trump atwith ivanka the plaza hotel. donald trump was great. they all have faults, good points and bad points. but to take a man's faults and write a book about it is shameful. he revamped the whole city and made a great with giuliani as attorney general. they turn times square from a ghetto into what it is today. host: go in -- go and respond to vivian there. it's not a good connection but i didn't know what she was saying that giuliani should have been attorney general or something, i didn't understand that at all. i wroteioned ivanka and an open letter to ivanka. i told her what she could do and what positive she could bring in a positiveat she was influence on her father. she did nothing. she says she knows what women need. she says she knows what it's like to have a job and make ends meet. she turned out to be a tremendous disappointment. i really don't know what else she wanted me to comment on. host: she was saying she doesn't appreciate the fact that you wrote a book focusing on president trump's bad qualities. focusing on the whole qua

trump. professor lawrence tribe is going to join us to ask and answer the question, is it possible for a president's use of the pardon power to absolve crimes, to actually become a crime in and of itself? constitutional law professor lawrence tribe will analyze for us the possibility of donald trump committing a crime while granting a pardon. that's later in the hour. >>> we've now completed four full days of absolute silence from the president of the united states about a devastating bombing in downtown nashville, tennessee, on christmas morning. and today the president in waiting said this. >> before i begin, i want to say a few words, a few brief words about the explosion that took place friday in nashville, tennessee. federal, state and local law enforcement working around the clock to gain more information on motive and intent, this bombing was a reminder of the destructive power of an individual or a small group can muster in the need for continuing vigilance across the board. i want t

, trump, trump. for her it's her family, her mother, her father and bayern, i very tight group and very few other penetrate and really know the real inner person. i think the relationship clearly has hit rocks at different times, and a pedantic they been together for 22 years. i have a lot in the book about this, but she was furious about the revelations about his infidelity, embarrassed to no end as she was reading about stormy daniels and karen mcdougal and "access hollywood." but she has an extraordinary capacity to kind of figured okay, what is my next best move? somebody who's known her for a long time with saying she always thinks that way. she does anything in hurry and did she get more from walking away from trouble staying with him? that's how she thinks. >> host: do you think those disclosures, there were certainly embarrassing 50 think they were surprising to her? >> several key people told me that she learned new details from all those press reports. she did not know the details -- i find

trump hated that. trump also hated that krebs and his agency put up this really good website, this rumor control website, actively and aggressively debunking conspiracy theories about things being wrong with the election or wrong with the vote count. well, today after trump fired chris krebs and fired krebs' deputy and fired the cybersecurity division chief at that agency, today the guy left standing still running that agency announced that actually, yeah, they're going to keep that rumor control website up and running. they're going to keep it up through the georgia senate elections on january 5th so they can debunk conspiracy theories about the voting system for that election too. oh, no. oh, no, because that of course means trump's going to have to fire even more national security people now. he'll have to find more infowars, mike flynn acolyte screwballs to go move into that agency too, right? better hurry. it's a big government. it's a big national security apparatus. time is running out for you t

trump. and if trump was a knowing party to that crime, legally, he could still face potential prosecution, i mean, technically, he could, because the deadline has not yet run for that kind of campaign finance violation. now, you may recall this whole case, it began with a secret. donald trump paying daniels to hide their encounters which date back to 2006. and the legal problems came when trump and cohen acted around the 2016 election. and there's stronger evidence here than in most stories. that is to say, if you're talking to people about, oh, should trump be charged or not, in some of those stories or cases, even the tax issues, they can be vague. but here, mueller's prosecutors had inside players exposing what was happening. we even heard from some of those key witnesses in realtime. this was during the open mueller probe in our reporting on the beat. >> in your fbi interview with mueller's team, you were asking about payments to women? >> they were asking if i knew anything about it. >>

