break them out of alliances. of course, then he comes in and those two very significant wars going on, that he is vowing to end. but i think that's the sort of big picture challenge that comes in. >> and what do you think the most pressing issue to watch is? >> ukraine. right now, you have almost 50 european leaders meeting in budapest. top-line issue for them the ukraine. all of these leaders, east european leaders who are there are making the right noises. they have called president-elect donald trump already. they've issued sort of congratulatory messages over "x" and other places. so they're making the right noises. but the noise that they'll have to make is that europe is going to have to stand more alone, be ready to support ukraine more alone. they recognize that president-elect donald trump has said that he'll end the war in ukraine in the matter of a day and that concerns them, because i think the united states is going to withdraw some of its support. they don't think that's good for

them. that's the pressing issue. that's getting a lot of attention today. and you get a ense of that from what the french president said today. that big meeting in budapest. he said, we've got to look to ourselves. we cannot rely on the united states to be our security crutch going forward. so ukraine, that's the first one that particularly worries u.s. allies. >> nic robertson, thank you very much. we have a lot of new information coming in. a new hour of "cnn news central" starts right now. this morning, a left side. president-elect donald trump is preparing to move back into the white house and possibly make good on his day one promises. speculation swirling on his staff cks, those decisions could come within days. and republicans are celebrating getting control of the senate, but will they also keep control of the house? they're making moves as if it's already a done deal. it is not, just yet.

and millions in southern california facing dangerous conditions with powerful winds fueled multiple dangerous wildfires. thousands have already been forced to evacuate. i'm sara sidner with kate balduan and john berman. this is "cnn news central." all right, happening now, the trump transition 2.0, for republicans and donald trump's friends, it's 2.0 oh, yeah just like the red kool-aid man as they right now try to bust through the walls for a spot in the president-elect's cabinet. for democrats, it's kind of like 2.o no as there is blame game that plays out ahead of president biden's first on-camera remarks after donald

trump's win. mark preston still sporting the playoff beard joins us this morning with the latest. let's talk first about president biden. we have not yet heard from him. >> we haven't heard from him. we expect to hear from him in a couple of hours. an interestiition he being put in. he had to step aside to allow kamala harris to run, because he wasn't going to have any chance of winning and of course, she lost. so he'll address the nation in a couple of hours, and we expect him to talk about the peaceful transfer of power, how he'll work with donald trump. i wouldn't expect any inflammatory music out of him -- music, listen to me, any inflammatory language out of him, but however, i would expect him to be stern and probably try to lay a marker down for the incoming trump administration to try to do the right thing. >> and look, i think it needs to be said, vice president harris conceding yesterday is something that donald trump has still never done from the 2020 election. the outgoing president, you know, biden, extending an olive branch, inviting donald trump in. something that trump did not do four years ago for joe biden,

when he came in. but joe biden and kamala harris both decided treat this very, very differently. in terms of the transition itself, because the what next is really i think what is most importan mark. you've. been digging. you have info on what the transition in the early days might look like or who they might look like. >> i just got off the phone with a senior adviser with the president-elect. they told me right now that they are getting inundated with resumes, which we would expect. but listen to this. they're getting influx of resumes from silicon valley. now, if you just go back about, i don't know, two, three, four, five, six years ago, silicon valley was a democratic stronghold, still is in many ways, but because of what we've seen this elon musk connection now with donald trump and donald trump courting the silicon valley folks is that they expect several silicon valley folks to come in to senior administration positions, as well as throughout the government. so could be an interesting four

years. >> and just for our viewers keeping score at home, that was the back of kate balduan's head. >> one good-looking back of the head. >> goes without saying. but mark, very quickly, we do learn, generally, about key senior administration officials. it takes, sometimes, just days to get the appointment of a chief of staff, which requires a senate confirmation hearing? >> absolutely. and the question is, who's going to be the chief of staff right now. the chief of staff doesn't have to be confirmed. there's a lot of talk that his campaign manager, susie wiles will be the person that goes in and does all the investigate. i would suggest he probably hires susie wiles to do that, because she's very good at that. but they have to get through all the cabinet positions. will they have more influence than a cabinet scare? they absolutely will. >> mark preston, great to see all of you here. thank you very much. i now turn it over officially to kate balduan. >> i'm sorry, guys. >> who's here! who's been here all along! >> we've been awake too long and

