tonight on 360, donald trump talks with ukraine's president and elon musk is on the call. what was said and what was not about trump's

prior policies. details about what federal prosecutors say was a plot by iran . after two years and felony indictments, jack smith is winding down the indictment against resident electronic. good evening. there is no reporting tonight on some of the moves president-elect trump is making as well as some in the government about worst-case scenarios as commander-in-chief . defense officials tell us that informal discussions are underway in the pentagon about how the department might respond if he deploys active-duty troops onto u.s. streets . that news is coming and when we learned that the president elect spoke by phone on wednesday, elon musk joined the call. ukraine's military, your member, relies on mosques --

>> those cities are gone. they are gone , and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal , zelenskyy. >> according to axios, who broke the story, trumps told zelenskyy he would support ukraine but did not go into details on policy. ukraine's president reportedly came away from the call, quote, somewhat reassured by what he heard from the president-elect. beyond that pentagon reporting, the jockeying for positions, there is a lot to get to tonight. kim mccullough is just back from mar-a-lago, how much do you read into the fact that elon musk was on the phone call ? >> i think that for people covering trump and this campaign over the last few months, it is not surprising. trump has become quite enamored with elon musk, and often want

to keep him involved in conversations and discussions he has been having. he has been involved in these last few weeks of the campaign, certainly in pennsylvania, and i think having him on the call with zelenskyy speaks to elon musk's influence, and what that could look like in a second trump term. obviously, you know, he has stayed in the game here since ukraine is using his starling satellite immigration service. that is a contract with pentagon that expires at the end of next month. we will see what it looks like after that, but obviously has a lot of stake in this game and so for his presence on that call, it is notable because he is on with a world leader and the president-elect and the world's richest man with major defense of contracts. it also speaks to how much influence elon musk's has right now in trumps orbit. >> what is the jockeying for position like right now in mar-a-lago? >> it's remarkable because it is moving very quickly. that is

what almost every person i've spoken to about this, you know, what is the current state of the jockeying, it changes sometimes by the hour, who was up into his down , as trump is viewing her to put in these positions, something that he is taking really seriously i should note this time around, he says that his staffing choices and in his first term were some of his biggest mistakes he ever made, citing people like bill barr, the attorney general. he is taking it very seriously, and because of that, people know that in order to influence trump, you often need to be right in front of him. either on the phone with him or in front of him having these conversations but there is a lot of jockeying behind the scenes. a lot of alliances are being formed between people trying to say, you know, if we stick together we can kill this other person off for this job so often when trump makes these calls it depends on the person with the biggest influence on him when it comes to that. >> our people literally at mar-a-lago hoping to get face time? >> yes. they are all over palm beach, anderson. it is kind of remarkable. i spent a lot of time there when trump was

president, covering him and it's everywhere that you go, you see potential trump cabinet members or west wing officials, hanging out at certain hotels or coffee shops or restaurants . a lot of them booked flights after tuesday night's win, because they knew how important it was to be there it is hard to get trump on the phone right now, so a lot of them are just showing up and trying to get in front of him. >> we mentioned racing reporting of pentagon officials holding formal discussions about how the defense department would respond if president trump issued orders to deploy active-duty troops mystically, these are possibilities that came up on the campaign trail. what is your sense of how much he wants -- how likely any of that might be. 's budgeting it is very likely. i think that when it comes -- the way that they talk about it, there are these career employees at federal agencies when you talk to those people, they are not majorly political but there are people who worked there for a long time, thousands of positions, and they have said that frankly they don't know how certain

facets of the pentagon are going to work if those people to disappear in two weeks from now. i think that is a question of how much of the hollowing out they do that trump and elon musk and vivek ramaswamy promised to do when it comes to the federal government, but one thing i am keeping an eye on is who trump will pick as his defense secretary. he is very frustrated with several of the ones he picked the last time he was in office. he took to, at the end of mark esper, he said he just says yes to everything and kind of ridiculing him almost, outright and public. so he certainly wants someone that he has more cohesion with, as a trump people would put it, someone who does more of what he wants, and less pushback at the pentagon. >> caitlin, we will see you at the top of the 9:00 our former trump national security adviser john bolton joins us now . senator navarro, scott jennings, also journalist rachel mccullough . scott, elon

