Trump's Cabinet Begins to Take Shape
50:03 Share

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

It's Wednesday, November 13th, right now on CNN This Morning. It's one thing to have DEI inside your corporation or inside your university. It's a whole other thing to have it inside the 101st Airborne. Surprise selection: Donald Trump picks a Fox News host and Army veteran as his defense secretary. Plus... It's time for a complete reset of our internal and international relationships. A familiar face: Mike Huckabee tapped to be Donald Trump's right-hand man in Israel. And...

I know what to do. I will get it done. I will make sure Trump's agenda is done, and I think that's why I'm going to win. Trump's man on the Hill? Senate Republicans meet today behind closed doors to vote on who will replace Mitch McConnell as their leader. And then... Fire 75% of the federal bureaucrats. We're going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.

It's a dogey-doge world. Federal workers' jobs at the mercy of Elon Musk, the president-elect naming him and Vivek Ramaswamy to run the Department of Government Efficiency, or the DOGE.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at New York City. It's a beautiful sunrise there on this Wednesday morning. It's so finally chilly here on the East Coast. We're finally going to get some winter weather. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. President-elect Donald Trump will set foot back in the Oval Office again today for the first time since he departed Washington in disgrace in 2021.

We can't show you pictures of the traditional luncheon between the outgoing president and the incoming one from 2020 because it didn't happen. This is the day that President Obama invited Trump to the White House back in 2016. Trump denied Biden this courtesy in 2020, as Trump denied that he had lost.

In 2016, Trump was relatively unprepared to govern. This time, Trump's visit to the Oval Office comes as the president-elect is already planning to remake government in his own image, and that includes the U.S. military. Donald Trump announcing last night he's selected Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Sources telling CNN that decision was based in part on Trump's respect for Hegseth's service in the Army.

and on optics, with one source saying, quote, Trump also thinks he has the look. The two have a longstanding relationship, with Hegseth having interviewed Trump a number of times on Fox, including this summer, when they had this now-telling exchange.

Laura from Nebraska said, "I'm the mother of two army officers. What are you going to do to rebuild our military?" And I would add to that, "Rip out the woke stuff that's happening, that all the vets and the service members see is embedded in our Pentagon right now." You know the military better than anybody. I'd put him in charge. I really would. I often think of it. You'd do a great job. I'd talk to him about it a little bit.

Hegseth's announcement coming as the Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump transition team is considering a draft of an executive order that would create a panel of retired military personnel empowered to review and recommend the removal of three and four star generals. That order is still a draft, but it's also in line with previous comments from Hegseth echoing Trump's claims that the military is being undermined.

It's one thing to have DEI inside your corporation or inside your university. It's a whole other thing to have it inside the 101st Airborne. You can move to a different state if you want to go to a different school or if you want a different tax rate. We only have one military, and if the military goes woke, then it is less equipped to fight the wars it needs to fight. I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.

It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. We've all served with women and they're great. It's just our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally, not traditionally, over human history, men in those positions are more capable.

All right. Our panel is here. Stephen Collins on CNN, senior politics reporter. Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios. Karen Finney, CNN political commentator, former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. And Brad Todd, CNN contributor and Republican strategist. Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here. Brad and also Karen, my...

Question is whether or not this man is going to be able to be confirmed, because if you look at the GOP senators reacting, Lisa Murkowski, quote, wow. Senator Tom Tillis, quote, interesting. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, I quote, I trust the president to make a good choice. Senator Todd Young, quote, I just don't know much about the background and his actions.

vision. Obviously, he's made these comments about women in the military and two women, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, probably not unwilling to vote against him if it were to come to that. Brad, what do you think? Is this man confirmable? I think he is. I think 53 Republican senators, that's just what a big victory gets you. A big victory gets you a little bit of cushion and confirmation. And I think we are not talking also about the lobbyists who are going to back

Pete Hegseth, and it's not the ones you'd think. You know, our armed forces has about 2.1 million people in uniform. About 775,000 of those people are in the Guard and Reserves. Pete Hegseth is going to make history as a National Guardsman, as the Secretary of Defense. Those people are politically active back home. They're adjutant generals and their states are active. I think you're going to see a big, big move by the National Guard to get Pete Hegseth confirmed. Well, there's one Republican lobbyist who was quoted as saying something I can't repeat on air.

using an F-bomb to describe the pick. Oh, I think we have that. Yes. Better you say it than me. Yes. Who the F is this guy? Defense world reacts to Trump's surprise Pentagon pick. That's going to help him. That's going to help him. But I think, look...

