Hello,

welcome to Politico's Nurdcast.

I'm Scott Bland, your host.

This week on the nerd cast we go behind the scenes at the White House and what the

failed nomination of Ronnie Jackson to lead the VA says about how the White House works and doesn't. Plus midterms we are going to jump

into an implosion going on in the Missouri Republican Party right now and how that benefits one of the most vulnerable

Democrats running for re-election in the Senate and we're also going to zoom out and

give you a little state of play in the entire 2018 Senate map right now. A reminder to our listeners to subscribe to the

Nurdcast, rate us and write a review and stay tuned for the end of the show

for a contribution from one of the Nurdcast's biggest fans. One more note before we begin we're taping this a little bit before

noon eastern on Thursday April 26 so it's all up to date as of then.

Okay let's get started I want to welcome our guests.

We have White House reporter, Eliana Johnson here.

Eliana, great to see you.

Good to see you, Daddy.

Thank you very much.

And Politico, senior editor, Charlie Matessian, thank you for being here.

Hey Scott.

Time for our first data point.

Five in four, the Department of Veterans Affairs has had five directors in the last four years.

Three of them interim, two of them

confirmed. That's a lot of turmoil and the turmoil continues. That's thanks to

...