i wasn't listening to my directions. i'm sorry. hi, mark. >> saw the back of my head, too, it's not bad. >> so beautiful. off we go. good luck, boys. i'm sorry, congressman. joining me right now is democratic congressman from new york, greg meeks. i'm sorry, congressman, let's get back to business. i want to read for you what fellow new york democrat richey torres said, told "the new york times," some of his take coming out of the election, which is this. the losses among latinos is nothing short of catastrophic for the party. and looking at the results from your district, looking at queens in new york, you can see that donald trump is making inroads. his support growing in your district every year he has run. what did the harris campaign miss? what is the democratic party missing, congressman? >> look, i think this is what's happened. when you talk about it, bill clinton talked about, it's the economy, stupid. what we've talked about here is, as a result of the pandemic,

it's took place all over the world. we had high inflation. we had a situation where things became more expensive. this is something that took place as a result of the pandemic, after barack obama gave donald trump a good economy. and so now things are coming down. but people still feel that the cost of rent and the cost of housing and to get goods are too expensive. and i think that the vice president did talk about that. and we did start to move and we're at a point now, most economists will say, and they said, whoever became the next president will be inheriting a good economy. that economy was created. so i think that the focus was that the people were looking at the short serve situation and not looking at the long-term ramifications of what a second trump administration would do,

particularly for them, because we know if trump is like the first administration, his first administration, it's all about donald trump. and not about anyone else. . and our national security becomes at stake. >> congressman, you won re-election easily, congratulations. but looking at the whole thing, what is then your lesson from this election? >> well, look, you have to look at new york, for example, as you said. in new york, under the leadership of hakeem jeffries and others, we won the seats back that we lost in 2022. we won with john mann up in new york 22. we won with josh reilly in new york 1.9. we won with tom swanson. we kept the seat with pat ryan.

so it's not that there was anything gained there. we showed that we can win. there was a difference from 2022 and 2024 in new york. and it's still not serp where we are going to be in the house, but do we have to make sure. and i think that the economy is improving and he will inherit again, as republicans generally do after a democratic administration, they inherit a better and strong economy than what the democrats received when they came in. so i think that, but i am concerned. i'm concerned about our national security. i'm concerned about the relationships that donald trump has -- >> right, congressman, i hear your concerns, but donald trump's win was decisive and broad, so what is the lesson for you from democrats' loss? >> look. the lesson for me is that we've

got to continue as the vice president said. we've got to continue to move forward and fight and talk to people, not just at election time, we've got to make sure that our message is heard, and what we're doing and have done is something that we're communicating priority to every four years. people need to know from the beginning to the end exactly what we're doing and why we're doing it and what we stand for. i think that's clear. am i concerned or upset or disappointed or heartbroken by this election? absolutely. because i know who donald trump is. and i think that concerns me, also, because if we are americans and not concerned by the content of someone's character, if we don't care about those things, then i think that we do and are in trouble as a nation. i mean, when you look at -- i don't want to be a russia. i just don't want to be. i think most americans don't want to be and i hope this new administration that comes is not like the administration four years ago, that's why he was

fired four years ago. >> you are the top democrat on foreign affairs. the question today is, what is in store for ukraine. "the wall street journal" is reporting that one idea being tossed around amongst trump's team that kyiv would agree not to join nato for at least 20 years, in exchange, the u.s. would continue to give ukraine weapons to deter russian attacks and both sides would agree to something like an 800-mile demilitarized zone, locking the front line in place. not clear at all if or what part donald trump might pursue of what's being tossed around. what do you think of that idea? >> well, look, i'm concerned. i don't know what donald trump is thinking either. i know what he did when he was in office. i know that he was with vladimir putin. i know vladimir putin is very happy about the results of this election. i know that my european allies and those in nato, you know, when he was there, we were

