right now, we are waiting for remarks from president-elect donald trump as he makes the final stop on his thank you tour in mobile, alabama, the site of the largest rally of his campaign. hello and welcome to a brand-new hour inside america's news headquarters. >> welcome to you. great to have you here on a saturday. >> thank you. great to be here. >> the weather's beautiful. thanks for bringing that. i'm julie. the president-elect will then be heading back to mar a la go his estate in west palm beach where he will spend christmas with the family but aides say it will also be a working vacation. rich hudson joins us live from mobile, alabama. hey there. >> good afternoon, julie, and president-elect donald trump will be taking the stage in just a few minutes, a number of local

officials are speaking ahead of him. donald trump is here for the first time since august of 2015. that's when he addressed some 30,000 people in this stadium, one of the early large crowds that he had gotten that indicated to him that he was going to win this election as he played to large crowds throughout the campaign season. this is part of his thank you tour. it's the last stop on that tour where he has reiterated a number of his campaign promises, including his plan to solve the humanitarian crisis in syria, including getting the neighbors of syria to pay for it. >> we're going to build safe zones in syria. we're going to build safe zones. and we're going to get the gulf states to pay for the safe zones. >> donald trump also last night in a rally in florida pledged to keep terrorists the heck out of the country with extreme vetting of asylum seekers and areas where he says security cannot be

assured. since then, the president-elect has also commented on international affairs and china's theft of a u.s. drone. he tweeted, china steals u.s. navy research drone, takes it to china in an unprecedented act. trump has also promising to spend more on the u.s. military, to spend more on u.s. infrastructure, and cut corporate taxes. part of figuring out the budget math on that will go to a new announcement, the trump budget director, congressman nick mulvaney, a republican from south carolina, an uncompromising deficit hawk in his time in the united states congress and it's going to be up to him to figure out how to make it work when you increase spending and try to add more to the u.s. debt, which is now hitting $20 trillion. >> rich, thank you very much. and of course as soon as trump starts to talk, we will bring it to you live. rick? >> president obama kicking back in hawaii for the holidays, the

first family arriving in honolulu early this morning for their christmas vacation, hours after the president's last press conference of the year. mr. obama stopping short of blaming russian president vladimir putin for hacking the u.s. election, but he says not much happens in russia without approval from the kremlin's highest levels. kevin cork has the awful assignment of being live in honolulu with more. kevin. >> reporter: tough duty, my friend. but i figured you'd want to be here but you're such a stand-up guy, i thought, he'll work there, i'll work here. listen, the president tried to convince everybody yesterday in a final press conference before leaving office that, look, yeah, i felt like the russians tried to sway the election, but they simply didn't tamper with the vote or the outcome and that was just part of the message as the president left the white house yesterday in speaking with reporters in what is likely to be his final press conference in office. he did go on to say a couple things that i thought were very important and you kind of alluded to it just a moment ago

and that is, listen, the american people have spoken. donald trump defeated hillary clinton in the states where it mattered. he won the presidency. so, why then is the question -- are we still talking about this? because rick, some people have blamed moscow for clinton's shocking defeat in november. >> what i can tell you is that the intelligence that i've seen gives me great confidence in their assessment that the russians carried out this hack. >> which hack? >> the hack of the dnc and the hack of john podesta. >> okay. so, the question becomes, then, did he order it? well, the president was pretty clear, right? nothing happens in russia without the express consent of the man who holds the office of president, that would be vladimir putin. so, he must have known, and he added that he's been warned not to do it again. >> our goal continues to be to send a clear message to russia or others not to do this to us,

because we can do stuff to you. but it is also important for us to do that in a thoughtful, methodical way. >> simply speaking, the president said the u.s. can and will retaliate, rick, although he was also clear to say, we're not going to know when or how, but that's part and parcel to what we talked about at length, frankly, you and i and others since going back before the election. the u.s. can certainly do the same and some would even argue have done similarly in other countries' elections but the fact is, the outcome is the outcome and the american people have spoken, electing donald trump as president. >> thank you, kevin. enjoy the beach. well, for more on this, let's bring in mark, the executive director of the foundation for defense of democracy. thank you so much for, mark, for talkingtous. the fbi has joined the cia today in the assessment that the russian president was directly involved in the hack attack based on information, new information coming out that

