investigations manhunt over how police say they tracked down the suspect in the murder case of unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson and i look forward to the actual under oath conversations with senators building momentum. >> trump's embattled choice to lead the pentagon faces another critical week in his fight for confirmation. and the end of this regime is a defeat for all who enabled its barbarity and his corruption power vacuum how the fall of syrian dictator bashar al-assad could have unintended consequences for the u.s. and the world and taking the stand israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu testifies in his own corruption trial

everyone. i'm kasie hunt. it's wonderful to have you with us. new details, new images this morning of the suspect accused of killing the ceo of unitedhealthcare 26 year old ivy league graduate, luigi mangione arrested and charged with second degree murder after a daylong manhunt. police captured mangione at a pennsylvania mcdonald's yesterday. over 275 miles away from new york city. police say an employee tipped them off, calling authorities after recognizing the suspect. when police approached him and asked him if he'd recently been to new york. police say he had a, quote, physical reaction. he was visibly nervous and began shaking. police say that mangione was carrying a backpack at the time of his arrest, and in that backpack, they found a black 3-d printed pistol with a loaded glock magazine and a 3-d printed black silencer. as police

official, a police official also telling cnn he had a handwritten document that expressed ill will toward corporate america but mangione himself well, he comes from a wealthy baltimore family that built a local business empire. he graduated from a prestigious all boys school in 2016, where he was valedictorian of the class of 2016. >> truly has the fearlessness to explore new things and the obvious ability to excel but as inventive as the class of 2016 is, our class was able to explore the new while also preserving the old. >> wow. after high school, he went on to the university of pennsylvania. he graduated with a master's and a bachelor's degree in computer science. his last known address in hawaii. but a look at one of the social media profiles shows that he hasn't been active online since the mid-summer, and it seems that other posts addressed to mangione his account suggest that some of his friends were trying to get in touch with him, including

one post from late last month where a user wrote to mangione know you are missed and loved mangione family. responding to the news of arrest and his arrest in a statement, quote our family is shocked and devastated by luigi's arrest. we offer our prayers to the family of brian thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. joining us, now retired fbi supervisory special agent thanks very much for being here this morning. i really appreciate it. can we talk a little bit about what's going to come next in this investigation, but also this man himself? i think people are so interested in the background that this this this man, this young man had where he came from and now where he's ended up. >> yeah. casey this is this is a day i think where new york city and the country writ large can breathe a collective sigh of relief. it took the new york city police department five days to catch this individual,

and it's going to come down to two things. it came down to crowdsourcing, which we see the photos that were taken inside the hospital and inside of cabs, and the fact that through the media, through networks like cnn, the law enforcement was able to to leverage that by crowdsourcing this and if you see something, say something. the second piece of this, i think, is the great detective work. look, there is an abundance of physical evidence, whether it's probative evidence like latent fingerprints or dna, this is going to be an air shut case here. now, you referenced the individual. you referenced mr. mangione, who is a 26 year old ivy league graduate, and casey, you've reported on and talked about you know, mass shootings around the country. i've done the same thing. the thing about that is these people, people like mr. mangione and like mass shooters they are, in a sense, grievous collectors. and that's what we have here somebody that was aggrieved or felt they were aggrieved by the health care system and decided to take matters into their own

hands. >> what did we learn from the document that was found with him? can you just dig into a little bit about that, what that tells us about that, about all the things you just outlined sure. >> it's not often that you're able to catch an alleged perpetrator of a heinous crime like this. essentially, the assassination of a health care group leader it's not often that you catch the individual with the weapon that was used in the murder. ostensibly, once that's proven as well as a manifesto. now people talk all the time and they think that motive is required to prove a crime. it's not you don't need motive to indict somebody. you don't need motive to convict somebody. what it does is it puts law enforcement into the mindset or the the mentality of this person. this grievance collector, that because he had some physical maladies in the past regarding his spine and was upset about the nature of the health care industry, which he saw or viewed as an evil, evil industry. look, casey, i will not be surprised if either

new york state or the feds don't come down with terrorism charges, because this is a classic terrorism case. if somebody decides to use violence or intimidation to coerce public policy or to coerce an entity to act the way they want to classic case of of of the terrorist mentality. >> do you think that what we've seen in terms of public sympathy because of concerns about health care, is going to impact the outcome of this trial? >> yeah yeah, it's i think it's disappointing. i commend governor josh shapiro from pennsylvania who came out yesterday and said hold on a second. this gentleman is not a hero. this this suspected assailant is not a hero. what he did was take the life of a father of two, and he has his arguments about the health care system. this is not the way in the united states of america that we seek redress to our grievances so, yeah, it's disappointing. also, you look

