i'm margaret brennan in washington. this week, the testing of the federal government against as the trump administration 2.0

prepares for its return to the white house. change is coming to washington along with chaos and the controversy typical of the former president's management style. seats in mr. trump's cabinet are filling up fast, and this time the president-elect is using his political capital to do things his way. >> 49 out of 50 states shifted toward the bp to, won the white house, recaptured the senate, and now as of today recaptured the house. >> will he use that mandate to circumvent what's called regular order in the senate to get some of the more contentious candidates through? we'll talk with house republican french hill and democrat jim himes. and we'll check in with two officials who served in the first trump administration, former deputy director of national intelligence, sue gordon, and former coronavirus response coordinator dr. deborah birx. plus, kentucky's democratic governor andy beshear offers his party some advice about how to

succeed in a red state. it's all just ahead on "face the nation." ♪ good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." there are just over two months before donald trump takes the oath of office again, but he is not wasting any time when it comes to naming candidates. mostly close allies and loyalists for key administration roles. republicans will be back in control of the white house, the house, and the senate, and there's a conservative majority on the supreme court. there are new republican leaders on capitol hill, and the question of whether those leaders will bow to mr. trump's wishes to do things his way or whether they will stand by the office that they hold as already being asked even before the new

congress and returning president are sworn in. we begin this morning with an update on the trump transition and our caitlin huey-burns. >> reporter: president-elect donald trump took some members of his transition team out to new york for a saturday night at the ufc fights. [ chants ] but here in washington he's gearing up for a fight of his own over several controversial choices he's made for his cabinet. at the center, florida republican matt gaetz for attorney general. >> we either get this government back on our side, or we defund and get rid of, abolish the fbi, cdc, atf, doj, every last one of them if they do not come to heal. >> reporter: gaetz is a fierce trump ally who led the charge in ousting kevin mccarthy from the speakership last year. >> i'll give you the truth why i'm not speaker. it's because one person, a

member of congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old. >> reporter: gaetz resigned his seat in congress this week just before that house ethics report over alleged sexual misconduct and elicit drug use was set to be released. house speaker mike johnson had said he would not interfere but following an overnight trip to mar-a-lago, he changed course. >> stick to the tradition and not release a report on a former member of the house because it would open a dangerous pandora's box. >> reporter: gaetz was also under investigation by the very justice department he was tapped to lead over whether he had violated sex trafficking laws. but no federal charges were filed. gaetz has denied all of the allegations. the selection shocked the republican senators he will need to get confirmed. >> there are many serious allegations pending against him. >> he's got a steep hill to climb to get lots of votes

including mine. >> reporter: trump is undeterred and says he's motivated by a mandate. >> the american people have just delivered really something very, very amazing, the biggest political victory in 129 years. >> reporter: and some top allies on capitol hill say he's entitled to his choices. >> elections have consequences. he chose matt gaetz. matt will come before the committee, and he will be asked hard questions. we'll see how he does. >> reporter: trump picked three of his defense attorneys to serve in top positions at the doj, and he's considering a shakeup of fbi leadership. last night trump announced oil executive and climate change skeptic chris wright to serve as energy secretary. and we're keeping an eye on other top positions that he could pick this week, especially who he will choose to run the treasury department. margaret? >> caitlin, busy week, and we're starting a new one. thank you for your reporting

this morning. and we are joined by republican congressman french hill. he joins us from his district in little rock. good morning to you, congressman. >> good morning, margaret. thanks for having me. >> glad to have you here. you served with congressman gaetz. you heard the speaker who has said while he doesn't want to specifically wade into the ethics matter, he also thinks it would set a bad precedent to release a report on a former member. do you think the ethics committee should make that decision for itself? >> well, i think the ethics committee does make that decision for itself, but i think speaker johnson makes an important point which is mr. gaetz has resigned from congress, there are many investigations that the house ethics committee has done and we don't want to set a precedent where we under any circumstances will release documents from that committee. but that decision is theirs. speaker johnson has made his

