mark: i mark halperin. john: and i'm john heilemann. benwith all due respect to carson, you had one job. john: on the show tonight, conflict about conflicts of interest and the secretary of more transitions for trump's transition team. resign from that team today. he called his work with team trump a privilege but report suggests warring factions, those around donald trump's son-in-law

and chris christie have gotten this admin adventure off to a slow and rocky start. reporting the department of defense, justice, have not heard ap from trump land. paul ryan was reelected as speaker of the house. he went out of the way to defend his white house staff higher. let's start with the big picture. how is the transition going? mark: not as smoothly as it could predict our factions -- as it could. .here are factions i have covered a lot of transitions. there is always drama. people are overstating the drama and understating the extent to which this happens. the proof will be in the pudding. he has to be ready by january

20. putting christie and then removing him is having repercussions. john: they are totally abjectly i'm prepared to take over. there is always in fighting. have most of they the major government agencies right now can't get phone calls returned and the trump transition team has not signed documentation to allow them to interface with those agencies, it is a sign they don't have their act together at all. mark: post-9/11 expectations of how fast a transition will be are much greater, as it should be. they should not be scrambling. but they do have time. this is what happens when they elected outsider. they are still learning the ropes. this needs to be watched closely. if they get further down the road and they are not geared up it is going to be a problem but there is still time. john: i don't disagree press

time for you we will judge their state of preparedness when they make the transition. but at this hour, they are not where they should be. maybe it is a reflection of an outsider presence but if you have people wandering around the west wing asking how many jobs to we need to fill, that is a sign of cluelessness that even people who were not an insider should know. if you watch the west wing you should know you have to replace all of those people. mark: it is all potentially a problem. this is the kind of thing that shows the press is obsessed about process when it comes to donald trump when -- john: if hillary clinton was doing this i would be obsessed. if they were wondering how many jobs we have to fill i would criticize the clinton administration just as much. mark: i think we can give them another week. every day we get more clues about what his it ministration

is going to look like. today the transition news, ben carson says he is not going to be part of the government. we are told he took himself out of the running for that or any job. laura ingram is being considered for white house press secretary. one position being closed is now secretary of state. two names are at the top. john bolton and rudy giuliani. both would be controversial and contentious. what does it say if donald trump ?s down to these two guys would it create more controversy? john: we will talk about harry reid and the guests that overshadows everything about these choices. as bad as rudy giuliani or john bolton may be, none of them are as bad as bannon.

it reflects to me, what does it say about foreign policy? we heard he was not interventionist. he was not a neocon. really giuliani has no foreign policy experience. the notion he will be a diplomat goes against his temperament. and john bolton is the ultimate neocon. if one of those guys gets the job, what does that say about what we all thought, and what donald trump represented to be about foreign policy? mark: particularly bolton. who has a long track record. rudy giuliani, he is not what he once was in terms of being prepared to do a job like this. i don't have any problem in the abstract but it seems like a strange take for giuliani. i'm not sure whether he could

get another job. word go back to the loyalty. senator sessions name has been floated for secretary of state, attorney general and defense secretary. i suspect he will get one of those three. then where do the remaining slots go? john: giuliani, it is not the lack of formal policy background, it is temperament. he is the least dramatic person you know in the same way john bolton is the most interventionist you know. what does trump believe? what does he want? maybe these are just trial balloons. but they have all seemed really weird. mark: every day we get further away from the election, so many questions are answered. is he going to be the architect of his form policy? who will be? we don't know. that is why these things are more important than ever.

