good morning. i'm carol costello. thank you for joining me. bracing for another busy day at trump tower. you are looking live at the golden elevators inside. this is the president-elect's transition headquarters in new york. this hour, he is scheduled to meet with the hawaiian congresswoman tulsi gabbard, a democrat. sources tell us she is being considered for a top job in the new administration. this comes after a weekend of pr political speed dating for

cabinet positions. jason carroll is live outside trump tower with more. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. ivanka trump already here. kellyanne conway described it as what they are doing is looking at a long short list of people, that list getting a little bit longer with a few announcements. former labor secretary under bush, elaine chow, expected to be here later today as well as oklahoma governor mary fallon, perhaps being considered for the department of the interior. elsewhere, as you mentioned, that democrat also being considered, tulsi gabbard. as you know, from hawaii. at one point, trump said that he would not consider a democrat in his cabinet, but there's a big difference when you are running to become president and then you become president-elect so perhaps trying to mend a few bridges there with that choice. he will be meeting with her. also, former texas governor rick perry under consideration for

department of energy. you will also remember at one point, governor perry said that the department of energy is a department that he would eliminate if he became the president, but once again, things change. kellyanne conway describing the whole process this way. >> you're talking about literally dozens and dozens of meetings with heads of state, with captains of industry, with sitting and former governors, members of congress, senators. these are people, a diverse group of people who come from many different backgrounds who are all lending their opinions and their advice and their counsel and their experience to the president-elect and the vice president-elect and some of who may end up in his cabinet, but a leader takes the counsel of many people and that's precisely what he's doing. >> reporter: so back-to-back meetings today. also back-to-back meetings over the weekend although at a different location, at trump's property in new jersey, meeting at one point with former rival

mitt romney perhaps for secretary of state. expected to have an announcement about some appointments perhaps later today but certainly later this week. carol? >> jason carroll reporting live for us, thanks so much. as president-elect trump assembles his team and promises to dismantle many of president obama's programs, mr. obama made it clear he would not rule out attacks on trump's policies. >> as an american citizen who cares deeply about our country, if there are issues that have less to do with the specifics of some legislative proposal or battle, but go to core questions about our values and our ideals, and if i think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then i will

examine it when it comes. >> all right. let's talk about that and more. with me, heidi przybyla from "usa today" and matt biser from "the boston globe." welcome to both of you. thanks for being here. heidi, tulsi gabbard. she endorsed bernie sanders. is she a democrat that trump supporters can love? >> you know, i'm looking at this and the question that i have is, is this a parade of diversity or is this actually going to lead to a diverse cabinet. tulsi gabbard, i have to say, i was really shocked this morning to see her on that list just because when you look at the area of foreign policy, i guess she's supposedly being considered as u.n. ambassador. a lot of the actual picks that we know are going down are more from the hawk wing of the party. tulsi gabbard stood out in this election because she stood fast against hillary clinton on a number of issues including the war. that was a surprise to me and i

think the one -- the only thing we know for certain at this point is that the lobbyists ironically in this town are going to make a lot of money in this next month or two to help people and companies try to read what's happening here with this unpredictable process. as a reporter, what i'm going to do is keep my eye on what the actual picks are, because this does, yes, look like a very diverse group of people who are coming before president-elect trump but at the end of the day the people who have actually been picked so far are very conventional, older white guys. let's look who actually gets the job in the end. >> you know, as heidi said, matt, there's this parade of people including ari emanuel, trump's talent agency for "the celebrity apprentice." he actually patched through the door at trump's golf resort over the weekend. it is tough to make anything of this at all. >> yeah. bob kraft, owner of the patriots, was at trump tower the other day as was floyd

mayweather, the boxer. i think there's a mixture of courtesy meetings that donald trump is doing along with some of the work of meeting with people. but as heidi alluded to, it's hard to tell what of these are serious discussions about putting somebody in a cabinet and how much of it is for show. it is an "apprentice" like experience watching people come in and have a private meeting with the future president, then emerge afterwards and sort of what to make of some of these meetings and are they more symbolic than real. i think we will find that out pretty soon. >> especially mitt romney, right, because a lot of the never trumpers are really psyched about that meeting. mike pence says it was warm and substantive and mitt romney is really being considered for secretary of state but many people just think as you said, it's all for show. that's what played out on "saturday night live" even this weekend. let's watch.

