Speaker 1: So the White House is travel headache. Well, it's growing
Speaker 1: with new revelations about top officials use of military aircraft.
Speaker 1: This is Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price that
Speaker 1: he will pay back the US government for expenses associated
Speaker 1: with those private charters he took and will now fly commercial.
Speaker 1: Let's get the latest on this from Anna Eddie healthcare
Speaker 1: um reporter. Are you healthcare reporter? Yes? Wow, you do
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, healthcare reporter at Bloombergers. Which makes sense
Speaker 1: because you covered Mr Price. Secretary Price. She joins us
Speaker 1: from our news froman Washington I thought I wrote something
Speaker 1: down wrong, and Anna, good to have you here with us.
Speaker 1: He's gonna write a check for fifty one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: I thought the bill was hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: You're right. That's the the estimate that politico who has
Speaker 1: broken these stories came up with. And you know, when
Speaker 1: Secretary Prices statement came out yesterday, it said, um, you
Speaker 1: know he was going to write this check, and it
Speaker 1: also made a note, um, taxpayers won't pay a dime
Speaker 1: for my seat on these planes, and that kind of
Speaker 1: got our you know, got me thinking, how how much
Speaker 1: is that check actually going to be. So I think
Speaker 1: that's where the divide is is he's paying for his
Speaker 1: seat but not for the entire plane. Okay, who else
Speaker 1: was on the plane? I'm assuming it was his staffers.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, and we haven't exactly had that answered.
Speaker 1: We do know, um or was it family members? Like?
Speaker 1: Who was it? Right? Well, and certainly there were other
Speaker 1: people on it, um, but that's not something HHS has divulged.
Speaker 1: We do know from Politico that UM, Kelly and Conway, UH,
Speaker 1: the advisor to the president, was on one of those
Speaker 1: kind of most um I guess um infamous trips, which
Speaker 1: was the jet ride to Philadelphia, which is only you know,
Speaker 1: a very short hop from d C. UM. What are
Speaker 1: the rules on members of a cabinet, um, officials of
Speaker 1: an administration? What are the rules when it comes to
Speaker 1: how they fly or are supposed to fly? So for
Speaker 1: these these chartered flights, UM, you know, the they're supposed
Speaker 1: to when considering travel, UM, take into account that they
Speaker 1: should do it, you know, the most efficient way, but
Speaker 1: also the most financially efficient way. Um, And so we did. UM.
Speaker 1: Kathleen Sibelius was in the Bloomberg office earlier this week
Speaker 1: and she's the former HHS secretary, and she said she
Speaker 1: had only taken a charter flight once and that was
Speaker 1: two very remote villages in Alaska that they couldn't have
Speaker 1: gotten commercial there. So the idea was, you're only supposed
Speaker 1: to use a chartered flight when there's just no other
Speaker 1: options available. Secretary prices trips. Many of those on the
Speaker 1: on the jet were, you know, within the United States,
Speaker 1: so conceivably, you know, Alaska's in the US. But but
Speaker 1: obviously Um has some remote villages where he was going,
Speaker 1: was conceivably there were commercial planes. It's interesting too write
Speaker 1: because in addition to him using some of those charter jets,
Speaker 1: it said that he Health and Human Services Secretary Tom
Speaker 1: Price Um now faces scrutiny for using military jets. Rerobably
Speaker 1: put his total travel tab above a million dollars, And
Speaker 1: I think I had read somewhere that the budget for
Speaker 1: the military flights overall is something like four million dollars
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know if that's correct, that I
Speaker 1: had read that somewhere, But it like, who keeps tabs
Speaker 1: on it? Or is it just everybody's supposed to kind
Speaker 1: of keep tabs and do the right thing. Um themselves well,
Speaker 1: there are two separate things going on. With the chartered flights.
Speaker 1: They those you know, stopped at Secretary Price, they didn't
Speaker 1: go above him to the White House for approval. The
Speaker 1: White House said they don't, um, they don't deal with those.
Speaker 1: With the military flights, Um, it's been reported that those
Speaker 1: are something that the White House does as sign off on.
Speaker 1: And so there are two separate tracks here. Some on
Speaker 1: the White House new aboutins on that that they didn't. Okay, um, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's still a lot of money. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of money. So the to get back to your earlier point,
Speaker 1: the um it's political estimated about five hundred thousand for
Speaker 1: the military flights, so it would be a million total
Speaker 1: for his his charter jet flights that he's paying back
Speaker 1: or not chartered for chartered end military right now, he's
Speaker 1: paying back about fifty two thousand. And I know this
Speaker 1: may not be your Bailey Wick, but EP Administrator Scott
Speaker 1: Pruett also joining attention, reports that he took private or
Speaker 1: military plans at least four times, costing taxpayers more than
Speaker 1: fifty eight thousand dollars. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinki charted a
Speaker 1: domestic flight on a plane owned by energy executives and
Speaker 1: other reports said, and then of course we have Treasury
Speaker 1: Secretary Stephen Minutions travel earlier this year. Uh so interesting.
Speaker 1: UM so I guess is Price safe? First of all,
Speaker 1: well he keep his job. That's a great question, I think.
Speaker 1: Hearing um a few days ago when President Trump was
Speaker 1: asked this, and you know, he said he wasn't happy
Speaker 1: with the secretary, and when asked if he would be fired,
Speaker 1: he said, we'll see. Yesterday, um, Secretary Price told us
Speaker 1: and he was um at an event on influenza shots.
Speaker 1: But some reporters I was there were able to ask him,
Speaker 1: you know, do you think you will be fired? He said,
Speaker 1: I think I have the confidence of the president because
Speaker 1: didn't um. Uh Sara, Howkaby didn't you kind of hedge
Speaker 1: it was it yesterday? In the process? She did? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she she she also kind of had the will see mentality. Um,
Speaker 1: so there's that. That's still that possibility is still pretty
Speaker 1: large that he could go. And just to be fair,
Speaker 1: it's forty seconds left here. Um. Past administrations under the
Speaker 1: White House defended the use of the military jets, saying
Speaker 1: the administration has reduced the number of such flights by
Speaker 1: officials compared with the Obama administration's first eight months. To
Speaker 1: be fair, just got about thirty second. How does it
Speaker 1: Do we have any idea how this this rival stuff
Speaker 1: is comparing to past administrations. I only know, um what
Speaker 1: we heard from from Kathleen Civilius at HHS on the
Speaker 1: on the chartered flights. I'm not sure yet on the
Speaker 1: military flights, but um, certainly it's many more chartered flights
Speaker 1: on on the Trump and then for the Obama's HHS secretary, right,
Speaker 1: it would be nice to know who else was on
Speaker 1: the planes and whether or not the U. S taxpayer, you, me,
Speaker 1: and everybody else gets reimbursed for it. A lot out there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot out there. Anna, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: following it for us and breaking it down. Anna Edney,
Speaker 1: healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News, joining us from our DC bureau.
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