other in only one thing, and because -- it moves automatically. >> reporter: as you can see there, some big challenges coming for the new incoming administration and also the incoming defense secretary, as the russians have made absolutely clear that their relations with china and north korea are only going in one direction, towards closer economic and military ties. erin? >> thank you very much. of course, that incoming defense secretary nominee we now know, pete hegseth, former veteran and also host for fox news. thank you so much, fred pleitgen. he is in moscow tonight. crucial place only cnn can go. thanks for joining us. "ac 360" starts now.

also, a new report, top generals under scrutiny and possibly recommend their firing. an outbreak of antisemitism. what are authorities doing to stop it? we begin with breaking news and lot of it. the appointments are coming pretty fast and furious. within the past hour, president- elect trump has chosen a defense secretary. first, the defense secretary is pete hegseth. if confirmed, he'll oversee more than two million, excuse me, two million active duty reserve forces, a budget of nearly $850$850 billion. his current job is co- host of fox and friends weekend. he is a decorated army veteran as well as a graduate of

princeton and harvard. then another announcement involving ramaswamy and elon musk. reading from -- will lead the department of government efficiency, doge. together, they will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash regulations and restructure agencies essential to save america movement. this, he added, would potentially become, in his words, the manhattan project ofof time. this comes at the end of a day of significant moves by the president- elect involving top commanders. the headline reads trump drafted order would create a board to purge generals. it could upend process and raise concern about military. the journal which

calls for the creation of the board of retired senior military personnel, empowered to review officers. quoting, as commander in chief, trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board would bypass the pentagon's regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intended to purge a number of generals and admirals. a spokeswoman did not comment on the draft order but said americans gave him a mandate to quote, implement the promises he made on the trail. he certainly did promise action against certain generals. >> you see these generals lately on television? they are woke. you may have a few people at the top that are woke and we're going to get rid of them so damn fast. getting a little tired of the woke generals. the woke generals should be fired

immediately. >> we will fire the woke generals. >> are you going to fire those generals? the woke generals at the top? >> yes, i would get rid of them. >> journal article cites two defense officials as joint chief chairman brown jr. as a feared potential target for the president-elect. he spoke about the impact of black lives matter protests had on him and what it was like as a black fighter pilot. this comes as the president- elect names more loyalists in addition to hegseth. january ratcliffe to run the central intelligence agency. he chose kristi noem to be hishis new secretary of homeland security and mike huckabee, his ambassador to israel. huckabee is a hard line supporter of israel who once denied the existence of palestinians as a people. >> basically, i have to be careful of saying this,

it's not. >> the president- elect travels to washington tomorrow to meet with president biden. also tomorrow, republican senators will meet to decide a hotly contested race to decide the next majority leader. once again, things are moving fast. kaitlan collins is near mar-a-lago. let's talk about pete hegseth to run the pentagon. how big of a surprise is that? >> reporter: it's a bit of a surprise in the sense that things are moving so quickly in terms of how these picks are happening. he's long been on trump's radar. he's an iraq war veterans he's got two bronze stars. much better known as a fox news host. he co- hosts the program on the weekends. i remember when trump was in office the first time, he debated with making hegseth the head of the department of veterans affairs though there were questions at the time over whether or not he could get confirmed. he

doesn't have government experience so that is something that is going to be reaction we're seeing on capitol hill tonight. even some lawmakers not knowing who hegseth is. so i think what's a good question over what the confirmation process is going to look like. he has been tapped to lead the government's biggest federal agency with a massive budget and millions of employees at the dept department of defense. but trump has made his choice. he was just in that clip where they were questioning him ant the woke generals. that was pete hegseth sitting the closest to the camera. i checked in with some who said that can't be real, i had not heard that even 24 hours ago so that could give you some insight into just how quickly this came together, which may not be surprising given how this process has gone. >> you've been talking about

