Trump Signals He's About to Boot V.A. Secretary
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: -- general flying on expensive flights, other matters, but the V.A. secretary certainly seems to be the one who is going to be replaced first. Now the president controls the timing on all of this. So he has been visiting with some potential successors but we are -- have not heard from them exactly when he plans to make this switch. So it is something that is expected. Of course, you see the firings and departures every week for the last several weeks. At least the last five or six weeks, there has been a major departure and shake-up here. So it might happen this week or we don't know. Up to the president. He does not have much on his public schedule. Today, he's having lunch with the vice president as we speak. So certainly staffing changes and issues are on his mind. We'll see when he decides to make a move on this, Brianna.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: What about with his legal team? The top lawyer on his legal team when it pertains to the Russian investigation out last week, then you had a new lawyer or two coming in, and now that's not happening?</s>ZELENY: Right, that was certainly a big change over the weekend. Joe diGenova who of course, you know, has been very active on Fox News and other places, you know, blasting the Russia investigation was certainly someone who appealed to the president. So he was announced last week that he was coming to join the president's team of lawyers, but that ended up changing on a Sunday after they had a meeting late last week. The president now is essentially left with one lawyer who is handling all of the Russia investigation. Of course, leading up to the question, will he testify with the special counsel or not? We're a couple weeks away from a potential decision there. So it's not one of the most sought-after positions, if you will. We've talked to many lawyers here in Washington and elsewhere who certainly do not want to come into the administration. It's a difficult case for sure. It's bad for business in some respects. The president, of course, pushing back over the weekend saying he's happy with his legal team, but we've heard that before. So it certainly is one of the many things weighing on this White House today, Brianna.</s>KEILAR: He said he was happy and then his top lawyer was gone. So we will see. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much. I want to talk more about this with Bloomberg Political Reporter Sahil Kapur with us now. So Sahil, this morning, we heard that from the deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, he said, this point in times, Trump has confidence in Dr. Shulkin. But, it seems like that means nothing because if you look back at a lot of these other dismissals or resignations or what have you, firings by Twitter or however, there's always a statement that comes out, so this doesn't mean much.</s>SAHIL KAPUR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER BLOOMBERG: Right, the key word there is at this point in time or key phrase I should say. I think -- I mean, every day, every week with this White House in terms of personal matters is like a game of Russian roulette. You never know who's going to stay or who's going to go. A lot of this -- you know, the president is the man with the red pen and he can makes all the decisions but he can very indecisive, he be mercurial and change his mind. Sometimes a firing or departure will come out of the blue, like former FBI Director James Comey. Sometimes, someone will be rumored to go for months like the case with Rex Tillerson or Gary Cohn before it actually happens. So, you never know where the president is going to go. With the vase of the V.A., we know he's been upset about this for -- you know, this situation for a while. He's wanted a replacement. The key thing people need to know there is, this is not a coveted job or a glamorous one. This is a massive bureaucracy with about 3,000 employees, the successors are not well-understood or appreciated where is the failure has become a national scandal. Who can the president find who will adhere to his campaign promises to take care of our veterans which the United States is not doing? Who the president likes and trust to see replace Shulkin? Hard to know.</s>KEILAR: No, that's a really good point. According to the Washington Post, and you mentioned sometimes there are rumored departures for months, even H.R. McMaster, we saw that took -- there was a lot of discontent from the president with him before he left. So the Post says that several people close to the president say a dramatic move like this would be an effort to change the narrative, take it away from all this focus on the Stormy Daniels case. Do you think a staff shake-up is in response to negative coverage? Do you believe that idea?</s>KAPUR: Absolutely. It's not -- it wouldn't be the first time the president layer over one controversy with another controversy or layer over one crisis with another crisis. We know he's very uptune to news coverage of him. He watches a lot of cable news and he tries to control the narrative and he's frankly very good at it. He can do it with a single tweet. So, yes, I'm sure that factors into his overall thinking, but I don't think that's the only thing. A move like this I think will weigh on him very heavily. If there's a problem or another scandal today after he makes the decision to fire someone who he currently he can say is an Obama administration holdover, that will weigh very heavily on him and I think he understands that.</s>KEILAR: V.A., it is such an important job, but like you said, maybe high risk and low reward, right?</s>KAPUR: Yes, exactly.</s>KEILAR: All right. Sahil Kapur, thank you so much, really appreciate it.</s>KAPUR: Thank you.</s>KEILAR: Now next, they marched for their lives here in Washington and across the country, but will young people march to the voting booths come November? How the gun control issue could shake up the midterms, next.