Since tom price was forced to resign a week ago, it was learned that President Trump had already lost trust in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) secretary. According to Politico's "Trump's breaking point with Price", Price was rarely present at strategy meetings at the Oval Office and he did very little in trying to help Congress repeal Obamacare.
Price was lazy with Obamacare repeal efforts
It was widely reported that Price was forced to resign for spending over a million dollars of taxpayer money taking chartered flights since May. During the last week of September while Senate Republicans were rushing to get votes on their latest effort to repeal Obamacare -- otherwise referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- White House officials said that Price was nowhere to be found when they were looking for him over the health care issue.
It was during this time that reports of Price's expensive charter flights on the tax payer's dime were drawing attention and under media scrutiny, it was learned that the secretary was indeed not making any effort to influence the new repeal.
One of his chartered flight visits was to Maine whose Sen. Susan Collins (R) was not being coerced, she being one of the senators who held out and helped the repeal effort fail.
Public relations and post-Price repairs
When the President learned about the reports, he appeared to express some frustration with the news and when asked about whether he would fire the Secretary, he said he would think about it. Price would eventually hand in his resignation and Trump would accept it. The incident presents a clear example of when an administration that has held out by using misinformation and deflection tactics had let their guard down, forced to respond to the growing controversy around Price.
The Politico article referred to White House officials who said that the DHHS handled the reports of Price's abuse of taxpayer money badly.
It appeared that officials were indeed holding out to wait for the reports to blow over, as the DHHS Inspector General's office was already reviewing the flights. This appears to be standard for the trump administration, but Price had already made things worse when he said that he would reimburse the cost of his private flights out of his own pocket.
But out of the estimated total cost of more than $1 million, Price would only agree to pay back $52,000 which he claimed was only for his seat. It was reported that Price had cut a check to the Treasury Department which HHS said had been processed on Thursday. Other cabinet officials are under similar scrutiny, such as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Environmental Protection Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.