on social media, police are scrubbing social media right now because we understand that this this suspect you know, apparently liked a quote from ted kaczynski, the unabomber from back in the 1990s that had the similar ideological bent. but it is sad to see. i think it's a lot of keyboard warriors that come out and are hailing this gentleman as a hero for this heinous crime that he perpetrated. >> all right. james gagliano starting us off this morning, sir very grateful for your perspective. thanks very much for being here. >> thanks for having me casey. >> all right. coming up next on cnn this morning, who will take control of syria and how will it impact the u.s.? congressman ryan zinke, a member of the house foreign affairs committee, will be here to discuss. plus, jay-z wants his sexual assault accuser named publicly the new motion. the music mogul filed. that will be in our morning roundup and the road to confirmation donald trump's more controversial picks. meeting one on one with senators we've had policy differences. >> i know her, i like her. >> are you committed to

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sexual assault, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement at veterans groups, pete hegseth nomination for defense secretary is very much alive. >> at the start of another critical week on capitol hill. on monday, the army veteran former fox news host returned for another round of meetings with key senators, including another one with iowa republican joni ernst. she has of course, seen as a pivotal vote. she signaled yesterday that she's going to, quote, support pete through this process, end quote. she has yet to publicly endorse him lisa is supporting the process. >> it doesn't sound like you're a yes yet. is that fair? >> i am supporting the process. >> cnn.com/vote is denials about those assault allegations. do you believe those denials? >> i'll refer you back to the statement. >> the pressure again back home and primary politics play into this. >> we have been talking these same issues every meeting that we've had. and he had really thoughtful answers pete hegseth will continue to press for votes as he meets with moderate

republican senators susan collins and lisa murkowski today and tomorrow two more of trump's picks to lead his national security team, also hitting the hallways to meet with senators tulsi gabbard and kash patel. >> trump's choices to become director of national intelligence and the fbi, respectively, are both getting favorable early reviews from republicans that they met with on monday well i had a good meeting with kash patel, the president's nominee for fbi director. >> we still don't know what director wray's plans are, but eventually i assume that mr. patel will be confirmed as the next fbi director. >> we've had policy differences, i know her, i like her. um, you know, she uh, wanted to stay in the jcpoa. i thought that was a mistake. but, you know she'll be serving trump. we'll see how the hearing goes. i like her. >> all right. joining us now is our panel, zolan kanno-youngs, cnn political analyst and white house correspondent for the new york times. isaac dovere, cnn

senior reporter kate bedingfield, cnn political commentator and former communications director at the biden white house. and brad todd, cnn political commentator and republican strategist. welcome to all of you. thank you very much for being here. brad, you were here, i think it was last week at this point, basically predicting that the allegations against pete hegseth were going to actually be what saved his nomination. is that what we're seeing here? >> i think so. i think it galvanized republicans because it came from quarters where republicans don't like democrats got over their skis a little bit in some of the media outlets, like the new yorker magazine, with anonymously sourced articles. i think republicans got a little ptsd. they saw the kavanaugh hearings playing out all over again. and that's that's sort of signaled to republicans it's time to rally. i also think pete hegseth is probably doing pretty well in his meetings with senators, from what i understand. and that's how this advise and consent process works isaac, how much of this do you think is about the what pete hegseth has done media wise like, he's, you know, looked at cameras on capitol hill and talked in a way that, you know, other nominees are more deferential to senators

seems aimed at donald trump more than anything else. >> but maybe it's working for him. >> well, he has kept donald trump behind him and that seems to be the most important thing here. there were a lot of people who, when he was first nominated, thought that this wouldn't go anywhere, not even because of the allegations, but because he didn't have the experience that most defense secretary nominees have. and he made sure to keep trump in his corner. he saw that interview that trump did with meet the press on sunday where he was strongly behind hegseth if that remains where it is what we have seen, i think, through this process of nominating the cabinet is donald trump making clear to republicans in the senate who he wants in the cabinet, and that he expects them to go along with his choices? and the only one of note that he's really backed off of is matt gaetz. and that was because gaetz couldn't get anywhere. he is staying there with hegseth and that that's probably enough to get there. >> it's also just an indicator of how much of a factor moving forward as well. pressure from the president elect and his allies, sort of maga world is

