tonight, new details on trump suing "the des moines register" and that pollster, ann seltzer, over, quote, brazen election interference. first, let's get to this story. the news coming in, trump's nominee for pentagon chief, pete hegseth, was back on capitol hill today to. democrat john fetterman will not rule out backing hegseth. he likes him. and trump's hhs secretary nominee rfk jr. back on capitol hill too. aishah hasnie's got the details in washington with more. great to to see you again. >> reporter: elizabeth, good to see you with. rfk jr. just ducked into a meeting with senator john barrasso of wyoming. he is really having some back to back meetings today, nine in total. he started at 10 a.m., and he is still going. and so far he says it's going pretty well. watch. how are the meetings going? any comment? >> really productive. really good. >> reporter: really productive, really good, he says. and just got some photos of his meeting with senator tuberville earlier today. so far getting a pretty warm welcome among senate republicans, even those with a ton of questions about his stan

. >> ann seltzer, ann doesn't have to worry. "the des moines register," they don't have the worry. very quickly. cws news -- [laughter] -- cbs news,for their edits, what they did in the edit bay on "600 minutes," doing what 60 minutes has been doing f like, 60 years. >> this is a moment as well for those who claim to be journalists, you're not going to get away with this crap. donald trump is going to play offense, and the american people don't rust the media at the same time either. >> this was stunning to me and absolutely a gut punch to anybody that works at a major media company. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage in new york, jason chaffetz, fox news contributor and former republican congressman, and in san diego, laura fink, ceo of revelle communications. jason, why is donald trump threatening all these lawsuits? it had seemed like he was moving toward a truce with the press. >> well, you can disagree with the president, you can offer an opinion that's different, but it you're going to outright lie, if you're going to manipulate what you know to be something else,

the pollster trump mentioned is veteran pollster anne seltzer who published a poll in the final week before the election showing donald trump behind in a reliably red state. late last night trump made good on his threat and officially filed suit against the des moines register and anne seltzer egfor publishing that poll. the suit was ngbrought not as a defamation case but as a violation of iowa's consumer fraud protection laws. the register poll was spectacularly wrong as a number of polls in the election were and trump wept onto win by 20 points which is a wider margin than 2020 and 2016. but the allegation here is it was somehow manipulated to make him look bad, and that allegation appears completely unfounded. it is hard to imagine how that claim may stand up in court, but that may not actually be the point here. a legal battle with trump is going to be quite costly with the des moines register at a time when the paper does not have considerable resources of which to fight. the parent company gannett is the largest newspaper publisher in america but it's been losing money at a ste

ann seltzer is discredited by the fact this poll was so off. a company doesn't willfully make products it knows will be defective and revealed in stunning fashion to be defective because that is bad for business. right? that is just a very bad ill advised fraud if in fact it is even fraud. basically logic dictates that they would want to be accurate as opposed to being inaccurate. from a consumer kind of business marketplace standpoint. is that right? >> sure. and remember who the plaintiff is here is donald trump. he lost money. the whole thing doesn't fit. so why doesn't he sue for defamation? because he wouldn't be able to meet the requirements to prove defamation. this is very different than the abc suit where there was a statement that was made by someone and you could argue about whether that statement was false. and whether it was made with actual malice. here this is garden variety polling and i can't get into anyone's head but it sure seems like this lawsuit is meant to deter negative information about donald trump. whether it is polli

we don't know exactly why abc decided to do that, but the suit against anne seltzer, for example, fort "60 minutes" for doing what "60 minutes" has done for its entire existence which is an editing an interview, they strike me as frivolous. i don't see any basis for them. but i do see a reason for them, and it's intimidation. and it's to make media outlets and reporters and pollsters and anybody else think twice before publishing stories and polls and information that would offend donald trump. >> yeah, and i think that some of these media outlets have the deep pockets to fight them, you know, lawsuits can be expensive. but not everyone does. eugene, let's take a step back and put this as part of a bigger puzzle, this piece as part of a bigger puzzle which is this sense of retribution, which the idea trump is going to go after his political foes that seems to be at the heart of the kash patel pick to lead the fbi. do you think that washington and the nation writ large are potentially ready for what's coming if trump does follow through on these promises? >> not at all. i don't think w

. >> reporter: in a lawsuit mixed with a message, president-elect trump suing iowa pollster ann seltzer and the des moines register newspaper over a preelection poll that showed vice president kamala harris ahead by three points in iowa. the trump lawyers arguing consumer fraud, and that the poll was intended to sway the race. >> it became the biggest story. >> reporter: though mr. trump ultimately won the state by 13 points, the des moines register saying it stands by its reporting and will quote, vigorously defend or first amendment rights. some legal analysts question the suit's foundation. >> when you file a lawsuit you have to say were you damaged in some way. what was the harm to donald trump? i won. >> reporter: it comes after the president-elect won a separate suit against abc news and a $15 million settlement over the trump legal team's allegations that anchor george stephanopoulos defamed him during an interview. the president-elect signaling more similar legal action could be coming. >> we have to straighten out the press. >> reporter: the trump pick to hid head the fbi, kash

beginning of the retribution campaign, that president trump has just sued the "des moines register," ann seltzer selzer, to sue for defamation is quite strange. >> right. if erroneous polls can create criminal liability, i think there's a lot of people across the country that might be sleeping nervously. look, i think that part of the point of these -- both the legal -- the lawsuits that he's filing against media and the potential claim of pursuing criminal activity, the point is probably not the actual result of those legal actions. the point is sort of delivering to president trump's base what he promised which was revenge and retribution. it matters less to trump that what might happen in those legal proceedings a year, two years, three years from now, what matters more, i think, is that as he comes to power again for the second time, he demonstrates to people that support him so fervently, his word is good and he's going to pursue this kind of thing and helps to whip up that base, helps to submit the grip he has on both the party officials and also the party base and i think that my guess is

