guys, this is what the playoff picture looked like coming into this weekend. all of those teams would win other than ohio state that didn't even play. i would imagine it's going to stay the same today when they make the official announcement. >> look at you, thanks so much. we hope you make great memories this weekend. >> inside politics with john king right now. the president-elect fills his new team and takes a victory lap. >> you promise, raise your hand, promise. so i will not tell you that one of our great, great generals we are going to appoint mad dog mattis. >> plus, china is mad that president-elect trump talked to taiwan's leader. >> he's the busiest guy on the planet but aspect is fully engaged. >> a holiday gift from the outgoing president, the lowest

unemployment rate in more than nine years. and wow, a usually polite post election tradition turns testy, the trump and clinton campaign teams fight on. >> more americans voted for hillary clinton than donald trump. >> hey guys, we won, you don't have to respond. >> "inside politics", the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now. welcome to "inside politi politics." seven weeks until donald trump's inauguration. three questions to frame the latest news and lessons from our president-elect. question one, is mr. trump breaking tradition and speaking with taiwan's leader looking to pick a fight with china even before he becomes president? >> without a coherent message, it's very easy to wander off the highway and in a sense say things by omission and co mission that can get you into a

lot of trouble. >> the campaign is over but will the trump rally tour about a staple of his governing style? >> i'm going to discuss our action plan to make america great again. we're going to discuss it, although we did have a lot of fun fighting hillary, didn't we? >> question three, with more big cabinet announcements, is donald trump risking his supporters by asking mitt romney to be secretary of state? >> i've been impressed in what i've seen in the transition. people he's selected in his cabinet are capable people. >> with us, julie pace of the associated press, jonathan morris, jeff zeleny. disruption is a donald trump trademark and we know he's different in substance and

style. whether different is refreshing is a topic of debate. the president-elect took a phone call friday from the president of taiwan. that's a no-no. a big no-no if you follow the china protocol rules for the united states government since the carter administration. in order to keep things on track with main land china, the united states is deliberately hush-hush about its dealings with taiwan and the idea of a lead to leader meeting or conversation is way off limits until friday. the president-elect said in one tweet, taiwan's president initiated the call to congratulate him on winning the election. in a second he wrote, interesting how the u.s. tells taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but i should not accept a congratulatory phone call. how could we possibly step outside the protocol rules. he won the election. he has every right to do this.

>> he absolutely has every right to do this. the question though is, is he doing this because he's signaling a policy change. that's the question being asked in washington and around the world. >> and they haven't answered. >> they have not answered. whether trump believes this is a big deal or not is not the issue. the issue is how china views this and how china will retaliate and that's one of the things that trump has to come to understand as president. it's not just that your words matter or that you may want to shake things up, it's how the world reacts and that is actually sometimes out of his control. >> we're also learning about the reaction to him. we saw this at the beginning of the george w. bush administration, people didn't like him. every time george w. bush did something they said he's the village idiot. when obama became president they said he's in over his head. now donald trump critics are saying he must not have known

how serious this is. his campaign manager, kellyanne conway says absolutely not true. >> he'll be president of the united states imminently now and he either will disclose or not disclose the full contents of that conversation but he's well aware of what u.s. policy has been. >> she said he's aware. the question is -- >> i'm skeptical about that. >> you're skeptical. >> that donald trump is deeply intimate with the china/taiwanese relationship? yeah, i'm very skeptical of that. if you look at some of the phone call readouts he's had with foreign leaders, it doesn't show a lot of depth about his knowledge of foreign policy. he's trying to do what donald trump does which is extend a hand of friendship to whoever reaches out to him. that's what he does, whether it's business, politics, reality tv, now the presidency. this is his m.o., trying to be friendly. telling the president of