john: here is something we do now. he will enter the white house with more conflicts of interests and less financial transparency that any recent president. administration says they are transferring portfolios to donald trump's eldest children. the three trump ayers -- heirs also have positions on the trump transition team which is raising eyebrows all over the place. donald trump is considering security clearances for some of his family members. the cbs or is not true according to some but the potential overlap between his new administration and his family-run businesses are now sure to raise questions about conflict of interest, with every public decision they would make. is there anything donald trump that he isg the path

currently going to keep conflict of interest from being a dominant storyline in his new term? there are certain things he cannot do. he is not going to erase his family business. there is going to be conflict. i think the biggest thing that concerns me here, there must be transparency and minimizing of the book appearances. hires people who who do not bend over backwards to avoid impropriety. i hope lawyers look at it, trying to cut corners at his foundation, i hope they look at it with the premium on minimizing the appearance of conflict and actual conflict. you will never get ready -- get

rid of it all. if this was not all donald trump we would say he should put into a blind trust. >> he knows he owns the hotel. john: clearly. but the families going to be running the business. it is ludicrous. ludicrous that they would have an official role. it is ridiculous. why not? businesses are not that are heavily involved in federal government decisions. john: enough. they are affected by corporate tax rates. mark: he is not going to stop getting advice from his kids. i think they should decide if they want to be in the government or any private business. they should pick one. john: it will go a long way but to me i don't see why it is we have to donald trump?

it is out of the question because? mark: he knows the hotel. these are not stocks. john: he shall taken his family out of operation. -- he should have taken his family out of the operation. no double standards. more after this quick break. ♪

mark: the election is over but some immigrants are not acting that way. since the election night, our eyes not eased up on their roofless and personal attacks on donald trump.

elizabeth worn of massachusetts sent a letter to the president-elect accusing him of having too many wall street elites and insiders on his transition team and potential cap netlist. that is mild compared to what harry reid has done. donaldtement called trump a sexual predator who lost the popular vote. he took to the senate floor this afternoon railing against donald trump's pick for the white house chief strategist. >> if he is serious about seeking unity, he should rescind his appointment of steve banyan -- bannon. don't do it. think about this. don't do it. champion of racial division steps into the oval office it will be impossible to take his efforts to the nation seriously. i say take responsibility, rise to the dignity of the office of president of the united states,

step out from behind your twitter account and show that racism and bigotry have no place in the white house. mark: are these kinds of attacks are being on the very thing immigrants went after donald trump for? john: two different things. indiscriminate attacks that are all over the map and a concerted , they don'tly sound help the democratic cause. rarely have almost ever said the words i agree with harry reid. these stephen bannon appointment as i said yesterday is outrageous and detrimental to because the donald trump has been espousing pretty he wants unity of the country. -- espousing. he wants unity of the country. bad andrt with divisive, too much uglier than that.

i don't see how that appointment cannot be seen as poisonous. when i hear harry reid on that point, i think what else are you supposed to say about the appointment? broadly democrats will have to say how do they want to attack trump and where do they want to be seen as reasonable? mark: i wonder what is going to happen when donald trump will reach out on certain issues to get them to work with him. right now harry reid is departing. few have spoken out against the poster he has adopted. not offering up an option of working with the new president. i get how upset they are and i agree the benin thing needs to be explained -- the ban in thing needs to be explained. at scattershot approach of acting like we're in a campaign, i don't think it is good for the country. i don't think it is good for the democratic party. i thought elizabeth warren, great to speak out and say you

are too close to insiders. the other thing is, you have to pick your fights. when you were a decimated fighter -- party you cannot pick every battle you can. e-mail editorial, i don't think that is helping them. john: president obama's reaction can be summed up in three words. not my fault. it is conference he had today, he was asked if the election was a referendum on president obama's election. obama blamed personalities and how campaigns are run in the country's desire for change after a party has been in the white house for eight years. >> a healthy majority of american people agree with my worldview. that beg the

question, how is it somebody who appears to have a very different world view just got elected? as i said, sometimes people just feel as if we want to try we can shakesee if things up. was a significant phenomenon. john: this comes after obama took another failed shot at hillary clinton's campaign when he suggested democrats struggled to have places like iowa because they didn't spend time on the ground as they did when he was a candidate. the second day in a row he offered up some positive and hopeful remarks about his white house successor. a lot of democrats think obama has normalized trump and the dissolving himself of any blame in this debacle of an election. do you think he is risking or courting backlash among members of his own party? mark: i think members of his own

