inauguration. we have every angle covered. let's start with jason carroll live from trump tower in manhattan. good morning, jason. >> good morning to you, chris. the chinese government has made it very clear that the one-china policy is basically the bedrock between the u.s. and the united states. president-elect for his part, and a separate issue, also challenging u.s. intelligence showing that russia was behind the hacking during the election. >> i think it's ridiculous. i think it's just another excuse. i don't believe it. >> reporter: fiercely, the president-elect dismissing the intelligence community assessment that russia meddled in the election to help him win. >> they have no idea if it's russia or china. could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. >> reporter: claiming without offering specifics the analysis is politically motivated. >> i think the democrats are putting it out because they

suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country. >> reporter: but it's not just democrats. a group of bipartisan senators are joining forces calling for congress to launch an in-depth probe into russia's tampering. saying the reports should alarm every american and urging cyberattacks cannot become a partisan issue. >> i think they did interfere with our elections and i want putin personally to pay a price. >> reporter: this as speculation continues over trump's nomination for secretary of state. multiple sources familiar with the transition telling cnn exxon mobil chairman and ceo rex tillerson has emerged as the frontrunner. >> he is much more than a business executive. he is world-class player. >> reporter: the possible nomination already sparking sharp criticism from some in the gop establishment, concerned about tillerson's own ties to russia. >> two 2013, tillerson was

awarded russia's top order for foreigners the order of friendship from russian pretz vladimir putin. >> a matter of concern to me that he has such a close, personal relationship with vladimir putin. >> reporter: florida senator marco rubio blasting trump's pick. tweeting, being a friend of vladimir is not an attribute i am hoping for from secretary of state. and the president-elect, again, showing his willingness to challenge china. questioning whether the u.s. should keep its long-standing position that taiwan is part of one china. >> i fully understand the one china policy, but i don't know why we have to be bound by a one china policy unless we make a deal with china having to do with other things, including trade. >> and the chinese foreign ministry weighing in on this particular issue, urging the president-elect and the new administration to stick to the

one-china policy. the president-elect, for his part, alisyn, moving along with his transition. now naming a new member to his team. general john kelly as been named to be the person to head up the department of homeland security. that now becomes the third general who will be part of his administration. alisyn? >> okay. we'll see if we get even more announcements today. jason, thank you very much. 17 intelligence agencies conclude that russia interfered in the u.s. election. but the cia and the fbi differ on why. russia did that. let's bring in cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr to break down this conflicting information. what have you learned, barbara? >> good morning, alisyn. it all goes to the question, really, of russian motivation, russian intent. right now it looks like the cia believes that russia really was trying to steer the election towards donald trump. why do they believe that steer was happening? that's because both democrats and republicans, the cia says, got hacked by the russians, but

only democratic data, democratic information, was released. no republican information was released. so they come to the conclusion that's the steer towards donald trump. the fbi not ready to sign up to that intent yet, but by all accounts believing that the russians were trying to at least undermine the u.s. presidential election. one of keet republican -- sean spicer the rnc communications director spoke about all of this over the weekend. >> if the cia is so convinced of this, why won't they go on the record and say that it was as they did with the dnc? this is -- i mean, i believe that there are people within these agencies that are upset with the outcome of the election and are pushing a personal agenda. but the facts don't add up. >> so, the republicans donald trump, as well, appearing to believe that this is all politically motivated, the intelligence community not son that page. now we are looking at the

possibility of a bipartisan congressional investigation and, of course, president obama has already ordered his own investigations, all of this as he wants completed before he leaves office. chris? >> all right, barbara, thank you very much. joining us now is wisconsin republican representative sean duffy. a member of the presidential executive team. good to see you congressman. >> good to see you, too, chris. >> let's separate some nuance going on here with this issue with the issue of global warming let's see if we can separate some of this. one, do you accept the consensus of the intelligence community that russia was involved with the hacking attempt during the 2016 election? >> i don't know. i think if there's a consensus we should see that consensus from -- from news reports that come from the fbi and the cia. if the -- if russia was involved in trying to influence american elections we should know about it, chris. but i think it's important that we parse that with the point that i don't think russia