views known. now it will be up to the senate to conduct their advise and consent confirmation process. >> you know, cbs news reported back in june that four women informed that committee they were paid to go to sex and drug-fueled parties with mr. gaetz. also the ethics committee has venmo transactions showing gaetz's payments for the women. since taxpayers paid money for this report to be conducted and it was done, do you think -- if you were a senator you would consider this material information to confirming the top lawmaker for the united states of america? law enforcement officer i should say -- >> like i say, i don't personally know any details about the ethics investigation or the allegations because i haven't -- don't serve on that committee. but your point is would the senate judiciary committee ask to see that report, and that may well be a decision that they

take. and the ethics committee has a decision that they have to make. and mike johnson's expressed his view on that, as well. so as i say, this is an important process that the senate has to do advise and consent for all the nominations, and president trump has the prerogative to nominate the people that he thinks can best lead the change that he believes the american people are seeking in each of the agencies of the federal government. >> you have spoken to us before here on "face the nation" about your work around syria and bashar al assad's impressive regime there. you visited northern syria, an area that he wasn't in control of, back in 2017, the first lawmaker since john mccain to do so. congresswoman tulsi gabbard, when she was in office, went to syria and met with when assad himself. then publicly, she came out and

questioned u.s. intelligence assessments of his chemical weapons attacks that were carried out on civilian areas, not just once, multiple times. these were high-confidence assessments by the intelligence community. would you feel comfortable with her at the helm of all 18 of t them? >> well, i serve on the house intelligence committee during this past congress, and i know the important job that the d&i performs in coordinating, collecting, and reporting on our intelligence. and i think should tulsi gabbard be confirmed, she would know with high confidence as to precisely how we collect intelligence, how we coordinate and collaborate on it, and how we then report it to the president of the united states and to the two intelligence committees. so again, this is an important assessment for the senate to make, but i remind you, margaret, donald trump won the election. he wants people that he has a good relationship with, that he

trusts, that he believes can do a good job in the agencies to send the message that we want change in washington. and the senate, too, has their important job, and we're going to have to wait and see how the senate handles each of those confirmations. >> it was john mccain who went in 2017. you went in 2023. i may have misspoken there on the year. but so you believe the u.s. intelligence community conclusions, though? you don't mean to question those? >> no, i don't. >> okay. >> i'm -- i'm simply saying as a member of the committee, i don't question that assessment that's been made in the public domain over many, many years, and i've led the charge against the assad regime. i do not support that the arab league put him back into diplomatic standing by admitting him to the arab league. i think america has a lot to do to limit assad's influence in the region, which is a partner with the russians and the iranians, and that's not in the interests of the united states,

iraq, israel, or peace in the region. >> you have also been a supporter of ukraine, and you've been trying to find some creative ways to help allow them to gain access to continued u.s. support. there was a tremendous attack just overnight there by russia. the biden administration wants to provide a $20 billion loan, backed up by frozen russian assets. will the congress give them permission to use that money for military assistance? >> well, the repo act that was included in the national security package i worked on very closely with chairman mike mccall, the foreign affairs committee, gives the united states the authority to not only take frozen assets but confiscate them and use them for the benefit of ukraine. the loan you're referring to has been negotiated between the europeans and the americans to back the ukrainian government. i believe that will go through,

in my judgment. but i would urge president trump, as he takes office, to actually follow the law and confiscate those russian assets as i believe that gives both ukraine, the united states, and europe a much stronger negotiating position with russia that i don't believe biden nor the g7 countries have been tough enough on russia on sanctions, on the delivery of weapons that were needed to have ended this war long ago. >> you're gesturing to what we know which is that this is a pretty dangerous world right now. one of the selections that the president-elect has made to run the pentagon at this time is pete hegseth, he would be the defense secretary, 44 years old, decorated army vet, tv commentator. do you think experience is necessary, or is on-the-job training okay at the pentagon? >> well, again, i think this will be assessed by the senate in their confirmation process.

