john: welcome to this edition of "the best of with all due respect." this week, the president-elect continues to weigh options while the party wrestles with a strategy going forward. we begin with donald trump weighing in on hillary clinton and some key policies. donald trump started his day today with a very old gray lady. his on-again-off-again and on-again sit down with the "new york times" was in question after he fired off a series of tweets, canceled the interview, and calling the newspaper nasty and not nice. in the end, the incoming

president agreed to sit down with about two dozen journalists for anith the publisher hour and 15 minute, wide-ranging, on-the-record discussion. this is as close to a press conference as we have gotten out of donald trump since july 27. it did not disappoint. among the topics addressed, trump seemed to change course on climate change, saying he would keep an open mind on the paris climate accord he had previously vowed to withdraw from. he also said there is quote, some connectivity between humans and climate change. trump was lukewarm on the idea of prosecuting hillary clinton for her "sins" regarding email, saying it would be divisive for the country. the incoming president disavowed groups of white supremacists who have been celebrating his election victory and defended his appointment of alt-right figure steve bannon, and if he thought bannon was racist, he quote, wouldn't even think of hiring him. the topic of his businesses came

up amid concerns of conflict of interest, which he dismissed. trump said he is following the law and as president he has more important things to worry about than boosting his bottom line. trump also fielded questions on several other subjects. obama, the media, his cabinet deliberations. nicole, there is a lot to talk about here. we are going to spend a fair amount of time talking about it . what stands out to you from this first semi press conference. nicole: other than when you said old gray lady i said, not me. so first, i watched an d experienced this by following maggie's tweets. this is a remarkable development that trump is ushering in. i think he's the first post-twitterverse tweeter to be elected president. to read it as it was going on, what an interesting -- i mean,

as a journalist, what did you think of watching it unfold in real-time? in the old days when george bush have reporters in they would , come in, they would do their interview and have to go and write a story, file it. and then you would consume it. this was different to me as a communications professional. we got to experience it in real time without any sort of prioritizing. no one picked the lead. we got to read it as it was happening. that in and of itself was remarkable. john: in some weird way, obviously president-elect trump has put twitter at the center of his communication strategy and in doing it this way, in arranging this meeting with the "times" editors and having a private press conference, he sort of forces them to use his medium of choice to report on what he was saying rather than using the normal television camera and broadcast. that's interesting. it seems to me -- i mean all of these -- i would love to see the transcript of the whole thing.

obviously, we only have snippets. now there are stories being written off the snippets, but it seems to me that in almost every way, apart from trashing the "times" and the way he started yesterday with network anchors, kind of criticizing them for the way they had treated him unfairly, in every other way he seemed to be trying to reassure people and turn down the temperature on his rhetoric and trying the best he can -- he is kind of clumsy but trying to assuage people's worst fears about what is to come. nicole: i thought the other way, and maybe this is my staff ptsd. i thought he was turning down the rhetoric because of the most extreme supporters. but i thought he was declaring a hot war on his detractors in the media. i was interested in that. it was very interesting to me that the meeting yesterday,

which seemed to have more of the bombastic donald trump, is sort of an escalation and that might cheer a lot of his backers and might bring some people back into the fold, main stream republicans that have harbored mistrust of the media. but i thought what i read yesterday was sort of a chilling warning to his detractors in the media, back to sort of the bullying of the reporters on the trail covering him. i thought it stood in stark contrast to his meeting with the times. john: yeah, especially if you believe that what happened yesterday was that a meeting was held, a tantrum was staged and then they said i don't know who could have possibly leaked that story. kellyanne conway was saying it was off the record. a lot of people think it was the trump transition who leaked it to their favorite newspaper. i agree with you. we will talk about policy matters.

every administration i have covered comes into power and believes it has mastered a new technological tool whether it , was bill clinton with satellite television or others with cable or obama with facebook. they all think we've found a way around the gate keepers, a way to communicate directly with the american people, go over their heads, around the side door. underground, whatever. and in my experience, they have all found, well, you can do that a little bit but in the end you still need the mainstream media. coming up, we get a line into trump tower from kellyanne conway. donald trump's senior advisor joins us next. stay tuned. ♪

mark from bedminster to trump : tower, our next guest has been a fixture behind the scenes in donald trump's deliberations.