>> mitt romney is here. >> really? okay? send him in, please. >> hello, mr. president-elect. thank you for taking the time to meet with me. >> so good of you to come. >> this isn't going to work, is it? >> i don't think so. >> i laughed hysterically because you really don't know, is that how it's going or not? by the way, mr. trump had a problem with "saturday night live's" depiction of him, sending out an angry tweet about that. >> initial reaction here was disbelief that the two of these men, given the words that were exchanged in this election which were even more heated than

between jeb bush, i would argue, and trump, could actually do this, could actually pull this off. i think the significance would be huge, because whereas on economic policy, a lot of the things that president-elect trump wants to do are going to take months and maybe even years to hash out, on foreign policy, we could see a pretty dramatic change in the more globalist purview post-world war ii order that has really shaped our foreign policy for 50 years. if trump assembles his entire cabinet with people who are more like general flynn, who hold a different approach to countries like russia, for example, whereas mitt romney is very skeptical of russia, and would kind of be more of an even, steadying hand potentially to kind of offset those like general flynn, who are forming the cabinet and i think it would be a reassurance as well to many

in the establishment republican community, but again, we just don't know until this pick is actually made, whether this is an attempt to kind of just put on a show and give the impression that president-elect trump is hearing from all sides. >> i did want to touch on what president obama said over the weekend. you heard what he said. he said he's going to give president-elect trump a chance but if things go too far and he feels the need to say something, he intimated he most definitely would and of course, that would break the tradition of a past president commenting on the policies of a sitting president. do you think president obama will do that in dramatic fashion? >> i mean, i think it depends on what a president trump ends up doing, and sort of how far he goes in some of the policies that he has suggested he would. i think we are in a period where president obama feels like he can influence trump. after that meeting of 90 minutes in the oval office, you had sort of a sense that obama feels like he brought trump his way on some

of the health care rhetoric and some of the other things. you sort of have to wait and see whether or not trump does something that, you know, violates in president obama's view the fabric of america and whether obama would speak out on something like that. but he's certainly leaving the option open which is interesting in its own way, given that there were deep divisions between president obama and president bush, and president bush sort of completely faded from american political commentary. so it would be extraordinary for president obama to weigh in in a couple months or even a year or two. >> i have to leave it there. it will be a fascinating time, to say the least. thanks to beoth of you. donald trump could be making a fellow billionaire head of his

team. christine romans has more. good morning. >> you know, wilbur ross is someone who takes companies and industries that have been destroyed, that are really in a dust pile, and finds value in them, and he uses debt, leverages debt to do so. he and donald trump have been in business together and known each other for a long time. he's worth about $3 billion. he's chairman of w.l. ross and company, he's known again for some of his purchases, most recently in the mortgage industry after the terrible crisis of 2009 but also in steel and coal. as you know, donald trump wants to bring jobs back to steel and coal. this is a man that knows that industry. he was also a bondholder attorney for the trump casino business. that's how me and mr. trump and carl icahn know each other. you know, carl icahn speaking

highly of steve mnuchin, an investment banker who most recently made his fortune in producing movies. also on that list, jeb hensarling, congressman from texas. jamie dimon and ben bernanke, unclear if donald trump wants them or if they would be interested at all. both have history and resumes that go back into the financial crisis. you would wonder if he would pick one of those. jamie dimon was rumored to be perhaps treasury secretary under a democratic administration if not for the fact he runs a bank and banks took bailouts during the financial crisis even though he didn't want to take the bailout, he did anyway. these are sort of the names that are floating around there. fascinating that it's happening now. still to come in the "newsroom" four police officers are shot in separate incidents. there's a manhunt for one of the shooters. that's next. ♪

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four police officers are

shot in four separate incidents in different states and it happened all within 24 hours. 50-year-old san antonio detective ben markota killed in one of the shootings. he was sitting in his police car outside of police headquarters when he was shot in the head. police in texas now looking for this man. they say he may have information about this ambush style shooting. cnn's polo sandoval has more for you. >> reporter: four separate shootings targeting police officers across the country. >> unfortunately, like dallas, like baton rouge, it's happened here. >> reporter: a massive manhunt in texas for a man suspected of killing a san antonio officer around 11:45 a.m., the detective was shot and killed while sitting in his squad car. the 50-year-old officer was writing a ticket during a traffic stop when a man walked up to his driver's side window and opened fire. he shot marconi in the head from outside of the car. police say the suspect then reached through the window and shot the 20 year veteran again. police releasing this photo of a

