>> i'm mark halperin. >> i'm john heilemann. with all due respect to jay-z, i've got 99 problems but a cold open ain't one. hit me. >> in our lineup tonight -- america as cops, hillary's chops, and washington, d.c.'s comedy flops. but first, a chess game dashers -- here is what happened in congress today. nancy pelosi held a press conference, and then john boehner held a press conference and an houseboat on the president's executive order, but none of it means anything. it's got about as much substance as a trauma -- it's all kabuki. boehner has to figure out if he needs democrats to offset his

conservative members who will vote no on his plan which is why pelosi thinks she can make a deal. >> i extended the hand of friendship once again to the speaker to say we stand ready to cooperate. there are some of those writers we cannot live with. there is no conversation. if he doesn't or to have leverage over those riders. >> a lot of sound and fury on capitol hill -- is it signifying anything or is it signifying nothing? >> there is nothing more complicated in the freak show era in which we live in a relatively weak white house without a lot of sway on the hill. what is necessary is a joint whip operation. nancy pelosi, john boehner and his lieutenants have to get to 218. for every republican they lose you have to get one democrat and nancy pelosi is not a giving mood.

she doesn't want to agree to something before she sees it. same with conservative republicans. they don't want to vote for this until they know what is in there. >> there's also the question -- she tipped her hand on leverage -- today is the day the symbolic anti-immigration litigation was happening. nobody is saying i'm going to be with john boehner today of all days but it's clear that nancy , pelosi and steny hoyer will end up going along. i think harry reid gave them away a couple of days ago when he said he was in favor of a her -- boehner's plan will stop >> -- plan. >> it represents the first nine months of republican dominance when they control both chambers. that is why harry reid is psyched about it. if republicans think they are going to have a lot of leverage playing a game of chicken, i have a bridge in los angeles i would like to sell them. >> i would like to buy that bridge in los angeles. i think it really is kabuki in the sense that we know boehner

needs 40 or 50 votes and pelosi is going to provide them. she has been doing that for boehner throughout the entire last two years. next topic -- attorney general eric holder announced a investigation into police in new york where they have been using unnecessary force. this coming 24 hours after a grand jury in new york decided not to indict the officer in staten island. the consensus has form that the travesty is the injustice. can this weird consensus lead to positive effect for public policy going forward? >> are three things i would like to see. we need prosecutors who are more politically savvy then these prosecutors we have seen in st. louis and staten island. they had to a better sense of the impact. there's a real argument now that second, there needs to be

independent counsel special prosecutors in a case involving a police officer using lethal force. there's too much distrust right now to leave that in the hands of prosecutors who deal all the time with police officers. finally there needs to be a lot , more trust in the system and at it's hard to do but we don't know if this is something the prosecutor did or the grand jurors did. public officials need to step back and not just assume the worst. i will say quickly that you cannot release grand jury proceedings normally and these activists saying just release them have to think about the implications of every time there is a public controversy, asking for full transcripts being released is a dangerous precedent to keep setting. >> i agree with you and i'm going to focus on the second thing you said. al sharpton is leading a watt -- leading a march on washington . he is focused on these case where lethal force is use that we must federalize those cases. your point about the special

prosecutor -- we have these overwhelming statistics that show in 99% of cases where a grand jury hears a case, 99% of the time they come back with an indictment except where the police are involved and the numbers are flipped on their head. the prosecutor works with the cops year after year and it's going to be hard for that prosecutor to prosecute one of his own or her own in these cases. i think this police training stuff that bill de blasio announced today and eric holder is talking about is also really important. you have to have cops who know what they are doing on the street. >> you can only federalize so much of this. you have to have prosecutors and governors who understand that the country is a bit of a tinderbox. you have to have prosecutors think through. neither of these prosecutors did a good job dealing with the public part of what is responsible. what you do in the grand jury room is a big deal and what you do in the public as a prosecutor

is just as a big deal. >> you cannot federalize everything, but at this moment in this country, this is a moment where it seems to me on cases where there has been lethal police force used in a way that there is a market pattern here -- white police officers and black victims there is a demand the federal government take a lead role. i think it probably should. they may not, but they should. here is the next topic. another voice joining the chorus on this topic is hillary clinton. this is what she talked about in boston about the cases of michael brown and eric harner. -- eric garner. >> a lot of hearts are breaking and we are asking ourselves aren't these our sons? aren't these our brothers? these tragedies did not happen in some faraway place. they did not happen to some

other people. these are our streets, our children, our fellow americans and our grief. >> today, bloomberg politics is reporting warren buffett has donated $25,000 to the super pac ready for hillary. the maximum allowed. she has not announced yet she is running, but warren buffett does and so do i and a lot of other people. is hillary ready for hillary? >> i think she is exhibiting a fair amount of caution. that was a nice statement but it was obviously carefully crafted. if she decides to run for president, to do stuff a little more spontaneously and off the cuff, based on passion and not on a lot of the liberation and endless strategizing. >> she gave that speech yesterday at georgetown in a