elon musk and how he's been there for quite a while. what more are you learning about musk and ramaswamy leading the department of government efficiency? >> reporter: this is not a surprise because this is musk had been talking about when he was out on the campaign trail for trump in pennsylvania. at the madison square garden rally, they talked about it as well. obviously any federal agency created would have to be approved by congress. that's not a sense this is happening, this is a real, genuine agency, but what they have been seeking to do is cut costs in federal spending and also staffing inside the federal government. i think there are real questions tonight about what that's going to look like. this says it's being led by musk and ramaswamy. one question i have had over the last few weeks is we've heard them talk about a trillion dollars in cuts but when you look at how much money the federal government's spent

in the last fiscal year, it's close to $7 million, $7 trillion. over 5 trillion of that has gone to healthcare, to social security. to veterans. if they're cutting a trillion dollars, they wouldn't really be able to do that without dipping into that. so i think there's a real question over how this would work because spending for agencies is approved by congress and the president. not by outside groups. we've been told elon musk is not joining the federal government per se. i still think there's a lot of questions over what this is going to look like but musk has had a lot of influence on this transition and has been spending a lot of time with trump. >> it's interesting they're calling it that as if it's the department of defense, education, interior. it's not going to be like a department like that. it's going to be these two guys and whomever else. i mean, they're not going to go through any confirmation process, are they?

>> reporter: no. there's no, there's no confirmation because there's nothing to be nominated to. it's not an actual government agency. i'll leave it to others about creating a government agency, to cut down on government staffing and spending, is the goal. it should speak to the effort outside players are going to have when it comes to elon musk and vivek ramaswamy. trump pledged to cut federal spending when he was in office last time. that didn't happen. the deficit went up. this is one of those wait and see what it looks like. >> and governor noem was just confirmed as president- elect trump's pick for homeland security secretary. that's a huge department. that seems surprising. >> reporter: well, so this,

i just want to tell you about this because we published the story about 1:00 a.m. last night. i heard trump had called her and told her she was his pick to lead the department of homeland security. most people think of that and think immigration. but the dhs is a huge agency that oversees fema, the coast guard, secret service. cybersecurity. i mean, it is a very sprawling agency. obviously has hundreds of thousands of employees. a huge budget as well. so some people that i spoke to, even in trump's orbit, were shocked that that was the name he had gone with. there was actually a lot of internal uproar today. it wasn't clear the statement trump just put out concerning she was his pick was going to happen. i learned a little while ago that he was sticking by her and she was going to be his selection. trump has 53 republican senators and doesn't seem like it will be that difficult but i think there are questions for people like pete hegseth and kristi

noem in these massive agencies. what kind of questions even republican senators are going to have for them and their qualifications and their views of such uge posts. >> tune in next hour when her guest will be john bolton. here with me, jeffrey toobin, paul theegala. also republican strategist for michael singleton and adam kin singer. let's start with trump's pick for defense secretary. >> obviously, it's weird and there's only one reason he's doing it. because he's on fox news. that's what donald trump picks based on. i know pete. i haven't talked to him recently, but i know him and prior to his life on fox news. he's very smart when it comes to things like defense policy. i remember his last deployment to afghanistan, he

actually was putting out this newsletter he would do every week or so filling folks in. but the question is what kind of pete hegseth is going to show up. that one or the one that's on fox news that just tries to be loyal to donald trump. that's why he was picked. because of his loyally. i want to make a quick point. the whole reason it's called department of government efficiency and not like an efficiency czar is because the acronym is doge. which is doge coin. that's how serious they are. signaling. it's kind of strange. >> yes. on the pentagon, can you just put into perspective how vast and complicated the pentagon is and how difficult the department of defense is to actually run? >> i mean, it's massively difficult. especially for somebody that really doesn't have experience in running an organization like that. my guess and my kind of prediction here, is they're putting pete hegseth up to really stir the pot. to probably as you guys

