aaron, the bill sets programs and policies for the pentagon. how important is it for pentagon operations and for the funding that those programs require? so the national defense authorization act, essentially, it's the defense policy bill. this is seen on the hill and it's one of the must-pass bills and this is how much we'll pay members of the military and this is how many plane, how many ships and how many guns we're going to buy and this is how we want to invest and it can include policy, and regarding some movements in some cases and overseas exercises and things like that. it is very much the bill that sets the next year of the military and in some cases the next five years of the military planning. >> it is seen in the pent fwon as something they need to get done every year and it is done as a point of pride they get done every year and it is backed each year by the congressional leadership. this year it might get tricky and we'll see what happens and this is a bill that at the end of the day members of congress will come together and mak

it sets programs and policies for the pentagon how important is it for pentagon operations and the funding that those diprograms require? back the national defense authorization act as the defense policy bill seen on the hill is the best passed bill especially this is how much we will pay members of the military how many planes, ships, guns will buy, buy, and includes policies with overseas exercises. it's the pool that sets the next five years of military planning is something that is seen that they need to get done every year is a big enterprise every year and that prize the congressional leadership this year might be a little bit tricky we will see what happens there is confidence every year this is a bill at the end of the day they will come together to make sure it goes tough. host: there are two different versions how far apart are they quick. >> we just went through the conferencing process so essentially now we know there is one version that they came together to make agreements. with a republican senate and democratic house there were issues of contention but the leadershipe of th

i think the pentagon is simply in turmoil right now.t's because we've had four or five secretaries of defense, depending on how you count it, over the last four years. therefore i think a figure like lloyd austin with an unimpeachable combat record, who is well-liked, a team personality, who can walk into the building and command instant respect, i think that makes sense as we look at the field in front of us. again, having said that, ideally we would always have, if you will, a pure civilian running the pentagon so that we have good civilian control over the military. but as the senate wrestles with this, i hope they take into account the quality of lloyd as well as, frankly, the historic aspect of being the first african-american to lead this department. i'm for him. >> certainly that is an important factor, 40% of the military rank and file are minorities, black, latinos, asians as well. claire mccaskill, former senator, senator jack reed, of course, ranking on the senate armed services committee, expressed concern over providing the

but we lost in very quick succession the pentagon intelligence chief, the pentagon policy chief, the pentagon chief of staff, even the guy in charge of the task force to defeat isis. all of those people were ousted and replaced in short order by larry, curly and moe. no offense to the actual stooges. they really did bring in a series of young, not particularly well respected junior-level staffers, trump guys, and like republican house staffers who had mostly been run out of lower-level jobs for getting involved in embarrassing conspiracy theory stunts around stuff like the russia investigation and the mess around mike flynn. they brought in, like, the "g" team, not only not the "a" team, but like really the -- like the people who flunked out of intern-level stuff. today they just nominated -- they actually nominated to the senate the new person they want to be installed as the assistant secretary of defense for international security. it's a big-deal job, right? this is a guy who since the election has called for trump to impose martial law because he says trump secretly won the elec

pentagon used tanks spend money meant for mosques and swabs to make jet engine parts and body armor and people are wondering where the heck the trillions of dollars it would relieve just for a 2nd that's 12 zeroes where that covert money has gone ok so if issues are now calling for the pentagon to be investigated for such brazen misuse of money desperately needed elsewhere what about the rest turns out there's a 1000000 other dubious ways to spend covert relief money are you tired of white supremacy. welcome to the club called $1800.00 burn it down resources for the revolution snack block and a parent group that helped organize b.l.m. protests a group that supports and enables the rights of writers that have shaken america qualified for $145000.00 in covert relief parity the group which has new web page and only recently started a twitter account is vital to the community systemic racism is a blight on civilization but this is kind of it relief money right see this is something the pentagon doesn't get either this is money for the desperate for losing pain because of the virus lot money