musk was critical in the campaign. what you make of him joining this call with the leader of turkey? >> doesn't surprise me at all. donald trump can get anyone on the phone that he wants. a lot of these calls are congratulatory in nature. so his further more policy driven cultic place out of spec more policy and administer officials will be on these calls, but at some juncture, trump won and he has a cadre of advisers that will include elon musk and i don't think anybody should be surprised by this, or alarmed by it, either way. >> i think it's a little weird. elon musk seems to be everywhere at all times. he the secretary of everything at the same time he's like the first lady. the other day i saw this picture of him, it was a picture of trump with his entire family except melania, but elon musk was there. now you are hearing about this, there is also obviously

conflict of interest, because this is somebody who has contracts with the department of defense, this is somebody who has starling, a big part of what is going on in ukraine. i find it a little weird . but, as scott said, they won, he gets to do whatever he wants and if he wants elon everywhere all the time, that is what is going to happen. >> it is unusual, but not surprising, i guess. >> i think that elon musk will go down as the single most important and influential person in the trump administration but he is in charge, now, of information flow with x, or misinformation, sometimes, he is in charge, as we saw with what is going on in ukraine, he is basically in charge of the entire mutation system over there, so it lives and dies with them. apparently, president trump elect is going to put him in charge of slashing costs, and getting into the federal bureaucracy, and trying to figure out what departments and people to cut .

he is basically going to be in charge and influencing every aspect of the government. i think that he will be the most influential adviser, that trump will have. >> it's interesting because there's people to go through senate confirmation, people who have to submit all their background information. it seems like there will be a number of people just with kind of an open portfolio. >> you are so old-fashioned, anderson. vetting people to make sure they don't have topics of interest, to make sure they don't have foreign governments with dirt on them, that's old-fashioned. you win, you do what you want but that's the new way. the reality is, people will try to calm you down, they will say this is no big deal, this is all normal but this is not normal. this is totally weird. this is bizarre. the

privatization of certain parts of american life, including our space program has real upsides because elon musk has done an incredible job with the space program. the problem is, he also has a conflict of interest having this many government contracts. ordinarily would not want anyone with those kinds of conflict of interest to make policy but we don't care anymore, apparently, that there are downsides to this new way. and also, elon musk has a disproportional amount of power and leverage over ukraine anyway. ukraine wanted to go much harder against russia, and elon basically pulled the plug and said, you cannot go hard against russia. he already have him dictating the terms of war to a sovereign nation, sitting next to the president of the united states on a phone call that this is all weird. it might work out great or perfectly, but it's not view this as normal but this is all weird stuff.

>> the thing about the pentagon discussions, and i know what level this is, it seems like his informal discussions. i guess it is understandable that they would have those discussions. scott, is it? >> i don't like this. was donald trump supposed to think? he is sitting down there, president-elect, and the unelected bureaucracy of the federal government is having meetings, at some level, about how to support or countermand the commander in chief but i don't care if that is at the pentagon or hud or , it doesn't matter. the unelected bureaucracy of the government answers to the civilian and duly elected leadership that we just did, and if you were in his shoes and you just won the popular vote with a clear mandate, and now you read these unelected bureaucrats are plotting against you, what would you think? >> there's a reason for that. >> let me finish because they have problems, they should not have meetings that leak to the press. if they have ideas , they should call the president's office and say hey, we would like to have some discussions for planning

purposes, but secret meetings that leak ? terrible way to get off to a start with the new admin station. >> i agree that might not be the best way to do it. however, trump has set them up to be in this situation where they think that he is coming up to them. >> he won. he is the president. >> first of all, we are discussing something we don't really know details on, so i just want to put that out. you are portraying it like it is a cabal of people plotting, the flipside of it is, you can look at it as, for planning purposes, as you said, to figure out, if troops are called, what mechanisms are there, what actually happens if all these people are fired? do they need this? >> i have been a part of the at ministration when jeb bush was elected governor. every department right now should be making plans on what the handover will look like, should be having meetings, i think there is an added concern, because of project 2025, some

of the things that donald trump has set about eliminating and going after career folks. what does that mean? when career folks who have the institutional memory all of a sudden are gotten rid of , what is that mean? >> seems to be these career folks, steve bennett has called the deep state >> yes, i think you are making an important point. i heard from people who are just regular old career people, they went to college, the got a degree in the legal science and they've been working for the governor for 14 years in the department, and now they are concerned that if they don't concernehat are different, and is weird label, the deep state just because you got a job at some bureaus in place that is scary to people. they are already talking about it, they are. >> already today, mike lee is