Two things. One, you said it in the intro, he looks good. We know that that's been an important criteria for Donald Trump, both in picking cabinet members, it was important when he was picking a VP pick. The question though, there are questions about whether or not he can actually manage. Has he ever managed something? I mean, the Pentagon is huge. Has he ever managed...

But I think, you know, Donald Trump was looking for someone who would just follow orders, who will say, when the president says, I want you to use troops on American soil against American people, he wants somebody who's not going to question that. And I think he got that. That's an outrageous, that's an outrageous allegation. Pete, Pete has... The president has already said that that's what he...

Karen, you know that's not. You know that's not. Stop with this. You lost. You lost, Karen. The election's over. Give the president a chance to run the country. Do what 75 million Americans voted for him. I'm just quoting what he said. He said that he might

consider using the military and American soil against Americans. The campaign's over. The campaign is over. I'm quoting your guy. I'm just quoting what he said. Karen, I don't want to cut you off. Your mic is not getting picked up correctly on the broadcast. So we're going to push pause. We're going to try to fix that. But we also have some breaking news. This just in.

The New York Times reporting this morning that Jack Smith, who is the special counsel who, of course, pursued two federal prosecutions of Donald Trump, is planning to finish his work and resign.

Before Mr. Trump, the Times reports, takes office in January, people familiar with his plans said. And the Times writes this, quote, Mr. Smith's goal is to not leave any significant part of his work for others to complete and to get ahead of the president-elect's promise to fire him within, quote, two seconds, end quote, forever.

of being sworn in. Stephen Collinson, you paint big pictures for us here at CNN. This is really the big picture of the new, of Trump having won this election the way that he did, the setting down of these prosecutions, the criminal accountability for what happened on January 6th. What does this mean? Well, it's a very tangible sign that Trump

as we know, because he won the election, is going to pay no price politically, potentially legally in a criminal trial for what happened four years ago and which we'll be reminded of today when the president-elect shows up to the White House to meet President Joe Biden. I think the key thing here is

By resigning now, Jack Smith will presumably give himself the chance to write a report summing up a lot of the evidence that he would have presented in a trial. And while I don't think that is going to change anything because Trump won the election, at least it puts it down on the historical record and justifies some of the decisions that he made. Yeah. Alex, how is this going to be viewed by, you know, kind of across the board here,

if there is a report, for example, sure to get backlash from the Trump team, but also likely to be seen as an important historical document on the Democratic side. Yeah, I mean, this is a classic example of you're not going to fire me, I quit. And what you're going to see is if he does write this report, it is going to make Trump do

do what he's already even be more motivated to do what he said he's going to do, which is basically declare war on the federal bureaucracy, because he felt that the federal bureaucracy undermined him last time. It's also why he picked the Fox News host to be defense secretary. He felt and a lot of people around him felt that James Mattis undermined him, tried to restrain him. I think the bigger takeaway is that if you thought that this next Trump administration is going to be more unrestrained in the last one.

Yeah, I mean, that's certainly something, you know, kind of a broad theme we've talked about so many times at this table and one that does seem to be being borne out here. I mean, Brad, right thing to do for Jack Smith? I don't think he has any choice. And I also think that over 70% of the American public think these prosecutions are politically motivated. That includes a lot of people who voted for Kamala Harris. And so I think this is just Jack Smith accepting the will of the American public. Agreed. Better to quit, get out of the country would be my advice.

Dramatic. All right, we're going to keep talking about this throughout the morning because straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton joins us live. We're going to ask him about the common threads that he sees as Donald Trump assembles his second White House. Plus...

As House Speaker Mike Johnson begins his fight to hold on to the gavel, we will hear from congressmen from both sides of the aisle, Republican Ryan Zinke and Democrat Pat Ryan. And President-elect Trump picks Mike Huckabee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Will any of his past comments complicate an already tense situation in the Middle East?