man who may be in connection with the shooting, and this photo of a car they say fled the scene. >> most families will be celebrating the holidays. sapd will be burying one of its own. >> reporter: hours later in st. louis a 46-year-old sagt sergeant was waiting in traffic while a man pulled up next to his patrol vehicle and opened fire, shooting the veteran twice in the face. >> he saw the muzzle flashes and felt glass breaking in his window as the shots came through and struck him in the head. >> reporter: the suspect apparently worried about being identified, now dead after a shootout with officers. no other officers were injured. >> we were tracking him. we came to this neighborhood. we found him. he shot at police officers again. police officers returned fire. >> reporter: another officer shot in missouri late sunday night in a traffic stop in gladstone near kansas city. and in florida, a suspect already in custody after police say an officer was shot while

conducting a routine traffic stop. according to police, he was on the side of the road when a suspect drove by and started shooting. he was injured but has since been released from the hospital. >> polo sandoval reporting from san antonio, texas. with me to talk about this is tom fuentes, cnn senior law enforcement analyst and former fbi director. what do you make of these shootings? >> i think it's just so tragic now that we have so much disrespect in our society for all authority figures, but in the case of police officers, they are in uniform, out front, the most visible and trying to enforce the law that binds our society and that makes them great targets for individuals who don't like the police, don't respect the police, or out and out hate the police. >> it's just astounding. four different ambush style shootings -- >> also add to that, that on friday we had a deputy u.s.

marshal killed in georgia trying to arrest someone who was wanted for trying to kill two other police officers. this is extreme violence on a regular basis directed against law enforcement. >> once one shooting happens, does that inspire other sick people to do the same thing? >> it could. it's possible, because these were incidents, especially the four yesterday, that occurred that the officer wasn't in the middle of an enforcement operation against that person, trying to arrest a person or control them in some way. so that they were ambushed essentially or targeted for assassination. that could trigger other people to drive down the street, you see a marked police officer -- police car with a police officer in it, to open fire on it or an officer walking down the sidewalk, to open fire on that officer. it is possible that one ambush type killing led to additional copycat killing. >> i know some police

departments are saying you can't drive in your patrol car alone, there has to be two people in the car. will that rule soon be instituted across the country, do you think? >> i don't think so. then each patrol car can only cover half the territory if you do that. the response times are liable to be twice as long when someone calls for the police officer. as we recall, the two officers sitting in the squad car in new york city a couple years ago shortly before christmas were both killed sitting in the same police car. if someone wants to ambush you, they can just as easily ambush two officers almost as quickly as one. it may not in all situations be the answer. >> so president-elect trump says he will be the law and order president. is there anything, any policy he can institute that might help? >> one would be that the killing or attempted killing of a police officer become a federal crime. we make it a federal crime if an officer violates the civil rights of a citizen and that's

investigated by the fbi. so i think a state and local police officer should also be protected in a similar manner, make it a federal crime. if someone actually kills a police officer like we have had in this situation, it should carry the death penalty. i think maybe that will help reduce the number of these incidents. >> i can't believe it's not a federal crime. >> well, the killing of the u.s. marshal is a federal crime. an fbi agent, dea agent, as federal officers, it is a federal crime. it is investigated by the fbi. but for state and local, county, municipal, village, township, those police officers, it's not a federal crime. >> tom fuentes, thanks for your insight. still to come in the "newsroom" a big decision for democrats. stay the course or get a makeover. the future of the party up in the air. that's next. whether it's connecting one of the world's most innovative campuses. or bringing wifi to 65,000 fans.

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good morning. i'm carol costello. thank you for joining me. the democratic party is at a crossroads, shake things up or double down on its current course? congressman and dnc chair candidate keith ellison says it's time to get back to basics, the voters. >> the real problem for the democrats is we have got to help people believe and then we have to deliver the message to them. believe what? that we are absolutely unshakeably on their side and will fight for them every single minute. we also have to strengthen the gra grassroots. power should be concentrated in the field, not in d.c.

>> ellison echoing comments made by president obama in peru, saying while the party's policies are popular, the problem is the messaging. >> democrats do have to do some thinking about how do we make sure that the message we have is received effectively and results in winning elections. >> so let's talk about this. with me, cnn political commentators bill press and hilary rosen. welcome to both of you. bill, so the messaging is the problem. i'm just trying to think like hope and change, that was a good message for a time until people no longer believed it was possible, right. that happened during obama's presidency. is the messaging the problem? >> well, first, let me just say i think the democratic party, you don't lose an election like this, an election that you should never have lost, that nobody thought you were going to lose, without doing some real soul searching. i think the democratic party