authorities say come from directly inside the kremlin. so the question is, what do we do with this information? >> julie, i know what we haven't done for eight years and that's president obama has really not responded at all to russian aggression. i mean, he has married this soari soaring tough rhetoric with really inaction. and so, for eight years, vladimir putin has had the president's number, and the president's done nothing to push back against putin so it's no surprise that putin feels that he actually has complete impunity to do what he wants when he wants. >> john carlen, the former head of the national security division tells abc news, if you mess with the yielts, we will mess with you back. he added, it's important the u.s. starts, quote, taking actions to show others that it's not open season on the united states, systems where they are private or government. how much of this could have been prevented by the obama administration over the past eight years?

>> well, i think john is exactly right. john's a great man and a great american and i think he has a great insight into what has and has not been done and i think those words suggest that eight years of russian aggression, russian cyber attacks, and really cyber attacks by the north koreans, by the chinese, by the iranians, i mean, all our adversaries were gunning for us and i think there's every indication that there was very little that we did in order to create a strong message of deterrence that we are the united states and don't mess with us. >> the question now is whether incoming president-elect donald trump is prepared to make an example of those who have attacked america in cyber space and considering he once said in a fox news sunday interview, i think it's ridiculous, i think it's just another excuse, i don't believe it, no, i don't believe it at all and then shortly, and i know you know about this, at 6:00 a.m. on friday, he continued to defend russia and putin and he tweeted the following. let's put that up on the screen. are we talking about the same cyber attack where it was revealed that head of the dnc illegally gave hillary the

questions to the debate? and then at a thank you event thursday night with some of our top campaign donors and fundraisers, clinton said that she too believed russian backed hackers went after her campaign. so the question is when is trump going to believe this information and what is he going to do about it? >> look, i think donald trump, when he is president trump, is going to have a much greater strategic objective. i think what he has -- is signaling is that he doesn't believe russia is america's number one enemy. he believes radical islam is the number one enemy. i think he believes that china is a rising power and he's challenging us in east asia and i think he's looking to forge some kind of relationship with vladimir putin to see if he can solve some of these other problems. because of that, he doesn't want to pick a fight with vladimir putin before he actually occupies the oval office and i think that's part of the reason why he is not out on the attack right now, and it is entirely possible for three things to be true. number one, that donald trump won the presidency decisively,

number two, that democrats ran a lousy campaign, and that number three, vladimir putin and russian intelligence have been launching cyber attacks against the united states. all of those things can be true. >> okay. let's talk about rex tillerson as secretary of state, because right now, there's a lot of pressure on behalf of republicans on president-elect donald trump that he needs to believe this, but most importantly, how does this affect the vote for rex tillerson, the ceo of exxon, and an unabashed admirer of putin? his pick to be secretary of state does fall in a time now that could prove to be extremely controversial. does anything change here, and do we need to hear from trump on this? >> look, rex tillerson's got, you know, decades of experience doing major international deals in russia, dealing with putin. i'm not sure he's an unabashed admire h admire her of vladimir putin. he certainly has a relationship.

if your goal is to take on radical islam and try to neutralize rising chinese power then maybe rex tillerson is the man you need as secretary of state to deal with vladimir putin, clear eyed, tough minded and with leverage and negotiating skill but i think you're right, it will be controversial through the confirmation process and we'll have to see how many republicans actually buck the president on this. >> what do you think about the president, president obama has come out and slammed vladimir putin and the kremlin and the sources now that are confirming what most pretty much believed it's not a huge shock, we all kind of saw this coming, but what do you say to president obama who's now dealing with this, and how, if at all, will this affect the electoral college that's getting ready to vote on monday the 19th? >> look, i think it should have no impact on the electoral college. i mean, president trump won decisively. he didn't win decisively because of russian cyber hacks. he won because of eight years of president obama, of failed

