hello again. life pictures of donald trump's plane right there in palm beach, florida. he is to make his way from palm beach back to new york to have many meetings beginning tomorrow with possibly eight candidates. he also seems to be focused on knocking down the rust belt recount tweeting earlier this hour in addition to winning the electoral college i won the popular vote if you deduct the millions who voted illegally. yesterday the clinton campaign said it would join the recount effort in wisconsin and that's being spear headed by a green party leader. trump has meetings scheduled with eight potential advisers. ryan is in palm beach. give us an idea of when trump takes off. >> yeah. we are expecting the president and his family to leave here any

minute but it is interesting in his closing minutes here he has been relatively busy communicating with the american public in the way he knows best and that is through twitter. he seemed to be foe kucused on recount effort. in the last few minutes trump has said a number of things including you mentioned he believes he would have won the popular vote if people who voted illegally had not participated. now, trump, as you mentioned, about to leave here. a very busy day tomorrow in new york. eight different people will come

to trump tower to meet with he and vice president-elect mike pence. let's talk about two of them. one is milwaukee county sheriff david clark. s he is a democrat. he is a prom nainent critic. he spoke in support of donald trump. so as we mentioned, someone who could be the next homeland security secretary. then the former head of the texas mission on environmental quality. she may be the next administrator of the epa which would be interesting for her because she has been a big critic. she said it is a burdensome agency that stifled business growth. it is a sampling of the number of people trump will have and of course a lot of decisions still

have to be made including secretary of state. could be leaving here any moment. we'll send it back to you. >> all right. thank you so much. let's talk more about the back and forth over who donald trump might pick. it is certainly put the inviting on full display. this morning on state of the union trump's senior adviser was critical of mitt romney even being considered as a top contender. >> i know there are other candidates being considered apart from the ones that are just being covered more commonly in the media. apart from that governor romney, has he been around the globe doing something on behalf of the united states of which we are unaware? did he go and intervene where we are having a massive

humanitarian crisis? has he been helpful ? again, let me repeat, what donald trump decides everybody else will respect. it is just the backlash from the grass roots. i'm hearing from people who say hey, my parnts died penniless and i gave this much to his campaign. i'm just saying that there were -- we don't even know if mitt romney voted for donald trump. he put mullen up in utah. >> all right. joining me now to dissucuss thi good to see you both. >> you too. >> okay. so brian, you first, what's your

response to this kind of biting i guess language from kellyann conway on mitt romney? >> she sort of has a point in a couple ways. what's unusual is she is doing this publicly. we are not used to seeing that, that advice is sort of aired out like this. she does have a point in that trump was the change candidate and romney sort of represents the establish m. the position of secretary of state is to advocate and convince people the u.s.'s position is correct. you know, romney's was argue against trump in the primary. that speech kind of worked like a lead balloon. he hasn't exactly shown that he would be the most effective person in that job in addition to openly advocating against trump. it is hard to imagine why the trump administration would want romney as their chief advocate.

i think it goes way back to animosity between romney and other republican figures who had run for president back in 2008 including huckabee, some who are now in trump world. that's personality issue there. whoever he picks will have to be on this team. i think a lot of people don't see them as a chief player. >> and he took to the airways and had this to say. let's listen. >> it will be making the best decision for the american people. it isn't a matter of warfare. it is sort of a team of rivals concept if you were to go towards the governor romney concept. i think it should tell all americans about where president-elect's head is at. it will put the best possible people together no matter what religion, whatever your opinion is he wants to move forward

looking through the windshield and not the rear-view mirror. that's where his head is at and i think it's a great place for americans. >> does it reveal something like donald trump's psychology or reveal more about the message within the camp? >> it is fascinating. i think we could put him in the category. brian is in the anti-mitt category. here is the question, is this real or an -- hshe is not someoe that tends to go off crazy on her own. my suspicion is that this is being done in some orchestrated way. maybe gifg him some kind of reason to humiliate mitt further in public. i don't she we can know yet but

it's mighty twisted and mighty fascinating. >> well, you may be onto something in a sense. i think it's a little different than the way you interpreted. i think by her coming out and doing this no matter which direction trump goes in, he gets to seem magnanimous and doing things in the interest of the greater good. if he doesn't it says look, the grass roots elected me to do one thing and not go back to the politics -- >> or brian. or it's the aids pullying trump who doesn't believe anything as far as we can tell. he sold it to us in both directions. now that this government of rivals maybe government of back stabbers. i'm telling you, whatever you think it is, it is probably nine other things at the same time.

