[John Vause, Cnn Anchor:] Ahead this hour, firings and infighting. Turmoil within the Donald Trump transition team.
[Sesay:] Barack Obama tours Europe for the last time as president. And he has a warning about the politics of fear.
[Vause:] And the hunt for al-Baghdadi. New clues in the search for the elusive leader of
[Isis. Sesay:] Hello, and welcome to our viewers around the world. I'm Isha Sesay.
[Vause:] I'm John Vause. Great to have you with us for the third hour of
[Newsroom L.a. Sesay:] U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is disputing allegations of turmoil among his transition team. He tweeted Tuesday the process is, quote, "very organized," and only he knows who the finalists are for top Cabinet posts.
[Vause:] Sources tell CNN Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is at the center of the infighting. CNN's Sara Murray has this report.
[Sara Murray, Cnn Politics Correspondent:] Tonight Donald Trump and his VP Mike Pence huddling at Trump Tower to bring some order to a transition team already facing signs of disarray. Sources involved in the transition telling CNN there are internal disagreements over some top level Cabinet positions. Adding to the confusion, lingering questions about who's calling the shots, as newly-named chief strategist Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, all weigh in on the transition process. As Trump received his first presidential daily brief today, a National Security roundup of threats and intelligence developments, he'll have one less experienced hand to turn to. Former House Intelligence Committee chairman and CNN contributor Mike Rogers, who served as a National Security adviser on Trump's transition team, was ousted on Monday. The ouster of Mike Rogers, the second major shakeup for the transition team after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was demoted on Friday.
[Donald Trump , President-elect Of The United States:] I want to give a very special thanks to our former mayor, Rudy Giuliani. He's unbelievable.
[Murray:] One area of contention, secretary of state. Sources say former New York mayor and close Trump confidant, Rudy Giuliani, is a leading candidate for the job. But others are pushing for former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.
[Rudy Giuliani, Former Mayor Of New York City:] John would be a very good choice.
[Unidentified Male:] Is there anybody better?
[Giuliani:] Maybe me. I don't know.
[Murray:] Giuliani is hardly keeping his ambitions hidden, but his international business ties, like doing business with Qatar and lobbying Citgo, a U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil conglomerate, could complicate his confirmation hearing. Meanwhile, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is already under consideration for a high profile position, such as secretary of Defense or attorney general.
[Giuliani:] Well, first of all, I won't be attorney general.
[Unidentified Male:] You won't be attorney general?
[Giuliani:] So good. I won't have to decide that one, thank God.
[Unidentified Male:] OK. You made that clear.
[Giuliani:] If I could escape I can escape that one.
[Unidentified Male:] I should ask Jeff Sessions that question, should I?
[Giuliani:] Wouldn't be a bad idea. But I don't know who's going to be attorney general.
[Murray:] He spent 13 years in the U.S. Army Reserves and was the first senator to endorse Trump for president.
[Sen. Jeff Sessions , Alabama:] At this time in Americans' history, we need to make America great again.
[Murray:] Another name Pence is looking to add to consideration for Defense secretary, Arkansas senator and U.S. Army combat veteran Tom Cotton. Today Trump is also turning his eye to who should serve as Treasury secretary. Trump campaign finance chair and former Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin, Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling, or perhaps J.P. Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon. Amid transition planning, Trump's still finding time to troll his opponents on social media, tweeting about losing the popular vote, "If the election were based on total popular vote, I would have campaigned in New York, Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily." Trump then calling the electoral college genius after he tweeted just four years ago, "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy." [On Camera] Now yet another high-ranking source in the Trump transition effort insists that everything is organized, everything is going according to plan but Donald Trump continues to write his own rule book when it comes to transition. The president-elect actually going missing on Tuesday night as he ditched his press pool and decided to go out to dinner without really letting anyone know. Sara Murray, CNN, New York.