concerned he was about to pull out of nato. i'm concerned with who he is with america first and donald trump first. and i think that our european allies and vladimir putin are very concerned. the decision, i still say, if there is going to be a resolve a negotiation that takes place, it's got to be what mr. zelenskyy says and the ukrainian people and not us imposing something on them. >> do you think democrats will remain in the minority in the house? >> no, i think that there is clearly a pathway to be in the majority. all of the votes have not been counted. as we see steadily coming in, w we are winning and maintaining, and we've got to count the votes and let's see where the votes are. but either way, it's going to be close, no matter who's in charge. but i believe that there is a pathway and i know there's a pathway for us to regain the

majority. >> congressman greg meeks, thank you so much for coming on. sara? >> thank you, kate. this morning, trump's win may be the get out of jail free card he desperately needed. talks are happening right now at the doj to end the federal case against him. and will the richest person in the world have a part in the most powerful office in the world? is elon musk headed to washington to serve on trump's administration? and what trump supporters expect to see from the president-elect on day one.

all right, this morning, special counsel jack smith is in talks with the justice department about winding down the two federal criminal cases against president-elect trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election loss and keeping classified documents after he left office. cnn's senior legal analyst, former federal prosecutor eli honig is with us now. that language is very specific. winding down. how does jack smith wind down the investigation? >> not a legal term or an ordinary part of the process. jack smith has accepted reality here that he will be done on january 20th. he's stuck in appellate purgatory on his two cases. neither has any chance of getting to trial or having much

else to do. the only big question is will he write a special counsel report, like we saw with the mueller report, the robert hur report, the durham report. the special counsel regulation say at the end of your investigation, you're supposed to do a final report. ordinarily, that's after you try all of your cases. here, that's the only thing left to do. i suspect he will write a report. i suspect we will see it some time between now and january 20th. donald trump said he will fire jack smith, quote, in two seconds. no doubt he will, but jack smith would be doing this anyway. long-standing doj policy that goes back to watergate says you cannot indict, prosecute, try, imprison the sitting president. so no matter what trump said wing smith would be in the same position. >> and probably, they're going to figure out a way so smith can't be fired. they'll just be done and move on before trump takes office, so it won't have to happen. you've been on a lot the last 24 hours, talking about trump's legal situation, and the criminal cases against him and how they all basically go away.

what about all the civil cases, ellie, that's a different ball game? >> specifically, nothing will change on the civil cases. we're talking about the e jean carroll verdict, the verdict in new york for falsifying the value of his properties. we know a civil lawsuit can proceed against a sitting pd from the united states supreme court's decision in the paula jones lawsuit against bill clinton, hotly contested, supreme court said, no, you can carry on with civil actions. so, count on hearing continued news on those. they're both being appealed. it might be that the appeal's court uphold those verdicts against trump. it might be that we hear that some of them have been knocked down. the $400 million verdict might be reduced, substantially. those cases carry on. yes, trump gets the most important type of protection in the criminal context, but in the civil context, very little, if any. >> and in a segue, one of the reasons i was asking about this is rudy giuliani, you know, was all over the place yesterday

driving around in his merds, there's no pardons for that, period. where might we see pardons, first with outgoing joe biden and income donald trump? >> first of all, with respect to rudy and others, mark meadows, a lot of them are also facing criminal indictments in state cases, in georgia, in arizona. nothing trump can do there. no pardons from the president for state cases. joe biden, i guess the big question is, will he pardon his son, hunter biden. i suspect somehow or another hunter biden will get a pardon or at least a commutation if he's been sentenced my then. i know joed biden has denied i. i don't buy that. i think hunter biden will pardon him. donald trump has a long history of pardoning his friends and political supporters. a couple of people who have been convicted since the last time trump was in office, steve bannon and peter navarro. if he gets pardoned, i don't

know if he will be the only person to ever pardoned twice. trump pardoned him the first time around on a fraud case. look, the more serious thing, i think is trump has said that he will pardon some of the january 6th defendants. we'll see if he maybe draws lines, maybe only the ones convicted of violent acts. to me, that's going to be an historic abuse of the pardon power, but he's got the pardon power. >> you say abuse. i mean, it is completely unfettered. >> you can do -- i was going to say "almost anything" with the pardon power, you can do anything you want with the pardon power. the only thing we don't know if sure if one can pardon himselves, but trump won't need to, he'll have those cases dismissed. >> great to see you. i suspect we might have more to talk about. >> i'll be back. ahead, immigration, top of donald trump's white house agenda. new information on how his team is developing plans to try to pull off his promised mass

deportation of illegal immigrants once he is in office. and 2700 people are facing a life-threatening fire warning as powerful winds are fueling wildfires in california. those stories and more, ahead.