>> all right. we look at live pictures of donald trump's plane. he will be heading off to talk more with his transition team. today we couldn't help but notice he has been tweeting a lot. he is tweeting a lot about this green party driven vote recount in wisconsin. you know, brian -- you know, in fact it says in addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide i won the popular vote if you deduct those who voted illegally. he says it would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the lek terror k-- >> i think if people were trying to find ways to undo that you

wouldn't take it lying down and neither is he. i mean i have seen the baseball analogy where the indians got fewer hits but lost more games. it was litigated under the current rules which means you fight in ohio, florida and michigan. you're not fighting for popular vote. i take it he is annoyed by this. the republican party just wants an election. they will want to make sure that sticks. of course they will want to fight back. >> if it is fewufutal why even respond? >> it seemed farfetched. it seems like there's no chance of this. he sure seems a little rattled here. i think we have to go check. there may be nothing there but let's count every last one.

i know you guys keep and pin the darn thing down. i think it is getting interesting. >> it's not pinned down. >> then there's nothing to worry about. >> nothing to worry about. >> you guys are so fun. all right. we'll see you again momentarily. also coming up, donald trump right on cue. they must be listening to us. motorcade of donald trump heading to the awaiting plane you saw on the tarmac. he'll be making his way back to new york meeting with his transition team and meeting with eight people who might be up for positions in his staff or cabinet. we shall see. there the road is now empty. they are on their way to the airport. we'll keep watching. we'll be right back. [vo] quickbooks introduces jeanette.

and her new business: i do, to go. jeanette was excellent at marrying people. but had trouble getting paid. not a good time, jeanette. even worse. now i'm uncomfortable. but here's the good news, jeanette got quickbooks. send that invoice, jeanette. looks like they viewed it. and, ta-da! paid twice as fast. oh, she's an efficient officiant. way to grow, jeanette. get paid twice as fast. visit quickbooks-dot-com.

all right welcome back. soon his plane taking him to new york city and then ton way to trump tower where he will be meeting with his transition team. he will be meeting with a former ceo of bt and t and congressman lou, barletta to name a few. at the very first meeting between the president and president-elect trump said he would enjoy using obama as a resource. today one of trump's top aids said the two are talking regularly. here is kellyann conway. >> they listen.

they learn. they see what the circumstancing are and he has even been talking to president obama. beyond the sit down they had 30 hours or so after president-elect trump won the election. they have been talking regularly on a number of issues. they talked just yesterday. if okay. so you have researched. is it possible president obama is is doing this to get reassurances that the work he has done won't be scrapped especially after president obama better explains all that he has done to him? >> yeah. if what conway is saying is true, and we don't know that. we haven't heard it confirmed. i think he is doing two things. he is doing as much as possible not to simply undo his legacy

and to make an argument directly about what he has done. the second is to act as a president would in a time when m many people feel there is potential stability and to guide donald trump in the right direction. >> how normal are phone calls between a president and president elect? we know president obama described the transition from george w. bush as being very gracious. how unusual is this? >> well, we don't -- again, we don't know how many calls we are talking about. some times there is more communication than others. there was more in 2008 between the president-elect and the . so it's not common directly but this is not your normal transition. so it wouldn't be surprising if

that is happening. and for donald trump this gives him -- i think it helps in his mind at least to give a sense of legitimacy in terms of what he is doing particularly with all of the reports that he is not receiving intelligence briefings and he is not looking at some of the policy challenges. >> yeah, the reports that it is vice president elect who is getting the briefings and we'll presumably convey it to the president-elect. we know president obama has satd that, you know, along the way he would express himself but at this juncture do you see it is president-elect trump that is reaching out to the president? >> i really don't have any idea what's going on and what the dynamics are. these are the things we wait to understand what really happened. i would not be surprised though

if president obama doesn't feel the necessity and even the responsibility of reaching out to make sure it will be as okay as possible. many democrats are worried it won't be. this is an act of presidential leadership in his mind. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. all right. gonzales reacting to fidel castro's death. why he called him a friend and says he was like another father. you'll hear from him next.

