“The thing with Hagel, Ronan, is he’s always been the outsider, and Obama’s cabinet has been comprised, especially at the top of these insiders, and they’re very hesitant to let anyone else in. hagel had never really been able to breech that and get in there and make his opinion heard.”
Russert added that there were “frustrations” with Hagel’s performance, but he concluded that “they were not necessarily, I think, wed to his viewpoints. You saw a lot of daylight between the two of them, at one point when Chuck Hagel says ISIS could be one of the most significant threats in the world, President Obama was sort of saying oh, it’s the JV team. You saw that type of daylight throughout this last two years, Ronan and I think that’s sort of what came to fruition here.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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