they did not make it. however, based on the way alabama looked over the weekend, it don't matter. [laughter] bill: have a great monday. >> martha: see you later, happening now. jenna: president elect makes his pick for another cabinet post while list of contenders gets long. i'm jenna lee. jon: are you on the list to be secretary of state? jenna: not oh so far. jon: maybe some day. jenna: never. jon: there are now a few more names on that short list to be secretary of state, some of the high pro-file names joining the original final four.

peter ducey joins us live from trump tower in new york city with more on all of this, peter. >> jon, what a difference two months makes because the first week of october, embassador huntsman said donald trump should drop out of the race and let mike pence take over the ticket but now that huntsman is being considered as possibility, he has changed his tune. >> i'm greatly honored that my name is in the mix. i have not had the meeting but i think it's really important, it says something about the president elect that he's taking the job seriously, he's reviewing the candidates, looking at the issues, he's bringing different voices and maybe see differently america's role of the world and that's a good thing. >> adding huntsman to the mix

rite now is interesting because he's a former u.s. embassador to china and over the weekend president-elect trump targeted china over currency manipulation. did china ask us if it was okay to devalue currency making it harder for our companies to compete, heavily tax our product going into the country, the u.s. doesn't tax them or build massive military complex in the middle of the south china? i don't think so. other big headline dr. ben carson accepting knock nation to be the next hud secretary. ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and part of ensuring that this is a president representing all of america. he's a tough competitor and never gives up. there are some democrats coming forward who say that skeptical that a neurosurgeon knows about inner cities to take job of housing and urban development secretary. the house minority secretary came up, there's no evidence

that dr. carson bring it is necessary credentials to hold the position with immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across america. and as cabinet discussions continue at trump tower behind us, we did just get interesting addition to the schedule. mr. trump's daughter ivanka is going to meet with al gore today about climate issues. jon. jon: i believe he was born in the inner city, that's not qualification enough? >> not according to nancy pelosi who does not seem impressed by the pick. jon: not a happy camper these days. jenna: we are having research team whether or not he's the first cabinet secretary in that position to have lived in the housing projects which is is, of course, under the big you umbrellas to manage that.

bret baier joins us here. this caught my attention. mr. carson who once had learned to play the organ gave himself a few days. >> he might still have time for hobbies. tell viewers why this is a crucial cabinet appointment? bret: annual budget about $50 billion a year and you're dealing with the housing situation around the country, low-income housing, housing that this administration, the obama administration has tried to change some rules about and ben carson as a candidate wrote about hud and said that it needed to be changed, it needed to be reenergized, refocused. he did grow up in public housing as a child. he talked about it often in the campaign and actually traveled to predominantly african-american communities with a lot of public housing and

talked about what needed to change. now, the criticism as peter mentioned is from democrats and others who question whether he has the capability to oversee this mass i -- massive organization but that's a job. jenna: sounds like the same very similar attack line for one donald trump who is now our president elect. bret: exactly, yeah. i think there will be some lee way here. we will see how he implements that with the president trump's vision going forward. jenna: at this point all we have is recognition, he's accepting accepting the nomination and go through the process to see where he start on a very big job. i would like to ask you about the 460 -- 60 minutes interview,

one of the things we are taking a look at cabinet appointments and there's a lot of policy discussion with speaker ryan but this back and forth really caught my attention. let's go ahead and play this and i will get your reaction. >> how often are you calling the president elect? >> every day. >> do you call him -- >> he answers his cell phone. i probably shouldn't say that on tv. he just answers the phone. >> you call donald trump on his cell phone? >> all of the time. >> how does he answer? >> hi, hello. >> he didn't say this is the president elect in. >> no, he's a pretty casual call. he calls me paul. he's very casual about it. >> hey, this is paul and here is something i'm thinking about. >> yeah. >> how long do those conversations go on in. >> 20 to 45 minutes. jenna: hey, it's bret. bret: there are a lot of people inside the transition team who

say, you know, this is an issue because he is someone who reaches out and answers the cell phone and gets a lot of advice that's coming in that the people around him don't know that he's taking in because, you know, some people have his cell phone number and they're able to call him and he does pick it up, but he has in that sense not changed and i think the speaker is right, he's interacting with him a lot and that goes to show you how strong perhaps that working relationship will be, while it was strain on the personal side in the campaign, the working relationship in the first hundred days and what president trump and house speaker ryan want to get through is going to happen something tells me pretty fast. jenna: we do have a new leader coming into office and all sorts of policy questions that we have but the question of leadership is paramount and i'm wonder what