but this is the latest reminder of trump's dangerous approach to the pentagon.st recently, he's fired senior officials at d.o.d. and replaced them with conspiracy theorists like general tata. he's removed experts from defense policy boards and instead appointed acolytes like corey lewandowski. i'm, corey lewandowski, seriously, it's ridiculous. at the same time, we have to remember that while the new secretary of defense can remove unqualified political appointees, with 47 days until inauguration, these moves are not without impact. we're drawing down in iraq, somalia, and afghanistan, and we have an islamaphobe, general tata, leading policy at the pentagon. we have a trump loyalist kash patel inappropriately involving himself in transition and separately, trump is threatening to veto the national defense authorization act for an unrelated personal vendetta. overall, ana, these measures are the opposite of supporting our military. instead, it looks like president trump is waging a war on the pentagon. >> and sam, in a "wall street journal" op-ed this week, direc

pentagon has a role in that. the pentagon is also involved with trying to do troop withdraws in afghanistan now, something president trump has been calling for before inauguration day. my colleague at the washington post who covers the military beat has been digging into this and reporting that while the trump administration is calling this a mutually agreed upon holiday break, that's not what the biden team is saying and not a luxury to have a two-week house in this transfer of information. holiday breaks sound great in theory but this is a critical ju juncture between two administrations but also in the national security of the country. >> hey, libby, you did mention the vaccines and there was "new york times" reporting a couple weeks ago talking about how we'll fall off a cliff. they didn't accept the extra 100,000 doses. the u.s. government could have got an extra 100,000 doses for free. they didn't take the bait on that. nobody knows why. so we may not have enough vaccines to get to the american people that

the bill sets programs and policies for the pentagon, how important is it for pentagon operations and for the funding that those programs require? >> the national defense authorization act, the ndaa, essentially it's the defense policy bill. this is seen on the hill as one of the must need bill. this is essentially how muchby pay the military, haow many plane, how many ships we're going to by. it includes policies regarding troop movements in some cases, overseas exercises, things like that. it's pretty much the bill that sets the military, in some cases, the next five years of military plan. it's seen in the pentagon as something they need to get done every year. it's seen in the defense community as a point of pride that they get it done every year. it's largely backed by the congressional leadership. this year, it might be a little tricky, we'll see what happens but there's a lot of confidence, at the end of the day, members of congress come together and actually make sure it gets through. >> so there are two different versions. the house and senate versions. how far apart are they

the pentagon even gets coronavirus relief funds and even those get misplaced one would think the scale of carelessness would inquire some serious reform but so far everything seems to stay the same and the pentagon maintains its several 100 $1000000000.00 annual budget to the frustration of many with little to no accountability it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the u.s. doesn't really care where its weapons and funds end up just as long as there's constant demand for them i think the problem has historically been that once you get into. the far reaches of the country a lot a lot of the inventory just goes missing it's that it's not properly inventoried and it passes from and and and eventually u.s. forces generally lose track of what they need human sensitive equipment such as your night vision a more great programs get going in moments here nor to after a quick look at what else is being served up over the next week or so for you check out if anything takes your fancy why don't you buy for. calibers some demonstrators right now the propaganda machine. is going to russia. lead. vo

and that last guy, the new pentagon intelligence chief, all of 34 years old, he's now not only the pentagon'ss also in charge of, well, you can't quite believe it. trump's new last-minute lame duck defense secretary appointee just changed the structure of the military so that special ops, special operations, think like navy s.e.a.l.s, they all now report to that 34-year-old guy. and now that 34-year-old guy, the junior staffer who's running the pentagon's intelligence operations and special ops -- his name is ezra cohen. now he's just been given more responsibility. the trump administration has now suddenly and without warning ousted the head of the defense department's defeat isis task force. this is an intelligence officer who has worked counterterrorism jobs in the u.s. government for two decades. his whole defeat isis office has been disbanded, and his responsibilities have been handed over to trump's brand-new junior-level appointees, ezra cohen and the obama is a terrorist leader guy. those guys are taking over the responsibilities from the guy who was running the operations against isi

