Army Secretary Pick Withdraws From Consideration; Trump to Make First Overseas Trip as President
CABRERA: President Trump's effort to fill his top staff positions has hit another snag. This time it's his nominee for Army secretary Mark Green who has withdrawn his name over controversial comments he's made and the outrage they sparked. This is strike two now for the president when it comes to this position. The Army secretary position. And it's raising questions about who is doing the vetting for potential nominees. CNN's Jessica Schneider has details -- Jessica.</s>JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, the Trump administration has repeatedly been criticized for its vetting process. Well, now the latest nominee for Army secretary has been forced out once again raising the question, is the Trump team getting this vetting process right?</s>SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Mark Green is a victim of his own words.</s>MARK GREEN, FORMER ARMY SECRETARY NOMINEE: If you polled psychiatrists they're going to tell you that transgender is a disease.</s>SCHNEIDER: Green has also made critical comments about Muslims and is a self-identified creationist who once delivered a lecture arguing against the Theory of Evolution. Now the West Point grad who was President Trump's second choice for Army secretary is taking his name out of consideration. The first pick withdrew setting financial entanglement. Green is just the latest problematic pick for President Trump drawing doubts about the administration's vetting process. Questions are also now being raised about 28-year-old Steven Munoz. He was hired for a top job in the Office of Protocol at the State Department on January 25th. But police records first obtained by ProPublica then obtained by CNN show multiple people accused Munoz of sexual assault while he was a student at the Citadel Military College. The alleged victims came forward to college officials and police between 2010 and 2012. Munoz was never charged with a crime. But an investigation by the Citadel revealed that based upon a preponderance of the evidence the college concluded that certain assaults likely occurred. Munoz's lawyer maintains, "The allegations were unfounded. It was a total overreaction by the Citadel to even investigate and ultimately no charges or lawsuits were brought against him." The State Department is standing by Munoz and it's vetting procedure. A simple search would have revealed the allegations. The White House and State Department did not comment on whether they considered or knew about the allegations. Perhaps the most serious case of questionable vetting, the appointment and subsequent resignation of former National Security adviser Michael Flynn. The retired general accepted $45,000 in speaking fees from Russian state TV in 2015 despite being warned by the Pentagon not to accept money from foreign governments and Flynn initially failed to register as a foreign agent for work he did for a Turkish owned company. President Trump deflected responsibility pinning Flynn's approval on former President Obama.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was approved by the Obama administration at the highest level. And when they say we didn't vet, well, Obama I guess didn't vet because he was approved at the highest level of security by the Obama administration.</s>SCHNEIDER: And President Trump is right. The Obama administration granted Michael Flynn a security clearance, but Flynn resigned from that post in 2014. A year before he was paid for that speech in Russia. It's something that a second background check, if done by the Trump team, may have picked up -- Ana.</s>CABRERA: All right, Jessica Schneider, thank you. A third search will now be needed to fill out President Trump's Army secretary, one of hundreds of positions still unfilled. Let's talk this over with CNN political commentator and former Reagan political director Jeffrey Lord, and CNN contributor, former Philadelphia mayor, Michael Nutter. Jeffrey, it's a Washington to blame previous administrations for problem, but doesn't President Trump have to take responsibility at some point?</s>LORD: Well, look, we're talking a couple of things here. First, sure, he has to take responsibility. Every president, the buck stops on their desk. That's absolutely correct. My point here is that this happens in administrations. I can think of three right off the top of my head from the Obama administration. Tom Daschle is HHS secretary, Charles Friedman, a Saudi ambassador, and head of the National intelligence Council, and Bill Richardson as Commerce secretary. All of them had to withdraw their nominee -- their nominations for varying reasons, conflict of interest, et cetera. So -- and there are others going well back in the past so this happens.</s>CABRERA: Yes, it happens but --</s>LORD: It just the Donald Trump term here.</s>CABRERA: But Donald Trump also comes in with a unique set of circumstances, right. He's the mogul whose shot to stardom as a mentor to his "Apprentice," he knows nothing about hiring?</s>LORD: Well, what you've got here is this is the government here. This is the government, and the media and all of that sort of thing. So there is a problem here. I'm sure he's going to correct it. I have no doubt about it. But in context, to be very, very fair here, this kind of things have been happening for a long time and they happened in the Obama administration.</s>CABRERA: Right. Right.</s>LORD: And he served two terms.</s>CABRERA: Yes. But, you know, Daschle, as you mentioned earlier, he was due in February. It's May. But anyway, Mayor Nutter, is the problem the vetting or is it unfair expectations?