You're seeing a scrambling all over the Middle East of countries suddenly trying to behave differently because they know a new sheriff has come to town and this isn't a one-bullet Barney with a bullet in his shirt pocket. This is the real deal.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. There are nearly 7 million Americans living with Alzheimer's disease. Any progress in the field has seemed incremental at best. But in the process of filming a recent documentary called The Last Alzheimer's Patient, I saw some incredible signs of hope. It wasn't always about new expensive or experimental drugs, but lifestyle changes instead. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

There's only one solution: Hamas surrenders. This is like trying to negotiate with the Nazis in World War II. You just don't. You beat them. You defeat them. You eradicate them. Let's quit talking about a two-state solution because all that does is reward the actions of Hamas.

That's former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, now President-elect Trump's pick to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. The former Republican presidential candidate has been an unflinching advocate for Israel throughout his political and television career. CNN's Kay File uncovering this statement from Huckabee back in 2008.

Basically, there really is no such thing as, and I have to be careful saying this, because people just really get up there, there's really no such thing as a Palestinian. There's not. Huckabee also believes that if a Palestinian state is created, it should be situated in Egypt, Syria, or Jordan. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities, they're neighborhoods, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation.

All right, our panel is back. Stephen Collinson, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel, likely to welcome this pick. It's worth noting Huckabee is the first in quite some time to not be Jewish in this role, but of course evangelical Christians, and that's really kind of Huckabee's defining political identity, have a very specific relationship with the Jewish state, and you heard him articulate some of it here. What does it mean?

This is a clear sign that the administration's first-term policy, which was very solicitous towards the Netanyahu coalition,

will continue and will go even further. It will be regarded as a disaster by Palestinians who still are a long way from that two-state solution, which now seems almost likely never to happen given the events of the last year or so. I think it poses two real questions, notwithstanding the fact that the ambassador doesn't make the policy the president does.

How will this be seen by some of Trump's allies in the Arab world with whom, you know, he wants to create this realignment of the Middle East between Israel, some of the Gulf states and Iran? That could be a problem if this is the...

you know, the Trump policy. Yeah. I mean, Brad, how do you see that piece of this? Well, I think if you look back at the first Trump administration, the signature foreign policy success happened in Israel. Democrats lost their mind when Donald Trump moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even though that many of them had voted for it.

And then when he recognized the goal on heights, they said, "This is terrible. It's going to cause disruptions." It didn't. Instead, what happened is as soon as the United States was fully behind Israel without question, we got the Abraham Accords and a lot of Arab nations making peace with Israel for the first time. I think that Donald Trump has figured out the code on this. The United States has to stand with Israel and make it completely clear it stands with Israel. And then things will begin to take place and work out in the Middle East. I think it's a good pick. Mike Huckabee spent a ton of time in Israel. He has a lot of relationships there.

I think it's a good pick. - Just one thing I wanted to add is, Trump is doing exactly what he said he was gonna do, which is that he wanted Netanyahu to escalate the conflict, not deescalate the conflict. And there's gonna be a lot of potential, potentially civilian casualties if that happens. And if you see that happen, you're going to see this become even more of a fight on the left part of the Democratic Party.

I think that's true, but I also think it will be, you know, if the violence continues to unravel in the way that we've seen and he's not able to actually stop the violence, that's going to be a stain on his administration early on, depending upon how this plays out. All right. Still coming up here on CNN this morning, Donald Trump, as we've just been discussing, making good on his campaign promises. One of them, Elon Musk, the new role the president-elect has selected for the tech mogul. Plus,

In just hours, Senate Republicans set to choose their next leader. The area around the Jennings Creek fire burning on the New Jersey-New York border is getting some much needed relief today. Let's get to our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning. What are folks, what should they expect this morning?

Yeah, Casey improving conditions, but we're not out of the woods just yet. Right along that I-95 corridor it will be cool, windy and very dry today. That's why we still have our red flag warnings in place for parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, even Long Island. But notice we're

where the Jennings Creek Fire is located near that border of New York and New Jersey not included. So conditions there improving, but we still have very dry air. You can just see how the relative humidity levels dropped so quickly throughout the course of the morning hours out of that wind from the northwest gusting to 20 to 30 MPH at times, especially this morning, improving conditions by this evening. There is a storm system across the central parts of the U. S. It'll bring some rain to the plains in the Ohio River Valley. Here's a quick

look at your temperatures told you it'd be cool 48 in New York City. I want to direct your attention to what's forming across the southwestern Caribbean, an area that the National Hurricane Center has identified as a 90% probability of tropical development within the next seven days. This is the computer models you can see could impact the Yucatan Peninsula and then a general curve to the northeast that could bring impacts middle to second half of next week

into the Florida Peninsula, something we need to monitor, pay very close attention to as we get closer through the course of the weekend. Casey, we'll be all over it. All right, Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, I hope you don't have to come back and cover that for the sake of everyone in this path, but we appreciate you if you do. Thank you. Okay. All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning. Wow, interesting. Just a couple of the reactions from senators who will have to vote on Trump's choice for defense secretary.

Up next, we're going to talk to Congressman Pat Ryan, a veteran himself, for reaction on how Trump is shaping this new administration. Plus, key leadership votes happening today on Capitol Hill that will tell us who will be leading the next Congress. The MAGA agenda is what they approved of, and that was not the agenda that was focused on in this majority of Republicans. And I think that is a clear point that has to be recognized.

I'm CNN's John King. Join me for the podcast, All Over the Map. The election, of course, is behind us now. And in some ways, it was a stunner of an outcome. So we're going to return today to the voices of the people we've gotten to know in the last year and a half. I think a lot of people that's hurting right now, especially women. People around me were in the closet about how they were going to vote. I have so much hope. Listen to All Over the Map wherever you get your podcasts.

Trump, and we just got this news like a minute ago, hired Pete Hegseth. You know who this is? He's a guy on the Fox and Friends weekend edition to be secretary of defense. Hulk Hogan must be devastated. Trump's pick for secretary of defense, conservative commentator, army veteran Pete Hegseth, taking some in the defense world by surprise. I confess I didn't know who he was until 20 minutes ago.

Hegseth, who has previously said he opposes women serving in combat roles and opposes military DEI initiatives, is a close Trump ally and likely to carry out Trump's intended Pentagon shakeup. Trump's vision for the military encapsulated in this video he posted last month.

You little scumbag! I got your name! I got your ass! You will not laugh! You will not cry! You will learn by the numbers! Happy Pride. Happy Pride Month. And actually, let's declare it a summer of pride. I love working for Uncle Sam! I love working for Uncle Sam!

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan of New York. He is a West Point graduate who served two combat tours in Iraq, now sits on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thank you so much for being here. Morning. You, of course, also in your race, outperformed the Democratic presidential nominee by a considerable margin.

amount. So you are in one of those places where people were willing to send you back here to Washington, but they also wanted to vote for Donald Trump. I want to ask you why. I also want to ask you off the top, what is your reaction to the announcement that Trump will nominate Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense? Is he qualified? This is such a serious time in the world and arguably the most serious cabinet position.

I just don't think he's a serious person from, I think, an unserious president who dodged the draft five times, called our troops suckers and losers, fundamentally misunderstands what selfless service is about and insulted Gold Star families and Medal of Honor recipients. And sadly, this is not

surprising to me, but it's incredibly concerning. Specifically, some of this Wall Street Journal reporting about a proposed executive order about military purges echoing sort of Stalin's military purges. And Hegseth has been on the record supporting those kinds of things. So we are, especially on the Armed Services Committee, really going to have to keep a watchful eye on somebody like this. He would be the most political and I think one of the least qualified secretary of defense in our history.

You, of course, are in the House, not the Senate. The Senate will have to vote to confirm him. Do you think he will get confirmed through the Republican Senate?

Well, I think these kind of nominees are why you see Trump putting this sort of purity test forward for Senate leadership of these recess under the cover of darkness appointments, because he knows he's putting forth people that might not be qualified by the normal oversight role that Congress should play. Look, regardless of party, this is a country founded on checks and balances. We have to maintain that constitutional principle. And I worry that

a guy like this could sneak through. So we've got a, I hope we can at least have a proper process and real vetting.

So as someone who's been in combat, I mean, you understand the realities of fighting, what that actually means. You saw the contrast there that the way Trump tried to portray things. We have heard a little bit more from Hegteth about what he thinks about women serving in the military, for example. He thinks they shouldn't serve in combat. What do you say to to that? I mean, is he standing? What kind of ground is he standing on?

