be a part of. >> it is just so great. it is just so great. >> reporter: not so fancy, these lights, but just fine for more than 100 years. harry smith, nbc news, minden, nebraska. some christmas cheer to take us off the air tonight. and on that note, i wish you a good night and i am symone sanders townsend in for stephanie ruhle. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. ♪ ♪ ♪ i got it i do not have the areae well, the four times

indicted republican front runner is continuing to echo the language of adolf hitler, and brag about compliments from vladimir putin. so, that is pretty much where we are right now. donald trump said all of that new hampshire just over the weekend, where governor chris sununu just endorsed nikki haley. the governor is going to join me to talk about all of that later in the show. we are going to dig into some pretty wild new reporting about supreme court justice clarence thomas, and concerns that he would resign over his paycheck. i do want to start tonight with what i hope will be a bit of a sober reminder of where the american electorate sits right now. it is important for everyone to hear. this weekend, trump, once again, echoed dictators, praised autocrats, repeated racist language, and was still cheered on by a arenas packed with people who will cast their ballots and just over one month. during that speech on saturday, in new hampshire, trump, once again, said immigrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of our country. now, that is clearly inflammatory. it is

dehumanizing. it is white supremacist rhetoric. as we've mentioned on the show, last time trump said this, it very clearly echoes the words of hitler. in the same speech, trump also called hungarian prime minister viktor orban highly respected. yes, that is the same viktor orban who dismantled democracy in hungary and said he opposes a mixed race society. trump also noted that north korean leader kim jong-un is very nice, not words people would use. yes, the same kim jong-un who consolidated power by executing anyone that stood in his way. trump quoted vladimir putin, citing the time that putin called the criminal cases into trump, politically motivated. yes, the same vladimir putin who is under investigation for war crimes and a notorious oppressor of free speech and freedom of the press. for donald trump, that guy is, once again, being used as some sort of a validator in his campaign. in a speech, the very next day, in nevada, trump kept at it, claiming migrants were invading the u.s. from prisons, and men still

institutions well reopen his promise to conduct the, quote, largest deportation operation in american history. now, if you are thinking, that is terrible, it's horrible, that is obviously not consistent with the language or values we should expect from an american president. you are right. believe me. i get it. i worked for two of them. you might be saying to your friends and neighbors, this is not who we are. he might be hoping this rhetoric will sink his campaign. who on earth could actually support and endorse this? the answer is, unfortunately, more people than you might think. >> -- drill, baby, drill. >> how many people here -- normally i know you probably wouldn't in america, but consider what they've done to this man, how many people here support day one dictator? >> that is just a representation, but they are cheering, in that video, the day one dictator in new hampshire, which holds the second crucial contest of this

election cycle. what about the first contest? well, a woman from northwest iowa told the washington post recently, quote, i love it. my kids call me a dictator. i thought my parents were dictators. he said he was only going to do it for a day, like if you had a home, that was in disrepair, and your parents came in, and they were firm. they wanted it to get done. when you got done, you had this beautiful home. how could you be mad? how could you be mad? before the right-wing accuses me of having a deplorables moment, which they will anyway, the audience from my point is actually not to the people who agree with those comments or who are in those videos, but the ones who don't, probably the overwhelming majority of you watching right now. one of my first guests tonight's writes, a durable coalition seems foolish comparable interesting the white house to the guy who left behind a capital encircled with razor wire fence and 25,000 national guard troops protecting the federal government from his own supporters. you can dismiss trump voters all you want, but

give them this, they're every bit as american as any idealized version of the place. if trump wins in 2024, his detractors will have to reconcile what it means to share a country with so many citizens who keep watching trump spiral deeper into his moral void, and still conclude, yes, that's our guy. this isn't just anecdotal, it's also registering in the polls. according to a new survey of lengthy republican caucus goers in iowa, 42% say they are more likely to support trump for claiming immigrants are poisoning the blood of america. 43% are more likely to support him for saying his enemies needed to be rooted out like vermin. 50% say they are more likely to vote for trump because of his promise of a sweeping raids, giant camps, and mass deportations of immigrants. more likely to vote for him. again, echoing hitler, backing up racist talk with racist plans, that is making large swaths of iowa republicans more likely to vote for him, according to these polls. as we get closer to votes being cast, as the legal