party and his advisers who commented on this, it is a strange tact he is taking. he goes responsibility to help the transition. i don't think he has normalized him given the situation. what he did today to say everyone likes me and my policies, and basically saying none of this was my fault, you have to look deeper at what has happened. i don't think he can say this has nothing to do with him. a lotit is the case that of people in the democratic party say he is in denial about donald trump. he is speaking to favorably and in denial about his role in where the party is. the point you're trying to make is if you look at where the party was when he entered office and where it is today, it is in a much worse place. there is no doubt that his failure to build the party, to care about the party, to build himself up, to be interested in

the parter and his rejection of that has -- in the party in his rejection of that, immigrants are going to g get angrier as we go forward. fundraiser will be here on this set. ♪

mark: welcome back. our guest is the finance chief of mitt romney's president took and is the main finance person for paul ryan. thank you for coming back.

how do you feel about the republican president to be? you were opposed to him. how do you feel about his being president? >> i spent the last year trying to get a house reelected, a majority for paul ryan and help in the senate. most of my time was spent in the house and senate. pretty good cycle for republicans. we also have the white house. i'm excited for the party more broadly over the next few years. mark: personally, are you excited about a trump president? meansbecause i think this the agenda paul ryan put forward over the next year can actually get put on a president's desk who will sign it and we can move it through. , i'mthat standpoint excited. john: did you not agree with mitt romney? >> i did not support donald trump in the primary. i did not get involved in the primary it all.

john: he said some pretty harsh things about donald trump. >> he wrote that speech himself. i did not write that speech. there were parts i agreed with. at this point, governor romney wants donald trump to be successful. he wants to support the office of the presidency. he spent better part of last year trying to help people like paul ryan and rob portman. tuesday night was a good night for mitt romney. john: can i ask you why? romney's speech was powerful and an incredible indictment of as character. his temperament. he was totally ill-equipped to be president of the united states, not sound for it. how hen't explain to me has recognized -- reconciled himself.

i know you know mitt romney well. >> how is that different from some of the people that are now up for cabinet posts and what they said? mitt romney gave a speech during the primary. he believed that perhaps some one else was better fit to be the nominee of the party. that is no different than some of the things other people who are now up for cabinet posts said. john: that just makes the ignorant -- argument that they are being hypocrites. he said donald trump was uniquely unqualified and unsuited to be president. >> but now donald trump has won the election. now we have to look forward. mitt romney wants donald trump to be successful. mark: how does the wider clinical family donors feel about the coming era? >> many have embraced it. many were on the trump team

early on. some had not joined the team during the election. i suspect republicans will come together and support a donald trump presidency. >> you wanted a comment on your friend hammett -- harry reid. >> my friend? is sort of a -- how do i say this? mark: pretend you are from south boston. >> harry reid is a has been political hack who wishes he were still relevant. it is not like you did a lot to change the outcome of this election. i think there was divisiveness going in the democratic party that at some point will get reported. and elizabeth worn are just posturing at this point. why don't they look at what barack obama is saying? let's give this guy a chance. harry reid doesn't want anyone

to be successful except for himself. john: one of the other things you did was to get mitt romney to run for president. >> i wish he had been elected. >> do you think if you had run heed him to would have beat donald trump? >> i have no idea. donald trump was successful in the general at tapping into a movement. he called a movement. there was a movement. i'm am not sure anybody could have beat donald trump in the primary. run: do you think if he had he could have beat hillary clinton? >> had he been a nominee? i do. i believe he would have won. hillary clinton didn't exactly appeal to a movement of people. mark: when did you know donald was going to win? >> when you said he was going to win on tv a year ago.

mark: thank you very much. coming up. dominating coverage of the trump transition, we will get the benefits of her latest stuff. you can listen to the show on the radio, bloomberg 99.1 fm. we will be right back. ♪ wow, x1 has netflix?

