you are in the cnn news room. it has been four days since donald trump's decisive big tree to retake the white house and his transition is in full swing. the president-elect has named his white house chief of staff, susie wiles, who is also credited as the architect of his election victory. for more on how the trump white house is taking us shape we are joined from west palm beach near mar-a-lago. tell us more about the president lacks search to quickly fill key roles. it seems like they're moving more quickly than they did in 2016. >> reporter: they are moving very quickly and part of the reason is because of course

this transition team had been working on many names and preparing different candidates that they had begun vetting before election day. i will note that donald trump was not involved in that process. he did not want to get into selecting people before he had actually gone through the election, but i will say this time around, this is interesting because i heard this from essentially every person i know talking to donald trump in these meetings. they tell me that donald trump is far more confident and self-assured this time around than he was back in 2016. and that is because, partly they say, he has been through this before, unlike back then. he has now had government experience. when he first entered the white house after the 2016 election he had never worked in dc or had any sort of political role. this time though, he believes he wants to be the one making the

decisions. the other part of that is because he has won the popular vote. they argue that his team and donald trump himself personally feels that he has a mandate to carry out, and that he should feel more confident in the decisions he is make an because the majority of the people in this country had voted for him. i do want to walk you through some of the key positions he is prioritizing. they said first on his list, his agenda list was finding and filling his cabinet, finding those people he wanted to serve at the top levels of government and the second wave of that would be top senior white house officials and then deputy secretaries. we know some names will be announced. they said as early as today and it is already 6:00 p.m. on saturday. it is unclear if any names will be announced tonight, but very soon. they're trying to go through this process quickly. i think the key roles to keep in mind here are the ones donald

trump himself believes are the most important, attorney general, cia director, that is the secretary of defense and the secretary of homeland security, those are the roles he believes will be the most powerful and important to him when he is sworn in come january. as for the attorney general, the reason that is the number one priority for him is because he believes that he wants his attorney general to be loyal to him, someone he can trust, and someone that will carry out the legal goals that he has. some of that could very well be prosecuting his political opponents, something he says he is justified in doing, but the other part, he believes that these justice department should no longer be independent, and that is breaking with traditional norms. he believes the justice department, which is already under the executive branch, should be another extension of the white house, and so that is going to be a very crucial role, some of the top names i

know people around him and in front of him are throwing and trying to show to donald trump and put a list in front of him include the missouri senator, eric schmidt. he helped him prepare for the debates and he was at mar-a-lago on tuesday and we also know the missouri attorney, the current missouri attorney general, andrew bailey, and someone who has worked in the white house the first time trump was there. can paxton, the attorney general of texas and a bunch of other names there floating around and john radcliffe is another one. there are people under consideration and i would keep in mind as we talked through these names that this is donald trump we're talking about. he is unpredictable. he can change his mind very quickly. there are a lot of people clamoring for an audience with him, trying to get in his ear. it is unclear who he will pick, but these are the people consistently being brought up inside those meetings at mar-a-lago behind me. >> thank you so much for your

reporting tonight. we appreciate it. some of trump's allies and private companies are quietly working on plans for mass detention camps for undocumented immigrants. it is a promise he made repeatedly on the campaign trail. >> under my leadership we will use all necessary state, local, federal and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in american history. >> joining us now is the former acting director are of ice. thank you for being here with us. >> glad to be here. >> we heard the clip there from the former president, his words, we have heard from his allies like marco rubio, who says perhaps the beginning would look like a focused operation focused on undocumented immigrants that have committed crimes or have a criminal record. what do you think this mass deportation operation could look like?

>> it is difficult to say because there has not been a lot of specifics offered during the campaign. we hear this talk about building mass detention camps, and that will be essential to the president's plan, but the bottom line is, there will be need to be a surge in ice agents and the number of deportations is really a resource game. the more resources you put into it, the more deportations you get. you are talking about an excessive cost, billions and billions of dollars. in 2019, one of the largest years of trump's deportation numbers, about 267 undocumented immigrants were deported and the cost was about $6 billion, so you can see the tens of billions it would take to do 1 million people in a year. >> i'm curious what the resources -- i know you outlined some numbers, but what the current detention space looks like and what the current workforce looks like, and would there need to be a dramatic