needs to really take stock and needs a total shake-up from top to bottom. and yes, starting with the message. the contradiction is that if you look at it, the democratic party has done more for middle class working class americans in terms of health care and minimum wage and social security and medicare and working rights and collective bargaining, go down the list, than the republican party would ever think about doing, and yet these are the same people that didn't come out to vote for the democratic candidate. somehow, we got the message wrong and we got to fix it. >> here's the thing. i think democrats focused on cultural issues, right, but wasn't it the democrats who came up with it's the economy, stupid? so why didn't the democrats remember that during the election? >> well, i think -- >> i think -- >> i'm sorry, hilary. >> i do think that we made a big mistake in this election of sort of chasing the bright shiny

object of rhetoric. let's face it, donald trump's, you know, sort of racism, mysogeny, bigotry, that was just unbelievably tempting to really focus on, and yet he had a really strong record against working people in this country that got very little attention, i think, from most of us. you know, myself included. i will own a lot of that. but i think the problem now is that we cannot divide ourselves into sort of are we going to be cultural democrats or are we going to be economic democrats. we can't afford that fight, particularly at a time when so much of our social progress seems to be on the verge of being rolled back. and it is important i think that we find ways to come together on those two points. we are having the argument in the democratic party that we thought the republicans were going to have when they lost,

because we thought they were going to lose. so now we have to figure out how to mesh this kind of identity politics that we have become as a community and there's a very real desire for economic empowerment. >> the politics of identity, they are still going on and you can see them in protests taking place across the country. >> passionately. >> democrats are passionately identifying with cultural issues over economic issues. hey, the people are more powerful than maybe any candidate out there or any democratic office holder at the moment. >> i agree with hilary on the cultural issues and on the diversity issues and this new america majority. but somehow we lost focus on the people who have always been the base of the democratic party. again, the democratic party has produced for them but somehow we didn't get the message out that we are fighting for them and they are the essence of what democrats are all about.

i think we have to mesh those two with particular emphasis now on those economic issues. again, not forgetting the others. and that brings us back to wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, particularly, which we never should have lost. >> the other thing, just quickly, the other thing and this is connected to what the president said, that will help honestly is that, you know, donald trump and his colleagues are not for an increase in the minimum wage, they are interested in busting up unions and have fought for -- >> right. right. >> -- so-called right to work laws in states around the country which make it difficult to unionize. you know, when millions of americans lose their sub subsidies for health care, there is going to be some of that economic organizing that will mesh with this cultural identity very quickly because there will be sort of togetherness in

opposition. the working man will get screwed. >> i will say in going back to working class america, much of working class america really don't much like unions and they don't buy the $15 an hour thing because they think companies ought to have a right to control wages on their own, because they are the ones running the company. i hear a lot of that from working class people. >> carol -- >> i don't hear much of that. >> with all due respect, i think if you go to working class america, go to union shops, they are not going to say that. they think a $15 minimum wage is too low and they are right. i think they know who's fighting on their side. we just have to reinforce that. >> so let's just talk about, i want to talk about nancy pelosi and concentrate on her. why doesn't she just step aside, because obviously, something didn't work in the last election and don't we need somebody new, a fresh voice, somebody not from the state of california, hilary? >> here's the thing. i love nancy pelosi and i'm

always going to be for her. i do think that they ought to bring more young leadership into that house leadership, and i don't know why they are not doing that, why they are not bringing tim ryan and some of his colleagues in. there are plenty of leadership roles that they can create or invent to widen that table. i think they ought to do it. i certainly support nancy staying on as leader. she is a good fighter and a good fund-raiser at tough times, but i do think they ought to find ways to expand that table. if they can't do that, they are going to face challenges instead of collaboration. >> bill, do you agree? >> yeah. i do. first, i'm a big nancy fan but hilary is right, there are lots of great young leaders, potential leaders, in the house. the problem today is that all the leadership, they are basically all of the same class and all of the same age and they have left no room for young people to come up. i think it's very important that they do so now. tim ryan is a great example of

that new leadership. we are going to have a new head of the party. i think that's extremely important. i think we need to bring up some new leaders in the senate, too. the democratic party, we have to really reach out to the next generation of leaders and start at the state legislative level which has been ignored. that's why we get this redistricting and that's why it was so difficult to take control of the house back. >> i have to leave it there. bill press, hilary rosen, thanks as always. still to come in the "newsroom" bombs raining down on aleppo. president obama says he's not hopeful things will get better any time soon. could that change under president-elect trump?