a potentially big shift is coming to u.s. immigration policy, as donald trump is headed back to the white house. cnn has new reporting that allies of the president-elect and some in the private sector are quietly preparing for a large-scale detainment and deportation of migrants in the united states, which is right in line with what was really the singular most repeated item from donald trump on the campaign trail, which is the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. he reiterated his promise minutes into his victory speech early wednesday morning. >> we have a country that needs help and needs help very badly. we're going to fix our borders. we're going to fix everything about our country and we made history for a reason tonight. we'll have to seal up those borders and we'll have to let people come into our country.

we want people to come back in, but we have to let them come back in, but they have to come in legally. they have to come if legally. >> joining us right now is the former acting director, i want to dig in beyond the policy headline of mass deportation, really what that could look like now. you and i have spoke for years about the border and real solutions. what do you think a policy of mass deportation does look like and the impact it will have? >> well, kate, as you know, there's been very little details offered throughout the campaign. a lot of talk on mass deportation, a lot of talk about transactional gang members, and individuals can make crimes in the united states, but very little in the way of how we're going to actually accomplish this. look, i think the way you've got to view this is it's going to be a full assault on the current immigration system. under the current legal framework, with the current resources that are allocated to

i.c.e., you can get nowhere near the kind of numbers he's talking about, a million deportations in a year. i think just to put this in perspective, during the biggest years of the trump administration, i.c.e. deported 267,000, you know, individuals from the united states. you've got to quadruple that. how do you do that. one is, you need more i.c.e. officers. you need to increase the number of arrests. two, this administration will want to build mass detention camps to house those individuals before they're deported. but most importantly is the immigration courts. and you and i have talked about this for a long time. huge backlogs have formed. the supreme court has said that migrants before they're deported are entitled to due process. how do you get them through the courts? and i think what the administration is cig thinking how do we bypass those courts? not supplement them, but eliminate those courts in the first place. and that's going to be the focus of what they're going to launch here. >> it's not just a decision -- there is not a magic wand that can fix this. that goes without saying. there is precedent, and as you said, what the supreme court has decided could directly run

straight up against what their desires are to do and how quickly they move. the simple fact of existing space is a big question. existing space, run by the federal government and i.c.e., to use as a detention space. how much space does the government have? what will happen if there are millions more people being moved into it? >> yeah, kate, look. the bottom line is a lot of talk has been focused on this and a lot of frustration by republicans in congress during the biden administration that they're releasing migrants at the border. but the reality is that most detention beds run by i.c.e. are actually paid for, meaning they're operated by either private contractors or state and local jails. so i.c.e. has 41,000 beds available to it and a budget of a couple of billion dollars to pay for those beds. so how do you expand that space? you know, they have limitations on what they can afford and what they can pay for. and i think, again, they're going to need to try to shift money around. so pull money. the problem when you do that, though, is you're pulling money from something else that's

really important. it ight be human trafficking investigations, or investigations going after people exploiting children. you pull money from there and use it to pay for detention beds. but there are limits, kate, on how much you can do of that. just like the limits on how much you can kind of change the law through executive orders. i think we're going to see and one thing we need to keep an eye out for here is what happens with the house of representatives, and do they go to congress looking for, i think, two things. one, a massive surge of resources, and two would be new legal authorities that would allow them to bypass those immigration courts. look, i think that, you know, the biden administration put forward a very aggressive immigration enforcement bill, primarily dealing with the border. but now that you have the president, you have the senate, and if you get the house, it will be very interesting to see whether we see the first major immigration legislation in 30 years, but an entirely pro-enforcement one. >> in absence of having details stated publicly by president trump or his campaign and his