heat on him intensifies, trump is slipping in this violent language more and more. authoritarian -- he is trying to normalize his extreme fascist rhetoric, to condition his supporters to be okay with it. it seems to be working. there is a market for the tyranny he is selling. at the end of the day, it'll be up to all of us to decide if this is the kind of country we want to live in. for lots of people right now, the answer seems to be, yes, for lots of people, that is still their guy. it is important to be aware of that as well. joining me now, staff writer for the atlantic, mark leibovich, we wrote that piece i just read from. along with abc news chief white house correspondent, chief washington correspondent, we jonathan karl. jon is the author of the new book "tired of winning: donald trump and the end of the grand old party". we talked about it a few weeks ago. donald trump in the end of the grand old party. that was a little bit of a dark summary for many people watching, but i

think it's so important for people to understand, kind of, where the electorate is in this country. i want to start with you, mark. he wrote in your piece, as we could see in the polls and examples i cited, durable coalition, there's a durable coalition that seems to be rolling with trump and what he's saying, what this racist rhetoric, language many people say this is not who we are, what you talk about in your piece, what can democrats actually do about that? >> first, they can accept it. the durability of this is going to continue. there is a body of forgiveness, of tolerance, of celebration of this kind of rhetoric that now goes back 7 to 8 years. that is here for good. what i think was interesting about the intro you did, you quote from, i guess, the woman in iowa, people call me a dictator. there is a glibness to this, but there is also a celebration of strength. i think it was your former colleague, dan pfeiffer, who said in his message, he has a good message on substack thing,

but he said, look, when he says dictator, uses words like that, its supporters do like it. >> they like that, that he's strong. >> strong, and also he has primed these supporters for a long time, he has dialed up the rhetoric, but he contrasts it with what he perceives joe biden to be, and what voters have perceived joe biden to be next to this dictator, a weaker leader, someone who is older, someone who is more reserved. it is getting a lot done for him, and yes, we can roll our eyes, or get really alarmed at this at our peril. ultimately, this is -- there seems to be a method to this. >> the irony is that dictators are actually weak. they're trying to hold on to power here. that isn't necessarily breaking through. it's one of the points he made. you have written a lot of books about the evolution of the republican party, including that one recently, that mark will hold up for us. there you go. that is a friend. one of the points you make is that trump has gotten worse, that this has

gotten worse. talk to us about how we got here, and what people may not be understanding, from your reporting. >> there is something different about trump this time. i think there are several things that are actually different about trump. there's a lot of consistencies, that 2016 campaign was filled with some hateful rhetoric, filled with some of the same stuff that you just talked about in your open. this entire campaign is built on something different. it's built on this idea of retribution and revenge. it wasn't even at the beginning of his 2024 campaign. when he announced, in november of last year, it was a series of warmed over policy, proposals, run-of-the-mill right-wing, there was talk of draining the swamp, a lot of the stuff you talked about in 2016. he got his mojo -- he was down at that point, by the way, 20 points in the polls to a theoretical matchup with ron desantis. that faded away, he got his energy when he came up with this idea of, i am going to go out, i'm

going to read out and annihilate my enemies. the dictatorial, fascist imagery talk. that is where he got his -- i don't know, people respond to it, but he became stronger. that is who he is at this point. >> there is this chicken and egg debate, right? you sort of touched on there. it's like, is this who trump is? is he feeling encouraged by the crowd so he's becoming more that? what do you think? >> that is the definition, in some ways, of how narcissistic leader gets more power, and derives more energy from. i would say, i wouldn't underestimate the power of trump, basically, i hate to use this word, triggering his enemy. people who -- these people, a lot of his supporters don't like, people on the coast, people in the media. the so-called elites. trump really, really gets them going. they see that, and that is a signal that this is effective, this is

someone we want to upset others. >> he annoys the people we don't like. look at his speech when he downstairs this campaign in november. boring, dole people leaving early, didn't resonate. look at his speech in waco, texas. >> he learned this is -- i can't do the warmed over, i have to do retribution, i have to do harder lines, i have to go more fascist to get my people excited. >> i don't think that is the entirety of the republican electorate. i don't think it's a majority of the electorate in the united states. it certainly -- it's the majority of his fired up base. >> let's talk about that. there is this question of, is this a phase? could someone else to come on? you sat down yesterday with nikki haley, who seems, to me, to be the most likely to give him a run for his money, and governor sununu, who just endorsed -- let's play a clip, and we will talk about this question after. >> when president trump had the opportunity to stop, what he had the opportunity to say it, the bully pulpit matters.