pakistan, you're doing a great job. does he know that? probably not but that's what he does though. >> the tweets after the call were probably a little more telling to me than the fact that the call occurred. it signalled that even if he were doing a deliberate policy change, he's lashing out at his critics in a way that suggests that he just wants to be able to do what he wants. so it's the combination of the call, the tweets afterwards that are basically like why are you telling me what to do and on the global stage that is just very -- i mean, to say it's unusual is an understatement. i think it's unsettling to people around the world. >> john bolton was inside trump tower for a couple hours on friday. he's long known to favor a shift away from beijing here. so i agree with you, i'm skeptical that the president knows exactly this relationship, but that doesn't mean people who are advising him don't. so i think that that's what we have to watch carefully, who donald trump is surrounding

himself by, and he does want to be liked, no question about it. >> there's a question about what he wants to do, even if he doesn't know the intimate details. if he understand that if you do this you're going to ruffle some feathers, that's one thing, that's his right, he won the election. there are a lot of people who say forget about beijing. we should poke the chinese more. the question is how do you do it. you don't give the current commander-in-chief a head's up. their men and women serving in that region who could get buzzed about this. that is to me as big an issue as whether donald trump who won the election decides to take this call. >> this is the difference between being a candidate in a general election where you are basically running on your own, especially donald trump who didn't have to worry about the party apparatus, didn't have a lot of people on capitol hill who he had to worry about appeasing. when you are president of the united states, every decision that you make affects not just

yourself, your white house and americans, it affects your allies, it affects your add investigator s advocates. >> that was before he was sworn in and hopefully that will take root that your actions have profound consequences even aspect. >> it's the transition, they're trying to staff up. you have to give some some grace, but on the other hand the fact that they haven't explained. this is another thing we learned, like the conversation with the indian developers. you learn about it by reading the overseas press, we learned about it because of the financial times. that's part of the issue as well, is when do you tell the american people and when do you tell the current white house how this works. it's another example of how trump is going to be different. we had another one of those in this carrier deal.

carrier said it was going to pick up and leave and then he used the bully pulpit, whatever it is, but he gave the company incentives in indiana. donald trump says, i win. >> companies are not going to leave the united states anymore without consequences. not going to happen. they're going to know, number one, we're going to treat them well, and number two, there will be consequences, meaning they'll be taxed very heavily at the border if they want to leave, fire all their people, leave, make products in different countries and then think they're going to sell that product over the border. >> sarah palin calls this an example of clony capitalism, using the money of the taxpayers to get this. but again, donald trump being different, he's not even president yet and he's picking up the phone and calling the ceo of the parent company and says

let's make a deal. >> and the parent company does a lot of business with the u.s.. the "wall street journal" editorial page called it a shakedown and not in a good way. >> a good shakedown. >> right. so this is going to be an example, of as you said he's going to be different. when you look at this slightly beyond the headline, it's not that great of a deal or as good of a deal. a lot of workers are still losing their jobs. all is not well in indiana. >> but for perception reasons, donald trump won because of the support of white blue collar workers who think nobody in this town thinks a damn about them. if they're sitting in a bar last friday night they're thinking that guy is great for me. >> not all are keeping their jobs though. hundreds ever losing their jobs. >> it shows that he understands the basic level of policy which is giving your constituents who voted you in what they need.

whatever we think about the carrier deal and the "wall street journal" and sarah palin think, it matters what his constituents think and i would grew that it's better for him to use the system, work the system for voters than it is to work the system for corporations. if voters have the perception that he's breaking the rules for them -- >> it shows that he understands the theatre of the presidency which is something that is actually very important. sometimes how you make people feel about your decisions is as important as the actual substance of the decisions themselves. i think this is something he is going to incorporate when he actually takes office. i think we're going to see him at a lot of factory openings and ribbon cutting, all this ceremonial stuff that you may laugh about but for a president that actually matters. >> great point. another thing that's different, he makes foreign policy calls, not just taking the call from taiwan, pakistan, the fi

