i'm john heilemann. mark: with all due respect to stephen the new gin, your name i.d. names work. is is expected to fix stephen munchin. >> former goldman sachs executive steven munichin. >> led trump's finance operations during the presidential campaign. >> among men, stephen munchkin as treasury secretary. mark: we have got much much mnunchin to talk about.

it was not long ago that donald ofmp counted the current ceo goldman sachs in "rather working-class." so, naturally when it came time to pick nominees for government agency jobs, trump has turned to billionaire buddy's, one of them cut his teeth at goldman sachs. the great wide world is still trying to make sense of trump's .hoices of steven mnunchin both friends of his but their resumes are causing some cognitive dissonance up against the populist economic message that trump preached on the trail. take, for instance, the man trump tapped for treasury. he was the campaign national finance chair. not a time on the c.v. that is going to ingratiate him to his working-class supporters.

he founded his own hedge fund and was headed over mortgage lender that foreclosed on tens of thousands of phone orders all his institution was receiving government support. he is finance big hollywood blockbusters, including "avat ar." john: then there is wilbur ross, yellen harvard man, who became a billionaire investor. help restructure one of trump's struggling casinos in the 1990's when trump has been criticized for leaving average worker's high and dry and his work to resolve companies overseas to overseas investors has benefited from the free-trade policies that trump has promised to rein in. this morning, they went on tv to talk about what they wanted to accomplish in the trump administration. >> our number one priority is tax reform. so, the largest tax change since reagan. corporatey cutting

taxes, we will create huge economic growth and have huge personal income. so the revenues will be offset on the other site. >> everybody talks about tax as the first thing. tariffs are the last thing. part of the negotiate. the real trick is going to be increase american exports, get rid of some of that tear us and nontariff barriers to american imports. john: mark, um, look at thsese picks. "munchkin," is it fair to ask the question, what ever happened to populist donald trump? mark: very fair. differente gone a way and made bernie sanders treasury secretary. this stuff is symbolically almost ridiculous. but what is going to matter is the policies. these two guys, they are not creatures of government here they are not long in washington. formallyd end up economic policies that create

working-class and middle-class jobs, nobody is going to care about these items on the resume but it will make from some interesting confirmation hearings and it does put more onus on trump to recognize that, biography is not necessarily destiny but it influences things. he is going to have to come up his some populist making in economic team because i do not think it is going to come from these guys. has putsterday, trump on a lot of congress friendly people in the administration and is considering put in a lot more. then there is this, these goldman sachs, harvard-yield guys. we will talk more about mr. mnuchin. can't imagine anything that involves, less looks like draining the swamp or being a populist or being an outsider then the seiries of pick trump has made. i think there is a lot of political peril ahead if the people who elected them because of their anger at washington, d.c. of business as usual, at the financial elite, at wall street sector think that donald trump is turning into another

crony capitalist, and that is what a lot of these appointment look like. i have more to say about mnuchin. alone, i think trump is courting danger politically by thumbing his nose at the populist outrage that put him in office. as the second sample opinion and social media, there are so much more outrage about mitt romney then there is about this. i do think, if you are giving trump the benefit of doubt, that he is playing some grand strategic game and a stumbling his government, i think it is important whether you are an outsiderf you're to send reassuring signals to wall street to it i do not have a good sense of whether these two guys are going to reassure wall street is because you have goldman sachs on your resume does not mean you will be reassuring. if that was the goal of picking them and if he's going to pursue policies that create jobs, short-term hit but it might be worth it because any president is going to want wall street to feel comfortable with the new

administration. how power works in america. john: anyone is going to want the financial markets to be reassured by the person running the treasury department but that is different from wall street. people conflate them. i think if you got bob rubin and larry summers and any of the past treasury secretaries over the past 20 years and asked them whether they knew steve mnuchin, thought he knew anything about monetary policy, i'm pretty sure all of them would say no, because we had these discussions back when he became the head of the finance committee and he did not reassure anybody then because no one knew the guy. the weaknesses mitt romney had when he ran for president is he never explained how he felt personally about what happened to people who lost their jobs or were hurt financially by the activities of bain capital. i hope both these guys are pressed by both parties when they're up for confirmation because both are involved in things that hurt consumers, hurt workers, even if other times they were creating jobs. john: i know the bell went off. just on mnuchin, some people