What made certainly my platoon and my company, my battalion so strong is we all understood we had a mission larger than ourself, and each of us had something unique we could bring to that. It's such a narrow, I think, selfish view of what service and selflessness means to exclude rather than do the work to bring people together. And so we've got to do better than that as a country, and we owe our troops that. I mean, these are people that have—

willingly put their life on the line. And I think it's disrespectful to them. - So Congressman, let's talk about the politics of this for a second, because obviously part of that ad that the Trump team put out, there are components of this masculinity, femininity. We talked so much about the gender gap. And like we said, you won your race by about 11 points. Politico said that you did it by distancing yourself from Joe Biden early.

ditching a typical partisan framing, but also that you leaned into a masculinity that appealed to young, disaffected men in a different kind of way than Donald Trump did. And of course, they note you did serve in combat. And they reference this ad that you aired in your district on masculinity. I want to show it to everyone and then ask you about it. Take a look. Pat Ryan is a different kind of Democrat. As county executive, he cut property taxes and fought to lower housing costs.

combated illegal gun and drug trafficking, and read hundreds of bedtime stories. Yep. Congressman Pat Ryan, West Point graduate, combat veteran, living room wrestling champion. I'm Pat Ryan, and I approve this message. What are you trying to show your voters there with that ad, and why do you think it resonated? We had a lot of fun making that ad. A lot of takes to get the Legos right with my five-year-old. I have a five-year-old boy. I cannot imagine. I mean...

One, just be normal. Be human. We orient so much around this, are you moderate? Are you progressive? Are you conservative? Are you liberal? People are just worried about their family and want someone who is

clear-eyed about the risks and the threat and the economic pressure, but also optimistic and positive in thinking about building something for their kids. And on the point of masculinity, I think this is really existential in our country right now. Trump and the MAGA movement offer this selfish, narrow, I think isolating view of what masculinity is. When I talk to young people, especially young men, they want to be part of something bigger than themself.

And we have an opportunity and I would say an obligation in the Democratic Party to offer that now. I'm going to try to work on national service legislation again this Congress. I think that's one of the antidotes to this really, I think, un-American view of masculinity that's being offered by Trump.

Congressman, how much of the broad losses that Democrats, you did not sustain this loss, but that your party sustained, is about culture, is about some progressive cultural ideas going too far? I think it's about getting caught in the culture war rather than staying grounded in where

where real people are, real families are. The affordability crisis, we centered it every single day in my campaign. We made it local and visceral and human and showed the fight that regardless of any labels or ideology, I was there to fight for every single person and against. Like, we were clear about who the bad actors are that are harming and putting this pressure on people. And I think if we get too caught in the echo chamber of the culture war bubble,

people are just like, "Oh, okay, you're just another one of those. You're just trying to divide us." When I have existential challenges that I'm trying to face to put food on the table for my family, and so

I think that was part of our success, and a lot of others did this too. I mean, we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the future, where we saw great performances in statewide races, and I would say especially from military veterans. Ruben Gallego winning, Jeff Jackson winning,

in North Carolina statewide. A lot of my House colleagues won tough races, the Cristoluzios of the world and others. So let's focus on where we did well and try to replicate that rather than beating each other up over and over and over and finger-pointing and blaming. Yeah, well, thank you very much for your service. I think it's wise to point out that it's thankfully valued by a lot of people across the country in a lot of different places. Congressman Pat Ryan, thanks for being here. I appreciate it.

All right, straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, Doge back in the headlines. Donald Trump announcing a new Department of Government Efficiency, you can do the abbreviation, the two allies he's putting in charge there. Plus, Fox anchor Pete Hegseth tapped to head up the Department of Defense. We will discuss with two members of Trump's first administration.

I think Pete Hegseth is clearly going to do whatever Donald Trump wants him to do. And Donald Trump has made it very clear that he is going to politicize the entire executive branch. I would say that, you know, I'm concerned. I wouldn't say it as hysterically as Golden is, but I would say that, you know, I have some concerns that we're seeing a lot of Bronnie Jameses and not many Steph Currys.