going to be when it comes to congressional matters. you've also had ads that have been picked up and bought in a place like joni ernst, you know maine district as well, sort of pushing for this. so there's also a pressure campaign going on right now, which isn't necessarily new with with some of these nominees, with some of these picks. but you are seeing once again just how much that is going to be. >> it's going to be up for reelection. yeah. >> it's not it's not even just that he's managed to get and keep donald trump on board. it's that trump is now trump and his his team are now aggressively making the case. they're pushing i mean, as nolan said there there were ads running in iowa. steve bannon was floating. we're going to recruit kari lake to primary joni ernst. i mean, there was a really targeted campaign and senator ernst backyard to make this politically unpalatable for her. so you know, in some ways, we're seeing the manifestation of, you know trump's victory in november. people say elections have consequences this is the trump political muscle, saying we are going to get to choose our nominee and we're going to make it almost politically unviable for you to oppose him. >> it's also a preview, i think, of what we can expect

next year of the way the trump white house will have its relationship with the hill, with the republican majorities in the house and senate it's a slim majority in the house and a wider majority in the senate, but still they are making clear they will win these fights if they are put to it. >> well, and especially if it's only one person. right, brad? >> well i think first off you have to. >> the 53 makes a big difference. republicans have 53 senators. and so susan collins and lisa murkowski, who have been noted outliers on a lot of things suddenly that math doesn't work for them. it takes it takes two more. and really, i think it takes three more. i think no one wants to be alone in being that deciding vote to sink. one of the nominees. and this is not a donald trump thing. you go back all the way to the clinton administration. i think there have been 70 something nominees for for cabinet choices, and only like two of them have had opposition in their own party. like, this is what happens of course, the senators who support the nominees of their own party because the same voters elected them. this is normal. >> all right. coming up after the break here on cnn this morning, israel's prime minister on the stand right

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this will be the first time an israeli prime minister has ever taken the stand as a criminal defendant. cnn's jeremy diamond joins us live now from tel aviv. jeremy, good morning. we didn't even mention of course, what has been happening in the last few days in syria. the israeli strikes on chemical weapons facilities. what is the prime minister saying about the trial and how do people in israel feel about it well casey, this really is an extraordinary moment, not only because it is the first time that a sitting israeli prime minister is taking the stand in his own defense, but also, of course, because of the extraordinary moment at which this is happening. >> and that is why we are actually here in this tel aviv courthouse instead of in the in the jerusalem district court. and that is because this proceeding is happening underground because of the ongoing security situation and what the prime minister and his allies have claimed are potential threats against him and the prime minister is certainly taking advantage of that backdrop, as he has begun to take the stand in the last

couple of hours. first, before he even came into this courtroom, he and his lawyers, his political allies including ministers in his own government, sought endlessly to delay this trial citing the ongoing security situation. and this morning, as he began testifying, the prime minister has been going on, you know, lengthy diatribes, i think is fair to call it, about the security situation, about foreign policy, about all of the things that he has had to face as prime minister, in addition to dealing with this case, which has been ongoing for the last four years. now, in terms of the allegations that the prime minister is facing he is facing allegations he's facing charges, i should say, of bribery, of fraud and of breach of trust. there are three cases here. case 100

the count. new video of eof jay on the red carpet with his family last night, as he asks a judge to reveal the identity of his rape accuser, or throw out the case. an alleged victim known only as jane doe claims he raped her alongside sean diddy combs 24 years ago when she was 13 years old. jay-z denies the allegation. all right, let's turn now to this story biggest problem right now is i want to believe that he didn't mean to just fizzle out in the middle of a mcdonald's. >> menendez brothers move over. luigi is about to take the girls by storm. >> look at the photos they used when this man got picked up. not the 14 pack. he's gtl the man accused of killing unitedhealthcare ceo going viral. >> images of luigi mangione seem to captivate the attention of online masses. the manhattan killing also uncovering a deep dissatisfaction with the united states health care industry. the incident sparking outrage