need to focus on one west, the bank he's accused of having improperly foreclosed on homeowners, a lot of bad stuff. we have to look into this more carefully. duringongress does the confirmation. he needs to explain how he feels about what happened. donald trump is doing a victory lap into tomorrow over a deal that he and the vice president with mike pence struck carrier corporation, the air-conditioning behemoth that was planning to start shipping a couple thousand jobs to mexico next year. the company now says they are going to keep about 1000 of those positions in indiana which is where pence is still governor. we do not know all the details of the deal. trump and pence will travel to indianapolis tomorrow and talk about additional terms of why and how they were able to convince carrier to stay, but it is the case that the deal include some sort of pledge to work out what the trump

administration plan to work on, less federal regulation and an overhaul of the tax code. the move, though, of course, is not what -- without his detractors, those who think of it as corporate government policy interference. clearly there is a big win for donald trump. even his detractors say so. is this a win for america? buckett is a drop in the in terms of manufacturing jobs in this country and the kind of transformation that donald trump has promised. i think of for barack obama had done something like this in the course of his 8 years, republicans would be fowlihowlig about the intervention of government and the free market now donald trump is going to be held for having saved these jobs. i think it is bad economic policy. and i think it is incredibly hypocritical for republicans to cheer the sun when it would trash any democrat who try to do the same thing -- to cheer this on. mark: governor's see stuff like this all the time.

part of what trump ha promised is for peoples to feel good about jobs not going overseas. i think that industrial policy is dangerous. trump's claim is going to be i can do it better. i will do it in a way that is better for the market. i think the country needs to feel the possibility of job creation. in the short-term, i think it is fine, but long-term this is the kind of industrial policy that is just not sensible. it is going to have her a company in the country threatening to move to mexico. john: mark your calendars for the 15 of december, that is when donald trump says he and his family will make a big and long anticipated announcement about how the president-elect will maybe, just maybe, extricate himself from his business empire concerns about conflict of interest once he moves into the oval office. this morning, trump logged onto his famous press release app posted these tweets. " i will hold a major news conference in new york city with my children on december 15 to discuss the fact i will be leaving my great business in

total in order to fully focus on running the country to make america great in. not mandated to do this, i feel it is important as president to in no way have a calm voice of interest in my various businesses. legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. the presidency is a far more important task." that is the end of that creep storm. having read that tweet storm . some of, in your view, the most unimportant unanswered questions about how trump is going to deal with this business about his business? he getting close to creating something people would look at as a blind trust, will his family still have a role in the business and in government, based on the tweets at face value, i think he is basically going to say, he is no longer running the company but still benefiting from the company, knowing what assets there are.

i think that unless we are leslie surprise, this is headed into a place that is not going to be acceptable and i think a lot of republicans in congress are going to agree it is not acceptable. john: the key phrase that a lot of government ethics experts are focusing on in those tweets is " business operations," which i think is what you are referring to. longer bell no actively manages his businesses. big deal. if he continues to have a financial stake in those businesses and his kids are running them, and there is nothing that remotely resembles a blind trust, or let alone liquidation of assets, the conflict of interest will remain and they will be just as great as they were if you were running the company. him not actively running the company is the minimum step, far from the maximum step and far from enough to get us away from the problems raised here. mark: it is so important for the country that he do this rate. my one hope is, the one glimmer i hope i see is he announced he is going to announce this over two weeks in advance. fore's still more time

people to influence his decision and for him, the questioned to have to answer is whose ethical judgment is he using? they say he will go every step he needs to. they need to put forth someone whose ethical judgment is pristine. who says this is how far you need to go to make this actually workable for the american people, even if it means giving up what has been your personal and professional identity for decades. your attachment to your business. lawyer oftop ethics the obama administration and the top ethics lawyer in the bush of ministration have come together and said what is required, which is liquidation and the blind trust. the wall street journal's editorial page agrees. mark: i agree. nothing short of that will work. we will talk about the leadership election that house democrats held today with an unsurprising result, after these words from our sponsors. ♪

