to the song alongside trump during thanksgiving dinner last week in mar-a-lago it really has become kind of like now. the ymca is so deeply associated with trump and you're seeing football players do the dance. >> in the end zone. and just the the you know, i'm not going to do it, but i'm going to say terrible. >> you just made a gif of yourself. you just did it will you do it? this is it, right? >> i mean, that's how he does it, but doesn't it make you like it reminds you of, like, a bad seconds wedding when he starts doing the dance and then people you know in the crowd start doing it it's it definitely evokes wedding, but, you know, it's become a cultural thing yeah. >> does this mean we're going to see the electric slide next? if 90s wedding is the vibe that we're going for here, i mean macarena. yeah. but you know what the other song that i like, i think wasn't tiny dancer. a big part of his rallies earlier on or that's, that's the song he really likes the soundtrack at trump events is actually quite varied and different from many other republican candidates who

mostly used to stick to country music. >> anyway, we're out of time, guys. thanks very much for joining me today. thanks to all of you at home for being with us as well. i'm kasie hunt. don't go anywhere. cnn news central starts right now ron desantis, call your office. >> major developments overnight. the florida governor now floated as a possible defense secretary. as the nomination of pete hegseth appears to teeter on the brink and political crisis in south korea. >> we're going to take you there. live as the country's president could soon face impeachment after a risky political maneuver that very clearly backfired. and we are following the search also for a missing grandmother who authorities believe fell into a sinkhole while searching for her lost cat. the clue investigators found 30ft underground. i'm kate bolduan with john berman. sara's out today. this is cnn news central

so breaking overnight defense secretary ron desantis. >> it is being floated as a possibility now that donald trump's nomination of fox host pete hegseth seems to be in serious jeopardy. trump insiders say it is an absolutely critical day for hegseth, who will sit for his first tv interview since new allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate workplace behavior, and alcohol abuse surfaced. we're also standing by to hear from a woman who once raised concerns about his treatment of women, his own mother. so just how much trouble he could be in is highlighted by the floating of desantis as a replacement to cnn. and all over the media, there has been bad blood between trump world and florida governor, and his nomination would rock the republican political world and beyond. we are waiting for first word as to what he thinks about all this. let's get right to our

florida man steve contorno for the very latest on all these twists and turns. steve john if you had told me a year ago that donald trump would be considering ron desantis to be his national defense secretary, i would have been stunned, given just how contemptuous and much bad blood there was between them during their republican primary for president. >> but that just shows you, and it's illustrative of just how much concern there is within trump world about pete hegseth nomination and the chances he has. and as you said, it is an absolutely critical day for him because not only does he have these key interviews on fox news for him and his mother, but he also will be holding another round of meetings on capitol hill. and previously he had been mostly speaking with staunch trump allies. well, now he has some critical swing votes. he has to speak with, including iowa senator joni ernst and as we saw yesterday, there's already some concern

among republicans about his nomination. take a listen to what a few of them had to say he obviously has a chance to defend himself here. >> but, you know, some of this stuff is going to be difficult. you know time will tell. >> i have not met with him yet. i'm looking forward to meeting with him. we'll be asking questions but look, the president always gets the benefit of the doubt on his nominees. of course, it's concerning, but i look forward to visiting with pete about it and seeing i'm interested in who pete hegseth is today and who he is going forward now, desantis is not the only name that trump is considering as a replacement for hegseth or is being floated internally. >> he is also weighing ernst herself as a potential replacement. she of course, is a veteran as well and has a background in military affairs. and then tennessee senator bill hagerty, another individual who has been increasingly close to trump over the years and has been floated for a number of

jobs in a potential administration. he's another name that some trump allies have been putting out there as potential replacement for hegseth. we will find out later today. now, the trump campaign, i will say, continues to say publicly they are standing by hegseth i will point out they said very similar things about matt gaetz until the moment he pulled out of contention for ag. >> jon. yeah and the tone in senator lindsey graham's voice there when he was talking about the seriousness of the allegations against hegseth there that spoke volumes. all right, steve separately, the trump team has sort of changed its tune very slightly on fbi background checks yeah. >> separately, but also kind of relatedly because this change in about face on on paving the way for background checks comes as there are concerns from republicans on the hill about the lack of information. they would they would get on these candidates, especially pete hegseth, if they don't have background checks coming from the fbi. well, now the trump

