Politico reporter Nancy Cook detailed the shocking desperation for White House staff as they struggle to get Washingtonians to attend President Donald Trump's Fourth of July rally. According to Cook, there's already an outbreak of "finger-pointing" about the low turnout and the festivities haven't even begun.
Cook filed the story earlier in the evening, but on "The 11th Hour," she told substitute host Ali Velshi that she's hearing White House staffers are so desperate to find people who will appear in Trump's VIP section that they're giving them to anyone who will come.
"Well, really what the concerns are are that there's a question about will enough people show up," Cook told Velshi on Wednesday. "The White House and the Republican National Committee has all of these VIP seats they've been trying to off-load. Originally they tried to give them to a bunch of high-end donors."
High-end Democratic donors were not given VIP tickets, which began the inquiries about the politicization of the event, paid for by taxpayer dollars.
"Now I've been hearing even tonight, after I published this story today, that they're really willing to off-load them to -- one White House staffer that I talked to late this afternoon took home 15 tickets and was just going to hand them out to whomever she could tomorrow," Cook revealed. "And the big concern on the part of the White House and the RNC is whether or not these seats will be filled."
She reiterated that this event could be another colossal embarrassment, just like Trump's 2017 inauguration.
Watch the opening remarks below: