confirmation chaos. president-elect trump's pick for attorney general has republicans divided. one walking back his promise to get around the usual senate confirmation process. we'll discuss that. plus, new details about what down during president biden report reveal the six- figure salary needed to buy a home. we're following these stories and many more all coming in right here to cnn news central. right now, president- elect donald trump is huddled

with aides at his mar-a- lago resort as we wait to hear who else he may pick to be part of his new administration. this is raising eyebrows and concerns, especially his bombshell selection for the nation's top prosecutor, matt gaetz. if confirmed, the florida republican would lead the justice department an agency that he has spent years criticizing. one employee at the department that, quote, the shock is intense. this announcement also stunned congress, leaving republicans divided and this sets up a potential showdown in the senate and a predicament for republican senators. cnn's kristen holmes is live in west palm beach, florida. how concerned is trump and his backers about the potential for this nomination to go nowhere? >> reporter: well, i'm told that they're not that concerned. it's not just about the fact they are sure in any way that he could get confirmed or

they understand this will be a process and they'll do everything they can to get him confirmed. but there is obviously always the possibility with these controversial picks that they're not going to get confirmed. one thing i'll tell you is that they were not surprised by the pushback. they were not surprised by the blowback. one person described to me, we knew people would have a meltdown when he said that matt gaetz would be attorney general. what they are telling me is they don't believe matt gaetz himself will be the only implementer if he does get approved, and they plan on making this point through this process. or if he does get confirmed, not approved. that he wouldn't be the only implementer. they're talking about how they're going to have a series of these deputies attorneys general who would serve under him who would do the day to day work and that's what they're doing trying to get him confirmed, to show that there are all these other

lawyers underneath who will be the people actually implementing some of these policies while gaetz himself will be the effective communicator at the top. as we know, one of the things donald trump was looking for in an attorney general, not just that, all of his cabinet positions, somebody who could go on television and talk about his talking points. go on to talk about what they're doing, a bomb thrower. obviously in matt gaetz, he saw that. >> live for us in west palm beach, florida. thank you for the update. >> the accusations surrounding matt gaetz are something republicans are talking about openly. this is last year. >> he was accused of sleeping with an underage girl. there is a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him. we had all seen the videos he was showing on the house floor that all of us had walked away of the girls that he had slept with. he bragged about how he would crush e.d. medicine and chase

it with an energy drink so he could go all night. >> mullin was house colleagues with gaetz previously. last night, mullin said he completely trusts president- elect trump's decision trust gaetz. we have lauren fox for us on the hill. what are republicans saying about gaetz's confirmation privately and publicly? >> reporter: yeah, there's a lot of concern and a lot of republicans are still withholding their support. i talked to senator joniernst. i was talking with chuck grassley, the incoming senator of the judiciary committee. he will be overseeing this nomination process. and we repeatedly asked him whether or not he wanted to see that house ethics report and he didn't give a clear answer. he said his committee will continue doing vetting. there is another avenue

here that senators could take and that is obviously this question of whether they would allow for recess appointments. now, this is a little in the weeds but essentially it would give the president a lot more leeway to get exactly here wanted in the cabinet. there is a real divide in the republican party over whether they would accept that. i talked to senator todd young this morning and he said that he would be open to it. here's what he said. >> it's our obligation to try to confirm these nominees quicker than we've seen in recent history. >> if there's extensive foot-dragging and obstruction ism, that won't be well received. >> reporter: then you have john cornyn who when he was running for majority over the weekend, accepted recess appointments. he said this. >> well, that's another whole issue. obviously, i don't think

we should be circumventing the senate's responsibilities. but i think it is premature to be talking -- >> reporter: one thing to keep in mind, while democrats would not have very many options to block republicans from moving ahead with recessing the senate and moving forward with those recess appointments, you still need a simple majority of the united states senate. that means some of those republicans who might have concerns about someone like matt gaetz, it does beg the question. would they be willing to recess the senate if they knew what could happen if they did. brianna? >> really interesting stuff. thank you for the reporting. let's talk about this now with analyst gloria borger and ron brownstein. too premature to talk about recess appointments. despite it was a day ago when he was running for republican leader in the senate. it's not too premature. what do you make of this?