you're looking for, monday, 11:00 o'clock eastern time, i know there's unexpected twists and turns, what are you looking for from this week from donald trump and what do you think the picture as you take a step back as to what you're making of the moves that he has made so far? bret: first of all, the biggest job to be filled is secretary of state. you talked about candidates up there. there are a lot of themment one of them who may be in the top tier or leading is general david petraeus who -- you see the big list would obviously be another general, another general whose in consideration is general john kelly for homeland security. i think that donald trump as someone who has a lot of respect for generals who have made their way to the top tier, he values that. now, how that's perceived

internally and around the world would be interesting to see. i think general mattis obviously brings with him a lot of respect on both sides of the aisle. i don't think he's going to have trouble getting this -- getting this waiver even though democrats are saying they may push back a bit since he retired less than seven years ago, but what you're seeing is the outline of a trump administration that i don't think is falling along how it was predicted as he was going in. jenna: interesting, bret, we will watch in special report tonight. thank you so much. jon: now this fox news alert, syrian government stepping up offensive in aleppo. one day after the army ordered rebels to leave the city or face inevitable death. today smoke can be seen rising amid the sounds of explosion. conner powell.

>> inevitable death and rebels must get out. you're also hearing from russia that they want to begin talks with the united states to help ease departure but the reality on the ground is that the rebels in aleppo have been driven out of large swaths of territory in the city that they controlled almost since the beginning of the syrian civil war n. the last week or so, defenses began to collapse and now a lot of the territory that syrian rebels controlled in aleppo several years ago is really down to several kilometers. for the last several months, russian military has been bombarding both military and civilian targets in aleppo, on the ground you've had proassad forces, hezbollah and the syrian army pushing deeper into aleppo and so what you're seeing in aleppo is really the combined effort of the russian jets

striking the syrian opposition and at the same time syrian ground forces pushing deeper. you step back from just aleppo and across syria what we are seeing essentially the same thing. what you're seeing rebels losing territory across the entire country. there's really no part of syria today where the syrian rebels are gaining ground. they are losing ground across the entire country and this is largely due to the russian involvement particularly their air force in the last six months or so, jon, you're really seeing a lot of pressure on the rebel who is are on their back heel and losing a lot of territory. jon: thanks, conner. jenna: president elect trump taking criticism for taking a call from leader of taiwan. america prepares to mark 75 years for pearl harbor attack.

we will explain next. >> december 1941, a date which will live in infamy

>> major announcement from leader of japan. prime minister abe now saying he will visit the u.s. naval base in hawaii, the site of 1941 attack and join president obama for a service there. this will be the first time that a japanese sitting prime minister has ever visited pearl harbor. earlier this year president obama became the first sitting american president to visit the memorial to victims of the u.s. atomic bombing of hiroshima at the end of the war. jenna: right now president-elect donald trump on the defensive,

sort of, for breaching diplomatic protocol by taking a call from the leader of taiwan. the problem is china still considers island of province. the president of taiwan called me for winning presidency, thank you, followed with this. interesting how the u.s. sells taiwan millions of dollars of equipment but i should not accept congress -- congralatory call. we recognized the government in beijing. yesterday trump tweeted out against china this. did china ask us if it was okay to carry out a number of actions such as build-up of disputed islands of south china sea? author of the current collapse of china and analyst as well and has lived and worked in this part of the world and i'm

curious going back and forth, gordon, what's your real take away about the controversy over this call? >> there are a lot of people in the state department and in washington, foreign policy establishment that are ringing their hands. they are trying to defend a policy that hasn't worked. what they want is cooperative relations with china, to be friendly. the purpose of american foreign policy is not to make u.s. autocrats happy. our policies just haven't been doing it. we need to impose some cost on china and better relationships with taiwan, it's an important cost in the eyes of beijing. good foreign policy on the part of donald trump. jenna: i have to pause you for a moment. we got breaking news from pentagon, producer there lucas thompson that breaks news for us and he said that they just found out that china flew nuclear capable bombers over taiwan.

again, that's all the headline that we have at this time. what's your sense of why china would do that and then this call following it? >> the important thing is whether they flew over taiwan, if it flew over taiwan it's a violation of sovereignty. that's a violation. that takes peace and stability in asia and moves it down a couple of notches. jenna: we will wait for more specifics on that. if i get more in i will make sure i pas them to you and the viewers. trade with china is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, now $66 billion we are talking about with taiwan. that's one of the arguments. you're going to hurt, you know, middle-class americans, lower-class americans, upper-class americans if we are too hard on china and not able to buy goods for cheap and we are going to be hurt. that's the umbrella criticism of this call, right, between donald trump and they weap, -- taiwan,