transition team has signed a memorandum of understanding with the department of justice that could pave the way for them to ask the fbi to conduct background checks on some of their nominees. now, they had previously said that they intended to conduct some of these background checks on their own, but there are concerns and there are people speaking up on the hill saying they want to see these background checks from the fbi. uh, senator collins, for example, has been very vocal in saying she wants to see what the fbi has to say about these allegations about hegseth before she supports his nomination. john. yeah. >> look, it isn't clear that every nominee will get an fbi background check or what would happen even to that information. so the signing of the memorandum, it's a step, but it may not be everything senators are looking for. steve contorno. thank you very much for that, kate. >> and an important clarification, john, on that one for sure. also this morning, the supreme court is going to be hearing arguments in what is considered the marquee case of the entire term. justices will hear arguments challenging a tennessee law that bans gender affirming health care for

children and teens the measure? it's a law prohibits doctors from giving hormone therapy and puberty blockers to transgender minors. tennessee is one of 26 states that have passed similar laws. let's get to the high court, though cnn's joan biskupic will be following all of this. all all of this important moment from minute to minute and every minute of oral arguments is extremely important today joan, help people understand what is at issue here and also what is at stake. >> yes kate, good to see you. and you're right. this case could become the most important of this current supreme court session much is at stake, not just for these youths who are trying to have this sex transition treatment, but for all transgender individuals, young and old. because this case tests the fundamentals of just how extensive constitutional protection should be for transgender individuals. three youths and their families and a physician

brought this case against tennessee, saying that it violated due process of law and equal protection of the law. the biden administration intervened on the equality question, saying that this kind of regulation should be treated like sex discrimination and therefore require a pretty strong important governmental interest to justify it. if it's going to stand at all. now, let's just pull back for a second. kate, you mentioned that 26 states have these kinds of laws just consider how recently we've had debate over sports policies and bathroom bans on transgender issues. president-elect donald trump, even ran on an agenda against transgender interests so a very important case. and i should mention that the lower court judge panel that ruled on the tennessee law and whose ruling will be before the justices today sided with tennessee the

court said the court below said this is not a sex discrimination case. this is a case in which tennessee is just merely trying to regulate medicine for young people. and it should not be subject to any kind of heightened constitutional scrutiny. the biden administration lawyer and the aclu lawyer, who will also side with these youths are going to say that these are people who cannot meaningfully vindicate their rights through the legislative process. so they should be able to have heightened constitutional protection here. uh, the aclu lawyer is going to refer to how this has benefited young people and cnn talked to one of the plaintiffs who said it's been very, very helpful, life changing for some people. it's even it has even been life saving. those are the stakes here today, kate, when the justices take up this case. >> yeah. and one of the top, one of the top people with the aclu will be joining us a little later to talk about just this joan, thank you very much. that's all going to be picking

up in just a couple of hours this morning, john. >> all right. breaking overnight political chaos for one of america's most important allies after martial law comes and goes. a new move now to impeach the president. the fbi arrested california man who was allegedly trying to ship >> plus this special tribute to michael j. fox, cnn

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wipe out all new sundays at nine on tbs all right. >> new this morning protests and political uncertainty in south korea in the hours since president yoon suk yeol declared martial law before then reversing course this morning, we learned the country's defense minister submitted his resignation earlier. six opposition parties submitted a bill calling for yoon's impeachment at the same time, the opposition democratic party is vowing to press treason charges if yoon does not leave office so the martial law decree short lived, is also injected. uncertainty into asia's fourth largest economy. the country's largest union is vowing to strike until the president steps down. let's get to cnn's mike valerio, who is in seoul with the latest. mike, you have been there from the beginning. what you have seen over the last 24 hours is extraordinary what is happening now well john, my friend, we're