>> there's not a lot of history of the republicans in congress standing up to donald trump. trump, i think, has pushed to the boundary, to the outer limitlimit what might be acceptable, i think very deliberately. it is a consistent strategy of kind of strong- man rulers to force their allies to defend the indefensible and to keep moving that boundary a little further to see how much further they would go. and if virtually all republican senators are willing to say matt gaetz should be attorney general with all the charges against him. if they're willing to say tulsi gabbard with no experience or ties to russia should be in charge of national intelligence, that tells trump, i can take it further next time. i can deport u.s. kids. this is a test he is clearly setting up and it almost doesn't matter how many of them break. the fact go that the vast majority will accept it will tell him what he needs to

know. >> this is about retribution, first of all. this is about putting somebody like matt gaetz in who will do his bidding, whatever he wants. matt gaetz has already tweeted he wanted to get rid of the fbi and the atf and all the rest. and will then it is a loyalty test. plain and simple. if you do what i want, you're loyal to me and that matters. this puts the senate in a real box. what do they do? if it were a secret vote, we know exactly what they would do. they would say no to these people. but since it is a public vote and donald trump is watching, what he's done, what donald trump has done is given thethe finger to the establishment and to institutions in washington, particularly the senate, saying, i don't care. you're going to do what i want. >> and you've already seen

some trump loyalists including tommy tuberville of alabama saying if you go against his wishes, you'll get primaried. so i wonder, do you see anyone on the republican side that might come out against the nomination of gaetz? >> certainly murkowski and collins will say no to gaetz and probably gabbard. the question is how many others? as i said, this is a signal in multiple ways, as i said. he is taking the measure of how far he can push republican senators beyond their comfort zone. if the answer is pretty far, then the next time it just goes a little further. the other signal is, everything, all the appointments that he has made including some that will probably sail through basically say he is going to pursue the maximum malist version of what he ran on. it shouldn't be a shock. there were certainly a lot of voters who said, well, he will bring the price of gas and groceries under control.

presidential vote is not like ordering from column a and column b on the menu. you get everything. you get the whole package. you ride the bus to the last stop and trump is making it clear all that will happen. >> what does it say that his retribution, matt gaetz, that's what you're seeing him construct first. you're seeing the priorities take shape. if the american people told him anything, hey, we hate how much things cost. it was an economic message. ron has written about this a lot. are you surprise that had we haven't seen him go first with some of the positions? treasury trade route, right? even hud. >> first of all, donald trump is about himself. this is personal to him. these are appointments that first and foremost are loyal. he won't make the same

mistakes he believes he made in 2016 when he pointed people that other people told him to appoint and he didn't like them. so now he's appointing people he knows will do his bidding. in terms of treasury, i think you make a very good point. where is the economic plan? why isn't he talking about what he will do about grocery prices? instead, what he's talking about is installing these loyalists. and he knows it is provocative. it is reckless, actually. when you look at the doubts about matt gaetz, charges of sexual misduck, and gabbard has never dealt with intelligence before. you expect people -- you expect people to have a certain amount of experience

here. >> the point is to make it indefensible. you're basically pulling them out further and further beyond where they thought they would ever go. there are a lot of republican senators who two or three days ago could not have ever imagined supporting matt gaetz for attorney general or tulsi gabbard for the top intelligence official and are now finding themselves doing that. once you get that signal for trump, tom homan talks about how to avoid family separation? you deport the u.s. citizen kids. there are 4 million u.s. citizen kids with at least one undocumented parent. i think trump is systematically measuring whether the senate will draw any lines against him. >> there is the test for the senate. and it is a test for these individuals. are they loyal to donald trump above all else or do they do

