hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 8:00 p.m. in aleppo. 9:00 p.m. in baghdad, wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks for joining us. a steady stream of heavy hitters coming into trump tower in new york city today as the president-elect of the united states and his transition team work to try to put together the new administration. that was, by the way, retired lieutenant general michael flynn arrives this morning. key adviser to donald trump. a possible national security

pick and we heard from vice president-elect mike pence head of the transition team who said this about the job ahead -- >> we have an enormous opportunity before us for this country. to revive our economy, rebuild our military, and in a very real sense renew the american dream, and i'm humbled to be some small part of helping bring together the women and men in president-elect trump's administration who will implement his vision. >> two positions are filled so far. the white house chief of staff, with wrben national committee chairman reince priebus getting that job and steve bannon, former chairman of breitbart news now the chief strategistco president. >> in regard to advising the president, i think if people understand president trump, he likes taking opinions from a lot of different people. he's not a person that just

listening to one person and does whatever that one person says. he decides. so in advising the president i would suspect that me, steve bannon, i think jared kushner, obviously, his son-in-law will be very involved in decision-making. >> our chief political correspondent dana bash is joining us live from new york. trump's inner circle is meeting right now i'm toldness trump tower in new york city. do we know which positions are being discussed and when they might be discussed? >> reporter: not specifically. i was told after he fast-tracked the chief of staff role, he did, making that announcement along with his senior counselor steve bannon that happened yesterday, that the next thing on the agenda would be the top five cabinet positions. that they are going it try to figure out. the most -- of those, the most important obviously, secretary of state, secretary of defense, attorney general and so on. so that is likely going to be next on the agenda, but you

know, look, the bottom line is that he has a lot, a lot on his plate, as he realized when he went to meet with president obama, somebody who's ever been in public life, in public service, in government, of any way, shape or form nap he's got a lot of jobs to fill in the administration and beyond. listen to what kellyanne conway, who was hi campaign manager and is now an adviser said today. >> -- additional appointments. >> cabinet, or -- >> possibly. working on all that. >> which are the priorities? >> all of the above. >> how much work and preparation is going into -- >> very much, everybody is getting along very well. we feel busier than ever. >> what do you think is the strength of the bannon and priebus appointments? >> i've worked with both, a great team and will continue to work with them to some capacity. they complement each other and

both have the ear of the boss, most important. >> reporter: wolf, as i first reported yesterday, my understanding is kellyanne conway, you saw there, perfect example harks been very much the face of the trump campaign in the last few months, and still is of the transition is likely to stay out of the trump administration, and to work with outside groups, be, continue to be a, probably, a public face but just not as part of the administration. not a done deal yet, though. >> we'll see what happens with her, and so many others. dana, also learning that trump and chris christie, they had a little discussion, a little dialogue before things really got going in the republican primary, agreement of sorts during the primaries. tell us about that. >> reporter: this is part of a series of interesting nuggets that are coming out in cnn's new book which is going to formally be rolling out at the beginning of december. susan bair, one of the reporters

who helped work on this book, was learning that chris christie said, or actually i should say he a conversation with donald trump back in, like, early 2015, and trump apparently said, at that time, to his friend chris christie, he didn't expect to be in the race much beyond october of 2015. and that if that, in fact, happened, that trump would end up endorsing chris christie. now, we know that the opposite happened. chris christie ended up having to drop out, and he supported donald trump. but this is just one of several nuggets that we're going to be able to learn about in this narrative coming out in this book. >> really going to be an exciting book. thanks very much, dana, for that. to our viewers, get a lot more of cnn's behind-the-scenes story of this campaign as it happened. od order the new book. go to cnn.com/book to order it

today. still a lot of spots to fill for president-elect trump. treasury secretary, without press secretary, literally several thousand appointments they have to fill. so far filled just two. reince priebus was chosen, we noted, white house chief of staff. head of the republican national committee during the campaign and it's the rnc's ground game. we certainly went a long way to securing the win for donald trump. steve bannon, trump's campaign ceo, former head of breitbart media picked as chief strategist and senior counselor. joining us, josh bolten, former chief of staff under the presidency of george w. bush. thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. >> give me your reaction to the new white house chief of star and senior counselor? >> i think first of all, priebus is a good choice to be chief of staff. he's got experience. he knows washington well. he'll have a steep learning curve with respect to the, how the executive branch works, but i think both by temperament,