actually had any influence in this election. it tried but it didn't have an influence. they didn't set up the hillary clinton's e-mail server. they didn't set up the clinton foundation. they didn't do her messaging. >> right. >> they didn't encourage her not to come to the great state of wisconsin. >> separate question. in october, we heard from clapper, you know, you know, he is coordinating responsibility saying russia's vofld with what's going on here with the hacking. they are not in question about that. and i'm sure you know this. you can get a briefing whenever you want it. they are of no two minds about that. why russia did it. that is a separate question. they are not done with that part of their investigation yet. and now, as you know, you've got bipartisan members on the senate side who want to do a set of hearing of that on their own. but in terms of russia's involvement, that does not seem to be something that we need to seek more about. you you seem to say differently. >> well, what i think, chris, is that if russia was involved, again, we want to do the

background investigation and fully be aware of what kind of influences they want in our election system. because we want to prevent it in the future. that is key. i think it's important that we don't inflate this with russia actually having an influence on the net end result of our election last november -- >> right but it's the political -- second part seems to be fuelling a reaceson to the first part especially by the president-elect and it seems to be lining up people against him now. you've got mccain and schumer on the same page about wanting to investigate this because they say, hey, supporting russia, which is what it winds up being, right, if you wind up -- if you don't accept the intelligence that they were meddling in our election then you're tacitly defending them at a minimum. >> i don't think so. >> how not? if the intelligence community and clapper says russia was behind this and you say, i think that's ridiculous, what are you saying? >> but i think what's important,

what are the american people hearing through the reporting? i don't think we want to conflate the two and i want to make sure the american people understand that russia did not influence this election. and i think there could be a motive by some to tarnish donald trump and say listen, he wouldn't have won but for the fact that russia was involved in this election. and i, in a swing state that hasn't gone for a republican -- >> but nobody credible is saying that. >> but i think that we've got to be clear when we do say it because when i think you say russia was involved in the election -- >> but the intel agency -- >> but donald trump did >> it's not the media, it's an intel -- >> my point to you chris is i think that when we talk about it, that's why we want to be very clear to the american people there is a clear distinction. yes, if they were involved. how were they involved. let's investigate it. let's find out the truth. >> but i'm saying -- >> but it's important to know -- >> you're ignoring the first part. i get you about hey don't say -- >> no i'm not. >> i keep saying to you clapper

came out in october. the intel agency is saying that they have consensus about whether or not russia was involved and the answer is, yes. you say yeah we should investigate -- >> but chris -- >> they're saying the answer is yes. you don't have to invest that. to find out what their motives or or what else they might -- >> what -- >> you don't know whether or not they were involved. the intel agency is saying they were. >> but you have a disagreement about the intent with the fbi and the cia -- >> right. that's something separate. >> sometimes the cia was political and what was the real intent and were they trying to undermine american 2ke78 crease. >> separate question. >> but again when we talk about it exclusively like russia is involved in our election. and then that might lead viewers to think that well maybe donald trump wouldn't have won but for russian involvement and i think that's absolutely false. again you have to look, what did -- i mean if russia is so powerful and such great hackers the best they could come up with the podesta e-mails? i mean really it was a little

bit emfwars aing for rt campaign but it didn't move anybody -- >> i'm just saying again -- >> no, i'm not. >> that's what it sounds like. >> i ceded that point the first time around. >> you just said if they were involved -- the best they could come up with would be a podesta e-mail. >> i haven't heard you say, chris, i haven't heard you say, listen, there's two questions. one, what was russian involvement? what did they do? let's investigate. but i don't hear you saying let's be crystal clear, the dnc's e-mails showing that the dnc partnered with hillary clinton to thwart the rise of bernie sanders, that didn't play at all in states like wisconsin. nobody kard. and i think we have to be clear to the american voter that russia didn't have any involvement in the outcome of this election. in states like mine that won the race from democrats and republicans. >> i'm just saying my job is to -- >> i want you to understand -- >> my job is to go on what we can discern as fact. and what we know at this point

