. today on inside politics, epic failure. dysfunction, humiliation, and inability to govern. that s the most charitable way to describe congressional republicans right now. a stunning series of mind boggling defeats. and minutes from now, senate republicans will almost certainly torpedo the most conservative border bill before them in decades. plus a win for, quote, none of these candidates. nikki haley loses nevada s nonbinding primary even though she was the only candidate on the ballot. her campaign insists it s full steam ahead. and the trump campaign s moment, all eyes are on the supreme court preparing to hear arguments on whether donald trump can be disqualified under the constitution s insurrection ban. a sign of how serious the former president takes this, he s staying out of washington trying to avoid a political spectacle. i m dana bash let s go behind the headlines and inside politics. we start in the nation s capital where senate republicans are about to ki
This is cnn breaking news. all right, this breaking news now into the newsroom. cnn has learned that president-elect donald trump has indeed made a very big decision. he s selected rnc chair reince priebus as his chief of staff. cnn s chief political correspondent dana bash is joining us on the phone. also with us, cnn s chris frates joining us from washington. so first to you, dana. what more are you hearing about why reince priebus and what is the hope as chief of staff? reporter: hi, there, fred. first of all, sources tell myself and jim acosta that this is the decision that mr. trump, president-elect trump has settled on and that this is something that he obviously feels the most comfortable with at this point. and you know, on its face, you might say, well, why would somebody who was elected as the ultimate outsider choose
The entire team played well together on this team and they ll work well together in an administration. i think it s a huge signal of the intentions of president-elect trump to get things done. he s brought in someone who can get things done. and reince can cross a lot of boundaries in the republican party. i think he ll be called by some people right now an establishment figure, whatever that word means. but reince came up through the grassroots as state party chairman. he s become very skilled at the rnc, when you don t have the white house and you have a lot of different factions going on in the country, of managing to communicate to all of them to be with the grassroots, the movement conservatives, as well as other parts of the party. so you know, you can t ever really describe reince as anything other than very conservative himself. so, i think it s an excellent choice of somebody who can bring the party together and help enact president trump s agenda. what did you learn about r
I m assuming they hope is that they will work well together, as they did during the campaign. and former rnc chief of staff mike shields still with us. what do you believe the next very important appointment would be from president-elect trump now? we have two appointments. what would be third? oh, goodness. i mean, you ve got a whole administration to fill out. you ve got to have press secretaries, you ve got to have cabinet officials, you ve got to staff the rest of the white house. and really, i think look, i want to go back to what was being said about bannon before and echo what gloria was saying. sure. this is a really, really smart guy. and he came into a campaign i don t know how many people drop into a presidential campaign as late as he did. and if you look at the polls where they were when he came and joined the campaign and look at where they were about four weeks later. and so, this is an incredibly intelligent political strategist that the president has at his
Insider like a reince priebus to move things along. legislation is very complicated. the negotiations that happen, the back-room discussions, those are the kinds of things that reince priebus is going to be able to facilitate with his relationships because he s trusted. he s a known quantity. and he also, as you pointed out, fred, helped bridge that gap between the establishment here in washington and the donald trump campaign. he was in a really tough spot for a lot of this campaign as the head of the rnc. he had to support the nominee. the party wasn t completely behind donald trump, and he helped, you know, sometimes kind of pull those two forces together. and you can see he s really earned donald trump s respect and trust, now that donald trump has put him in that position of chief of staff. and we expect that, according to dana and jim acosta s sources, that we re going to hear that announcement pretty soon here, fred. dana, as you described, chief of staff, that is your confida