I was press secretary for three Cabinet press secretaries under the Clinton administration. You know, not the White House podium, but I briefed national, international media all around the world. It is a tough job.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CARDONA: You have to be prepared. You have to study. You have to know the issues. You have to understand what it is that you are representing when you are at that podium. She would be representing the President of the United States and the United States government itself. Now, I actually feel bad for her because I do think that Trump threw her into this--

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CARDONA: --because he was very confused about what that qualification meant.

SCIUTTO: Yes, listen, no one wants to pile on. I mean, this is highly personal. It's very public. Washington can be difficult and brutal, and social media, et cetera.

Brian, the President, though he made this decision, he blamed the media for being tough on her. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Katie's been treated very badly by the media, very, very badly, very unfairly, I think.

Generally, the media has been very rough. She was on Sean Hannity last night, and Sean was a little bit tough. And she did, I saw Fox & Friends this morning; they were a little tough. She's been treated, I would say, pretty nastily.

I think she's been really, really treated very unfairly.

REPORTER: Are you saying you're talking about firing her? Or...?

TRUMP: Not -- no, no. We're talking about, I want her to have a good life. I don't want her to have a life like she's led in the last three days. She's being brutalized by the media, I think very unfairly, but she's been brutalized by the media.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Not the first time we've heard a review like that, Brian. But what was your reaction to hearing that?

STELTER: Well, most of the criticism, the most significant criticism, was coming from the right. It was coming from conservative commentators, from Fox hosts, from Trump-aligned figures, who wanted the President to have an effective spokesperson out there.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

STELTER: I think everybody who watched Tuesday's briefing, everybody knew it was cringeworthy. Everybody knew it was awkward. And SNL was coming up tomorrow night. You know, now she'll avoid that, or at least there'll be a resolution before she's parodied by SNL. But seriously, I think that timeline did have something to do with this. President's cleaning this up now before he's traveling this weekend.

And I want to recognize, all of my neighbors, they don't care who the press secretary is tonight, right? They do desperately care about the economy. And all of this is a sideshow from the gas prices and those other issues.

But the President deserves to have a messenger who can talk about those topics on his behalf.

SCIUTTO: Right.

STELTER: And right now, that's what he's sorely lacking inside the White House.

SCIUTTO: So, Scott, I mean, to lack that voice so close to a midterm election, does that concern you? Should it concern the President? Should it concern Republicans?

JENNINGS: Well, I think the only thing that should concern the President is finding the right person for this job and any other job that he needs to fill. He needs to finish out this administration strong, no matter what happens in the November midterm. He's got two years left, and that's a lot of time. And I know he has views about what he wants his legacy to be, and has some policy ideas that he'd like to implement. You just need the strongest possible team that you can find. I think his chief of staff is one of the strongest possible chiefs of staff you could have. They just hired a new legislative director who's very well regarded on Capitol Hill.

So, if I were in his shoes, I would just be thinking, yes, speed here is less important to me than getting--

SCIUTTO: Yes.

JENNINGS: --the person who best fits the job, who has the most qualifications.