is, the u.s. intel agencies say russia was involved. what they did, why they did it, that's going to require secondary tesh yairry analysis. let me ask you about a separate issue. tillerson and trump seem to be like-minded, this has nothing to do with russia or china but on global warming. trump just gave out some sound do we have it that we can play? let me play this for you. >> sure. >> i'm still open-minded. nobody really knows. look, i'm somebody that gets it. and nobody really knows. it's not something that is so hard and fast. i do know this. other countries are eating our lunch. >> again, it's like they're two different conversations being have. you have the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community will say you do not get it, to use the

president-elect's words, if you think that there is an open question as to whether or not man's actions have an influence on global warming. how much, what to do about it, are our policies good enough for us or too advantageous to other countries separate consideration do you believe that it is an open question as to whether or not man's actions are influencing global warming? >> well what i'll say chris is i think that the climate is changing and it has always changed. and, we thought back in the '70s, the same kind of folks were saying that we had the next ice age that was upon us coming in the '70s. now, we've seen here the earth is getting warmer. what i think is important when you look at this, and i live in wisconsin. i live here, chris, because i love the outdoors. i love the swimming, kayak, and ski and hike. and if you don't have clean air and clean water you can't do any of those things. it's important to me and my constituents. i have the largest lake in my district, like superior.

and what i think is important to say, what are the smart policies that can help us reduce our carbon emissions -- >> right. >> but also make america competitive because if you're driving up the cost of energy and electricity in states like mine, i have poor people, they can't afford their electric bills. they can't afford to put food on their table. so they want us to have a smart policy -- >> i get you but again these are two separate things. like i said the other day talking to mash sha black burn, can you be -- >> they're -- >> between clean water and clean air if you don't support the science of global warming and the reason i said that is there's a continuum of thought, if you believe that the science is correct, and you know i'm not a scientist, you're not a scientist, that the scientific community has consensus on man's actions, i accept that science. then, what are your smart policies. i don't know why you have to question the scientific consensus to want to question what the right policies are. >> but, chris, the flip side of that you could say listen i believe in global warming, i believe it's manmade, i believe that america is the worst actor

and so what i'm going to do is look at the rust belt, i'm going to look at states like wisconsin, michigan, ohio and pennsylvania, and what i need to do is put all of these blue collar workers out of a job. and make sure that the job they do have they don't make enough money to pay their electrical bills and their gas bills. they can't pay for their food. and so what, they'll have more government promise to help more people who can't provide for themselves. what i'm telling you is we need to have smart policies that are clean policies but also are moving america along as we develop new technologies so you're not having energy costs skyrocket. as you know manufacturing in america uses a lot of energy. and if you can take reduced energy costs, making america more competitive it means more jobs but also the ability to pay better wages. which are all issues that the we care about. but one of the problems with democrats is they'll say we want to increase rules, regulations, we want to increase wages, we want to increase the cost of health care, and we want american business to be successful and stay in america.

well, something has to give. so how do we have a commonsense approach to these policies that help the american worker, but also make sure we have a clean environment? i think you can balance those two things really effectively. but if you push it too far, like what barack obama was doing, all of a sudden you're regulating on my farms in america that -- >> i hear you -- >> mud puddles in the ditches of their fields. >> i hear you. >> they can't farm anymore. >> i hear you. >> -- balanced and smart policies that can help both of those two things happen. >> and let's not cheat the conversation as these ideas come up and you have to make these decisions let's keep having this conversation right here on "new day." as always, thank you very much, congressman. >> thanks, chris, have a good day. >> okay, let's get to some headlines. boeing sealing the biggest deal between the u.s. and iran in nearly 40 years. despite operations -- opposition i should say from some big name lawmakers including president-elect trump. the multibillion dollar deal to sell 80 jets to iran was made

possible after the u.s. lifted sanctions against iraq in september boeing says the agreement will support tense of thousands of u.s. jobs. an australian graffiti artist has recreated the punch seen round the world. the zookeeper. the congress ra has his dog. they frame up, bing. last week this happened in australia. >> love it. >> i got some heat from this from animal -- first of all, the kangaroo is fine. but -- >> but stunned. >> it's within captured in a mural now. the art piste tweeting out, no word if the zookeeper has seen it or if the kangaroo did. what do you think? >> well i like the action shot. so, i don't know that the still frame captures it with quite the delight that the action shot does where they show the kangar kangaroo's stunned expression afterwards. >> would i have any more legitimacy with you now that you see how many other people have found this -- >> no i always --

