Trump and Putin Say Nations Must Bolster Nukes; Spicer Picked for Trump's White House Press Secretary; Several Trump Pick Announced Today; Trump Team Floats Tariffs; Man Bounced From Jet After Ivanka Trump Encounter.
BALDWIN: All right, just into CNN, in one of Donald Trump's last administration picks before the holidays, the president-elect has tapped RNC spokesman - someone who you see on CNN all the time - Sean Spicer as White House press secretary. Spicer is a six-year veteran of the Republican National Committee, well positioned among the Washington press corps. More recently he has been acting as a spokesman for the Trump transition team. So let's go straight to Jim Acosta, our CNN senior White House correspondent. We know Sean, so congrats to Sean.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We do.</s>BALDWIN: Tell - tell me more about his resume and any other names as part of this announcement.</s>ACOSTA: Yes, Brooke, I mean, we've been hearing about Sean Spicer's name for a while. You know, Kellyanne Conway, who was tapped as the counselor to the president today, she was initially offered this position very early on after the election. She turned it down. She wanted a bigger, more high-profile role closer to the president of the United States, and she got that in being named counselor to the president. Now, being press secretary is not small potatoes, as you know. Just ask -</s>BALDWIN: It's a huge job.</s>ACOSTA: Ari Fleischer, Jay Carney, Josh Earnest. I mean these -- Robert Gibbs. These are - these are very big, well-established people here in Washington and it is a huge, huge job. You're tangling with the press every day. And Sean Spicer has shown it on your show and other shows here on CNN that he can handle it. He is somebody that Donald Trump has grown to really like. You know, he tangled with Michael Smerconish one time on CNN and we were told that following that performance he got a pat on the back from the president-elect himself. There are other people - there are other people who were named today. Jason Miller is going to be the new communications director. Hope Hicks, the long-time spokesperson for Donald Trump, she's going to be the director of strategic communications. She was a fixture out on the campaign trail handling a lot of the booking requests and that sort of thing. And then Dan Scavino, who was sort of a low-level staffer inside the Trump Organization for many, many years, but then got very good at Instagraming and tweeting pictures of Donald Trump here, there and everywhere, is now the director of social media inside the White House. So, Brooke, it just goes to show you, if you were there at the beginning of one of these campaigns - we saw it with the Obama campaign and moving into the Obama White House, the Bush years and so on -</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>ACOSTA: You know, if you're there at the beginning, you can land some pretty top primo spots in the administration. And that is exactly what has happened. Save (ph) Sean Spicer, who came in sort of towards the end of the campaign, when Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway were coming in to sort of help right the ship after Corey Lewandowsky went by the wayside, Paul Manafort and so on, Spicer, Priebus, those folks came in towards the end. But this is very much the team that we're going to be seeing in this new administration. They're going to be calling a lot of the shots and dealing with folks like us on a daily basis.</s>BALDWIN: Yes, they will. It's a huge, huge deal.</s>ACOSTA: Definitely.</s>BALDWIN: Congrats to them. Jim Acosta, thank you so much.</s>ACOSTA: You bet.</s>BALDWIN: Let's now turn to some other news just into us. A senior official in the Trump transition telling CNN, the incoming administration is mulling a double digit tariff on imports. The move, an obvious nod to Trump's campaign promise to create jobs. But one business source says that could spark a trade war. So let me bring in CNN politics reporter Jeremy Diamond, who just got the very latest. We're talking double digits, Jeremy. We had initially been reporting five. What is it now?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, REPORTER, CNN POLITICS: Well, I shut spoke with a senior transition official today who said that it could be as high as 10 percent. Certainly they're mulling higher - more than a 5 percent tariff. And what they're talking about right now is an across-the- board tariff on imports, which is understandably kind of spooking a lot of folks in the big business community, especially a lot of consumer goods that rely on imports. You know, you could see prices rise, consumer goods prices rise if such a measure were to go into effect. And I'm told that this is already being discussed with House leadership officials and so far the senior transition official I spoke with said that they are finding some common ground, although it is unclear exactly, you know, what that common ground is and we're not hearing too much from the House side so far. But certainly what this could be is, you know, a starting negotiate position. We've seen this time and again from Donald Trump's campaign, you know, where they start at a very high figure, something a little bit radical, and then eventually come down to more of a middle position once they start negotiating.</s>BALDWIN: Jeremy Diamond, stay with me. I want to bring in two more people, Richard Quest, CNN's foremost international business correspondent and host of "Quest Means Business," and also Juana Summers, CNN's politics editor there as well. So, Richard Quest, to you. You know, economists are responding saying this could spur a global recession, depress global trade. What do you think?</s>RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you want to put the fox amongst the chickens, then this is exactly the right way to go about it. There is no doubt, Brooke, that this is - look, you - first of all, there will be questions as to its legality, and that relates not only to WTO rules, but bilateral trade treaties that the U.S. will have with other nations. But let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that we can put all those legalistic niceties to one side.</s>BALDWIN: OK.</s>QUEST: The reality is, tit for tat. If you introduce these tariffs on imports, then outgoing exports can expect quid pro quo going the other direction.</s>BALDWIN: OK. I want to move off that. And, Juana, let me just move to you on the reporting we just heard from Jim, Sean Spicer now officially appointed as the press secretary for the next administration and also Kellyanne Conway, who we know she had been offered that job. She said thanks but no thanks. But now she's officially a quote/unquote "counselor to the president." What will that mean?</s>JUANA SUMMERS, EDITOR, CNN POLITICS: Given the role that we've seen from Kellyanne Conway so far as Trump's campaign manager and the role she's played in taking a front facing role towards the press, I would expect to see her be someone who handles a lot of the strategic messaging coming out of the campaign, takes a lead role, as we've seen her do, in the last couple weeks since Donald Trump has become President-elect Trump and talking to people, making sure that the message is clear. She's a long time veteran pollster. A lot of those of us who have reported in Washington have known her and have worked with her during the course of the campaign. I think she'll certainly play a lead role in messaging, along with Sean Spicer, also another well-known Washington person. And, Brooke, I'm sure for a lot of reporters who might be concerned that the Donald Trump administration will be chilly to the press, someone like Spicer as White House press secretary is a welcome sign.</s>BALDWIN: OK. Now to the story that everyone's talking about and finally we can officially because we have a photo, thank you TMZ. Guys, throw the photo up on the screen here. The arrow is pointing to Ivanka Trump, who is sitting with her children, I believe - Jeremy Diamond, you know the story - and her husband when someone started harassing them and he got chucked off the plane. What happened?</s>DIAMOND: Well, it seems that there was a gentleman on a plane who came up to Ivanka and Jared Kushner and essentially, you know, began haranguing them for, you know, their relationship to the president- elect. And I had a, you know, Trump organization spokesperson tell me that really they're letting this story stand for itself, suggesting that it's something pretty outrageous as far as they see it. And we also had an understanding that - from a Trump transition source who told me that they are flying to Hawaii for some vacation. So not going to Mar-a-Lago, where the president-elect and some of his family are residing for the Christmas holiday.</s>BALDWIN: OK. So, Richard Quest, you fly all the time. You're also our aviation correspondent. And by the way, you know, shame on the person who harassed them. I don't care how you feel about, you know, Donald Trump, that is just entirely rude and disgraceful to be harassing somebody, especially with little children. Have you ever heard of something like this?</s>QUEST: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. This is - this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. It usually happens with politicians, that they get - a few British politicians have been rounded out