advisers, i want to play for you what one of his top allies, republican senator marco rubio said yesterday, on what he thinks a mass deportation policy means. >> well, first of all, the first mass deportation and the one that's most important is criminals. yes, if you're a convicted murderer or a killer or some very dangerous individual that has a criminal record in another country, or have committed crimes here, you need to be removed from the country. i don't care where you came from. you're here illegally on top of the fact that you're here to commit crimes, you must be eliminated and removed immediately from the united states of america. that's without a doubt. beyond that, we have to have immigration laws and they have to be enforced. >> does that put any meat on the bones for you? >> no, you know, kate, listen. this is based on the thing that we should all be very worried about with this mass deportation plan. you know, there's this kind of sense out there that on the campaign trail and with senator rubio's comments there, that we're somehow not enforcing the law against criminal aliens. the truth is, actually, ice is

incredibly good at that. we monitor every state and local jail in the united states, i.c.e. does, it monitors every federal prison. if somebody is booked in there who's undocumented or is is currently on a visa but not deportable because of their crime, they'll be arrested, put into removal proceedings and it's a top priority. there is no failing or shortage to get criminal aliens. the problem is this. you talk about mass deportations in the millions. there are not a million criminals that are ready to be deported in a given year. you might have a number of people listed, but they go to prison and you can't get them until they finish their prison sentence. what does that mean? what it means, kate, is not all immigrants in this country are equal. we have 11 to 12 million immigrants in this country, the vast majority of which have never committed a crime. according to all available data, 4.6 million of these are a mixed status family, meaning an undocumented mother or father with u.s. citizen children or spouse. so you can't get there without getting into that population. now you're talking about ripping families apart.

i think we all agree, look, we have to use i.c.e. as a public safety tool and focus on those individuals for committing crimes in the country. but when you turn it into a numerical game and say we're going to hit a million in a year, you're not just talking about just criminals. there aren't a million criminals to get. you're talking about families and that's the real concern here. >> john, it's great to have you on and your perspective. really appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you. >> john? all right, this morning, republican lawmakers preparing their agenda for a full sweep of washington power, despite many house seats still technically up for grabs, including the most powerful unelected person in u.s. history. new details on what elon musk's role in a second trump term will look like.

this morning, we still don't know who will control the house, but republicans are hoping and planning for a clean sweep after taking the senate and the white house. cnn's congressional correspondent lauren fox is with us in washington this morning. what are you hearing from these republicans as they look at the next few years? >> yeah, john.

republicans are preparing, and not just since yesterday. in fact, we spoke with many republicans who say that they have actually been strategizing for months about what it could look like if they had control of both the house, the senate, and the presidency. and what we have learned from conversations with those members is that they believe that they can push through a massive tax package that could include other energy provisions, as well as other border provisions, and they've started that planning in earnest, back months ago. you know, i was talking with one republican on the house ways and means committee, who said that they've been having regular meetings in these small working groups to have discussions about what is working from trump's signature tax cuts and jobs act that passed in 2017. there are a lot of those provisions that will run out at the end of 2025. and republicans have been trying to think about what are ways to improve that legislation, what are the provisions they can't

live without, and what are some ways that they may want troll back some of joe biden's signature legislation, including the insulation reduction act. so, john, that just gives you a reality check that republicans want to hit the ground running in january. what they don't want to see is a repeat of their attempts to s to repeal and replace obamacare back in 2017, where a lot of them felt like they were surprised that trump won and they were caught flatfooted when it came to trying to get republicans on the same page. i will note if republicans take the house, if they maintain their majority, it's going to be a really narrow majority. and obviously, that makes it very difficult to get any legislation through, to get every republican bought in on whatever this massive passage might look like. >> yeah, it does look good for the republicans to maintain the majority. and on the leadership battles, that would be a good case for speaker johnson to make, as he tries to hold on to his job on the senate size. there's a race to be republican leader there as well.