were talking about prior, to fire a bunch of generals. to really bring the culture war stuff front and center. there's nothing wrong with changing the culture of dod if you're saying we need to do better at recruiting but when you turn it into a culture war and make it more republican versus democrat, it's very dangerous. yeah, running an organization that's $850 billion with operations around the world, better know what you're doing. >> paul, what do you make of this? >> first, the government does, no, actually. very first. mr. trump won the election and i do believe, i've worked in the white house, the president should have a very, very wide berth, put together the cabinet they want to run the country. i mean that. i actually hope the senate will defer and i think they will. almost every new president, there will be one who flames out. someone who doesn't perform

well on television. >> do you have any doubt that a republican- controlled senate is going to -- >> not much. but somebody could flame out in the hearings. theoretically, should they. as you were talking with adam, these are enormously complicated departments. homeland security was stood up after 9/11 and a whole bunch of other agencies. it does immigration, it does counterterrorism. it does all the tsa. this governor has no experience in any of those things. she's 1400 miles from the mexican border in south dakota. she's now going to manage 260,000. the same with mr. hegseth who his service seems very impressive. two bronze stars. but again, his first job in the government is running an agency with almost a trillion dollar budget and 2.8

million employees in and out of uniform if you add guard and reserve and thousands of nuclear weapons. it's his prerogative. >> ultimately, the concern is are these the people who you want running these very important agencies that deal with terrorism. that deal with our posture around the world. that oversee our nuclear arsonal. are these the people that are really going to take this responsibly? are they going to have to be learning on the job at a moment that is incredibly complicated globally. and what signal does this send to america's enemies? can i say a word about the department of government efficiency? it seems like it will be part of the white house staff. which is fine. the president is allowed to hire whoever he wants. it's not a government department as you said. however, there is a very boring and very important law called the administrative procedures act, which governs how the government moves along in terms of changing how it works.

and it requires a lot of hoops to be jumped through. if you want to get rid of part of a government department. if you want to change the structure of the department of education, the department of the interior. you have to go through all these steps and like it or not, these two entrepreneurs are going to have to start learning that and following it and it's going to drive them crazy and we'll see how much they actually do. there have been lots of attempts to make the government more efficient. al gore did it. there was something called the report back in the reagan administration. >> what do you make of the changes? >> i'm open minded about ramaswamy and musk. i think we wasted a significant amount of money in our government and i know there's a lot of criticism about how much should the federal government mimic a private business or publicly traded company.

i think we need to streamline it. technology could replace a significant amount of people. we have too much bureaucracy. so i'm curious to see if their advisement to the president, working in tandem with congress, could improve some of those things. i take the point about the laws. that's going the make it a bit difficult. as it obtains to pete, harvard guy, princeton guy, 20 years military service, two tours, i think he'll be fine. i was a bit surprised about kristi noem. kaitlyn reported some disagreement there. i would have preferred with someone with intelligence background leading dhs. we'll see how she'll do in terms of being confirmed be i the senate. but everyone else, the president-elect is moving in the right direction but i'm really honing in on this government efficiency. we have to improve the way our federal government works. a lot of presidents have tried. can they move the needle

a little bit? that could be ben efficient. >> we're going to take a quick break. we'll continue the conversation. also dig further on the reporting on the plan to set up a review board for u.s. generals and admirals. also, we visit a woman who attacked the capitol. talk to people, with the people who have been praying for their release to see if she expects to get released. we'll be right back.

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and see wicked, only in theaters november 22nd. the breaking news tonight. late new trump picks, defense and dhs and ramaswamy and musk head up the government cost cutting office. back now with the panel. congresswoman, we talked about the "wall street journal" reporting that the trump team is considering a draft executive order, create a board to potentially purge generals from the military. what is your reaction to that? >> yeah, you're right. it's creepy and the thing if this was a board that was going to be like hey, we want to get rid of generals that maybe don't have the trust of their troops or something along that line. that would be one thing. but what it's actually going

to be is basically culture war stuff. again, i think it's important to point out that there has been some culture stuff in the dod that has been acidic. it has hurt recruitment. there's nothing wrong with leveling the playing field, making sure the right people are in the right spots. this sounds eerie and like the focus to make dod more republican instead of just more efficient. that's a huge concern because dod has got to stay a bipartisan agency and when this gets politicized, it's pretty dangerous. >> it's interesting shermichael because there was reporting in the past about trump's generals are not pledging loyalty to him. and not even to the country. they're pledging loyalty to the constitution. to a piece of paper.