kellyanne conway is currently a senior advisor in his transition. and maybe she's going to washington, d.c.? who knows. she joins us now from trump tower. kellyanne, what is the proper line for donald trump to draw regarding his business interests when he becomes president? >> whatever the legal lines dictate, of course. he'll comply with all of that and he's made clear all along that his adult children will be managing the family business. obviously, these are not entry-level positions. they're already respected executives and mentees of his within the business. in charge of building things, acquiring things, taking meetings. you have seen their handiwork. i think the old post office building in d.c. is a great example of under budget, on time work that these adult children do and they will do that. he has made that clear. he has a team of advisors, lawyers, and accountants who

will make sure he complies with the law. mark: president obama has suggested that just complying with the law is not high enough standard. is it appearances as well? what about when there is an intersection between public action and his business interests? >> that's the typical response of a politician who has not been a successful businessman and job creator. apart from apart from that i think he has , to comply with the law and that should be the appearance. in other words, people will know he has a full-time job as president and commander in chief of the united states. he's committed to that. he's already said he won't take a salary. i guess he'll donate that to charity. but there is no reason to believe that this man is lying or won't do what he's supposed to do upon taking office. john: i just want to stay on that because the "wall street journal" editorial board wrote a strongly worded editorial about this. they are not professional politicians and have been as you

know certainly friendly to conservatives and capitalism. the op-ed was about the political damage to the administration if mr. trump doesn't liquidate his business holdings. it could be extensive. he's going to be constantly pecuniaryd for having motives on any actions he takes on a wide variety of policies in a wide variety of countries and on a wide variety of issues. is "the wall street journal," arguing from the perspective of wanting him to succeed, not being critical of him do you , think there is no merit to that argument that it might be the safest thing to liquidate the assets and move forward with a clean slate? >> well, first, he's already made his policies clear and he has a 100 day plan. if you are talking about the fact he wants to create 25 million jobs over 10 years and unleash coal and shale and other biggy sources or have infrastructure projects even

democrats are excited about, if you are assigning a pecuniary motive with his business holdings, we already know what he stands for. it's not like he's going to policy that would benefit a business he is no longer involved in or temporarily not involved in. but secondly, more importantly, as president of the united states he will have no authority , whatsoever over what is happening in his business, what the acquisitions are. i think the most important point i would make about this is people never look at the other side of the ledger. how many tens of millions of dollars have donald trump and his family sacrificed in order for him to run for president? first of all they spent a lot of money, and secondly, deals have been in abeyance. people have not completed deals. they have not been able to pursue other deals with the three adult children also on the campaign trail and him being away from his business for a year and a half to do this and now for the next four to eight. it's actually the money they've lost that nobody wants to talk

about, not the money they would gain based on different positions. john: he decided to run voluntarily so those sacrifices are once he decided to take on himself. the question is not about policy. the question is really what rulings the e.e.o.c. or national labor relations board might bake -- make with employees where specific businesses of his would be affected legislatively where they would be affected by by regulatory or legal rulings. foreign policy with countries in which he has business interests. he's not laid out his policies in advance on those questions. and as he makes decisions now, if they have an impact on his family company, they will be called into question if he makes decisions that seem to benefit his businesses. >> it sounds as if they'll be called into question even if he hasn't done that. you are calling them into question. look, john, i know the election results are very tough to swallow, particularly for those

of you who could not see it coming or even conceive of the possibility that the other candidate might win. you don't understand america. this man understands america and will now represent all americans . but this whole line of argument is presumptively negative and accuseatory. you are presuming things. john: with all due respect, this has nothing to do with me or my views. i am reading to you from "the wall street journal" -- a big champion of capitalism. you should read the article. that is the argument they are making for liquidating his assets. this has nothing to do with the election results. it has everything to do with standards. >> no, you are presuming -- well, a lot of it does. i think some people are still in campaign mode because they have political ptsd, i guess. guy, you arehis accusing him of doing things and making policies based on things he's not even talking about. you are presuming he's doing

this for the wrong reasons where most americans that voted for him, 300 and some electoral votes, that ain't nothing, believe that he's actually going go there and work for them, not line his own pockets. i find the line of argument -- it's your show and you are welcome to do it of course --but i find the line of argument to be presumptively accusatory. mark: we will talk more about this with you more in the coming days. but let's switch to a new topic, rudy giuliani reportedly being considered as director of national intelligence. is that true and would he be good at that? >> he would be great at any number of jobs. first criteria of president-elect trump is that you are qualified and capable to do the job day one. that certainly applies to mayor giuliani on a number of fronts. secondly, i know he was out in bedminster yesterday and had a great conversation.