what's your response to that? >> last year we ran a trade deficit with china, that obviously represents a loss of american profits, but more important american jobs. so we have a trading relationship with china that isn't working. you know, inside china right now they're becoming extremely predatory. they are closing opportunities for american businesses specially with the cybersecurity law that was put into place last month. clearly we need to do something because china is taking advantage of us and as trump said, one way to do it is to make sure the trading relationship is more balanced. jenna: we are, of course, looking to see who is going to be secretary of state because that person is going to have interaction with foreign countries and one of the names that's come up recently, really, is congressman and he was on fox and friends earlier this morning and here is what he said about the trump-taiwan call. >> i think it was a terrific message to them, we are no longer going to be pushovers and

there's going to be consequences for their hostile and aggressive action. jenna: it sounds like you would agree with that. >> absolutely. they will huff and they will puff. they are a trade-surplus country. they don't have many tools in a trade war. they're conducting a trade war against us. we just don't recognize that it exists, you know, trump, i think, is going to actually do some things which will help american businesses, american workers and that's what we need to do. you know, there's always -- you know, you can't upset china, but it doesn't work. jenna: you don't buy that. you haven't bought that for a long time. >> i have never bought it. jenna: that's where it was published. trump acted like a bull in a china shop, punt intended was okay. >> yeah. what trump is trying to do is just change the narrative because the chinese are always challenged new u.s. presidents, they did it with george w. bush in april 2002 and barack obama

in march and may 2009, what trump is doing taking initiative before he takes the oath of office. what he's saying is the u.s. is going to be in charge and china has to act responsibly. the thing that i worry about, we had michael pence try to walk back this whole call. that's not needed. what we need is a coherent message. the chinese need to see that trump is determined. i'm sure that he is. he needs to see unity of purpose. that doesn't help when the vice president says this is not a big deal. this is a big deal. jenna: he did say, it's more of courtesy call. [laughter] jenna: just hold the line and so we will see what comes of this and we will get more information as to what happened with the flight. jon. jon: the movement that propelled donald trump's election victory now taking hold overseas with voters in italy also pushing back against the political establishment. how the prime minister reacted, we are live with some of the fall out there.

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jon: we are getting a look at the partnership. paul ryan with a look at the to-do list. chief correspondent mike emmanuel with more on that. >> the new administration must bring relief as fast as possible to people who are struggling under cob -- obamacare and signal that must be first priority. so consumers can buy what they want. rye yeap -- ryan says lawmakers

are working to new replacement system to people don't lose coverage and health care won't be one-size fits all. >> the age of the person. we believe we should get support by age. if you're a person that has low-income, you probably should have more assistance than someone with high income. >> they are fine now and they let bygones be bygones. >> he's going to be unconventional president. i really think we have an opportunity in front of us to fix problems and produce results and improve people's lives. who cares what he tweeted in some thursday night if we fix

this country's big problems. that's just the way i look at this. >> ryan said the odds were clearly in hillary clinton's favor in the 2016, he was pleasantly surprised on election night, jon. jon: candid stuff from the speaker in the interview. mike emmanuel, thank you. jenna: italy became the latest nation to push establishment. constitutional reform sparking the young i tattian leader to resign. amy. >> the political establishment was italy's youngest prime minister ever, 414-year-old who wanted to shake things up, make it easier and quicker to get legislation passed here and ultimately make this country more inviting to foreign investors but people, jenna, clearly either didn't want

change or that change or simply didn't trust renzi who swiftly said that he would resign last night after he lost in this referendum which was much more punishing than the results had predicted. he gave a quite a push until the very end. those who voted yes were absolutely devastated. >> i think we are a country that is really good at destroying. we are very good at coming together when there's a chance to destroy to team that's trying to build itself. now we will wait for the next shift but we can never take off like this. >> there was fire of very negative repercussions on the no vote on the economy here and europe generally. markets initially took the hit as both euro but rally. the proposed reform would have had potentially positive benefits, but its rejection does not have an immediate impact on italy's credit worthiness.

now it's expected that a care taker government would be put in place pretty soon. what's not clear is which group will benefit from renzi's downfall. there were different parties who rallied to the no side from former prime minister, center-right party to a far-right party to counterestablishment five star movement which is run by a comedian, jenna. a diverse cast of characters who will step forward it's not clear if this five-star movement does eventually get into power in italy by the next elections. they have said they want a referendum on italy's participation in the euro, jenna. jenna: amy, thank you. jon: there's a media fire storm brewing over the call of president-elect trump and the president of taiwan. is the uproar justified or is the media going to far.