john: last week, tim ryan told us he had decided to challenge nancy pelosi for the job of house democratic leader because his party does not win anymore. the vote was this morning and the winner is -- nancy pelosi. house minority leader kpet her post by pulling in 133 votes but 1/3 of her caucus cast secret ballots for ryan. the democratic party is in a state of ideological disarray. thek you, what does decision to stick with nancy pelosi say about how searcy that democrats are taking their moment of reckoning? pulisic, mored disarray. while tim ryan has some strengths, i do not think he would be the back to the promised land. a lot of democrats who even in the house they are so consumed

with the presidential on the problems there, the soul searching within the party should begun a long time ago because during the last 8 years they have lost the house in the senate. they had lost a lot of governorships. i think today's result on balance because of the alternative is probably better for the party because they need some stability now and pelosi has a lot of fundraising and other strengths. man, they need some change in today did not bring it. john: i have a lot of separate the for tim ryan. he is making a lot of important argument, that the party needs to focus on the places that he hails from, youngstown, ohio. i am very sympathetic to his cause. on the other hand, i agree with the artemis you made. and i will say in the end, the legislative leader for the minority in the house is not the defining political or ideological figure in the party. it is someone who needs to be able to really work the maximizeve levers to what limited leverage democrats

have in the house and there is no one better at that than nancy pelosi. she is a huge ideological albatross around the party but she sends a terrible message if they are sticking with her, but she is probably the best person that actually running the floor fight which is what the democrats are going to be an a lot of if they are going to try to restrain donald and then republicans over the next two years. mark: the question is where do stars come from? where do people with big ideas, the ability to transform a party, where do they come from? history suggests a lot of them come from governors, maybe a senator. rarely does anybody come to that level from the house. it happens, but rarely. john: paul ryan is the rare exception. mark: paul ryan, newt gingrich but the party needs ideas. they need ideas to show they work. and as you suggested somebody in the minority in the house is not going to be able to put ford ideas and say these are great ideas, here's how they are changing the lives of real people. it is not going to happen. it is the least important battleground of places where

they need to start advancing young leaders. the senate is important, governors, statewide officeholders and other big states. john: i was struck when ray on the show, the arguments seem better suited for the man running for the dnc chair, rather than the minority leader in the house. mark: i kept forgetting that was what he was running for. john: we felt the same way. we will be right back with a man of steel. former republican party chairman michael steele who joined us after this quick. rate ♪

guestour next

regularly still for spotlight, michael steele, a man who lies to be seen whenever possible. chairman, welcome. michael: stop, man. how are you doing? mark: you have been in public elective office in maryland, the state and national party chair and youv'e got a great feel for the grassroots. explain the mystery. why is a popular swing not rebelling at the notion of all of these billionaires and economic policy positions? michael: there is a quiet rebellion going along right now. there are folks who are not happy, some of that has been articulated by kellyanne conway. we've seen how that has played itself out in a broader sense. but there is some concern that wait andnt to have a see, they trust donald trump on a lot of this. they think there is a method to his madness in regards to bringing in people who somewhat perceive to be part of

making the swamp the swamp and using them to clean this one. so, we'll see how that first hundred days goes. certainoff of things, people are rising their eyebrows a little bit. by a large, donald trump himself is getting a greater pass on this than i think any other republican in his position would at this point. you have got, take, they are selling access of the convention and giving one million bucks -- the inauguration, give one million bucks, you get action. this is the swamp personified. when the phrase drain the swamp was chanted at trump rallies in the midwest and iowa and wisconsin and michigan, what do you think people thought that meant? michael: good question. from what i understand and what i myself thought it meant was we're not going to play and that swamp anymore. it, wegoing to traidrain are not going to rely on the establishment types to get the

job done, not rely on those at the peak of the government to help us get the job done. we are going to bring in new voices, new faces, men and women who are outside of this complex and have them come in with this idea, the core, idea of making america great again across the board. now you can argue that bringing in a lot of these folks, rigidly those who have never had government service under their belt, is a form of doing that. they happen to be billionaires are he did not say he would not use billionaires to help train thdrain the swamp. he said were a lot of these guys like icahn they wanted to bring to the table because they had a real world experience that washington was missing. that is where folks are beginning to trust him more on his instinct about what these individuals can do, relevant to this idea of making america great again and cleaning the swamp at the same time. mark: billionaires are good drainers. michael: apparently. john: i'm looking at your