experience and judgment, he's a good choice for, to be a trump chief of staff. i don't know bannon, but i do know that the white house works best when there's only one chief of staff. so the tenure of the announcement concerned me who would actually be in charge. the white house has a hard time running if there isn't a singleler chief of staff well empowered by the president. >> when i got this press reless yesterday from the trump transition team, announces senior white house leadership team and went ton say president-elect donald j. trump announced stephen bannon will serve and reince priebus white house chief of staff. looked like bannon got top billing. the release said they will work as equal partners which i assume

means they both report to the president as opposed to steve bannon as a senior counselor reporting to the white house chief of staff? >> lots of people report to the president. so there's nothing wrong with that. there's also nothing wrong with having disparate voices within the white house. steve bannon, it's great. he could be a coequal, even louder voice in advising the president. in the white house that i served in, karl rove was a very major presence, both because of his relationship with the president, and his astuteness as a political and policy strategist. there's nothing wrong with having disparate voices. the problem arises when there isn't one person clearly in charge of the president's calendar and running the staff, and that person -- >> assuming reince priebus is that person? >> should be that person and the president, my advice to president-elect trump, and any president, would be, make sure you've empowered that person to do their job. they don't have to be the most

important voice among your advisers. they do have to have the authority to run the staff, set the strategic priorities on the direction of the president. >> and so you did all that when you were president bush's chief of staff but you mentioned karl rove, senior adviser. he would be able to go ahead immediate and talk to the president. you might note even know about that? >> i would know about it, but absolutely. he had full access, and i dare say karl rove's advice to the president on many issues was much more important than my advice. >> what concerns be about this structure that has been established right now for this new white house? >> the rest of the government needs to understand that the president's directions are coming through only one person. and one person who sets the calendar of the president, one person who directs the staff, hires and fires the staff. and one person who keeps the government on the strategic priorities of the president. now, if the president doesn't like what the chief of staff is doing, he needs a new chief of

staff. but my strong advice would be, however you, however you gussy up this announcement, make sure that reince priebus is properly empowered to do the job that i believe he's capable of doing. >> if the president-elect were to say, josh, what's the single most important thing you think i need to do right now at this early stage in the transition? what advice would you have for him? >> personnel is the most important thing right now and that's i'm sure what they're spending the largest amount of time on. but then also, set the agenda for the next, for the next eight or ten months. the presidency is, i think, they will discover, just an extraordinarily complex institution, very hard to manage and run. and the inbox fills up with urgent crises immediately. the day you step in the door. and what the president and his team need to be sure they do is to leave time for the stuff

that's important among their agenda. don't let the urgent drive out the important. >> one final question. you like reince priebus as white house chief of staff, highly qualified, tmp temperamentally for the job. steve bannon you don't know him, but heard a lot about him. does that give you any concern? >> well, you know, disparate voices, great. and i would say to, to all of, you know, the people that i served with in government, i say, give them a chance. 's t the same chance the whole country needs to give the president. lots of people among establishment republicans like myself did not support trump as the candidate. plenty of people voted against trump, but we all need to give him and his team, they've earned it, by winning this election. we need them to give them a chance to prove in leadership what they can do for the country. and hopefully they will, they will do it way tone unlike many

of the things that happened in the campaign that will be uniting rather than dividing. >> josh bolten, former white house chief of staff under president george w. bush. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. keeping complain promises. up next, president-elect trump seems to backtrack on his commitments. it seems. also, president obama scheduled to hold a news conference at the white house. i'm sure pretty of questions about his meeting the other way with president-elect donald trump. we're back in a moment.