online over health insurance policies. pennsylvania governor josh shapiro pushing back against some of the hateful rhetoric after the murder suspect's arrest violence can never be used to address political differences or to address a substantive difference, or to try and prove some ideological point. >> that is not what we do in a civilized society. that was true in butler. it was true in new york city. the suspect here who shot at that ceo and killed that ceo, is a coward, not a hero all right. >> our panel has returned. zolan clearly, people are you know, the things that they're willing to say on the internet often feel extraordinarily distressing. but that said, there also is clearly very deep anger in the american public

abou sure. i think you know, we we didn't need this period to know that on the internet under sort of the geezer shield of anonymity you know, people don't exactly show their best selves. you know yeah, this this has sort of exposed um, a, a deep, deep seated anger in the country towards the health care industry but as public officials, you know, have said here, you know, still you have to use this moment to condemn a violent act like this um, that being said, you know, i do think that it has shown that anger is existing. there is a little bit of risk though, when you see sort of all these memes and this attempt at humor at times and sort of putting this person up as a folk hero of also lionizing somebody that just did commit a violent act in a killing, that's something i used to cover the nypd in crime and would talk to people that study some of these

incidents, and they would say, this is why they were worried about the internet. when these things happened. the attempt of putting these people on a platform and almost lionizing them in a way. >> but you see this is i mean, just the cover of the new york post today. the contrast of daniel penny and mangione. i mean, these are one to the post. readership is a hero, and the other one is terrible. uh, it does seem like we should be able to have a i mean, i have a general anti murder policy myself. um obviously thou shalt not kill. >> very basic. >> there's also just the reaction online is also just such a reinforcement of how much, uh esthetics attractiveness. i mean, like the shallowness of the american people, the american people who are online will say is very much on display here. part of. yes, there's absolutely a bubbling anger about the inequity in the country writ large and in the health care system, no question. but so much of the clips we were watching at the top of this segment are driven by the fact that this is this is an attractive we got to drop the

banner to show why. and and it's it is deeply troubling that we are celebrating this this person who's committed, cold blooded murder because you know, he clearly went to the gym. >> but you know, one takeaway, though, is the health insurance industry. the health insurance industry is the one industry in america that seeks to not deliver its product. that's the business model. so i think they have to watch out with this, with the sentiment. >> i think the hard part is that literally, i mean, they're all private. so i'm not asking people to tell the stories, but i imagine everyone at this table probably has a story about fighting with these companies and how that impacted their lives. all right. thank you guys very much for joining us. thanks to all of you for being with us as well. i'm kasie hunt. don't go anywhere. cnn news central starts right now

arguing that he sought to implement regulatory benefits for a wealthy media mogul in exchange for more favorable media coverage. the other cases involve allegations that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts. the prime minister has denied all of these allegations and as his testimony is ongoing, he is currently speaking out against the media for how they have portrayed this case and accusing prosecutors of effectively picking the defendant and then looking for the crime, rather than investigating serious criminal allegations that is his his

important to note that this will go on likely for several weeks. it will begin with his testimony responding to questions from his own defense attorney, but then it will involve the more serious cross-examination by prosecutors. he will testify as much as three days per week for as long as six hours per day for the next several weeks, casey wow, that is a remarkable time commitment for someone who is in charge of leading a country that is fighting wars and embroiled in, obviously, a region where everything is up in the air right now. >> jeremy diamond for us this morning, sir. thanks very much for that report. all right. we're going to go live now to malibu california, right now, where a large brushfire is raging out of control. the santa ana winds sparking flames overnight scorching about 850 acres in malibu canyon. that's near pepperdine university. the blaze tripling in size in just an hour. mandatory evacuations are in place right now the area is under a high wind warning gusts could reach up to 70 miles an hour later on today.

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home. the magic take on the bucks. then the mavericks face the thunder. the emirates nba cup coverage begins tonight at 630 on tnt welcome back. >> as rebel forces take control of syria thousands are heading inside the country's most notorious prison. they are desperate to find their loved ones. people who went missing under bashar al-assad's regime. cnn's clarissa ward has been on the ground in damascus, and she took cnn cameras inside the stream of families never stops climbing towards syria's most notorious sednaya prison. >> pushed on by reports that thousands of people imprisoned by the regime of bashar al-assad are still trapped alive in a section underground the red section of the prison they've been trying for days to reach it. maysoon abu tells us there's no oxygen because the ventilation went out and so