philippin philippines, we calls up a ceo and intervenes in the markets. he's supposed to be a conservative president. that is not conservative free market. donald trump weighs in. and he's going to do about ten stops on this victory tour. but the trump team tells us when he's president he wants to hit the road and do things like this. >> we won in a land slide, that was a land slide. and we didn't have the press. the press was brutal. there's no way that donald trump can break the blue wall, right? we didn't break it, we shattered that sucker. if people burn the american flag, there should be consequences. the people are continuing to pour in, so let them come in. we could wait -- we could wait a half-hour, an hour, but i don't think we're going to do that, right? let them pour in. we love -- we have a lot of love, believe me. going to be a lot of love in our country. >> i'm just personally glad he

likes the map. please, you had a point. >> the point i was going to make and that's a great segue way there, this is going to give a brand new meaning to the phrase, the permanent campaign. in politics we've seen in recent years that these cycles never really stop. the iowa caucuses start the day after the last election, but he's really going to transform that and sort of make his version of the presidency much more of a public relations job than a governance job which is going to create a fascinating dynamic as far as who's actually back here minding the store while he's out there doing those rallies. one other thought, it is striking just how fast republicans abandoned the free market. in a new york minute they kind of moved on from those principles, but in fairness, as abby pointed out, that's not how he ran. he's never claimed to be a free market guy. that's not who he is. but watching him out there, i'm reminded that this is going to be much less of a presidency and

more of a governorship. this is what governors do. they call ceos. they show up at these companies, go overseas and try to bring home jobs back to their states. he apparently wants to sort of be the governor of the united states which is much more tightly focused on commissiecon >> most tend to be more pragmatic than idealogical. ahead, team's trump and clinton meet for a post election conversation and an argument breaks out. first, politicians say and oh, yes do the darnest things. the president-elect and his campaign manager, now advisor, kellyanne conway, attended a costume party last night. ehe didn't dress up but she did. "saturday night live," the president-elect tweeted, tried watching "saturday night live," not funny. the baldwin impersonation can't

get any worse. sad. well, we report, you decide. >> mr. trump, please, let's get to work. this is an extremely dangerous world. pakistan is increasingly unstable. >> should i call them? >> no. >> north korea is still doing nuclear tests. >> should i text them? >> no. >> and iran is incredibly volatile. >> should i have ivanka send them some shoes? >> maybe.

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hard feelings and lingering resentments at this meeting but it's usually a respectful day of reflexes, lessons learned. usually. >> if providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, i would rather lose than the way you guys did. >> are you going to look me in the face and tell me that? >> it did. >> do you think you could have just had a decent message for the white working class voters. guys, i can tell you're angry but wow, hashtag, he's your president. how's that? >> if he's going to be my president then he needs to show me that white supremacy is not acceptable just steps from the oval office. >> if you're unfamiliar with the voices and faces that was kellyanne conway, the trump campaign manager on the left and jennifer palmieri, the clinton campaigns director and long time

strategic and activist on the right. you two were at these conference. there's always bad blood, a little poking. this sounds like, forgive the term but kind of like sore winners and sore losers. >> no doubt about it. but they came in there -- that was something that was bound to happen. it was the clinton team's last chance to put their frame and stance in defense for what they did. but after you sort of pushed all that aside, what there was less of was an honest self-reflection of what they did wrong and she did wrong. after all the shouting, there was an acknowledgment from the campaign manager that i wish we would have sent more people to michigan which she lost, but i thought the most fascinating was millennials, an honest, sober discussion about how her failure to capture millennials cost her the presidency. i talked about just in the final

weeks they saw millennials shifting to third party candidates and all their efforts on online organizing and they had all the equipment, it didn't work. that's the candidate's fault. >> some of the best conversations happening around the conference where polsters on both sides sitting down and talking about what they were seeing in those final weeks, the last two weeks, the consolidation on trump's side and clinton's inability to move them into her camp. but at the same time there was a lot of bitterness. trump folks are on some level have a right to feel this way. they feel like everyone discounted them and they ended up winning. so for two days essentially it was sort of a give us credit where it's due, we won this thing. that built up until the very end. >> i want to listen to a little more of this in the context of this. the question is, is this the two campaign staffs -- again it's tradition -- to go up to harvard

