mark: "with all due respect --" just run the tape. john: i'm mark halperin. >> i'm donald trump. mark: this is mark halperin. john: i'm john heilemann. >> with all respect do. mark: "with all due respect" to chipotle -- to lisa kudrow john: to kanye west. mark: chris christie. john: yes! with all due respect to hillary

clinton. mark: hillary clinton. john: hillary clinton. john: trump. mark: trump. john: trump. ♪ john: thanks, guys. we'll take it from here. ♪ >> these are their stories. >> am i supposed to stay something? mark: will take it from here. equal parts sappy and semi-sober.

most things, even the good ones, are ephemeral. we conclude what has been a very memorable, very sleep-deprived, roughly two years of this program, "with all due respect." we have a special show planned with special guests. in the words of taylor swift, i am dying to see how this one ends. let's start with news in our final check-in on donald trump's admin building efforts. last night in cincinnati, the president-elect let slip retired general james mattis as attorney general. he announced a february forum at -- as his defense secretary. the white house will include titans of the corporate world, which will include jamie dimon,

and my former boss, bob iger. this list of business advisors is surprising and impressive. what you make of the corporate giants signing up to help the next president? john: we have been having the discussion in our world of politics and media since trump was elected of normalizing donald trump. he was an abnormal candidate in a lot of ways, violated a lot of democratic norms and ways of doing things. it was inevitable if he won that there would be capitulation on the part of people who fought him before. this group, any republicans, some democrats, this is a sign that normalization is not complete. he is abnormal in a lot of ways and should be treated as such. a lot of people in the political world are saying, this is it, he is president-elect. we can hold him accountable in

various ways but he will be treated like a normal president. mark: it was not long ago when he talked about certain people that might serve in his candidate and they would tell people quietly i'm not serving in a cabinet. i am surprised at the recruitment of this group, even just an advisory meeting, and i want -- i won't say stunning, but it surprises me a great deal. some of these names will be in the midst of legislative agenda and a lot of them will endorse the trump agenda. john: here is why am not surprised. i say this with some regret. ideal political positions, ideology for corporate leaders, in the end, it is about the bottom line. for political leaders, it is about power. this guy's going to be president. a lot of them are like i can sit

at a cocktail party and complain about it, but in the end of his policy decisions will affect my bottom line. mark: the president-elect has invited me and i will go. john: even if they are flattered or not, i will not give the middle finger to the guide was setting tax policy. mark: my respect for a lot of people on this list is quite high. including bob iger. the fact they are willing to put their brand the first month of the trump administration is pretty surprising to me. i get everything you are saying. i will say in some visceral way, this as much as anything since he has been elected says to me he has a chance to balance the abnormal and the totally different with the conventional. this could not be a more conventional thing for a president-elect to do to invite this group to the white house. john: there will be millions of

americans who continue to believe that donald trump is not their president. and will proudly carry the banner -- not my president. but in the business of america, many of those who trashed donald trump are conceding the reality of it and trying to make it the best they can. there is one group not ready to accept a trump presidency and that is the members of hillary clinton's inner circle and campaign. we took part in a forum earlier this week. it is a tradition every four years. campaign strategists gather in cambridge to hash out a first draft of election history. this start with andrea mitchell welcoming trump and clinton officials in the "spirit of reconciliation." in the end, both sides lost their cool. exhibit one, this writing -- this writing exchange between kellyanne conway and a clinton representative. >> this is a platform for white supremacists.

i am more proud of hillary clinton's alt-right speech than any other moment on the campaign. she had the courage to stand up. i would rather lose then win the way you did. >> do you think i ran a campaign that stood up for white supremacists? >> you did. >> do you think you had a message for the white, working-class voters? john: we will have thoughts from joel benenson in just a moment. first, clinton's team has been criticized for seeming not to fully grasp the reasons they came up short. from what you heard at harvard on a scale from one to godzilla, there he is, how much of the clinton campaign is in denial about the loss?

mark: their public team would be close to godzilla, but it is a three. they don't want to blame each other publicly. behind the scenes, there is a much greater recognition of what it was. the tone was horrible. i did not like to see what it escalated to. the reality is if you lose a race by that few votes, you can point to 1000 different things. they are pointing to the ones that are the politically safest places to be. i don't think they are wrong, they are publicly -- john: i have been to a lot of those harvard events. the first one i went to was in 1988 when i was a graduate student. that was when george bush had run a terribly negative campaign and destroyed michael dukakis.