[Vause:] And as you heard in Sara's report, former U.S. congressman Mike Rogers is no longer part of the Trump transition team and he spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper.
[Anderson Cooper, Cnn Anchor:] Chairman Rogers, I mean, there are differing accounts as to what led your to your exit from the transition team. There some who are saying it was your choice, others are saying you were forced out. Can you explain what happened?
[Mike Rogers, Cnn National Security Commentator:] The timing was probably right. If they wanted to make a change, they clearly wanted to make a change in this regard, and so it came down that it was time they wanted to go in a different direction. It was easy for me to hand it off to Mike Pence and his capable hands coming in. So I think that was kind of a combination. I think there is some confusion going on about a chain of command coming out of New York. Hopefully, they'll get that settled pretty soon. I think they're going to need to do it because as this clock ticks, all of these decisions become more important and you have to make them sooner with a little more authority and a little more forward thinking to make sure that they don't bump into anything in the future. I think they're going to get there. I'm an optimist about that.
[Cooper:] When you talk about confusion coming out of New York, what do you mean? I mean, is it a difference of kind of vision? There's obviously, you know, Steve Bannon kind of wing, I guess, you could say, there's Reince Priebus as chief of staff. I mean, there's can you define the sort of the various arms here or kind of perspectives?
[Rogers:] Well, I mean, I'm an old school guy, Anderson. I think, you know, your chief of staff has to be the one or whatever title you want to give them, needs to be the one making decisions. They need to be held accountable for those decisions, but you need someone that can clearly make a decision. If you make those decisions via a committee, I don't care how small it is, it just adds to the difficulty. And I think they're going to get through this. Again, remember, this is all kind of new. There's a lot of folks that don't have any experience in what this might look like. And that's no fault to theirs. As a matter of fact, in many ways, it's a plus coming into Washington, D.C. But that's what the problem is. There's a little bit of a vacuum in clear chains of command. That will get fixed. I think this is just growing pains. I think people are saying it's in turmoil and collapsing. I don't believe any of that. I do believe that they just have to fix this chain of command, who's making the decisions, and make the decisions on behalf of the president-elect and nothing more than that.
[Sesay:] Mike Rogers there trying to
[Vause:] He was being very diplomatic in the words that he was using.
[Sesay:] Yes.
[Vause:] Which is understandable.
[Sesay:] Let's see what happens. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is back in the good graces of President- elect Donald Trump and rank-and-file Republicans. His party nominated him for re-election Tuesday. They will vote in January.
[Vause:] Ryan butted heads with Trump repeatedly during the presidential campaign. Now he says he's ready to work together.
[Rep. Paul Ryan , House Speaker:] We're on the same page with our president-elect. I talk with Donald Trump virtually every single day. I spoke with Mike Pence this morning. We are on the same page. We're working hand in glove and we're going to make sure that this is a very successful administration. But more importantly, we're going to make sure that the voices we heard from this election from the American people are acted upon.
[Vause:] Meantime, U.S. House Democrats are delaying a vote on their leadership for another two weeks. The party is trying to figure out why they lost the presidency and came up short in Congress. That means Nancy Pelosi's job as House minority leader could be in jeopardy.
[Sesay:] She has held the job for more than a decade, but she downplayed the delay, saying it doesn't mean very much. So far no one has challenged Pelosi's leadership.
[Vause:] The Senate's top Democrat Harry Reid is joining the long list of critics blasting Donald Trump for choosing Steve Bannon as White House chief strategist.
[Sesay:] On Tuesday Reid called the former head of the far-right Breitbart news a champion of white supremacy and is urging Trump to rescind his appointment.
[Sen. Harry Reid , Majority Leader:] Healing the wounds he'd inflicted will take more than words. Talk is cheap and tweets are cheaper. Healing wounds is going to take action. But so far, Mr. President, rather than healing these wounds Trump's actions have deepened them. If Trump is serious about seeking unity, the first thing he should do is rescind his appointment of Steve Bannon. Rescind it. Don't do it. As long as a champion of racial division is a step away from the Oval Office, it will be impossible to take Trump's efforts to heal the nation seriously.