incredible argyle sweater. very strong. i have a christmas gift. giot a t-shirt that i'm showing on television. it is my team big league t-shirt. next time i see you at christmas i'm going to give it to you. you are, you can be one of the co-captains of team bigly. here's a question or want to ask you. you have got goldman sachs, the billionaires. a bunch of members of congress who is been appointed already and a bunch of others being considered. you have got trump backing away from repealing obamacare on day one. you have got steven mnuchin and wilbur ross saying maybe tariffs against china is not what we want to do. we do not want to slap import duties against foreign companies and foreign governments. what is the place, all of this trump signifies political peril for. these are all places -- political peril for trump. michael: absolutely. john: what is the thing that trump could do that could turn

his supporters away from him? what is the red line he can't cross? michael: that is another good question. i do not think there is a single or red line. i think it is a culmination, of you will, of everything you're saying. ofthe backing down off obamacare, combined with a softer approach to immigration et, itthe wall isn't 10 fe is a foot and a half, those types of things in combination, i think will do a lot of damage, because there is a lot of buy into this idea that you are going to shake the system. you are going to turn it out. the voter said for the first time, and you guys have talked about this and reported on this, that they will control this. we got this, not the establishment, not the people who pull the levers from behind the scenes, but we the people have this. and that is why they stuck with trump when the never trump stuff started. when romney was doing his

things, all these folks piling on, they stayed true and gave him 14 million more votes than anybody received as a republican nominee. so, trump cannot lose sight of that. i think that if he starts in combination of looking like old washington, he's going to have a really rough time of it. like you are democrat for a moment -- you are familiar with a lot of democrats in the state in maryland. you've runa a party. if you're running the democratic party, would you advise the democrats to have the approach to trump that republicans had to obama, oppose him on everything, or would you advise democrats to let trumpism potentially collapse under the weight of its own contradictions? michael: i think more of the latter. i think you engage on policy specific issues. you cannot approach this with a broad brush because what will happen is when trump pushes back, you wind up sleeping too -- sweeping too much off the

table. what i did when i was chairman, walking in the shoes the new party chairman for the dnc is walking into, just lost a bruising election to a guy that you are scratching ahead, how the hell did this happen? what i did was figure out where the targets were, number one. what were the subject matters that was going to drive my base. once you're able to identify those, you bring the base into that and start from there. if you do something to be, it will wind up to bite you. mark: we have got one million more questions by the time gods are saying we have to go. michael steele, thank you. we will talk about the democrats and what the caucus vote today means after this. ♪

nancy pelosi was reelected as the head of the house democrats amid calls for new leadership in congress.

joining us now from the home of al, the great,t fantastic, wunderbar -- >> fine, fine. john: nancy pelosi wins easily and yet 1/3 of the caucus was against her. among friends and supporters of congress woman pulisielosi. are they freaked out a bit or do they feel this was a real mandate for her? >> i think there is some frustration and some surprise at the number of people who backed congressman tim ryan. it shows you that, had somebody else been willing to step up joe crowley, for example, the congressman from new york, they might have beaten pelosi. it does show there is some legitimate problems for her. i do think they feel of the end

of the day this is still a si'snstration that pelo style of politics is what the democrats need, they need somebody who has that iron will. houseage of trump, the democrats will serve as an attempt to stand in his way, to force republicans to make difficult decisions on the debt ceiling and some of these other issues to she has been there in the trenches. she knows how to do it. her allies feel like that is what they need right now. on the flip side, it also means they are not going to have any new faces. the average leadership age is 76 years old. it's under 50 years old on the republican side, which is an entire generation. and i think that is the frustration you saw expressed today from the city to members refused to back her. bek: now nancy pelosi will in charge again. if all goes as planned, if they get every break, if they execute

perfectly, what is her scenario for 2017 that is a good year for the house democrats? kasie: it's tricky as always. they sort of -- ever since nancy pelosi ended her speakership, i think one of the key areas of real frustration for the people who opposed her is the chairmanship of the campaign committee charged with reelecting democrats. they think there is a real feeling that the focus and a involves aat pelosi lot of fundraising, it involves messaging that appeals to people on the coasts of the country that is missing out on the middle. so, i think the challenge for pelosi going into the next election cycle is to figure out, how do we balance the main message of the democratic party, what it has become, the people who actually voted in larger numbers for hillary clinton than for donald trump, in the popular vote, while still expanding the number of seats they have?

