i'm here. >> reporter: you believe they were molested? >> i know they were molested. >> reporter: well, it will be up to a judge to ultimately decide if the brothers should be resentenced, which could lead them to a parole board. there's another avenue possibly having the governor of california grant clemency, so we'll see whether or not these brothers get out anytime soon. jose? >> dana, thank you so very much. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. you can always reach me on social media and watch clips from this show at youtube@msnbc/jdb. thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," president-elect trump has completed his 15-member cabinet with several of his controversial choices still facing confirmation battles ahead. this hour, how will mr. trump's

selections impact major government policies at the white house, the treasury, department of justice, defense and intelligence? plus, the holiday rush is on with thanksgiving just days away. good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. president-elect trump is kicking off the holiday week in mar-a-lago after filling the final top slots in his cabinet over the weekend, but not without reported shoving matches of announcements including billionaire hedge fund investor scott bessent as his next treasury secretary. project 2025 director. former nfl player and another trump first term alum scott turner to lead housing and urban development. union backed oregon republican and defeated congresswoman lori

. fox news contributor dr. janet nishua as surgeon general and former florida congressman dave weldon to lead the cdc. as the trump team prepares for confirmation fights ahead, there are new questions about some of his more controversial choices and the battle over fbi background checks. >> why wouldn't we get these background checks for the most important jobs in the united states government? >> i don't think the american public cares who does the background checks. what the american public cares about is to see the mandate they voted in delivered upon. >> tulsi gabbard has a long history of questioning american intelligence. >> we're going to go through hearings, get everything out, get facts and everything and get the entire story. >> one of pete hegseth's criticisms of our pentagon is we've gone away from merit and gone more towards racial characteristics. and so i think the people are and would be overwhelmingly in favor of someone who is going to base hiring on merit not on

racial characteristics. >> this is a man who is inordinately qualified for the position. it's an insult and troubling mr. trump would nominate someone who has admitted he's paid off a victim who has claimed rape allegations against him. >> he wasn't charged. there was no crime committed. the police dropped everything. >> that's quite a sunday show rounddown. we begin with garrett haake, former chief of staff to vice president pence, and "meet the press" contributor mark short, correspondent peter baker and ashley parker, senior national political correspondent at the "washington post." a trump adviser, who compared the battle over treasury to a knife fight, that's quite dramatic, shoving matches, according to ashley parker. so, garrett, what is going on

inside the trump transition? and i would just point out that the treasury secretary is not the person that elon musk wanted. >> elon musk is not going to win all these fights, nor is anybody in trump world. that's what we have to remind ourselves about how this goes in the trump transition, factions at play here angling for their specific candidates. scott bessent was a front-runner if not the front-runner as recently as three weeks ago, but then you saw passing interest in some of the other candidates such as howard lutnick who was the choice of elon musk, although that alone was not alo enough, the commerce department as a consolation prize. trump was interviewing other candidates -- >> mark rowan flew in from hong kong and is very qualified. and then there was the former fed official who really wants to be a replacement dohe sees thes billionaire business folks as

peers. he likes this conversation. he cares deeply about the issue and wants to make sure whoever he picks will be good on television and his economic ideas not necessarily those that made these people billionaires and in bessent he feels he has his man. >> i think they were looking -- or he was looking at the bond market, which was not happy about a lot of the tariff talk. >> he pays a lot of attention to markets up or down. he does watch all that very closely. >> peter baker, fbi checks are a critical factor. senators are saying they won't hold confirmation hearings, at least the democrats are saying that, woumt an fbi background check. problems with matt gaetz, that was pretty obvious, but some problems with the pentagon choice and some others. the transition is, you know, unaccountable in terms of who is contributing and whether there are even foreign contributors.