they all may die so al-assad, for the sake of allah, help them. is someone from your family in the prison? we had them in athletic position i mean my three brothers and my son in law. she says the roads are choked with cars full of people looking for loved ones. as soon as they see our camera, they approach holding lists of names of those who vanished inside assad's dungeons. never to be seen again. you have to get them out before tomorrow. this man says they don't have food. they don't have water everybody's just started running. it's not clear if they have managed to get into this part of the prison my god, my god. a woman prays, my god as the crowd surges towards the prison so it looks like they think

that they have managed to get access. a lot of celebratory gunfire. people now just flooding in after the initial jubilation. an agonizing wait for confirmation from the rescue workers. many here have been waiting for decades. hope was something they didn't let themselves feel until now rescue workers with syria's white helmets break through the concrete, looking for a way in. no one is certain where this red section is, or if it even exists inside the prison family members are searching too. you can see people everywhere just combing through all the papers and records they can find looking for names, seeing if maybe their loved ones are there tens of thousands of syrians were forcibly disappeared in saidnaya lost in the abyss of a prison that was

known as a slaughterhouse. industrial scale, arbitrary detention and torture all to keep one man in power they call this the white area of the prison because they say the conditions here are much better than in other areas but you can see it's still miserable in the center of the prison, another frantic rush. someone thinks they have found a tunnel. they desperately try to get a look inside others look on helpless, not knowing is agony. assad may be gone but the legacy of his cruelty remains. after we returned from our trip to saydnaya, a group called the association of detainees and the missing inside, niya said that they do not believe that the red section exists, that they are confident that all of those who were detained in saidnaya were released on december 8th before

11 a.m., and the white helmets, those rescue workers that you saw there have now confirmed that they have concluded their search. clarissa ward, cnn damascus. >> just remarkable reporting from our clarissa ward and this new balance of power in the middle east has sent the u.s. and other powers scrambling to shore up their interests in syria as they weigh how to navigate the country's emerging power vacuum and uncertain future. for secretary of state antony blinken. the american interests in syria are quote, clear and enduring we have a strong interest in preventing the reemergence of isis. >> we have a clear interest in ensuring that whatever weapons of mass destruction are components are left in syria. do not fall into the wrong hands. we have a clear interest in doing what we can to avoid the fragmentation of syria. mass migrations from syria and of course, the export of

terrorism and extremism. >> all right our panel is back. and brad todd i mean, what you are hearing, antony blinken there say, which is that america has an interest in what happens to this. it contrasts very directly with the language that we heard from president elect trump over the weekend, which we can put up on the screen, where he very clearly says that america, the united states, should have nothing to do with it this is not our fight. let it play out. do not get involved. this is one of those places where the old republican party would have viewed it a certain way, would have said it is the america's responsibility like it is in our national security interest to be involved in, you know, the ways in which we should be involved be debatable. is that actually going to happen in donald trump's washington? >> well, i don't think so. i mean, i think the george bush republican party is not here when it comes to issues like this. i mean, it's also very complicated, to be fair. i mean, we have a new government in syria that's been designated as a terrorist actor by almost everyone who designates terrorists,

terrorists. >> we can't even talk to for that reason right. >> as a result. uh, but on the other hand, iran and russia, who are not our friends, are clearly losing out here and losing a key ally in assad. so it's a complicated situation. trump made very clear that he took on isis. and if these elements are going to realign with isis, he will take care of them very quickly. so i don't think that we're seeing a total isolationist move by him but he also does not want joe biden to get him into a situation that is harder to get out of. and i think that's what you're seeing. >> make clear. i think it's you know, it is easy to say in a truth social post, we have no interest here. we're not going to be involved. i think the reality is, as president of the united states, these situations if you don't go to them, they come to you. and i think you know, it is going to be a a difficult challenge for for example, you know, donald trump says he's a stalwart ally of israel. well, israel is going to have interest in whether the united states is helping to stabilize the stabilize syria in a way that's beneficial to them. so it's, you know i