increase in those areas? >> so ice currently has 41,000 detention heads. the reality is the majority of those are not federal facilities. ice relies heavily on contractors and also on state and local jails, so sheriff's offices. they pay for bed space. so if you want to ramp up to be part of this plan, even finding the places where you can house the migrants will be a challenge and that is why you are hearing about these private detention contractors starting to scout out locations and start plans for constructing these massive facilities. but this raises another issue, which is that even if the president was to get the money tomorrow to implement this mass deportation effort, it is still going to be an incredible challenge to deploy the resources. you need to hire and train the agents and find places and by the real estate for the detention centers and construct the facilities. all of that takes a tremendous amount of time and the president only has a retro

year window in which he has promised 11 million deportations. >> just knowing all that, do you think that is possible with all of the challenges you just laid out? >> i don't think it is possible. there are tremendous headwinds he would face and the biggest one would be due process. the supreme court has long held that most migrants are entitled to a full and fair hearing before an immigration judge and they get offer defenses, including sometimes that they are a united states citizen. this move slowly and are incredibly backlogged because of the situation at the border, so that is why your hearing the president talking about this alien enemies act. he is looking at ways of stripping migrants of those due process rights. but then there is one other question and that is the undocumented population are largely not criminals, there are 11 million people that have been here at least 15 years on average or at least

50% have been here 15 years and 4.6 million of them are mixed status families, that is in a knock minted mom or father with a u.s. citizen child or a mother with a u.s. citizen husband. when you start talking about 11 million or even 1 million per year, what you're talking about is the working that population and it remains to be seen how much of a public appetite there is for ice to be ripping those families apart and making those families face these difficult choices of whether they will say goodbye to their loved one or the impact ¿ entire family is going to leave the country. >> and then there is the question of it cannot just be at the federal level, right? you will need buy-in. how would that work with local and state agencies it would seem? >> the primary issue there will be in the state and local is a little frustrating when we hear this talk about focusing on criminals is that ice is already excruciatingly focused on terminals. so there is not a person in this country who is booked into a jail or prison

that ice is not aware of and if they are someone on a visa that committed a crime that allows them to be deported or someone undocumented, ice will take action against those individuals. they're very good at it. there is not a sizable population when senator rubio says we are going to focus on criminals first, they already are focused on criminals, but that is the one area where it can frustrate efforts because they can block access to their jails. but despite the fact that there will be concerns about how this immigration system is going to operate, big cities like los angeles and chicago and new york that might try to implement barriers to ice taking action are really powerless to do so. they cannot stop ice from operating in streets or cities but they can restrict access to places like their jails, which ice does rely on for the enforcement efforts. >> i hear you when you say that

if somebody has committed a crime and they are held in prison or jail that ice is aware of them and there is a record of these people. that how many would you say, or is it possible to know , criminals that are undocumented that are not in a jail? i'm just asking because they make it sound like there are a lot of them out there and i wonder what you know about those numbers. >> all data shows that you know, crime rates in undocumented communities are lower than the general population. migrants tend to create -- commit crimes at a lower frequency. that said, don't get me wrong, there are some bad actors out there. there are transnational gang members and individuals who committed violent crimes who we deported let's not back in unlawfully. i would love to see ice shift its focus to go after that population and take a surgical approach to finding them, the individuals at large wreaking havoc in the communities and apprehending

them and getting them out of the country, the problem is this, when you talk about mass deportation and he put out these big numbers, you cannot accomplish that with a surgical approach to the criminal population. it takes a lot more time to arrest these at-large criminals. these transnational gang members know how to hide and they are masking their identity. they're not sitting on public registries getting drivers licenses . so that means it takes a lot more time for ice agents to find them, and when they do it takes more resources to make one arrest. you might get one arrest but it is a very high quality but you spend a lot of resources to get him. unfortunately though, when you set these quotas and big goals of mass deportation, it is a lot easier to get the low hanging fruit which is the mixed status families or people ordered deported 10 years ago but they gave a stay for humanitarian reasons. >> thank you for that context and analysis. thank you so much.

the federal emergency management agency worker has been fired after telling a disaster relief team to skip homes with signs supporting donald trump for president while the team was in florida last month. and administrator call those actions reprehensible and a clear violation of fema's core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation. the agency says it believes it was an isolated incident and they're not naming the person. the house oversight committee has invited the head of fema to testify at a hearing on november 19 to discuss that incident. still to come, iran is denying involvement in a plot to kill donald trump after the justice department announced federal charges against three people who sits were said to have plan to kill him before the election. what happens to the special counsel's prosecution for election interference? as house republicans put jack smith on notice. and later, as president

biden get set to meet trump this week, what he is doing to secure his legacy before he hands over power.