what's going on here? >> of course you have a president-elect who is in battled with what he calls the deep state, the federal government and traditions and standards used in the past. he doesn't like the fbi. he believes the fbi to be a hostile force. remember, the fbi of course, has been on teams that have investigated him. should have the fbi investigate your choices, he doesn't see that as a positive. but, you're right, it's unthinkable, at least in modern times, to be filling some of these very important positions without some sort of a back ground check, and the senators will be tested to see how much they make that a red line for them. you didn't need an fbi background check to catch the issues with matt gaetz. frankly, only a google with a number of these people to determine some of the issues that are out there and would have been out there had the transition team done any kind of vetting. that's not a priority for them. trump doesn't care whether you find scandals or allegations of

wrongdoing. it does seem a different stand order to say not prosecuted counts as good enough for a cabinet job. for trump the main thing is loyalty. you're going to execute his agenda and the rest of the stuff is all just noise. he's been accused of so many things, it doesn't bother him when the people he picked are charged, too, because he doesn't take that seriously. he puts it in a category of witch-hunting and perfection kugss. >> ashley parker, pull back the curtain as you did in "the washington post" today, what about boris epshteyn, involved in this fighting with susie wiles having to play traffic cop. tell us about your reporting.

>> he sure has and we did a story how this transition in many ways is shaping up to be a lot like donald trump's first transition and his first term where you had shouting matches and warring factions and people up and down, which is the way the president-elect likes to have it and we write about a number of people in a number of moments but one person was trump's lawyer, boris epshteyn. they went to college together and he's in the mix and rubs a lot of people the wrong way. we reported, for instance, there was a meeting, a transition meeting that he was not welcome at. it didn't have to do with the legal nominees, but when he was told not to join by the transition chair howard lutnick, he used his forearm to brush him aside and entered the room

anyhow. to be clear, this isn't the ultimate fighting matches donald trump likes to go to, but it was jarring enough that this anecdote made its way around mar-a-lago and then back to me and my colleagues and then to the readers of "the washington post." boris and elon musk have also clashed a ton. they got in a fight on the mar-a-lago patio, elon musk has been telling anyone who will listen he believes boris is a leaker and he thinks boris is having undue sway over cabinet positions including outside of the legal realm. someone described it to us as boris against the world, but the reason he has this position is there's one person who matters. that person is president-elect trump and donald trump likes boris. he likes that he is an attack dog, that he's a fixer, that he's a loyalist, part of the effort that last week got the sentencing of the hush money trial in manhattan indefinitely postponed. so a number that orbit.

>> and, so mark, axios is calling it the most diverse, ideologically diverse, cap net. not ethnically or racially diverse. there's one person of -- well, one black person, again, at hud, which is the same position, of course, that ben carson had the last time, so that seems to be, as some critics have said, the black job in the cabinet. but, ideologically diverse. it seems to me they're all maga people. they're all people against the so-called deep state. there is one union-backed person who is the labor secretary, lori chavez-deremer from oregon, who is a defeated republican congresswoman. >> andrea, i'm not sure the cabinet picks should be affirmative action picks. >> you're not going to have affirmative action. >> i think there are several picks that conservatives can celebrate. at omb, doug burgum, rubio as

secretary of state, those are things conservatives get excited about, but, at the same time randy weingarter in at department of labor, the person she wanted, i think that putin and assad got their pick at dni. the pro-masking of kids got their pick of attorney general. it's ideologically diverse. >> although the gmi pick would go with donald trump's embracing of putin. >> that's part of the narrative rhetorically but the first administration was pretty tough when it came to attacking their mercenaries in syria. i think there were plenty of actions the administration took. of course you had pretty strong traditional conservative foreign policy advocates around him and the vice president and secretary of state driving that policy. >> it may be that the meeting

that i covered in helsinki, for instance, where he accepted putin's denials, i think it was driven by his anger over the russian probes, his anger at the intelligence community. >> as i said, i think rhetorically there was a lot more favoritism. i think the policies were different during the first administration. >> i agree entirely. peter, donald trump is the first to say not to sign the ethics documents, meaning he can raise unlimited amounts of money for his transition. there were problems before that with his inaugural committee the last time around where money was not accounted for properly, and foreign nationals could even contribute with no accounting. conflict of interest issues as well. look at elon musk, his influence over the choice for the fcc where he's the only satellite operator that requires fcc approval, and that he will be doing the governmentwide co-chairing this with vivek