lee atwater, and they are screaming at each other. with this kind of emotion. there is a campaign like that where one side not only lost surprisingly, like dukakis who thought he had it in the bag, but felt the other side colored way outside the lines. the trump people are spiking the football in an unpleasant way. the clinton people who are emotional and overwrought about it. give them time. emotions are so close to the surface. people need a little more time to get to a proper understanding of what took place. mark: the dukakis people thought that the bush people one in a illegitimate way. in this case, the passion within the clinton campaign saying there were dog whistles,

inappropriate appeals, things well over the line is pretty heartfelt. as i said, over time i think we will see it in a more 360 degree way the other factors, including divisions in the campaign. john: here's the thing i don't think will go away. i think the campaign for hillary still thinks they ran a racist campaign. they will still think they ran on a platform for anti-semitism, white nationalism, and i think they will be right, but they will better understand the things they did wrong than they did today. mark: up next, clinton strategist joel benenson is on set for a final farewell. exit interview after these words from our fabled sponsors. ♪

>> you guys won. you won the electoral college. don't act like you have some sort of popular mandate for the message. >> that is how you win the presidency, and we did it. john: that was more from the battle royale at harvard earlier this week. we could not think of a better newsmaker to bring in and make some scorching news then the man from queens who never backs down from a verbal brawl, senior clinton campaign strategist joel benenson.

here is my question that does not argue about the mandate. you are involved of barack obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and that was extraordinarily accurate on what happened on election day. this time you were not close to accurate. what caused you to get it so wrong? joel: it is a tough question. i think it was a bit of a volatile electorate. i think that we saw things consolidating after the third debate. we always thought a third-party candidate, which was a big difference between the other two elections. one thing that surprised me post-convention, you see third-party candidate start to drift off as you get into september and late september. they were staying between 8%-11%. that is a variable that is hard to account for. we were looking at groups of defectors, because we ask a two

way question first, and there was a point where we are certain from our data that one of the things that happen was 11 days out, when james comey made his announcement and put the email question back into play. against all fbi precedents. trump defectors consolidate. it was like a wall went up and they drifted away after that again. that was a big chunk. when you look at the numbers you , can see a clear dividing line by age on who voted third-party, who stayed in the third-party lane and who did not. they were our defectors. john: do you believe that comey's second announcement? , did it help trump? joel: any time he spoke at that point helped trump. i think it puts the issue back out there again. he was leveraging it, slamming it against the wall with his tennis racket, playing squash, if you will, with nobody else on the court because of that. mark: in case you did not have time to watch me talk about

this, i think what he did is one of the most outrageous things in american history. incredibly inappropriate. joel: i agree with that, even though it gets glossed over. mark: although you praised him at the time. you did. joel: we did because you have to realize it is after 15 months. mark: it could have been a mistake to embrace him, right? joel: no. we're talking about fbi procedures and what a prosecutor should or should not say when you do not have a prosecution. what is happening is momentum stops or leads tighten up and states. we believe by election day we can win this thing. the variable is what happens with third-party voters undecided. at the end of the day, we are looking that across three states, 70,000 votes is what makes the difference between hillary clinton being president-elect and donald trump

being president-elect. during the last 11 days, it was too big of a hill to climb. john: wisconsin was pointed at, a state that she never visited throughout the entire election, and she lost it. your data operations should have known earlier that this was potentially vulnerable. it seems like malpractice, to lose a battleground state and never send your candidate there. joel: it is easy to say with hindsight that it looks like malpractice. you're making judgments on what data you have and how much time you have left. we went to places like pennsylvania. we went to north carolina at the end. john: what about places like arizona where it was not even close? you are spending money in georgia, states that were blowouts.