if it is donald trump's party, if it's the trump gop, does that mean the 2024 candidate will be a trump, if not donald himself, then don junior or ivanka? >> that's a difficult question to answer. obviously if the presidential candidate is trump, the president is 100% -- the republican p republican party is going to have to fall behind him because there is no one else who can establish themselves behind him. if he does run, it is going to be difficult for anyone to take on the party of trump without trump himself, saying i give my blessing. who knows if that's going to happen. but you can see all these other republicans who have stepped in and in their own senate races and house races and say i am super-duper pro trump. i support all these trumpian policies. i'm even going to emulate trump. if trump decides he doesn't like them at one moment, trump's base immediately turns against them. you saw it with kelly leffler. you saw it with the senate race now, where the two candidates are trying so hard to do the right trumpian things, and maga supporters who think they were the beneficiaries

he supported trump. analyzing and investigating the investigations he misrepresented as you said in the mueller investigation. he has been at every place and i'm among those thousands of prosecutors who said he should resign while he has belatedly but not for the reasons i said. he said something else. as he's going out the door, he was compromising the convictions. he was compromising our free and fair elections by these bogus statements he made about we found this fraud and somewhere along the line, it seems like there must have been an intervention, somebody, maybe a good criminal defense lawyer or someone concerned about the ethics by which he could retain his bar license said do you have any idea what you're doing? do you want to be standing next to the guy when he's flying for the inauguration or whatever he does between now and january 5th or january 6th or january 20th? trump inhales the souls of people and gets them to do things that are their worst possible performances. and he's done that with

campaign for future trump and a financial engine, i guess, for future trump as well. but this will end. the new president is on deck. covid team, communications team, economic team, national security team all getting off the blocks. and lots of news upon us tonight about just how hard the task is ahead for them. stay with us. lots to get to tonight. copd. ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ it's a new dawn... if you've been taking copd sitting down, it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your

the second year of the trump presidency, i compared what we are seeing in the trump white house to the brilliant defictpin of an insane head of state, and flow, now the trump white house admits that that is what we have been living through. the "washington post" reports after his election defeat, wageful and at times delirious, and at times, trump was like mad king george, muttering, i won, i won, i won. there is not a single legal process any where in america monday that can change the outcome of an election in a sing the state. let alone the majority of the elect electoral challenge, and everything they are following around trump rrnd aing it's to help trick naive people to respond to the emails trump sends every day begging them for money that he claims will be used to fight the election, and can be used for other purposes. tugs jut another trump money fraund. the results of the election are locked in and the incoming administration continues to add key players to the publicly announced team. jennifer socky will be the white house press secretary. kate bettingfield will become the w

the critics derided him, but president trump has delivered. when president trump ran for office, he promised to help open a new chapter for working families. after eight years of failed policies that concentrated wealth and optimism among the lucky few, prosperity was going to flow to all kinds of workers in all kinds of communities he said, and that's exactly what happened. before this pandemic spread from china and the world had to slam on the brakes, the american people had the best job market in living memory. with help of the policies from president trump and republicans in congress, american workers dynamited the stagnation that experts had said was the new normal. unemployment hit a 50-year low, capital markets hit record highs. at this time all kinds of americans got to share in the gains. we saw earnings grow faster for workers than for managers, faster for the bottom 25 than for the top 25. this success was fueled in part by the policy leadership of president trump. this administration pursued bold regulatory changes. once in a gener

the complaint alleges that she met with donald and ivanka trump sharing her concerns about cost and trump directed ivanka to quote handle this issue. she famously had this publicly falling out with the trumps and talked about taping conversations and discussed some of those very concerns with rachel. >> i do know that at the time that i questioned where the money was going or how much everything costs, i was asked to not attend the budget meetings. people need to follow the money. the last thing any of these people want is for the truth to be told. i'm part of three different investigations yet i'm a witness to all of them and it really is a charade of shenanigans and i feel that the trump presidency is hurting the country. >> we'll go to professor melissa murray from ny us here. nice to see you. >> nice to see you, too. >> one of the core principles of the law that people understand is fairness is if you think someone did one thing bad, you can't just go after them about something else. that may happen in life but that's not fair in law and so whatever people's feelings about the trump a