he has a distinguished background in the military, and that counts for a lot. i think his plans, his thoughts, his leadership will be exposed when he goes through that senate confirmation process. but once again, i have to say president trump, when he came into office in 2017, had cabinet members that he really had no personal relationship with, had no working background with. he wants to correct that this time by finding people that he has a good working relationship with, he knows how they think, they know how he thinks. because he thinks it will lead to better decisionmaking in his administration. he's got that prerogative to nominate those men and women, and the senate will have their advice and consent functio well under way. and majority leader-to-be john thune said he'd be effective, speedy, he'll get it done in the right course of action. >> congressman, thank you for your time today. >> you bet.

thank you, margaret. we turn now to democratic congressman jim himes. he is the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, and he joins us this morning from stamford, connecticut. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> i feel like there's so much news, and i'm getting through a fraction of it here. i want to pick up on tulsi gabbard, who we just discussed in the previous segment. she was a democratic colleague of yours for many, many years. you're the ranking member on the intelligence committee. she never served on that kind of committee. do you think experience is necessary? is she fit for the job? >> margaret, how far we have come that on a major news show the question we're examining is, is experience necessary for one of the most powerful positions in the land? of course it's necessary. you know, it's a little bit like our obsession right now with the ethics committee report on matt gaetz. you know, i mean -- how is it

that this is what we're focusing on? matt gaetz is by any standard completely unqualified to be the attorney general, and yet we're sort of focused on this, you know, cherry on the cupcake of the ethics report. you know, it sort of reminds me of al capone. in 1931, al capone is convicted of a couple of counts of tax evasion. now he was a killer and a rum runner and a mafioso. and yet he was convicted of tax evasion. this is what the conversation we're having about matt gaetz. what about this ethics report? so these people are manifestly unqualified. you know, they're not prepared to run the very complicated organizations they've been asked to run. >> do you have any suggestion from your republican colleagues that either of those individuals will not be confirmed for those positions? >> look, all i would observe is that history is a harsh judge. and i understand what happens to republicans who stand up to donald trump. you know, talk to adam

kinzinger, liz cheney, many of the republicans who voted for his impeachment who are now gone. i understand that. but history is a hard -- a hard judge. and a republican senator who takes a vote to consent to the appointment of matt gaetz, a chaos agent, a performative social media, no respect for the rule of law individual -- the republican senator who votes to confirm matt gaetz or robert kennedy or tulsi gabbard -- >> yeah. >> -- will be remembered by history as somebody who completely gave up their responsibility to donald trump. >> the speaker of the house called him one of the greatest minds in the united states or anywhere, on another program this morning. on intelligence, though, because of your committee oversight, john ratcliffe, another former house member who went on to serve in an acting role at intelligence previously, he is the selection to run the cia. do you trust him to appropriately handle sensitive

intelligence information? >> i do, margaret. just to be balanced here since i was pretty strong in my opinions about the attorney general and the d&i nomination, i had a good day when marco rubio was nominated for secretary of state, when john ratcliffe was nominated for cia, and when mike waltz was nominated to be national security adviser. i would even add the nominee for the southern district of new york, jay clayton. those were going nominations. not necessarily the nominations i would have made if i were president, but these are serious people with real experience. they're not social media personalities. they haven't built their careers on lies and conspiracy. so look, some of these nominations i think are quite solid and john ratcliffe falls in that category for me. >> okay. last night president-elect donald trump was at a ufc rally. alongside him was someone who has had a lot of scrutiny, elon musk. he is a billionaire with extensive u.s. government contracts, as i understand it, hold a security clearance

himself. he has extensive business ties with china. also had with him the saudi arabia private investment fund governor. they invest with his son-in-law, jared kushner, and held golf tournaments through the -- one of their entities at trump golf courses. do you think that in this new congress there will be scrutiny of potential financial conflicts of interest around mr. trump? >> well, of course there will be. this is sort of not subject to debate. we saw trump's first term and the fact that that group of people weren't particularly concerned with financial conflicts of interest. look, i don't know elon musk. odd character. you sort of have to respect what he's done to disrupt space launch, to disrupt the auto industry and whatnot. but you know, early reviews are not good. i read his, you know, 12-point government waste manifesto. he said, look at all this money we're paying on interest on the