famous room where you know well know clinton laid the foundation for his campaign in 1992. giving policy speeches that were bold and controversial orthodoxy defying. he gave three big ones. she said virtually nothing there yesterday. she got slammed because the hall was empty but it was finals week, so that may have been part of the problem. i'm totally with you. she has to take some chances for -- and take some risks, or she will be a candidate who's not going to inspire many people. >> she needs to be as spontaneous and ad hoc as a classic episode of "with all due respect." >> some exciting >> some exciting competition last night in washington dc -- not jeopardy kids week, but a different term in a of champions -- the funniest celebrities in the capital. bear in mind they are not really

celebrities. not really funny, they are washington, d.c. funny. we sent our reporter out to find the best jokes he could find. >> welcome to the 20th annual funniest celebrity in washington contest. >> i've invented a disposable end table i'm going to market under the name "one night stand." >> i was the secretary of agriculture that promoted the port industry and president clinton said what a country we live in that we have a jewish secretary of agriculture promoting the pork industry. it was one of the most important things i did. >> i worked at npr until a few weeks ago. our newsroom is filled with liberal democrats and it just not true. there are some conservative them democrats thereto. the funniest celebrity and washington, d.c. -- a contest his name includes one true fact -- we are in d.c.

>> i can see you doubled over in laughter. what do those standup routines tell us about the state of humor in the nations capital. >> comedy has not recovered since fred grandy left congress. >> that competition is like one of those shortest budgets competitions. coming up, as new york grapples with the fallout from the non-indictment, a congressman from new york will join us. we will be right back. ♪

>> our first guest is common -- is congressman gregory meeks representing the fifth district of new york. there are a lot of topics we want to get to. but we want start with the decision the garner case. you expressed a lot of outrage last night. in the light of day now, have you given thought to what could possibly have happened inside the grand jury that led to this

outcome? >> i am still baffled. i have reflected upon that all night long and it just seems to me almost impossible not to get an indictment in this case. you have evidence, the videotape, you have a medical examiner's report that says it was a homicide. you know a chokehold was ruled not to be utilized by the police department and in a grand jury proceeding which is completely controlled by the district attorney, there is no way you don't come out with at least criminally negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter. i would love to see what the da's instructions were to the grand jury, whether or not he asked for an indictment after he presented his case, how he cross-examined the witnesses particularly the police officer who took the life of mr. garner.

i am really baffled how you can come away with no indictment on this situation. >> why would the prosecutor have taken the case to a grand jury if he did not want an indictment? >> as i look at what took place in staten island and what that took-- took place in ferguson, the only answer i can come up to is, as a prosecutor, you have the discretion to say you are not going to take the case to the grand jury at all, but that puts pressure directly on you. you can halfheartedly present a case to the grand jury and say they grand jury came up with no true indictment and that is the scenario. i'm not giving you something based on the facts as i know them, but the facts as the circumstantial evidence seems to be presenting itself. without anything else, circumstantial evidence is good when you are trying a case.

>> if the grand jurors made the decision -- in the st. louis case, it's a little different. it seems like they did want to put the onus on the grand jurors. reasonable people can disagree but it's not unreasonable to look at it. maybe his heart was not in seeking the indictment, but you can see that it is possible that the prosecutor perhaps went for an indictment but your fellow new yorkers simply did not get. that is at least possible, right ? >> that is why i say the transcripts need to be released and we need to know what took place in the grand jury room and at the very least, i hope attorney general holder will take a look and see what took place because it seems to me -- and everybody i have talked to thus far with the exception of one of my colleagues, they are still baffled by it when they look at the videotape.

even the speaker, speaker boehner, has said it we need to get to the bottom of this and my republican colleagues started to talk about having hearings on the process it self to try to figure this out because it is baffling not just on this particular scenario, not just african-americans. that's why you have my colleagues stand up with the new york delegation. it is baffling to anybody who's looked at that videotape. >> i am curious now -- there's a lot of consensus that this is baffling both right and left everyone seems to agree. i'm curious about what you should think in terms of policy going forward, what should you do to keep this kind of thing from happening again? >> i think the attorney general -- and i look forward to his recommendations, make the grand jury process at least part of

his investigation. i know they are going to do practice and padding investigation and look at the civil rights violations against the officers for the deaths, but i think that what has to happen is they need to come back , because by being a a closed proceeding and with what i saw thus far, the judge in the new york city case saying only able limited part of the grand jury proceeding will be submitted and that just talks about the number of witnesses. we are not getting the details or the record as we did in ferguson to make those sorts of concrete judgments. the only one who can do that is the ag and i hope he does that and makes that part of his investigatory process. above and beyond that, with the mayor of the city of new york is doing is absolutely the right thing because as we look at , these cases, it seems to me

there has to be a complete retraining of the police officers. i know that in new york city it may be -- and it may be across this country. if the officers could think that's the proper procedure to go by when you have an individual who is not armed, not threatening and not violent, you have to take him down in a violent matter like that and then somebody wasn't trained properly. i think the mayor is doing the right thing and he understands the significance of this because he said at his own press conference that it is personal to him because he has to tell his own son every day to be careful. those are real problems we have throughout america going on right now. >> congressman gregory meeks thank you for joining us. when we come back, we have the former senate majority leader, trent lot of mississippi, if he has any advice for mitch mcconnell when we come back. ♪