policies, of frustration amongst the american people in the heartland, on jobs and economic issues and also a feeling that america really was not winning anymore. i mean, i think that was a very powerful phrase that donald trump used repeatedly and i think a lot of americans believe that, that they were losings to putin, they were losing to the ayatollahs in iran, to the north koreans, to isis that was on the rampage. i mean, there was a real sense that we were losing internationally and i think this president, president obama, that will be his legacy of foreign policy failure and he's handing the next president, president trump, a number of major problems that are going to be very difficult to solve, but i think they're going to have to be solved by somebody who's decisive, that shows american power and uses american leverage on the negotiating table. >> all right, thank you very much. we are waiting right now for president-elect trump to come out at a final thank you rally in mobile, alabama. these rallies have certainly brought in numbers of people. i mean, it looks like thousands

of people at this rally there. the president-elect is expected to speak just moments from now. and as soon as he does, we will bring this to you. but you know, rick, the -- you know, trump, first of all, has just been spending a lot of time doing these thank you rallies. i don't remember a president-elect actually between now and january when he takes office, spending so much time actually thanking the people. >> these are the people who put him in office. >> absolutely. and i know he's busy putting his administration together and that certainly is top priority but this says a lot about someone who really does want to go out there and thank the voters that made this happen. >> we've never seen anything like a candidate like president-elect donald trump who had rallies like this leading up to the election that drew such large crowds and such enthusiastic crowds and this is one of the locations that had one of the biggest crowds early on in his campaign and now you see that people want donald trump to know just how much they appreciate him and i'm guessing most of these are donald trump supporters in this stadium. >> this is actually the site of

the largest rally of his campaign. and i don't know what the numbers are, but they are in the thousands, certainly. it's also coming on a weekend, obviously, that follows much controversy so it will be interesting to hear what he actually talks about here. all of his picks, many of them, have been completed. some of them are controversial. you know, this news coming out from the cia and the fbi confirming due to sources within the kremlin that, in fact, russia did, in fact, somehow hack into our election system, how it affected the election. we don't exactly know but we know that the kremlin and russian sources had something to do with it, whether it was private companies or government companies, nonetheless, it certainly does kind of throw a bit of a, you know, stick into this whole thing over the weekend. >> we'll have more on that. >> the electoral college is going to be voting on monday. >> we're going to have more on that as this hour progresses. we'll also hear from president-elect donald trump as soon as he takes the stage down there in mobile. you mentioned how bad the weather is in the northeast, but

it's pretty nice down there where president-elect trump will be speaking momentarily and we'll be right back. seeing is believing, and that's why

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the electoral college will cast the final vote of the presidential election, sealing the deal for president-elect donald trump. or will they? in recent days, opponents of a trump presidency have called on the delegates to go rogue and flip their vote. president obama finding himself pressed on the issue during his final scheduled news conference of the year seemed to shoot down the idea. >> the electoral college is a vestige. it's a carryover from an earlier vision of how our federal government was going to work. they put a lot of premium on states to say -- the same type of thinking that gives wyoming two senators and -- with about half a million people and california with 33 million get the same two. >> joining me now is a columnist for national review magazine. the president called it a vestige, as if it was outdated. he used the electoral college

system twice to become elected president. >> the constitution has the electoral college in it, and the constitution tells us, if you want to change it, you can do it, but you have to go through the amendment process. so what the president is saying is, frankly, strange and bizarre. >> the key question now is, is it really possible that there will be enough electors to flip their vote and make -- >> no. >> hillary clinton the 45th president? >> no way. we've had a couple of faithless electors in some elections, famously ronald reagan got an elector in 1976 rather than gerald ford. john edwards, of all people, got the elector that didn't want to vote for john kerry in 2004. >> i've read today there have been eight since 1900. >> and almost always one at a time. hillary clinton would need 38 to flip this election. >> yeah, this is like the recounts that jill stein promoted. this, i think, is part of a giant fund-raising scam.