[Sesay:] Well, U.S. president Barack Obama is inviting world leaders to heed lessons from the presidential election.
[Vause:] At a news conference in Athens he said Trump used what he called troubling rhetoric about which stirred anxiety about globalization. Mr. Obama also warned against populist movements based on fear.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] I do believe separate and apart from any particular election or movement that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them.
[Sesay:] Well, CNN's international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is following President Obama's trip, he joins us now Athens, Greece with more. Nic, good to have you with us. Nic, talk to us about how the election of Donald Trump is changing the tone of President Obama's last foreign trip.
[Nic Robertson, Cnn International Diplomatic Editor:] Yes, it's certainly changed the perception of it. Particularly among the sort of White House press team traveling with him. And also perhaps the European leaders that he was expecting to meet. This trip has been on the books before the outcome of the election last week. So the original expectation was that President Obama would come, it would sort of you know, he's coming here to Greece, the seat of democracy, to talk about democracy and applaud Greece for helping with refugees and chide other European leaders into doing more as well to support Italy and Germany to take on more of the refugees streaming out of the Middle East, particularly Syria. But what it's turned into is something where President Obama finds himself explaining Donald Trump, explaining why he believes if you will he lost the election or at least Hillary Clinton lost the election, and explaining what he understands about what Donald Trump's future relationship President-elect Donald Trump's future relationships will be with European countries. European leaders are very concerned and worried about what to expect from Donald Trump. So I think that explains why you heard some of the language that we heard yesterday, you were just playing right there. President Obama is saying that he understood the fears and concerns but he felt Donald Trump had or Republicans in particular had tapped into those fear and concerns using less than truths and that the path he wants to put the country on or some Republicans want to put the country on is potentially divisive. And that's not what he believes the future of the United States should be or will be in the long term. So you sort of found him there almost being on the defensive and people looking to pick up on what he can say about Donald Trump less than what he might have said here to the Greeks about debt relief, which of course is a big issue for them.
[Sesay:] Yes. Indeed. And President Obama also saying on Tuesday we are proud to count Greece as one of our closest allies and one of our greatest friends. Are there concerns in Greece about what the U.S.- Greek relationship will look like under a Trump administration?
[Robertson:] There are concerns at multiple levels. Certainly what President Obama heard from the Greek prime minister yesterday was, you know, a hope and a desire that the United States, President Obama when he goes to Berlin later this week, will speak strongly with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who many Greeks see as really the sort of strength behind the architecture of the of Greece's debt payback plan and pitch that there should be more debt relief. There will be a concern going forward that Donald Trump wouldn't act in the same way, wouldn't have the same instincts over the European Union importance of Greece. Greece also concerned about the future of NATO, you know, Europeans' relationship with the United States as part of NATO going forward. It is, if you will, a fully paid up member. It's one of only five of the 28 NATO nations that spends as they should, as is mandated, 2 percent of GDP on defense. It's very important given their relationship and history with Turkey that NATO is strong. That's a concern. And also the concerns economically going forward that the United States shares that they don't want to see too much outside investment from Asia, from the gulf, into Greece as Greece has been forced to sell off some of its sort of larger state assets, ports and such like, that that would be detrimental to the EU, detrimental to the U.S. interests. Are they going to get that same level of understanding and therefore help on the European stage from Donald Trump? And the concern is the answer might be no.
[Sesay:] Nic Robertson joining us there from Athens, Greece with a view of President Obama's trip to that country. Nic, we appreciate it. Thank you so much.
[Vause:] Well, East Aleppo is again being hit by heavy air strikes, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped and running out of supplies. Details just ahead.
[Sesay:] Plus militia forces in Iraq say they know where a high-profile ISIS leader is hiding. The search for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, next.