i want to get your vision of donald trump next year, donald trump january 21st. is he still trying to control the operations of the united states senate? and then what happens eventually when or i should say if, if he becomes a criminal defendant in the state of new york? >> i think part of that depends a lot on what happens on january 5th in georgia honestly. i think that the silence of republicans in congress as donald continues to commit sedition on a practically daily basis is unforgivable. however, from a tactical point of view i'm pretty sure it is because mitch mcconnell believes he needs to keep donald's base riled up in order to increase republican turnout in georgia. so the question -- one big question i think is how much use is the republican party going to continue to get out of donald. post-inauguration what should happen, because this is what usually happens, is that the outgoing president decreases in relevance, is no longer the center of the show, and that's what should happen now but it depends on us. donald at that point is going to be even more

kushner and ivanka trump. he represented this california psychologist who had been convicted in 2014 of tax issues. and what this bribery scheme was, essentially, was for him to be given clemency for substantial political donation. this was all from these documents, these emails from the justice department that a judge released these court documents this yeek. they were heavily redacted. but abby lowell was among the people involved because he represented hue barris. there were others involved. there's a california billionaire who died in 2018. but there's a lot of questions that haven't been answered. we know from this case that someone reached out to the white house counsel's office making sure that the clemency request went to the right person. and there are these e-mails, but we are still waiting for more information. representatives for abby lowell, for broidy and hugh barris say they have no indication they are chin clients are under investigation or there is any wrongdoing. they spoke to doj and they ga

trump. and how i became -- i'm not the one who had the affair. he did. i'm not the -- i am the dummy who paid $130,000 to keep it quiet, but this was my conversation with mr. trump, with allen weisselberg, and others, and i did it in order to protect him. and i guess the thank you that i got from my loyal boss was, michael cohen should, as i once said, take a bullet for him and lose everything, lose my freedom, my company, my law license, my family's happiness, everything. i'm with you. i don't understand it. >> the president is at least, though, named as "individual 1" by prosecutors and you, in your allocution, made very clear what you just made clear here, the fact that this was directed by him, for his benefit, and you were acting out his wishes, and so he's therefore the most culpable person. you make a point as almost the very last thing you say in the book, which i wanted to ask you about, because i think it may relate to this. the president is named as individual 1. you went to priso

they will be trying to challenge trump and move past trump wherever possible. host: let's talk to richard, who is calling from maryland on the democratic line. caller: good morning. where theon as to republican party will go after trump, i think it will not go anywhere higher than where it has been. a party that runs for power. jobs.0, the rent on -- they ran on jobs. it never came about. they ran on the same thing in 2014 -- jobs, jobs, infrastructure, never a bill introduced. when you go back to when obama was elected in 2008, newt leaderh, the minority republican from california, he -- against the president. after thed himself people killing our sons and daughters. it will never be anything other than gimmicks. reagan and bush started us on this downfall. i firmly believe republicans do not have the executive ability or honesty to handle the executive branch, as exhibited by reagan, bush and the second bush. each time it was a democrat that pulled our country back onto the right path against all kinds of opposition. where republicans go, it should be identif

trump leaves washington in limbo. no one in the white house or on capitol hill appears to know what trump's plan is or even if there is one. the quote there, "complete cluster --," is from a house republican staffer, a congressional staffer on the republican side. ah, the holiday season. ah, leadership. the president did, in fact, leave washington tonight. and if you listen to people who know these things, there's a not unreasonable chance he's never coming back. nobody's making any promises that president trump will ever return from mar-a-lago after the holidays. absolutely no one is expecting him to be there for the inauguration of his successor on january 20th, so it's possible that this was the last time we will see him in washington. could be. it's not quite nixon getting into the helicopter with the big two-handed "v" for vamoose and the terrible, awkward smile that didn't reach his eyes, but this maybe is as close as we're going to get. we shall see. not knowing where the president of the united states is going