mark is he being considered for : director of national intelligence? >> he's being considered for any number of positions. mark is that one of them? : >> could be. that's for somebody who is expert in those areas. intelligence gathering, security. he obviously is well respected around the world and would command a certain presence representing the president-elect and his administration. but the fact is that when the president-elect is filling his cabinet he has to think about , how everyone is working together and who is the best person for each of those jobs. to john's other point before, i think the diversity of people who have come through the door is just a remarkable group of men and women from different political, economic, social and business, public and private sector backgrounds, certainly different races, ethnicities and religious persuasions.

it has been quite an impressive group of people who in many cases just wanted to come and offer advice and counsel and their vision for the country. share their experiences of work they have done on a core issue or issues over the years. for some, that could lead to a formal position in this administration but for all of them, i assure you, they're just happy to have the time with the president-elect and the vice president-elect to share their ideas and offer their support. we're also thrilled it includes people from the other side of the aisle like tulsi gabbard and revered businessman like bet president robert johnson. it includes people at the highest levels of government like cathy mcmorris rodgers, the highest-ranking woman in congress, who gave birth three times while in congress. she has a remarkable personal and professional story. they just keep coming. they are governors, senators, members of congress past and present, people who have been captains of industry, job seekers, job creators.

it is just an incredible collection of men and women, and thank you for covering it. john: we have not heard from donald trump since election night. that's relatively long for a president-elect. he has not done a press conference or speech since then. is there reason why he has not done that, and when can we expect to hear from him? >> i think you will hear from him soon but he's incredibly busy. john, we publish his schedule every day and it's just one after another after another interview. he works 18 hours a day and has a punishing schedule of interviews. when he's not interviewing people in person he's taking , calls from people cross the nation and globe from heads of state and other opinion leaders. he's been incredibly busy doing that and then reflecting and discussing the interviews he's just had and the advice he has just received. he will talk to the press in due time. today, we had an amazing off the record meeting here with the top executives and anchors from the three major networks and a couple of the cable stations and

i thought he very much enjoyed that discussion. i thought it was a fabulous opportunity for them to be with each other and so we have the press here in the lobby every day. they have access to any number of different people coming in and out of trump tower. we make many people available to them. people who are meeting with president-elect trump and we feel we are very accessible to the press and this is a very transparent process where you literally can see the people coming in and out of the two buildings as they meet with the president-elect. mark: has a single thing gone wrong with the transition so far? >> hm. not really. i can tell you it's high energy. very engaged. a great deal of excitement but the excitement is now being funneled into the very serious business of helping him make decisions on his cabinet and his senior staff. i was in washington, d.c., last week.

i visited our to transition offices there. most of our transition team is in washington, d.c., steps away from the white house and they are, it's really remarkable to me anyway to see people standing shoulder to shoulder, millenials born after reagan left office and men and women who served on president reagan's transition team and in his administration. people are really excited they have got a republican and conservative president and vice president. there is just this buzz of activity and focus and those people who nobody is paying attention to what they are doing, they are getting on the landing teams. they're making sure that everything at the different agencies everything is as it should be, making sure they work with president obama and his current administration on these very important decisions and activities. so it's very exciting to all of us who are involved in it, and i will tell you it's going incredibly smoothly. it's like scheduling the interview version of rallies for president-elect trump. he can't get enough of them.

he wants more and more on the schedule. mark i got to ask you about one : report in "the new york post" real quick. it says during the meeting today with the network anchors and executives that at one point donald trump exploded at them in anger. is that true? >> no. that's not true. i sat right to his left. he did not explode in anger. and by the way, it was an off the record meeting so whoever said that an mischaracterized it and should think thrice. and he's the president-elect, he won. winning solves a lot of problems and makes a lot of statements. i'm really happy that he reached out to them after a very long, bruising, hard-fought, not always fairly covered campaign. and now as president-elect, he will be dealing with the media, including bloomberg. mark kellyanne conway, thank : you. we will be right back. ♪

mark: it wasn't just the

potential trump administration officials at the tower today. the president-elect held off the record conversations with major media types, including network executives and lester holt, and charlie rose. including wolf blitzer and george stephanopoulos. "the new york post" reported tonight that the meeting did not go all that well. they said trump occasionally lashed out at some of the participants. kellyanne conway denied that a few moments ago. trump has done only one one-on-one interview since he became president elect. he has done no press conferences. he has not done any victory rallies, no thank you tour or veterans day events or indoor photo ops since he became the next leader of these united states. so far, every person he has hired for his white house team or proposed for the cabinet has been announced by written statement.