going to start with good news the center, the heart of democracy here in south korea. >> this is it. and peace has been restored to the area around the national assembly. when we joined you this time yesterday. special forces troops from the south korean military were still leaving this area. special forces troops. a couple of hours before we joined, you and kate were breaking through windows from the orders of south korea's president to stop lawmakers from voting to prohibit this martial law from going any further. so where we are right now, the president of south korea, john, still has not resigned. he has fewer and fewer allies. i cannot count any on my hand right now where this is going, though he he could do either one of two things, john. he could resign or face impeachment. but i think it's important to tell everybody back home in the united states that impeachment could take months and that could inject a new layer of stability to this key ally of the united states and western

countries democracies writ large. so what's going to happen the president has a deadline of essentially saturday to resign or face impeachment process. the impeachment process. so we're waiting for saturday what needs to happen, though another judge needs to be installed on the constitutional court that would hear this case. that could take a beat that could take a couple of weeks, and then once this trial goes through that court system, john, the judges could take up to six months. i repeat, half a year to decide whether or not south korea's president should go or stay so it could again inject another layer of instability who represents south korea on the international stage? that would be the prime minister, a sort of lame duck situation. so a lot of unanswered questions. we're going to move, though from again this national assembly to where protesters have gathered in front of the president's house. stay tuned for more. we are expecting

demonstrations to continue throughout the evening there, john. >> yeah look, keep us posted as to what you see mike, you have been in the middle of it all. thank you so much for your reporting. the entire world watching what is going on where you are in seoul, right now. mike. all right. this morning, the man donald trump picked to lead the fbi is being told by the fbi he is the target of iranian hackers and rescuers working through the night to find a missing grandmother who may have fallen into a 30 foot deep sinkhole while looking for her cat i can't fool myself. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life has extremely joyful moments and some really difficult moments. >> you only come across an artist like luther vandross once in a lifetime. >> luther never too much new year's day on cnn it are you ready for this? >> are you ready for this? are you ready for this? are you new? >> alka-seltzer plus cold or flu? fizzy chews. chew fizz. feel better. >> fast no water needed. >> new alka-seltzer plus fizzy

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cnn heroes on all star tribute. >> meet and celebrate the honorees. then find out who will be hero of the year. plus a special tribute to michael j fox, cnn heroes, an all star tribute sunday at eight on cnn this morning kash patel donald trump's pick to be fbi director, has been informed by federal investigators that he is the target of an iranian hack. >> sources tell cnn that the hackers managed to access at least some of his communications. patel is the

latest member of donald trump's inner circle to be targeted by foreign hackers. in just recent months. donald trump's son, donald trump jr., has also said he was notified by the fbi that he was quote, one of the top targets of iran. cnn's evan perez is tracking this for us. and there's a lot of detail that needs to be learned. tell us more. what are you learning? >> good morning kate. now this is kind of awkward right this is a kash patel who has been named by the incoming president as his pick for fbi director. mind you, the fbi director still has two and a half years on his ten year term. someone who was appointed by donald trump in his first term. but kash patel has also been very critical of what he says is the deep state. he says that the fbi needs to be essentially. essentially dismantled. and so he now has been notified by the fbi that he was being targeted by the iran, by iranian hackers. and in this case, it appears that he was part of a

larger group of of of a number of, of people associated with donald trump, who were targeted by these hackers. now, this is a a campaign that's been going on for a number of months. this was this happened during the during the campaign before the election. first they got in through roger stone's email and they were able to hopscotch and get to people inside the campaign. even actually getting campaign documents during the campaign. so as you pointed out, he's also a number. there's been a number of other attacks against don jr., against todd blanche people associated by with donald trump in that case, it was chinese hackers who were believed to be behind it. i got you. we've got you a statement from the the trump transition in which they say kash patel was a key part of the first trump administration's efforts against the terrorist iranian regime. and will implement president trump's policies to protect america from adversaries as the fbi

director. and clearly here in this case, the adversaries here were iranian hackers and the fbi was doing its job trying to protect kash patel and other members of the trump administration. >> and to be clear, is iran suspected to be behind the other attacks of the others in in in trump's orbit? i mean where how far have those investigations gone? >> look, there's a lot more investigation to be done especially on the chinese hackers. that one is extremely serious because they've been able to get into big telecom companies including verizon and at&t and as of yesterday, the fbi told us that they still are working to evict the chinese hackers from those systems that one is targeting not only people associated with the trump campaign, but also people national security officials in the current administration. >> kate, it's great to see you. evan, thank you for your reporting, as always. really appreciate it. thanks. coming up for us, pete hegseth nomination to lead the defense