all right. welcome back. a look at president-elect trump's motorcade. he will make his way to new york to continue meeting with the transition team after the holiday weekend. remember this iconic image right there? that is how elian gonzalez is remembering fidel castro. it was that moment when he was ripped from his florida relative's home and forcibly removed and the return to his father in cuba. that same little boy now an adult at 22 years old is praising castro calling him a

father figure and a friend. contrastly in miami crowds are cheering castro's death. that's where we are live. >> reporter: yeah. perhaps no story incapsu the to his legacy than elian gonzalez's story does. people here are not necessarily inclined to support gohim but elian certainly sees him as a father figure and someone to look up to as a world leader and a towering icon to many in the third world. i want to play for you some of the sound from elian reflecting on fidel's life right now.

>> he is a father, who like my father, i wanted to show him everything i achieved, that he would be proud of me. that's how it was with fidel. if i learned something and wanted to show him and there are still many things i want to show him. >> reporter: elian gonzolez is not as loved as he was as a child. they see him as a hypocrite, honest honestly. people think it's not really in line with what his mother, who risked her life, lost her life trying to get him out of cuba would have wanted for him. as you can see, there is still an active demonstration going on. people chanting fidel, you tyra tyrant, take your brother with you. earlier they were chanting

trump, trump. obviously the celebration here will continue. this is significantly less than we saw yesterday and the night before. it is still a moment here in miami. >> thank you so much. all right. north of my iami in palm beach donald trump's plane is taking off. we'll have much more straight ahead. our mission is to produce programs and online content for african women as they try to build their businesses and careers. my name is yasmin belo-osagie and i'm a co-founder at she leads africa. i definitely could not do my job without technology. this windows 10 device, the touchscreen allows you to kind of pinpoint what you're talking about. which makes communication much easier and faster than the old mac that i used to use. you can configure it in so many different ways, it just, i don't know, it feels really cool. i feel like i'm in the future.

every day starts better with a healthy smile. start yours with philips sonicare, the no.1 choice of dentists. compared to oral-b 7000, philips sonicare flexcare platinum removes significantly more plaque. this is the sound of sonic technology cleaning deep between teeth. hear the difference? get healthier gums in just 2 weeks vs a manual toothbrush and experience an amazing feel of clean. innovation and you. philips sonicare. save now when you buy philips sonicare.

we'll keep close tabs on the meetings tomorrow and today as the trump plane is there in west palm beach florida. donald trump will have a full day tomorrow holding meetings with eight potential choices for his administration. >> this past week president elect trump announced two, nikki haley and betsy for education secretary. they joined mike flynn for national security adviser. he helped destroy extremist networks and known as a skilled intelligence officer even though he was forced out reportedly over his combative management style. mike pompao was a tea party

favorite and one of the lead republicans investigating the 2012 benghazi attack. then there's steve bannon, trump's chief strategist. he was an investment banker and hollywood investor. most recently he made it his mission jeff sessions, the former prosecutor has opposed immigration reform as well as bipartisan proposals. sessions has been accused of calling civil rights groups up american and criticized the voting rights act. and finally the chairman of the republican national committee who will be the president-elect's chief of staff. while prebus is a mainstream some fear he is too much of a washington insider.

>> i want to bring in political analyst back. all right. to you first. still unclear who trump will nominate as u.s. secretary of state. lots of names have been tossed around. among will latest david petraeus. here is what trump's white house chief of staff had to say about that. >> during this trump campaign they hammered hillary clinton for mishandling classified information pretra petraeus was convicted from that. >> learning from really smart people as far as what the right decision making process may be in choosing any other position is something that smart people do. i don't think anyone could say petraeus isn't a very bright calculated smart person.