people listen. he didn't. i hate that for the people that were there, supporting him. i hate that for those of us that we're watching it. what i do you know is, he was the right president at the right time. >> that is when -- the setup for that is you asked her about her comments around january six. >> she made really pointed comments days after january six to tim alberta, now with the atlantic, about how she believed his actions on that day were disgusting, we, meaning republicans, we made a mistake in following him, we should have never followed him. we must never let it happen again. she was slamming the door shut forever on donald trump. now she is back to hear. i think she is trying to walk a line. she wants to be clear that she is taking him on. she has to take him on. he is the

front runner. >> to some degree. >> to some degree, but she has got this fear of doing anything that will truly alienate her, his faithful supporters, because she's going to need them. >> it's tricky -- upset a lot of words in public, it's a tricky tightrope to walk what she is trying to do in that interview. it is a little bit of -- >> it's a zigzag. she has been all over the place, in fairness. i will say, which is not an enviable position. you're right, she does not -- you could be chris christie, who has been extremely straight ahead and pretty consistent in his critiques of president trump, and he's probably not going to win. like, he is well behind nikki haley in the polls. >> higher negatives and positives. >> he gets booed, you know, you hear this, and that is the campaign he's running. it serves an important purpose, but i think, if you want to win, you have to be more delicate. >> i think actually their ship

matters. trump has been able to build this up overtime with an absolute dearth of leadership from republicans in taking him on. this goes way back, obviously. they were late and taking him on a 2016, i had written a portrayal about a conversation i had with kevin mccarthy on january 2nd. i ran into him on the national mall. i said, you know, january 2nd, 2021, on january 6th, you're going to have a real opportunity, and a little bit i realized, but a real opportunity, you could stand up on the floor of the house, tell all of these republicans, you know? but the election is over. it wasn't stolen. joe biden was elected, it's time to turn the page. donald trump is lying about this. i said you -- this could be a historic moment because you are the leader of the house republicans that are leading this effort to overturn a democratic election. he kind of dismissed me, he said look what's happened to others have taken him on. >> we've all sat down with this cheney, we all read her book.

this is one of the core points she makes in her book. there's many points in there, but about these enablers, and people, and kevin mccarthy is one of the, mike johnson is another one, who didn't kind of meet the moment of leadership. >> i think it's important today that kevin mccarthy and mike johnson, they have constitutional roles. this is very normal, certifying the electoral college is -- >> it's normally a boring day. >> yes. we're talking about nikki haley and chris christie, and others who are running against him. there is a very different context here. the bare minimum of, yeah, mike pence has held up as this great hero for doing, again, an extremely -- >> for not ripping up the constitution. >> yes. and he did. to his credit, he did his job on that day. the standards have gotten very low. >> i think -- look, he is way ahead in all the polls, new hampshire, iowa, national, i don't think he is way ahead in the polls because he is using fascist rhetoric. i don't think that. i think -- >> why is he ahead? >> i think a lot of it is that people don't actually realize what he is all about right now.

there is a kind of -- you know, a basic partisanship. people have discontent with biden, they're not happy with biden, and he is the voice. he is the loud voice, he is the contrast. >> jonathan karl, mark leibovich, i could talk to you for the whole hour, we could do it a different time. thank you both so much. i appreciate it. coming up, brand-new reporting that clarence thomas once complained he'd retire if he and start making more money. eventually, gifts and billionaire started rolling in. my friends george conway and claire mccaskill join me on that. later, nikki haley is definitely gaining some traction in new hampshire. we were just talking about that. could a win be possible? it couldn't shake up the republican race? new hampshire governor chris sununu seems to think so. he endorsed her and he joins me live in just a few minutes. we are getting started this hour, and we will be right back after a quick break.