does the prospect of purging generals from the rank, do you think it sends the right message at this point in the transition? >> if you're going to purge people, i want to purge people because they're not performing at the levels they need to perform and adam sort of alluded to this. i wouldn't necessarily get caught up in the personality test. we have a recruitment issue in our military. we need to address it. i think the military needs to focus on being stoic. there's a ton of issues going on across the globe and some of these cultural issues we've seen have no place. i agree with adam. we don't want politics into our military. whether it's republican, democrat. i think that's irrelevant. i think readiness should be at the forefront. the ability to do the job and do it well should be at the forefront. so if you're going to purge individuals who aren't meeting these metrics, i'm all for that. >> jeff, the unknown still is the attorney general. which is obviously talk about it. >> the attorney general is unique in the cabinet because there's a dual role.

he or she is part of the cabinet and adviser to the president. he or she will decide with the president, are we going to spend more money to enforce the border or spend more on fighting organized crime. those are policy issues. but he, currently he, also decided whom to prosecute. and that is a role that has been very separate from the, from the president. and there are in fact rules in effect. they're not laws, but there are rules about whether the office of the president can communicate with the justice department about prosecuting individual people. what president trump has said is he wants those two roles to be one role. that he wants to be in charge of who gets prosecuted and that is something unprecedented in modern american history. richard nixon tried to do it but it was one of the reasons he was forced from office. he was trying to politically manipulate who gets

prosecuted, who gets his taxes audited, that sort of thing. and that's the real fear that if the president takes, president- elect takes over the justice department deciding who gets prosecuted in the white house as opposed to in the justice department, that would be something very new and scary. >> obviously with elon musk, with vivek ramaswamy, any business person coming into government, there's always ethics concerns. obviously with the whole trump family. anybody coming into government. it does seem like elon musk is in a separate category, certainly in this administration. >> i think he's in a completely separate category. the conflicts of interest are already legion. he is a government contractor. he provides an enormous amount of things for the government right now. so the fact that he's going in and trying to cut people and departments that regulate him and his businesses is extremely problematic.

and let's look at his track record. what did he do at twitter now x? he completely gutted that organization. remains to be seen what he does in the federal bureaucracy. trump came in and all of the republicans around him came in with a promise to basically gut the administrative state. to get rid of government. this has been a long standing goal of republicans and some republicans will say that's what is needed. radical change. it's a good thing, but you know, a lot of these people do not have the experience to know what they should be cutting, what they shouldn't be cutting. these are not people are government experience. so it really does beg the question what are we going to be left with at the end of this. >> you can see a purity police everywhere. it's not simply conflicts of interest. it's going to be who is loyal to the dear leader. it's a one way street. some of these people pledging their fealty to him

today like many did in the last year. >> but they're weak leaders beyond that. they're already going to be weak because they don't have any experience. so they won't be able to push back on things. >> you've been a washington figure for a long time. do you need a lot of experience to run the department of defense? >> it's kind of a big deal. it's unspeakably large. so very big. and you need lots of different kinds of experiences. i really admire mr. hegseth's military service, but it also would have helped if he knew more about government bureaucracy or capitol hill or international relations. almost all these people, i'm ready to give them a fair shot. i'm much more worried about this reporting that everyone is going to be tested for their purity to the dear eader. >> thanks so much. up next, the president- elect promised the january 6th rioters the possibility of pardons.

doni o'sullivan checks in. latest episode of my podcast out tonight. we'll play you part of the conversation. his parents died when he was

in a new interview, marjorie taylor greene said trump should pardon all the rioters and says he will. quoting her, a lot of these are ridiculous charges. she says quote, they didn't kill anybody. the only people killed were babb otte and a few other protestors. four other police officers died. a fifth suffered strokes and died a day later. more than 1500 waiting word from the president-elect.