where is donald trump? at the end of 2020, nation is facing multiple catastrophic crises and donald trump is awol. where is donald trump? more than 13,000 americans have died from the coronavirus, including 11,000 people in the last week alone. where is donald trump? today mike pence got a covid vaccine on live television. it could have been a true educational moment for those who fear the vaccine. but it wasn't. because the president didn't show. where is donald trump? millions of unemployed americans are on the brink of economic ruin, and there's still no guarantee of a deal on a relief package. where is donald trump? this is far worse than his usual laziness. his absence is unacceptable and unforgivable. he's missing in action when our nation is suffering. in the more than 50 tweets trump sent this week, he said nothing about the hack or the relief package or the surge in covid deaths. so where is donald trump? he's focused on the one thing he cares about, the one thing he's obsessed with more than anyth

, the trump family and the trump entities. it also does not apply to any future crimes that people commit. so, for instance, the trumps are going to have to be filing tax returns in the future. all of that is not affected by the president exercising the pardon power. and of course it remains to be seen whether if he self-pardons, which as you know i think he's going to. that's an issue that remains to be decided by the supreme court if it gets challenged. >> andrew weisman the optimist may be blow through a commercial break. that was fantastic. thank you, my friend, pore spendispen -- for spending time with us. >> coming up, we'll bring you news of an incredible raid this week in florida. that story next. id this week in florida. that story next. - i'm norm. - i'm szasz. [norm] and we live in columbia, missouri. we do consulting, but we also write. [szasz] we take care of ourselves constantly; it's important. we walk three to five times a week, a couple miles at a time. - we've both been taking prevagen for a little more than

trump used the call to urge mr. kemp, a republican, to call the state legislature into session so the republican majorities could appoint new electors who would subvert the will of the state's voters when the electoral college meets december 14th. pressure on kemp which he roundly and repeatedly rebuffed comes as mr. trump super tuesday a -- stews and brews in the west wring. ris rage and detached from reality refusal to concede defeat evoke images of a besieged overlord in some distant land. the gop war on the american election result is where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former missouri senator claire mccaskill is back, and peter baker, "new york times" chief white house correspondent. and sam stein, politics editor at the "daily beast." lucky for us, all msnbc contributors. claire, i want to start with you. when i read peter's reporting and the other great reporting in all the papers this weekend, especially "the washington post" count, putting numbers and names to all of the republic

and trump pardoned charles kushner, the father of trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, jared kushner. charles kushner was convicted in 2005 on charges of tax fraud, illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering. so far, 60 of trump's 65 pardons have gone to people he personally knows or who aided him politically. in tennessee, authorities say a 63-year-old white man whose body was found at the scene of a christmas morning explosion in downtown nashville was responsible for the blast. anthony quinn warner was a self-employed computer worker. before the blast, an rv with a recorded message warned area residents to evacuate. >> if you can hear this message, evacuate now. can hear this message, evacuate now," a woman's voice repeats from the rv. authorities say warner's dna was found among the wreckage. no motive has been identified and no other fatalities were reported. three people were injured. the blast damaged dozens of structures and caused at least one building to collapse. the bomb went off outside an at&t transmission building, disrupting services, including some 911 cal

they believe in donald trump and only donald trump. i've called it for a long time, not a republican caucus but republican cult and they will do everything, anything their dear leader says but the disappointing fact of that is we have millions of americans kicked out of their homes that don't know whether they will go for the next meal and these folks are more fired up about political stunt than they are about getting critical relief to americans and unfortunately, our own senator here in pat too m, helping lead the charge with mitch mcconnell. so disappointing. >> yeah, representative from the state of pennsylvania, which we may be hearing about. thanks for the time tonight, sir. >> thank you, ari. >> we have a 30-second break but the fight for georgia and why gingrich is speaking out and we have a special report on lessons learned from the pandemic including what bill gates tried to get trump to learn about even before this virus hit but first, autocrats and we're back in 30 seconds. autocrats and we're back in 30 seconds. >>> donald