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go long™. ♪ donald trump now appears to be qualifying a bit some of those big campaign promises he made. here are some of the comments he's made in the last few days. >> let me ask you about obama care. which you say you're going to repeal and replace. when you replace it, are you going to make sure that people with pre-conditions are still covered? >> yes. because it happens to be one of the strongest assets. >> you're going to keep that? >> also with the children living were you their parents for an extended period. we're going to -- very much try and keep that. >> are you really going to build a wall? >> yes.

>> they're talking about a fence in the republican congress. would you accept a fence? >> for certain areas i would, but certain areas the wall is more appropriate. i'm very good at this's it's called construction. >> so part wall, part fence. >> could be some fencing. >> you called her crooked hillary, said you wanted to get her jailed. people in your audiences kept saying, "lock her up." >> she did some bad things. >> but special prosecutor? >> i don't want to hurt them. i don't want to hurt them. they're good people. i don't want to hurt them. >> all right. let's discuss with our political panel. joining us, chief political analyst gloria borger, cnn correspondent phil mattingly, and nia-malika henderson and from "time" magazine. is he walking about commitments, statements made during the campaign. >> some he started walking back

during the campaign. for example, obama care. wasn't going to take away pre-existing conditions. on the wall versus fence, that's different. the question of, lock her up versus, i'll think about it be that's different. we still don't know on the muslim ban where he's going to eventually wind up on that. he did soften his position on that during the campaign. so you can be forgiven for watching donald trump during this interview and scratching -- scratching your head and saying, wait a minute. is this the person who was out there on the campaign trail every day pounding these messages day in and day out, or is this a different donald trump now that he's president-elect? >> it's one thing to campaign, phil, as you know. another thing to govern. i've covered a lot of these transitions. it's not all that unusual to see a candidate who becomes president-elect all of a sudden moderate the tone, if you will? >> yes. the reality of life in

washington and needing to work with the congress and needing to work with multiple different other personalities other than yourself on a campaign stage can slap you pretty hard in the face. interesting element, you would never label donald trump as an ideologue, somebody about sloobtly tied to his positions. he's a dealmaker. somebody wants to get in the room and negotiate. while he's had very serious campaign promises up to this point, the idea he would all of a sudden start to move, show flexibility, that tracks with his career on some level. >> if you're a member of his sort of staunch base, and you see this, the cement cracking even before he sets foot in the oval office for real? the question is, how will his supporters react? maybe that's what steve bannon's going to do in the white house. making sure that those people are heard. >> interesting, because on that note, zeke, in the "60 minutes" interview when asked about gay marriage, he told leslie stahl, this is settled, the law of the

land. nothing you can do about it. forget about it. we're going to continue to have same-sex marriage here in the united states but offered a different analysis when it came to roe v. wade, abortion rights for women. listen to this. >> will you appoint, are you looking to appoint, a justice who wants to overturn roe v. wade? >> so here's what's going to happen. i'm willing to, i'm pro-life. the judges will be pro-life. if it ever were overturned it would go back to the states. >> but then -- >> back to the states -- >> then some women won't be able to get an abortion. >> back to the states. >> by state -- >> perhaps they'll have to go to another state. >> so on the one hand, roe v. wade, aaabortion rights in the united states for women. >> and what he's become throughout the campaign now sort of, look at the issue of same-sex marriage that is a generational issue, younger folks regardless of partisan

affiliation broadly don't really care about it. but on the issue of pro-life issues, abortion, a very polarizing issue throughout the lectern. at that point where -- go back to great quote earlier in the campaign. donald trump supporters take him seriously, not literally. reporters take him literally, not seriously. will they forgive him or not? they bought the man. they didn't buy the ideas. donald trump expressed zero loyalty to a lot of his ideas throughout the campaign flip-flopped over and over but they still bought that and that's a potent force regardless where he is. >> curious. what does it say to you? gay marriage, settled law. abortion rights for women, not necessarily? >> he's got to figure out. there is an evangelical base to his support and to the party that definitely doesn't like same-sex marriage works like to see that -- >> including his vice president, the vice president-elect.