what they believe is right for the country? and they may disagree with donald trump. there are a lot of trump loyalists in the senate. he's pushing the case to suchsuch extent that the question is, where is the line? does the line move and continue to move further and further, or is there one line that they won't cross and is that matt gaetz or tulsi gabbard. we were talking in the green room, this is probably good for pete hickson. >> he was on his own, he would be getting a lot more heat. >> before we go, we started off with somewhat conventional picks. then we saw this term yesterday. >> we. >> who are you expecting will come next? who will he name as his treasury secretary nominee? >> you have to think, that would be back, a little more conventional. someone who raised money with wall street. >> the head of the transition team. >> out there with an energy

job, various oil executives being touted for energy as well as the alaska governor. so you could get -- it is revealing though that for someone who talked about the enemy from within, two of his first appointments are a defense secretary on the military sideside an attorney general on the legal side who would not put a lot of barriers in the way of him using those very sharp- edged tools against people he identifies as the enemy from within. >> we know that donald trump is aware that this, as kristen said, this would cause a meltdown. he was totally aware of it. and he wanted it. he wanted to test people and that's what he's doing. >> objective achieved. gloria, ron, thank you both. a programming note on the lead. hakeem jeffries will be joining jake tapper to talk about the democrat losses in the election and offer his take on donald

trump's cabinet picks. that's at 4:00 p.m. eastern. ahead this hour, president- elect trump's former security adviser john bolton joining those criticizing his latest cabinet picks. hear why he thinks the fbi should investigate some of them. and we're learning more about the oval office meeting between president biden and mr. trump including a favor that president biden asked for. plus, we all know that home prices have shot up. wait until you learn how much money the average american has to make in order to become a homeowner. those important stories and much more coming your way in just moments.

some members of the intel community are raising national security concerns about one of president-elect trump's cabinet picks which is former congresswoman tulsi gabbard who has been attempted as the director of national intelligence. >> gabbard has a history of spreading russian conspiracy theories and cozying up to some of america's adversaries including bashar al assad whom she met during a civil war. here's some of what she said. >> do you think -- >> assad is not the enemy of the united states because syria does not pose a direct threat to the united states. >> here's something you're

not going to hear on the main stream media. what you do hear is war mongers saying we must protect crane because it is a democracy. they're lying. ukraine isn't actually a democracy. >> joining us now, columnist for the "washington post" and author of chaos under heaven, josh rogan. thank you for sharing part of your afternoon with us. what would this mean for gabbard to be dni and what kind of power she would have and how she would wield it, considering what you've heard her say? >> right. as you've pointed out, intelligence community members across the board are shocked and worried, concerned because she has a long history of siding with the analysis of russian- state propaganda, syrian state propaganda, above the u.s. intelligence community. when the u.s. intelligence community said

assad used chemical weapons against his own people, she said she didn't believe it. when the russian propaganda said that there were biolab there's ukraine, and that was the reason to attack. she believed it. to have someone like that who trusted russian government more than the u.s. government in control of 18 intelligence agencies, you can imagine the possibilities for things to go wrong. and then again, to have someone like that briefing the president of the united states about the daily intelligence briefing, giving him information that is supposed to be reflective of the intelligence community, it's just a disaster from the intelligence community's perspective. i happen to agree. >> so josh, russia was notably very supportive on its covert social media outlets of gabbard's run for president back in 2019. how is russia now reacting to her being trump's dni pick?