>> my question is on those rioters who insulted officers. will you pardon those people? >> absolutely, i would. >> you would pardon those -- >> if they're innocent, i would pardon them. >> that was in july. a month earlier, the campaign said he would consider pardons on a case by case basis. donie o'sullivan has more. >> today was amazing. woke up, the president of the united states back in his spot and today after 828 days, we're going out for champagne and raise a glass to president trump. >> this is mother of ashli babbitt, the rioter shot and killed on january 6th. >> we love you, honey, and we are so grateful for you bringing this freedom family together. >> reporter: it's the night after the election. trump supporters have gathered here as they have every

night for the last 800 nights outside the washington, d.c. jail. how did you feel when trump won last night? >> i, i knew that meant freedom for our guy. and i was overwhelmed. thankful. and i know that god heard our prayers. >> reporter: were you emotional? >> yes. >> reporter: inmates call in to talk to the organizers nightly. >> stressful journey has finally come to an end with the election of our beloved president, donald j. trump. >> i couldn't stop crying last night that you guys are finally going to get pardoned. you're going to be set free and all of this is going to be behind us. >> reporter: trump has repeatedly promised to give pardons to some serving for their actions on january 6th. >> and now, we have to continue to put pressure on the

president to make that right decision to fulfill the promise. i know that he will. but i also know my president understands trust but verify. >> reporter: one person who hopes to be pardoned is rachel powell. how do you feel when you watch this? >> you know, i think i, i'm more numb when i look at this stuff. it's like surreal to me. i mean, look how angry i look. >> reporter: i met rachel in january of this year right before she was about to go to prison for crimes she committed at the capitol on january 6th while protesting what she believed was a stolen election. have you ever had a moment where you're like, you know, maybe i'm right. maybe biden actually won the election. maybe i'm the conspiracy theorist. >> no. not at all. >> this call is from a federal prison. >> reporter: rachel and i stayed in touch throughout the year. >> feel

like i just need to be home with my family. >> reporter: she has eight children ranging in ages from 8 to 28 along with seven grand kids. we spoke to three of rachel's older daughters, ada, rebecca, and savannah. this you and your mom? >> yes. >> when was this taken? >> this was in the prison. this is at a, our mom. this was giddeon, me, and my husband. >> the only thing i could think of when i heard trump won the election was that my mom is going to come home. we're going to have our mom back. >> you just know she's freaking out. >> reporter: she was found guilty of engaging in physical violence and of destruction of government property for breaking a window at the capitol with an ice ax. do you ever just think mom, i wish you didn't go to washington, d.c. that day? >> i feel like that's a pretty normal thought to have when there's so many consequences to the action, but ultimately, she was going to

support something she believed in and she is our mother. so, we support her in whatever she decides to do. >> reporter: yeah. >> i don't blame her for going. kind of wish she had a little, like, held herself back. >> be a little more restrained would have been nice. >> reporter: you guys are not of the opinion your mom went to washington, d.c. chasing a conspiracy theory. chasing a lie. >> no. >> no. >> she had a strong belief. she wanted to go support it and we shared her belief, that it was stolen. >> reporter: you're certain he will pardon your mom? >> yes. he will keep to what he said. he will keep his word. he is going to pardon her. >> reporter: while we were at rachel's home, she called from prison. >> oh, man, when trump won, it was amazing. i knew that's what the american people wanted so i had no doubt, but as everybody knows, i believe there was election fraud last time. so i just wonder are we going to have a fair election