>> exactly. you wonder how he deals with that part of the base? in terms of abortion? will they be satisfied as long as he appoints conservative justices? who look to repeal row v. wade? this is a big mystery. i think we're learning sort of personnel was policy. the people he's putting in place. bannon, one hand, represent as very different wing of the party than reince priebus who actually will have the control here in the white house, and who many going to have donald trump's ear and tend to very different factions that got him elected, but in some ways are not ideological, aren't like pro-trade in the way that we've seen most republicans be. even in terms of obama care. this idea that maybe he keeps some parts of it, you know, i thought it was repeal and replace. that's been the cry. >> used the world "amend" too. everybody stay with us. >> and improves the economy, and their lot in life and they start thinking that their future and

their children's futch letter get bletter -- future will get better it all goes by the wayside. it's about the economy and their lives. >> more to discuss. everybody stay put. look at this by the way. live pictures from the white house right now. less than two hours from now during the 3:00 p.m. eastern hour president obama is holding a news conference. first full-scale news conference since the election of donald trump. of course, cnn will have live coverage. later today, the president and secretary clinton will speak with members of the democratic national committee about the democrats path forward. so what will be their message? lots of news happening today. we'll be back with our panel, right after this short break. ♪ ♪ is it a force of nature? or a sales event? the season of audi sales event is here.

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less than two hours from now president obama is scheduled to give a news conference over at the white house. you're looking at live pictures. this news conference happens just ahead of this trip to greece, germany and peru. this will be his last overseas trip as president of the united states. before he leaves, the president, by the way, will also join hillary clinton in a conference call with the democratic national committee. let's bring back our panel, gloria, phil and nia-malika and "time" magazine's zach miller. the president will be asked a lot of questions about the new president, president-elect trump, they met in the oval office the other day. the president being very gracious. i assume that will continue? >> i think it will continue and we've learned both from our own and internal reporting and reporting at the "wall street journal" is that it seems like the president figured he has to pay a lot more attention to this president-elect, because there is, there's nobody who would potentially go in the white

house who served there before, and so it sounds to me there may be a bit of a tutorial going on about what it's like to work in the west wing, and how it gets managed, because, you know, as josh bolten was just telling you, it's an enormous undertaking, unless you really understand going in what it's like. so i think that this president doesn't want this white house to get swallowed up by all of the bureaucracy and things they need to get control of. what he's trying to do for the good of country and the good of the next president, make sure that this transition goes as smoothly as possible. >> and donald trump has been very gracious to the president. very different than what he said about him what the president said about him during the campaign. saying very nice thing, not only about the president but his democratic challenger and her husband. >> yes. quite an about-face for him just over the course of the last five or six days. the interesting element is, first and foremost, to gloria's

point, i think president obama recognizes donald trump and his team need help. donald trump recognizes he needs help and his team needs help coming in. it is a massive entity. staffed to a level you can't imagine until you've been there. the build itself at a size you can't imagine until you get in there. a recognition president obama is offering guidance and counsel to some degree and donald trump would be a fool not to take it. donald trump is willing to listen to people, often more than some advisers would like but he's willing to do that going forward. interesting dynamic. >> and the president on this conference call later in the afternoon with leaders from the democratic national committee. hillary clinton will be on that call as well. there's a lot of anguish going on there, a lot of anger that they failed. >> yes. and they did fail. they failed massively. at least in terms of electoral college, in terms of some of these states that were part of the democratic base. so they thought. states like pennsylvania, and

wisconsin, going massively for donald trump, and handing him the presidency. i think those callers on with obama and on with hillary clinton are going to want to know how does the democratic party move forward? what is the new face of the party look like? i mean, in some ways, hillary clinton and obama are old news at this point in terms of who leads the party? this is, in some ways at this point, a leaderless party. who emerges? what kind of advice or encouragement can obama give them, or hillary clinton give them? again, this is a party that is turning the page. it's looking for a new leader. somebody like keith ellison? martin o'malley? goodness, not a call either of these people, hillary clinton, or president obama thought they'd have to make. >> a tough decision democrats have to make. pick somebody more established or go with a new face? >> if you look at the dnc now, it's kind of a shell of its former several. it has been neglected by this administration. something folks around the dnc