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caregivers, find all the senior care you need at care.com. >> this holiday season, find the perfect gift at cnn underscored from the latest fashion to expert approved tech to the best beauty finds. discover it all at underscore. com pete hegseth nomination to be the next defense secretary. >> it's in trouble. it is clear that his past and what he did and didn't tell the trump administration about it

is a problem. and since trump announced his plans to nominate the former fox news anchor a bunch of past allegations have surfaced of drunken misbehavior sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement of the veterans nonprofit that he once ran. cnn's harry enten has the numbers on how much has changed for that man and how fast it has changed for him, how have things shifted over the last weeks? >> i mean oh, my chance that pete had sex is confirmed as the defense secretary. >> you look, three weeks ago, john berman very surprised by these stats. he had an 83% chance, per the betting markets, tumbling down a drop of more than 70 percentage points holy toledo 12%. now i mean, matt gaetz, when he steps aside, still had more than a 30% chance of becoming the next attorney general. oh, wow. this is just a 12%. this is the type of odds when you really think that it would take a minor miracle a mini hail mary to, in fact be confirmed by the united

states senate. the bottom line is this the bettors are very down on pete hegseth you could do it in any language you want to do it, you could do y no bueno no good. this 12%. could it happen yeah, maybe. but chances are this dude is not going to get confirmed as the next defense secretary. >> just so you guys know, he does not rehearse that kind of that kind of mishegas nonsense that he offers beforehand. now just so you know, no, um talk to me about let's look let's look historical. yeah. how often do secretaries of defense fail their confirmation? >> yeah, i mean, it does happen, right? and i should note no, none of this none of this is scripted except for the slides themselves. none of what i say here is scripted. i like being off the cuff. just like going to my mind this early in the morning failed defense secretary nominations. i mean, look john tower got rejected back in 1989, right? he went to the senate. they voted him down. you got him in in 1994 who withdrew. and then just recently, shanahan in 2019. that was just five years ago. right. he withdrew as well. so the bottom line is pete hegseth, obviously we don't

know what's going to happen. the bettors think that he's going to fail or withdraw his name. and there is a history of that happening. just because you get nominated, it doesn't mean you're going to get confirmed. there are at least three examples in just the last 35 years of people who were nominated. in fact, did not end up becoming confirmed by the united states senate. >> so if he says nomination doesn't go through, if it fails, if he withdraws, or he goes to confirmation and he doesn't get confirmed, what is the appetite? what's the view right now on a recess appointment? if trump wants to go that route yeah, right. >> like if he knows that you know pete hegseth is going to fail in the united states senate or believes that he will, you know this whole this whole idea, oh, maybe we could do these recess appointments there just really isn't the appetite for that among the american public. how should trump's picks take their position? 75%. the vast majority believe that there should in fact, be a senate confirmation. just 25% believe that these folks should get into the cabinet via recess appointment. so the bottom line is, yes, there was all that talk of, oh, maybe we'll bypass the normal process and we'll do a recess appointment there just isn't that type of appetite either. from republicans in the

united states senate. and certainly not from the american public. these folks are going to have to get confirmed by the senate. otherwise, i think that there'll be some real outrage from the regular voters let's leave it at that, because john will need to john will be interested in that one. >> yeah for sure. all right. harry, thank you so much thank you. >> john 12%. all right with us now, chuck rocha, a democratic strategist former senior adviser for bernie sanders, 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns and madison, gesiotto, political strategist. trump 2020 board member chuck is this the last day of the pete hegseth nomination? >> i think it is. i think that harry's numbers are true, and i share your excitement about oh, my god, that's a really low number. you can talk about all the hail mary's you want, and when you lose your mama even if it was 2018, it's a bad sign for any nominee. >> it's not excitement. i just that's a stunning shift from 83% to 12% three weeks ago to now in madison. i want to read you a tweet from mark caputo who is a florida man who writes for the bulk work. he's been at the center of the reporting on

