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A focus now on the Trump transition effort.
C -SPAN viewers are familiar with Mark Caputo, former Politico, current Bulwark.
National political reporter and Mark Caputo, before we get to transition, first your takeaway from President -elect Trump's Meet the Press interview yesterday.
What stood out to you?
Not a lot of surprises.
I think what stands out to me is a lot of surprise from the news media that he and the commentariat that he's planning to be serious about mass deportations and that, as the callers seem surprised now,
that that could include...
I haven't really paid attention to that to be honest.
You know, Congress right now is sort of, it has its own fiscal Deadlines it has to meet and it's tied up at least on the Senate side in what to do about Trump's nominations or his nominees to be in his cabinet.
And let's go to the nominees.
Pete Hegseth, what's the latest on his nomination?
The Trump team feels relatively good about his position, especially compared to how it was just a few days ago.
In their estimation, the last few days, last two or three days of the week, Hegseth closed strong.
Who are the Republican senators who could still say no that you're watching?
Well, obviously, Joni Ernst is the one to really watch.
And then there's Lindsey Graham to a degree.
But the possibility that, or the likelihood that Lindsey Graham winds up bucking President Trump on the Secretary of Defense nomination is pretty small.
Ernst is under incredible pressure from the grassroots, the MAGA roots, the right wing, whatever you want to call it.
That's a state, Iowa, that he won by 13 points or something.
She's up for reelection this coming cycle.
The likelihood of her saying no, politically speaking, is pretty low, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
She hasn't said no.
She also hasn't said yes, and on Friday, she and Hegseth indicated they had a second and productive meeting.
If that sort of thaws, it's hard to see how he winds up with...
Without a majority of the Republican conference, that's not impossible to see.
It's expected right now that Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the former leader, are no votes.
That's what's expected at least.
That is enough if it's just three no votes against Hegseth to get confirmed.
So again, they feel relatively good about it.
The Trump transition team does.
That goes away starting December 20th.
and then the sort of the new year starts in that span of time again if hegseth is is not pulled if he doesn't withdraw and if there aren't four hell no votes in the republican conference then the chances again kind of increase and they they increase closer and closer just bottom line is that the trump campaign the trump transition team the trump base believes he has a mandate
If the Hegseth nomination falls apart for whatever reason, is Ron DeSantis the next man up?
One of the dangerous things is kind of predicting what Donald Trump is going to do.
It's what makes him a unique figure.
It is confirmed that Donald Trump did call Ron DeSantis when the peak or when the initial crush of bad headlines started to really tear away at Hegseth.
And in that conversation, Trump had mentioned to DeSantis the possibility of being Secretary of Defense.
Now this is a discussion they actually started having in June.
And it wasn't sort of real in June.
Trump obviously had not even been elected yet.
And so in this most recent conversation just a few days ago, Trump had dangled this possibility and DeSantis signaled that he was interested in it.
That doesn't mean that he's necessarily going to do it, and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be offered.
There's a lot of things that have to happen in between, but the main thing that has to happen in between is that Hegseth needs to withdraw one way or another, and right now Hegseth is saying he's going to fight like hell.
Donald Trump has told other people he likes the fact that Pete Hegseth fights like hell.
He's starting to publicly push him more.
So things are looking, as we stand now, it's Monday morning, right?
Things are looking okay for Hegseth in the minds of the Trump transition team.
As we stand now, about 20 minutes left with Mark Caputo.