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more than 300 people have been killed in eastern aleppo in just six days. activists are calling this the deadliest week since the start of the syrian civil war, even worse, the bombings have taken out all of the hospitals in east aleppo. i want to warn you, these next pictures are disturbing. a quarter of a million civilians now living in east aleppo without access to emergency care. president obama says he's not optimistic about syria. as long as bashar al assad stays in power. >> this is a man who has decided that destroying his country, turning it into rubble, and seeing its population scattered or killed was worth it for him to cling to power. >> cnn correspondent will ripley live in turkey, istanbul, with more. hi, will.

>> reporter: hi, carol. syria's president bashar al assad said in an interview just last week that he believed the u.s. president-elect donald trump could be a natural ally in his fight against terrorism. he promised to target terrorist targets in eastern aleppo yet what we have seen over the last week is a systemic destruction of the city's capability to care for the increasing number of injured patients and that's not even counting the routine medical needs of a quarter million people, people who have cancer, diabetes, other illnesses. they can't even get to see a doctor right now. all of the trauma hospitals are knocked out of service. any hospitals that are functional are at just a fraction of their capacity. the blood bank, ambulances, medical vehicles, all were destroyed. to give you a sense of the intensity of this, people who have survived the syrian civil war and more than four years of bombing in east aleppo say this is something they have never seen before, the intensity of the explosions. i was interviewing one man over the weekend and i want to play

for you this, because as we were speaking to him, we had a 14-minute conversation, i counted at least 17 explosions that i could hear through the computer. he was taking shelter in his basement. >> why do we stay. we stay because it's our city. they stay because they have no place to go. i'm not going to leave. we are going to die. >> reporter: that was close. that one was close. >> okay. i'm going to go. >> reporter: okay. be safe. the united nations says something needs to be done now in order to prevent what they call a humanitarian catastrophe, a mass starvation scenario, because food and medicine is not being allowed into the city. the syrian forces have cut off those supply roads. there are reports of chemical weapons being used on civilians by both sides, rebel fighters and the government. but you have these families that are rapidly running out of food

and russia and syria, the two forces that are supporting this assault on east aleppo and other areas of syria, have not even responded yet to the united nations plea that they allow a plan to deliver humanitarian aid to these people. >> will ripley joining us from turkey, thanks so much. let's talk about what's happening in syria right now. could things change under a new administration? david rhode is cnn global affairs analyst and national security investigations editor for reuters. welcome. do people care enough about what's happening in syria? >> it is, and i do think things will change under the new administration. president-elect trump has said he will not support what president obama has called a moderate opposition and what we see in the short term period is that there is sort of a lame duck president, president obama, who has been hesitant to act in syria and then president trump saying he's not going to back these rebels. there's an excellent chance this ferocious assault, this effort

by the syrian government backed by russia and iran to take back aleppo will intensify and continue. as will just said, 250,000 civilians, this could get very ugly very quickly. >> it's already ugly. there are no hospitals working in eastern aleppo. no hospitals. schools are being targeted. children are dying. chemical weapons are being used. it seems as if the president bashar al assad wants to destroy his own country to remain in power. >> well, he does, and that's what president obama said, but i think we should be fair here in that president obama's policy which was sort of to half help the rebels, to not really engage militarily has essentially failed. russia has stepped in and is using aggressive military force to help assad crush civilians. assad has shown he will kill his own people. he will continue to do that. the question is over the next few months, will president obama act. i don't think so. and what will president trump

inherit. some people argue that the syrian forces simply aren't strong enough. there's 250,000 people there, a large number of rebel fighters, they won't be able to take east aleppo. but what will the american public think as president trump comes into office if you have what we have today, 50 people dying a day, the chemical weapons attack you mentioned, no hospitals. president trump has said he will sort of pull us out of syria. how will that look to americans, how will that look to u.s. allies in the region? the violence is escalating. >> what can be done? if someone were to actually act right now, what can be done? >> well, there's a decisive move, a move that president-elect trump has talked about which is to pull back, to not arm the rebels, to let essentially syrian forces retake aleppo with russia's support and just say the united states isn't going to do anything to stop this humanitarian catastrophe. the other side is to move more

aggressively. u.s. allies in the region, saudi arabia, jordan and turkey have all called for a more aggressive effort to sort of back these rebels. i don't see that happening under a trump administration. you know, it looks like more violence and victory for -- >> what if bashar al assad with russia's help retakes all of syria? what happens in the region then? >> well, they are take aleppo. i don't think they can regain all of syria. but the danger here, it's an excellent question, is all of these -- some of them are moderate rebels. it's a very complex situation with a very splintered syrian resistance to assad. but any semblance of moderate rebel who believed in the west, if the u.s. walks away very clearly under trump, that will push them towards radicalism. many of them have turned radical. doing nothing to help aleppo will lead more young syrians to join isis and other radical