this for the last 24 hours. and he writes on twitter, hard to see desantis leaving office two years early to work under trump. easy to see. trump is looking for a hex that dod replacement doesn't mean hegseth is done, or that desantis would get the nod. but when trump floats other names, it's a sign of trouble for his picks and talk about a float. i mean, the last 12 hours, if you were up all night you saw the desantis name everywhere. madison yeah, it's been interesting. >> i mean, even over just the past few days to see this shift. senator wicker, for example, confidently saying that pete hegseth was going to get confirmed. and now being very cautious with his words. and so when you can only afford to lose three senators votes, i think it would be very difficult to move forward unless they're very very confident they have the votes. right now, i'm hearing that as many as six senators were leaning towards not moving forward with hegseth so i think it's a matter of time today. he'll be doing that. fox news interview, which obviously will be critical he does deserve a chance to explain himself, but when you're, you know, wanting to become secretary of the department of defense, there's

a lot of questions. i think that need to be answered. and the senators of course, joni ernst being one of them. and another name being floated as a replacement has a lot of questions. she's the first female combat veteran to serve in the united states senate, and a sexual assault survivor herself. so i think a lot of people are going to be looking at her at desantis, at hagerty this week to see who potentially becomes the replacement. if pete hegseth doesn't move forward as the nominee. >> you said you think it's just a matter of time pete hegseth also i don't think it's looking good. >> i'm not saying that it's a done deal, but over the past 24 hours, i think there's been a lot of comments made by senators. and what i'm hearing from the inside, from staffers in, you know, in the senate they they feel concerned that the votes just won't be there. >> at least let me ask you one more question on this, because the desantis name being floated, at least on social media, a lot of republicans seem excited about that now. i don't know if it's, you know, the trump family is is excited given the sort of strange bad blood that existed last year. but a lot of people in republican circles seem excited about desantis.

>> yeah despite his failed campaign for the presidency. i think many, many republicans are huge desantis fans still. so i think they'd be very excited to see him as a replacement. but again, that depends on if pete hegseth doesn't continue forward as the nominee. and if he does, i think it's all going to hinge on that background check. whether you know, by the fbi or someone else, a lot of senators saying also that they want to make sure that is an fbi background check. i think kennedy came out and said that maybe some others saying that behind closed doors that they want the fbi to dig into some of these allegations, specifically during his time at some of the veterans organizations. >> yeah, we don't know that texas would agree to an fbi background check that isn't a guarantee as part of this agreement, that the trump team has signed. all right, chuck, i will tell you what i am hearing, john, that they are going to be putting forward everyone's names as they move forward. >> i'm hearing that it will be not just 1 or 2 people being fbi checked, that they're probably going to put forward everybody. >> well, that would that would be an interesting development and a bit of a shift chuck, the thing that i thought of when the desantis name was being

floated was mitt romney 2016. i mean, people will remember that after donald trump won the white house the first time, there have been a lot of bad blood between trump and mitt romney trump brought mitt romney up to new york. they went out to dinner at jean-george. there it is. that romantic dinner at jean-georges. trump brought him out there. there's reince priebus. i don't know what the appetizer was. a little amuse bouche. um but ultimately, trump did not pick rick romney and chuck. a lot of people saw it actually, as trump world trolling mitt romney, you know, dangling the possibility and then, you know, pulling the football away like lucy so what's the possibility that that's happening this time with ron desantis there's no doubt that donald trump don't like desantis. >> people can say all they want. what you've been seeing on the internet are regular republicans who like him. there's a he got a lot of votes in the primary. he's a very popular governor of florida. but let's be clear, donald trump don't normally come back to folks like that and give them jobs. i think the senator from tennessee probably

