i also want to get your reaction to this potential shake up. >> well, i know robert wilke well.ogether in the pentagon when he was an assistant to secretary defense don rumsfeld. he's a straight shooter. he cares about his commission over there and veterans affairs. i don't think hesitait's signif for him to say he's never heard the president utter a negative comment. what is significant is the potential shake up, as you say. here you see where secretary esper has crossed wires with the president. for example, on correctly deciding to rename bases named after confederate generals, on taking confederate flags out. i think he's crossed wired with the president. i think his job is at risk and a pretty logical move in a cabinet would be to pull someone with dod experience over to dod. >> congressman, the president attacked the billionaire who owned a majority stake in the atlantic. he said steve jobs would not be happy his wife is lefting money he left her on a failing radical left magazine and is run by a con man. call her, write her, let her know how you feel. congressman, aside f

one of those was the va secretary, robert wilke.he is a senate-confirmed member of this administration. so if, in fact, president trump decides to fire secretary of defense mark esper, robert wilke could slide in as an acting secretary of defense. that was among the conversation. what's unclear, it seems there are still a number of people at the white house, people who influence president trump, who were encouraging him not to make a change ever be the election. as you know, that would be seen as a sign of turmoil at top. a major cabinet member being fired right before an election. but the reality is, that is always a possibility. the most recent split that the two have had was just this past week, when president trump, very vocally, tweeted about stars and stripes. earlier this year, when the pentagon budget came out, secretary esper announced that, in fact, they were cutting all funding for stars and stripes, which is a censutury old, 150 yr old independent publication that goes primarily to u.s. troops and u.s. veterans all aroun

joining me now the secretary of veterans' affairs, robert wilke. mr., thank you for joining me this morning. >> thank you. >> as you know, i just referred to the atlantic broke the story this week saying that the president privately called americans who died in war losers and suckers and on a 2018 trip to paris that is where it allegedly happened. cnn has confirmed the president referred to fallen u.s. service members as crude and derogatory. have you ever heard the president disparage u.s. service members or veterans? >> well, absolutely not. and i would be offended, too, if i thought it was true. again, i think anonymous are the same people that brought you fake heart attacks, fake strokes, russian collusion. so i am very proud that this president has led to a renaissance at veterans' affairs and one of the reasons i'm glad to be on cnn is that it was cnn and jake tapper that blew the lid off the scandals in the last administration when it came to veterans' affairs. your own polls in 2014 and 2015 had a 37% approval rating for the obama/biden adminis

. >> so i just want to play for you something that the president's veterans affairs secretary robert wilkeold me this morning. >> have you ever heard the president disparage u.s. service members or veterans? >> absolutely not. and i would be offended if i thought it was true. >> given the fact that nobody is backing down from the sourcing on that, how can you be sure that that is not true, especially since you weren't there? >> well, nobody's backing down from the anonymous sourcing on it. and some of these sources that you cite are general officers. >> so secretary wilke served in the navy reserve. what's your reaction to what he had to say? >> well, he has needs to have a one-on-one conversation with general kelly. general kelly will tell him. he is -- and that is the sad part that these patriots that have joined trump and have become his enablers are right now helping him instead of holding him accountable, they are enabling him to continue to damage our democracy of our democratic institutions. there is no doubt the content of the article in "the atlantic" are correct, are true. the fo