he's saying he was only aware that it was emotional abuse at first and some sort of a messy divorce but i cannot stress enough that the daily mail told the white house press office that it was domestic violence and it was physica

trigger on the story, they sent me an e-mail and i forwarded it to my editors and we ran it with john kelly's glowing statement, and sarah's statement. so all of this is curious. and you know, now, general kelly is saying today, that porter resigned his job to him that tuesday before our first story ran. but the story that we ran carried a statement saying in the presence tense that i am proud to work with him. >> which implied that he was still working there. originally only been told about so-called emotional abuse, does that make sense? >> not unless sarah huckabee sanders was keeping stuff from him and she is smarter than that. and we also know from what chris wray said on the hill that both of the ex-wives had spoken to the fbi about this earlier. there is no question that there was information from the fbi that should have raised flags from the bucketful. and no question in my mind that he got a complete read. >> the other thing i don't get is why general kelly would re-litigate this today and also give himself a pat on the back at the same time. >> it was an unforced error. no reason t

that's what john kelly was attempting to do today. ll tell you is i, and guys like kelly, reach the senior levels of leadership in the military, we have a lot of cases that come to us from either our staff, judge advocate or chief of staff saying we got an individual in the command who has done this. you know even if it's someone close to you, which i had experience with, you stop saying anything about that individual until you get the full facts. it's the old, you know, first reports are always wrong. they may be but you better check it out. but again, i've been listening to all the guests tonight, and they've been talking about be this as if it was an isolated incident in terms of what was going on. remember, you know, john kelly is a marine. he comes in wanting to instill discipline and processes and systems to the white house. and it is a dysfunctional wi organization with a lot of brief floating electrons. this is probably one of about a million things he's handling. it's the most complexing and unbelievably difficult problems he'

i should point out that scaramucci was fired by john kelly. he was there for a short period of time. he has been frustrated in recent weeks because john kelly limited his access to the west wing. the president is emboldening scaramucci to make attacks on john kelly proves the president sows discord in the white house. something he bemoans. the west wing is actually quite low. >> when you say emboldening scaramucci to make attacks against john kelly, how does it work? he encourages him? >> based on my reporting, i would not say the president had the first idea, anthony go out and make attacks on john kel ly. he became aware and blaming him for the morale he did not discourage him or ask him to stop going on the air and criticizing the chief of staff. that is not what you would think of a president and former communications adviser. the president liked skraanthony scaramucci. it goes to show as the president said today he enjoys watching his aides clash. when they don't get along or have differing views as gary cohn and peter navarro did over th

white house still has not reached out to them about these allegations, but clearly this telling by john kelly of how this all went down really goes against a lot of what we learned. sources told cnn that people in the white house, including kelly, knew about these allegations long before they came out in february and, you know, perhaps how we square this circle is just the way in which kelly said this to reporters, to us in that room when we were in there. he said he did not hear from the security office about the specific allegations or problems with rob porter's file. that's a very specific telling of the situation. it doesn't cover what we have heard from our sources, which is that on multiple occasions, there were people who came to folks in this white house with these allegations. we also know that the fbi had, in their possession, these photographs long before the daily mail published them in early february. >> very good point. abby philip at the white house, thank you very much. let's discuss this further with editor at large chris cillizza and juana somers with us as well. your reacti

john kelly and h.r. mcmaster may have only days or could be like rex tillerson, those days could turn into weeks or longer as the questions of survival potentially deminnish their power and create vacuums of power inside the white house. all of this happening as the administration is trying to focus on steel tariffs. china, russia sanctions, the opioid kroisis and, oh, those congressional midterms creeping closer as well. let's start at the white house with our man jeff. what is the latest that you are hearing about the future of both kelly and h.r. mcmaster? >> craig, let's start with chief of staff john kelly because we know the relationship between president trump and john kelly has been strained at times as kelly has tried to instill discipline on the president's free-ranging approach. kelly saying that god punished him when he left the department of homeland security to go to work in the white house. based on our reporting, it's save to say that john kelly is not going anywhere soon. multiple offici