it is not clear how they do it. john: we talked earlier in the show about trump's placeholder, trying to deal with his business, his family business and conflict of interest, december 15. my sense is a lot of republican members of congress are really concerned about this right now. what is your sense about the temperature among republicans on the hill related to this issue? asie: right now, when i talk to republicans, they have said let's give donald trump half a minute to deal with this but they are saying, in saying that, they are saying he does need to deal with it. i think there has been some pressure because the reality is the difficulty day-to-day to the members up here is having to answer for every single one of these things that trump says or does, or in this case, his conflict of interest. the fact that he has said, hey, i'm going to make a statement will mollify some of them for now. i think they are probably going

to expect to see some action. i think his general way of interacting, that drives a lot of what we talk about for the next year or so, this tension, you are seeing it play out in the cabinet picks. i had one republican say to me, does trump really want to make is a vote for david portray at petraeus or rudy giuliani? that would put us in a difficult position. you're seeing pressures wrap up across the board. that issue raised is one example. john: magnificent to see you. thank you for your service. kasie: i appreciate your having me. john: we turn to a fellow member of the golden state delegation. congressman, let me ask you this, you are woman w-- your woman won, nancy pelosi, but caucus, a third of the what do you think she should take as the message from those

dissenters from having them lead the caucus going forward? >> first time on. our leader won. she earned the trust of 68% of her colleagues. %.e said she had 66 it shows that she can still count and still lead us forward. i think a good day for democrats now you're defying -- unifiyint defend the progress we have made on climate change and wall street reform and craft a message that can connect with all americans going forward. john: i appreciate that answer but it did not answer my question. what should nancy pelosi take from the fact that a athird of the caucus voted against her? voted for her. i think this was a healthy exercise for the caucus purchase overwhelming support from the party. i hope the people that voted against her, will step up and help us in all hands on deck effort to shape what is next.

mark: can you think of any issues in which leader pelosi is more liberal than working-class voters typically are in places like wisconsin, ohio, michigan? >> working-class voters want an economy that will work for all of us. i think the work she did, especially around wall street reform, really matters to working-class people. they just want a fair shot. right now you seeing donald trump putting out a plan to unravel dodd frank. hetead of draining swamp, is putting wall street executive and insiders into his cabinet. our message is going to connect with those voters. mark: are there any issues you can name, name one, where you think she might be to the left of the voters who helped donald trump get elected in those states? >> i think the voters, they're electing representatives in their own community. this is not about one person representing every part of the

democratic party. i think she is going to rely on different people in our party to go across the country and carry that unifying message of an opportunity for all i reject the idea this is on one person's shoulders. she has given opportunities to people like me. i was first my family to go to college. i came to congress with $100,000 in student loans and she said talk to millennials about issues, from people have the same issues and take young members and do it. we created future forum. we went to 31 cities and have legislations to lift 49 people on a student loan debt. she is trusting other members in our caucus to not just have her be our leader but for all of us. way: is your view that the democrats should approach donald and his agenda is the way the republicans in congress approach barack obama and his agenda which was to say, cooperate with nothing, oppose at every quarter ? or do think you should make

common cause with trump where you can find areas of agreement? >> first, i think we have to recognize that donald is a man who has no core set of principles. he is willing to say one thing and do another. it is very hard to tell what he truly believes in. but if h e truly does believe ad upgrading our country's transportation intersection networks, then i think we can work with him. but if what he means by that is just corporate tax rates and no real investments from the federal government, then i do not see us being able to work with him on up. if he is sincere about campaign finance reform and repealing citizens united and taking outside money out of politics, we can work with him on that and we should. mark: they differ coming on the show. making her first appearance. up next, more on that man named "munchin." we will talk to reporters who has profiled donald trump's pick

for treasury secretary goes back to the college days. if you have been to us on the radio at bloomberg 99.1 f.m. we will be right back. ♪