these are the types of conversations i think the american people would expect of an incoming president that's trying to make the best decisions possible for everyone out there across the country. >> all right. so what do you think? >> well, look, petraeus in spite of the legal difficulty is still one of the most respected figures in the entire country. the difference between petraeus is he made guilty to a crime is on probation or his position at the time because he recognized he made a mistake. so that doesn't discount his skills as a military strategist and potential skills as a diplomat. you know, that's kind of a cosmetic problem. i don't think anybody would really criticize trump for talking to petraeus. he is an icon. >> i like petraeus. he seems to me to be a lot more

suited than someone like rudy giuliani. here is the interesting part. the rhetoric is very calm and inclusive and talks about unifying everyone. the choices that we have gotten so far and the ones that seem to be on the horizon, i don't see a lot of actual action. you look at someone like jeff sessions, betsy devos, i would watch and see how closely the actual actions mirror that. >> so you're talking about inconsistent messaging. >> i got no problem with the messaging. we have plenty of opportunities to put that into action. that hasn't happened yet. >> let's talk about potential press secretaries. there were also a few names talked about. now cnn has learned from sources

that former campaign manager kellyann conway just might be a top pick. brian, if that were the case, smart choice, what would be the strategy here? >> kellyann conway went from running ted cruz's super pack to being trump's chief advocate. all along the way has come out smelling like roses because she has been viewed as a professional as a sort of credible messenger. i think you would be hard pressed to find somebody who thinks this is a bad idea. i have seen a lot of people saying why isn't this public already? why don't they announce it already? i would not be surprised at all. >> how do you see it? she is an incredible messenger. >> no doubt about that. i think the question is whether

she is holding out for something that has policy influence in it. i don't think we know the answer to that. >> thank you so much. we continue to watch donald trump's plane there. he makes his way to new york for those meetings tomorrow. we'll keep a close watch on all of it. we'll be right back. so all you have to do is search for the car you want, there it is. now you're an expert in less than a minute. this is truecar.

florida, north dakota and arkansas approved the use of medical marijuana and voters in montana rolled back restrictions on measurable pot measures. it shows us the impact legalization is having in arkansas, the first state in the bible belt to approve it. >> blake suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. he says it began haunting him two years ago. >> my crew were the ones who brought the bodies off of the helicopters. i was struggling with alcoholism very badly. i started to suffer from a lot of depression, from a lot of things i had seen and was having night terrors. >> he kept his struggles and contemplation of suicide until after he was honorably

discharged. he read stories online about how were finding relief through smoking marijuana so he started buying and smoking marijuana illegally. he says it helped a lot. this self-described christian faced a new battle, a moeral on. >> i felt like a criminal and i felt like i was displeasing to my faith and to my god. the one thing i found that helped me was under such scrutiny and was illegal. >> illegal under state law until now. this month voters chose to amend the state's constitution by a vote of 53% to 47% making arkansas the first state in the bible belt to legalize medical marijuana. seven out of ten arkansas -- he took his case to church

congregations. >> people would come up to you and whisper in your ear, hey, i'm for you. my grandmother has cancer and we buy her marijuana or my son has ptsd and we buy him marijuana. we have all of these stories. >> reporter: arkansas is still a conservative state with republican controlled state legislatu legislature. republican and consider this, nearly half of the state's 75 counties are dry which means soon people will be able to legally smoke medical marijuana although it will be impossible to buy a six pack of beer. in 2012 a similar measure was defeated in part by an add from family council action committee with some criticized for reenforcing racial stereo types. >> the gras growers and dope dealers. >> it featured the surgeon general making the case against

the amendment. >> get the law right and many of us will support it. >> smoking something is not medicine. >> the family council does not expect it will be the bible belt bell weather for medical marijuana. >> i think there will be a couple more southern states and by the time we get to the rest of the south people will start saying this is a bad thing. this is bad for the kids. there is more wrecks. there's more er visits. >> it really does provide relief and benefit to people that need it. if you look at it from a compassionate side, a christian side then it's the right thing to do. >> the christian viewpoint, the moral viewpoint is to make sure they aren't doing harm on themselves. we want to help people. we want to help people in the

correct fashion, the right form. >> they say smoking marijuana does not make him forget the who r horror he has seen. >> i didn't just fight for the state of california, colorado, alaska, washington, oregon, massachusetts, florida or any of these states that have some sort of legalization efrt. i fought for all 50 states and so did every one of my brothers and sisters. if there's a medicine out there to help them through their night demons we are obligated to give this to these people. >> reporter: he is starting to advocate right here in the bible fwel belt, cnn, arkansas. a group of manhattan firefighters describe a daring rescue being called miracle on 93rd street. their story next. >> the roof was on fire. there was fire coming out of the

shaft tlch shaft. there was fire all around us. ♪ think of your fellow man.