joe biden has put him up to run the pentagon. joe biden knowing it's a controversial choice, you have to be retired for seven years out of the military before you can be the civilian commander at the pentagon. the belief is the pentagon is by now so broken, you need a guy who looks like that and is comfortable with four stars on his shoulders to run it. so biden took the unusual step of writing his explanation in an article for atlantic magazine. what are we to make of this, and is it going to be a true fight that biden faces over this? >> well, we'll have to see about that. this is an actual policy dispute. i know we spend so much time talking about just bare knuckled politics. this is a civilian control, you want someone at the helm of the military who is not himself or herself within the rank and feeling just compelled to follow the orders of the commander in chief being the president of the united states. you want someone who is a little removed so that they can make more dispassionate and objective decision making. but we sa

the pentagon has yet again lost track of its toys according to a new report by the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction the department of defense lost track of quote some of the most sensitive articles provided to the afghan military the last gear includes night vision devices surveillance systems and even controls for laser guided explosives the sensitive equipment was supposed to be inventoried by the u.s. every year to ensure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands but apparently that's exactly what happened after the pentagon failed to keep count of this precious gear the command has never met its 100 percent inventory requirement and is unlikely to ever do so because the security situation in afghanistan prevents some inventories from taking place the report found that in 2019 and afghan forces filed over 3000 change of use requests for the transferred articles almost half of which were captured by enemy forces and the others destroyed damaged or simply lost however the pentagon doesn't seem to be too broken up about the whole ordeal nothing has actually changed

the pentagon is pushing back on that. what are you hearing this morning?the pentagon is pushing back on that through unnamed officials overnight, really disputing what the president-elect is saying. we should point out these are political appointees of the president, the current president, outgoing president pushing back on all of this notion that the biden transition has been blocked in some way from receiving briefings but we do know that they have. really, this is bubbling up the last several weeks and it came to a head last week when the biden transition team suddenly learned they were blocked from these transition meetings with the pentagon. so we're getting a new statement this morning just in a few minutes from the biden transition team from spokesman ned price, who is pushing back again at the pentagon officials. he says this, let's take a look. he said, there's been no substantial progress since officials spoke to the intransigence of the department's political leadership late last week. and we said no department is move pivotal to national securi

the pentagon even gets coronavirus relief funds and even those get misplaced one would think the scale of carelessness would inquire some serious reform but so far everything seems to stay the same and the pentagon maintains its several 100 $1000000000.00 annual budget to the frustration of many with little to no accountability it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the u.s. doesn't really care where its weapons and funds end up just as long as there's constant demand for them i think the problem has historically been that once you get into. the far reaches of the country a lot o. . a lot of the inventory just goes missing it's that it's not properly inventoried it passes from and and and eventually u.s. forces journal you lose track of the human sense of the brickwork such as your night vision. but the spies may really be given a license to kill under u.k. law controversial legislation being considered in the house of lords would protect agents from prosecution for serious crimes they've committed abroad comes as a new report reveals the extent to which they've already been acting wit

this, the first black leading the pentagon. every time he does something he thinks should make part of the democratic paerrty happy, someone else is unhappy. >> the campaign saying he would have the most diverse cabinet in history, he is trying to fulfill that promise. when you do that, you have a high bar to meet with constituen constituencies that want to be part of it, want members of their communities represented in limited number of cabinet positions. it makes it difficult when you have specific groups that want their members, they're pushing for their members, specifically when it comes to high ranking cabinet officials like defense department, attorney general, treasury secretary, a number of different officials that joe biden has already named, a few that are still remaining. he will be pushing hard. there's going to be some question between different groups jockeying for positions about how to allocate various positions, make sure the most qualified person is put in positions and make sure none of the groups are left o