have said for years. debbie wasserman schultz pushed out a sort of, over the summer. needs a leader and the question is, is the republican national committee now a model? nobody would sade reince priebus is a great messenger but a good nik crat, ran the party very well, technocrat. you win you're a genius, obvi s obviously. they learned from mistakes and moved forward. >> got donald trump elected. his get out the vote movement, his analytics that actually worked for trump, and got him elected, and i would think trump would have had a harder time getting elected if it weren't for reince priebus's planning. >> also raises the question, is there an outsider? right? in the democratic party. no one thought dnonald trump. you thought jeb bush, kasich or someone. someone no one is thinking of at this point and not the starntd people standard people, corey booker, someone like that. >> to that point, what everybody

is saying, there are systemic problems in the democratic party right now covered up by president obama in 2008 and president obama in 2012. look at 2010, 2014, 2016, governors' races, state legislatur legislatures, house, senate, the party decimated. this idea, difficult questions that meade need answered. pathways forward. there are real problems inside the democratic party and they need a path forward that starts that. >> hold your thought a moment. i want to remind viewers, six days since the election, but not everything is settled. the electoral map as it stands. 290 electoral voetsz for donald trump. 232 for hillary clinton. still a little piece of yellow in the middle there. that's michigan. trump leads there by a slim margin. cnn has not project add winner in that race. still counting votes in michigan and finished elsewhere. the popular vote. interesting. hillary clinton leads president-elect trump by more

than 600,000 votes. 47.8% for hillary clinton. 47.3% for donald trump. hillary clinton ahead in the popular vote. still resuming, haven't finished, all of the popular vote count. we'll see what the final result once in. now that donald trump will become the next president of the united states, is paul ryan guaranteed to be the next speaker of the house? we'll ask our next guest, congressman mark meadows. he's a republican from north carolina. a member of the house freedom caucus. you see him there. he'll join us live from capitol hill, right after a quick break. with my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the possibility of a flare was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal. until i talked to my doctor. she told me that humira helps people like me get uc under control and keep it under control when certain medications haven't worked well enough. humira can lower your ability to

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the u.s. house of representatives and the senate are back in session starting today with plenty on the agenda

during this lame duck session. among items this week, deciding the future of the house leadership including the speaker paul ryan. a north carolina republican congressman. mark meadows joins us, from capitol hill, member of the national freedom caucus. thanks for joining us. >> wolf, great to be back. thanks so much. >> where do you stand? members of your caucus, as far as paul ryan continuing on as speaker of the house? >> you know, i think this came in roaring like a lion. it's going to go out as gentle as a lamb. i think really paul ryan is going to end up running for speaker, unopposed. he'll have the vast majority of the republican congress, the vast majority of the house freedom caucus, because the focus is really not on the speaker's race any longer. it's on the american people and making sure that we actually take washington, d.c. back, give it back to its rightful owner, the american people, and they're more focused on the first 100 days. what we're doing in the freedom caucus. we met last night, again today,

on how to make sure that that first 100 days is the most productive in modern history. >> what's your reaction to reince priebus, the republican party chairman, emerging now as the white house chief of staff under the new president? >> you know, i would not only applaud that, but i know both mr. priebus and mr. bannon both, and have heard them talk about one another privately when the other one wasn't there. they both have been very complementary of the other. obviously, it was a team that came together that produced unbelievable results, and so i'm glad to have them both in the white house, and i think that what we'll be able to do is not only hit the ground running but hit it in a sprint. >> nancy pelosi, the democratic leader of the minority in the hort issued a tough statement on stan bannon, going to be toff strategist. bringing steve bannon to the white house san alarming signal that president-elect trump remains committed to the hateful and divisive installation