this time. it appears we did because trump got elected. >> reporter: do you think he's going to pardon you? >> i know he's going to pardon me. >> donie o'sullivan joins us now along the jeffrey toobin. what is the transition team said about pardoning january 6th people? >> they told us they are going to, trump's going to take those pardons on a case by case basis. but as you saw in that piece there, the people who gather outside the d.c. jail every night now for more than 800 nights, they except him to pardon most, if not all, of these criminals, these people who have been convicted. if you think an it, i mean, trump has spent, trump and maga media and everyone else, have spent the last four years trying to whitewash what happened at the capitol that day. trying to say that all these people in prison are political prisoners, that they are being persecuted unfairly. for him not to do this i

think will put him in a tough spot. >> dozens and dozens of police officers were injured. jeff, is there anything stopping president- elect trump from just pardoning them all? >> zero. the pardon power is unusual in the constitution. most of the powers in the constitution have some sort of check and balance on them. the pardon power directly replicates the power of the king of england. there is no limit on whom he can pardon, when he can pardon and it can't be challenged in the courts, in congress. he can pardon people who haven't even been charged yet. the fbi is still looking for more people in this, but he can say those people are off limits, too, just as gerald ford said to richard nixon, your pardon, even though you haven't been charged with a crime yet. >> there are some of these people who have multiple year sentences. very long sentences. >> yes. there is a bit of debate even some republican

elected officials say anybody who touched a police officer, attacked a police officer, shouldn't be pardoned. so there are people talking about in those sort of terms, but again, if you go back to how, if you talk to some trump supporters, they'll say the only people that did bad things at the capitol that day were the police or imagined black lives matter and antifa supporter. so for trump to leave a lot of these people in prison. >> still people claiming it was antifa. >> absolutely. the cognitive dissidence here is remarkable. the people who are still in prison are for the most part, are the people who beat on the cops. 1500 arrested. 750 were never sentenced to prison in the first place. many of the lesser people have served their sentences and are now home. only a few hundred are still in prison and they are for the most part, people like stewart rhodes, the head of the oath

keepers. head of the proud boys, he's serving 22 years. is trump going to pardon them, too? that's why, and when you start getting into the facts of these individual cases, it's pretty ugly. >> rachel powell, who's in that piece, she attacked the capitol with a ice ax. she would say i didn't lay my hand on anyone, so i wasn't violent in that sense. >> thank you so much. coming up, high profile acts of antisemitism. details in a moment.

authorities in amsterdam say they're bracing for more antisemitic violence. last night, this tram was set on fire. people shouted slurs. the trolly

car went up in flames. three people were arrested. jewish faculty members at the university of rochester were targeted by so- called wanted posters over the weekend. they criticized faculty members for their alleged response for the war in gaza. randi kaye has more on the rise of antisemitism. we'll warn you some of what you'll see the disturbing and maybe difficult to watch. >> reporter: antisemitism on full display in livingston county, michigan. masked men waving nazi flags and shouting antisemitic and racial slurs. >> they were yelling hail hitler and hail trump. >> reporter: alex recorded this video on saturday near the american legion post 141. at the time, they were showing a theatre production of the diary of anne frank. one witness told affiliate

wxyz that many people inside were so afraid they had to be escorted to their cars. >> to have that much hatred, it makes no sense to me. >> reporter: sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene and the detroit news reports the demonstrators left after they were told to leave. the theatre company issued a statement saying the protestors outside gave us a glimpse of what those in hiding fell. >> it's no coincidence this vile demonstration happened during a performance about this young girl whose story as come to epitomize a kind of heroism in the face of evil. >> reporter: this isn't the first time michigan has seen such hate. in july, white supremacists marched through howl about 40 miles northwest of detroit. faces covered, signs in hand, shouting