by this point, it is pretty well-established conservative supreme court justice clarence thomas has some rich buddies. a number of right-wing benefactors who do things like send thomas and his wife on free luxury vacations, or provide him a loan of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a high-end rv, and forgive the loan, or pay his nephews tuition, or by his mom's house and let her live there rent free. i mean, wouldn't we all be so lucky to have friends like that? we know thomas has a history of not reporting those gifts on disclosure forms, raising a whole host of thorny, ethical issues. that doesn't really pass the smell test. one open question has been how and why these wealthy conservatives decided to get together and start trying to create favor with one of the nine most powerful jurist in the country? today, propublica may have given us an answer. back in the year 2000, justice thomas was very loudly telling everyone who would listen, including sitting republican congressman,

he was dissatisfied with his salary at the time. apparently, about $174,000 a year for serving in a lifetime appointment of the highest court in the land just wasn't enough to fund his lifestyle. in fact, he was so dissatisfied with his financial situation, he told conservative confidants he was thinking about retiring, and soon. keep in mind, this was the year 2000, bill clinton was president, who would have been able to choose thomas's replacement. while propublica found no direct evidence that those complaints led directly to his new rich friends opening their pockets, the outlet reports, quote, around 2000, chatter that thomas was dissatisfied about money circulated through conservative legal circles and on capitol hill. during his second decade on the court, thomas's financial situation appears to have markedly improved. in 2003, he received the first payments of a 1.5 million dollar advance for his memoir, a record breaking sum for justices at the time. thomas also received

dozens of expensive gifts, throughout the 2000s, sometimes coming from people he'd met only shortly before. it's also interesting to note the justices views seemed to have, shall we say, evolved, thanks, probably, in part to the generosity of these rich conservatives. in 2019, he seemed just fine with how much money he was making, even though salaries for supreme court justices weren't keeping up with inflation. >> right now, what is the compensations of a justice of the supreme court? >> oh, goodness, i think it's plenty. (laughs) this is fine. my wife and i are doing fine, we don't live extravagantly, but we are fine. >> we don't live extravagantly, but we are doing fine. well, propublica reports that just a few weeks after thomas made those comments, which are endearing without the context, he boarded billionaire harlan crow's private jet to head to

indonesia for the island cruise on his yacht. i guess he was doing fine after all. look, it bears repeating -- still sitting in judgment on some of the most important legal cases of our time with enormous political ramifications, including, potentially, whether or not donald trump will face trial for trying to overturn an election. joining me now, conservative, you consider yourself that, attorney george conway and former u.s. senator from missouri, claire mccaskill. claire is the co-host of the terrific msnbc podcast so topical right now, "how to win 2024". so, george, here's what i can't get over. even if you are another conservative justice, you are watching this happen with clarence thomas, it's embarrassing. it makes the court look bad. is there anything they can do? >> there is nothing they can do. they have no authority over each other, even the chief justice does not have authority over individual justices and decisions to recuse, or decisions to disclose, or decisions to accept or reject. >> they did do the toothless ethical thing, which, they could've been better there.

>> i don't think the supreme court can, itself, in force solution to this. the solution goes much beyond anything the supreme court can do. i think the supreme court justices, and judges, generally, state and federal, are underpaid. if you look at $174,000 is a lot of money, but fact of the matter is, 29 year old lawyers who clerk on the court, go to new york law firms, or washington law firms, make more money than they do -- >> they also get an appointment through the supreme court and highest in the land -- >> it's exactly right. when you decide to take a job, a lifetime appointment like that, you are deciding to make that sacrifice, and you can no longer make that sacrifice. i know many federal judges have done this. they resign. they go, they take the cushy office at joe and smith, and on wall street, or wherever, and you have to -- you're making the sacrifice or you don't. >> claire, let me ask you. there is growing skepticism