groups. they will use this, radical groups will use the lack of action in aleppo as 250,000 civilians face this onslaught as an effort, as proof that there's a double standard. the west cares about western lives but not the lives of innocent civilians in syria. >> david rohde, thanks so much. still to come, airports are already crowded with the holiday time. now a strike at chicago's airport could make things even worse. pany won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, you won't have to worry about replacing your car because you'll get the full value back including depreciation. and if you have more than one liberty mutual policy, you qualify for a multi-policy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

at the top of the hour we are expecting a news conference out of san antonio, texas. police officials will update us on this manhunt for this cop killer. this is a picture of a man they suspect is involved in a police shooting in san antonio. somebody walked up to a police car and shot the 50-year-old detective inside that car in the head. he died a short time later. again, we are expecting a news conference at the top of the hour. when it happens, we will bring it to you live. in other news this morning, new details on a possible strike at chicago's o'hare airport.

just a few minutes from now, airport workers will announce whether or not they will go on strike, a move that could be a major disruption to thanksgiving and holiday travel. brian young is in chicago with more. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. just to give you a heads up, if you see us moving around, the police are telling us to shift where we are for this news conference that's supposed to start in the next 15 minutes or so. i can tell you the workers who are about 500 of them, you see them going through the airport all the time, baggage handlers, people who clean the airplanes and the folks who wheel people through in wheelchairs, they are talking about striking. they want to have a living wage. they believe $15 an hour is a living wage. the $8.50 they get paid is not enough. that's the conversation that's happening. we will find out in the next 15 minutes or so whether or not this will happen during the busy holiday period. this is the second busiest airport in the country so there's a lot of conversation about what happens next. the lines here are already large and sometimes, especially during the holidays, you see them

stretching out the door. when people heard about this strike, they will have a reaction. what we are told is security personnel and the people who check you into the tsa should not be affected but again, this strike could have effects for people who need wheelchair access through the airport. some major airlines say they will set up some guidelines and have support staff ready just in case this happens. of course, the next 15 minutes, we will learn more about the plans. the workers here are contractors and they say they need more money to be able to make it during this economy. that's something -- we are all shifting so as we learn more, we will pass it on to you about information about what they are going to do especially during this busy travel holiday period. >> we will let you get to it. thanks so much sglch. police unleash water cannons in below freezing temperatures. the demonstration in north dakota turned into a riot. whether it's bringing cutting-edge wifi to 35,000 fans...

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time for a check on today's top stories at 57 minutes past. hundreds of people protesting in north dakota oil pipeline clashed with officers this weekend. police used water to control the crowds. the move sparking fears of hypothermia. one official called the scene an ongoing riot with police reporting two cars and a bridge were set on fire. one person was arrested. a closed hearing will take place in a south carolina courtroom today to determine whether or not dylann roof is mentally competent to stand trial. he's accused of killing nine african-americans in a charleston church basement last year. roof's trial began earlier this month but was put on hold after his defense questioned his mental state. pope francis has just given catholic priests the right to forgive abortion. in a letter, the pope wrote abortion is a grave sin since it puts an end to an innocent life. in the same way, however, i can

and must state there is no sin that god's mercy cannot reach and wipe away. he then calls on priests to be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this jiourney to special reconciliation. >> and "saturday night live" taking a poke at trump. >> google, what is isis. oh, my. siri, how do i kill isis? >> trump didn't like that much. he's slamming "saturday night live" saying it was biased and asked for equal time. but fcc equal time rules only apply during an election campaign, not after. alec baldwin tweeted this out. quote, equal time? there is no more equal time. now you try to be president and people respond. that's pretty much it. end quote. thank you so much for

joining me today. i'm carol costello. "at this hour with berman and bolduan" starts now. hello. i'm john berman. kate is off today. our breaking news, any minute, you are looking at live pictures right now from san antonio, where police will hold a news conference on the huge manhunt currently under way for the person who gunned down an officer who was sitting inside his police car, just outside police headquarters. after this ambush, the shooter drove away. as i said, there's a manhunt under way right now. we are waiting for updates on any developments there. for the past 24 hours, four officers around the country have been shot. this has happened in three different states. so this is a cause for concern this morning. again, we will bring you to san antonio the minute that news conference begins. meantime, this morning we are watching trump tower, whe