kellyanne conway said his punishing schedule is just too packed for him to make public appearances. do you buy that, or is there some other reason he's staying off camera? john: i do not buy the notion that he's too busy to do some things on camera just because s are busyent-elect and they still find time to do a press conference. i was not arguing for press conferences, per se, although i think it would be good if he did them. he han't done a speech, hasn't done any of the things you just retailed. to your point earlier in the show, these appointments it , would benefit him to explain them, contextualize them, make the argument for them. michael flynn is a controversial guy. jeff sessions is a controversial guy. to make the argument for them in a brief way, set up discussion for his motives, would be smart. time to he is finding tweak about "hamilton." it is not like he is too busy to

explain what is going on. i think it would benefit him. mark: my theory is he's enjoying doing what he wants to do. he is enjoying these meetings. he is enjoying the notion of putting together this government, having all this power, the media speculation and all of that. i think when you run for president, particularly someone who has never done this before, a lot of his day was filled with you have to get on this plane, fly to this place. john: he is less scheduled now than he was then. mark: i think he's just enjoying the fact that he doesn't have to perform in public and he's taking a break from it. john: he would also like to see his home. there's that. i don't think it's disastrous he's not done more. it is just odd given how valuable he has been other settings, when he used to be on televisions wall to wall. mark: except that he basically did one or two events a day for most of the campaign. i think he likes to dole out portions of trump on his own time-table and right now there

is just no reason for it. i do think he is having an extraordinary number of meetings. he could fit in a public appearance a day, but he is choosing not to. john: i am not quite ask you to call kellyanne conway a liar, but having just read that story, given the multiple sources confirming the contentiousness of the meeting without impugning , kellyanne conway's ability, the story reads -- there is a lot of consistency throughout the accounts. mark: unless the sources were trump officials, shame on the people who agreed to go to an off the record meeting and shared accounts of it. there is a disparity in the accounts. john: there have been some people who have gone to off the record meetings and have shared accounts of it. mark: i can tell you this. he is mad at cnn, i can tell you that. john: i think he's pretty mad at a lot of people. mark: i would say he's particularly mad at cnn. john: stick around.

tim ryan from ohio is here to talk about what he sees for the democratic party after these words from our sponsors. ♪

♪ john: welcome back. the race for the presidency may be over but the race for house minority leader has just begun. joining us now from his home town of youngstown, ohio is congressman tim ryan, who is challenging nancy pelosi as speaker. what's wrong with nancy pelosi, as leader? tim: what is wrong is we keep losing. i love nancy. she's a mentor of mine and a historic figure but we keep losing. i mean, we are down 68 seats since 2010. smallest democratic caucus we've had since 1929.

we have to keep score here and if a coach keeps having losing seasons, even though it's tough, we have to get a new coach. john: the minority leadership job in congress is both a legislative and it has political implications. you were pointing to a political problem. what makes you qualified, having never held a leadership position in the house before, to lead a legislative agenda in terms of trying stop donald trump's ideas? tim: well, i know how to fight. i come out be youngstown politics and that's going to be important in the next two years. you have to work your way back into the majority. we can talk as democrats all we want to about infrastructure or the future of work or you know, technology, all that stuff. it doesn't mean a hill be beans if you are not in the majority.

this is very integrated and i believe under the current leadership, we cannot get the seats we need to get back that are not on the coast. we are not a national party right now. we are a coastal party. we need to build that blue wall that collapsed. we have to build it back up. we've got to go into southern states, other places. there will be an opportunity to do that because of the cycle and republican control, not just at the national level, but also in states. we will have an opportunity, but we need to position ourselves properly with the right message and right messengers to go out and scoop those trump voters and bring them back into the democratic fold. >> donald trump won your state and your district, so are there examples that you will follow from his political arch? do you see yourself and his efforts having any parallels or are there examples you will follow from his political arc

this year? do you see yourself and your political efforts as having any parallels to donald trump's in the way you are trying to topple an establishment figure? he toppled 16 in my party. do you see yourself in this race? tim: well, i was talking about issues that donald trump was talking about, economic issues anyway for a long time. if we're going to get back into the game as democrats it's about having a robust economic message. we can be progressive, stand up for all those very important issues we all believe in, equality for all and all the rest. those are important but the lead issues got to be economics, nicole. it's got to be robust every single day. we had trump disagreeing with so many things he did and said but the fact of the matter is his economic message pushed owe, -- out and drowned out every other issue people were talking about. we need to do that as democrats, because at the end of the day i believe we are better with those issues. >> but it sounds like you are angry that hillary clinton ran a campaign that focused on other issues.