has a better shot. if hegseth don't make it. and just to be clear, for everybody watching i don't think there has to be all these fbi checks to see if somebody is qualified. i think a pretty simple google search would tell you that pete hegseth, in my opinion, is not qualified. and now one thing that everybody needs to keep in mind is that these senators are elected to six year terms for a reason. that means that there's a lot of them who donald trump can't threaten because they're not up for election in two years. they're not up for election in four years. they're not many of them, 33% of them, to be exact. they're not up for six years. that's why we set up the senate this way. so they would have less political pressure for instances just like this. >> do you think desantis would want the job, chuck? very quick answer no, i think he has other plans, but i don't think he'd want the job all right. well, we will see. i don't know if there'd be anyone left in florida after that. chuck rocha, madison jim sciutto, thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it. okay. >> also very soon the supreme court will take up what is considered the marquee case of the entire term. right now, justices will hear arguments challenging a tennessee law

that law bans medical providers from prescribing puberty, delaying medication, and more for transgender minors. it's also the first time a known transgender lawyer will argue before the supreme court. now, the biden administration, which is arguing against the ban, speaking for the transgender challengers of the law. lawyers for tennessee argue that the ban is constitutional because the law was a reasonable legislative response to a contested medical to contested medical evidence. let's get to it. a lot at stake. we know today. joining me right now is james essex, co-director of the aclu's lgbtq and hiv project, working alongside the aclu attorney who will be arguing before the justices against the ban in court today. james thanks for coming in. can you describe it? there's a lot of we could get into the constitutionality which for some gets into the weeds and can be confusing. but i think most importantly is to get your view on what is at stake in this case

well what's tennessee has done here is it's made it impossible for families to get access to medical care that their transgender children need, and that their doctors have prescribed the health care. >> at issue here is health care that every major medical association in the entire country agrees is safe, and is effective, and is medically necessary for some transgender adolescents. and so what we have here is families that have decided after much deliberation and discussions with their doctors, to to provide this health care to their kids and they've seen incredible changes in their kids. they've seen their kids thrive. and tennessee comes in and says, you know what? we don't care that the doctors say this is medically necessary. we don't care that the parents say, this is important and effective care for their children. we don't care that the adolescents say, this is who i am and i want to have this care. tennessee says we're the government and we know better. you can't have it.

that's just not right. >> and to your point, we do hear from families saying this has saved lives is what this kind of medical treatment has provided their family though the lower court just below this, the appeals court ruled in favor of the state. and i know you know this, but for everyone out there and in doing so um, said that the law was a reasonable legislative move. and here is a little bit of what was said in that decision. the unsettled developing, in truth, still experimental nature of treatments in this area surely permits more than one policy approach judge sutton wrote in the majority opinion. and the constitution does not favor one over the other. how do you argue against that today well this is not just regulation of medical care. >> this is the state drawing a line based on sex and so what's going on here is there's 50 years of precedent from the united states supreme

court that says that when the government treats people differently based on whether you're male or female the government has to have a very good reason for doing that. that's the right standard that the lower court should have applied. it's it's not the standard that the court of appeals applied and the whole legal question here is, is this sex discrimination or not? we think it's crystal clear that it is because whether you get access to this care or not under tennessee's law, depends completely on what your sex assigned at birth was given the the majority opinion, the alito majority opinion in dobbs and how that has been brought up in this, how closely will you be listening to his line of questioning today well, yes one of the things that the the lower court the sixth circuit court of appeals opinion did was take the dobbs opinion, which overruled roe versus wade and extended it to the from the context of abortion to the context of gender affirming medical care. we think that is

a very dangerous extension of the dobbs precedent the dobbs precedent by itself. the court said, hey, this is just about abortion. don't worry. and here we see lower courts extending that to other contexts. we don't think it applies, and we're going to be interested to see what the court has to say about that today the timing of this offers something of a complication that i'm interested in. >> your take on the background for everyone is the court's decision to take this up and take up only the administration's the biden administration's case on this. the more i'll say more narrow just for everyone's argument, not the case that the families had had put up. that's created a complication, which is the government will almost certainly be switching sides in terms of their view on this issue, in case after donald trump takes office in january, this will likely be given. we'll see a decision on this maybe in june. how does that impact the case well obviously

it's going to be up to the court to decide what to do, but i think that the court can and i expect that it will keep the case because even if the federal government switches sides, which we expect is likely to happen in january, there's still a controversy here between the private plaintiffs who brought the case in the first place. >> the families whose children's health care is at risk here. they're on one side. the state of tennessee is on the other side. there's still a fight here, a controversy for the court to resolve. i expect that it will yeah. >> and james, just just to note for everyone arguing the case before the court today as your co-director at the aclu lgbtq and hiv project, chase strangio he's will be the first known transgender lawyer to argue before the supreme court. this is very big day for you on many levels. all of you at the aclu. thanks for coming on. we'll see what happens today john thank you very much. >> all right. the latest in the search for a grandmother