>> there are reports that there may be as many as 20 republicans willing to change their vote at this point. you're not believing that? >> i don't see any names. i don't see any people interviewed saying that. i saw one guy in the "new york times" write an article. nobody seemed to join him. >> the president said something else about the electoral college that many people have found pretty compelling. let's take a listen to that. >> some structures in our political system as envisioned by the founders that sometimes are going to disadvantage democrats, but the truth of the matter is, is that if we have a strong message, if we're speaking to what the american people care about, typically, you know, the popular vote and the electoral college vote will align.

>> if we have a strong message, he said. the l.a. times and the editorial suggested this may have been a dig at hillary clinton, saying she should have won enough electoral votes to win the election but didn't. >> i'm not saying the president is going that far. i am saying that he's basically saying to the people who are blaming the election results on everyone except hillary clinton and the democratic party, hey, pull up your socks. you didn't have the strongest campaign. after all, donald trump won the election. >> but there are a lot of democrats who think that he shouldn't have and that maybe this system needs to be overhauled. >> then do it through the normal process. don't let judges change our laws like they have so many times on their own. you should do this the constitutional process. if the electoral college has outlived its welcome, and by the way, i think it's a great system for the following reason. you remember the recount in florida? imagine if we'd have had a recount nationally in all 50 states. it would have taken months. states get more attention

through the electoral college than they would if it were a national vote. you limit voter fraud because if you steal votes in los angeles, you can only get california's electoral votes, and it makes recounts much more easily done because you generally confine it to one state, rather than 50 in a close race. >> but the world has changed dramatically, obviously, since this system was created. >> i think the system, given how much our partisanship and the court cases that now lead to every election, i think the system now serves us better than it did 200 years ago because the last thing you want is a recount that distracts the country for months. >> thanks very much. julie? >> all right. and we take you now live to donald trump's thank you ceremony right now. we're actually awaiting this rally for the president-elect to come out and talk to his huge crowd that is very excited to greet him there. weather beautiful so it's a huge turnout in mobile, alabama, and as soon as those remarks come out, and they should be interesting as always, we will bring them to you. keep it right here on fox.

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you're looking live at mobile, alabama, that is steven miller, he is the senior policy adviser for the incoming trump campaign and they are down there anxiously awaiting to hear from the president-elect donald trump in mobile, alabama. the final stop of his thank you tour, and we will take you there live as soon as the president-elect begins speaking. but in the meantime, shall we check some of the headlines we're following for you this hour? corpus christi officials have received three reports of dirty water before residents were warned not to drink it. a city manager says the pipes were flushed after the first two reports but the chemical leak wasn't found until the third. pope francis celebrating his 80th birthday day as is his style, the pontiff is keeping it low key. the pope sharing breakfast with eight homeless people before heading the mass.

the vatican says he has received more than 70,000 e-mails with birthday wishes and we wish him a happy birthday as well. and today is national reach across america day to honor fallen veterans. 1.2 million wreaths will be placed on grave markers nationwide. this morning, 25,000 volunteers braved the freezing rain at arnlt national cemetery to lay 245,000 wreaths. evacuation efforts in aleppo are now in limbo. this despite a new agreement reportedly reached by the syrian government and rebel forces that would allow civilians and rebels to flee the devastated eastern part of the city, but so far, there's been no movement. and thousands of people remain trapped. live from our middle east bureau with more on this. >> reporter: rick, thousands of men, women, and children, many of them hungry, cold, remain trapped, as you said, in eastern

aleppo. basically, waiting in limbo, rick, as the evacuation process has essentially stalled out and there has been no movement. there is word that a deal was reached earlier today, but so far, nothing has changed. now, syria's government is demanding the evacuation of civilians from two villages west of aleppo that have been besieged by rebel forces. it's a progovernment area. if those people are evacuated, syria's government says it will allow the continued evacuation of eastern aleppo. that's where people, as we've been talking about, remain stuck. some as we've seen in the latest video, returning from crossing points, one of the main bridge crossings, where a convoy of buses sits empty. those buses that have been shuttling people to the border of western aleppo. now, they're fueled up, ready to go, but there are no assurances at this point that people will have safe passage, and as we know friday's evacuation operations were halted because of renewed violence.