to vent and let it out, or is this conversation a reflection of what we're going to have for at least the early days of the trump administration where democrats are saying we won the popular vote, we think your candidate stoked this racism. essentially we lost and you didn't win. let's get back to the tone. >> listen, you guys won, that's clear. you won the electoral college. let's also be honest. don't act as if you have some popular mandate. the fact is more americans voted for hillary clinton than donald trump. >> and there was nothing -- the road to the candidacy is the popular vote. >> kellyanne, i understand that -- >> hold on, why is there no mandate. you've lost 60 congressional seats, more than a dozen senators, a dozen governors -- >> we're talking about this

election, kellyanne. >> you said there's no mandate. you just re-elected a guy who represents liberal new york and a woman who represents san francisco as your leaders. nothing from this election about tim ryan's mahoning county. >> you get no sense and again these are the campaign staffs and they give up their lives and they worked tirelessly for a couple of years and so the tensions are still high. but the question is, is this what carries over when president trump sends up his first two or three pieces of legislation to capitol hill. do the democrats say you lost the popular vote, you don't have a mandate, or do we get things done? >> i think it's going to be a pretty bitter atmosphere, as rancor as we've seen in the modern history. but that said, donald trump, if you look at what drives him, it is overwhelmingly a desire to feel tlove shall we say, to fee appreciated and be valued. he's going to expand a hand of

friendship to people like chuck schumer. schumer is a pragmatist. if he wants to get stuff done, i think you could see thawing. is it going to be difficult for democrats to get over it, absolutely. if there is even a hint of race baiting, is that going to drive folks, understandably, to distraction, of course it will. but i think in terms of actual governance, let's see what trump does and how he operates with the hill. we just don't know is the question. nobody knows what he's going to do tomorrow or this afternoon, let alone in january. >> or what he's tweeting as we speak. >> it's an absolutely critical point. he has never governed before. he used to be a democrat, now he's a republican. that's a fact. in the campaign as you mentioned earlier, he has taken some positions that are more left of center or at least more traditionally democratic positions and some positions that are very right of center so we're going to find out as we

go. >> and how trump responds if democrats does extend and hand will be the defining characteristic. democrats have to look at their mid-term map for 2018 which are not good and some people are going to be up for re-election in 2018 on the democratic senate side who may want to do some work with a donald trump presidency. but when you hear the democrats, the clinton campaign and others on capitol hill talking about this issue of the popular vote and don't mistake your win for a mandate, i think you're going to hear that a lot. they really believe this was not a land slide election and not a reflection of the public being on trump's side. >> when they make that argument it sounds like sour grapes, it is sour grapes. he won the presidency. the rules are fair and square here and it was very difficult for anyone to offer a handshake. this is much more contentious than the bush s/gore.

>> and the democrats don't want to say they had a weak candidate. >> she never campaigned in places where she also wasn't raising money. so there's a long list. >> a lot more to talk about. a big week ahead for cabinet picks and a look back at the president-elect's rocky relationship with the man who could be america's top diplomat. take our quiz this morning. mike pence will be the sixth vice-president from indiana. which state has the most vice-presidents in history?

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welcome back. state treasury and defense are considered the big three when it comes to cabinet knows. we know that steve mnuchin is president-elect trump's choice for treasury secretary. democrats promise a big fight. >> he's just put a wall streeter in charge of the treasury, and not just a random one, a guy who actually helped package all of those toxic mortgages, a guy who bought a bank that made its

fortune by squeezing people hard on for closure. >> we also know that james mattis will officially be announced tomorrow as mr. trump's choice as defense secretary and by week's end we'll know the pick for secretary of state. part of the issue is whether donald trump, mitt romney relationship takes another dramatic turn. remember back in the campaign in march, mitt romney, the 2012 republican nominee announcing he was a never trumper. >> think of donald trump's personal qualities, the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics. >> now remember the date there, march 3 mitt romney gave that speech. donald trump same day responds. >> mitt did a big, big choke. mitt is a failed candidate. he failed. he failed horribly.