ramaswamy. the governmentwide budget cutting when he has such large government contracts. >> to have a private individual who has a great deal of financial interest in the federal government promising to eliminate $2 trillion out of the $6 trillion annual budget, that's what he says he can do. to anybody in washington for a long time understands that's very unlikely, to say the least, that we don't spend that on discretionary programs, so if he were to actually want to get the federal government down by that, you would have to go after things like social security, medicare, the defense department, veterans affairs, other big entitlement programs that have been protected. if you want to do something painful, that would be required. but you're right, to have a guy who has his own personal interests involved helping to make those decisions that's pretty remarkable. president-elect trump trump has decided he doesn't care about

washington's sensibilities on these kinds of things. he's not putting his own business interests to the side as he at least said he did when he came in eight years ago. he's not even bothering to talk about that. his interests are pretty wide not just in the united states but across the world. his view, i think, is he won. and that people trust him and he can make his own rules and he doesn't have to live by the rules of -- that washington has created and, in his view, are illegitimate. >> garrett haake, mark short, peter baker, ashley parker, thanks to all of you. and donald trump sending a big signal donor to him for his treasury secretary. it's a setback for elon musk. harvard professor and former obama top economic adviser jason fuhrman joins me next. our watching "andrea mitchell reports." we'll be back in just 90 seconds. you're watching msnbc. same.

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transition co-head howard lutnick, who elon musk preferred. he got commerce instead. this is a noticeable setback, though, for musk. joining us is jason furman, economic policy professor and former chair of the white house counsel of economic advisers under president obama. so your reaction to scott bessent, what we know about him as the potential treasury secretary in charge of economic policy? >> look, he's serious, he's mainstream, he's smart. the open question is, you know, will he -- how will he be advising the president, and will the president listen to him? ultimately all these economic decisions are the president's call. >> and the big question is, how do you cut the deficit, as bessent has said he wants to, while extending those trump tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips, social security benefits, doing all the things he wants as

well as tariffs, which are by mainstream economic standards inflationary. >> yeah, there's the tariff question, and he basically had to suck up to the president on the tariff issue. my hope is that behind the scenes he's trying to dial it back and stop them. we'll see can he stand up to trump. does he want to stand up to trump. the other one you brought up is exactly right. since trump's election interest rates, long-term interest rates, have kept going up. that's both because the market is betting on more inflation and more deficits. that's driven mortgage rates up. it's hurting ing american households. he will have to grapple with that and nothing i've heard out of his mouth so far is something that would address the issue, and it's the deficit that's underlying and driving that issue. >> there's reporting that bessent has written, it's public, that he wants to have a shadow fed. there have been shadow feds before. there was a professor in

pittsburgh who was a shadow fed giving advice or criticism to the fed chair. so maybe that's not such a bad thing. it's not the same as the white house doing battle every day with the fed or setting interest rates, as donald trump has suggested, in the oval office, which would be completely contradictory to all western theory of monetary policy independent of the political leaders. >> yeah, i agree. the idea the senate came up with you confirm someone two years in advance of them starting the job and then everyone would listen to them. that was crazy. and, to his credit, he actually said it was a negative reaction and he had dropped the idea. if he's willing to say i'm listening, i'm learning on a lot of areas of the economy, the market is going to provide some discipline on what the trump administration does, that's re, very different for many of the

areas of policymaking which you were talking about earlier today and we'll keep talking about. >> how are we looking at elon musk's role? i've been reporting just the inherent conflicts of interest, also his role regarding china, trump has advocated and he has hawks in the national security job, at the state department with marco rubio, china hawks, but as it relates to china where musk is so heavily invested, where tesla makes half of its cars, and it's been so close to xi jinping and kind of an ally of china. with elon musk. >> yeah. look, i think elon musk has a huge conflict of interest. the government is a complicated, difficult thing. you need some patience to understand it. when it comes to spending cuts, for example, they're very well understood by career civil servants what needs to be done to make the government more efficient, and it's actually