our media panel weighs in

jenna: right now with head recount, michigan presidential results set to begin right now as jill stein to force state recount in another key battleground state. rick with more in trump tower. rick. >> dr. jill stein says it's not about who won but it's fair and accuracy of election process and she said shas why she raised nearly $7 million to challenge results in three key states and while she filed a federal lawsuit in pennsylvania to help force recount in pennsylvania. the michigan recount scheduled to begin less than 30 minutes from now involves the hand-counting of 4.8 million ballots, president-elect trump won by 10,700. the wisconsin recount began thursday with little change so far.

mr. trump beat hillary clinton by 22,000 votes and won close to 50,000 in pennsylvania. dr. stein won less than 14% of the vote. electronic voting could have been hacked and major discreme angies between counties using paper ballots and those using machines. >> these three states were identified because they have indicators that make them more shall we say red flags due to the nature of the voting machines that are used due to irwe-- irregularities and extremely thin margins. the president tweeted this was a stein scam. in the end it's not dr. stei, in that would benefit from all of

this but hillary clinton and she would have to win all three states for her to win enough electoral votes to overturn the results of the election. jenna: rick, thank you. >> we have seen the president elect engaged in the world. he has poan to more than 450 world leaders and i have spoken to a few dozen myself. he took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that. i understand some of the controversy in the media about this. >> not just the media, the chinese government. >> yes, of course. i would tell you that the american people find it very refreshing, the energy that our president elect is bringing to the whole transition. jon: vice vice president, elect

mike pence. are the media overreacting? joining us now cheryl and author of upcoming book, the smear, also with us rich lowery, fox news contributor and editor of the national review. do you think the media are overreacting, if so why? >> i'm not sure if it's an overreaction over than unfair coverage tilt today one direction. i think, of course, if president-elect trump had practiced for decades it deserves critical coverage but that doesn't mean every bit of coverage shall be critical. the media fails to realize in some instances that there is another viewpoint, that people view positively that donald trump would come into office

with a different approach. there are a lot of people that think things have not been going well in the past several years or even decades in many areas and they would like to see something fresh but you don't see the viewpoint represented except to the extent when trump supporters are represented in the media, it's to call them all as a group alt-white or supremacists or racists. jon: if the press would cover me accurately and honorably i would have less reason to tweet. honestly i don't know if that will ever happen. >> the coverage was extremely hostile in the run-up to the election and after the shocking result in the election, you actually had some soul searching in the media, new york times wrote a leaders to readers, sorry, guys, that we blew this

and now all the media has really snapped back to the way it's always been. every other day there's a story where donald trump created some crisis that's going to blow up the world or the administration. cheryl, is right that this is an important story. deserves coverage but everybody needs to take a deep breath and not put it on the headlines though it's cuban missile crisis again. jon: yeah. cheryl, you make a comparison of what obama has tone with iran. >> compare the coverage of what donald trump got accepting with president obama making deals with the largest sponsor of terrorism in the planet. jon: the wall street journal is out with an editorial which

notes this, it says, notable that china has reacted better than the u.s. media to mr. trump's phone conversation. beijing protested but foreign minister discussed it as a petty trick, beijing sensored the news inside china while the english language china daily suggested mr. trump simply made a mistake. i wonder if people at home think this is just all a little silly, the man accepted a phone call from the democraticically elected leader of taiwan, rich. >> i think that's right. the median voters sitting at home, why don't you accept the call from another democratically elected leader and, you know, china's reaction so far has been fairly muted. they are going to give president-elect donald trump a lot of latitude because they

want to see where they wanting to and, two, just importantly, i think they are a bit of afraid of them. >> let me go into the idea that perhaps this was, i don't know if one way or the another, what if he's crazy like a fox and he intended to send a message. there are viewpoints to car to think that the united states doesn't have to in every instance please china or do things in the way that's been done in the past. there are people who think things should be shaken off. i'm not saying it's right or wrong. viewpoints deserve coverage in addition to critical coverage. jon: interesting. >> everyone assumed it was a mistake. some of the things that trump folks had said including mike pence yesterday seemed to suggest they didn't consider it a big deal but it seems to have been more than that. jon: all right. we are going to keep watching

the story and the media reaction to the trump administration. it's pretty fascinating. cheryl, rich lowery, thank you both. jenna: what a judge has ruled on the man request on trial for that murder looking for a medicare prescription drug plan

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jon: new information on a story that we have been following closely here on happening. a federal judge just granted a request by the accused charleston church shooter to let his lawyers represent him in guilty case. in july 2015 he was indicted and arraigned. on november 17th jury election was denied by a motion filed by the defense arguing that he was not competent to stand trail.