>> harsh words for russia before trump and harsh words for russia after trump, but none from trump. i mean, that has been the issue here, and joe biden has now dealt a pretty tough hand where russia and vladimir putin in particular has had free reign for four years to do whatever he wants, faced little in the way of consequences. some sanctions here or there, but nothing of real note. no real challenge from the oval office. now, president-elect biden will take office 30 days from now, and have to confront this head on. deliver a stern warning to putin that this is unacceptable, and can't happen again. perhaps consider some sort of retaliatory espionage or, you know, cyber measures of their own to declare that this won't be tolerated. also, remember, it's not just russia. this is free reign right now, and other nations are watching the united states's response or lack thereof, and there are other countries who would love to exhibit similar attacks here and perhaps may in the next 30 days. so biden will take office needing to send a firm message that this won't be tolerated, as he wor

for his three elder children, donald trump jr., eric trump and ivanka trump. the trump kids, along with tiffany trump spent thanksgiving at camp david, the rustic maryland presidential retreat not often used during this administration. a far cry from opulent family thanksgivings at mar-a-lago or the white house where president trump dined with melania trump. the use of taxpayer dollars for a thanksgiving just for the kids with secret service protection and camp david staff called into work the visit smacks of the privileges they have enjoyed and will shortly lose. each trump child now faces a different future path than the one they were on pre-white house. donald trump jr. before in the shadows of trump's public appearances. now a republican fire brand. >> i'm outraged about them exporting your and my american dream to countries that hate our guts for the sake of pc nonsense. >> reporter: one source telling cnn junior is quote the future of the base. sources tell cnn trump jr. will also return to his day job at the trump organization to try to expand global pr

>> trump, trump, trump! >> laura: if you can believe it, after his second marathon rally of the day, president made his way to rochester, minnesota. the story at that evented was the disgusting and the transparent effort by the democratic leaders in the state to limit trump's fans from coming out to see him. they cappedded the event at 250 -- capped the event at 250. this is outdoors at an airport. okay? the governor tim walls and attorney general did their best to blunt the president's momentum. guess what? it didn't work. >> these are the people who are not allowed by the governor wall to actually enter the rally. look at how long it goes. [applause] the president came out to see them. >> 25,000 people. dis enfranchised. get out and vote, okay? [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause] >> four more years. four more years. four more years. >> laura: i have been in politics for 30 years. i have never seen anything like. this never. not for obama. not clinton. not bush. not even president reagan. just nev

is it trump's america? so much focus of our culture and politics on trump that it is his time, and that is why we titled the book "trump's america." host: i want to go back to the nine areas you covered in researching for the book, you mentioned howard county in our. they're places like ridge county, california, yuri county, pennsylvania. how often did you encounter minorities, in particular, african-americans who were trump supporters? guest: quite often. i try to seek out people who are different. i would look for immigrants or people of color and i did find quite a few minorities and immigrants as well who supported trump. we saw in the election results this year, a lot of people were surprised how will trump did relative to previous public and candidates among latinos and asian americans, among black men. do -- a lott had to of reporters and people on the coast are a bit more sensitive to some of the rhetoric that trump -- some of the things he says that can be taken as racist. a lot of people in the co

president trump. pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro has been fending off many trump campaign and other republican legal efforts in the campaign season. he's also one of the electors for commonwealth of pennsylvania, joins me live from harrisburg. josh, before i ask you about today's process, i want some clarification. republicans are complaining and the trump campaign is complaining about the election results in pennsylvania. are any of these republicans such as congressman mike kelly, leading the charge, to disenfranchise voters of pennsylvania and give the electors to trump, kelly or any of the statewide officials, i believe a couple of republicans won statewide races in pennsylvania a few weeks ago as well, are any of them saying obviously this election was fraudulent and that means me too, my race too that i won, therefore we should have the whole, all of the election do over or are they just saying there was only one issue and that has to do with one person on the slate that day, but all