congress that has been opposed to doing it including many republicans in congress as well. elon musk has some really enormous strengths and some enormous talents. we'll have the department of government efficiency. my hope is that they, one, don't engage in one big conflict of interest, and, two, get people that really knows how the government works in addition to all the outside agitators he's trying to bring to bear. >> jason furman, thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thank you. and at the ng tradition that dates back actually to abraham lincoln's white house and something his son pleaded for, a pet turkey. the pardoning of the turkey. president biden doing the honors on the white house south law pardoning peach and blossom from minnesota. both birds will be free to roam on a minnesota farm and preside ticking off the names of the turkeys that he's pardoning for his presidency. he didn't do as many bad dad

jokes, though, as president obama had done to the annoyance or embarrassment of his young daughters in the crowd. let's take a watch. >> the last four years i've had the honor to continue that tradition by pardoning peanut butter and jelly, chocolate and chip, liberty and bell, and today peach and blossom, born this past july to the zimmerman family farm, raised by the -- yeah, i hear you. >> well, it's always a great event, and my favorite still is the "west wing" episode the character found the turkeys parked in her white house press secretary's office because, where else would you put them. and next, will donald trump's second choice for attorney general after matt gaetz's defeat clean house at the doj?

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a republican senator once under consideration to be attorney general in the new trump administration is suggesting one of the president-elect's first priorities should be to fire everybody. the doj employees who worked on any trump cases. here is what missouri senator eric schmidt told my colleague, kristen welker, on "meet the press." >> i think accountability means, first and foremost, the people involved with this should be fired immediately. and anybody part of this effort

to keep president trump off the ballot and throw him in jail for the rest of his life because like his politics and to continue to cast him as a, quote, unquote, threat to democracy, was wrong. and so we'll see where that goes. >> this is "the washington post" reporting that mr. trump plans to fire the entire team that worked with special counsel jack smith on the two fegs investigations into him. joining me now joyce vance and former senator, former federal prosecutor doug jones. so, joyce, if president-elect trump follows through with firing doj employees who worked on his cases, these include career prosecutors. i'm not sure how he does that. jay johnson at the defense department also questioned how that would be possible on "meet the press." what kind of an impact would that have?

>> right. so i think that we should say it's easier said than done because these are people with civil service protections, and, you know, we saw trump try to do that the last go-around with folks at the fbi like andy mccabe, that didn't work out so well. it imposed lots of stress on the people who were in his sights, but ultimately it didn't work out. so the impact on these folks, i think what we'll see in the next few weeks is that they will wind down the case. they will issue their final report. they will take whatever steps they can to preserve their evidence and then they will return from the special counsel's office to the offices that they came from, these folks were career prosecutors in places like the maryland u.s. attorney's office. they'll go back there. i don't think we'll see them preemptively redine. they may force donald trump to do what he has in mind in a way

that leaving voluntarily would not. >> let me just follow up, do they have civil service protections that would withstand the so-called schedule f which they are trying to do would be to take away civil service protections from many people at the state department and the other agencies? >> right. so schedule f would be an effort, as i understand it, to redesignate some of these positions and to claim these are people who are involved in policymaking jobs would mean they could be fired by an incoming administration and trump could convert that into a loyalty test. you know, it will depend on the jobs. i think it would be relatively easy if you wanted to do this in a retaliatory fashion to designate a lot of yobs jobs th people have, particularly senior prosecutors, as policymaking because many do touch policy in some way, shape or form.