up for a potential high post with the president, you have him saying that the executive branch should be able to take over the federal reserve. >> oh my god. >> already, you have the fed chair saying, over my dead body will that happen, because it has to remain in an independent corrections already, just two days after the election, we are talking about that. >> the chairman of the federal reserve has said public that he would not step down. >> it's important, because you don't want the president to be able to say, hey buddy, print a bunch of money. you're going to really undermine the dollar on the world stage, if the fed is just a puppet of the white house. we have these institutions that give us this great life, we don't know what they are. it's like having a house and you don't know how it was built. >> can i ask you something? if you want to do all the stuff we're talking about, right? get rid of some of these officials that are just regular people, if he wants to do these things that he has talked about doing, where is the check and balance? what is there to

provide checks and balance because there are no ethics, he's got the senate, he's going to have the house. the supreme court has given him immunity, he won the popular vote, who is going to -- as the real housewives would say, who is going to check me, boo? >> the president is the unitary executive over the executive branch. he should have wide latitude to operate the executive branch the way that he sees fit. there is a separate branch of government called the congress and another called the court, they do check and balance each other, and that is the way it is going to work and i think that there is a lot of freaking out going on. we just have the election on tuesday. >> i was freaking out then, to. >> he needs to be allowed to build a government, and democrats and the rest of bureaucracy and everybody else in washington, d.c. understands, he might do things differently, but that is no reason to try to thwart the duly elected president of the united states. >> you have this unitary

executive theory, that is a theory and it is not the theory that we have operated under at least since fdr, which is that you do not have the president of the united states asserting authority to fire everybody down to the post office people, because those people have civil service protection but you know why? to prevent patronage. to prevent corruption, to prevent the president of the united states from being able to sell positions to people and that is what is being taken out. >> i think that he was given a mandate to do deportation first, or handle immigration, tax cuts, i think those things will happen first, think of the american people will be upset but they don't even understand the idea that he might be coming after federal employees, nor do they care >> thank you, scott jennings, and navarro, we are looking at the former president successful effort to win support from black voters. next we are learning about the iranian plot , and how authorities broke the case.

the 2024 presidential campaign has already been darkened by adams on donald trump's life when in butler, pennsylvania, shots were fired and amanda the rally was killed. another at one of his golf courses in florida were a man was arrested before any shots were fired. today, the

justice department announced charges in another legend plot from iran. what do we know about this plot? >> these are murder for hire charges, anderson, issued against three men from the iranian revolutionary guard, tasking a man named should carry with assassinating a former, now future president from. the orders we understand given to the afghan national, believed to be at large in iran. he spent years in new york state prisons which is where the feds believe he met many of his future compasses, including two of the codefendants named in the documents that were unsealed today. now, shaquari allegedly had a meeting with and i rgc official just a month ago where he was told to come up with a plan to assassinate trump

before the election, he was told you only have a week and if you don't do it in the next week, we will wait until after the election because they assumed that he would lose the election, and that it would be easier to kill him afterwards. now, shaquari says he did not plan on coming up with that plot , within that timeframe and we know that, because he was actually speaking with the fbi, not once, but five times, anderson, in the past few months. that is where they got a lot of this information? but, this plot, as you know, not the first iranian plot to try to kill trump and his allies, a pakistani man was charged back in august with plans to assassinate government officials , including former president trump. >> what are authorities saying about other targets ? >> that trump was not just the only target. in fact, the main target, they say, was a very prominent antiregime human rights activist, a prominent journalist in the u.s., she has been on cnn a bunch of times, and shaquari, we are told, task is to a compasses in the u.s.,

american nationals who are now in custody with tracking her down. following her to fairfield university where she was to give a speech. they tried to track her down in brooklyn where they thought that she lived. he was going to pay them $100,000 for carrying this out there that attack never was carried out. then, there are two others of note, anderson. two american jewish businessman the i rgc wanted killed but they were offering $500,000 for each one , and in another plot they wanted mounted, if you will, in sri lanka, to kill israeli tourists. it got to the point where just last month, the israeli and american governments issued warnings to their citizens, their. now, this raises all kinds of questions about what future president trump will do in response. as we know, he went after the head of the codes force in 2020, soleimani and killing him. >> joining us now our best center and cnn chief law enforcement intelligence analyst john miller. andrew, try to put this in perspective for us but how it jordan or is