>> because you thought it was me being vanilla gorilla and i like anything that hits anything else. >> you do like anything that hits a kangaroo. >> first of all a kangaroo is not a victim. >> see, here we go. you have a lot of feelings about kangaroo. kangaroo -- >> a man who goes to save his dog, and throws a punch at a kangaroo, and the way the kangaroo just -- all right. anyway. >> oh, maybe we'll play that again later chris delights in it. meanwhile back in news the cia and the fbi do not see eye to eye on russia's motivation to interfere with the u.s. presidential election. why aren't they on the same page? we're going to ask our two best we're going to ask our two best intelligence experts next. r a f? ready, go! hi, juice universe? one large rutabaga, with eggplant... done! that's not fair. glad i had a v8. the original way to fuel your day.

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>> more than a dozen intel agencies say russia meddled in the u.s. presidential election so the fbi and cia see it what differently. unnamed sources tell "the washington post" that the cia believes russia deliberately wanted to hurt hillary clinton and elect donald trump. the fbi says it cannot yet determine a motive. joining us now, cnn law enforcement analyst and former fbi assistant director tom fuentes and former state department official and u.s. ambassador to nato nicolas burns. gentlemen, thank you have much for being here. tom, you worked at the fbi for 30 years. why isn't the fbi dead certain about a motive as the cia is? >> well, alisyn, the fbi normally tries to gather

evidence to substantiate claims that it would make. so they would want to have evidence in this case, for example, a couple years ago the fbi investigated chinese government hacking into the u . u.s., eventually brought charges against members of the military operating out of an office in shanghai. so the fbi will get the information but they want to be very clear if they're going to level accusations to a certainty. >> yeah. >> that russia meddled in the investigation -- in the election. >> but tom are you saying that the cia doesn't need to have evidence to draw its conclusions? >> no. they can advise, you know, the other agencies of the u.s. government and the white house, and congress, without having prove certainty. they can say we believe and it looks like and it might be and it probably is. they can use more qualified terms like that. and it's appropriate for their mission to be able to make statements like that. >> right. well since you are fbi, and you are law enforcement based, do you believe that russia meddled

in this presidential election? >> well, i don't know, you know, for sure that they did. i mean we're hearing that they did. and i'm a little bit suspicious when i hear statements like, all 17 agencies of the intelligence community. well all 17 don't conduct investigations, particularly cyber investigations. so you have five or six that may have a consensus that probably russia meddled, and it looks like they did. but, you still don't have agreement on what was the motive, why would they do it. you know, did it actually -- and then there's no evidence that it actually affected the outcome of the election. >> mm-hmm. >> and we know that voting machines are not connected to the internet so nobody could -- >> right nobody's saying the voting machines. mostly just the dnc and rnc computers. in fact, ambassador burns what do you think, are you 100% that this in fact happened the way the cia says it did? >> well, it was the director of national intelligence, general clapper, who said publicly that the russians interfered in the elections. there appears to be no

disagreement among any government agency that they did interfere. so i support senator mccain and senator reed who are calling for a bipartisan investigation. if these allegations are true, this would be one of the most dangerous anti-american acts by a foreign power in a long time, so we owe it to ourselves to get to the bottom of it. it can't be about politics. it's got to be what's best for the united states, and frankly, alisyn, i think that president-elect trump's reaction, which is to criticize the intelligence agencies, and in a very weak way, not criticize russia, i thought that was inappropriate and unwise for him. he has to lead these people. in about a month he has to be the person who inspires confidence in them. and, he ought to be supportive in public of the entire u.s. government. >> what do you think about that, tom? that the president-elect is saying that he doesn't necessarily trust the intelligence agencies? >> well, i agree with that ambassador burns about that. however we just had the actual president of the united states, obama, tell fareed zakaria that