Not a lot of Steph Currys. That was former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb with a not-so-ringing endorsement of the president-elect's most recent choices for his cabinet. In the last 24 hours, Trump has named South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem Homeland Security Secretary, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, his pick to lead the CIA, and now Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary.

Joining us now to discuss all of this is John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former national security advisor to Donald Trump, who has, of course, since become an outspoken critic of his former boss. Sir, thanks very much for being here. Glad to be with you. So, Mr. Ambassador, I want to start with the defense secretary choice. This is someone who's

is clearly very close to Donald Trump. That's why he was selected, it seems. What, in your view, are the implications of Mr. Hegseth potentially running the Defense Department?

Well, I think he clearly is a loyalty choice. I think that's what Trump is after. As I've said before, I don't think loyalty is really the right word. I think it's fealty. I think what Trump wants from his appointees is subservience.

You know, in the days of Imperial China, when an envoy from foreign barbarians came to see the emperor, he had to prostrate himself on the ground full out and knock his forehead on the ground three times before the emperor would recognize him. That's what Trump thinks of as loyalty. And the question, whether it's for Pete Hegseth or any of the other appointees,

It is, are they prepared to be that kind of yes man or yes woman? I don't know what Hegseth's performance is going to be. He performed honorably in his military service, and if he lives up to that ideal, he won't be afraid to tell the president what he thinks.

Sir, what are the potential scenarios where a defense secretary under Donald Trump may have to decide between following the norms and expectations, laws around the use of our military and the orders of the commander in chief?

Well, I think there are going to be quite a lot of them. I think the Defense Department and the Justice Department are the two flashpoints where, for example, Trump has said on many prior occasions he'd use the military for law enforcement purposes in this country. There are statutes that deal with that.

There are circumstances where it's permissible. Dwight Eisenhower used the military and the desegregation controversy in the Little Rock schools because there was a Supreme Court decision at stake. I don't think that's Trump's model of how to do it. And the question is, will a defense secretary in a Trump administration abide by the law? And if Trump orders him to violate the law, will he then resign or will he carry it out? Those are questions legitimate for the confirmation process.

I mean, do you think Pete Hegseth would sign off on using the military against Americans in the context of, say, protests as Donald Trump raised during the campaign? I don't know. I don't know. I will say that his military service was very commendable.

And the question is, will he behave keeping his personal integrity and his loyalty to the Constitution uppermost? I don't know him well enough to know the answer to that question. Maybe other people do. Maybe you've just interviewed one of them. He seems to know the answer to it. I don't. I'll say it frankly.

Mr. Ambassador, let me also ask you about this panel. The Wall Street Journal has reported that there is an executive order being crafted to evaluate generals, admirals, flag officers. We were just speaking with Congressman Pat Ryan. He's a Democrat. He's a West Point grad, also served. Raised concerns about that. What impact would such a panel have on the U.S. military?

Well, I think it's a big mistake. I think it looks like politicizing the military. And I think that that is the sort of action that's very poorly thought out. If the Trump administration wants to change Biden administration policies in the woke area, it's

perfectly entitled to do that but the way it does it is by telling the military and civilian uh... officials in the defense department that there's a new sheriff in town the policies change and they better get with the program but coming in with an outside panel review uh... to the snacks really of an effort uh... to do exactly what they accuse the biden administration of doing which is politicizing a military that we have worked

decades, centuries even, to make nonpolitical. And to put that at risk, I think, is very serious. All right. Ambassador John Bolton, very grateful to have you on the show today, sir. Thanks very much for your perspective. Thanks for having me.

All right, let's turn now to the key leadership election. It's happening just hours from now on Capitol Hill. This morning, Senate Republicans will determine via secret ballot who will replace Mitch McConnell as majority leader. The next leader likely to be either Senator John Thune, John Cornyn or Rick Scott. Trump is in Washington today and he is set to meet with the newly elected leader later. He's not endorsed a candidate. His MAGA allies, though, have mounted a very public pressure campaign to elect Senator Rick Scott.

What do you think about this pressure campaign that's being launched by people who support Rick Scott calling senators' offices and the like? Are you getting those calls? Yeah, yeah, but I think it's great. I mean, I just think people ought to be able to weigh in. Is that swaying you? Listen, this is the big leagues, right? So if you're not prepared for that, you're probably in the wrong gig. My phone has been ringing off the wall. My email has been lit up. People want somebody that's going hand-in-hand that's also a business guy like Rick Scott that can work with President Trump.