it to see a foreign government targeting a presidential candidate and now president-elect? >> is remarkable, anderson. certainly not the kind of thing you see every day but i have to say, we have seen the iranians trying to act out in similar ways. not targeting a president candidate, but targeting other political figures in the united states, in 2011 we uncovered a plot put out by , again, the i rgc to assassinate the saudi ambassador to the united states here in dc. a similar plot, the use of a low-level criminal to hire criminal associates and kind of distant the plot from official i rgc members. that is what you are seeing here. most of the complaints, a fascinating document is focused on the plot focus to assassinate the dissident in brooklyn, new york and towards the end of complaint they talk about the tasking that he gets,

this fall just in october to shift his focus, to then candidate trump and it's not clear what sort of action was undertaken to work out was that. >> this is not the first time the reigning government has tried to kill president-elect trump for dealing there are more plots out there? >> absolutely. what stage they are in is unclear, but iran has been bent on taking retribution, as alex said, for the killing of this trend for general, the most important general in neuron, in charge of regional activities, all those proxy forces, killing him in 2020, january 2020. they have been at this, and they have been active threatening against a number of senior u.s. officials. those threats about gone away, and some of those officials are not really fully protected by the u.s. government the way that president trump is. iran is definitely emboldened, and they

are not going to give up. that is their mo. >> john? >> this obviously seems like a dangerous thing for aaron to be doing.'s budget is. if you look at it on these levels, the fbi joint terrorism task force in new york has worked all of these iranian plots that we have talked about, the nypd intelligence bureau has done surveillance there, they arrested a guy with an ak-47. >> outside the house in brooklyn. >> exactly. this has been a massive effort to protect her, but that is a dissident who has been a burr in the side of aaron, they are on their third or fourth plot for . as you ask, elevating that the former president , a president-elect, a future president, you have to understand where iran's head is here, as beth would tell you, in the intelligence

analyst world, they talk about mirror imaging. cannot assume that the adversary is going to think with the same logic that you think about the same things. iran is in a position where may have vowed revenge from the ayatollah to answer for the death of soleimani , where president trump in office since that missile, we have since seen the israeli decimate hezbollah, their main arm on the israeli border, assassinate the leader of hamas in the president's guest house in tehran, and none of these revenge plots have worked out, so it is possible that they would do something so outsized, so foolish, as to target someone like -- >> otherwise you are saying that they look weak in the region? >> they are losing face, they are becoming a paper tiger. as unreasonable as it sounds to us, knowing that the retaliation would be crushing, this is something to keep going

after. >> as john was talking about, this person is not the only target, does it surprise you how many people were targeted? >> it's an incredible tale. it is worth reading the affidavit and supporting indictment just to see the sort of detail in their, but yeah. i mean, they start out really focused on the dissident and the next thing you know, if you believe the main defendant , shaquari, relating this to the fbi in a number of phone conversations i can only describe as a bleakly bizarre. in my entire career i've never seen a case -- >> why is this guy giving this evidence to the fbi? >> that is a great question. it is not excludable five guys, he is in tehran, allegedly, and

sharing these revealing conversations directly with the fbi. >> this gazing around talking to the fbi on the phone. >> that is correct but these are telephonic interviews that took place over several weeks, presumably, while he was in tehran. so, there are a lot of questions there as to what would have been his motivation to engage directly with the fbi , and to reveal all these very intimidating facts. it is also clear from the affidavit , the agent specifies that on a number of facts, he lied to them . he lied about some things, try to correct things later, he didn't correct everything, so, his credibility is definitely questionable. now, the statements that he makes about targeting president-elect trump, the very end of the affidavit, it is to very brief progress, there is no clear evidence that action was taken . so, you really have to kind of -- i'm not trying to minimize this in any way, it is incredibly serious, and if he's telling the truth it

indicates that iran has a persistent interest in trying to kill president trump, that is a terrible thing but but really, we need to drill down a bit on what the story is behind the source. >> andrew, beth, thank you very much. wak have a new key protection in a senate race, the president wants question whether vice president harris was black , in response to republican calling her adi higher. the question among some voters might be, why did his share among black men in this battleground state more than double. omar gimenez has more next.