we know john kelly blocked the access of john bolton. so it looks like this choice of bolton could be the beginning of the counting of the days for john kelly. >> i think we learned over the past couple days, when sarah sanders goes out and says the president thinks you're doing a great job, it's time to brush up your linked in profile. i have a lot of disagreements with john kelly on matters of domestic policy in particular. but we have to give him this, he is a military man who understands the huge cost, human cost of war. he's not a war hog. i think seeing john bolton come into the white house with his proposals for a pre-emptive strike with north korea, war with iran, and he wrote about war with cuba. this is a person who's going to get this country into a military conflict, and i don't think that's what john kelly wants. i do think this is a sign that john kelly may be on the way out. >> on april 9th, john bolton will be in there as the national security advisor and we know based on the pattern, he's going to be donald trump's favor

caller: i would like to touch on general john kelly sitting there. he still carries 63% or maybe even more. we're going to sit down with north korea. if it doesn't work out, at least it's a first step. general kelly when asked questions from the press, he said you people dedicate your question straight. general kelly said this guy is right on point and doing fine. now 62% of the conservative things he push for within his first year, even with the fbi the militarized just like barack did with the blm going after people like cliven bundy and the irs, which cliven bundy was let go and the irs had to pay out, weaponize everything. we are learning everything now and everything's saying don't tweet. tweeting is new technology. guest: is this a question or a speech by the way? caller: question or a speech? i'mld the spring call that a united states marine coast guard captain. host: general kelly said to the press he is doing fine. look, this is been the most dysfunctional white house in modern history. for a year it has been a broken white house that has bee

we know from our reporting and uco you confirmed this as well that the fbi gave john kelly a detailedof november of last year. we know from what chris wray said on "the hill" that both of the ex-wives spoke to the fbi there is no question that general kelly got nfginformatio from the fbi, they should have raise flags by a bucket hole. >> the other thing i don't get is why general kelly would not only try to relitigate this today but also give himself a pat on the back at the same time? >> yeah, it was really was, it was unforced error. we can speculate whether he's worried about his job being on the line and trying to explain and demonstrate to the president that he's got this under control, we simply don't know. what i can tell you from talking to officials at the white house is that porter was entrusted deputy of kelly. i think it is likely that the general is willing to sweep some things under the rug because he needed him. >> we told him everything and if general kelly says he does not know about the physical abuse, that does not make sense. >> if dailymail.com, if they had not do

john kelly spoke to reporters yesterday to give them a timeline for rob porter's resignation last month. how are you reading into the timing of kelly's new explanation and why reignite the rob porter scandal? >> this is a question a lot of people looking at this story have. when they see john kelly weeks after the story has come, gone, resurfaced, again. we've seen it come up over and over and at a point when we're talking about tariffs and other things, we see john kelly bringing it up, again. i think that has raised some questions from some people. why would he bring this up again? i think what we can read, at least a little bit from his comments yesterday is that he wants to make a couple of things clear. one, that he is not leaving. that he doesn't have any plans to leave the white house. we're talking about a lot of departments and potential departures and i think he wanted to reiterate from his perspective that he didn't do anything wrong. from the perspective of others they certainly questioned his timeline. questioned his version of events and how he reacted. and i think he want

and so, donald trump was trying to turn john kelly into a witness after the fact. and john kelly willingly participated in that conversation where don mcgahn reminded the president of the president's order to fire the special prosecutor, and the president said, i don't remember it that way. john kelly willingly stood there, according to this account, without objection as the president tried to change the testimony of a witness in the special prosecutor's investigation. the president tried to convince don mcgahn that the president did not say what don mcgahn says the president said. for this and so many other moments of failure in the role of white house chief of staff john kelly's only defense is that he is unfit for the job, completely unqualified to be a white house chief of staff. if john kelly knew how to do his job and knew how to do it with honor, he would not have allowed that conversation to take place or participated in it. if john kelly knew how to do his job and knew how to do it with honor, he would not have allowed his favorite staffer, rob porter, to