equality i think you mentioned. are you angry at the campaign she ran? tim: [laughter] i'm turning the page. i'm heartbroken about tuesday night. it was an earthquake that came through the industrial midwest and the great lakes states. i'm heartbroken but look, i come out of sports. you get knocked down, you go back, watch film, figure out who the opponents are and you've got to turn the page. we have to ask ourselves the question, how many seats do we have to lose before we are willing to make a change? 70 seats? 80 seats? 90 seats? what's the number before the light bulb goes off and we say look, we have a responsibility to our kids and grandkids and our party to make a change. john: you are from youngstown and you understand the rust belt. you are kind of a champion here of lunch pail economics. richard trumka, a guy who shares a lot of yours views about a lot

of things, tweeted out that nancy pelosi was with us before and after the election and that's why we're with her to be leader. what do you think of trumka? tim: i love rich trumka, but we saw what happened tuesday and it's time for a change. look, i am running against nancy pelosi and i'm having a lot of disagreements with people in my party. i'm pulling the fire alarm as the house is burning down. we can sit here and play the traditional game and get where we got. and where we are in right now is not where i want to be. we've got a lot of young people in this party that want to move up. we have a dynamic agenda. a good agenda. we understand a lot of what is going on and how to rebuild the economy. that message is not getting out. we've got to change the quarterback and it's just time to do that. i love rich but i think we've got to go in another direction. ♪ john: coming up, two strategists

come on together to talk to us. stay tuned. ♪

♪ john: we're bringing in two friends of the show that also happen to be brilliant political operatives. steve mcmann in washington, d.c. and kim alfano, also in washington, d.c. that is fantastic. both are in the nation's capital. nice to see you both. kim, you have had varying views about donald trump over the course of the campaign. at this moment your view of president-elect trump is? fill in the blank. kim: it is a wait and see

approach still, i guess. i apologize. i think he's doing fine. i think everybody's got their hair on fire, everybody needs to chill out and it will be fine. john: steve? your view maybe a little bit darker. steve: a little bit darker. the real question is to what degree the republicans, particularly in the senate, follow him or fight him. there is already indication that some of the maverick senators, like ted cruz and rand paul, are going to be fighting him. mccain, heham, john has people he needs to keep in line and that will be a challenge for him, as much as getting democrats in line. nicole: kim, do you think he will relish fighting with the republican establishment more or relish fighting with the democrats more? kim: i think he's going to relish just being trump, which is fighting with everybody. you know, he could care less

whether the republicans or the democrats who are elected officials and have been there forever like him or not, and he's proved that he'll -- he's picked some initial picks that don't go along with what some people want and then others have irked the other side of the fence. i think you will see trump be trump from here on, which is i'll do what i want, thank you very much. nicole: steve, do you think the first thing he gets done might be with senator schumer? steve: i think so. with his appointments you wonder what his agenda is. he seems to be rewarding the sycophants and followers rather than the republican establishment choices like mitt romney and others he's paraded in there. in there. i think he is a dealmaker and i think he will ultimately do what is best for donald trump and donald trump's brand. if that's to cut a deal with chuck schumer, he will do it.

i don't know how happy that will make his supporters but i think that's the nature of donald trump to do what is in his interests and only his interests. john: i will ask both of you a question we debated earlier on the show. that video last night was a message on his policies and messages. notably it was missing repealing the affordable care act, building the wall, a muslim ban, locking up hillary clinton -- all those incendiary proposals, his signature proposals, not mentioned in the video at all. how do you read the absence of those from his campaign promises -- the absence of those campaign promises in his documents? steve: well, i think he would say i said what i had to say to close the deal. and now i will govern in a way that is uniquely donald trump. in some respects that's a good thing, in others it's a very dangerous thing because there