the intelligence -- wasn't on his radar, intelligence radar, that isis was on the rise. and so here's the president throwing the intel community under the bus, and in that situation, you had general michael flynn testify before the senate armed services committee in 2014, february 2014, that isis was on the rise. you had leaders of kurdistan telling state department isis is on the rise. so you had a sitting president really not believe or not act on intelligence that he was receiving that did affect directly national security, and, you know, so trump, he can -- the statements that he makes right now, he's not the president. he's not in a position to act. and secondly, i would go back to, you know, the comment about clapper saying in october. that means that preceding his comments, september, august, back into the summer, that the intelligence community when it was starting to believe that russia was getting involved in the elections, we heard nothing

from the white house about this. we heard no specific actions or threats. president obama met face-to-face with putin at the g20 in september. you know, what comments were made then? to threaten them and say you better not, we're going to come after you if you interfere in our election. so now, after the election, now we're going to have this big investigation. >> yeah. >> and the other question i make on that is normally we come to a conclusion after the investigation, not before the investigation even started. >> ambassador burns, tom fuentes just laid out a lot of issues there. what do you want to respond to? >> well, i certainly agree that you investigate and you try to determine the truth. not the other way around. this can't be about politics and that's why it's got to be bipartisan. i think all of us want to do what's best in the national interest. i think what bothers people like senator mccain and senator reid and others is when partisan politics interjects and people say we shouldn't negotiate. but here's the largest issue. the president-elect is weak on

russia. he has been protecting, you know, in his comments, president putin throughout the campaign. he's not criticized putin on syria or crimea, or the putin and russia's allegations or offensive behavior toward the nato allies the baltic states. so we need a president, and i hope president trump can be this president, who stands up to the russians and doesn't in essence look the other way when the russian government may be interfering in our elections. he is the president-elect, he needs to begin to assume that role, and begin to protect the government agencies, build them up and not tear them down. >> thanks so much. for helping us understand this debate better. >> all right so what happens now that president-elect trump is questioning that russia influenced the election? where does it go from here? we're going to get the bottom line with one of the reporters who broke this story. next. treatment no longer works

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president-elect donald trump has just tweeted something out this morning that we think is very relevant to the conversation we've been having. he says, could you imagine if the election results were the opposite and we tried to play

the russian cia card it would be called conspiracy theories. unless you catch hackers in the act it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. why wasn't this brought up before the election? let's get the bottom line on russia's meddling with "new york times" national security correspondent david sanger. david thanks so much for being here and sharing your reporting with us. is it fair to say that all of the intelligence agencies have concluded that yes, russia meddled? is this still an open question? >> no, that wasn't -- and it wasn't an open question before the election. which is what's interesting about the president-elect's tweet that he just read. obviously the intelligence community, led by the director of national intelligence and backed up by the department of homeland security, turned down a statement on october 7th saying that the russians were responsible at the highest levels for the attacks on the

dnc, and the stealing of other e-mails. they did not come to the conclusion at that time about what the motive was, other than to try to disrupt the electoral process. in other words, undercut the integrity of it. it was only after the election that the cia in briefing congress said that their assessment had changed. they would say evolved, and then truly believed the russians in the latter stages of the campaign were trying to support mr. trump and undercut secretary clinton. >> so is what we're seeing from the trump team here that they can't separate supporting the fact finding that russia was involved with the political implication that somehow this means trump's win was nullified which i'm not hearing suggested by any credible source even on the democratic side. >> no, i'm not either. and, you know, i don't think anybody believes, at least that i have interviewed, that this would overturn the election. i've return into some secretary clinton's supporters who believe that it would one of several

factors that contributed -- >> but it seems that this is what's driving the president-elect. i mean even when you look at what he said about this, with chris wallace, i think it's ridiculous. i think it's just another excuse. i don't believe it. it seems to me, like he's speaking to the you only won because of russia which again we're not reporting. i haven't heard from any credible source saying that. but that he is therefore overlooking what is a dangerous ignoring of fact that russia was behind this and this is something that was said almost two months ago by clapper. >> it was said in october and we reported in the "times" in july that the intelligence community had concluded with high confidence that the hacks on the dnc were russian. so, there's nothing new about that. and of course, president-elect trump responded to some of that on the campaign trail. you know, you could imagine an alternative set of responses in

which he or anybody else who had won the presidency or even somebody who lost the presidency said look the election results were what they were. we believe they were legitimate. we don't think this made a difference. but we need a serious investigation into whether a foreign power was attempting to alter the results, and come up with a set of protocols and a strategy to prevent that from happening again, whether it was russia, china, iran, north korea or somebody else who we have considerable cyber capability. >> but, david, how does the cia know what russia's motives were? we just had our fbi expert tom fuentes on and he said the fbi has to deal in facts. they have to go into a court. they have a law enforcement foundation. they need actual proof and the cia can operate more on like a hunch. so how do they know what russia's motives were and that they wanted donald trump elected? >> you ask a superb question. and i think you've got a very good point.