. >> his legal team filed a lawsuit against iowa pollster anne seltzer and the des moines register for a poll released before the election showing kamala harris when and by three points. mr. trump won that state by 13. his lawsuit called this election interfering fiction. let's start with the iowa lawsuit. it's not about defamation but an accusation of consumer fraud under iowa law. let -- help us understand this fairly novel approach. >>> typically we would think of somebody slandered with fame. he is targeting unfair and deceptive business practices. he is suggesting that anne s elzer's poles were fraudulently conducted to harm his campaign. it's a different use. typically we think of consumer protection laws about products you would buy in the store, the supermarket. now we are talking about information and news. regardless of his theory here, the first amendment will certainly come into play as a constitutional overlay that would lend protection to the des moines register, one of the defendants. >> the des moines register responded to a lawsuit in a statement. "we stand by our repo

president-elect trump is suing "the des moines register" and its top pollster ann seltzer for fraud over 2024 presidential poll. seltzer released her final des moines register sponsor poll of iowa three days before the election. showing vice president harris leading trump by three points. trump ended up winning the hawkeye state by more than 13 percentage points. the lawsuit seeks accountability for brazen election interference. and if fun is on one of your loved ones christmas list this year. we have an out-of-the-box idea for you. franco frank packs empty boxes have the most ridiculous products inside. when you open them up, they actually have your real gift inside. the design to add laughter to gift giving and found at pranko.com or amazon. we have some on set to show the audience. hilarious. >> here is one of the -- this is one of the boxes. permanent interest. if you got this box. you are just think i don't need a cat hat. and then you open it up. and there is whatever you wanted to put in there. >> ainsley: look at this one. >> steve: so clever. >> tiktok baby influencer kit. this

i will point out that donald trump has gone after the very well known polster, ann seltzer. we all know trump won the election but donald trump has gone after her, her polling firm, the des moines register, the newspaper and its parent company, here is what is chilling. he is going after them for violations of the iowa consumer fraud act. right, we are not talking about freedom of the press here going after something else. this is what authoritarian leaders in other countries have done to silence journalists, not suing them for defamation but go after them in other way that can be hard to legally fight off and deal with. >> howard, i am curious what you see here in the political side of this. these are political efforts to change how people act or change coverage or have something passed and abc, going to make its own decisions but it was widely covered that the case was not an obvious loss by any greens and their statement, i am referring to what abc says that they made a material important factual mistake. they regret the statement that was made about trump. your thoughts

. >> but if anything, when ann seltzer, who is a terrific pollster. mistakenly said that it looked like harris was pulling ahead, and that's what her poll showed. if anything, that hurt harris because it may have led people to be overconfident it certainly didn't hurt trump in any way. there's no basis for a lawsuit. there are no damages. there certainly no false statement of fact. but that's not the point. the point in the history that you showed with the various suits, including the settlement by abc for $16 million with a very weak defamation suit that trump had brought. that whole history shows that the dominoes keep falling. that is one newspaper or media outlet after another folds in anticipation of being pressed to the wall by a limitless budget that donald trump has backed by all of his financial backers. he can crush people, and his threat to do that has become his mode of lawfare. and the danger is to our whole system. people lose faith in polls. they lose faith in the newspapers. they lose faith in the media. the whole system crumbles. >> s

he wants to go after his critics, and he wants to the point of this lawsuit, for example, with ann seltzeris because he wants to discourage negative polling for himself. and so it might silence others from doing so and putting out bad or unfavorable polls to him. and so it just does seem like that's the purpose here and why they're doing this. but this comes at an important moment when obviously trump is a little over 30 days away from from regaining power. we've seen what his top picks, who as senator ted budd there just said he's voting to confirm every single one of them that trump is nominated have said they want to go after a conspirators in the conspirators in the media. what does that look like when trump is back in power, in terms of of the avenues he has to pursue more than just filing lawsuits? >> there aren't a lot of avenues. now. certainly, if it's a question of going after quote unquote conspirators, he could use congress or work hand in hand with congress. the simple fact is you have to have a basis for opening an investigation. and even if, for instance, if the fbi with kas

including cbs news, journalist bob woodward, and the people of iowa, for the ann seltzer poll which incorrectlyhis. i shouldn't really be the one to do it. it should have been the justice department or somebody else. but i have to do it. costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press. our press is very corrupt. almost as corrupt as our elections. >> so, willie, let's sort through this. first of all, on abc, bill gruskin, of course, journalist, professor, said abc shouldn't have folded, shouldn't have paid the $15 million. at the same time, he called the interview a, quote, train wreck. said it opened up abc to liability, so at least there was a case there that would allow trump's lawyers to open up discovery, do the sort of things that nobody at abc, and none of the journalists would want, turning over, you know, cell phones, texts, emails, the sort of things that you see in some cases. so that is sitting right here. ann selzer, ann doesn't have to worry. "the des moines register," they don't have to worry. they're not going -- they will get get -- the trump team won't g