we'll see if trump's loyal followers believe trump and don't show up for the vote. howie: with senate control at stake. clarence, if the media likes things like unity and bipartisanship, they certainly praised joe biden when he talks about them, why not welcome mcconnell to the fold rather than sniping at him? >> well, howard, this is a legitimate story. mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, has been very slow to congratulate the president or excuse me, congratulate the -- howie: elect. >> yeah. for his new president-elect status and why, that's the story, howard. the story is how republicans are divided over donald trump's election claims and how people are -- including people who of voted in the electoral college, have been intimidated by people who are fighting to represent truth and justice and this is unprecedented. this is new. that's why the media cover it. social media, it's where you see even more of a debate, even more activity. the one thing we're not seeing is a varying of mitch mcconnell support for the system and the fact that once again we can

media or anti-trump media. >> abby, you were at "the washington post" at the beginning of the trump years and then joined cnn. the post was another outlet a subject of trump's ire. was it different at a newspaper versus a television network? >> yeah, in a lot of ways. we all know that this president is very focused on television and particularly cable tv. and so the degree of scrutiny that he would place on cnn was, i think, pretty unique in a certain way. he also has a pretty significant amount of negativity directed at "the washington post" for all kinds of reasons, but, you know, being on television is, for president trump, often the most important thing, and so he really fixated on what was being said on our air, what was being said from the north lawn, and also his aides. it's almost a little bit of a game within the administration to channel the president's behavior towards news networks like cnn with his senior aides sort of acting out in that way as well. >> jeremy, what were press relations like with the trump white house press shop with the press secretaries and the deputi

thank you to president trump. with that i will take questions. >> has the president acknowledged that joe biden is the president-elect? does he have plans to invite him to the white house? >> the president is still involved in ongoing litigation related to the election. i will leave that to the staff and refer you to the campaign for more on the litigation. >> what was his reaction to leader mcconnell today congratulating joe biden and calling him the president-elect. >> i haven't gotten that reaction yet that the president is again pursuing ongoing litigation. >> if the votes have been certified, if the electoral college has voted, there doesn't seem to be a legal recourse at this point. >> the campaign would have more specifics for you but yesterday was one step in the constitutional process leading up to the january 20 date in the constitution. >> does the president plan to take the vaccine and will he do it in a public way to inspire confidence among the people? like the president said he is absolutely open to

i mean, trump has blown that out. we have now moved on to the stars of the russia investigation, right, manafort and stone. it's not exactly subtle here. there are a lot of pardons going out here for a lot of reasons, and some of those may yet be subject to future investigation. but what we're seeing is donald trump trying to erase every inch of the mueller investigation, rewarding foot soldiers who sneered at the justice department and robert mueller and obstructed that investigation and are now being rewarded for their efforts. joining us now is the chairman of the intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff of california. mr. chairman, thanks for being here on a big night. i know we called you on short notice. i really appreciate the time. >> it's not a pleasure to be with you, but good to be with you, nonetheless. >> let me just first ask your top-line reaction to this new wave of pardons tonight. i wanted to hear from you specifically about manafort and stone. but i sort of want to give you the floor for a se

it will go toward donald trump. and he will decide how to spend that money. >> it took him about 30 minutes to finally mention the senate race at that rally. you know, "the washington post" found some 27 congressional republicans out of 249 that were surveyed. acknowledged biden's win. a month after his election victory, president trump responded to a twitter post about the findings. his tweet says 25. he is surprised there are so many. and he wants a list sent out of those, quote, ri.i.n.o.s., republicans in name only. how is it there are only a handful that will admit the truth? >> they are spineless. they have no backbone. they have no backbone why trump was able to get away with the things he has. and as soon as trump is out of the white house and republicans think we can breathe, this bully, this tyrant is gone, he's going to rev up. they have created a monster. he's going to go after every, single republican that went after him or did not support him or decided that joe biden was the president. he's going to g