in the hands of someone who is intent on abusing the rules, something like schedule f could do a lot of damage. >> senator jones, president-elect trump picked pam bondi for attorney general. she was, for eight years, the florida attorney general. in 2023 she said if trump is back in the white house, quote, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones, the investigators will be regted. investigated. what are you expecting from her if she's confirmed? >> i expect her to investigate the investigators and prosecute the prosecutors or at least attempt to. i think joyce is right that a lot of this is a lot easier said than done. but, at the same time, remember, she was also donald trump's lawyer during the first impeachment. he is also placing his other lawyers in positions of responsibility at the justice department. donald trump treated the justice department, or at least he tried to treat the justice department, as his own personal law firm in

his first term. didn't work out so well with jeff sessions. bill barr did a fair job of doing that until the very end. so that's what he's looking for. and if he wants these folks to be investigated and prosecuted, she may give it a try. remember, andrea, that investigations can be as damaging as actual prosecutions. so a lot of these people will be marginalized. i really am concerned about the morale at the justice department because it wasn't that great under sessions and barr, and i think it's going to be even worse right now. >> and they have to hire private attorneys, so it's really expensive for these people at really low levels and people who are in public service for a reason, because they care and could be making a whole lot more money outside. joyce, also, donald trump's defense lawyer, todd blanche, was chosen for deputy ag, a powerful job running the department. nbc news has been reporting that many current doj officials hope

that he will keep trump politic because he is a former assistant u.s. attorney himself, he was a career federal prosecutor, so he knows how it's supposed to run, but he has been the defense lawyer in these criminal cases. >> so i never hold somebody's clients against them. you know, lawyers are supposed to represent people, even those accused of very serious crimes. that's the job. the question going forward is this, will they be inappropriately inclined to take direction from donald trump as leaders at the justice department? you know, doug is absolutely right about pam bondi. the real concern there is that she's been trump's lawyer. will she continue to be his lawyer, or will she be the independent leader the justice department deserves? the same question for todd blanche and for others who are coming in. they may be steeped in the traditions of doj by virtue of the fact they spent their early years as prosecutors in places like the southern district of

new york. the question is whether they'll say no if they're asked to engage in revenge prosecutions. i expect we'll see senators ask them that at confirmation. they'll be asked if they believe donald trump lost in 2020. you can't be an election denier and work credibly at the justice department, so these confirmation hearings will be deeply important. >> and, senator, of course you're a former senator and you know your former colleagues and the institutions of the senate. what is the likelihood that the republican senators are going to fall in line for pam bondi and not give her a really tough going over in the judiciary committee because there was matt gaetz, as one person who was pulled down, and now one theory is that they've already given it the office of ethics and will now have to be more in line with

what the president-elect wants? >> i don't expect her to have a tough time among republicans on the judiciary committee, but i do expect her to have a pretty rough go with democrats. now they don't have the votes to keep her from being voted out of committee, nor do they have the votes to keep her from becoming attorney general. the democrats don't. they would need four republicans to cross over, as they did, more than four, with matt gaetz, to say no. there's just no way. i, quite frankly, don't see that happening. i don't think this is going to be an easy confirmation hearing by any stretch, and she will be asked all of those very difficult questions, but they're going to probably come from the democratic side. the rest are going to be somewhat softball questions and whether or not there will be four republicans that will cross over and say, no, i cannot agree. she has made too many comments about revenge prosecutions, election denialism to confirm her is problematic. i would be surprised if there's

four that will cross that rubicon. >> joyce vance, former senator doug jones, thanks to both of you. and, up next, we have a live report from jerusalem as the fighting intensifies between israel and hezbollah amid an urgent ceasefire push. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ld or broken phone into a gift. anyone can trade in any phone, in any condition and get samsung galaxy s24+ with galaxy ai and watch and tab, all three on us. even if your phone is old or dated, you can turn it in at verizon for gifts for you and the family. all three on us. that's up to $1,900 in value. only on verizon. here you go. is there anyway to get a better price on this? have you checked singlecare? whenever my customers ask how to get a better price on their meds, i always tell them about singlecare. it's a free app. accepted at major pharmacies nationwide.