joel: the only states we were considering is georgia and arizona. we lost georgia by six points. if you look at that map and say we lose georgia by six points and we don't win wisconsin, you say what is going on here? there is a massive disconnect. i look at that and saying what happened here? john: you put a lot of faith of president obama, especially with african-americans. we have had a number of people on the show that said president obama saying that if you do not vote for clinton, i will take this personally was a bad idea. do you think that the reliance on obamas to try to help with members of the coalition that obama built was the wrong strategy? joel: it is a close call. yesterday we started the

conversation by talking about strengths and weaknesses. when you have things that are in advantages, can they become a disadvantage at a certain point? i think that is one of the multitudes of things you can look at. the value of these folks was clear. running against someone who has republicans publicly walking away from him, denouncing him, and we have two highly liked former president, current president, first lady. in hindsight looking back, it is something someone is pouring over now and think how do we get here? that will not change anything that happened on november 8. where does that get us? mark: how are you dealing with what happened? joel: you mean losing? john: losing to donald trump. mark: losing as you did.

joel: i think there's a bigger question about what president-elect trump means going forward for the country. i think there are a number of high bars he will have to clear and demonstrate on a human level -- the most gratifying races to win are close races no one expects to win. the hardest ones to lose is when everyone expects you to win and you lose close. because everyone will say, what could we have done differently? we king for over this as long as want, but we have to go to the next step. as i said to a lot of people at campaign headquarters, you have to hold your head up. john: when you come back on monday? we are not on the air monday. joel: in that case, i will be back on monday. john: you will be the first guest after the show is off the air.

you are one of the great guests in the history of the show. we will be right back with a hall of fame "with all due respect" guest. stay with us. ♪

mark: our next guest is five guests. all bffs on our couch. campbell brown. current paul ryan advisor, reigning jeopardy champion. >> thank you. mark: it's not nothing. it would not be a party with -- without harold ford jr., and

from the city of angels, the former director of jeb bush's super pac, mike murray. and a man who always has the right to rise on this program. thank you all for coming. we are doing rapid round on her program starting with the question, campbell, what was the seminal moment of clinton versus trump? campbell: i thought the whole campaign was the moment when it became clear to everyone that he was actually going to be the nominee. we were in this fog. i think people in the media, elites, pontificators never really thought is going to happen. we thought that way through the end of the campaign. very obviously. if there was a seminal moment, it was election night when it smacked everyone in the face. that this is real. dan: i'm going to choose one i know she would agree with. the "access hollywood" tape.

it was a seminal moment because it launched the clinton campaign into a false sense of complacency. at that moment they thought he is doomed. they delegitimize him the idea of commander and chief and they talked about george and utah and expanding the map and they ignored their base. they lost by 100,000 votes in three states. john: is there any way that it is seminal that it revealed that the current president-elect is a sexual predator? campbell: he revealed that earlier. dan: in terms of the impact it had, i think it changed the strategy of one of the campaigns and led to them ignoring others. >> i think there are two, and they are related to each other. we had a much more civil political conference at usc this week. mike murphy and joel benenson were there and it was a broad agreement that comey had a big

impact. i think that did stop the momentum. the clinton campaign bears responsibility for the moment they decided that they were not going to have an economic argument, a comparative economic argument and case that they would prosecute in those rust belt states against the republican nominee. you have to change so few votes to change the outcome of the election. the obama model was there. there was a way to go after his business record, tied to economic policy, change 35,000 votes, and she is president. >> i agree with all of these things. i think the comey thing, there is no doubt. campbell, election night, and your point about the tape. i think the night they performed, i watched that rally

and i watched donald trump who said i do not have the on say or jay-z, it is just me and my family. it crystallized for me that he was the champion for the voice of middle-class america and the momentum stopped. you could see when the states are looking at some of the polling data, the movement was not what we wanted on her behalf. mark: like secretary ford. mike: i will give you a double one. i think the much praised democratic convention in hindsight -- mark: hold on one second. we have to go to break. it is a hard break. we will pick up with mike murphy after this. ♪ .

..

>> we're back with a group of guests. so nice that we wanted to have them on twice, tonight on this special "with all due respect."