are some voters who put him into office who expect him to keep the promises he made. i think the decision about secretary clinton is a smart and wise one. the affordable care act is going to be a lot more difficult to unwind than he thought and i think building the wall is ridiculous, always has been. he seems to have stuck with it through the campaign, but he is abandoning it right now. john: kim, what did you think about that video? he looked a little bit like a conventional washington politician for maybe the first time ever in his public life. what was your take on that video? kim: well, two things. one, it's what he can do in the first 100 days all by himself. so some of those campaign promises that he talked about require action, you know, from the congress. and i think what he's trying to say is i'm going to pick off the stuff i can do all by myself by issuing executive orders, etc. and get it done. then i think he will tackle the next issues. i think donald trump's

supporters want more than anything, actual actions, something to happen, something to be significantly accomplished quickly and he gets that. you are assuming on the same that donald trump should be judged on the same plane as past presidential winners and i think that we've got to stop doing that. we did that an entire campaign and he proved us wrong the role -- whole way. i think he's going to do it the way he wants to do it and i give him credit for knowing his voters and knowing that they are hungry for something tangible to be done. nicole: are there limits to that hunger? might that stop short with, i'm not going to deport just anybody, these are families i want to keep intact. where is the limit, you think, that supporters will tolerate? we talked about anne coulter, how upset she will be and we might see her cry in public if he doesn't do what he said on immigration.

[laughter] nicole: where do you think that line is? i agree with you. i think he is adjusting with the office. take immigration first. kim: well, i'd say, you know, people said something very smart. i wish i had thought it up but his voters took him seriously, not literally. so i think if he adheres to the spirit of what he said, which i think spoke to the people's fears of immigrants or refugees coming in that would put america in danger, undocumented immigrants taking jobs, if he adheres to the spirit of going forward with deporting illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes, i think that's a head nodder. across the spectrum. nicole: you think you can get away with 2 million? kim: absolutely. i think if he gets to the beginnings of some change and

that has some more broad-brush appeal than just to his hardcore supporters, i think they'll be ok with that. that is a line you will hear a lot, at least he is doing something. steve: well, my own view is, not surprisingly, a little bit different. i think donald trump made a number of very specific promises his supporters expected him to keep. he doubled down again and again and again. there is a rule in this town that you can get almost anything done if you are president and your approval rating is high enough. if he starts adding his supporters to the list of people who do not like him or do not approve of the job he is doing, then he will have a very difficult time getting anything done. the voters want very specific things that he promised to happen. he doesn't seem willing or able to do any of those things or at least many were missing in his

pronouncements so far and i don't expect you're going to see any of them the next 100 days or six months or next four years. john: steve, kim, would love to have had more time to talk about the state of the democratic party, but that is a conversation that unfortunately would have made steve weep openly. [laughter] john: we'll be right back. ♪ john: four, count'em, four political reporters to talk about the trump transition when we come right back. ♪

♪ john: we're joined now by a quadrangle of reporters following the trump transition. nbc correspondent katie tur is

here in new york city. we have a political reporter from the "washington post," and bloomberg's own sahil, and ashley farr. congratulations on your new move. you are already a star but you are going to be super nova when you get to the washington post. i'll start with you, ashley parker. since you are -- >> in the news today. nicole: in the news today. correct. you have been covering donald trump for a pretty long time. what do you make of the way he is conducting himself and his transition so far? >> what's striking to me is he is sort of conducting himself and his transition exactly the way he did his candidacy, right? he's tweeting a ton about things he doesn't like. although his tweets maybe carry a little bit more power as president-elect, he's sort of holed up in trump tower and had to return there every night so he could be there, his favorite

and most comfortable space. he still has the same open-door policy with his aides and the children shuffling in and out. for people who thought he was going to win the white house and become a different donald trump, that simply hasn't happened. john: katie tur, same question. is trump conducting the transition the way you expected or doing things that are new and out of character with the old trump? >> i think you know my answer, john. this is the same donald trump we saw on the campaign trail, somebody who doesn't abide by the traditional trappings of politics. he is not doing things the traditional way. he's parading folks in and out of trump tower and his golf course. he's enjoying the suspense of it. he's enjoying seeing people talk