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continue starting with israel over the weekend and then retaliation from lebanon -- from hezbollah, i should say, a deal to reach a ceasefire between israel and iran-backed hezbollah militants in lebanon is close but not finished, according to three senior administration officials talking to us today. israel's ambassador to the united nations also addressed the situation earlier at a security council meeting. >> though we are moving forward on this front, as i said many times, our goal was very clear, which is to push hezbollah north of the river. we haven't finalized it but we are moving forward. i assume that the cabinet will meet today or tomorrow to discuss it, and i think for us it's important what will happen after, that hezbollah will not be allowed to come back to defense and will do whatever is necessary to guarantee it. >> and joining us now from jerusalem nbc news international

correspondent hala gorani. hala, what do we know about a ceasefire deal? i've been told by three officials on the u.s. side, and you saw the u.n. ambassador danon from israel confirm that, that it's not finished yet, contrary to many reports, but it's close. they're not 100% there. >> reporter: no, absolutely, andrea. we've heard in the past, as you know and as our viewers know, that we were nearing a deal only for it to unravel at the last minute. this time, though, it does feel like there is a bit more momentum and, by the way, apologies. it is raining here quite hard in jerusalem. it's causing quite a lot of misery for the displaced outside. but back to that potential ceasefire deal, there is momentum, it seems, behind it. we're hearing from israeli media reports this cabinet meeting is due to take place either today

or tomorrow, to look at the final details. the big question is going to be what the deal looks like and from israel's perspective whether or not they would have u.s. support to retaliate against hezbollah if there are violations to the deal. danon said it, the deal is to have hezbollah retreat north of the latani river. it would involve a retreat and withdrawal of idf forces back into israel over the border between lebanon and israel. and, andrea, the big question, of course, is then who would patrol that area that hezbollah would vacate? would it be the lebanese -- the regular lebanese army? would there be some supervision from international forces? would there be u.n. involvement? and, again, key for israel is if there are violations, and from

their perspective they feel they would like to resume some sort of air strike activity, would they have the support of the united states, and those are big, open questions and we're going to have to wait and see if this deal gets over the finish line, andrea. we've been here before. it does feel like there is some momentum behind it this time. >> thank you so much, hala gorani. and with the war in ukraine quickly escalating from all sides, president-elect trump's new pick for national security adviser congressman mike walz says they want to get both sides to the table. >> so we need to bring this to a responsible end, to restore peace and get ahead of this escalation ladder rather than responding to it. >> joining us now admiral james and chief international analyst, also author of the great new

novel "the restless wave." admiral, what does the deal look like if they go to the negotiating table now? you have sots north korean troops in kursk region, the atacms, land mines, anti-personnel land mines, but russia could have an endless supply of person emdespite their casualties. >> let me say what special forces just said a moment ago and we ought to be listening because he's our next national security adviser. that does not require confirmation so it's a done deal. and i think he to the negotiating table, and your question, andrea, then what does

a deal look like? i think it kind of is a case of what you see is what you get, meaning the current battle lines which do have russia in possession of crimea. russia to the crimea, sadly putin will wind up with control of those. the red area on the graphic you're showing. the other 80% of ukraine under this deal, at least as i envision it, and i think many others do, the rest of ukraine sails on, democratic free. half to nato, that's probably five years away but not impossible. path to the european union, reconstruction begins. ceasefire, no more missiles flying back and forth. i think that's probably how this turns out in a matter of months after the inauguration. so figure by spring/summer. >> and republican senator mike

rounds up in halifax at the security conference, the annual conference there on friday, dismissed talk of a peace deal. he said the u.s. should be doing more to help ukraine. let me play that for you. >> i just feel so frustrated that we have not been able to provide them all of the equipment that they need and all of the weapons systems that they need in order to respond to absolute tyranny coming from russia, a neighbor who has absolutely unjustly invaded their country. >> and he's echoing a frequent criticism that i'm hearing from military, republicans as well as democrats, in the senate and outside the senate, that everything has been, you know, too late, too slow. the f-16s, the bradley vehicles, the atacms, the landmines, that it gets to them but after they've lost more territory. >> i think that's a fair