citizen trump and leaves office. that's coming up soon. our top story, though, is this political fallout over trump's failed attempts to deny he lost the presidential race which had been echoing in the high stakes debate in the georgia senate race which could determine control of the united states senate. republican incumbent continues to dodge basic questions about trump losing the race. >> do you stand by his narrative that the election was rigged and you support his demand of governor kemp to call a special session to seek to overturn those results? >> look, it's vitally important that georgians trust our election process and the president has every right to every legal recourse. >> did you believe the election was rigged? >> it's very clear that there were issues in this election. >> this isn't just about issues or denial or rhetoric. some of these conspiracy theories continue to fuel very real scenes like this scary, serious scene under the cover of night in michigan. you may have already heard about it, armed,

is it trump's america? so much focus of our culture and politics on trump that it is his time, and that is why we titled the book "trump's america." host: i want to go back to the nine areas you covered in researching for the book, you mentioned howard county in our. they're places like ridge county, california, yuri county, pennsylvania. how often did you encounter minorities, in particular, african-americans who were trump supporters? guest: quite often. i try to seek out people who are different. i would look for immigrants or people of color and i did find quite a few minorities and immigrants as well who supported trump. we saw in the election results this year, a lot of people were surprised how will trump did relative to previous public and candidates among latinos and asian americans, among black men. do -- a lott had to of reporters and people on the coast are a bit more sensitive to some of the rhetoric that trump -- some of the things he says that can be taken as racist. a lot of people in the co

before trump. former vice president spero

trump is not going to do that. i think that the president-elect and the vice president-elect are doing exactly what they should do. and i hope what you just said is exactly right, that in fact there is a restoration of a kind of consensus and convention that we can then begin to address the serious problems facing the country. i just think and i've thought for a long time that we're living in the political equivalent of climate change, of extreme weather. and i don't think that's going to go away altogether on january 20th. >> no, i think you're right. i don't think it's going to go. so, let me help you here, and i'll send you my bill. so, what i think is what my therapist would tell me is you cannot control what someone else does. so, what you need to do is lean into what you do right. and if they lean into doing the business of the american people, trump will have his audience. but he doesn't have to make -- they don't have to make their audience his audience. so, that's what i mean by not giving it oxygen, not e

a lot of it was because people perhaps were number one, voting against trump, trying to get trump out of office, but at the same time, we like our state rep, we like our congressman, we like our republican senator. perhaps some of that went on. >> jonathan, looking at the numbers that we have seen for both biden and trump, were you surprised at these record turnouts? >> i mean, if you had told me 81 million people were going to vote, i might have believed to, but i would've thought it would be both sides, but not 81 million for one candidate. looking at roughly 135 million people voting, i think in the last election, we were at the 120 some mark, 125, 128, something like that. the increase was surprising to me. i expected that more people would vote for trump then ended last time. i expected that more people would vote for biden, but certainly not in terms of the level of increase. people want to devote. and just briefly, to address the other question that you had just asked, i think one of the things that you saw here with the split at the presidential level and at the congressional

trump's presidency. it will be an extraordinary responsibility for a man who has no prosecutorial experience and who has participated in several decisions in which the department took steps that favored the president's friends or punished his perceived enemies. i would add to that steps that benefitted the president directly against serious allegations of criminal behavior. but the litany of things rosen's been involved in is amazing. among other things it was jeffrey rosen who tried to force an indictment of andrew mccabe, who was the acting fbi director who took over the fbi after trump fired comey. mccabe had overseen the important parts of the russia investigation. president trump demanded that mccabe be prosecuted and locked up. it was jeffrey rosen who tried to insist mccabe must be indicted, he must be prosecuted against the views of career prosecutors. it was also jeffrey rosen who was put in charge of reviewing the work of career prosecutors who took on the case of roger stone. the result of ros

people who supported trump, voted for trump, campaigned for trump, but felt it was their job as statewide elected officials to certify the vote of people in their state. what will happen to people who are doing their job in the state of arizona? >> that's really hard to see right now. monday, obvious, the electoral college meets and january, biden will be sworn in. we'll have to see whether they can really carry this anger forward, this sentiment forward, or whether it kind of dissipates and everyone kind of goes back to normal. i mean, if this lingers on within the party, i'm hearing from republicans locally who are really concerned about the effect this is going to have moving forward and you know, we got a legislative session coming up. if half the republicans in the legislature are very hostile to governor ducey because of the election stuff, that could have some major ramifications. governor ducey is -- a lot of folks expect him to run for higher office, perhaps senate when mark ellie has to go up for re-election in a couple years. i can't imagine a lot of these folks are going to be