</s>MICHAEL NUTTER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.</s>CABRERA: I mean, Donald Trump is a different kind of president. Doesn't it make sense he would have a different kind of staff, could you argue?</s>NUTTER: No, and, Jeffrey, you need to cut it out. You know this is bad.</s>LORD: You're right.</s>NUTTER: You just ran right past the fact that the president has to take responsibility for this. Forget about -- I love, maybe you didn't, President Obama in his eight years. But last I check he's out of office. There is a vetting that must take place before you even think about nominating someone before you speak their name in public. You have already gone through a double vet. President Trump likes to talk about extreme vetting. This was for the National Security adviser. So cut it out. There's nothing to do with President Barack Obama. There is a thing, Jeffrey, that was created -- I know you were in the Reagan administration but since then there's this new thing out called the Internet. You can find out all kinds of information if you go on to your little device or computers. And when you fill out your clearance form, like I've had to in the past, the things that Mr. Flynn is being accused of, or that he did, you actually have to put on the form. So this is all the Trump administration and it's really indicative of the arrogance and ignorance with which they've approached putting their team together in the first place.</s>CABRERA: Jeffrey, I'd like to ask you about your experience working in the White House. At some point surely as these open jobs caused problems for staff, don't they? You look at the State Department and a third of ambassadorships have not been filled. Undersecretary and assistant secretary positions are still open. We're talking about hundreds of positions overall in the administration. Doesn't this have an impact?</s>LORD: There are a couple of things that are at play here. One I think is unique to Donald Trump. I think he genuinely believes that some of these positions are not necessary and why fill them. So that's number one. It's probably unique to him. But there is a second thing that went on in the Reagan administration that's going on in the Trump administration and I'm sure it went on in the Obama administration as well, and I can give you an example. A friend was nominated to be secretary of Transportation. He was cleared. He wanted to appoint a specific person as his communications director. That specific person had problems with the Reagans. And therefore that nomination wasn't going to be approved until certain things were taken care of. They went through this all through the Reagan administration with candidates who had worked in the Bush campaign, for example, even though George H.W. Bush was vice president where one candidate was vetoed for a job in the Reagan-Meese Justice Department.</s>CABRERA: Right. Right. There are a lot of examples where that happens.</s>LORD: They want people who are loyal to the candidate and loyal to the president. And that takes time.</s>CABRERA: But -- but what's the impact on -- it does take time. But what's the impact of having all of these positions still left open? And even if there are -- maybe there is some trimming of the fat to be done to your point if we were just to accept that, at some point, though, there's an impact to things getting done, is there not?</s>LORD: Well, sure, if you just extend it forever and a day but that's not going to happen here. I mean, these positions are going to get filled and will go on. I mean, things are rolling along as they are. He just got his health care bill out of the House. So, you know, life moves on.</s>CABRERA: All right. Mayor Nutter, I know you are the Philadelphia mayor, of course. One of the country's biggest --</s>NUTTER: Going nowhere in the Senate.</s>CABRERA: But I'd love to get your input from your shoes and the positions you've held. How did you handle criticism of your hiring decisions?</s>NUTTER: Sure. Well, first and foremost, Ana, the answer to your original question just now to Jeff is, yes, it has an impact on departments and maybe the president should not have had a massacre of the ambassador corps requiring everyone to resign at the same time, again, not understanding that it actually takes time to vet your own folks and get them confirmed. Second, you know, much of this process actually quietly, you know, every candidate should at least consider that they might possibly win. So you start thinking on a separate track that you're actually going to start identifying folks that you would want to have in these critical positions and then you accelerate it after the elections. So they've been slow from the start. And then they were even slower, kind of getting up and running. It's May. And you've got a ton of positions unfilled. It does have an impact on the departments and agencies. People want to do their work. They want to know who they report to. What's the direction? What's our focus? What's our mission? And some of these agencies are being run by folks who are a couple of rungs down from the secretary's office or the ambassadorship and so you can't just say it is not running like a fine-tuned machine as the president likes to say. The wheels are starting to come off of this a little bit.</s>CABRERA: All right. We'll leave it there.</s>LORD: Ana --</s>CABRERA: You've got the first, we'll give Mayor Michael Nutter the last. We've got to leave it there. Thank you both, gentlemen. Coming up, the president takes a victory lap on health care. But is he ready for a bigger fight ahead in the Senate? A preview of what's to come next.