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show me house of cards. finally, you can now find all of netflix in the same place as all your other entertainment. on xfinity x1. ways wins. especially in my business. with slow internet from the phone company, you can't keep up. you're stuck, watching spinning wheels and progress bars until someone else scoops your story. switch to comcast business. with high-speed internet up to 10 gigabits per second. you wouldn't pick a slow race car. then why settle for slow internet? comcast business. built for speed. built for business. ♪ >> you know, i don't know. i would serve the president. that is what he asked me to do.

in any capacity that would be. right now, i am honored to have a front row seat to history. experience, amazing long and difficult at times. if the president asked me to do something in his administration, that would be an honor. john: corey lewandowski speaking to i tv. there is a lot of news coming out of the trump transition team today, and jennifer jacobs has been tracking all of it. one of the things i love about having you on the program is i can say, what do you know, and whatever comes out of your mouth will be interesting. what do you know? >> there are some power struggles once trump is rising to power. just a week ago, everyone thought he was going to lose. there is a lot of shifting around.

the transition team is experiencing another shakeup. there is a purging of chris christie loyalists. that has something to do with an christie andtween jerod kushner. we are hearing different camps weighing in on who they would like for key posts. we have some landing teams launching in the next few days. teamshose are are interim that will go into various federal agencies and look for reform and prepare for the new administration's priorities. mark: what we know about what trump is going for? rewarding loyalty is obviously a factor. is he going for pleasing capitol hill?

diversity? intellectual excellence? what is he going for? >> the biggest factor is loyalty and trust. so far, the people whose names have been thrown in the mix for these top cabinet posts are people with him in the campaign. steve mnuchin is up for treasury. commerce, rudy giuliani. my understanding is he could get whatever position you would like. his heart's desire is secretary of state. you have jeff sessions, a key ally to trump during the campaign. all of those positions, all those people, are very loyal to trump when the republican establishment was not so loyal. john: the steve bannon appointment has caused a huge furor. in my opinion, justifiably so.

republicans look at this and say, this is a poisonous appointment. is there any chance that trump, under pressure from a bipartisan array, which change his mind and rescind that one? >> i'm not hearing any rumblings from his inner circle. bannon very much. bannon has a real influence over trump. trump listens to him and respect his opinion. if you asked, is this guy a white nationalist, they say no? mark: we talked about whether kellyanne conway will take a white house job. are there other women being talked about for senior cabinet jobs you have heard of? >> not that i have heard so far. i am told he is looking at women

values hired women and women's opinions. that will be no different, is what his aides are telling me. john: earlier in the show, we discussed this conflict of interest thing. he's getting hit hard for the notion of having his children run the business. how is that being heard, those complaints? >> actually, they pushed back a little and said they have not formally applied to have top-secret clearance for the kids a lot of people are talking about. someonethat came from else lower down in the transition team. clearly, trump values his children's opinions. if he could get them clearance, i am sure he would. he trusts very few people. he is willing to have an open

conversation with -- trump always said he wants his kids to be close and to monitor the organization while he's in the white house. john: jennifer, thank you very much. we could talk all day, but we have to get to a couple people who were wrong about this election. mike murphy and bill kerich coming up. ♪

♪ know the reality of this thing is trump is maybe a 1-7

shot. >> it is all anecdotal info. my cousins in connecticut are voting for you. maybe i ought to go to connecticut. we are going to all these places. the team is going, third and 65. we could try a drop kick. john: that is a clip of our next oddsuests discussing long on the circus. here now, mike murphy in chicago, and bill kerich in los angeles. i'm going to start by saying, i got it wrong too. i got it wrong. you is not just me blaming for getting it wrong without accepting responsibility. i got it wrong. having said that, starting with

mike, why were you so confident for so long there was no way trump would win? what did you get wrong? >> i got it really wrong. , was so stunned when trump won the only person more surprised than me was trump. rothenberg.d by stu look at the polling data and demographic makeup of the electorate. it was clear. he got 2 million fewer votes than hillary clinton. was tied in not think you would do well with latinos. i thought he would get historic african-american turnout in places like milwaukee. i knew he would do well with non-educated white working class folks, but i did not know he would break the meter.