about the court, for a range of reasons. ethical reasons, obviously, outrage over the job's decision. not just democrats, but independents and others. one of the points liz cheney made in her book, and i'm always looking for a bright side, but i want to see what do you think, when it came to issuing subpoenas for a trump document, the conservative supreme court, three trump nominees, rolled the right way. does that give you hope as it relates to where they will land on the issue of presidential immunity, which is pretty important around a case of the january 6th case? >> well, i have read a smart lawyer, george conway, has said. he said repeatedly he things most of these issues that are being presented are slam dunks for the government in terms of the arguments trump is making. the more interesting question is, what is going to happen with the subpoenas the senate judiciary committee has issued around the ethics on the

supreme court, and how is that going to end up? the way this process works is they have now authorized subpoenas of leonard leo and harlan crow, somewhat st. leonard a is the architect of the dobbs decision. he was certainly responsible for the list of judges that trump touted when he was running for president, that this is where the supreme court justices would come from. by the way, all of them were smart people who knew they were taking a lifetime appointment, and a cut in salary. i'm not going to feel sorry for clarence thomas. >> me neither. >> if these subpoenas are approved by the senate, and it's a civil contempt, and it goes through the courts. guess where it ends up? at the supreme court. so, this will be interesting to see. this is a real question on checks and balances. does the u.s. senate have the right to ask questions about the ethics, about the conduct of the supreme court, which appropriates funds for?

that is a question that is not decided on our country, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. it's a sticky wicket. >> lots of tests on our system. okay, claire give you a well deserved complement their. what do you make of the questions she posed? i think, to summit, there are limits to what, how congress can do to investigate supreme court justices. they don't want to get into the internal deliberations of the court. the financial issues are, if they are investigated in good faith, are significant, and should be investigated. i will tell you one thing, it's funny to remember, when you see what's happening today, all of the different things that, the amounts of the money, the gifts, that forgiving of the loan for the rv, and you see that from so many different people, it contrasts what happened in 1969, or 70 somebody with justice -- up for chief justice. the next

administration threatened to prosecute him because he was taking $20,000 from a benefactor in newark. >> this is more than $20,000. >> i know, ford was supposed to be rolling in his grave about this. to go back to the point about how it affects the decisions on the court, i think it's important to take these ethics issues and separate them out from ideology, and whether these are conservative judges or liberal judges. they are going to decide -- these aren't matters that affect how the judges decide cases, but it affects respect for the court, which is very important. >> that is an important point. is to differentiate, which is hard, because it all feels bad. so, claire, in a limited time we have left, i want to ask you one of the things that outrage people across the country in the last few years, the dobbs decision. the ethical stuff is also outrageous. as people, democrats and others, think about how to run, how to incorporate the court, and political campaigns, is it just dobbs? should they be talking

about the ethical stuff? what is your legal and political take on that? >> the ethical stuff is an undercurrent of the dobbs decision. it really starts with merrick garland. it starts with an unbelievable thing that occurred when mitch mcconnell said, i'm going to ignore the constitution and pretend a sitting president didn't nominate so much of the supreme court. from there, it was off to the races. in all the ethical stuff that's piled on. frankly, if they were perfect, ethically, the dobbs decision would still be an earthquake, politically. it will be an earthquake, and anybody who thinks it's going away hasn't met very many women. >> dobbs decision, or ethical? it sounds like you're going to say dobbs decision is better for people to run on next year. >> i think dobbs is better for people to run on. i don't think people are going to understand the ethics issue and issues of

the ethics issue at all. >> clarence thomas will be on his yachts, and focus on taking women's rights. it's a more powerful argument to make. george conway, claire mccaskill, thank you both, as always, for your overlap of legal and political knowledge. i appreciate you both being here. up next, i will explain what history tells us about how the new hampshire primary could unfold in january, as nikki haley gains some ground on donald trump. i will talk one of the state's republican governor, chris sununu, who just endorsed her. that is coming up. we will be right back. sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. i got this kitchenaid stand mixer for only $56. i got this bbq smoker for 26 bucks. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save.