agree with brad. it is a complicated situation, but it is very, very rarely as simple as just saying, hands off. this is not our problem. >> it's made even more complicated by the fact that the u.s. really hasn't had a diplomatic presence in syria now, since 2012. and as you were saying when you have a rebel group that was designated as a terrorist organization in the obama administration, will we see a change there now moving forward? the ambassador that made that that designation told my colleagues it should be considered at this point to open up channels. and in the meantime, the u.s. is going to have to rely on turkey essentially for any type of communication. and diplomatic ties. >> you do see for ten years now, across the obama trump administration, biden administration, and now the incoming trump administration, a hesitation about getting involved in a foreign conflict that barack obama knew that ten years ago and that is why the u.s. wasn't more involved at the start of the civil war of course, this is seems like another one of those places where we hear from a lot of people who are a part of the incoming trump administration

or allies of it, that he is going to have a different world in front of him than the one that he left in 2021. >> yeah, i'm glad you mentioned i remember covering barack obama on capitol hill when he, in theory had a red line on syria and the red line moved. >> congress had to support him to tom cotton and mike pompeo were ready to support him, and he backed off. >> yeah, he did all right. straight ahead here on cnn this morning, donald trump's pick for director of national intelligence, clarifying her stance on syria, aligning with the president elect congressman ryan zinke joins us live next to discuss and the suspected ceo killer taking the internet by storm i think we can all agree that no one could have imagined this suspect would have a name as funny as luigi mangione i mean with a lot of murderers or alleged murderers and you arrest them, you have to use the middle name like we don't need luigi. >> wayne mangione. it's not necessary.

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closed captioning brought to you by book.com if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. >> call now and we'll come to you 808 two one 4000. >> i stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that president trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in syria. my own views and experiences have been shaped by my multiple deployments and seeing firsthand the cost of war and the threat of islamist terrorism donald trump's pick for director of national intelligence, former democratic congresswoman turned trump supporter tulsi gabbard on offense yesterday on capitol hill. >> she has been meeting with gop senators this week in preparation for her nomination hearing regime in syria, bringing fresh scrutiny at an inconvenient time for gabbard,

who has already faced criticism for her controversial tweet bashar al-assad and comments that she made defending his rule. those views, though yet to face senate republicans we've had policy differences. >> i know i like her. um, you know, she uh, wanted to stay in the jcpoa. i thought that was a mistake. but, you know she'll be serving trump. >> president trump has hired her for a very specific job. he's in the process of doing that. and she's actually raised questions with respect to the intelligence community. i think that need to be asked, that need to be delivered upon also. tulsi represents a broadening of the of the tent, if you will all right. >> joining us now congressman ryan zinke of montana. he currently serves on the house foreign affairs committee, is a former navy seal commander, republican of course. congressman, thanks very much for being here. >> great to be with you. >> so you overlapped in the house with tulsi gabbard you have also been responsible for troops in combat. you know what it means when intelligence

officials are making decisions that really affect the lives of the people around you. do you think tulsi gabbard is the right person for this job, or do you have concerns based on what you understand? our interests in this region to be? >> well, you know, i served with her. we served in the house armed services together and no doubt she has talent. what i like about tulsi is she's a military background. she's certainly talented and she understands the dynamics. she also understands president trump. president trump has his own set of ideas. he works or. tulsi will work at the pleasure of the president. and so she'll tighten up where we're going as a country and in the administration. so i'm confident that she will get confirmed. there's some there's some issues that we probably disagree on, but ultimately she'll be working for the commander in chief, and i think she'll serve well. >> so if you were commanding a seal team you'd be comfortable with her. as your director of national intelligence, i would. >> and i remember the director of intelligence also is a coordinating body. there's a lot of intelligence, both in

the field and at the headquarters so she's going to have to sort through. and there's a prevailing thought, and i think in justified in some reasons that the intelligence agencies themselves have not been totally honest. they are driven with internal objectives and agendas sometimes that are different from the administration. so she's going to have a task on her hand going through and making sure that our intelligence agencies are true to to this administration. and also true to the public. >> there were there's a report from nbc that democrats and republicans on the house foreign affairs committee they were worried about gabbard coming to a hearing with a syrian defector. right. they they wanted the defector to cover his face before she got into the hearing, because they were concerned that she may leak his identity to bashar al assad. what's your reaction to that i think it's overrated. >> on this. at the end of the

at the end of the day, you know, she works for the president and she has some views on on ukraine that are that on ukraine as an example is that perhaps, you know putin's relationship with ukraine and putin's relationship with the u.s. can be can be improved some of it, of course, had to do with with ukraine going into nato. there's a lot of us that look at, you know, we need to slow down on this and the crimean peninsula. so she has some she articulated some views that maybe were not uniformly popular, but i think they're worthy of debate. >> so big picture. the house of representatives is going to have the narrowest of narrow majorities for republicans. right. going into the winter. and the first four months, basically because donald trump's picked a couple of these people to go serve in his administration, they're not going to be in congress um, what is the dynamic right now between house republicans and president elect trump? uh, is