All right, joining us now, Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke of Montana, also former commander of SEAL Team 6 and former Interior Secretary under Donald Trump, who now sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, wonderful to see you. Thanks for being here. Great to be with you. So obviously, the Senate Republicans are going to choose their top leader. The question,

being whether or not this person, how this person might work with Donald Trump. Trump has yet to weigh in as someone who has served both in the legislature, obviously not the Senate, but in the legislature as well, in the Congress, as well as in a Trump administration. What do you think your fellow Republicans in the Senate should be considering as they make this choice? Well, it's very difficult for a House member to comment sometimes in the Senate because I call it Mount Olympus.

But, you know, the Senate has to work with the president. And from a House frustration point of view, the Senate has blocked a lot of what the House wants to do, particularly on the budget.

The way the Constitution is erected, remember, is the House is supposed to present the funding bills. That's what appropriations, and the Senate has refused to pick them up. So what I'm hoping is we get back to order, that we have a Senate leadership that understands the Constitution and understands the process is the House passes the funding bills that are received by the Senate. The Senate puts amendments on them, and then they go to a conference committee,

And if we understand the process, we can get things done. I can tell you 34 trillion reasons why it hasn't been done. And that's our debt. Fair enough. All right, Congressman, I want to also ask you, because you are also a veteran, a very distinguished one, about Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense. This is what Mr. Hedgeseth recently had to say about women in combat roles. Watch this.

I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. We've all served with women and they're great. It's just our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally, not traditionally, over human history, men in those positions are more capable.

Congressman, what's your reaction to that? And what impact will it have on his confirmation in the Senate? Well, actually, I think it's a pretty good choice. You know, you look at former secretaries, whether it was Perry, Aspen, they didn't have a military background. He obviously does. And his service is honorable. He's a veteran. He understands it from a soldier's point of view.

He is absolutely going to need some deputies around him that understand the institution, that gives him good advice. And I think he will stand up against the president, win the president, if the president has an unlawful order, I think. You do? I do. I do. That's UCMJ. I think officers and those that are in the service understand the difference between a lawful and an unlawful order.

On women in combat, from a, you know, I was commander at SEAL Team Six. There are great roles and missions, but they're different. There are physical differences between men and women, and some of the harder combat roles that require physical attributes.

I think those should be reserved. But I have also fought alongside women in special operations roles that are oftentimes more dangerous. The women counterparts oftentimes are more trained than the SEAL counterparts. There's roles and missions for everyone involved in the military. But when it comes to physical endurance, there's difference between men and women.

and let's call it the way it is. It's not that everyone has an important part to do in a military role. And I think there's roles and missions for everybody, but there are differences. So I agree and I disagree.

Do you have any concerns about the proposed executive order that The Wall Street Journal has reported that would potentially fire flag officers in the United States military based on their apparent political or perceived political opinions? Well, I think the military is in need of reform, reorganization. The last time the military was reorganized was 1984. I asked the question, what's different since 1984?

Well, what's the same? Not much. And so the military itself has to be reorganized. I'm thinking the reorganization is probably going to be along those lines. The woke is a concern in the military. But I do agree with John Bolden in that the military is used to taking orders.

You should give the military the commands as a commander in chief. That's your responsibility. And if the military doesn't follow those orders, if they're lawful, then there's consequences to be had. But I do think, you know, our military is the strongest ever assembled. I have great confidence in our military and I have great confidence that Pete's had Seth given that he has deputies around him that are experienced. So we'll be fine.

Okay, we'll be fine. We'll be more than fine. We'll be great. All right, Congressman Ryan Zinke, so grateful to have you on the program. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure. Come back soon. Okay. All right, now this. Shut it down. And this will send shockwaves through the system. Those are the first comments from Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk after being named by Donald Trump to a new Department of Government Efficiency Committee.

The DOGE, the advisory board, being tasked by the president-elect to find ways to slash the federal budget by July 4th of 2026. That is, of course, America's 250th birthday. Musk wrote this on his social media site, X, formerly Twitter. They will also have a leaderboard of the, quote, most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. The topic of government spending has been a focus for both Ramaswamy and Musk while campaigning for Donald Trump.