debt, that's part of the wasteful spending. yu got to pay interest on the debt. you know, i'm skeptical that he has any clue -- look, i live in fairfield copyrunty, connecticu. there is a syndrome where very wealthy people who got wealthy in finance or as a tech entrepreneur decide that their heart surgeon's incapable of running the united states. that's what's going on with elon musk. again, early returns are not good with respect to his ability to understand the federal bureaucracy and make mit more efficient, a laudable goal. >> no offense to the residents who voted for you i'm sure. on saturday president biden was meeting with xi jinping. and they met for a little less than two hours. the white house says they did discuss that pervasive hacking of u.s. telecom companies that allowed them to steal customer call record data, compromise private communications of those involved in government, and copy information related to law enforcement actions.

do you know and can you say if the hackers have actually been kicked out of u.s. infrastructure, or is china still embedded? >> yeah, that's not a question i can answer with an awful lot of specificity. the fact that we obviously know about these -- these hacks means that those particular hacks probably have been addressed in one way or another. but one thing i can say with great confidence having worked in the intelligence world for some time now is i promise you they are out there in ways we don't know about. my hope is that the president made it very clear that this kind of behavior is not tolerable and that he backs that up and, frankly, that donald trump, the next president, backs that up with action. you know, as teddy roosevelt said, the big stick. we're good at hacking networks, too. it's important for the chinese to understand we're not going to just name and shame the hackers and complain, but we are going to go into their networks and give as good as we got. i suspect that in this realm they need to see that we are capable of inflicting a lot of damage if they continue their

present behavior. >> noted. there will be some selections, as we understand it, in the coming days in the financial space. you also sit on the financial services committee. trump backer elon musk yesterday blasted one of the hedge fund ceos, scott bessant, being considered. howard lutnik, ceo of canter fitz fitzgerald, also being considered. he is a cryptocurrency fan. does either candidate stand out to you for a better pick, and what does it really project out to you about what's going to happen in this space for mr. trump? >> well, you know, it's obviously up to the president to decide who he'd like as treasury secretary. you know, i would note that his first treasury secretary, steve mnuchin, i certainly had disagreements with him on any number of topics including desanctioning the russian aluminum company. but you know, in the cast of characters in version 1.0 of the trump administration, steve

mnuchin was fired from the creepiest and crawliest of them. we'll see what he does. crypto, it's like thegate e-- te gaetz ethics report. crypto has yet to make an impact on most americans' lives. i'm open to crypto, i helped work on the legislation to regulate it. this is not the determinative factor in our financial lives right now. >> i know. it's a technical issue i asked you to get to fair quickly. i pressure you weighing in. thank you for your time. "face the nation" will be back in a minute. if you have heart failure, farxiga can help you keep living life

with the ones you love. ask your doctor about farxiga today. farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ we're joined by kentucky governor andy beshear who joins us from lexington. good morning to you, governor. you're a blue governor in a very red state. how do you even begin to try uniting a country as divided as this? are there lessons we can learn from kentucky? >> i think there's absolute lessons that we can learn from kentucky. a state where last year i won as

a democrat by five points, and donald trump just won by 30. i think it basically boils down to both running and governing. where people wake up in the morning and what they worry about when they go to bed at night. and that's not the next election. it's their job. whether they make enough to support their family. it's the next doctor's appointment for themselves, their parents, or their kids. it's the roads and bridges they drive every day. it's that public school they drop their kids off at and public safety in their community. the goal here is to focus on all of those things where if people don't feel secure in those areas, they don't get to anything else. they don't get to the crazy thing that some politician said last night or this morning. they don't get to that next piece of policy that's out there. so it's -- about a relentless focus on people's everyday needs and everyday life. >> we're going to take a break, come back, and have the rest of the conversation on the other side of it. all of you, please stay with us.

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welcome back to "face the nation." we ret