there anything noteworthy about it? you know what? >> what's different? the 118th congress, you know we stumbled a lot. and i said there was a few that blew up the tracks. if that's a good analogy. what's different now when president trump is the commander in chief? if you disrupt the path and agenda of the house, you in fact are blowing up donald trump's tracks and there is a difference before you could you could blow up the tracks. you could, you could cause some confusion. you could perhaps, you know, vote against bills and the house would not proceed forward in our work. now it's different because when you're obstructionist with president trump and his agenda, you move from a rebel that sometimes profited from blowing things up to an outlaw. if you were in fact, you know, destroying and disabling and blowing up, you know, donald trump's agenda. >> so what, if anything do you and your colleagues see coming

out of president trump that tells us, i mean, there are a number of critical issues here, right? like the government has to get has to be funded for a certain length of time. uh do house republicans have independent ideas about that or are you just waiting for the president? >> you know, in many ways, i'm hoping it's well coordinated. you know, the house is a separate body, but what's clear is there has not been a president certainly in my lifetime, that has had more influence on the internal workings of the house. if you remember, a lot of house members relied on president trump's endorsement and president trump got involved in a lot of these very close races. so they're beholden to him a lot of ways and their political careers, and they pay attention to donald trump and again, if if one of these guys gets out of line too far and begins to blow up the agenda and cause havoc within the house, i think donald trump will take notice, because then we're not getting things done

and we're not doing what we said we would do. we said we would get the job done. that means move ahead at a lightning pace. according to, you know what we can in the house. but again, it's the agenda, the american first agenda. if we fall short of that, the american public should be upset and you know what? we need to pay attention. >> let me ask you about one of president trump's nominees pete hegseth, also a veteran um, he, uh at one point pushed on the issue of war crimes. there were some service members who committed or were found to have committed these crimes. and he pushed for that to be wiped away. do you have any concerns about that piece of pete hegseth record? >> no. you know what i what i appreciate about pete hegseth is that he was a combat veteran himself. he understands the dynamic of what's going on in the field. um, there's a connection between a soldier

and a secretary that i think is important. you know, some of the some of the comments have been. wait. well, he you know he's young. well, donald rumsfeld was young, certainly. mcnamara was young. and then there's been a lot of secretaries that haven't had the military experience, as pete hegseth and les aspin, for instance perry had no military experience so i'm pretty confident that pete hegseth will will bear the burden and the responsibility of being a secretary. well and understand the troop level and why it's important. >> very briefly, sir on syria, um, i know this is something you've worked on in your on your committees. donald trump has said that the u.s. should have no involvement in syria. do you agree with that? >> well, there is influences you have in northern syria. you have the pkk, the ypg, also terrorist organizations and that turkey has long been in war with and in battle because they are a terrorist, marxist leninist organization. you have israel now with the golan heights seeing a threat along

the border. so israel has moved to secure that area. and in the midst of this, it's almost a throwback to lawrence of arabia marching on damascus, as you have multiple coalition groups with different interests. most of them are on a terrorist list somewhere. but what we do know is now russia and iran's influence is waning as as the influence builds up and you see a government come in of some sort. the u.s. does have an interest in ensuring, number one, it doesn't spill out. and then our allies, particularly turkey in the north and israel in the south, their interests need to be protected as well. >> all right, congressman ryan zinke, thanks very much for being with us this morning. i appreciate it very much. nice to see you. all right. 54 minutes past the hour. here is your morning roundup. we're going to go live to malibu california, where the franklin fire has tripled in size overnight. the blaze forcing mandatory evacuations and threatening structures. it is burning close to pepperdine

university. the school says the worst of the fire is past the campus. now, the santa ana winds, coupled with dry air and low humidity fueling the flames. a manhattan jury finds former marine daniel penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the subway, choking death of jordan neely neely last year. neely, who struggled with homelessness, was acting erratically on the train when penny confronted him. penny also faced a more serious second degree manslaughter charge, but that was dismissed after jurors twice told the judge they were deadlocked on