john kelly's name was on that. explanation is that it was a miscommunication and he was writing a statement based on what he knew of kelly's work product. but that he wasn't aware of how big this was going to blow up and that he had not fully communicated to the rest of the staff that porter was indeed gone. but at the same time, there's lamb 24-hour period before john kelly release ad new statement addressing domestic abuse and there was no real explanation for that and it defies everything that we've learned so far. rob porter, according to sarah sanders, the day after john kelly says he first learned about it. rob porter had the full confidence of the chief of staff and the president. >> he called him a man of integrity. this is not what a white house chief of staff should be doing, creating more headlines and dredging all that scandal that is about three or four weeks old. >> that's right. they rt used the say chief of staff is more about staff than chief. and you're about being the leader of the staff. not jus

tonight, john kelly. just can't get it right. the president's chief of staff, tonight, with an explanation that stunned even his white house colleagues. some say, point-blank, kelly is not telling the truth. kelly saying he learned about a serious accusation of domestic abuse against porter february 6th. that is the day the daily mail asked him for a response. the allegations, of course, were about verbal and physical abuse against porter by both of his ex-wives and a girlfriend who lived with him. get this, the chief of staff says he never thought of putting over the handling of the debach l saying i have nothing to consider resigning over. okay. it's no surprise that that's the statement or white house staffers say kelly isn't telling the truth because cnn reported they were aware of the allegations early last fall. none of this february 6th or 7th business, whatever it is. the day after it broke, the defense wasn't that he didn't know, it was that he wasn't fully aware of the allegations until the story broke. what did fully aw

thanks so much. >>> i want to get back to john kelly. there's a new report from the "new york times" that i think caught a lot of people's attention. this report claiming president trump asked general kelly for help to push his daughter ivanka and son-in-law jared kushner out of the white house. >> joining us deputy managing editor and cnn political commentator and former adviser to the trump campaign jack kingston. welcome to you both this morning. >> good morning. >> jack, let me start with you. what do you make of this reporting that the president wants jared and ivanka pushed out, they are causing him too many problems. why wouldn't a dad turn to his daughter and say, hey. >> i've been around the president, with his son-in-law and daughter. i could not imagine him going to any third party. they are very close, have a great working relationship. i can't imagine. i think this is a bizarre story. i don't think there's any truth to it whatsoever. >> you don't think he wants them out. >> no, i don't. he may say, listen, we may need to chan

and i don't know what it means as well for john kelly. it seems he is taking the reins of leadership and more people are being shown the door. >> yeah. cnbc has the article titled chief of staff john kelly's position in the white house looks weaker as president trump asserts himself and chaos reigns. so give me your assessment of the status of john kelly in his position as chief of staff. is it one in name only? >> i think so. the more reporting that we're hearing, especially in the last week about the president feeling very comfortable in the position of president, which i think as an outside observer can say that's pretty amusing considering the chaos we have been witnessing for the last year. john kelly seemed to be in a stronger position. there was controversy and how he handled that. it seemed he was getting more sure footing in the weeks after the rob porter scandal, essentially died down. and the president seems not like anyone on his equal footing. he doesn't like somebody in his administration who can challenge him directly. so p

john kelly does speak off the record to the press. john kelly is unprofessional and incompetent when he speaks to the press. john kelly has lied to the press and been caught in those lies. john kelly has told reporters completely inappropriate things like exactly where in the bathroom rex tillerson was sitting when john kelly told him on the phone he was fired. the president is probably not entirely right when he tells people that the leak was meant to embarrass him. the leak was also meant to remove the embarrassment from the white house staff. the embarrassment that the president of the united states congratulated vladimir putin for winning the election he won. most people have no idea how wrong it is for donald trump to congratulate vladimir putin for winning the election that vladimir putin rigged. >> does the white house believe the election in russia was free and fair? >> in terms of the election, they were focussed on our elections. we don't get to dictate how other countries operate. what we do know is that putin has been elec