what's the latest? >> yeah, i mean, two really important leadership battles that are going to shape up in the days ahead. in the senate, you have this race tween john cornyn, john thune, and rick scott. a lot of people think that this race is really wide open between john cornyn and john thune. and both of them really spent the campaign cycle kris crisscrg the country, trying to make -- what they imagine could be the days ahead in the republican, now majority, in the united states senate. i mean, it's going to a big deal to replace mcconnell. he has been there for 18 years, the longest-serving leader in the united states senate, of either party. and you know, both john thune, john cornyn, rick scott, they're all having conversations with their colleagues. we expect that that leadership race is going to take place next week. a huge wild card, does donald trump get involved in this race? john? >> yeah, that will be fascinating to see. because the third guy, rick scott, is the guy who's trying

to tie himself most closely to donald trump there. lauren fox, nice to see you. sara? >> all right, we'll keep this discussion going. joining me now, doug heye, and cnn political commentator and former biden white house communications director, kate bedingfield. thank you both for being here this morning. i want to go first to this. we heard from avid trump voters about what they wanted to happen on day one. and i want you to take a listen. >> on day one, we've got to close the border. >> the first thing i want them to do is pardon every single january 6th protester. >> immigration, trade and jobs, and endless wars, ending the endless wars. >> doug, trump does have a mandate here. he has won the senate. he could win the house. republicans could win the house as well. he said he would not as a dictator, except on day one. what does that look like? >> reporter: well, i don't think we know yet. and i would say to the folks who are leading this transition, as

this is just starting, this is an opportunity for donald trump. and clearly, one of the mandates that he has, and it is a mandate, is on the border. now, i don't expect that we're going to see mass deportation, in part because the logistics of doing that are ridiculously hard. but we're going to see trump do measures that tighten up the border. and what we're going to see from donald trump, and it's one of the things that trump did very effectively, and biden sort of learned from this, donald trump would sign an executive order and we would see him sign it, because he would sign it and hold it up and say, look at what i just did. and what was on the paper was less important than him holding up the paper and saying, look at what i just did. the border will be first and foremost. i'm very concerned about what he may do with pardons for people on january 6th. that's a very personal day to me, for a lot of people who have worked in the capitol. i will be the first to criticize if he does that, but moves on the border are what his voters, and it's a majority of voter, right, he didn't just get a plurality of votes.

it looks like he's got an majority of votes. it's what they want to see action on, and that's where donald trump can demonstrate action, regardless of what the actual actions may be. >> kate, i want to ask you about some of the things that republicans did before, which was sending migrants to democratically held cities, democratically won cities. do you think that was the key in all of this? and then going forward, what do you tell people who, 4.4 million children have one parent. that is here in the country undocumented? >> i think it had an impact. over time, it served to push the issue to the front of mind for people who are not necessarily living lives that are consumed by what happened at the border. people who live very, very far at the border felt like this issue was becoming very personal to them. you saw both republican and democratic leadership in these cities and states. you know, start to really drive

the idea that this was an issue. in many ways, it was. i'm not discounting substance of that, but certainly, i think that did play a part. i think doug is absolutely right that the practicality, the logistics, the idea of mass deportation, you know, if donald trump comes out of the gate trying to execute on this, first of all wing he is going to meet an enormous amount of political resistance. absolutely true that he got a mandate in this election from voters, particularly on this issue. i absolutely don't dispute that. i think, you know, some of the work that was done last year to put together a bipartisan bill that could get democratic support and moderate republican support would be a great starting place. i have to imagine that that is not how donald trump is thinking about this, but realistically, politically, that would be a good starting point. i think if he comes out of the gate right to execute on mass deportation, he'll meet more political resistance that he might anticipate. we'll see. this is a moment, as doug said rightly, this is a moment for him to decide how he wants to position on this and kind of

what he wants the tenor of the first few months of his administration to look like. >> kate, the race was not tight, the pools were wrong on that particular issue, and plus, the democrats lost the senate. what are the conversations happening among democrats today? >> look, there's a lot of soul searching, a lot of discussion of what was off the mark here, what in the messaging was off the mark. and this is not unique to this past campaign. we have over the course of the last 10, 15 years, democrats have really lost a connection with a group that used to be a foundation of the democratic party, working class voters. certainly, white working class voters, but working class voters of color. we saw erosion and attrition in that group on tuesday night in a way that is deeply problematic for the democratic party. there's a lot of discussion about how do we think about reorienting what we prioritize, how we talk about what we prioritize, and i will say, there are also separately