new tonight, ron is denying involvement in a newly disclosed plot to kill donald trump. they describe the charges as completely baseless. the doj announced charges against three people in the

allege one man was tasked by to iran with assassinating trump and he is still believed to be at large. joining us now is bob baer. thank you for being here with us. >> of course. >> the doj says the plan was for the suspect to kill trump before the election or after when tehran assumed he would be defeated. how much of a threat is there around the former president now president-elect? >> i think the threat is significant . let's look at the history. there is art elegy here and going back to 79, the iranian regime approved by the supreme leader has been assassinating people , terrorist attacks and i investigated the assassination of the prime minister in lebanon and the evidence was clear it was iranian back. they do not believe the iranians. now the question is, what are their capabilities in the united states? there are has below sleeper cells which answer to iran, which people

are afraid could be activated. you know, whether they are capable of a major attack, i don't know. but there are cells here, and if the iranians got serious about it and ordered them to act , they would probably try to kill the president. >> in september intelligence agencies warned of these threats against trump's life that they say were made by iran and he responded saying that if tehran was involved that iran's largest cities in the country itself should be blown to smithereens. what do you think the iranians are now kind of -- what is their positioning now that he is the president-elect and he is headed back to power? >> well, i think the iranians are worried about a joint israeli attack, either on leadership or nuclear facilities. if the israelis go in they need a ground element to take out all the nuclear

facilities and that would mean u.s. special forces . i have no idea whether that is in the works, but that is what it would take and i think that the iranians are not looking at trump as an existential problem that they could face a very big war and we could do a lot of damage to that country, but on the other hand, a major invasion, attacking it in any big way is crazy. >> it is interesting to kind of see the alignment of you know, what the iranians -- where they really threatening donald trump personally? and then the broader threat to america and then the threat to israel , our ally. >> they are a threat. i'm not anti-iranian. i understand the mentality of the regime and it is always a -for-tat . if they get rocketed they will rocket

tel aviv in the same if we get involved directly in a war, they will head back over they can, whether it is terrorism or attacking our forces in the gulf or our forces in iraq . >> and i think that there are a lot of world leaders concerned as israel continues to fight its war and now whatever potential changes may be coming down the pike from the american side. this conflict could spill over to the point you're making, into a wider regional war. >> it really worries me. you know, iran is a major power. they can do a lot of damage in the gulf. including taking out the oil completely which would affect the entire world. >> what are some of the things you are watching for in terms of how this plays out

internationally? >> the secretary of defense who he appoints and the cia director, the national security advisor. and will we start seeing preparations for a larger strike on iran? and there is a guerrilla war going on in lebanon. there is no and right now and the lebanese are not going to get rid of hezbollah, so this is an open-ended conflict which can also spill over. >> all right. we will look to see what comes next . thank you for that context. we really appreciate it. coming up, house republicans are telling the special counsel to preserve his records. what this means for the man who led two prosecutions of trump.

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the special counsel, jack smith, is indicating he is getting ready to wind down the criminal case against donald trump. he says he is assessing how to move forward as the president-elect prepares to return to the white house. >> reporter: it is the beginning of the end of the federal criminal case against donald trump related to the 2020 election. that is because the special counsel's office prosecuting that case in court went to the trial judge on friday afternoon and said we want to wipe away the deadlines and stop the work being done on this case. there were lots of questions about whether donald trump could have some level of

immunity for what he is accused of doing after the 2020 vote in his attempts to overturn that result . the justice department saying they have to figure out what their policy is going to be now that trump is the president-elect and is going to be inaugurated in january of 2025 . they say it is unprecedented circumstances . they want to move forward consistent with the justice department policy, and the special counsel's office, the prosecutor that has been pursuing trump in court in these cases has indicted him twice. he is going to provide an update on exactly how this case will be wound down with trump coming back into the presidency and how exactly that is going to work . we will get the update in the beginning of

december. we are going to discuss now with the former assistant u.s. attorney. good to see you. >> always happy to join you. >> we just had caitlin lay all of that out for us but i want to get your take on these cases. let's start with the federal case for trump. the judge has agreed to pause these upcoming deadlines. what do you see happening now? >> jack smith has accepted , correctly that his cases will be over. i have heard a lot of people asking on social media why is jack smith giving in? why doesn't he fight till the end and make donald trump fire him? the answer is jack smith has no choice. this is not a question of whether he will get fired or not. surely he would get fired, but the bigger issue here is doj has a policy that