white house chief of staff john kelly just had a surprise briefing with reporters at the white house.ng about security clearances, former staff secretary rob porter and the allegations made by his ex-wives. we'll have more on what the chief of staff had to say in just a moment. >>> meanwhile, the picture emerging from the ho

let him go on television and trash talk john kelly. the same john kelly who has put out three different stories on who knew what when on john porter. there is the departure of communication director hope hicks who was dating porter. are you keeping this all straight? it is a bit what is the word here? chaotic. the president sees it differently. he says there are ten people, the ten best people in any field lining up to work for him. and he set the stage with that bold claim with this early morning tweet. the new fake news narrative is that there is chaos. wrong. people will always come and go. i still have some people that i want to change, always seeking perfection, there is no chaos only great energy. leaving aside to chill that mark about personnel changes might be causing tonight. listen what the president said this afternoon. >> the white house has tremendous energy, tremendous spirit. a great place to be working. many, many people want every single job. i read maybe people don't want to work with donald trump. so many people want

. >> john kelly revives the porter scandal and says he won't resign over it. >> seems to be a feeding frenzy inside the west wing. everybody is shooting at everybody. >> i served under six administrations, i've never seen such chaos. >> if they want to call it cares on kays on, fine. but we call it success. >> the president is facing growing criticism over the tariffs announced. >> on an average car, the actual impact will be a fwraraction ofe percent. >> we're seeing a lot of good things happening. >>> 8:00 on a saturday morning and we're glad you are with us. i'm christi paul. >> and i'm martin savidge. >> and we're really watching the people across the northeast because nethey will start to survey some of the damage after the bomb cyclone just unleashed a vee severe winds knocking down trees, some homes are destroyed. but the wind threat is still very much alive. we know five people have died as a result of this storm so far. and there is torrential rain from the storm that is causing some widespread flooding now. we know also that the third wave so to speak of this storm is yet to

and remission within reach. >>> we're following the breaking news, the white house chief of staff john kelly defending himself in the wake of the rob porter scandal, the former white house aide accused of beating two of his ex-wives. jase while ago kelly once again insisting to reporters he was not aware of the serious accusations against porter until the day before the story broke. he did admit, however, that white house staffers, in his words, quote, did not cover ourselves in glory with how they handle the fallout. let's bring in john gregory and our chief legal analyst gloria borger. he brought some in on background, some in off the record and he made these points. >> i think he felt the need to defend himself. i think what he's trying to do is wipe the slate clean here. you know, you've had hope hicks leave. she was involved in writing the rob porter statement. i think kelly wants to kind of defend himself. i don't think he wanted to go out and do it publicly and have a press conference, so this is something members of the white house staff very often do in other administrations. and i

you know, a lot of that is not just on trump, but on john kelly. ven by his own very narrow definition of the job, which is to make the trains run on time in the west wing. >> can i say what happened to that, chris. when he was coming onboard. i mean the expectations were so high for him. were they too high? >> they were unrealistically high. but i have to say that kelly, his failure is even more glaring than reince priebus' in my mind because kelly was empowered in a way that reince priebus never was. even by his own narrow definition of the job, he's really failed to make the trains run on time and to make this president more effective. and most importantly, donald trump has never figured out that there is a difference between governing and campaigning. campaigning you divide, you demonizing, you disrupt. that's the only thing he knows how to do. it's kelly job to help show him how to govern. >> chris ripple and raj, thank you for your insights. >>> the porn star, the $130,000 payment and the lengths an attorney went to to give it to her. new info