all day on television about who all day on television about who might fill these roles. he is enjoying seeing how folks react to certain people in roles. i would bet he's taking into account the reactions of the media and his supporters and followers on twitter about various positions that he is trying to fill and who might fill those positions. so this does not seem like a different donald trump to me at all. he's still tweeting about the media and still seems to have quite a thin skin when it comes to perceived slights. so i don't think you want to say new and improved, if you want to say improved, going forward. john: forget about the potential appointments and names floated around. we have some appointments to this point, right? of the ones we currently know, or are currently named, are any of them in genuine political jeopardy as we turn toward this becoming an actual administration? >> well, it doesn't appear there are going to be the votes on the democratic side to hold things

up very much and as much as i think we're going to hear debate about some of the controversial statements made by some of these nominees, this is a republican administration, returning to a republican congress with their appointments. i think they will find a lot of support. one thing that is striking to me is the message he sent very early on with the appointments. everyone was sort of waiting for a nod, or an olive branch from a rival. or immediately bringing in a woman or a person of color. he's bringing in some very hard-line people to the administration and that's exactly what he said he was going to do. so, i think we are seeing him follow through on those promises. john: you have jeff sessions who has been picked. you are writing about this, tell me about where the sessions nomination is headed. >> john, i think in addition to what katy pointed out, that

trump is approaching his transition and seems like he would govern much the way he campaigned. i think that's true both on a personality level and policy level as well. the sessions pick speak to this very clearly. sessions has been a strong anti-immigration figure in the senate. also very much against trade deals. reflects trump's platform. you have somebody like mike pompeo, the nominee for cia director, spoke favorably about waterboarding. he said it is not torture. general flynn, who like trump has said some very negative things about muslims. so i think the early signal trump is sending is that he's going to try to carry out the promises he made. jeff sessions would have considerable authority around immigration and not only illegal, but legal immigration, going after companies that try to hire foreign workers or try to lure workers with a promise of a green card.

so there is a lot that sessions can do to try to crack down on immigration, which was a centerpiece of his platform. john: ashley, you covered the campaign. there is mixed reporting, either this could be windowdressing, or mitt romney could be the front-runner for secretary of state. what do you know? >> so, you're exactly right. from trump's people we've sort of heard that mixed message. most of the people i've spoken with say this is a very serious meeting, not just an olive branch or for show. although i did talk to one senior advisor who said look, this is mitt romney coming to kiss the ring and trump potentially enjoying this show of groveling, but on the romney side everyone believes this is very real and it's something that he is considering, how he

would respond if offered this job. the one thing you have to understand about mitt because everybody has played those clips of him really going after trump, but in addition to being ambitious, he feels a deep and acute call to public service. if he was offered and he did say yes, that would be a motive ion factor for him. mark: katy, you have never covered a transition before. as is true of nearly everyone on this panel. how is the transition different to cover from the campaign? >> well, the trump transition is not that much different. they are still maintaining a relative secrecy around how they do things, trying get a better relationship or at least a better communication path between reporters and the trump

team than they were in the primaries or during the campaign, i can say, but there does seem to be a level of disorganization to it. they didn't know they had to tell reporters when trump was going out to dinner. the definition of a lid seems to be a little bit beyond them. there are questions surrounding how they would govern as there were during the campaign and questions about donald trump's own promises or vows during the campaign, specifically had it -- when it comes to what he was going to do with his business. he said multiple times on the campaign trail he would give his business to his children and that would be the end of it if he were to win. we find out two weeks into the transition he hasn't quite given up the business. a number of reports now that he met with business partners in india while they were here in the united states, talking to them. also, ivanka and jared kushner

sat in on the meeting with the japanese prime minister. now we have a word that he may have discussed something about his business in argentina when the president of argentina called to congratulate him. the president of argentina pushing back on that claim, saying they did not talk about anything other than a brief congratulations for donald trump winning. so in the respect that there are still a lot of unanswered questions and there still is very little clarity and very little access to the candidate himself, that is pretty status quo as to what we were seeing during the campaign. he has not had a press conference, guys, since the middle of the democratic national convention, that was in july. it's been over 100 days since then. ♪ john: thank you for watching this edition of "with all due respect." if you are watching in the washington, d.c. area, you can also listen on bloomberg radio. make sure you check out bloomberg politics.com. happy thanksgiving and until

monday, sayonara. ♪

♪ emily: i'm emily chang and this is "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you all our top interviews from the week in tech. the controversy surrounding facebook and twitter rages on in the aftermath of donald trump's election. how the companies are changing their tune. trump doubles down on his promise to scrap a major trade deal. what that means for tech companies in china. the silver industry scrambles to figure out what the new administration means for renewables. the debate rages on, did fake