defined his campaign. there must be no sugar coating the reality that a white nationalist has been named chief strategist for the trump administration. i'm anxious to get your reaction to what pelosi now says. >> well, that's not a surprises coming from nancy pelosi, wolf. i can tell you it's a mischaracterization of who he is. i've been able to spend time with steve bannon in private. he's not only a quiet counselor, but someone that has been consistent in trying to make sure that we actually rebuild urban areas. he campaigned and advised a number of people, that campaigned in western north carolina in a very rural area where it doesn't get you votes. it's that consistent message that has made him a really chosen confidant of president-elect trump, but ultimately it is going to be donald trump who makes these decisions and we seem to be putting a whole lot of emphasis on those people around him. certainly they have influence, but president-elect trump speaks for himself, and he'll be a

great leader. >> you heard on the "60 minutes" interview last night donald trump saying that same-sex marriage, gay marriage is now settled law. it's the law of the land, and it's not going to be changed. are you okay with that? >> you know, i think what a lot of people see in that, wolf, and when we look at that, a lot of people will disagree with that. settled law actually laws generate from the haul halling congresof -- halls of congress, not from the courts. the way our founding fathers set it up. we might have a difference in what settled law mean, really what it was with donald trump hitting on that was the other things we consistent with. securing our borders, a strong national defense. actually defeating isis and national security, and really jobs for all americans. so when we -- i thought he did a great job. the entire family did a great job last night in tehe way they projected the real part hoot they were.

>> you disagree on the issue of gay marriage? >> not as much disagreeing with him. that it is set of law. i disagree. i don't believe that's settled law. i believe it's going to take both the states and halls of congress to weigh in on that, but certainly as we look at that, there is a supreme court precedence. what he was referring to, and certainly he acknowledged that in a correct way. >> congressman meadows, as usual, thanks for joining us. >> wolf, great to be with you. thanks so much. >> thank you. donald trump has had a few so-called run-ins with the news media over the course. he took twitter over the weekend. is it a sign of things to come? we'll discuss. if you have medicare

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president-elect donald trump is blasting the "new york times" in another fwetweet storm. tweeting this, wow, the "new york times" is losing thousands of subscribers because of their poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the trump phenomena followed by two other messages criticizing the "new york times." days earlier said he would be

more restrained on social media. listen to this. >> i'm not saying i love it, but it does get the word out. when you give me a bad story, or when you give me an inaccurate story, or when somebody other than you and another network or whatever, because, of course, cbs would nerve doer a thing like that, right? i have a methods of fighting back. that's very tough. >> you're going to do that as president? >> very restrained if i use it at all. i'm going to do very restrained. i find it tremendous. it's a modern form of communication. there should be nothing you should be ashamed of. it's -- it's where it's at. >> joining us now, the president. white house correspondents association jeff mason. white house correspondent for the reuters news agency. jeff, thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure, wolf. >> talk about the problems. you represent the news media in dealing with this incoming administration. we know you've had a few since he became president-elect? >> yes. the biggest problem now is that we don't have a press pool what

we call a protective pool traveling with the president-elect. we expect that there should be one in place. should have been one in place frankly, when donald trump was the republican presidential candidate. the fact that is not in place now following him, what he's doing, traveling within new york or outside of new york, is a problem. >> as traditionally that's always been the case. tell us why it's oh important that the president-elect of the united states, certainly the president of the united states, always have a small group of jurn journalists there watching and observing? >> important because news can happen at any time. when planned and not planned. the press needs to be there in kags the president-elect has statement to make and in case something happens in the world or in case something happens to the president-elect. it's important to have that, to fulfill that role, to keep the american public and the world informed about what he's doing. >> and so where does it stand now? your discussions, as you're the president of the white house

correspondents, i assume you're dealing with officials in the incomes trump administration to make sure that protective pool always traveling with the president on air force one, in those motorcades, because the press really is the representative, the eyes and ears of the american people. the american people want to the correspondents' association has formed a pool that's at trump tower and ready to be aware of any movements outside of trump tower. we have been in touch with the trump transition team. they have given us assurances he will respect a white house pool, a traditional pool. right now we're waiting for that to be set up. >> there's always at least one representative from all the tv networks with the camera crew on the scene. >> that's right. the point of the pool is you can't get the entire white house press corps the president or president-elect has. we have members from the print

press, still photographers and radio. >> if donald trump were to come to the white house tomorrow to meet with the president, the outgoing president of the united states, would there be a pool on his plane? >> right now there would not be a pool on his plane, but we would to have one. we insist on having one and that's a top criteria for us. >> jeff mason, thanks for all the good work you're doing. >> thanks. >> i'm biased, because like you, i'm a former white house correspondent and i covered seven years of white house. there was always a protective pool covering the president. >> first amendment thing. >> thank you. terrified residents inside aleppo, syria, are told to flee or be prepared to die. who sent the ominous message? coming up we'll go live to the region. after a quick break right after this. your whole day stops. (sighs sadly)