now, mike murphy, you were saying seminal moments. go! >> the convention, the hillary clinton convention, much praised. but when you look back at it, it shows that clinton messaging was a lot on bathrooms and identity, not a lot on spot welding and lost jobs. second, when trump attacked mccain and nothing happened bad to him. in fact, he went up a little. that was an early canary in the coal mine. >> you wanted to fight with -- >> i don't want to fight with him. but i think it's easy. comey is an easy punching bag. when the new york times did the first piece about the server, once that server story came out, that was it. there was a trustworthiness issue that continued throughout the campaign that was impossible

for her to get away from. i know that comey is easy to sort of blame at the end, but she had that problem for about a year and a half as a result of her own making. >> i don't think there's any doubt about that. >> i don't disagree with that. that was the original sin. but if you talk about, what effect of the vote at the end, what was seminal in the sense of having an impact, i think it was first comey, who brought the e-mail issue alive again, and secondly, the fact that there was no economic and jobs argument, particularly in those rust belt states. that's what obama did to romney, as you know, in 2012. that was the model that should have been pursued here. >> but she would have gotten out of trouble a lot better had she let the energy out of the line "i can't believe" argument, where they just got into a defensive crouch and dug deeper. they never let the energy out of that thing. i agree, it was the comey event that froze the race.

but ultimately, she kind of owns that problem. >> in this new york studio, we just asked about the most seminal moment of 2016. this is also, by almost everyone's standards, an appalling campaign. what is the most appalling, hard moment of the campaign, 2016? >> the moment that offended me the most was when he questioned the judge out of indiana and suggested that no politician could take an oath of office and be trusted, because every oath given would be predicated on their racial and ethnic makeup, meaning no black could be fair to anyone but blacks, muslims to muslims. i was so offended, as someone that served in office and someone that respects people in office. but there were many. we could write a book on this one. >> you spent a lot of this year appalled. >> i'm seconding harold, because i feel like a lot of the other appalling moments felt like one-offs. they felt like he was popping off but like you could put it back in the bottle and, okay. this one was an expression of the idea. >> it was only for his own personal interest. there was no principle behind it. >> the idea that harold just

articulated was appalling. >> it's appalling when you have a -- >> for women, obviously, the tape. the first question megan kelly asked at the very first debate gave us a clue as to where we were headed. but when that tape came out, it was, you know, like a knife in your stomach. i think for a lot of women, they'll never get over that. but can i add one other thing? >> yeah. >> every time the media, cable news took one of his rallies live, early on in the campaign, and the culmination of the media coverage that it became clear that they were going to cover him in the interest of ratings and not in the interest of journalism was absolutely appalling. >> so two votes for the judge. one for the "access hollywood." and jeff zucker. okay. >> i didn't name names! that was you. >> but we know what you were talking about. >> look -- >> most appalling? >> look, it started on the very first day when he came down that

escalators and he said that mexican immigrants were racist and it went on and on, through the kane family. it was appalling but also fascinating that the clinton campaign became their bright shining object and they were in a kind of one-dimensional argument that he was unfit to be president. i happened to agree with that, but i live in los angeles. they needed to make a broader argument. >> so he thinks that it was all appalling, all the way back to may of 2015 -- >> i just said there were a number of events that occurred during that campaign on his part that were pretty appalling. >> mike, give me a most appalling moment in 2016. go. >> i'll lump them together. it was the debates because a roman circus shit show. >> you can't say that on t.v.! >> yes, you can. >> i was appalled. >> you know what's going to

happen now? this show's going to go off the air because of you. [laughter] >> that will be the last -- >> you get through two and a half years without me uttering a profanity on the air, but on the last day. >> how do you fix this? audience list debates. >> absolutely. i think time to get the circus elements out of it. and put them naked on a rock and see what they know. have a field day. >> murphy trashing the circus. we love the circus on this show. we love all of you. >> and by the way, we love you too. >> yeah. murphy, you are going to stay on for a second. we want you on thrice. your infinite wisdom. you're great. we love you. when we come back, another round of regulars. if you happen to be watching us in washington, d.c., you can also listen to us on the radio. ?

>> another round of guests for you. alex wagner, a cbs correspondent. and the media columnist for the new york times. >> hello! >> in washington, the cofounder of purple strategies, our partner throughout the cycle, back with us in los angeles. the republican strategist mike

murphy still with us. steve, we'll start with you. who is the one person most likely to stand in the way of donald trump's agenda not counting donald trump himself? should be too easy. >> i actually think, and this may surprise you, i think it's paul ryan and the republicans in congress, who probably are going to stand up to him relatively soon. and so i don't really think it's going to require the democrats in the first instance, because i think he's going to have a lot of problems with his own party. >> i think the republican establishment is going to prove to be a thorn in his side on a number of issues. i also think bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, they could prove to be difficult for him. >> who is your nominee to stand up to trump and slow him down or stop him? >> i would say mitch mcconnell and sort of the group of donors who have spent so much money ensuring that american policy was pro-trade, pro-chamber of commerce, sort of republicanism. >> i agree if trump wants to start a trade war or something like that, then mitch and ryan will be a big obstacles.

