[Savidge:] A manhunt is under way in New Orleans this morning after two suspects opened fire, killing three people and wounding several others three miles from the French Quarter.
[Paul:] Police say the suspects approached the victims from behind. They started shooting. The other victims were taken to several hospitals in the area. We know one is currently in critical condition. As we continue to get more information, we'll certainly bring it to you. I want to let you know too that civil rights icon and Georgia Congressman John Lewis is in the hospital. He is expected to be released today, though.
[Savidge:] CNN's local affiliate WSB-TV is reporting that Lewis became ill on a flight to Atlanta and his spokeswoman says Lewis is under routine observation. The 78-year-old Lewis was or has represented Georgia since 1986. And in 2011, he was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
[Paul:] Well, there is supposed to be development experts with technical expertise, but, instead, according to "The Washington Post," the report there is that the Trump White House is giving jobs to political allies and loyalists instead. This is happening at the Millennial Channel Corporation, that small federal agency in charge of promoting economic growth in poor countries. Walter Shaub, CNN contributor and former director of the Office of Government Ethics is with us now. So, Walter, when we look at the background of someone who is typically hired, how do you compare that to what we are seeing in terms of the people who are now in those positions?
[Walter Shaub, Cnn Contributor:] Yes, well, this is quite an incredibly story. And just when you think that you've seen the layers of the swamp in this administration, it just gets deeper. This agency has an $800 million budget, so it may be small, but it's, you know, using a lot of tax dollars. In 2003, George W. Bush had emphasized that as that agency was set up, it was going to be more technical and accountable than a lot of other foreign relations and foreign aid type positions agencies. So, they have always filled those positions with highly technical experts. Well, now, they are filling them with college graduates and the grandson of one of the members of the Presidential Personnel Office. They've got an acting leader who sort of politicized things by telling his career staff that they should be reading Breitbart and who put all kinds of campaign paraphernalia up in his office until they told him that was a no-no in the federal government. So, it's a very significant departure from what's gone before in this agency.
[Paul:] So, it is you would characterize it as unprecedented?
[Shaub:] Yes, I think so. I mean, there maybe random individual examples, or something went awry in the past. But this is an agency that we dealt with when I was at the Office of Government Ethics and it's always highly technical and focuses on development in foreign countries that are in dire need. The this is part of a trend. The Office of Presidential Personnel has always been headed by somebody who is very senior and very experienced and respected in Washington and any administration, Republican or Democratic, they have put a 28-year-old in charge of this agency and there was an article in "The Washington Post" recently about how he has been using that office to throw drinking parties and people sit around there, the youngest staff members in the White House vaping, smoking electronic cigarettes. And it's apparently become the social hub of the White House. And he is now using this office to fill jobs for people like this he filled the Millennium Challenge Corporation with an individual who is a friend of his who he had worked with at a prior federal contractor job that he had filled. He went on a vacation with one of his senior officials and a bunch of other people and when he came back, a few months later, he filled the job with her grandson who had just graduated from college about a year before. That individual who also works in the Presidential Personnel Office has become something of a one-woman employment agency for her family and counting her, there are five members of her family working for the Trump administration and, after all, if our president is going to engage in nepotism, why wouldn't his personnel office follow suit?
[Paul:] All right. Walter Shaub, we appreciate your insight on this. Thank you so much. I do want to make a note here that the White House and MCC did decline comment when contacted by "The Washington Post."
[Savidge:] Russian President Vladimir Putin showing off Russia's new warships in its annual navy day parade. We'll tell you what this display of military might could mean for the U.S., ahead.