he let us down. mitt ran probably the worst run that most people have seen. he doesn't have what it takes to be president. >> throughout the campaign though trump -- mr. romney held firm. remember the "access hollywood" tape. romney saying that convinced him more so, no way, can't vote for donald trump. >> presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation and trickledown racism, trickledown bigotry, misogyny, all of these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of america. >> but since the election, mitt romney had dinner with donald trump, meetings with donald trump, he's had a phone conversation with donald trump. he's under consideration for secretary of state. mitt romney says everything he has seen from the president-elect since the election impresses. >> i've had a wonderful evening with president-elect trump. these discussions i've had with him have been enlightening and interesting and and engaging. i've enjoyed them very very much.

>> is it conceivable that this will happen this week or is the fact that it hasn't happened by now tell you that at least donald trump was not wowed and general david petraeus is on another sunday show this morning and a lot of people are saying that could be an audition of sorts for him? >> i've started to hear that trump is moving away both from romney and giuliani. doesn't mean it won't eventually be them. things change quickly in trump's orbit, but the push and pull between the two of them has created a lot of room for another option, petraeus being one of them. i think you're going to see other names in the next couple of days that are going to be out there. it may eventually be romney or giuliani but the fact that it hasn't happened yet has opened up this process. >> bob corker, the senator from tennessee. >> he would be more of a consensus pick, someone who could be confirmed and also be acceptable to donald trump. >> i'm told by a source close to

the president-elect that they are moving back to square one of sorts on the secretary of state, to echo julie's reporting, that they are trying to figure out where to go and the idea that it's sort of narrowed down to one or two people is not the case. it's striking to see romney say what he did at trump tower. nobody was more impassioned and heartfelt, i think romney was truly offended by trump and now to see him, it's sort of this combination of equal parts laudable anticipalaud ible anticipate -- anticipate treeism but he wants it so bad. >> that interview with wolf blitzer when romney talked about the trickle down misogyny, that was before the "access hollywood" tape and he continued to stay there. but what's interesting is

romney's transformation, but also the open campaigning, not just saying he doesn't think romney is good for the job but essentially trashing the guy. >> you have never ever in your career seen a serious adult who's wealthy, independent, has been a presidential nominee suck up at the rate that mitt romney is sucking up. i am confident he thinks now that donald trump is one of his closest friends, that they have so many things in common, they're both such wise brilliant people. and i'm sure last night at an el gent three star restaurant in new york that mitt was fully at home happy to share his vision of populism which involves a little foie gras, but was done in a populist happy manner. >> newt with the mike drop.

>> he mentioned everything but frog legs. a lot of resentment between newt gingrich and mitt romney stems back to december of 2011 in iowa when the romney campaign unleashed a barrage on newt. he's never gotten over it. but the question here, as jonathan and julie said before, the fact that this has taken so long, trump clearly is hearing all the criticism. the romney people simply don't know and it makes a lot of people who love romney very uncomfortable to see him out there in this position but he would still take the job because he thinks he can soften trump for the world. >> former speaker gingrich is saying he's happy to say another and be a consultant from time to time but his speaking fee is raised because he has unique insights, we should pay him more. i don't know if mr. trump thinks

it's helpful what he said about mitt romney but is that helpful to donald trump that i thought you were going to drain the swamp and now newt gingrich is cashing in? >> trump can make the case that he's bringing in these people to work for him on his agenda. maybe he might be able to get away with it. we're hearing piecemeal from trump's supporters about how they feel about the lack of draining from the swamp and many are like, we're give him a pass for now as long as he goes to washington and does what he should he would do. people gave him the benefit of the doubt on these issues. >> which way does the unemployment rate go, the growth rate. >> and he's inheriting an incredible economic picture

here. the thing about donald trump, he's never really had a record on this. now he's going to be judged on what he promised during the campaign and it's results based. if the voters believe he is sort of helping them, i don't think it matters if the swamp is empty or full. it's results oriented and we've never been able to judge him like that. now we're going to be able to judge him in a new way. >> to your point, he says build a wall, his supporters say that's means he's going to be tough on immigration. the trajectory is going to be important. next, republicans will control everything in washington in the new year, why does one leading democrat say they should be called the opposition party, not the minority party?

