"How can you actually say everything you just said, given the three or four cases that we've been talking about this morning which show that people who could harm the President have gotten very, very close to either the White House, inside it, or the President himself?" White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest faced a brick wall on the "Morning Joe" program Tuesday as he tried to convince co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that the scandal surrounding Secret Service mistakes causing breaches in White House security weren't as bad as they believe.

Each of the two co-hosts believe that Secret Service heads should roll, and the first firing should be Julia Pierson, the woman who runs the department. Ms. Pierson had testified before Congress the prior day and almost every review of her performance was negative.

While the Earnest segment on "Morning Joe" was friendly there was a clear undertone of anger by the hosts that the President and his family were put in danger.

Brzezinski: I want to start with the head of the secret service who faced a lot of questions yesterday. Did she answer them? Is she qualified to do her job?

Earnest: Mika, she's more than qualified to do her job. She is somebody who has a very difficult responsibility. She's responsible for leading the agency that protects the President, that protects the first family, that protects the White House. And what you saw her do yesterday was take responsibility for the shortcomings that are evident in the security posture at the White House that were on display. When there's someone who jumped the fence on the north lawn about ten days ago, she took responsibility for that. She also took responsibility for leading a review and implementing the needing reforms to strengthen the security posture around the White House.

Brzezinski: Josh, tell me, about that, what drills has she run? What has she done to change the culture inside the secret service? What plans has she put in place to make the President safer? And how can you actually say everything you just said, given the three or four cases that we've been talking about this morning which show that people who could harm the President have gotten very, very close to either the White House, inside it, or the President himself?

Earnest: Well Mika, in the immediate aftermath of this incident ten days ago, there were a number of reforms put in place that very evening to strengthen the security perimeter at the White House, to change some security protocols to make sure that the President was safe. I'm obviously not going to be in a position to detail all the security protocols from here those security protocols work because they’re not widely known by the public . But there were some reforms that were implementing that very night. More importantly, there's a broader review under way to determine what exactly happened that night. What was the secret service's response to that incident. And what changes need to be made. Whether it's staffing changes. Whether it is additional technology so -- that should be deployed to protect the President and to protect the White House. Are there some protocols that should be different---the response to those incidents? Should the protocol for responding to these incidents be changed? So this is a pretty broad look they're conducting. The President and the team at the White House is obviously very interested in reviewing the reforms they recommend. This is something the secret services takes very seriously and they need to work on.

Brzezinski:(…) There are some people potentially in the secret service who are not qualified for their job. Is that fair to say?

Earnest: No, that’s not fair to say at all, We're talking about men and women in the secret service who wake up every day prepared to put their life on the line to protect the President, to protect the first family, and to protect the White House. And it it's a very unique responsibility because here at the White House, the billion you see building you see behind me, it's not just the residence of the President of the United States, it’s a museum. Over the course of today, thousands of tourists will walk through that building. That is a value we protect. That’s the people’s house So this is not a matter of --

Scarborough cut in and got to the point, do the President and first lady trust the Secret Service to protect their two daughters?

Scarborough: Josh, Josh --

Earnest:-- -- putting up fortified walls it’s a matter protect the President and protecting the --

Scarborough:This is about people doing their jobs, Josh. Are you telling me this morning the President of the United States and the first lady have confidence in Julia Pierson to run an agency that's supposed to protect their two daughters?

Earnest: Yes Joe, they have confidence in them, I think for the reasons I laid out. These are men and women who wake up every day, professionals, who wake up every day--

Scarborough: I'm not talking about the professionals. I think the professionals deserve better leadership than they have had. We've been talking all day about the professionals that we've observed through the years who are extraordinary in the secret service. But we're talking about the leadership of the secret service. We're talking about a culture that obviously is broken.

Earnest: Well Joe what you saw, you saw the director of the secret service step before the television cameras on Capitol Hill yesterday, spend hours, answering difficult questions, from members of Congress --

Scarborough: She said nothing, Josh, she didn't answer the questions. We still don't know what happened.