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start of the republican primaries are less than a month away. while it may have been in the mind, at this moment, donald trump is still far and away the favorite. a new national poll out yesterday shows him at 69% among republican primary voters. that is a gain of seven points since just last month. but, there are moments in republican primary history when even untouchable nationally it's where shaken by surprising results. in the early states, that occurred before super tuesday. back in 1980, george h. w. bush won an unlikely victory in iowa, shattering ronald reagan's perceived invincibility, and making new hampshire a critical must win for the reagan campaign. in 1996, front-runner bob dole got some unexpected competition from pat buchanan, whose narrow victory in new hampshire gave dole a run for his money. in 2000, john mccain's stunning upset in new hampshire dispelled the widely held belief that george w. bush

would cruise to the nomination. now, those surprises didn't translate into nominations, but they did make those races more competitive. if anyone is going to emerge as a credible alternative to donald trump, they must win and at least one of these early states, and among those states, new hampshire kind of feels like, maybe, the best place to do it, or the best opportunity, that is because the voters there are notoriously independent, live free or die, unpredictable, and, in fact, the polls often don't capture the tectonic shifts that can take place in the final days, or hours before the vote. not only that, the state represents the last opportunity, one of the last, were a trump alternative to getting enough momentum to compete nationally in advance of super tuesday. as of now, a candidate who seems best poised to breakthrough in new hampshire is former south carolina governor nikki haley. take a look at this recent cbs yougov poll. haley is managing

to inch in to donald trump's substantial new hampshire lead, and lead the rest of the field behind. to be clear, this would be a huge shake-up if she wins, and if she propels from there. what donald trump has going for him, more than any other candidate, is that people who vote for him tend to stick with him. for a sample of that, look at the results of this month des moines register poll in iowa. it found seven out of ten people planning to vote for trump already made up their minds. it's still several weeks away. the firmly committed to him. compare that to those supporting trump's closest competitors. the vast majority of them say they could still be persuaded to support someone else. so, if something is going to shake this race up, who knows if someone is going to pose a real challenge to trump's campaign. new hampshire is probably what's going to happen. chris sununu just endorsed nikki haley, and he joins me next. joins me next. shhhh. hold that thought. just pour in some milk, throw in some frozen fruit, and in 20 seconds you've got yourself a nutritiou and delicious smoothie. mmm! tastes just like the ones

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when i first sat down with new hampshire governor chris sununu back in may, i asked him about the republican front runner, and his reprehensible rhetoric. this is what he told me at the time. >> he's going to be the nominee. i just say that's a hypothetical, but i think everyone is reassessing, even some of his reporters are saying, okay, this can be the message. >> okay, but we are seven months later, donald trump is now extending few 69% in the fox news poll, leading in iowa, leading new hampshire, and that two candidates with the best chance to stop him are still behind him by double digits, and have taken a while to forcefully criticize him. it's

difficult to see how the governor's prediction will be right, but if it is, and he knows better than anyone it's going to take a surprising outcome in his home state next month. he's betting nikki haley will be the one to do it. new hampshire governor chris sununu joins me right now. governor, there is a tape for everything. before we get into the new hampshire race, and of course, that cbs poll, which i'm sure you want to talk about, i did want to ask you about something we talked about at the start of the show, which is donald trump repeating that remark about immigrants poisoning the blood of our country. he did it at a rally this weekend in your state. what did you think when you heard him say that? >> look, we shouldnt be surprised out of any craziness that comes out of donald trump. it was a disgusting comment. he didn't strategically for two reasons. number one, he wants to galvanize that base. he knows that 40 point lead he had

in new hampshire, a month ago, is now down to 15 points. nikki is surging. that's getting him nervous. he wants to galvanize the base. number two, he realizes that, you know, when it comes to the southern border, he didn't do what he told us he was going to do, right? it's almost a distraction. he didn't secure the border, he didn't build a wall, he cant get mexico to pay for it, he didn't do any of that stuff. he is trying to distract his base from everything he didn't do. it's almost like he wants to convince people he wasn't president for four years, right? he's the new guy, the new chapter on the block. he's doing everything he can to shake that narrative up, and re-galvanize the base that he is nervous about losing. >> when he said that, we didn't exactly hear any boos. you are more of an expert on the republican electorate than i am, do you think that means as a widely embraced view in the base of your party? how do you take that response? >> no. the only people that show up to a trump rally are the trump zealots, right? they are there to kind of reaffirm their own notion trump is the guy, and that's it. it is the hard-core folks that are there.