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♪ ♪ it's taken a few days, but we have a projection out of nevada cnn canal project that incumbent democratic senator jackie rosen will survive the challenge from republican sam brown, this leads to 52 republicans and 48 democrats, with to raise that standing. on the presidential side, just 1 invited black men voted for president trump, not different from 2020 but black men accounted for 2020 of the total ludlow this year, that is up

from 33% in 2020. going to cnn exit polls, and one of the many hard facts facing democrats from tuesday's election night loss. omar gimenez has more in philadelphia. >> have you noticed a shift among black men inconvenient? >> definitely. when i was growing up, people used to say were publicans were for businesses and democrats were for the regular and working-class. i don't think that is the same right now. i think that maybe the rules have slipped a little bit. >> reporter: linwood holland is a republican ward leader until adelphia. this election he says he has more republican voters in his community than he is used to. >> i have been in some places with some guys and you know, i kind of like what he was doing. and, they might talk smack, too, you know what i mean? it doesn't bother them what he is saying, they like his macho energy i guess or whatever he is doing and they just want to say, i want to be a partisan thing different. >> reporter: to be clear, the overwhelming majority of black men in pennsylvania supported

vice president kamala harris for president, and supported resident joe biden in 2020. in 2020, aced on cnn exit polls, just 10% of black men in pennsylvania supported donald trump. that number jumped to 26% in the state. that is the biggest increase in any of the swing states. nationally, though, the shift was much smaller, going from 19% of black men in 2020, to 21% in 2024. >> have you noticed a shift within the black community? just in the conversations that you have had over the last eight years? >> absolutely. in 2016, you know, there was quiet support, but it was groundbreaking , to vote another way. in 2020, it became more of a reality, you know, that there is an option, here, right? in the next cycle if that doesn't work then we

can do something else, but we cannot be permanently buried in the morass of voting one way amma for the rest of our lives. >> reporter: calvin tucker is a trump ally and chair of the philadelphia black robed and counsel. he also believes economic reasons rant about anything the former president has said. >> you may misinterpret something someone says, or, you know, maybe i'm not voting for your attitude, i work for people that have not been as favorable to me, as an individual, but at the end of the day, i need to feed my family. >> omar joins us now, did anyone speak to other issues than the economy or was the economy front and center? >> reporter: it was really front and center but i asked one of them about the insurrection, and to him, he said it wasn't really an issue. i asked why, and he said, to him, trump did not

exquisitely call for violence, despite the violence we ended up seeing from some of his supporters who were there to see him. now, while those two voices and profiles were not necessarily repetitive of the majority of black voters in philadelphia , or pennsylvania or black women, more than 95% of black women supported vice president harris or president biden in the past two cycles, it did give an insight to some of what we saw, from some black men in this election cycle, who i have seen from some of the polling numbers this time seemed to up their support for now president-elect trump. >> omar gimenez, appreciate it. training is now , it's interesting, the numbers in pennsylvania in particular, versus nationwide. the economy? >> all this people are sellouts. now i'm just joking that that is the problem, though. is that for too long, democrats were trying to bully and shame people into voting for a party that we forgot,

people are sitting on a white hot stove, without enough money in her pocket, a lot of problems have not been resolved when it comes to education and community safety and people got tired. and one of the things the democratic parties going to have to do is actually listen more and let your less when it comes to african american men. >> yeah, we talked about it a little bit outside, the old founding ethos of the black national caucus is that black people have no permanent friends and permanent enemies, just a minute interests. the reality is that for the better part of the last 50 years, black people at large have made a permanent friend of the democratic party and finally, the rob blackman who realized that stove had gotten too hot, the outcome they were looking for had not been achieved, and when they decided to raise their hand and say we are considering doing another way, they were not treated with concern, they were greeted with disdain that they were called everything but a child of god

in the name of trying to preserve these values that the democrats claimed they want to uphold. and so yes, those numbers show two things. first, the frustration of black men you're dealing with failing schools or the current justice system but also show the republican party, it turns out, when you spend money in support of the black vote in a diligent and earnest way like you saw in pennsylvania and wisconsin, that needle does move. as you saw, it made a lot more in pennsylvania and wisconsin than it did nationally, because that is where the money went. >> did the republican party spend a lot of money reaching out? >> absolutely. we woke up in a body bag. the online outreach to african american men, the targeted outreach, we began to see it in people's conversation, he started hearing african-american men who are not even political saying the same exact thing over and over again, because the party was spending money on

