MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski blasted Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's judgment after their latest recommendation for a White House job blew up in their faces.
The "Morning Joe" co-host said President Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law had made things worse again by recommending their ally Nick Ayers to replace outgoing chief of staff John Kelly without securing assurance that he would take the job.
"Just a side note on Jared and Ivanka, who have brought to the table the worst ideas known to man for this presidency," Brzezinski said.
"Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, they were pushing Rudy Giuliani, begging for Rudy to be secretary of state," she continued. "We know that from the inside, from Trump himself."
She said the couple's dual positions as Trump's family members and senior White House advisers placed other staffers in an uncomfortable spot with them.
"Now they are defunct in terms of being able to recruit people because nobody can tell them the truth," Brzezinski said. "At some point Jared and Ivanka need to realize this, maybe they won't, but we all see it plain and simple -- especially given this experience with Nick Ayers, who basically said, 'Uh-huh, uh-huh, yes, yes, no.'"
MSNBC analyst John Heilemann said the Ayers departure signaled a broader problem within the White House.
"As you said, Mika, their track record in terms of personnel decisions has not necessarily been stellar, either in terms of the quality of the people they've recommended, in some cases," Heilemann said, "or in terms of their success in terms of reeling people in. But I do wonder about the Nick Ayers thing."
Heilemann suggested that Ayers, the vice president's chief of staff, might have decided to leave the White House after Trump was implicated in a felony conspiracy by federal prosecutors.
"You think about this moment on Friday which was -- which may prove to be a real turning point in the -- at least in terms of the reality, the onset of reality sinking in in the White House about how significantly imperiled the presidency is," he said.