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this morning accused of plotting with north korea for a, quote, surprise attack against south korea. >> investigators say the man bought firearms in texas and transported them to the port of long beach in california, where he allegedly shipped the weapons out. cnn's josh campbell is tracking this and picks the story up from here. josh, what are you learning well this is like something out of a spy thriller kate. >> you have a young man who's coming to the u.s. to study. the fbi says that he was actually working with the north korean regime to obtain prohibited items, such as weapons and ammunition and sophisticated military technology. >> i'll read you from the criminal complaint against 41 year old zhenhua wang. they say that when believe the north korean government wanted the weapons, ammunition and other military related equipment to prepare for an attack against south korea and military uniforms which would subsequently be used by the north korean military to disguise their soldiers to conduct a surprise attack on south korea. now describing how this scheme worked, the authorities allege that the suspect set up a front company in texas, where he procured

ammunition, where he procured weapons and then brought them to the port of long beach. here, where i am near los angeles, for shipment over to north korea. often disguised in containers that had false manifests such as one item labeled a refrigerator for example. now, authorities spoke about the scheme and what they actually uncovered. i'll show you some of the pictures of what they got from his residence, as well as from his cell phone. they say that they got over 50,000 rounds of ammunition. they obtained a sophisticated device for chemical detection, as well as another type of device that detects listening devices in a particular area. all that prohibited to be sent over to north korea. now, authorities held a press conference yesterday. they described this scheme and what they think the results of this investigation actually led to. have a listen not only did the investigative team prevent additional restricted items from going to the north korean regime, but they gathered valuable intelligence for the united states and all of our allies. >> this case is a success for

the united states, and no doubt dealt a significant blow to the north korean government and as far as how the suspect got on the government's radar, we're learning that it was a tip from the public, someone who sells this type of technology, who said, you know, something is wrong here with what this guy is trying to purchase that person contacted law enforcement and then we see the results of this investigation. >> it's worth pointing out we have reached out trying to obtain wynn's attorney information for comment. authorities say that if convicted of violating u.s. export control laws, he could face up to 20 years in federal prison. >> josh, thanks for putting it all together for us. really appreciate it. john. >> all right. this morning we have new reporting on how facebook founder mark zuckerberg is trying to cozy up to donald trump and take an active role. that's a quote in the president elect's tech policy. cnn business writer clare duffy is with us. so how exactly does zuckerberg want to play here? >> yeah, john, it's sort of vague at this point, but we know that zuckerberg was in mar-a-lago last week meeting

with trump and then on monday, metas global president of public affairs said that mark is really keen to play an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining america's leadership in the technological sphere. >> they also said yesterday that meta sort of admitted that it had over moderated content during the election, which of course plays right into this narrative that trump and other republicans have spread that big tech is censoring them. now it's not totally surprising that zuckerberg would seek to play some role in these tech policy discussions. there are a lot of big decisions that the trump administration is going to need to make that will be really relevant to meta. for example, whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence, which this company is hoping to be a leader in. and as you hear in that clegg quote, there meta also thinks that ai is going to play a big, really big role in geopolitics. but of course trump is not a totally typical president. he's been really critical of big tech in the past, including of meta and of zuckerberg. and just this summer he made this sort of

veiled threat or i should say, not so veiled threat to throw mark zuckerberg in prison. i want to pull up a quote from his book that was published over the summer, where he again sort of suggests that zuckerberg was meddling in the last election, and then says that if he does so again in this upcoming this past election, that he would throw zuckerberg in prison. now, mark zuckerberg may not have much of a choice as to whether or not to engage with this administration. again there's going to be big decisions for them to make in the tech policy space. and zuckerberg is not the only big tech leader who is trying to cozy up to trump. we know that flattery is a strategy that works when it comes to getting what you want from trump, so it'll be interesting to see what more of a role zuckerberg seeks to play here. >> what role does elon musk play in all of this? obviously musk and zuckerberg have their own relationship. they almost fought once in a battle that literally no one wanted to see. >> yeah, it's interesting what we understand is that musk is playing sort of a guardrail role in terms of who has access