the fbi is a domestic law enforcement agency and when they go and do prosecutions they have to do it with the thought of getting to beyond a reasonable doubt. that is not the standard used by intelligence agencies, which are asked to come up with facts or analysis, and analysis that is not necessarily going to hold up in, you know, in a court level with proof. and so that could be part of it. the second thing is foreign intelligence agencies can do something that the fbi cannot do. which is, they can go look in to the implants they may have in foreign computer networks. they can listen to the conversations they may have had with foreign leaders or others abroad. and so they can gather the information at that end, and atd we've learned in past cases they don't always share with the fbi. which is one of the big problems that we ran into in the run-up to 9/11.

so, it's entirely possible that the fbi and the intelligence agencies are working from a different fact base here. >> so it seems like this is a moment where you should have unanimity of intent here which is the american officials getting on board together to stop this russian influence and yet you have the president-elect, somewhat fighting against it, and as a result, david, you seem to have this new alliance being formed among republicans and democrats on this issue. what happens going forward? if you have congress kind of taking this on themselves, in defiance of the president, and they wind up having high ground because it seems pretty clear they're in the right. that russia was meddling. >> you know, it's pretty fascinating for reasons you lay out. so what's going to happen in the next five or six weeks? president obama ordered, we learned on friday, a study done by the intelligence community

that will be delivered to him before he leaves office. and that's going to look at everything that was known and the lessons learned from it. clearly what he's trying to do is box in the president-elect by at least making public part of those findings so that they know what the intelligence community believes at the end of the obama term. then you're seeing senator mccain, senator graham, a number of democrats. >> yeah. >> say that there will be hearings and some effort to have a congressional investigation. that will go in into the beginning of mr. trump's term. >> hmm. >> and that's going to be pretty fascinating, because they're going to be coming to conclusions that i suspect the president-elect has made clear already he's not interested in hearing. >> hmm. david sanger, thank you. very much for sharing all of your reporting with us. >> thank you. >> all right. still ahead, the fight for aleppo. syrian government forces say the battle is almost over. we're going to weigh that means the hard work is only just about

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all right, the fighting in aleppo may be in its final stages. it seems syrian government forces are tightening their grip on the city. at least the american part of it. proclaiming yet another neighborhood as tens of thousands are now running for their lives. in addition to the hundreds of thousands already fleeing. cnn's senior international correspondent fred pleitgen spent the weekend in aleppo. what is the situation on the ground, my friend? >> it's absolutely devastating, chris. it's getting devastating by the hour. you're absolutely rite, the rebels did get out of one of their key neighborhoods and apparently, have withdrawn from other areas, as well. it looks almost like it's almost like an all-ought collapse of many of those rebel defenses. there's people that we've been speaking to who are in with the syrian military who say they believe that the operation in aleppo could be in the final

stages, and certainly that does almost certainly appear to be the case. now, the civilians there, you know it's hard to describe just how bad their situation is. when we were on the front line there, in the south of aleppo, we saw tens of thousands coming across that front line. despite the battles going on. despite the fact that there were mortars being launched, more planes in the skies and many of them were absolutely malnourished. they were tired. they were sick. and they were, of course, very scared. and all they were looking for is to try to get to some place to safety. now it's absolutely unclear what's going to happen to them in the future. are they going to be able to go back? are they going to get the care that they need. certainly, syria and the international aid groups are struggling to do that. so really devastating situation there in aleppo, and then to make matters worse in syria the isis is also on the march again, to take back the ancient town of palmyra. >> all right, fred, thank you very much for all of that reporting. still ahead, get the tissues

readdy because the hero of heroes is here. the 2016 hero of the year crowned last night is going to join us live and you're going to find out what he did to rise to the top of a field of amazing and selfless people. there is no typical day. there is nothing typical about making movies. i'm victoria alonso and i'm an executive producer... ...at marvel studios. we are very much hands-on producers. if my office... ...becomes a plane or an airport the surface pro's perfect. fast and portable but also light. you don't do this 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for... ...decades if you don't feel it in your heart. listen, i know my super power is to not ever sleep. that's it. that's the only super power i have.