ads and streaming services, things i hadn't even heard of before, the kamala harris campaign wound up spending a bunch of money on tv ads. the tv ads sucked. they did not appeal to anyone, but it was tested in the data dummies retellings these are great ads but nobody liked the ads. saying america is this racist, sexist, fascist country. listen we always have some racist and sexist and fascist people but that's not what happened. what happened is you had some key parts of this coalition, especially black men, who were not handled properly. what was the agenda for immigrants? conference of immigration reform. what is the agenda for women? abortion. what is the abortion for transgender people? dignity and respect. what was the agenda for black men? you still can't tell me, and that was a problem on our side. when somebody walks away you can blame them or you can

blame yourself. the democratic party needs to start listening to black men have good ideas, black men gave the majority of our vote to this party but we need respect and when we don't get respect relief. >> is there something of these voters expect now from president trump? >> and there is a hard truth in america and politics which is that if you feel as if nothing changes, at least let me vote for the person where the rising tide can perhaps lift all boats, including some of the boats that are a little bit rickety, and i think black men remember that we did have 7 million jobs before covid underneath president trump and we did have record low unemployment for black people under president trump. so, those are real numbers. you can try to poke holes in them, but the financial reality but i think a lot of people were facing underneath president trump, it felt better , and the inflation that we experience certainly, as a part of covid, did not. >> prices were higher, but unemployment was lower and better under biden put the

prices were what did us in. let me say one thing. donald trump has an opportunity to lock this in order screwed up. and donald trump does what he said he's going to do, he will screw it up, because the only thing donald trump promised luckman, more stop and frisk, mandatory stop and frisk, death penalty for drug sales and a whole bunch of other awful stuff. >> good times are over. i will say that he promise that we will have school choice for every single family that calls this nation home. if you look at 90% of black children not able to do reading or math at grade level, that is far beyond the greatest thing he can do for the black community. >> we will see. >> appreciate it. coming up would likely happened in the special counsel investigation into election interference as possible against put jack smith on notice.

we have the clearest indication today the federal prosecution into donald trump's election interference is likely winding down. special counsel jack smith asked for and was granted a pause in all upcoming deadlines to assess how to move forward. smith said he could have a decision on how to resolve the case by december 2nd. just department policy precludes prosecution a sitting president. also trump said he would fire smith if re-elected. this is how smith characterized the four federal charges against trump in august of last

year. >> the attack on our nation's capital in general sixth 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it is described in the indictment, fueled by lies lies by the defendantu.s. governmente nations process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. >> what a difference a year makes. today's decision comes the same day to house republicans warned smith in a letter to preserve all documents. the letter reads in part, the office of the special counsel is not immune from transparency or public ability for its actions. we're joined now by prosecutor jeffrey toobin but effectively these cases are over, what happened to jack smith? >> the federal cases are really over. there will never be a trial into genera six, there will never be a trial on the mar-a-lago classified information case. as for jack smith, his investigation is

over, whether he personally gets fired, you know, he's a department of justice employee, he could maybe have a job there, but he will leave that investigation, at the beginning of the trump term next year. the interesting question is, you know, what does congress want with him? you know, what does congress jordan -- that is -- there is an impulsive threat there, right? >> can he be jailed? >> as long as the rule of law exists in something like its current form, there is no way you can imprison jack smith. however, what you could do is call him in to testify . there, i would say to the republicans, be careful what you ask for, because of jack smith has a forum to talk about these cases, i doubt it would go so well for president trump. >> the other question is will jack smith release a report putting evidence out there that he would have presented in court? >> i think there is a certainty. in fact, i am sure what that office is doing now

instead of preparing for trials, the overbearing for a report. remember, robert miller, who was a special counsel under the same authority issued a big report, robert, who investigated president biden's classified information also did a report, that report, i am sure, smith's team is rushing to get to merrick garland, so that he can release it before the next administration . >> would garland release it? >> i think it's a certainty. there might be some review for classified information, but he would certainly release it, perhaps with some reactions. >> it is interesting elon musk decided to weigh in on this, saying jack smith's abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished. >> well, this is consistent with that letter from jim jordan, that there is this attempt to somehow put jack smith on trial. as i said, i don't know what you could