>> well, the russian state media is popping champagne corks all day. they couldn't be happier. now, again, there is a difference between having a policy view that is more russia-friendly. sort of a legitimate policy view. one that i happen to disagree with. there is a difference between that and believing russian propaganda over the u.s. intelligence community's own analysis. and she's guilty of both these things. i think the russians are happy because of both these things. what it could mean is essentially, it will be a lot easier for the russian state media, the russian intelligence community to have its narratives affect the highest levels of u.s. government because tulsi gabbard will be in charge of the intelligence agencies. she's inclined to take their word for it which is kind of bizarre when you think about it. that's where we are. >> josh, what about beijing and china? because one of the crucial relationships over the

next four years of this administration will be that of donald trump and xi jinping and the way that that relationship between the u.s. and china moves forward. what kind of role could tulsi gabbard being dni play in all that? >> right. on china, she has taken a more dovish position than some other nominees like marco rubio so that should be an interesting discussion in the situation room where mike waltz and marco rubio say the communist party is the greatest threat to american security. something i believe is true and tulsi says maybe not so much. that's one thing. more broadly, what you're getting at, the intelligence community is really busy and they have a lot of hard jobs to do. it's not perfect. don't get me wrong. mistakes have been may have had. they have a lot of responsibility to help keep us safe and to have someone at the top of that community, at

war with that community or trying to purge the deep state neocons rather than empowering them to do their job which is to protect america, that's just chaos. that's just a recipe for disaster internally. so i think that, you know, hopefully for gop senators will understand that and stand up for the intelligence community, for the integrity of our intelligence. i'm not sure that will happen, to be honest. >> an information environment already under attack by china. literally as we speak. thank you so much for the analysis. appreciate it. >> any time. we turn to the fox and friends host. hicks to serve as defense secretary who said women should not be serving in combat roles. our next guest, tammy duckworth will respond.

new insight today into how immigrant families of mixed legal status are feeling as trump's mass deportation preparations are underway. rosa flores has that story. >> how many of you are u.s. citizens? how many of you support donald trump? you're undocumented and you support donald trump. >> i support donald trump for the economy. >> two hispanic families with mixed legal status in houston with two different takes on president-elect donald trump's return to the white house.

this is the first gathering for them since trump's win. >> reporter: how many of you fear that deportation could impact your family? the husband and father was a daca recipient until this summer when he got a glen card. his sister and brother-in- law are daca recipients. his sister-in- law is a green card holder and the rest of the family are u.s. citizens. some who are not present are undocumented. you're a green card holder. your wife is a u.s. citizen. why are you afraid of deportation? >> i just becamal green card holder after 33 years of being in this country. i don't think people understand the fear. it is a constant shadow hanging over our heads. >> reporter: what was your reaction to donald trump winning? >> i hurt a lot. it was emotional. half of my family, if they're going to be here, they won't be here. how do you tell all of our

kids? like my nephews, they're also our kids. >> to tell people it doesn't live in children's minds and teenagers, it's a lie. >> reporter: this is an undocumented mechanic and has worked in houston for 25 years. he plays in this park with list two u.s. citizen children, ages 5 and 9, and stands by donald trump. so you support donald trump because of the economy. >> for the economy, yes. >> reporter: but you don't support the anti- immigrant rhetoric. >> i not support the action. >> reporter: do you support his mass deportations? >> no. it's not human. >> reporter: are you afraid that you could be deported in this mass deportation? >> i'm not afraid. i'm not afraid. >> reporter: espinosa runs a group and says many people are afraid and have called him in

tears. >> i think there's a heightened sense of fear. >> reporter: explain why migrant men are going for trump. >> these guys are in the office in washington. >> reporter: he believes some of the latino support for trump was a vote against the prospect of the first black female president. >> a lot of machismo and a lot of blackness. >> reporter: he said he hopes trump finds compassion for immigrant fathers like him who are not criminals. if you get deported, would you regret your support to donald trump? he's saying that he wouldn't regret supporting donald trump. so you're really not thinking about yourself. you're thinking about your children and the future of your children. >> yes. i want better for my children. >> reporter: cesar says he feels guilty for bringing so much uncertainty to his family. what is it like for to you see your wife go through this?