mark: in august, bloomberg businessweek published a story. and three months later, that top fundraiser steven mnuchin did get a big deal, a payoff for his deal. he was nominated for treasury secretary. joining us is one of the writers of that profile. max abelson. welcome. mnuchin.d of guy is

is a funny, is he stuffy, what is he like? >> i think you will make up a book, a novel about a guy who had the perfect elite career, it would be steven mnuchin. at yeal, he was a publisher of the yale daily news, and he was in the skull and bones. his dad had been a partner and everyone called him "coach." he made partner of goldman sachs and then he ran hedge fund fund for george soros. then he became a hollywood producer. then if you remember, he bought a bank with a bunch of billionaires. stole that. ansd now he is going to be the next secretary of the treasury. mark: is he etiological in any way? >> the question about what steven mnuchin believes in, honestly nobody knows. the thing that people associate him with and what is so

astounding as he was at the top of goldman sachs. now he is going to be joining steve bannon, former goldman sachs color, the current president of goldman sachs was at trump tower yesterday. the trump transition team, he is going to have a trump job as well. john: yeah, so, you know, hillary clinton who donald trump aroundted for paling with goldman sachs, for giving speeches to goldman sachs, does this not wreak of the most rank hypocrisy? >> if you were to list the reasons why hillary clinton lost the fact that people assumed that she was really close if not socially but also ideologically with wall street, that has to be one of the top reasons. people were suspicious of she mated to the white house, she would bring along all of the wall street friends. and by the way, hillary clinton does have wall street friends. john: donald has a lot of wall street friends, too. >> this morning, i made some calls and i said to hedge fund members, do you think trump supporters who loved it when he

attacked wall street, do think they're going to be disappointed? they might be angry. their attitude was like, please. john: here's my question. i want to ask about mnuchin. one west, i mentioned it earlier in the show. this was a bank mortgage lender in california has been accused of foreclosing in a rapacious kind of pernicious way on homeowners. it has been accused of red lining. there a lot of housing activist up in arms about his ownership. what can you tell us about his ownership of one west? >> you hit it right on the head. listen to this, steven mnuchin told us he was sitting in his office in new york and 2008 watching tv, got this story confirmed by someone in the room with him, summer 2008, watching tv, the news he sees people lined up to pulled her money out of the bank. he says, i've seen this game

before we are going to buy this bank. he spot that bank. it was indy mack. it was a failed bank. it was one of the biggest bank failures in history of the united states up to that point. steven mnuchin bought it with john paulson, the hedge fund manager. he thought it would george soros. and he rebranded, so you just mentioned one west is what it is called now. and i i think it was profitable within a few months. the fdic guarantee that after certain point they would have-- not have to eat up any losses. to be fair to steven mnuchin, in the same way you kind of have to admire the fact that he made his bed on donald trump whenever also assumed he was going to lose, you have to admire the bet he made on his banker he bought this bank at the bottom. things were terrible. he had a good instinct. on the other hand, he sold it to cit, for more than $3 billion. and there are nonprofits that say that one west really stands

out for awful foreclosure practices. there is a group that accused him of foreclosing on something like 36,000 homes. somewhere, pretty sure it is more than 30,000. to basicallyose not going to neighborhoods that are predominately black and latino. but he willies that be facing some serious questions over the neck couple weeks. -- next couple weeks. mark: thanks very much. we will be right back. nominations and mike pence's trip to washington more right after this. ♪

john: we are joined by two of

bloomberg's finest, open boston, the senior national political reporter jennifer jacobs and in our nation's capital, we have the senior white house correspondent margaret -- the the level of quality, star power, staggering. jacobs, my question to you, i just got enough from donald j. trump the u.s.a. thank you tour 2016, which gives the timing and the venue for the events in cincinnati. what more do you know about the thank you tour. >> broke the news a couple days ago they are going to start this>> we tour on thursday. it is not going to go to swing states. it is going to places that mean something to donald trump into his campaign. we know the schedule. we were told us for planning purposes. i do not know they have released a public way. but i do know that one place they're going to go is mobile, alabama, which is a place that is special for trump and his