hail hitter. this was the scene in nashville, tennessee, five months before that. as masked men marched but downtown nashville displaying swastikas, this member of the tennessee house of representatives took notice. >> they are having a nazi march. having a nazi march here in downtown nashville. white supremacists talking about talking about deporting folks and racial hatred. >> the global jewish community is on high alert because antisemitism is like a pandemic that seems to be sweeping countries all over the planet. >> reporter: the antidefamation league says since the october 7th attack on israel, there have been 10,000 incidents of harassment and violence against jewish people around the world. that's more than a 200% increase over the period prior. there are growing fears about antisemitism in the city

of amsterdam where anne frank hid in the attic for more than two years. in july, a statue of her was vandalized, the word gaza splashed across it in red paint. and just this past week, fans of an israeli soccer team were attacked in what dutch authorities have condemned as an antisemitic attack. before the match, some israeli fans chanted anti arab sentiments. later, pro palestinian protesters charged israeli fans in what's been described as a hit and run attack. dozens were injured and more than 60 people were arrested. >> randi joins us now. did they say why there's this uptick in these attacks? >> anderson, they didn't say exactly why, but they say it started well before the october 7th attack on israel. in fact, they started to see this shift in 2016 then in 2019, antisemitic incidents hit

a record high and they've been going up every single year since then. the ceo of the antidefamation league told me today that in the last decade, they've seen a 900% increase in incidents involving harassment, violence, vandalism targeting jewish people. >> thanks. next, a preview of my podcast about grief. my guest is will reeve. he was just 12 when his dad died then two years later, his mom dad. we'll talk about what he calls his long journey to grief. that's coming up.

a new episode of my podcast about grief, all there is, is out right now. you can listen by pointing your camera to the code. this week's guest is will reevee son of christopher

reeve. will was just 12 when his father died of heart failure after living nearly a decade paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident. about a year and a half later, his mom died of lung cancer. we started by talking about the loss of his dad. >> he was injured right before my 3rd birthday. so i got about nine years with him in a wheelchair. but the love my dad showed me in the short time we had together has sustained me until present day and probably way beyond. and then he died a few months after my 12th birthday. i remember walking in to the hospital and the first thing i saw was my dad in a room with aa of doctors and nurses around him doing chest compressions. and someone took me into a room and i could hear my mom next door in the room with my dad

wailing. and then eventually, she quietly walked in the room and told me that he was gone and that i should come with her and walk in and say anything that i might want to say to him. and she said he can still hear you. i remember saying dad, i love you. and i will always do whatever i can to make you proud. and then i walked out into the waiting room of all my family and thus began a great, long journey into grief. a little over a year later, my mom dies. didn't smoke. i don't think she drank much. and yet there she is with lung cancer. then march of 2006, she died. i didn't want to face it.

that's so final. i might have been young, but i wasn't too young to know how catastrophic that could be. that was. that was the low moment of my life. so far. >> did you grieve? >> no. i -- i learned pretty quickly that whenever i didn't seem like i was grieving, people remarked how strong and adjusted and tough, et cetera, i was. the stronger and happier i seemed, the better i was received. by the world around me. >> people like to see that. >> yeah. it makes them feel comfortable and safe. >> yeah. >> grief is weird and scary and a little yucky, right?

part of what i've learned as i've tried to wrestle my own grief down to size and understand it better and have it serve me rather than fight me, is you need to push on the pain points. you need to work at it. like, you go to the gym to get strong. you read books toto smart. you got to go to the dark places in your own way in order to bring light there. the one thing that will be destructive is if you ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. the wound will be there. the hole is there. whatever you want to call it. however you want to identify it. it's permanent. but that is okay. because you can heal there and you can live a full, meaningful life with the wound. >> you can listen to all of my

conversation about grief. the new episode is just now available. you can also point your camera at the code on the screen and click on the link that shows up. you can also check out our new online grief community at cnn.com/allthereis. it's a new grief community where you can watch video versions of the interviews and connect with others who are grieving. you can also listen to voice mails from other listeners about their experiences that are incredibly moving. i hope some of it makes you feel less lonely in your grief. that's it for us. the news continues. see you tomorrow. the source this is cnn reaking news.