and the emotions that she's going through? >> i apologize to her a lot. we fell in love right away. and we got married almost rightright away. because when you know, you know. >> reporter: we asked velazquez and espinosa, the same final question. do you have a plan in case you get deported? >> i respect the decision and i leave the country. >> there is a plan. we've talked about it openly with our family. >> reporter: it turns out these two hispanic families with two different takes on trump's win have the same plan if they get deported. they would go to mexico as a family. rosa flores, cnn, houston. >> our thanks to rosa for that report. stay with cnn news central. we'll be right back.

when president-elect donald trump announced that he was nominating matt gaetz to be his attorney general, it eclipsed what previously was seen as trump's most controversial choice for his cabinet. pete hegseth for secretary of defense. he's an army veteran who served in both iraq and afghanistan and he is a bronze star recipient, perhaps best known for hosting a weekend show on fox news. he used his platform to argue against having women in combat roles, accusing the military of lowering standards to allow women into those jobs. he's also encouraged trump to pardon some u.s. troops

accused of war crimes, bucking the advice of the defense secretary at the time. we want to discuss with tammy duckworth of illinois. she served as a combat pilot in iraq and serves on the senate armed services committee. thank you for being with us. i do want to ask you about hegseth specifically. if he is confirm as the secretary of defense, what would be in place potentially to stop him from moving forward with this idea that women should be removed from combat roles? >> well, i mean, it's actually a congressional action that basically opened combat roles to women. let's be real. in modern warfare, there is no foreign line of troops like you said where you could keep women, okay, you stay back here and you won't be in combat. truck drivers, a job that women have been doing since world war i were some of

the most often hit people in iraq being hit with i.e.d. s. this idea that you will exclude women from combat is one that shows his lack of experience and him being unqualified to be the secretary of defense. it's not where modern warfare is. >> i also wonder about youryour of the qualifications of another nominee that trump has put forward. and you sit on the foreign relations committee which has jurisdiction including over ambassadors. what do you think of arkansas governor mike huckabee being selected as ambassador to israel. what do you plan to ask him at his confirmation hearing? >> i am somewhat concerned. i do think mike huckabee is someone that, we bring him before the committee. we should ask him some very important questions. he has been making statements that seem to back up netanyahu, and frankly, i think that prime minister netanyahu

has committed some war crimes with some of the actions he's taken in gaza. let me say that i fully support israel's right to defend herself and i will continue to vote to provide weapons of self- defense weapons to israel. but we have to have a real accounting of the humanitarian crisis in gaza and i don't think he will hold netanyahu to account. that's a scary thought. >> another nominee trump has put forward is that of former congresswoman tulsi gabbard as director of national intelligence. you told my colleague kaitlan collins yesterday that you don't think she has the qualifications to fill that role. do you think there's sufficient evidence to back the accusations that she's a russian asset who has been spreading russian propaganda? >> well, the people that get nominated for these roles should be above any dispute. the fact that we're having to have this conversation is

an indication that it is problematic. not only is she not qualified for the job. never having done anything in terms of national intelligence. but she's also likely compromised, whether it is her cozying up and acting as an apologist for syrian dictators or her very close relationship with vladimir putin or her continuing to espouse and support conspiracy theories. she is somebody who has been compromised and i don't think that's the kind of person that should be in charge of all of our nation's secrets. >> when it comes to gabbard and hegseth and even matt gaetz which we haven't talked about, it seems like some of these nominees will face an uphill battle getting confirmed. some are arguing the newly elected president should have his choice of who serves in his cabinet.

