Trump to Hold First News Conference Since July; Some GOP Lawmakers Offering Assurances That Trump Will Not Be Overly Friendly To Russia
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A huge week for the country in transition. For the first time since July, president-elect Donald Trump will hold a news conference, at least he promises to. Some of the cabinet nominees face confirmation hearings in the senate and then the wake of the intelligence report that said Vladimir Putin of Russia tried to hack into the American election season. A record setting night at the Golden Globes, but -- but the big headline, not about the statues, not about the shows, but about what one winner had to say about the president-elect. Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman. It is Monday, January 9th. It is 4 a.m. in the East. Christine Romans is sick this morning. Please tweet her some get well messages. This morning, the chances of Meryl Streep performing at the inauguration appear to be dwindling. And what has that to do with the dress shops in Washington? We will get to the overnight face-off between Hollywood royalty and the president-elect of the United States in a bit. But first, something we have not seen in six months. For the first time since July, Trump has promised to hold an actual news conference that will happen this week he says. He had one scheduled for December to discuss how we would disentangle his businesses from the presidency. But that one was canceled. We will see if we get an explanation on those matters on Wednesday. We also have hearings for the president-elect's cabinet nominees. Those begin this week. And we have new questions about what a president Trump would do or not do about the intelligence report linking Russia to election year hacking. He got the briefing. He acknowledges there was hacking by Russia, but not just Russia and seems to blame the Democrats for being hacked.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, INCOMING WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR: If you read his entire statement and follow the briefing on Friday, he makes very clear that Russia, China and others have attempted to attack different government institutions and businesses and individuals and organizations over a series of time. He specifically mentioned the Democratic National Committee. If you read the full report, he made very clear, Mr. Clapper and his testimony made very clear on Thursday under oath that any attempt, any aspiration to influence our elections failed. They were not successful in doing that.</s>BERMAN: Let's get the latest on the transition from CNN's Ryan Nobles.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This will be a week filled with important people related to the Donald Trump transition answering some tough questions, including the president-elect himself. Donald Trump will hold his first official press conference since winning the election on Wednesday. He is expected to outline how he will remove himself from his global business empire and any potential related conflicts of interest. Also facing the heat, Trump's cabinet nominees. Starting Tuesday, a group of his most prominent picks will appear before senate committees for public hearings. But some of them have not filed the necessary paper work with the independent office of government ethics. That has Democrats concerned, but Republicans like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell argue that it is all just part of the process.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: All of these little procedural complaints are related to their frustrations, having not only lost the White House, but having lost the senate. I understand that. But we need to sort of grow up here and get past that. We need the national security team in place on day one and papers are still coming in. And so, I'm optimistic that we will be able to get up to seven nominees on day one, just like we did eight years ago.</s>NOBLES: The first two hearings will take place on Tuesday. Trump's pick for attorney general Jeff Sessions and his pick on the department of homeland security General John Kelly. Trump's big press conference takes place on Wednesday in New York City.</s>BERMAN: All right. Lots of hearings this week for cabinet nominees. Jeff Sessions and John Kelly on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, Elaine Chao for transportation secretary, Mike Pompeo CIA director, and Becky DeVos education secretary. Then on Thursday, General James Mattis up for secretary of defense. As for those paper work questions, the head of the government office on ethics has written Senator Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer warning that his staff is under pressure to rush through nominees' vetting. The Trump team has pushed back in a statement saying this transition is running smoothly and lamenting that quote some had chosen to politicize the process. Some Republican lawmakers are offering assurances that Donald Trump will not be overly friendly to Russia. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told CBS the proof of that is in Trump's slate of national security nominees and also recent history.</s>MCCONNELL: I don't think it is all that unusual for the new president to want to get along with the Russians. I remember George W. Bush having the same hope. My suspicion is these hopes will be dashed pretty quickly.</s>BERMAN: Russian lawmakers and commentators greeted the intelligence reports on election hacking with open scorn. There are tweets that focused mainly on the fact that the unclassified version of the report offered assurances and confidence, but no hard evidence. Let's get the latest on this. I want to bring in Jill Dougherty, global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and CNN's former Moscow bureau chief. Jill, I don't think we expected the Kremlin to stand up and say, you know what, yeah, we did it. We hacked the U.S. election, but the response here notable.</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FORMER MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: Yeah. I mean, John, that's pretty obvious, isn't it? I think if you were to boil it down, basically, the reaction has been a big yawn, saying what's new? Where is the evidence? And then, the other thing is a big laugh. On social media, Russian social media, et cetera, there is really mocking this report. And if you look at the response from RT, Russian Television, which we have been watching this morning, they are having story after story about how the information contained in the report about RT was out of date. And in fact, they are correct that much of the information was from 2012. So they are saying nothing new and then basically mocking it. I will point out one tweet by a member of parliament, who tweets a lot. And he said the democratic process in the U.S. was undermined not by Russia, but by the Obama administration, and the media who supported Clinton against Trump. The threat to democracy is inside the U.S. So this is kind of more of the hard edge of this. But I don't think, John, that it is really in the interest to get too much response from the government here because, after all, they want to forget about Obama, ignore him and concentrate on the new president about to come in.</s>BERMAN: And of course, president-elect Trump issued a series of very kind tweets about Russia over the weekend after this report. So that feeling I think is mutual. Jill Dougherty, thank you so much, Jill. The incoming Trump administration is refusing to commit to a timeline for replacing Obamacare. The president-elect made an issue, sent his team o this campaign. This is Kellyanne Conway with our Jake Tapper.</s>CONWAY: He is committed to replacing Obamacare with something that actually is affordable and accessible and allows you to buy health insurance over state lines.