i was looking at a democrat reagannd he blew away numbers. that outlier, and the michael flinttowns in places like was enough to give him the lead and pick the lock of the electoral college. that has not been seen before. i learned a good lesson. john: phil, you get a chance to explain yourself. >> i was wrong. i relied on news media for information. [laughter] wrong in some was fundamental ways. do extremely well with non-college-educated working people. the mythical college educated suburban woman disappeared. nobody really caught the

magnitude of rural discontent with secretary clinton and the popularity of trump. ablebama coalition wasn't to be replicated by the clinton campaign. there was not the level of theout, and it didn't get numbers obama got with a number of key constituencies. mark: is the democratic party in shape as some people are saying right now? >> clearly, congressional leadership will be out front. obviously, this is a big deal for senator schumer. he will be a major player. there will be a lot going on in the senate in terms of whehter trump's legislative agenda will succeed or not.

it is going to take a while to dig out of this. every day, you find out some new information, new data, something the campaign focused on or didn't focus on. fundamentally, the biggest istake strategically was, this a change election or about trump's temperament style, disposition, personality, and it 10-pointt to be by a margin, a change election. a lot of people missed that. mark: do they want to succeed with a legislative agenda and remake the map? >> he has got to double down on what got him there, working-class economics. thes convinced a section of working middle class has not had a raise in real wages for a long

time should be upset and blow up washington. he has to keep that promise, and that will be a heavy lift. all the political junkies that got this thing wrong are looking by county by county election returns. trump underperformed in republican suburbs and over performed in rural areas, metal bending towns. he will have to deliver some things. zwick onhad spencer and were talking about the ways in which mitt romney condemned trump and is now wishing him well. what do you think is the right course for republicans who did not just criticize trump, do not just say he could not win, but said he was unfit for office? what should republicans in that position previously do now? >> my first instinct has been

liquor. ice i move beyond that, believe the president deserves a shot to succeed. i want to see him rise to the office. i hope he understands the campaign won fair and square, histhere is a stain on campaign that divided the country for some of the things he has done. he has an opportunity to lift up the dialogue. we need to see more of that. he needs to put this thing together, or he will be like lbj or nixon during watergate. he really has to run -- rise to the occasion. john: let me go back to the talk we had earlier about barack obama. the raw numbers. and gotarrived in 2008 democratic control of the house and senate. he leaves with a party in shambles. to what extent is barack obama responsible for the current

state of abject disarray of the democratic party? think, and the other irony is he is at the height of his popularity. i think there was not an effort for a long time before barack obama to focus on legislative races on the democratic side. was not aggressive as it was among conservatives and republicans. they both played a role in it. the other thing that is pretty clear, they got a jump on us in statehouses. candidate inwas quality, campaign in quality. we were really being clobbered in the governors' races. we need to fix the legislative problems and the governors' races. we tend to be more of a washington oriented party, a

one-size-fits-all message and whatnot. we may have to figure out how to talk to people differently in different parts of the country in these campaigns. we have not been doing that. ike, i cannot believe you suspended the radio show. what are you going to do? john: it is a podcast. >> makes it sound more legitimate than it really is. it is one of the top republican podcasts. i have buried the resistance radio transmitter in the backyard. i want our president to succeed. if he acts like he did during the campaign, republicans should support him when he is right and oppose him when he is wrong. mark: bill, do you want him to succeed? >> obviously, i do, in sort of a theoretical way. will i be disappointed if he does not succeed? probably not. i think mike hit it on the head. his success will be based on his

behavior. in ae modify his behavior radical way to be reassuring people instead of a leader of less than 50%? carrick,e murphy, bill we are always happy to hear from you. now, professor eddie glock. ♪ ♪