i want you to listen to this. that was a question about matt gaetz. he's essentially saying he will get appointed during a recess and he's telling folks when they oppose it to suck it up. what's your response? >> well, donald trump is trying the change the process in the senate so that he can have those recess appointments. we don't go into recess in the senate. we're with these people when they were opposing president biden's nominations. they think it's okay to oppose the nominations from other presidents, and yet when it comes to donald trump, they roll over for him. this is the problem with republicans in the senate. they're going to roll over for donald trump and he'll do whatever he wants. they will stab each other in the back. if you don't believe me, ask james langford what happened to his border security bill that he negotiated over almost half a year and had an agreement

and then donald trump stabbed him in the back. within 24 hours, republicans rolled over. this is what they do and it is really sad. they should be putting the well being and security of the nation in front of donald trump's whims. and unfortunately, i don't believe that they will do that. >> senator, have democrats outlined any kind of plan to fight recess appointments if republicans choose to go that route? >> well, republicans need to remember that if they do that, it becomes standard practice. i don't think we should. these are the same republicans who refused to lift the filibuster to pass key piece of legislation like the john lewis voting rights act. what i say to my republican colleagues is, show some back bone, be a senator, and let's vet these candidates for their experience and whether or not they're suitable for the position and whether or not they've been compromised. and let's truly put people into these positions who are going to do good for the

nation. and putting somebody like tulsi gabbard who is not qualified and likely compromised is not the answer. >> senator, i know that you were a harris campaign co-chair and democrats on the hill are meeting this week trying to regroup after the election loss last week. what are you hearing in conversations about what you and your fellow lawmaker are taking as a message from voters given what we saw last week? >> you know, we are having a lot of conversations, especially with our new members. we have a group of new members who are majority- minority, everybody from ruben gallego to our additional other new members that are coming in, and to andy kim. we have a great new class of freshmen. we've been listening to them to hear what they did and how they won their seats and to some of the members returning

from battleground states like nevada. so we're still going through that process. we're going to make sure that we connect with our constituencies to do what we can for our constituents and our states. >> we have to leave the conversation there. appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> thanks so much. stay with cnn news central.

if you felt like buying a home was getting further out of reach, you might be right. a new report from oxford finds you need to earn six figures to afford a home in most

cities. it is $108 to cover a single family home, property taxes and insurance costs. matt, just put this figure into perspective for us. why it's so expensive compared to five years ago. >> this is almost twice as much as what you needed to make before covid to be able to afford to buy. back in 2019, household needed income of about $57,000 a year to be able to buy that new home and afford the insurance and taxes. look at that. well over $100,000. now, this is, of course, because we have too many people trying to buy too few homes. so home prices have had nowhere to go but go up. mortgage rates are much higher as well. it's true that people are making more money but often not enough. this same oxford economics report finds about one in three households make enough money to be able to afford to

buy. that is down sharply from 59% five years ago. when you look at where this problem is most severe, it's in some of the cities on the coast that you might expect, right? san francisco, los angeles, seattle, new york, miami. all of those cities, you need household income of at least $200,000 to be able to afford to buy. in san jose, you need $460,000 a year. now, it's true that the fact that home prices are up, that's boosting the net worth of everyone lucky enough to own a home right now. we know there are a lot of people on the outside looking in. they want to buy but they just can't. not at these prices and not at these rates. >> what is the trump plan for addressing housing affordability? >> he hasn't laid out a specific plan. the president- elect has talked about a number of ideas to try to get at this problem. he's talked about cutting

red tape and tax incentives, using federal land for affordable housing. those three things are very much in line with what whatvice harris was talking about. he's talked about keeping mortgage rates low. of course, that's not something the president can control. that's really up to the fed and the bond market. and we've seen mortgage rates go higher recently in part due to concerns about trump's economic agenda being inflationary. trump has also talked going mass deportations as a way to ease demand for housing. but we also know, this is no secret, that a lot of people who work in the housing industry building homes are undocumented. research finds that about one in four people classified as construction laborers are unauthorized workers. so of course, the problem is, if you deport millions of people, you can have a situation where they have to raise wages significantly, or build fewer

homes. either way, that will make home prices go even higher. brianna? >> i can see how that would happen. thank you very much. still ahead, it sounds like a fake headline from the onion. it's actually real. the satirical news site and info wars. that's coming up. .