>> our next guest was once the republican majority leader in the senate while a democrat was in the white house. he's also from mississippi. senator trent lot has a lot to tell us. i want to ask you about some comments you made this morning. you said the new majority leadership, senator mcconnell and others, should co-opt the new republican freshmen senators. what do you mean by co-op in them and how should they do it? >> you have to be careful trying to give mitch mcconnell advice because he is an experienced hand. he knows what he has in doing and i mean bring them in, talk to them, make sure they don't go off abdicating some process or -- advocating some process or position that's procedurally not going to happen or politically dynamite without any real good results. senator mcconnell has been

working for this opportunity for many years. i saw him today and he feels good about the challenges and opportunities he will have. i get agitated when we have new people come to washington who trying to that start trying to dictate what the leadership should do or how they should proceed. when you've got a leadership team you elect, you should listen to them a little bit. we have a lot of potential leaders in washington. what we need is a few more of is followers who will help produce a result. >> you said senator mcconnell needed to co-op some members and you say he needed to kiss off some of the renegade conservatives. i wonder if you could be specific about who you are referring to. >> well, there are some members saying that we are the hell no caucus and we're not going to do this or do that and they are willing to shut down the government.

that's not a good sense, i think. i believe -- look i'm , conservative just like they are, but if you're only answer is let's not do anything, that's not conservative or liberal. we have a lot of things in this country that need to be dealt with, immigration reform, tax policy. just saying no is not good enough. we need some action. the american people are fed up with gridlock, and they want to see congress do some things that are important to people. if you have a renegade group that saying we are not going to you that or this, you have a good leader in mitch mcconnell and you ought to listen to him and be prepared to get something done for the country. >> senator what bothers you , about these two decisions where grand jury's have failed to indict in cases where police officers have use lethal force against african-americans. ?

>> the situation in new york just from the video you have seen -- a lot of these incidents don't occur without people seeing them and in many cases being recorded. it was obviously a tragic incident and they need to review how something like this could happen and why did the act in the way they did? i don't know what happened in the grand jury and i don't know a lot of the facts. i saw the video and that caused a problem that led to his death. that is an unacceptable situation. i think policy should be reviewed all the way across the country. >> senator, i'm curious whether you think there is a federal role here -- one thing some actors are suggesting is that you can't get a fair shake in a before grand jury -- you can't get a fair shake before a grand jury in a case where lethal force is used by a police officer in the system and those cases should be federalized with special prosecutors. do you think that's a good idea? >> probably not. i have not had a whole lot of experience with grand jury's. i know a little bit about what

goes on and i do know a lot of it depends on the prosecutor. i do know that when a police officer is involved in an incident in the line of duty, he or she does seem to get the benefit of the doubt. but one of the things that has bothered me is that i have always wondered about the advisability of giving military equipment to police departments. not just side arms or a gas mask, but heavy equipment. is that a good idea? i think we ought to take a look at that. >> you have a big potential field of presidential candidates in your party. i want to talk about two of them. our ted cruz -- are ted cruz and dr. ben carson qualified to be president of the united states? >> i admire dr. ben carson very much. i don't suspect he will be the nominee. i think we have some possible outstanding candidates their governors or former governors.

i lead toward someone who has in in elected office -- i was a senator and maybe -- particularly right now, we need an experienced hand who has run something like a state. a big state. we have some good candidates we should take a look at. >> thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we will be right back back with a peek into our very own special with all due respect at -- at event calendar after this. ♪

>> we love the holiday season mainly because as a great reason to celebrate with friends and family, meaning of course, lots of drinking. so we are opening up our advent calendar. we missed the first four days, so we are jumping to five. behind the door is the white house gingerbread house. in real life, this baby weighs 420 pounds. 40 of them are pure marzipan. yummy.

check it out. this advent thing is going to keep going. we are always live 24/seven on bloomberg politics. up

>> he is known as text turnaround guy. john chen has been more than 30 years working and enterprise technology. he took one software maker from the verge of death to a $1.8 billion powerhouse. he is taking on an impossible job, leading blackberries come back. how did he become the tech industry's fixer? my guest is blackberry ceo john. thank you for joining us.