conversations about tactical issues. you know, how do we re-think campaigning on a national level? how do we rethink what a successful field program looks like. how do we rethink what a successful media program looks like? that landscape has changed so much. and i think the harris campaign, i give them credit. i think they did a lot to do kind of non -- what we would call nontraditional media outreach. but the way campaigns at the national level are being run have changed. >> i want to ask you about some of the slate of people who may be joining the trump administration. one of whom is elon musk, who would be the richest person in the world to sort of join an administration. he has a ton of power. and axios sort of put it this way. and i kind of wanted to read this, because i thought it was really interesting. they said, behind the person, the most powerful unelected man ever. it goes on to say, the most influential backer of president-elect trump, thanks to his money, time, and x" factor

now sits at the pinnacle of power, business, influence, and global information and misinformation flow. donald trump has said that he wanted, if he's going to bring musk on, that he wanted to slash the federal government, like he slashed workers at twitter. what do you expect from this new slate of people who might be joining the administration? >> well, first, i don't expect that elon musk go into the administration. quite often in politics, after there's an election, kate would probably agree with this, quite often we say, the person who doesn't go in, with we look at them and say, that's a smart move. they stay on the outside where they might have more influence. if they're boxed in, in some role, whether it's the office of personnel management or secretary of this or that, being on the outside gives you more influence. and with elon musk, certainly, that's a part of it. and in part because, when you go inside, you limit your income. and that's a very real thing that elon musk will have to deal with or others like him. and sara, i would tell you, as

someone who's always been very skeptical of donald trump, i learned a lot on tuesday, as i think a lot of voters did. i'm tempering my skepticism with also hope. and i'm trying to be optimistic, as much as i can. and so i hear various names being talked about. some of which i think are terrible. don't hire that person. other times i hear, i got a call last night. what about mike conway, the former intel chair, the former ag chair, being the secretary of agriculture. these are the kind of professionals that we need in government, whether it's a republican administration or a democratic administration. these are the kind of professionals who are going to do that good work. and that's where i'm focusing my attention on who can donald trump, that's going to be a force of good. mike conway is a great example. and we think of agriculture as being not one of the really important cabinet posts, unless you eat food, right? and as kate knows, every position that this administration is going to bring people on for is very critical for what the american people are facing in their, you know, in

their lives. and so that's where i think we need focus our efforts on who is going to come in here. are they going to be a force of good or bad? robert f. kennedy jr., bad. don't go in this administration. other people, good. >> doug and kate, you're both agreeing. i see head nodding. we're going to leave it there. >> democrats should listen to kate! listen to what kate said! >> oh, what doug's saying! >> this is unprecedented. thank you both so much. >> she didn't say that a week ago. >> that is true. >> really do appreciate you both coming on. >> kate? coming up for us, a new warning for the makers of ozempic after copies of those popular weigh loss drugs are now leading to at least ten deaths. . and the world's richest people got a lot richer after donald trump's re-election. what about his win gave them an extra $64 billion.

all right. new concerns this morning about knockoff drugs in the sphere of weight loss drugs like ozempic. unapproved versions of the drug are being sold to meet demand. the ceo of novo nordisk, the

maker of ozempic, says an ingredient in those variants is not fda approved and has been associated with hospitalizations and ten deaths. these reports of adverse effects are not yet verified and they are looking into it. this morning, hurricane rafael is in the gulf of mexico after hitting cuba as a category 3 storm that knocked out cuba's electrical grid. rafael expected to hover over the gulf for the next few days. new this morning, the world's ten richest people got a record $64 billion richer after donald trump's election. that is according to the bloomberg billionaire's index. that does include two trump supporters. elon musk's wealth grew by more than $26 billion. oracle cofounder larry ellison gained more than $5 billion. also on the list, jeff bezos, bill gates, and warren buffett. nice to see all of those people getting a break finally. kate? right now, 27 million people in california are facing dangerous fire conditions, strong winds continuing to fuel the wildfires there. a red flag warning is in effect.