has been on the books since 1973, for over 50 years that says we cannot and will not prosecute, try or imprison a sitting president. it is the same policy that sort of stifled robert mueller and kept him from saying if he believed donald trump should be charged during his first term in office. that has been the policy for over 50 years in jack smith understands he is bound by it. he is trying to wind down in an orderly fashion. the only thing left to do is to issue a final report like we saw robert mueller do. i think jack smith will try to do that between now and january 20. then we have these other cases of course in georgia, that is a state case, and also new york. how do you see those playing out? >> the same ultimate result. i think they will be put on hold or ended when donald trump takes office. now we are

talking about a state prosecution, but the same logic that drives the federal policy applies even more to a state. we cannot have county level district attorneys no matter what party, imaginative county level das could try and imprison the commander in chief, the head of the federal executive branch, it does not work under our constitutional system, so it is only a question of when, but those cases are headed for the exits as well. >> we know how seriously the president-elect,/ former president is taking his pick for attorney general. he considers that to be maybe the most important decision he will make. and you know, in the last three hours we have been interviewing trump allies who have made the case that these people in contention are serious people and they are real lawyers and that there is not going to be some weaponization of the doj to go after his political adversaries. what are you watching for as trump looks to

select his attorney general? >> i agree that this is the most important of the covenant six. two me, over our history you expect, it is normal for a president to choose an attorney general that shares his ideology and worldview. obama picked eric holder. donald trump picked jeff sessions and bill barr. the litmus test is, does this person who gets chosen and institutionalist? is this someone who will put the values of the justice department first over whatever the personal or political needs of the president is, or on the other hand, are they a loyalist? will they put donald trump's personal and political needs first and those of the department second? that is how we will tell if we are headed down a traditional road or a more problematic one. before i let you go, one associated topic but a little different, trump's former

attorney was in court this weekend and a judge is threatening to hold him in contempt if he does not turn over his assets to the election workers he defamed. they have been accusing him of hiding assets. how serious is this for giuliani? >> it will only and poorly. he has managed to kick the can down the road. but he is running out of room. he is also under indictment and state-level charges in georgia, and he has had his law license stripped. this is a civil case. he owes about $148 million. obviously, he will never be able to pay that, but now they are trying to seize his assets through the courts, and the judge is clearly fed up and beyond with rudy giuliani. he has already been kicked out of bankruptcy court, so it is just a matter of time before those assets get turned over to the rightful plaintiffs. he keeps trying to fight but he is out

of her appear and cannot fight this any longer. eventually his property will get turned over to the plaintiffs. >> is there anything president trump can do for him? >> not at all. donald trump state case. as i mentioned, his not facing federal charges, only state charges at this point and the president has no ability to get involved in a civil case or bankruptcy or anything like this. i think rudy is on his own here. >> it sounds like this is the end of the road when it comes to this. thank you so much. still to come, the public is one control of the senate but the house remains up for grabs. we will bring you the latest on that.

tonight, the race for the white house is over, but the battle to control congress remains underway. we know republicans have secured the senate, but the house is up for grabs. democrats right now with 200 for seats and republicans with 213. the magic number is 218. republicans now just five seats away from totally unified government. the democrats still have a chance with the majority of the races remaining in california. in the senate, republicans will have at least a 52 seat majority with vote

counting underway in arizona they are neck and neck with more than 80% of the votes counted and in pennsylvania david mccormick is holding a slim lead over the democratic incumbent, with 100,000 votes still being counted. this week president biden is set to host donald trump for a meeting at the white house. the administration working to shore up his legacy in the final 72 days. we are joined now. what are we expecting to see this week and with this meeting? >> reporter: president biden is trying to restore this tradition by hosting president-elect trump at the white house. they will meet wednesday morning in the oval office. it comes after biden had extended the invitation in a phone call this past week. one thing president biden stressed when he congratulated trump , he said he is committed to an orderly and peaceful

transfer of power and that is what makes these meetings this week so interesting, because that is something that then president trump did not afford to president biden when he won the race. trump put up a lot of roadblocks in the transition process and also never conceded the race and hosted him at the white house. president biden is trying to go back to a sense of normalcy and tradition as he is showing he is committed to the transition process. in 2016 then the president obama had welcomed him as well. we also know that the white house had extended the invitation to melania trump to visit as well. it is on clear how soon it could happen but this is part of the efforts to try to show they are committed to the