but somebody is going to audition to be the anti-trump for 2020 politics and i think bernie and elizabeth warren and the democratic caucus and the senate are both going to go for that. >> it's the question about who has the greatest hope of being the focal point of the democratic party. who do you think the single person is who might emerge? >> well, it's early to guess but i think the big dynamics are going to be elizabeth warren and somebody. and the race is going to be, who is gonna be the somebody? that's unclear now. but there's an opportunity. trump is unpopular enough -- ha ha -- understatement of the decade, in the democratic world. out here in california, they're beating their dream catchers into weapons, they're so mad. that's going to be the jump ball to get that slot, the anti-trump ball. that's going to be worth a lot in democratic politics. >> i think it could be -- obviously elizabeth warren and bernie sanders are going to

fight for control of the progressive wing of the party. i think there are a lot of democrats who are looking for new leadershipship. i think some of the up-and-coming stars in our party, who haven't gotten quite as much attention because they've been surrounded by barack obama and the clintons, are now going to be able to break out. >> i think new is imperative. i think we should definitely look towards the senate. i think the incoming female seminars, harris, maggie hassan, very strong. look to them to be a new leader sort of generation of democratic leadership. >> number four here. i think -- i say harris. but more importantly, maybe someone we're not thinking about, because that party needs new leadership. it's going to have some of the progressives, of sanders, warren, but maybe a new, younger face. >> none of you said a businessperson. we saw the head of starbucks stepping down. does anybody think the democratic party's best bet

might be to fight back with a democratic businessperson? >> i think there's going to be a lot of pressure to do that. because economics is going to be message number one. i think a more conventional model of democrat will be attractive to a wing of the party. but i think ultimately trump's populist message is undenial. there's going to be a deep desire from the grassroots party to have a real fighter. >> he's also that rare businessman who can play off a populist persona. most can't. >> murphy, mark cuban? >> you know, maybe. i think it's interesting to listen to my democratic friends here, because i'm hearing candidates who are very strong in the identity politics wing of the democratic party but that's exactly what got them into trouble this time. who is the young generational populist? maybe it's a cuban. there aren't any democratic governors left. that's the vacuum they've got. they've got to figure out how to solve it and not go back to the same old stuff. >> steve, do you think democrats

need to just basically adopt the mcconnell model of no compromise, no work with trump, just fight, fight, fight on everything, or are there places you think democrats should agree with donald trump? >> i think if he comes forward with an infrastructure bill of the scope he's suggesting, democrats should rush to embrace it. they would be well-advised to fight for the people who are middle class, struggling to make it and want an economy that works for them. if donald trump is willing to put forward a proposal that helps them do that, they should support him and fight him on every single thing than doesn't. >> let's speed through. seminal moment of 2016. >> seminal moment -- now i'm first? i'd rather be fourth on this one. >> can't always get what you want, dude. >> can i talk about it in the media frame? so from my lens, the seminal moment -- there were so many -- is when donald trump gave an

election night press conference and it was carried live by all of the networks and he used it to do an info mercial on his brand of steaks. >> first debate, donald trump was actually winning the beginning of that first debate, because he took hillary clinton on, on the issue of t.p.p., and he said nobody believes this is how you're going to govern, nobody believes your message on the economy and on trade. that was the nugget of his argument that i think won him the presidency. >> steve? >> so with the wind at his back and headed toward a first or second-place finish in new hampshire, marco rubio inexplicably turned into a robot during that debate, which not only cost him his opportunity to take down trump but is probably the last moment that anybody had a chance to do it. and he was the last guy who could have. and he froze. >> that is a wicked good answer. pretty big moment.

all right. steve, mike, jim, alex, thank you all. >> thank you! >> hey! >> great to have you in here. next up, a very, very special, super-duper, right after this. ?