♪ mark: joining us from down the road in princeton, professor chair of the center for african american studies at christian university. thank you for coming back.

about on this program with the democratic party in its current state. how would you describe the current state of the party? what does it have going for it at this point? >> it is in disarray because they underestimated the significance of donald trump and his campaign. i think they took for granted a large number of folks who are out in the country who are suffering, folks who are tired of his this as usual. so it is a crisis. at every moment of crisis, there is an opportunity. the opportunity presents itself for more progressive voices to come to the fore, put forward an agenda that speaks to everyday working people and their dreams and aspirations and revive the democratic party. maybe not so much revived it,

but reimagine it so it can speak to the most vulnerable. it is an opportunity amid crisis. john: we have discussed it on a couple of occasions. you might have a unique perspective. barack obama, first african-american president of the united states, came into the white house with a big majority and leaves with disarray. how much blame does he bear for the democratic party? >> a lot falls on his shoulders. remember that amazing speech he gave at the lack caucus, -- out and vote if you want to protect my legacy? blackwas an appeal to voters based on uncritical loyalty to him, that we would transfer that loyalty to hillary clinton. that did not play out the way he

expected. remember, he did not transfer operation to, his the doc. alongside his failures, there is a failure of the clinton campaign. i have said over and over there was confusion among the clinton where they wanted to embrace the obama coalition at the same time they wanted to embrace bill clinton's strategy of triangulation, attracting bush republicans and taking their base for granted. what we saw is the chickens coming home to roost. s a lot ofer, he bear blame, but there is a lot of blame to spread around. mark: donald trump picks steve bannon. a lot of complaints about it and criticism. what can productively be done

for public policy, for setting an example for children? what two people opposed to bannon do now, short of getting him out of the job, which would be the right thing to do? >> that is a hard question, mark. as a model for our children, we have to continue to oppose him. we cannot normalize him, even trance --is for kelso itrance on the part of donald trump. he is who he is. who is he? a guy who has a cozy relationship with the alt-right, a rebranding of white supremacists. we need to be clear about that. we you have to understand that trust is not simply given.

healing does not simply happen by pronouncing healing needs to happen. it is predicated on genuine mutuality, the building of trust. there is no ground for it. when you ask the question in the other segment, do we want him to i askcceed -- succeed, myself, succeed at what? at deporting people? implementing a tax policy that will devastate the poor? given what he said, i am not rooting for him at all. john: i wish we had more time with you. >> sorry. john: it is all our fault. we have dave chapelle on our show. thanks for coming on. we will be right back. ♪

is the most surprising thing you have seen offar in the last 48 hours the trump transition drama? mark: probably barack obama saying he had nothing to do with it. john: that is the weirdest by far. really weird. check out bloomberg politics for more on trump's transition team. bloomberg technology, justin cann, who talks about the upcoming snapchat ipo. sayonara. ♪ . .

mark: i'm mark crumpton. you are watching "bloomberg technology." house speaker paul ryan defended 's of stevelect trump

van and despite criticism he provided a platform for white nationalism while at right part news. speaker ryan: the president will be judged on his results. one an a person who incredible victory and had an incredible campaign will be judged on the results of his of ministration. mark: senator democrats disagreed. harry reid had this message for the president-elect. senator reid: rise to the dignity of office. step out from behind your twitter account and show america that racism, bullying and bigotry have no place in the white house. mark: politico reports billionaire investor wilbur ross, one of president elect trump's economic advisers is a leading candidate for commerce secretary. families of some of those killed during the sandy hook massacre are repealing -- are appealing the dismissal of their lawsuit against the manufacturer remington.