you can't blame democrats for having an identity crises. donald trump beat their candidate and he won the white house. democrats failed to seize

control of the senate despite pretty good odds, and they fell short of their target for picking up seats in the house. as the party sorts out future leadership, one prominent democrat says she's bullish. >> when 2.3 million more people voted for the democratic candidate than the republican candidate, when the democrats picked up seats in the senate and republicans lost, when the democrats picked up seats in the house of representatives and the republicans lost, let's be clear, we are not the minority here. we are the party of opposition. >> she's spinning the congressional math there a little bit, senator elizabeth warren. again, to her credit she's trying to give the party a morale boost even if her math might be off but she talks as if we live in a parliamentary system. it would be great to get the president to take questions from the congress. but the challenge from the democrats is not just what but who in terms of who are our leaders right now.

>> there's not an obvious leader of the democratic party but she is certainly in the running for it and has her eye on 2020. they know the census is coming up and state capitals decimated. >> we focus on this town because this is where we live here, this is where the white house is and the capital. but the obama gains have changed american politics for the next 20, 30 years. >> and in terms of the policies because a lot of the decisions that are made in washington get implemented at the state level. obama's policies haven't always been implemented in a lot of these states and that's what democrats need to figure out, not just who is going to be the leader of the party but how do they build across the country. >> i spent some days in denver at the dnc meeting. this is the first time democrats have gathered since the election but they're still shell shocked. they still love president obama.

he's still wildly popular, but at the same time working for the dnc, you can't ignore the fact that this party under his watch has been decimated. the fact is that they're trying to pick a new chair now and they had a forum on friday with the candidates for chair and they were all kind of employing these euphemisms and walking on egg shells because they don't want to directly criticize it is president but at the same time they have to grapple with the fact that their party is basically in ruins now. it's fascinating to watch them say well, we built a wonderful palace, our foundation was rocked. what does that mean? all of us kind of know what it means but they can't say it. it's so different from 07 and 08. conservatives were happy to move on from bush. he was unpopular. the war was unpopular. they were glad to leave him by the side of the road. this is different because obama is popular both nationwide and certainly on the left. >> this is where at the other

meeting of the democrats earlier this week the bernie folks actually kind of gave democrats a little bit of a blueprint for how to run sort of post-obama. at the time when he was running against obama people were like, are you crazy, this guy is super popular. so the bernie folks are kind of looking back at the situation and saying, you know, we were kind of right, we need to offer people something -- especially democrats. a lot of democrats didn't vote for hillary clinton because they wanted her to go further than president obama in a lot of substantive ways and the electoral wanted change. some democrats are going to have to look back at those decisions they made early in the primary about how to grapple with the obama legacy and learn some lessons for how bernie framed the argument. >> if you had this spine novel fantasy that wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania was -- the recount

is continuing but we haven't heard anything significant yet. looks like pennsylvania is going to fizzle. jill stein says she's going to go to court. one of the big questions is what happens on capitol hill. democrats are saying let's have a congressional investigation of russian interference and nancy pelosi says she's confident we'll find more evidence of russian tinkering. >> i know it's the russians because i paid for the investigation of our own hacking. i don't know that from any classified information. part of the russian agenda is to undermine democracy, not just in our country but in other countries as well. it's just not right, and i think that it's shameful that this was able to go on. >> most republicans who control congress are skeptical of russia and you would think would want to look into this but will the white house tell them not to? >> probably. i don't think we know. what is amazing about this is russia interfering in an

election should probably be a bipartisan area where people could get on board. i don't think we're going to see that. a sneak peek next, including the latest reality game for the well connected. who wants to be an ambassador? first here's the results from our quiz. we asked which state is home to the most vice-presidents. the answer is new york. not my home state of massachusetts. sometimes when brushing my gums bleed. no big deal. but my hygienist said, it is a big deal. go pro with crest pro health gum protection. it helps prevent gum bleeding by