the president has been frustrated with john kelly for months. what the porter scandal did is effectively neutralize the ability to push him out then because kelly manufactured a brilliant maneuver in which he defined the scandal not about domestic abuse, but as security clearances. in that moment, the president could not fire kelly because it would be looking like he was giving, you know, payback for his family members. but now that the porter scandal is in the rearview mirror, my understanding is that the president will be interviewing candidates next weekend for the chief of staff job when he visits mar-a-lago and as well as talking to people about filling hr mcmaster's position at nsc. >> i was talking about loneliness, this president is a lonely figure. he's had his son-in-law there, his daughter there with him. you write about how they might be the next to go as well. what does that isolation portend? how on the fence is he about sayingg geographically to his daughter and son-in-law? >> family is the ultimate bond this trump world. i think i

>> are they trying to get rid of john kelly.is the one who downgraded jared kushner security clearance, in some ways making him a protected man behind closed doors. if the president were to get rid of john kelly, think of the message that would send. i down graded your son-in-law and then you are booting me out. i was brought her to add -- >> the three months or six months at least? >> we'll see. we'll see. . >> that is true. if you make a week. this week felt like a year any way. >> we're hoping we can see until next monday. >> we're trying to get to sunday. carol and peter, i appreciate it. thank you, both. up ahead major corporations are taking a stand on gun control and the nra after the florida shooting. could more follow suit and what it -- what could it mean for the bottom line. and jaim kramer, mr. mad money himself is joining me next. guys, know anything about this missing inventory? wasn't me! the cheeks don't lie, chet... irresistibly planters. if you spit blood you may have gum problems,s and could be on the journey

how you trust john kelly.o doesn't trust john kelly? donald trump doesn't trust john kelly. >> i don't agree with that. that's what the leaks say. if he didn't trust john kelly, he wouldn't be there. >> who knows how long he's going to thereby? he could have been fired by now. >> you've all got to settle down and understand that you can't believe everything you read and these leaks that come out of the white house. >> alice? >> we all knew that the president ran his business with crisis management. we all knew he ran a campaign on chaos. we all knew the administration was going to be an administration of chaos. today he flat out admitted, i like conflict. i like this. but he says there's no chaos. there's chaos there. that being said, the average person across america, i know republican voters. i've spoken to them across the country. they don't care about the palace intrigue. they don't care with the drama. they care about tax cuts. they care about jobs. they care about making sure they can put food on the tab

the very same john kelly who's put out three different stories in three weeks on who knew what, when, when white house staff secretary rob porter who the white house cut loose for allegedly abuses two spouses and a girlfriend. hope hicks replaced the moocht and was dating rob porter, she's left for reasons unclear. on top of reporting h.r. mcmaster could be leaving by the end of the month. he replaced michael flynn, who made a plea deal and is cooperating with the special counsel. are you keeping this straight? it's a bit chaotic, isn't it? the president sees it differently. he says there are ten people, the ten best people in any field, lining up to work for him. he set the stage for that bold claim with this early morning tweet. the new fake news narrative is that there is chaos, all caps, in the white house, wrong, exclamation point. people will always come and go. and i want strong dialogue before making a final decision. i still have some people that i want to change, always seeking perfection, there is no chaos, only great energy. leaving aside for a moment the chill that remark

that could have been made was made in a different white house, the result would be different for john kelly but everybody's afraid of who's the chief-of-staff behind door number three and has better confidence in kelly than others. i think tactically was this a mistake for him to bring this up again, so on one hand he looks weak in that situation, on the other hand, who's down and out this week. hope hicks is out and jared kushner's downgraded on his security clearance. is it the ascension of john kelly because it looks more like that. hot and cold once again. >> we will make a note for next sunday to see which way the roller coaster went. >>> trade arizonawars. friends, colleagues, gathered here are the world's finest insurance experts. rodney -- mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. the list goes on. how about a discount for long lists? gold. mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. it's a gift. and jamie. -present. -together we are unstoppable. so, what are we gonna do? ♪ insurance. that's kind of what we do here. ♪ don't we need that cable