trump too. that's the trump era. that's steve stockman tonight, who is now enjoying his pardon. he was a trump supporter all the while, regardless of whatever else was going on with him and his criminal record. he's got his pardon tonight too. president trump has pardoned two people convicted in the russian investigation. george papadopoulos on the left. he pled guilty to lying to federal investigations about his communications with a person who told him that the russian government had dirt on hillary clinton that it might want to provide to the trump campaign. he lied to federal investigators about that. he pled guilty to lying to them about that. he served a short prison sentence for that guilty plea. george papadopoulos has just been pardoned by trump tonight. alex van der zwaan has been pardoned tonight. he's the son-in-law of a powerful russian oligarch. he pled guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with a russian intelligence officer to whom the trump campaign secretl

only trump can be trump. these elected officials they will have to be primaried and challenged or lose seats like rubio should in 2022. and the party will rebuild from there. >> yeah. i will quote the tweet mitch better have my money. google it. up next, what we're learning about the powerful christmas explosion in nashville and why many people are so reluctant to call it what it is. and it was one of the biggest scandals of the year. meat processing workers left unprotected as their workplaces became covid hot zones. many of them died. the "the reidout" discuss and continues after this. ♪ sanctuary music (kids laughing) ♪ upbeat tempo ♪ sanctuary music it's the final days of the wish list sales event sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. and a complimentary and sweetie can coloryou just be... gentle with the pens. okey. okey. i know. gentle..gentle new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. inde

trump. she admires his connection to people and that is because it's hard for her to do public speaking in russia is not. >> * after the milania trump like many europeans is fluent in multiple languages and say that's possibly not correct. >> there is no evidence of that but that was a key part of her resume because he wanted documents because of even asked the white house there are a couple of tapes online machines in italy and another in france where she speaks for a very short time with little kids like toddlers and says things like bambino and hello. i said i cannot find anything online can you send it? and she does have a lot of foreign troops and opportunities and she traveled as first lady she met another figures in the french president and his wife. and then to have private conversations with her in a lease and nobody says that she did those interviews can i say that but it is very very noticeable there is no evidence of that. maybe for iphones made it easy to have video, you can fin

and speaking of donald trump. i want to ask you about his conduct, not just over the last four years but over the last 40 days. why aren't there nor republicans screaming at the top of their lungs that he's doing damage to our democracy. >> i think all of the folks make their own decisions and i can't read minds. i could just tell you that i felt and i know you heard this and others on election night, when he gave his speech at 2:30 in the morning, what he was saying was wrong. and that if you're going to accuse the election of being fraudulent, at the moment you do that, as president of the united states, you have an obligation to present the evidence that backs up your statement. and we're now sitting here on the 22nd of december, and we still haven't seen that evidence. and so that is wrong. i've been saying it since night and could say it publicly. and as for other republicans, they're all going to be held to account for what they do or don't do or say or don't say during this period of time over the long haul

we know from mary trump, his niece, and what she's told us from trump's upbringing that's what fred trump schooled him in. and we also know that he is going to do anything to keep his leverage for the post presidential legal cases against him. he needs control of the republican party. i guess the difference with the nixon era is that republicans participated with democrats in reforming government after nixon. you have the church committee and groups like that and efforts like that. i don't really see this republican party today as having any appetite to join in any kind of inquiry as to the abuse of power under president trump. i might be wrong, but i think the real difference between nixon and trump is the republican party. it has changed radically. >> all right. still ahead on "morning joe," countries around the world shut off from travel to and from great britain after a new strain of coronavirus was detected there. we'll tell you what scientists know about it. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. in the worl. narrow it to all the karate moms... in desperate need of brow