ruth marcus is back with us. thanks, ruth, for sticking around.n to "the washington post" article today that talks about the president's jupcoming trip to africa estimating it could cost between $60 million to $100 million. this is a presidential trip. what do you make of that report and of those figures? >> it is a lot of money but i really think for people to criticize the president or the white house for spending, quote, unquote, too much money on a presidential trip. number one, we want our presidents to travel. we particularly want them to travel to foreign couldn't tris to forge relationships with foreign leaders, to enhance the reputation of america abroad. this is one of the ways we do it. presidential travel costs a lot of money. that just goes with the territory. we also want them to be protected. >> ruth marcus, as always, thank you for your view. we'll be watching that trip very closely and checking back in with you about it. >>> well, that does it for this addition of ""andrea mitchell reports."" tamron hall has a look at what's next.

and ruth marcus. california congressman ed royce chairs the house foreign affairs committee which oversees the state department. mr. chairman, welcome. should there be an investigation into the charges as outlined so far in this memo? they are preliminary. >> well, absolutely. you have a situation where senior political appointees at the state department leaned in and in these reports clearly attempted to call off investigations, manipulated investigations, not just on misconduct, but on allegedly criminal activity here. the other aspect of this that is really off-putting is that for 4 1/2 years now, we have asked the administration to appoint someone in that position in order to have in the inspector general's office the authority and responsibility, and instead now we find that the political appointee is going all the way up the chain have been involved in this particular suppression. >> are you sending a letter or demanding some kind of action from the state department? >> we certainly are, especia

. >> i want to bring in ruth marcus, columnist for "the washington post" and the executive editor of the national journals hotline. good to see both of you. good morning. >> good morning, chris. >> good morning. >> we know the numbers. 26,000 sexual assaults last year. the publicity about these disgusting cases has put a lot of pressure on the military. who has the upper hand right now, do you think, ruth? the generals or senators? >> i would not want to be betting on the generals on this one. i don't mean to be treating this lightly. it is a huge problem. the president recognizes it's a huge problem and wants something done about it. the generals recognize it's a huge problem and want something done about it. that it has not been taken seriously enough lower down in the chain of command and that something must change, if not in the culture at large, certainly in the culture of the military. i think it's a harder question to know how seriously to take the general's concerns about taking this outside of the chain of command. i think we recollected have a serious discussion about the i