♪ lend him a helping hand. ♪ put a little love in your heart. ♪ ♪ take a good look around... ♪ ...and if you're lookin' down, ♪ ♪ put a little love in your heart. ♪ ♪put a little love in your heart.♪ ♪ in your heart. (avo) the subaru share the love event is happening now and will have given ninety million dollars to help real people like these.

meet brad, one of this year's top ten heros. >> they are amazing teachers. i definitely learned a lot about what makes me happy and what i want to do each day. the idea. i started working on it. it really effected my entire family and included a few years later. i chose to kayaking professionally. i came to this cross roads and realized i wanted to find that experience of kayaking back to other people that would benefit from it. they are the most underserved population and they are facing their own unique chal leks.

this population deserves attention. it is for that look of ple accomplishment on their faces. >> all right. vote for brad or any of your favorite top ten heros on cnnheros.com. a look at our top stories. ten people have been shot, one in new orleans french quarter. it happened on bourbon street where crowds were gathered. it is unclear what lead to the shooting. two men have been arrested for illegal gun possession. new mexico police made an arrest for attacks at three different starbucks locations. suspicious devices were left at the coffee shops. one caused minimal damage. no one was injured. the fbi has not release add motive. and the numbers are in on

the biggest shopping day of the year. black friday sales dropped 5% from last year. online traffic had a big boost. this weekend's cyber shoppers set a new record of $3 billion in sales. about a third of the transactions came from mobile devices. for a few hours trump tower had a new name on google maps. the manhattan home was identified as dump tower last night. by early this morning the label was removed. wpix reports a second location in columbus circle had been renamed dump international hotel and tower. cnn reached out to google for comment. it is being called the miracle on 93rd street.

new york city firefighters putting their lives on the line to save an elderly man trapped in a burning apartment building and they did it by using a rescue technique that's only deployed in the most dire of situations. we have five of new york's bravest who went beyond the call of duty. >> the roof was on fire. there was fire coming out of the shaft. there was fire all around us. >> the firefighters never met before that that di an 81-year-old man brought them together. >> frank called me and told me that we had a guy at the window. >> my thought was to try to get

to him. as you saw there was no rear fire escape. >> i grabbed the rope, dumped the rope onto the roof and that's when andy and steve and joe came up. we just went to work. jim lee was being scaled down scaling the burning building. >> go to your right. go to your right. >>. >> i remember seeing him looking up at me with that hood up. i said let's go. >> with the rope holding them beginning to burn -- >> they successfully lowered the two men to safety seconds before

the rope snapped. >>. >> the rope was on fire and reality set in that wow, we really squlus saved -- we saved a guy's life. we let jit matly, a group of guys worked together in seamless fashion and saved this guy's life. what a feeling. >> you look familiar. >> the firefighters met the man they saved, jim duff fi. >> i said thank god. it was a miracle on 93rd. >> this is definitely a win for everybody. >> cnn new york. >> thanks so much. at this hour the president-elect is on his way back to new york city where he plans to meet with more potential cabinet picks. we'll continue to follow this at the top of the hour.

in the meantime that's going to do it for me. thanks for being with me today. have a great rest of the weekend and a great week.

i won this 55 inch tv for less than $30 on dealdash.com. visit dealdash.com for great deals. and start bidding today!

top of the hour now thon

sunday. you're live in the cnn news room. donald trump is heading back to his headquarters in new york. as he heads home this evening the president-elect is continuing one of his trademark twitter tirades. here are some of his latest. in addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide i won the popular vote if you deduct the million of people who voted illegally. it would have been easy tore win the popular vote instead of electoral college. i would have won more easily and convincingly but smaller states are forgont. i want to bring in ryan nobles. so to be clear there is no evidence millions of people voted illegally,