to your own numbers you showed a little bit ago, 30%, a third of his voters would still move from him. if you collected that cbs poll, and believe it or not, i think it's hot, but at 40, he was 44%, that means he could be down to 30, 35%, right? if you are the former president, and could only get 35% of your base, and you have someone moving on your heels, and you get to chris christie voters coming on board, desantis voters coming on board, now he's got a real problem. he is still low under 50%. as it gets to be a one-on-one race, it is a reset button. that is what you are opening was, how new hampshire can be a reset button for a lot of these candidates. i think it will be for nikki. >> let's talk about that. poll in that poll, as you mentioned, trump was at 44%, haley is now 29%, that was an increase, ron doesn't, as you said, 11%, chris christie at 10%. i know you said chris christie is your friend, he's going to make his own decision about staying in the race. his supporters, the,

seem like they are the ones most likely to swing to haley. she's not going to win with 29%. walk us through how she's going to win this race. she's going to take supporters from him, take him from desantis. we have different views. trump. how is this going to happen? >> you've got to look at them individually. with the chris christie voters, their number one mission is to make sure trump isn't the nominee, as with chris, he ran a good race, but at the end of the day, nikki is the path to making sure that trump isn't the nominee, and i think the vast majority of his voters are going to come on board. ron did a good job, a lot of his voters are going to come on board. even as we talked about the trump voters, the number one reason why folks are with trump right now, if you ask them why are you supporting the president, they say, well, it's inevitable. he's going to win. i guess we will just support him. you have to break through that emperor has no clothes inevitability that he is trying to project. when nikki can do that, you see her numbers at 29%, nobody has gotten to 29% in this race in nine months. she is just going to keep going

up. is that inevitability argument starts to dissipate, more trump voters are going to come on board, and, like i said, when you have all the undeclared voters that can vote in new hampshire, all the republican based voters that could vote in new hampshire, trump knows he's got a problem here. >> still seems like a road to go. i know you are out there advocating, you know new hampshire. well you talked about chris christie, you talked about him in the past tense, like he ran a good race. he still in the race, as we all know. he had this to say about nikki haley, i want to play it and talk to you about it on the other side. >> look, jake, the other problem with this, the republicans who are saying this is okay. the hundred members of congress who endorsed him. nikki haley who, this week, said he is fit to be president, you are telling me that someone who says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country, someone who says vladimir putin is a character witness, is fit to be president of the united states? the right person, at the right time? nikki haley should be ashamed

of herself. >> he kind of stood by her at the debate, a couple days later he attacked her. are you worried about these are going to hurt him? you are friends with him. i think about calling him up and say knock it off? this is isnt helpful? >> no. now, no, no. chris is running his own race. he knows what he's doing. that is fine. i think you will have to make his own conclusions, a lot of his voters, at least in new hampshire, are going to tend towards nikki. nikki is -- when she's out on the town halls, she's talking about herself, her incredible resume, no one can match her resume, especially on the international stuff, the turnaround stuff she did in south carolina. it's not just fluff. it's based on results, which people like. she kind of has that libertarian, lower case l libertarian which, look, let's let states make more decisions. a lot of these things that currently happen in the federal government are going to transmit down to the states. that translates. chris will make his own decisions there. there is no doubt that a lot of the non-trump voters are

going to galvanize, a lot of the soft trump voters are going to come on board. it is just five weeks ago, but this is what people start to make the decision. the last big piece here is, nikki is the only candidate that has a strong ground game over the past week, she's got the endorsement of -- putting folks on the ground, going to doors, talking one-on-one, and i get it. you have folks that are strong trump supporters that tell nikki she's too hard on the president, and folks that don't like former president trump and say you've got to be tougher on the president. she is right where she needs to be. she calls him out for the way she sees it. when she does the town hall. she doesn't ignore the trump issue at all, but she's there to sell herself, and what she's going to bring. >> let me ask you about that. i have said that she has been the best debater consistently. she could be clear and concise on her positions here. she goes after him on the debt consistently. there are also moments where she has said things like, if he's found guilty, he's found guilty. if he's found innocent, he's found innocent. she said she wasn't necessarily following all the legal cases, which i have a hard time believing. my

