NBC News' Andrea Mitchell on Trump's Ban on Transgender Troops and Health Care

-You've been doing this for a while.
You've been covering Washington for a while.
A lot of people say this is
the most unprecedented time we're living in.
The last couple of days -- voting on a health-care bill
that nobody knows what's in it.
Is this as unprecedented as we've been led to believe?
-It's wild. It's crazy.
I mean, nobody knows what they're voting on.
They don't know how much it's going to cost,
how many people are going to get knocked off of health care,
who's gonna get it, who isn't gonna get it.
They don't have a score from the budget office, the CBO,
which is nonpartisan.
And so they're just going through these bills
trying to get something to say, "We didn't fail."
-And, you know, while this is happening
and this is something that's gonna affect so many people
and so many people's health insurance,
which is a big deal --
And then you have something like this morning
where all of a sudden, you know, he starts tweeting
about how transgender people are not gonna be allowed in the military.
I have heard that the Pentagon
was completely taken by surprise by this.
Is that what your reporting has led to?
-Yeah. I mean, it's a little scary
that the Pentagon, you know, U.S. Intelligence
did not know that the president was gonna change
the policy for transpeople.
And I don't think that the Defense Secretary knew.
He is away on vacation for a couple of days.
We've got a lot of big military issues.
-Do you think he spoke to the generals?
I know he was saying that.
Is that something that we can be led to believe is true?
-Don't know. Can't say. -Yeah.
-But the fact is
that the generals have other big things --
Afghanistan, Syria,
you know, how to deal with North Korea,
whether missiles are going to go up
as early as tonight or tomorrow.
-As early as tonight? -Yeah, maybe.
-Oh, I hope they wait until after this airs.
I'd love to get one more in. -One more in.
-And then, I mean, there's a lot of theories floating around.
Do you think that this is something,
an issue that is near and dear to his heart
or that he's playing to his base or that he's using it
to distract from the health-care issue
that people talk about less
when he does a tweet about transgender soldiers?
-It's hard to say what's going on in his mind,
you know, what he's thinking.
I'm -- Seriously, I can't interpret it,
but it certainly has been a distraction
from the failure on health care.
It does play to the base.
It's a social issue, and it contradicts completely
what he said during the campaign.
So it's hard to figure out that this is near and dear to him
if it's not something he was talking about
when he was running for office.
-One of the things, covering foreign policy,
you have to cover the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.
He has not been taking a lot of questions.
Would you say this is the least?
-Uh, yes. [ Laughs ]
-In your time, there's never been a Secretary of State
that's allowed less access?
-Absolutely.
-And you've tried very hard, very noble efforts.
Here you are asking him
some questions at the end of a photo op.
Let's take a look real quick.
-Thank you! -Thank you!
-Thank you, guys. We're leaving.
-Thank you. Andrea. Andrea.
-The press is departing.
-We haven't had any time in here.
-I'm so sorry.
-[ Laughs ] -Oh, God.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-I'm -- You know what?
-I mean, that is humiliating. -That, yeah.
You looked like a woman
who was lost in a shopping mall at the end.
Also, it's interesting when people say "thank you,"
and you get the sense they're not that thankful.
And, you know, the other thing
is he is not letting the press fly with him.
And here is a guy who is taking trips
to obviously everywhere across the globe,
and so you have to --
The press has to fly commercial to try to catch up with him.
Has that made your job even harder?
-It's impossible because you cannot fly from here to there,
from country to country, without a military plane.
I don't have one. -Yeah.
-And we pay our way on this, so this is not a budget issue.
They say it's a budget issue.
But he doesn't want to have the press corps around.
So he has one person with him --
one person from the media now that --
He sort of represents all of us.
But the fact is that for decades now
Secretaries of State have briefed us on the plane
or had their top officials briefing us.
He doesn't have that many top officials
'cause they haven't filled the vacancies,
which is another whole issue.
But it really is hurting American diplomacy.
It's not good for us as a country
to not have the press able to say,
"Well, this is what the goal is
of this administration or this secretary."
It also sends a really bad signal, I think,
to regimes in China, in Turkey, in Russia
where reporters don't only not get press conferences.
They get locked up. They get killed.
I mean, there has always been a tradition
where the U.S. Secretary of State,
Republicans and Democrats, bring the press corps along.
And if they don't have press conferences there,
they --- he or she will hold a press conference
to show that we believe in freedom of the press.
-That is very disturbing.
I mentioned you've been doing this a long time,
and you are sort of a trailblazer
as a female journalist.
And very early on, you noticed a bit of the distinction
that people in charge will make between female and male reporters.
You covered Three Mile Island,
which was obviously a big story.
And what was your beat
that you were in charge of Three Mile Island?
-I covered -- I was the NBC energy correspondent,
so I covered nuclear energy,
and this was a potential meltdown.
So it was on my watch.
-And so what happened when you tried
to go report from Three Mile Island?
-Well, a very kindly, paternalistic bureau chief,
a lovely man said, when I noticed that five days in,
I was the only correspondent
not going in and covering this thing --
I went and said, "How come I'm the only one
who's not going to Three Mile Island?"
And he said, "Because you are a woman
of child-bearing age."
-Wow.
-And I said, "Has it occurred to you
that men's balls are as vulnerable
to radiation as women's ovaries?"
[ Cheers and applause ]
-That's great. It's very --
-I mean, I got there the next day.
They sent me right out. -You got there the next day.
Also, I want to say that's very noble
because for all the doors
that weren't open to women for so long,
the one that you would think they'd be happy to have closed
is the door to Three Mile Island.
But you -- I think that speaks a lot
to the integrity you have as a journalist.
And please keep up the good work, Andrea.
It's just lovely having you here.
-Thank you, Seth. -Andrea Mitchell everybody.
"Andrea Mitchell Reports" airs weekdays at noon on MSNBC.

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell on Trump's Ban on Transgender Troops and Health Care

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