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>> each year, cnn honors everyday people making extraordinary contributions around the world. and this year, you, the viewers, you voted, and you chose jeison aristizabal. he is with us. born with cerebral palsy. it has only become the motivation for an amazing life. he's helping to educate disabled children and give them hope for a better future. here's a little bit of what he said in his acceptance speech. >> i can't believe it. [ speaking foreign language ] >> hello to colombia. hello to all the families that have a child with a disability.

i want to tell you that yes you can. you can dream, and you can achieve your dreams. >> oh. we have the hero of the year on with us right now and his translator, julio gonzalez is with us. it's great to have you both here. so what does this mean for your important work going forward? [ speaking foreign language ] >> it's been work. it's been a work in progress for 15 years and it's a door that's going to open to help many, many children. >> let's show people exactly what jeison has devoted his life to. take a look at this. >> many children with disabilities grow up with no type of opportunity. because families don't know how to take care of them.

they think that it's god's punishment. it's very important to change that way of thinking. i began doing therapy out of my parents' garage. the foundation now has its own location. we have therapy services. medical treatment. school. >> oh, my gosh. that is just beautiful. there wasn't a dry eye in the place last night. but we watched as jeison. why was he able to overcome his own disability to help others? [ speaking spanish ]

>> family support. his parents have been huge support in his life. and they have always told him that yes you can. you can achieve anything you want. >> and he's carrying that same message forward. he's also finishing his doctorate in law. he's going to be a lawyer. why? what tool will that give him? [ speaking spanish ] >> it's very exciting for him, because you know, he saw that there were a lot of laws that hindered kids from getting the medical, you know, treatment

that they needed. and that got him interested in law. >> so -- >> there's this short form of petitions, almost, like you see in the united states. with the goal of, you know, getting health care to these kids that didn't have any access to it -- >> and have to do it through the courts and you need to know the laws. he's going to be a better advocate that way. he started off doing those and he would win them and that's what got him interested in law and pursuing them further. >> wow, so what was last night like for him? to be at that sort of, you know, fancy dinner where there were celebrities and also all the other heroes? [ speaking spanish ]

>> he was very, very happy and very impressed, because that was a night of recognition for a work in progress for many years. >> it was so great to spend last night with you. congratulations. thank you for doing all of your important, impressive, inspiring work. it was really, really wonderful. [ speaking spanish ] >> he says thank you, thank you very much, cnn, and everybody involved. that he has been getting calls since 5:30 in the morning from people in colombia.

>> tell him to take every call and to ask everybody for money so he can continue his work. >> yes, yes. >> by the way, people can still go on the website and find out how to contribute and continue to contribute to your great project. late night laughs, next. we'll be right back.

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tonight. president-elect trump has just made the choice for head of the dea, the federal drug enforcement agency and it's a high school science teacher from new mexico named walter wright. do you know anything about drug enforcement? >> oh, trust me, i know the dea better than anyone. inside and out. >> donald trump and i agree, it's time to make america cook again. >> we want to fill this nation with red, white, and a whole lot of blue. >> good morning, mr. trump. >> fantastic. victory, landslide. >> in fashion -- [ indiscernible ]

>> i don't exactly get it but i think that it's funny. that was through donald trump's lens. how to view the world. >> let's give our twitter feeds a rest. let's let carol costello figure out what it -- what it all means. >> as we do every day. >> you can tell people whether or not that was parody or reality. >> okay. i'm going to be thinking about that through my whole show. "newsroom" starts now. and good morning. i'm carol costello. thank you so much for joining me this morning. new fallout over the cia report that russia interfered with the u.s. election to help donald trump win. a former acting director of the intelligence agency delivering this chilling assessment. mike morale tells the cipher brief it is an attack on our very democracy. he goes on to say this is the political equivalent of 9/11.