question for you, is, should and should be at this point? all the stakes need to be on the table. shouldn't she be going after him for their legal peril, all the baggage, and all of the liability that he would have for the party in the general election? >> there is a lot of folks out there doing that, and rightly so. she is focusing on herself, and it's working. i think the path she's taking with the former president, the path she's taking in the debates, and how she selling herself, is clearly working better than anyone else, especially here in new hampshire. i don't think we could knock her for that. i think, again, if you have a candidate, and there is nothing there, they only want to focus on trump, or only want to focus on rhetoric, or extremism. that's not her. she doesn't, quote, unquote, skip people, whether it's when she's on the abortion issue, whether she is on securing the border, where she is on the importance of the national debt. look, the national debt isn't a critical issue just because. you look at president trump's record of

overspending 7 trillion, you know what that means to republican voters? that's inflation. he was part of the inflation problem. he was part of the reason that we are overspending everything. biden threw gasoline on it, made it ten times worse, but the fact is, combined, trump and biden have been terrible with managing your money, terrible with controlling inflation, and folks want a reckoning to that. i don't care what your political party, as it's crushing everybody. >> well, that's not entirely factual, trump's -- tax cut certainly didn't help anyone. before we let you go, i did want to ask you about ron desantis. he said, if trump loses and iowa, he will say the election was stolen. he hasn't said this about new hampshire, he's not doing as well there, as we noted. as the governor of the state, even a supporter of nikki haley, what are you prepared -- what if trump challenges the results in your state of haley winds? what are you going to do? >> look, new hampshire is known as having an election process that has more integrity than anywhere else, right? there is

no collusion. it's actually impossible to rig the election here. you would need 250 found moderators to collude together. we don't tire our systems into computers. they can't be manipulated by china and other conspiracy theory stuff. we have paper ballots, a vote, we count the votes, we're done. that's it. we keep it super simple, super accurate. that is why we have such high voter turnout. people believe in the system. i don't care if nobody believes or cares about donald trump -- >> election systems have not been -- polluted by china, for clarity. trump could still challenge it. >> of course not. >> i hope that's something you'll be dealing with. governor chris sununu, thank you for your time tonight. we will be right back.

today marks a solemn anniversary for president biden and his family. on this day in 1972, just before he was sworn in as the second youngest senator to ever take office, the rest of his immediate family was in a car that was hit by a semi truck, killing his wife, amelia, and their

16-month-old daughter, naomi. they were on their way to buy a christmas tree. the crash left his two sons, then three and four years old, in critical condition. they were still recovering in the hospital weeks later when their dad insisted on being sworn in as senator at their bedside. in his public remarks that today, biden leveled with his constituents, telling them that, for him, fatherhood would always be his top priority. >> i hope that i could be a good senator for you all. i make this one promise that, if in six months or so, there's a conflict between being a good father and a good senator, which i hope will not occur, i thought, and i hope it won't, i promise you that i will contact governor --, as i had earlier, and tell him that we could always get another senator, but they can't get another father. >> for years following that accident, biden would travel to and from washington for hours

every day to be a part of his sons everyday lives. as he later said of that dark period in his life, quote, i needed my children more than they needed me. that trauma, that immense, unthinkable trauma, is one of the things that makes joe biden who he is. it's what leads to his empathy, his humanity. this is also a story about humanity transcending politics. in the aftermath of that accident, the very next day, in fact, senator elect biden got a call from a political adversary who had seen the tragic news in the paper that morning. it was president richard nixon. >> hello, mister president. how are you? >> senator, i know this is a very tragic day for you, but i wanted you to know that all of us here at the white house we're thinking about you, and praying for you, and also for your two children. and -- >> i appreciate that very much. >> you can remember that she

was there when you won a great victory. you enjoyed it together, and now, i'm sure, she'll be watching you from now on. good luck to you. >> so, while empathy is in short supply in todays political climate, it's a reminder to consider what others might be going through this holiday season, and maybe, despite your disagreements, as a reminder of just how much it would mean to you reach out. that is it for me tonight. the rachel maddow show starts right now. hi, rachel. forward to that. just a reminder of humanity even with disagreement, which is sometimes hard to remember in this time. >> yeah, and it is the thing that most frustrates the people who want us to forget that for their own political purposes, but it's the only way out. you're right