more than 14,000 people have been ordered to evacuate and still some stayed behind to try to save their homes. >> all three of these houses would be gone if we weren't here. >> what did you guys do to save these homes? >> shovels and garden hoses, believe it or not. we had no pressure, but it was enough to give us -- to stop the fire from -- it's so windy. you can't keep your hat on. and it's blowing the fire like crazy. >> yeah. you can see the winds there. cnn's derek van dam tracking this one for us. derek, the word is that conditions are actually going to get worse as the sun's coming up today. >> yeah, no, that is exactly correct. we have the next couple of hours, which are absolutely critical, because of this downsloping effect of the winds that come off of the mountainsides and actually pick up in the overnight hours, and just past sunrise, which is about a half an hour ago along the west coast. regardless, we have had multiple

structures that have burned in ventura county. we have had a mandatory evacuation of the national weather service because of intense smoke in the los angeles bureau there. there's also been multiple instances of these fires just spreading rapidly and out of control. in fact, a pds, which is known as a particularly dangerous situation, rarely issued from the national weather service for a red flag warning has been extended through 9:00 a.m. eastern, or 9:00 a.m. local, and 12:00 p.m. eastern. right along this area. western los angeles county, and into ventura county. and that is because the winds here are still gusting over 50 miles per hour, especially in some of those higher elevations. we get the sun to warm things up, relax the winds through the afternoon, but it is, again, the next couple of hours that are so critical in this firefighting effort. but this is not good. i don't like to see relative humidity values bouncing between 10 and 20%. that means that it is bone dry outside. and what we've also noticed, once we see the winds relax from

this santa ana wind event, we're going to see the winds change directions for tomorrow and bring the smoke that's been blowing offshore inland. and that means it's going to suffocate much of this area. in fact, there is a dense smoke advisory in effect, anywhere you see this shading of gray, including the greater los angeles area. and just check out these apocalyptic scenes, already noted in some coastal communities across southwestern california. the orange hue to the sky reminds me of what happened in new york city last season when the wildfire smoke blew in from canada. kate? >> yeah, that's crazy to see. crazy to see, derek. thank you so much for that. sara? >> thank you. these wildfires are just the latest in a slew of unprecedented severe weather events, including, as you remember, back-to-back hurricanes, extreme heat. president-elect donald trump is a known climate denier, vowing to pull the u.s. out of the paris climate accord a second time. his election comes on the heels of startling new data showing

the worsening effects of delaying action against climate change. cnn's bill we're ir is joining now. what could a second trump, you know, administration mean for the planet, which is a huge question? >> it is a very big question, at such a vital time. science says these next five years are everything when it comes to winding down the fuels that burn, replacing them with the abundant clean energy of the sun and the sky. but if he want s to roll it all back. if the first term was any indication, he would give oil and gas producers carte blanche, as he promised there as well. it will be interesting to see how much he can claw back the inflation reduction act, because a lot of that money is going into republican districts, over 75% of it right now. by this is really the crux of it. take a look at this temperature chart, sara. this year, 2024, according to copernicus, the european space unit, will shatter all records, being the warmest ever. and it's the first year where

we've blown past the 1.5 degrees celsius or 3 degrees fahrenheit of the paris climate accords. every country in the world says we'll try thoeld o hold the lin 1.5, and now we are here as maybe the most notorious climate denier in history takes power once again. >> it is concerning to so many people. what will this tell us about what we will see? temperatures hottest ever this year? >> right, right. and it's the knockoff effects. insurance losses in the last decade, 50% higher in the decade before. it's changes property values and building codes and immigrant streams and supply chains. all of this is happening in realtime. you have to adapt to the pain that's already built in while trying to mitigate the price of it right now. and them there's disaster response, which we saw the very different approaches under the trump and biden administration as to who gets the aid. sometimes it's a political favor under trump. so all of this has folks in the climate and environmental space very, very worried.

and it also has a lot of brave faces. you've got folks from california saying, we will continue to lead. the state of washington passed a sweeping climate bond bill there, and laws to sort of protect that. californians passed that bond bill. so what you might see is sort of a balkanization of states like minnesota, michigan, california, that are going to lead the way on this clean technologies. but at the end of the day, these cleaner alternatives now have the cheapest in human history. so texas leads the nation in green energy right now. so we'll see. but the immediate pain, that's what folks have to deal with. these immediate storms and wildfires. >> and we're seeing them play out right now in california. a place where some insurers have pulled back because they can't keep affording to ing ing to r houses. >> it is always a pleasure to see you, even though you bring us sometimes disappointing -- >> knowledge is power. >> it is. it is. bill weir, always great to see you. a new hour of "cnn news central" starts right now.