government forces said that rebel fighters opened fire on a civilian convoy was leaving eastern aleppo early yesterday morning and then rebel fighters blamed pro-government forces. it's the continued deadly back and forth while all these people are languishing amid the ruins in eastern aleppo. in fact, as many as 40,000 people remain trapped there, that according to various aid groups and in his final news conference friday, president obama said that syrian president has blood on his hands for the slaughter of innocent civilians, going on to say the world is united in horror and rick, while the battle for aleppo may be nearing an end as this humanitarian crisis continues, there are renewed calls for peace talks in geneva, also we understand russia and turkish officials are getting together, trying to jump start talks as well. but that does not mean the end of syria's civil war, rick, as government forces and rebel

fighters are vowing to continue the fight. >> 40,000 people trapped. john, thank you for that report from jerusalem. julie u.s. officials say china will return a navy drone seized in the south china sea. the pentagon now saying it has secured an understanding with beijing. the chinese navy seizing the underwater device earlier this week sparking more tensions between the two world powers and will carr is live from the nooz room covering this for us. >> the tension between the united states and chain is palpable right now. china seized the drone on thursday in the south china sea near the philippines. the pentagon says it was $150,000 drone that was unclassified and simply collecting information on the ocean. china has built artificial islands and reeves in the sea and we learned this week they added anti-missile weapons. it's unclear why they took the drone but president-elect trump took to twitter this morning,

tweeting, china steals united states navy research drone in international waters, rips it out of water and takes it to china in unprecedented act. he initially misspelled unprecedented, deleting that tweet and posting another with the correct spelling. now, trump's not only the one responding here. john mccain tweeting, the chinese navy seizure of a u.s. unmanned navy vessel in international waters is a flagrant violation. china had no right to seize this vehicle and the united states must not stand for such outrageous conduct. it comes after trump has said the one china policy regarding taiwan is up for negotiation, so these are sensitive times between the two countries. the chinese did issue a statement. they said that the u.s. is hyping up the drone issue. then there's the misspelling of the word "unprecedented" if the tweet, which has become a story in and of itself. senator chris murphy tweeting, this is madness, a 7:30 a.m.

escalation of crisis with china with misspelling. then her yam webster tweeted the hashtag word of the day is not unprecedented. goes on to say, that's a new one. and at this rate, julie, it may be a new word by the end of the weekend. >> all right, will carr in los angeles. thank you. rick? well, for more on this, we go to gordon chang, author of the coming collapse of china and an asia expert. some have called this an act of piracy. you call it an act of war. >> what they did is they took a sovereign vessel, which is the way the defense department termed it, and they took it. so it doesn't matter whether it's an aircraft carrier or a drone, the principle is the same. this is an act of high piracy on the international seas. we have to respond. >> we know the chinese were tracking the u.s. vessel for days. clearly, they saw this drone being put in the water, and then they snatched it out and the americans watched it happen. and were, i guess, powerless to

do anything about it because they only had small arms on board and they were apparently locked up. >> right. the chinese said they did not know because this was a, quote, unquote, unidentified device. well, of course they knew what they were doing. and clearly what they were trying to do was to show to asia and the rest of the world their utter contempt for the united states and to show us that we're helpless because this was an unarmed nay vee reconnaissance ship. we will get back the drone. we don't know what condition it will be in. but clearly, we need to not only get it back but to stop these series of acts which go back to september of 2002. >> now, the navy says that this drone was only there to map the sea floor. it was not there for any nefarious purposes but if it was there on a spying mission, the navy likely wouldn't tell the public that that was the case. so, clearly, the chinese probably believe that was why it was there. >> yeah, the navy was mapping the ocean because that's very important for american submarines. but it doesn't really matter whether this was a military purpose or not. this was in international water.