Shut down the FBI. Shut down the ATF. Shut down the CDC. Shut down the US Department of Education. Fire 75% of the federal bureaucrats in Washington DC. Your money is being wasted and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that. We're going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.

All right, our panel has returned. So Alex, this is the role for Elon Musk. There's been no shortage of people pointing out that two people at the top of one government agency may in itself be an example of inefficiency. But setting that aside,

What does this actually look like? What does this actually mean? It does seem like it potentially puts a lot of federal jobs at the mercy of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. - Yeah, there's a lot of white space that has not been filled in yet. This is, it's being labeled or branded as a department, but it's not an actual department. It's more of just a task force outside of the government. Now what's gonna be really interesting is to see

what sort of power they actually have. Do they go in and they deliver a report to Trump and be like, we recommend this? Or do they go in, like Elon did to Twitter, right, goes in and says, all these people are useless, calls up Trump and says, can you give me the ability to fire them? You know, there's a lot we don't know. And it could be one of the most disruptive task force we've ever seen. We can only hope.

I can only hope it's disruptive. The federal government is a mess. We have FEMA people say you can't have aid if you have a Trump sign in your yard. I mean, we need to put the federal bureaucracy on notice that this is not business as usual. The American people voted for disruption, so we can only hope it's disruptive. I mean, I think the question is whether or not it is done

It would not be, I mean, if we look at how when Elon took over X, right, the first day there were certain things they couldn't do because whoops, he didn't realize that by firing certain departments who did perform certain functions, there was nobody there. - Well, like child safety would be a very important piece that was really effective. - Right, so I think the question is just what is the methodology with which they approach this? Is it just, you know, get rid of the ATF?

Okay, then who is going to take up those functions? And the question becomes, if there are functions that we believe government should continue to perform, what does the new configuration look like? That would be the question. And as Alex said, there's a lot of blank space.

next to those two names. - For bipartisan cooperation though, Democrats run on government inefficiency too. It doesn't really, they don't change much, but they do run on it a lot. And frankly, both parties have been guilty of it. That's part of the reason Donald Trump was picked, was to disrupt the Republican and Democrat parties in the way of doing business as usual in Washington. It's a good chance for cooperation if Democrats will do it. - I was gonna say, Steve, I mean, this is not like a new idea under the sun.

right, that the government needs to be adjusted. I mean, I remember when Tom Coburn was in the Senate, every year we would get a giant PDF of like all of the things that he wanted to get rid of. Al Gore was going to reinvent government 25 years ago. Actually, he did. Actually, on some of the forms, it literally will say at the bottom, this form has been shortened by blah, blah, blah, reinventing government. I'm not kidding. But my question would be, is this...

department going to come up with some cuts that donald trump may not actually want if they're going to say we're going to cut 2 trillion from the federal budget which is what 6.5 6.75 that's going to involve a lot of political pain but i think the fact we're sitting around here we're questioning whether

"Musk is qualified to do this, Ramaswamy, same at the Defense Department." That is part of the point. Trump came in promising disruption and change. That's what his voters wanted.

even if some of these people are qualified and it turns out to be a disaster, for some of Trump's voters, that's enough because if government doesn't work, that's a success. Just one note of caution that some people have pointed out that Donald Trump really believes he has this enormous mandate. But you actually look, he only won by 250,000 votes across the three blue wall states. That's the only margin of victory. And it's still unclear if those people

in the middle were voting for sort of old Trump, nostalgia Trump, which was a little bit more restrained by the institutions, or they were voting for mass disruption. Well, you're still going to have institutional constraints, right? Congress has an appropriations process, although it hasn't been doing it. We've been doing all the spending by executive order and through CRs with four people in Congress coming to the conclusion. So if what

this commission does is to push the Overton window and challenges Congress to actually exercise its appropriations authority, that'll be a great thing. I think the bigger challenge is the two big personalities that have been- Well, I was just going to say, we didn't even get to this. There's an anonymous quote in Politico from a Trump insider this morning that suggests, quote, Elon is getting a little big for his britches, end quote. So that's going to have to be a discussion for another day, but it's going to be

one that's going to be looming here for us. Thank you guys very much for joining us. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.