campaign, they attracted 30,000 people there last summer in august, 20 15 it was symbolic moment for them when they realized they had a movement going on and they could take the somewhere. mark: anybody wants to read about it should look at a great piece about this. inn: margaret, you are washington, where mike pence was today. tell us about the role pence is playing in this transition and in the capital? >> it has been interesting to watch this. look at where mike pence has been, some really important places in deals within the last 24 hours. that carrier deal, indiana's role, the midwest role, meeting with condoleezza rice, a meeting that would've been more difficult with donald trump. we are looking at two twitter feeds, mike pence's when he was talking about his meeting with his good friend condi rice. her last rice, tweet is a link to a facebook

page saying that donald trump should not be present of the united states. so, they've have it. in many ways, mike pence is off ers for trump some version of what joe biden offered to president obama. and but with sort of an added twist which is that he has got the governor experience as well as the congressional experience. you know, the reaching across the auto part is maybe a little more difficult for mike pence, ideological record, but in terms of persona, in terms of how he carries himself and long-standing alliances, with policy thinkers as well as elected officials, he is a real in the early days of these transition so far. mark: all of this focus on personal. what we know about the policy department? is it the case that they are locked in on trying to start with the big things on tax reform.

>> we got some hints from steven mnuchin. he talked about how he wants to build this middle-class tax cut and not give a tax cut to t he up her class. which is a reversal. we are hearing about anthony anre mucci, his ggave interview to bloomberg radio talking about how tariffs on not going to be imposed. whereas during campaign trail, trump talked about a 45% tariff on china. we are getting bits and pieces from trump advisor showing their coming together, creating ideas. i happen to know the transition team has a plan written up for building the wall just using fees and not forcing us to go to pay for it. whether trump goes with that plan or not is up in the air, but they are doing a subterranean effort of plotting policy, getting ready to go, getting executive orders a t

sunami of a second report is ready to go for that first couple days. hearing about president obama is still talking to donald trump, still very much on track to help with the transition. shockite house isn'was in after election day, what is the modus operandi for the oval office during the final months in office? >> for present obama himself, this was happen -- anyway would've happened to some degree had hillary clinton been the president-elect, but president obama is trying to figure out how much time he can rest and how much time he has left before he has to reemerge as some kind of a public figure. i think it is a situation with carrier is really instructive for the obama white house. we saw a little bit of irritation today in the white house briefing when josh earnest was asked about it. he, i'm on a paraphrase, if he does that 804 more times, he

will have matched the number set by obama. he won around to manufacturing plants trying to highlight policies he thought worked. i think partly frustrating, partly it will during an partly instructive for the obama white house to watch trump's early moves and to try to guess how long will it take before we see whether they succeed or fail or a little bit of both. a tremendous amount of calibration inside the white house as far as president obama himself, and some of his key policy advisers. for the white house staff, i would say there is still a tremendous amount of sadness and by aration and attempts lot of democrats to figure out what they are going to go on to do, what jobs will be available for them in the coming weeks and months. john: margaret, yes or no. tom perez running for dnc chair. >> yes. john: next figure pointing to be

announced by trump? >> hopefully, defense. as awesomeuys were as i said you would be. thanks for making me look good. thank you. we will come right back. ♪

mark: find out what wall street is saying about donald trump's latest cabinet pick. "bloomberg technology" is next. we will see you tomorrow. same bat time, same bat channel, sayonara. ♪

>> you are watching "bloomberg technology." a check of the first word news. u.s. president elected donald trump's cabinet continues to take shape with more announcements today from the transition team. former goldman sachs banker and

finance are steven mnuchin has been chosen as treasury secretary. trump selected wilbur ross to be secretary of commerce or the president-elect has narrowed his choices for secretary of state down tofour. jason miller says mitt romney and former new york city mayor rudy giuliani are on the shortlist. the transition official says trump is considering former cia director david betrapetreaus. andh palin could land a job the new administration under consideration for the decision of secretary of veterans affairs. u.s. federal prosecutor -- keeps his job. he tells reporter he is staying on. trump is said to have offered him the job during a meeting today. nancy pelosi also gets to keep her job. the house minority leader survived a challenge from congressman tim ryan of ohio to remain the top democrat in the u.s. house for the 115th congress for globa