possibly do , but i think this is the swagger of the victorious side in this election coming out . but in fact i don't -- >> what about the fulton county georgia election interference case? >> apparently the trump team moved to dismiss that case but that case has been on a slow boat to know where vermont's. i mean, that case is basically a disaster. certainly while trump is president for the next four years. it cannot go to trial . i don't think it'll ever go to trial. >> what about the new york hush money case? >> that case is coming up on sentencing, but there is a legal issue that the judge has to resolve first which is whether the supreme court's decision in trump versus united states means that case has to be retried. i think he will probably rule in favor of the government saying it does not have to be retried, but that is

likely to be appealed, and that will delay the sentencing, i think, pretty much indefinitely. however, i think judge mershon is smart enough that if he, in fact gets this case to sentencing, while trump is president or even before , he cannot sentence him to prison, or committee service, it can only be a fine because in our system recently cannot have a president under that kind of restriction. >> thanks very much. up next what we know about susan wiles, the new white house chief of staff, the first woman to hold the critical post.

one of the president-elect to transfer to decisions this week was to name campaign cochair susie wiles as his new white house chief of staff. she will be the first woman ever to hold the powerful and important role. for more on who she is, here is randy king. >> susie like to stay in the back, let me tell you. >> reporter: donald trump's newly minted chief of staff, susie wiles, does not enjoy the spotlight, like her boss. the

40 year veteran of republican politics prefers to operate behind the scenes. >> she is the steady hand, the loyal social soldier. >> reporter: on her linkedin page under specialties, wiles listed this, creating order from chaos. a skill that came in handy while running trump's presidential campaign. >> candidates matter , what they stand for matters. >> reporter: that was wiles in 2020, speaking to cnn affiliate wplg after she delivered a win for trump in florida as a part of his campaign operation in the state. she rarely gives interviews. her first successful campaign was trump's florida campaign in 2016, then again in 2020. >> traditional republican voter coalition just simply cannot, i don't believe, electrical begins any longer. so, beginning to bring into the tent a larger number of hispanic voters . >> reporter: after his presidency, wiles served as a trumps to factor chief of staff, then led his 2024 campaign. one of her goals was to keep a close eye on who had

access to the former president. wiles has a string of political campaign success stories. in 2010, she helped rick scott eke out a win to become governor of florida. in 2018, she was tapped to save ron desantis in his campaign for florida governor petit won by 32,000 votes. the closest governor's election in state history. after that, amid tensions, wiles was ousted from desantis's inner circle. she went back to work on trump's florida re-election team, but was dismissed, at the urging of desantis. in 2020, trump brought her back amid concerns about his campaigns standing in florida polls. he ended up winning florida by more than three dig points against joe biden. >> susie wiles is the political version of mamadou ali. she does not lose, she is a relentless fighter. >> reporter: that fighting spirit was instilled early on. she grew up with two brothers and is the daughter of professional football player turned television broadcaster, pat summerall. >> there was another way to live this life that i didn't have all the answers. >> reporter: in his

autobiography, he shared that in 1992, during an intervention about his alcoholism, wiles read a letter, telling him at times that she was a saint ashamed they shared the same last name. summerall. treatment after that but before agreeing to her new role in the white house, cnn has learned that wiles insisted on certain conditions. top of the list, more control over who has access to the oval office. >> she want to make sure the presidents priorities are first and foremost follow through one, and we don't want distractions. she is laser focused. >> randy joins us now from west palm beach, florida. what is her overall style like that might benefit the trump white house? >> reporter: when i spoke with senator joe greeters today, he said she has a very specific demeanor. she is very calm and a great leader and that should play well in the next trump white house to set the tone for the next trump white house if she has any say, as expected, in the hiring of others, she

will likely make sure they have the same dna and will try to keep the chaos out of this next white house. he also said that donald trump asked to surround himself with winners, and that likely played into this as well, because susie wiles is certainly a winner, she has a stack of campaign victories here in florida and certainly the most recent presidential election. he likes that about her. anderson, keep in mind that donald trump, in his first term went through four chief of staff. though she is anti-chaos, it seems, we will see how it plays this time around. >> thanks so much. the news continues right here on cnn. up next, breaking news, bracing for trump. we are learning there are active discussions inside the pentagon, tonight, over how to respond if trump tries to deploy the military inside the united states. concerns grow over how trump will make iran pay after news of another assassination plot. plus, a bright spot for the democrats in the house seat in new york. laura guillen