to trump from the tech space, and musk and zuckerberg have had this sort of fraught relationship, as you said. musk offered to fight zuckerberg in a cage fight that never really materialized. but musk has been really critical of zuckerberg and meta in the past of their content moderation policies. so some of what you're seeing from meta, where they're sort of talking about wanting to walk back, content moderation, admitting that they made mistakes in that space may not be only an effort to sort of win over trump, but also musk, who we know sort of has the closest connection to trump at this point. >> all right, clare duffy, thank you so much for sharing your reporting on this. kate. >> so race for city council came down to a game of drawing straws for the california city of galt two council candidates. you see them there. and how it turned out. two council candidates deadlocked with the exact same number of votes at the end of their campaigns. so the city had to activate a tiebreaker plan that they had approved earlier in the year. drawing straws was chosen as the most cost effective and time effective option. a

special election, they say, could have cost upwards of $165,000. and those plastic straws probably cost about $0.10. the only rule here is the longest straw wins, and after drawing straws, candidate matthew patton beat out bonnie rodriguez for the city council seat. rescue crews in pennsylvania. they have been working through the night searching for a missing grandmother who may have fallen into a 30 foot sinkhole. she was out looking for her cat, and police say that 64 year old elizabeth pollard, she was last heard from monday when she left her home with her five year old granddaughter, with her in search of the cat. authorities then discovered pollard's car parked near a restaurant. her granddaughter still inside the car and a deep sinkhole just steps away. officials say that so far, monitoring equipment. look how big that hole is. monitoring equipment has not found. picked up any sound from the sinkhole, but they have seen a shoe on a search camera and there's also this. some

folks in oklahoma are definitely going to be getting some coal in their stocking. this year. after a tradition of air dropping toy paratroopers for kids turned messy and frankly disappointing. a u.s. army veteran known as the flying santa has been spreading holiday cheer this way by dropping these paratroopers, these toys for the past four years. but as at this year's event, a crowd of about 100 people gathered and you can see what played out. adults were seen on video pushing children out of the way, diving for the toys themselves pushing little kids out of the way you know, stealing this, this little toy. >> stealing it from them. that's not what this is supposed to be about um, there's not much to say after that. >> other than, i guess there's a lesson to learn there, john. which is don't be a jerk. >> the paratroopers are really cool. >> they are cool for a kid.

>> okay i mean this morning, word that cyber monday did not just smash records. it blew them to smithereens. it was the biggest online shopping day ever in the united states. consumers spent $15.8 million every 60s the grand total by the day's end was more than $13 billion. cnn's vanessa yurkovich is here now. you said this was going to be big. it was even bigger. >> it was analysts were forecasting a record spending day in the u.s., and we got it with cyber monday, more than $13 billion spent 15.8 million. as you said every minute in those two hours of key shopping, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., people came out. they were looking for the deals. they were trying to get the deals on electronics and cyber monday is essentially the last call for the steepest deals that we're going to see this season. but if you look at it as a share of growth year to year actually cyber monday had the smallest

share of growth, the biggest shopping days in terms of growth were thanksgiving. and then it was black friday. and then it was cyber monday. on average americans spent about $235. this five day shopping weekend. that's about a quarter of what we're spending expecting all americans to spend over the holiday season. about $900, roughly, is what they're projecting. what i thought was really interesting about what we got from this report from adobe was that social media influencers had such a big presence in terms of converting people scrolling on the internet to actually buying something. they contributed about 20% in revenue. so people scrolling and saying, oh, i like this influencer. i'm, oh, i'll buy this item six times more effective than any other social media advertising. so social media influencers, i guess they're really pushing people to buy items that they want this holiday season. it's growing every single year. and this year up nearly 7% growth. social media influencers big