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i we worked with pg&eof to save energy because wenie. wanted to help the school. they would put these signs on the door to let the teacher know

you didn't cut off the light. the teachers, they would call us the energy patrol. so they would be like, here they come, turn off your lights! those three young ladies were teaching the whole school about energy efficiency. we actually saved $50,000. and that's just one school, two semesters, three girls. together, we're building a better california. we fill the inside politics each sunday with reporters, not pundits and we ask them to share a bit of their reporting to get you ahead of the political news around the corner. julie? >> even before donald trump picks his secretary of state his team is starting to look at ambassadors for some of these plumb jobs overseas, places like france, italy and the u.k. and this is another area where it looks like trump is likely to pick from the swamp than drain

it. some of these big republican donors who came around and donated to his campaign in the general election are express are interest in jobs and i'm told they're getting a pretty warm reception. when it comes to ambassadors this is one of those areas where every time you have a new president you get complaints about the influence of money in our politics and yet it always seems to play out the same way. >> jonathan? >> i'm told that the trump folks want to make joe manchin the energy secretary. this is the brainchild i'm told of reince priebus. the idea here, not too subtle, is to take two democratic senators who happen to be up for re-election in trump states in 2018, put them in the cabinet, and add two seats to the g.o.p. ranks. one complication though, my understanding is the height camp

prefers interior or energy. so could be some haggling. >> we'll see if any democrats among them. jeff? >> donald trump is heading to high iowa and iowa republicans wonder if he's going to shake up the state's politics as he arrives. terry brand said the long serving republican governed is being eyed to be the ambassador to china. he has long relations with china. he supported donald trump from the very beginning. i talked with a couple of people in the trump transition yesterday. they said he is indeed on the very top of the list for that. not done but watch iowa when donald trump heads out there. president ggi lived in iowa fora time. watch for that. >> abby? >> donald trump wasn't a typical republican or a typical democrat. his infrastructure plan, carrier deal, position on trade all fit

into that mold. his aides this week expressed acknowledgment that he can't really break out of that mold, he can't really become a typical republican once he gets to washington. so we should look for this as a kind of frame for how to understand the trump administration. he has to keep being the outsider in washington, especially when it comes to sticking it to both his party and to the other side. that's the key to keeping his voters happy for the next four years. >> make everybody happy but also disappoint everybody along the way. i'll close with this. the big cabinet jobs are getting the big attention but the president-elect's to do list includes expressing his preference for someone to lead the republican national committee. nj governor chris christie is the biggest name in this conversation at the moment but there's talk to trump campaign aid david bossy is interested. and nick airs also gets mentions. the protocol is pretty simple after a white house win.

it is the president's choice. among those who get input, reince priebus now in line to be white house chief of staff. i'm told his conversation with friends about this choice in recent days have focused on finding a campaign veteran who will focus on the nuts and bolts, not a big ego. you can read that if you haven't already as proof that prebus is concerned about the christie idea but we should make this clear, it is the new president's call and his alone. that's it for us this morning. sit tight for "state of the union." jake tapper leads a fascinating conversation with the trump and clinton campaign managers. see you soon. for african women as they try to build their businesses and careers. my name is yasmin belo-osagie and i'm a co-founder at she leads africa. i definitely could not do my job without technology. this windows 10 device, the touchscreen allows you to kind of pinpoint what you're talking about. which makes communication much easier and faster than the old mac that i used to use.

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war stories, from inside the historic and unprecedentedly ugly 2016 election. for the first time together just the two of them, both campaign managers. trump's kellyanne conway -- >> everybody wants to go back in a time machine so that this result that nobod