you have the former homeland secretary john kelly taking the stage to make some comments to the audiences staffers. the moderator said to kelly, go ahead and say what you've got to say. john kelly talked about how much he misses the agency. then, he said this. >> the last thing i wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the secretary of homeland security, but i did something wrong and god punished me, i guess. >> so, kelly is joking, right, about god punishing him for walking away from that job, as i bring in betsy and sahill, back with me here. think about the timing here. kelly has been under an enormous amount of pressure since his handling of the rob porter scandal. there are questions about who his allies really are inside the white house. people potentially out to get him, frankly. that's been no secret. now, you have john kelly, with sort of, i think, a dry sense of humor, and let's be clear, the audience laughed, talking about his position inside the west wing. >> and the john kelly ally community in the white house is not a particularly sizable g

john kelly wasn't at president donald trump's side for crucial decisions on policy moves. se officials as trump's white house woman and providing affirmation and able to provide bad news with few repercussions. john kelly wasn't at president donald trump's side for crucial decisions on policy moves. kelly wasn't on the call. even as the president appears to be running the white house without kelly's input trump has made a point of pun likely praising his chief of staff which, as you know, can also be the kiss of death. >> we have general kelly here, four star, he is doing a great job in washington.

it's pretty clear that kelly -- and this is the chief of staff john kelly -- admonishes him constantly about this and he's not the only one. this according to a white house official. this was outlined in the "new york times" story and we're hearing this from a white house official. to have the president engaging in conversations like this is obviously something his lawyers would not advise him to do. the spokesperson said there is probably nothing wrong with the president having a conversation with reince priebus and generally saying, how did it go, i hope they didn't beat up on you too much, but there seems to be a concern if the president goes too far and wants to talk about the finer details they're talking about the mueller's team. >> for now stormy daniels is keeping her story to herself. her attorney says it's because of ongoing threats from the other side. listen. >> these threats continued until only a few hours ago when mr. rosen, lawrence rosen, the attorney who now purports to represent mr. cohen and the entity ec, llc sent e-mail correspondence to me threatening that if ms.

john kelly has created order out of chaos initially, it's back sliding but i think john kelly is the right guy to continue to help the president organize his agenda, have a lot of faith and trust in john kelly, hope he stays. >> brennan: you just came back from the middle east, given the concerns about jared kushner's security clearance bubble being downgraded do you think that he can possibly lead this middle east peace policy push without the full security clearance? >> the last thing on my mind right now is the peace process. we're about to have a war between isreal and hazy and southern lebanon. eye ran is winning and we're losing. i went to israel and jordan, the king of jordan is under siege, plus we have no policy regarding the russian-iranian access, southern lebanon is a rocket-launching site against israel. they are developing precise precise-guided weapons. i would focus on iran rather than pushing the peace process. if we don't come up with a strategy against iran we're going to make israel go to war here pretty soon with hazy elements in southern elements. >> the out gro

white house chief of staff john kelly had spoken with david shulkin by phone wednesday morning reassuring the now former va secretary that he wouldn't be fired by tweet that afternoon. hours later, kelly had to phone shulkin again telling him plans had changed. david shulkin's firing was so chaotic and of a sudden that it is possible that donald trump didn't even know that donald trump was going to do it earlier in the day when donald trump spoke with david shulkin. >> when's the last time you spoke to him? >> i spoke to the president yesterday. >> what was that conversation like? >> we spoke about the progress that i was making, what i needed to do from a policy perspective to make sure that we were fixing the issues in va -- >> wait, that's before you were fired? >> that's correct. >> you spoke to him, he made no mention of the fact that he was about to terminate you? >> that's correct. >> and then you found out via tweet? >> right before that the chief of staff kelly gave me a call, which i appreciated, gave me a heads up. so -- but that was much after the phone call. >> the trump admi