the judge ruled he was, in fact, confident to stand trial and could represent hymn as previously requested. filed a handwritten motion asking to allow defense team to allow him to representative during guilt phase only. joining us greg jared. >> it is, indeed. this has happened before. it's not unusual that a defendant who demands to represent himself tends to vacillate when he gets a taste of what it's like. specially in heinous violent crime, the people who commit those crimes tend to be mentally unstable though they may be perfectly sane. in this case, this guy killed nine people simply because of the color of their skin. it seems like such an irrational act and that's the challenge for

the judge is try to reason with an inherently unreasonable guy. jon: for the witnesses and the victims and the family members of the victims of this horrible event, it's probably going to be a welcome relief if he's not allowed to represent himself. >> it is because they would be testifying and if he were to represent himself, he cross-examines survivors. the defendant antagonizes the witnesses and incriminates himself in the process. this is specially true with a guy like this who has confessed to his crime so it's hard to understand how any of what he would say on cross-examination would even be admissible, a judge would have to reign him in. jon: if he does change lawyers

during tbilt phase, he has been representing himself up to this point and bring defense team back on, does that in anyway boost his chances to appeal a conviction? >> well, what it does is it changes his defense and that would have an impact on an appeal. it looks like the defense attorneys wanted to present an insanity defense, suffered a mental disease, he doesn't know right from wrong. it's an uphill flight. gave motive for killing people because they were black. so the defense probably has a better shot than he does representing himself in the guilt phase. >> a lot of people forget it, he left three people alive from the bible study and said, go spread the word about what i did here. >> yeah, those people will no doubt be testifying in the guilt phase. lawyers, you know, might just

sit on their hands and not cross examine them. the judge whenever he considers the motion, you know, i can't decide now because the penalty phases is contingent and let your lawyers represent you for now and depending on how the guilt phase turns out we will revisit it in the penalty case. jon: he was only asking for the guilt phase not penalty phase. he wanted to represent himself. >> he probably wants to represent himself to put forward agenda, white supremacist and anger over race. jon: what a case, jenna. jenna: officials telling fox news that china has flown nuclear cable bombers around taiwan, when it happened and what message beijing is trying

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with all the good years ahead, look for the experience and commitment to go the distance with you. call now to request your free decision guide. jon: let's check out on what's coming in outnumbered in seven minutes. sandra and harris what do you have. harris: president-elect trump is doubling down on punishing companies who take jobs in the united states and sell products in the united states, what would that mean and is he head-in with the republicans? >> mr. trump's field of secretary of state possibilities doubles. and #wasn't luck-- lucky guy is one of them. sandra: thanks, jon. jenna: we have fox news alert.

china has flown nuclear capable bombers around taiwan for the very first time and happened less than a week before president-elect trump took congratulatory phone call as been described by taiwan's leader. lucas, what do we know about this so far? >> the flight took place less than a week. a pair of h-6 bombers, they were doing surveillance, conducted a flight around the island of taiwan, as you said for the first time and the response from the japanese air force who scrambled eight f-15 fighter jets to take a look at the unprecedented chinese flight and some would say aggression. one u.s. expert that we spoke to was not surprised at all. >> china has suddenly built up a

massive military capability in the area around taiwan. this isn't a simply of flying bombers. understand that technically we can't object to flying bombers near taiwan if we are flying combat aircraft and aircraft near china. >> jenna, this isn't, of course, the only threat facing the new president elect and his administration. russia continues to challenge the current administration just in the last few weeks russia has deployed antiship and short-range missiles, russian onclave. last week i went out to the uss george w. bush conducting flight operations in the flight operations and i asked commanding officer of the ships about the challenges he faces.

>> it is absolutely vital that we understand that russia's capability has been reinvigorated and they have certain interests that are divegant than ours. >> that aircraft carrier launched first air strike against isis in august 2014. now in a tit for tat last week, the u.s. department approved weapon's package of $200 million going to poland which shows the challenges that still exist and one other bit of news, jenna, on saturday another russia jet crashed in eastern mediterranean. we will be watching all the latest and reporting. jenna: a lot of hot spots around the world.

lucas, thank you. a lot more with happening now . .

. .

>> we will be back here in one hour. see you then. >> "outnumbered" the starts right now. sandra: fox news alert this hour, michigan beginning its presidential recount after a federal judge rejected effort by business officials to wait two business days to begin hand counting, five million ballots. green party candidate jill stein is it trying to force a recount. they are going through ballots in wisconsin and stein is seeking emergency court order for a statewide recount in pennsylvania. president-elect donald trump won those three battleground states which hillary clinton was expected to win by 100,000 votes combined. he calls the recount effort just a scam to raise money. harris: fox news alert.