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four americans killed in afghanistan over the weekend. john perry from california, tyler iubelt were killed saturday. the two soldiers along with to american military contractors died from a suicide bombing at bagram airfield. the explosion also wounded 16 other u.s. service members and one polish soldier participating in the nato mission. the taliban is claiming responsibility. the deaths come as the war on terror in the middle east rages on. in iraq isis killed six people in a suicide bombing in an effort to keep control of mosul. authorities managed to thwart five other suicide attacks. people living in war-torn syria are living with the aftermath of a very dangerous ul thtimatum. leave or be bombed. the text message was likely sent by the syrian government. our international correspondent will ripley is joining us now. those 24 hours are up.

based on everything you're hearing, you're seeing, what's happening now? >> reporter: we've been talking to people inside eastern aleppo, wolf, where a quarter of a million civilians and some 8,000 rebels are surrounded by the syrian regime. there's also a russian flotilla warships off the syrian coast to support what is expected to be perhaps a final push on this rebel-held area of aleppo. it could be a very difficult situation for the people who are still inside that city. there's been a month-long humanitarian pause. before that it was a month of relentless, really horrific bombing. 500 people were killed. there was one week when 96 children died in a single week during that bombing onslaught and citizens have told to prepare for the same, for these strategically focused bombing attacks. cnn's own reporting from inside aleppo has shown sometimes those bombs hits marketplaces, they've hit hospitals and even schools. so, people are bracing themselves for the worse, what

potentially might come as the regime makes this push. they're doing tactics similar to what they did in the suburbs of damascus. surround entirely with ground forces, rebel-held area, start bombing the area. they don't allow food, weapons or medicine to get in and send a message to the people saying, can you starve to death, we'll put you on buses and move you to perhaps another rebel-held area. it's a successful stacktic and criticized by the u.n. in terms of human rights with the number of civilian casualties. people are running out of food. the last u.n. aid supplies were delivered in july. they handed out the last of the rations last week. winter is coming so people won't be able to grow the vegetables. one two-pound piece of meat is going for $40. most people can't afford that. they can't afford to eat. >> as far as iraq is concerned, isis apparently digging new trenches, we're told, building

wall, creating bear yee inbarri u.s. advisers from taking mosul, the second largest city. what are you hearing? >> reporter: the progress has slowed significantly in the two weeks or so since those iraqi counterterrorism forces punched into the eastern side of mosul. we know isis has built a very elaborate underground tunnel. they're using dekois, putting white flags over their weaponry and built up huge banks over the tigris river. this is a city isis knows very well. they know the tunnels, they know their attack plan. you saw when arwa was caught in that warfare, it's a house to house battle. the isis fighters have an advantage in the sense they've been strategically building up this city like a fortress like like in raqqah as well. those isis militants willing to dry to try to fight back.

>> who knows how many innocent civilians will wind up dead and severely injured in the process. will ripley, thanks for that report. that's it for me. i'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." amanpour is next for our international viewers. "newsroom with brooke baldwin" starts right now. wolf, thank you so much. good to be with you on this monday afternoon. i'm brooke baldwin. you're watching cnn. after months and months of hearing about candidate donald trump, americans now getting their first in-depth glimpse at trump, the president-elect. and many are saying, hang on a second, these two aren't necessarily matching up. trump appears to be softening on certain key issues that were at the core of his message, his campaign, promises so many supporters are expecting him to live up to, to deliver on. here is some of what he shared on cbs's "60 minutes". >> are you really going to build a