in effect, john kelly says -- because one of the questions was why the white house was still standing by porter for 24 hours after the photo of a black eye came out. kelly saying he should have donna better job communicating it to the staff. the white house has become aware this allegations existed. others within the west wing, john kelly effectively said that christopher wray the white house had been communicated this information months ago, but that kelly said it was not information that he had ever received. again, this is reigniting new questions about the internal process of the white house. steve, right now storms are brewing in the northeast, this nor'easter. the winds are how long. feels like a metaphor for what's been going on in this west wing for quite a while now. >> peter alexander at the white house. peter, stand by. some breaking news here to report to you as well from our colleagues here at nbc news. carol lee, julia ainsley, they are reporting the headline. mueller asking if kushner business ties influenced white house policy. from the reporting here, special counsel

-- doesn't mind at all if john kelly is twisting in the wind and as i reported weeks ago when kelly was in hot water about the rob porter scandal, trump let it be known that he was calling his predecessor reince priebus. >> and so part of this -- he's done this with jeff sessions in the past and he does it a lot. the president leaves people twisting in the wind. is his hope at all that some of the people might just resign on their own? >> i think that is a very good way to look at it. one of the concerns the president had has been voiced to me by people is that he doesn't want these departures to be seen as sewing more chaos in the white house. so if he has to fire either john kelly or h.r. mcmaster. that could be seen again as indication that there is more internal drama and if they just agree to go quietly in a smooth transition, that's the ideal outcome. >> good to talk to you. gabe sherman, vanity fair correspondent and a nbc news contributor. >>> and more stunning out of the white house, the president agreeing to meet face-to-face with kim jong-un and the white house said north

and it's the chiefs of chiefs job to help the president figure that out you know in my opinion john kelly we all had great or some had expectations that he might be the grown up in the room who smoothed over donald trump's rough edges he's been the opposite of that he's reinforced donald trump's worst partisan instincts and that's really not what the chief is supposed to be about mark investigators have found that kellyanne conway counselor to the president violated federal laws last year by mixing official government business with political views about candidates in that alabama special lessons investigators say she violated the hijacked sent the report to the president you think they'll be any action. probably not i mean since it's the president's call on what to do about all this and i don't think he's going to make a big statement about one of his closest the most trustworthy aides and look this is something that. is pretty small and relative to a lot of the other stuff he's being accused of in the administration is being accused of i don't think he'll do a big you know bill make a bi

and it's the chiefs of chiefs job to help the president figure that out you know in my opinion john kelly we all had great or some had expectations that he might be the grown up in the room who smoothed over donald trump's rough edges he's been the opposite of that he's reinforced donald trump's worst partisan instincts and that's really not what the chief is supposed to be about mark investigators have found that kellyanne conway counselor to the president violated federal laws last year by mixing official government business with political views about candidates in that alabama special lessons investigators say she violated the hijacked sent the report to the president you think they'll be any action. probably not i mean since it's the president's call on what to do about all this and i don't think he's going to make a big statement about one of his closest and most trustworthy aides and look this is something that. is pretty small and relative to a lot of the other stuff he's being accused of in the administration is being accused of i don't think he'll do a big you know bill make a bi

and it's the chiefs of chiefs job to help the president figure that out you know in my opinion john kelly we all had great or some had expectations that he might be the grown up in the room who smoothed over donald trump's rough edges he's been the opposite of that he's reinforced donald trump's worst partisan instincts and that's really not what the chief is supposed to be about mark investigators have found that kellyanne conway counselor to the president violated federal laws last year by mixing official government business with political views about candidates in that alabama special lessons investigators say she violated the hijacked sent the report to the president you think they'll be any action. probably not i mean since it's the president's call on what to do about all this and i don't think he's going to make a big statement about one of his closest the most trustworthy aides and look this is something that. is pretty small and relative to a lot of the other stuff he's being accused of in the administration is being accused of i don't think he'll do a big you know bill make a bi