>> with all due respect -- >> with -- >> with all due respect -- >> with all due respect -- ther the life of show, we have always prided our guests from the

world of pop culture. as part of our finale, we reached out to some of our friends and fans of this show, from the entertainment world. jeff, adam and savannah. we asked them to help us with a highlight reel that we put together. hope you enjoy it! ?[music]?? >> the year was 2014. the news media was, um, well, you know what the news media was. and there was a need for something different. so bloomberg gave us, "with all due respect." over two years, mark halperin and john heilemann would do 526 episodes, cover two conventions, report from a dozen and a half debates, and eat an uncountable number of pork tenderloins. as the 2016 presidential campaign came into full swing, the show grew from a half hour to a full hour. msnbc picked it up and they drew more than 1800 followers. >> very few people know that this theme music for the show was composed by rizzo.

that's why john tweeted it 77 times. anyway, by the end of the cycle, only hillary clinton had refused to be interviewed on wadr. and look what happened to her. but all the other presidential candidates were, as they say, down with the program. bernie sanders, ted cruz. >> oh, sweet! >> donald trump. >> this is thick ice! >> john kasich. lindsay graham. >> whoa, whoa, yankee boy. >> even evan mcmullen, for heaven sakes. >> did you ever kill anybody? ?[music]?? >> being a guest on "with all due respect" was like being in a movie for the first time.

it was exciting. a little confusing. >> [bleep] [bleep] [bleep]. >> and when it was all over, you asked yourself, am i getting paid for this? >> i don't know what the [bleep] you're talking about! >> his tiny hands? >> the producers always made sure the interviews were conducted at the highest professional standard. >> the close. spotless. do you have a napkin? >> very impressive. >> oh, oh, oh! >> oh, my goodness! >> with piercingly insightful research. they designed segments that brought out the best of everyone who came on the show. gently pushing us out of our comfort zones. >> i'm a wine -- i just drink wine. >> because this is what the political world wanted. >> oh! ?[music]?? >> like all shows on cable news, "with all due respect" was not without its criticism. and sometimes, the critics made good points. >> i've never known of a greater oxymoron than you two guys having a show entitled "with all due respect."

>> hey! i came up with that name, senator, with all due respect. other people had some alternative ideas for the name. >> like the gongshow. >> the interviews did not always go as planned, which means viewers never saw clips like this one. >> you're going to spend this entire interview trying to make us make comparisons to the real world, you're going to find yourself very frustrated. >> in the end, it was a show that always stayed hungry. >> and everything goes better with captain crunch. ?[music]?? >> watching "with all due respect" can make you feel a lot of things. it can make you laugh and cry at the same time. >> needs to win it as much as john snowe needs a fresh pair of pants. also funny! >> ha ha ha!

>> are you crying? >> one thing we'll always remember is how mark and john made the most of their state of the art set. >> we don't just threaten to throw people off around here! >> whoops. sorry. >> mark and john always took everything in moderation. >> i enjoy this guy! >> credit where it's due. they had a pretty good green screen operation. >> for the brouhaha, i'm the one who castrates pigs. >> also, countless terrific correspondents. >> a fellow named nick clegg. >> he's very young. only 17. >> you could tell that a lot of resources went into bringing in the foremost experts in the political arena. >> clear of the negative attacks, please! >> now, 24 days after the presidential election, mark and

john are appearing on their final regularly scheduled episode of "with all due respect." with the campaign over, a new chapter is going to begin in this ever-changing media landscape. and, no, they haven't told me if they're, um, if they're writing another book. [applause] >> we'll let you know about that, jeff. thanks again to everyone who helped with that piece, most especially our whacked out, possibly stoned and definitely brilliant core of producers and editors, who long before that piece, did much to make us special. we will be right back. ?

>> and so concludes our final episode of "with all due respect." there are way too many people deserving of our gratitude to thank right here. but we do want to say a special thank you to bloomberg and also to msnbc and all the cohosts and guests, especially people right here.

thank you all! and to the great producing team that put this show on the air, every night for over two years. >> and, of course, sending our biggest gratitude to all you viewers who tuned in, putting up with all of our nonsense. we'll be back on inauguration week for a curtain call of sorts. but for now, one last time, we say to you -- everybody, one, two, three -- >> sayonara! ? >> 526! ♪

♪ is one ofeap pich cambodia's most exciting and internationally recognized artists. his sculptures have shaped the contemporary art world. >> something he is very clear about is his process and his reason for being an artist. >