cnn's pentagon reporter ryan brown is joining us now. what more can you tell you about o'grady? he'll be confirmed when we have just 47 days to go in the president's presidency? >> reporter: that's a key point. there isn't much time left in trump's presidency. it's hard to imagine that there could be a confirmation vote installing o'grady at the senior pentagon post. that being said, our cnn's k-file team has discovered a series of retweets and other statements by o'grady that have propagated some pretty outlandish and fringe conspiracy theories, accusing opponents of president trump of attempting a coup, retweeting a proposal by retired general mike flynn to institute some kind of martial law to rerun the election. he was consistently pushing these theories despite being nominated. it's unlikely he'll be installed, but it shows it's the latest of officials that the trump administration has attempted to put at senior positions or seen as arch political loyalists. ograde would chaired veterans for trump, a former fighter pilot shot down behind enemy lines during the balkans inter

he'll settle the pentagon. he'll be a key member of president biden's team. >> retired admiral james stavridis, thank you. >>> we turn now back to president trump's ongoing attempts to subvert the election results. as joe mentioned earlier "the washington post" is reporting that president trump called pennsylvania's house speaker twice last week to request help in overturning the state's election results. the phone calls which were confirmed by house speaker brian cutler's office make pennsylvania the third state where trump has directly attempted to overturn a result since he lost the election to joe biden. he also reached out to republicans in michigan and georgia governor brian kemp. a spokesperson for cutler tells nbc news that the president did not pressure cutler to overturn the election saying, quote, it was a conversation and briefing on the changes to pennsylvania election law, the impacts of the state supreme court and our election process and what challenges are ongoing in court as a result of those

awarded microsoft is to a $1000000000.00 cloud contract for the pentagon amazon believed as did most of the world that amazon was the company that was going to receive this bid and the reason amazon believes that talk about corruption is because the request for proposal was actually written specifically for amazon there were certain terms that were written into this request for proposal this r.f.p. that would have made amazon really the only company that could have fulfilled it but because the pentagon under the truck was going to stretch and said we're going with microsoft instead amazon is claiming oh it's because president trump doesn't like jeff bezos because he owns the washington post and the washington post as me. about trump therefore trying to use corrupt practices but the bottom line is this there the reality is the pentagon is not required to use anyone and the fact they didn't use amazon amazon thinks they're going to hold this thing up in court and prevent this cloud computing going forward based on what because they think they should have been awarded the contract they

lloyd austin, if confirmed, he would be the first african-american to lead the pentagon. here's abc's martha raddatz. >> reporter: four-star army general lloyd austin spent 41 years in uniform, retiring just four years ago. >> i've only known one life, and that is the life of a soldier. >> reporter: a life that could propel him into the history books, after president-elect joe biden nominated him to be the first african-american defense secretary in u.s. history. as a civilian, of course, not a soldier, which is where things get complicated. austin has decades of battlefield experience. i flew out of baghdad with him in 2011, when all u.s. troops pulled out of iraq. >> we really do think that we have helped move this forward. >> reporter: but three years later, the u.s. was back with isis rolling through iraq and syria. austin facing tough questions about the $500 million effort to train syrian fighters which was fizzling. austin is well-respected on the hill but would need a waiver to serve as a civilian. some senators are concerned about a waiver, but senators will clea

if confirmed, he would be the first african-american to lead the pentagon. >>> sweeping punishments at ft. hood following the death of vanessa guillen. 14 senior leaders fired or suspended by the pentagon tonight. >>> armed police raid the home of a scientist in florida. the state's former covid data tracker. she claims offers pointed guns at her children and she says this is retaliation. >>> and paying tribute tonight to an american hero. chuck yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. america's greatest pilot. >>> good evening and it's great to have you with us here on a tuesday night. and we begin tonight with the historic milestone in this global fight against the coronavirus. the first pfizer vaccine shots administered in the uk and tonight news here in the u.s., as well. that key 53-page report from the fda on the pfizer vaccine. and their encouraging findings in just a moment here. it was early this morning in the uk, 90-year-old grandmother margaret keenan rolling up her sleeve and becoming the first person in the world to get that pfizer