criticism. winston churchill said you can count on the americans to do the right thing after they've exhausted every other possibility. i feel that's been the story through these two and a half years, 1,000 days. we've been just slightly late to need, but that's the past. the point now is how do we give the ukrainians the strongest possible position when they come to that negotiating table? and i would say continuing to push everything forward, which team biden is doing, and i hope team trump will continue that. that is counter intuitively the path to peace. the more capability in the hands of the ukrainians, the less the chances are that putin will resist a negotiation or attempt another campaign. so i am in the full speed ahead category, if you'll allow me a nautical metaphor, on the

weapons systems, but full speed ahead on let's get to a negotiation. >> and, rch ichard engel is in ukraine, he spoke with a group of women soldiers deployed outside kyiv in bucha which was occupied in the horrific war crimes there by russia and they fought back. they are very concerned about what will happen after sitting down with putin. let's watch a chunk of his reporting. >> reporter: we joined a group of soldiers who call themselves the witches of bucha, now taking up arms. in a forest outside kyiv, they're training in close combat, expecting one day russian troops will make another push for kyiv. 90% of this unit are women, many of their sons and husbands are out fighting on the front lines, so they have stepped up volunteering to defend the capital. valentina is a grandmother. her son and son-in-law are on

the front lines. president-elect trump says that he's going to wrap up this war in a day. do you have confidence in that? "i don't believe this war can be stopped with a negotiation," she says. "putin can't be trusted. in three to five years, he'll come back." >> i don't know about you, admiral, but i've covered women, kurdish women in syria fighting isis because the men were all gone, and they were amazing, amazing fighters, and these women are heroic. >> yeah, 100% correct. i'll top you by one, you've reported on it. i've commanded women in combat. they were under my command on "uss barry," my first warship and in the balkan wars, i've had women sailors under my command in combat operations. they fight hard, they know what

they're doing. we ought to have our hats off to any volunteer of this republic, woman or man, who steps up to fight. i have a lot of confidence in our military. >> admiral james stavridis has been there and done that. thank you very much. and next we'll go live to one of the busiest airports in america. with the holiday rush now under way and bad weather on the way. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. start to break away from uc with tremfya... with rapid relief at 4 weeks. tremfya blocks a key source of inflammation. at one year, many people experienced remission... and some saw 100% visible healing of their intestinal lining. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections may occur. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tb.

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o'hare, msnbc correspondent adrienne broaddus. it looks busy already behind you. >> reporter: up know what, this is what travel experts are calling the calm before the crowd. as you know, andrea, chicago o'hare is among the top five busiest airports in the country and this week it is expected to live up to that reputation. right now airport officials are telling us at least 94% of flights here at o'hare are on time so only a few delays, and, in fact, the wait is only five minutes at the security checkpoint. so we've seen a steady flow of traffic. the weather is not impacting travel here right now, but we know that is expected to change as our climate team is tracking this storm coming in. overall, starting tomorrow, tsa estimates it will screen more than 18 million passengers starting tomorrow through december 2nd and some travelers we spoke with who are traveling

domestically and internationally say they wanted to avoid the large crowd. >> it is much more dead than i thought it would be, people trying to beat the traffic, but i guess we did accomplish the mission. >> reporter: all right. and tsa officials say as you pack that carry-on bag, it is best to start with an empty bag, but, remember, as you're packing, if you can pour it, so water, spill it, water, spread it, butter or jelly, leave it or check it. do not put it in your carry-on bag. andrea? >> i'm trying to remember all of that, adrienne. thank you very much for that. and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember, follow the show on social media @mitchellreports. go to msnbc.com/andrea.

chris jansing reports starts after a short break. giving that's possible through the power of dell ai with intel. so those who receive can find the joy of giving back.

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good live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. trump's transition team keeping the fbi from doing background checks on their cabinet picks. will that critical paperwork giving them access to intelligence to office space ever get signed? it was supposed to be done almost three months ago, so why isn't it? plus, no laughing matter. the onion's bid on alex jones's info wars on hold. >>