transition. that is what a lot of the focus will be in the months to come. i will also note later this week, the day after biden meets with trump, president biden will be departing for a pair of summits in south america. he will be stopping at the apex summit in peru followed by the g 20 in brazil. he will be meeting with many of the world leaders who are grappling with the looming trump presidency as they are trying to figure out how they will be working with trump. it will be interesting to see how his conversations with trump might form any of those upcoming meetings as well. >> as he prepares to hand over power, i'm curious if there are any steps the white house is taking to protect things that they have done, to ensure trump does not reverse them. >> administration officials are well aware that trump has already laid out ways that he would like to target biden era initiatives. they know that

everything they have done will be trump proof, but they are taking steps to shore up some of those initiatives that are key to biden's legacy .1 area is getting the remaining aid and military assistance directly into ukraine's hands at a time when there is question over what future u.s. support will look like and they are trying to implement those key pieces of legislation from the infrastructure bill to the chips manufacturing bill in the inflation reduction act, which includes a lot of climate initiatives. this is an area where trump and his team have said that they want to claw back or make changes to the way the biden administration had handled it. we could see additional environmental rules and regulations and then president biden is trying to put his final mark and stamp on the federal judiciary. their hoping to maybe confirm a slate of judges before he leaves office. it is unclear what kind

of cooperation they will have from republicans. so the biden administration is trying to shore up the areas they can to make sure that his key priorities can indoor beyond his presidency, but of course trump has made it clear that he wants to make a lot of changes to the way that biden has handled things in the government. coming up, what world leaders are saying about a second trump term and how they are preparing .

days after americans chose donald trump as the next president, world leaders are contemplating what a second trump presidency will mean for them. the correspondence arctic in is inside those reactions and we start with melissa bell in amsterdam. >> reporter: the fallout of the american election has been dominating headlines and conversations here on the european continent, not least among the confidence leaders. they have been trying to figure out how best to respond. many of the questions and the conversations are about whether europe can be galvanized by a future trump presidency, or whether it will continue to be further splintered on things like the economy, whether trump tariffs will lead to european greater integration and better protection for itself as it tries to whether the likely trade wars that could fallout,

or where they will be further split by trade deals struck by individual countries. on security, the question of whether or not europe will be able to come together to achieve more strategic independence from the united states or indeed, whether the next trump presidency could encourage far right parties here in europe to so more division than there was even before. >> we have more from bogota, columbia. >> reporter: it is a mixed picture when it comes to how latin america is preparing for a second trump presidency. far right leaders such as argentina's president were among the first ones to congratulate him and now cnn has learned that he plans to travel to mar-a-lago for an investors conference, but hoping to meet personally with trump, who has spoken on the phone with the mexican

president. countries where the left is in power, such as columbia, are preparing for a more delicate relationship with the white house, particularly concerning migration. trump has pledged to deport millions of undocumented migrants and it could wreak havoc for countries that rely on remittances to boost up their economies. surprisingly, one person who extended an olive branch to donald trump is nicholas maduro, who says he wants to open a new relationship with washington. trump was the president when the u.s. department of justice charged him with drug trafficking, but there is a declared desire to turn the page. >> thank you so much, let's go to taiwan now where we have more on the uncertainty this brings to leaders there.

>> reporter: leaders in taiwan realize there's a lot at stake with the incoming president, so they are trying to do what they can to cozy up to him as they face the growing threat of a chinese attack. they are appealing directly to trump. taiwan's top diplomat quietly delivering a letter during a lunch. trump's return to the presidency could shift u.s. defense policy on taiwan and the former president's past remarks suggest taiwan may need to pay for u.s. protection. they are very keenly aware here that trump's transactional approach raises doubt about support in a crisis, so they are trying to get in his good graces. one of the most crucial areas of foreign-policy right now is of course the middle east. we have a look from jerusalem. >> reporter: history's greatest comeback, that is how the

israeli prime minister described his win. the first presidency is remembered for a series of policies favorable to israel. and a second trump term, israelis are expecting full throated support for military action in gaza, lebanon and of course in iran. president-elect trump says he wants peace in the middle east but across much of the region there is trepidation and what his presidency will bring. in iran, further transcend -- u.s. support for israel is a concern and amidst the rubble of gaza where 100 hostages are being held, some palestinians have expressed hope that trump will help bring the conflict to a close, while many others doubt the next u.s. president will do much to make their lives any better. back to you. breaking news, what trump is saying about the possibility of putting nikki haley or mike pompeo in his cabinet. that is

next.

including cia director eric, attorney general and secretary of defense. the president-elect has named his white house chief of staff, susie wiles