you know, china maintains this expansive claim called the nine-line claim. it's been invalidated by the hague in july 12 but this was outside the nine dash line so this is becoming more and more brazen on the part of the chinese. >> they apparently believe this device may have trying to track chinese submarines. >> it doesn't matter. we track their submarines. they track ours. we did this during the cold war with the soviets. that's irrelevant. what's important is that this is outside of china's nine-line claim in international water in the exclusive economic zone of another country, the philippines. >> so if it is an act of war as you put it should we have responded with more strength at the time and that place? >> we don't need to go to war. but what we do need is to stop these series of events. we need to start imposing costs on china. those costs can be diplomatic. they can be economic. they can be military. and of course, there's an escalation scale. but we need to do that.

because as john mccain said, this is a flagrant violation of international water and our rights to transit it and if we've had any consistent foreign policy over the course of two centuries, it has been the defense of freedom of navigation. we cannot allow the chinese to impinge it. not only for other countries but also for us as well. >> the chinese government response was interesting this afternoon when it reported that it was going to return the drone. it said that it was inappropriate and unhelpful that the u.s. has hyped up this issue. >> well, i don't know how we could have hyped up the issue. especially because this was an attack on a sovereign u.s. vessel. you know, obviously, we need to do this, because we need to defend that principle of defending the global commons. >> we appreciate your insight. thank you. president obama with some pretty choice words for the media during the final news conference of his presidency. we're going to debate what he's now saying about the coverage of hillary clinton. >> i suspect that if any of us got our e-mails hacked into, there might be some things that

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. . . live now to mobile, alabama, where donald trump has now taken the stage and the podium. let's listen in. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you very much. this is where it all began. remember that incredible rally we had, and people came out and it was like this. it was packed and incredible, and people said something's going on there, right? that was the beginning, wasn't

it? that was the beginning. and if you remember, even though you don't have to vote for me, maybe four years, we'll take a look, right? but you know what? i said i'm coming back to see you in alabama. right? and this is our last rally, our last stop, and i just want to thank the people of alabama, and i want to start by wishing you a very merry christmas. merry christmas. but i'm here today for one reason, and that is to thank the incredible people that i recognize so many of you. i have so many friends from alabama, but to thank the people of alabama. we are really the people that love this country. we have so many people that love this country all over. i went -- i went to a little victory tour but really they were thank you tours in

pennsylvania all over, but this is alabama, and if you don't mind, we're thanking the people of alabama and we're thanking the people of the south because boy, did we do well. boy, did we do well in the south. so, i don't know if you noticed, i added that on. the people of the south, because i'll tell you, in fact, i said if i lost, i think i'm going to move to alabama or some place in the south. because we won -- we didn't win, like, okay here. we won at a record setting -- nobody's ever had the numbers that we had. so i just want to thank you. this is our last stop. and i'll tell you what. there is no better place to celebrate than right here, okay? so, thank you. you propelled to victory a grass roots movement the likes of which the world, frankly, has never seen before.

and you know if i were saying something that was slightly off, these very dishonest people up here, they'd be -- they'd be correcting us, right? they'd be correcting us. and because of the weather, by the way, the buses are still pouring in, so i think we shouldn't wait. do you agree? so they're coming in, and we're just going to wait. you'll explain to them as they walk in, we're having a great time, right? but the incredible patriots of this stadium today defied the pundited, defied the pollsters and the special interests and delivered a historic win for the american worker and for the american people, totally. i want to thank so many great people, but having franklin graham, who was so instrumental, i tell you, we won so big with evangelic evangelical christians. we won so big.

where is franklin? he's around. he's right there. what a great -- there he is. look at him. he works so hard. thank you, franklin. anybody that has anything to do with the great billy graham, i love, and that's the son, and that son is great. so, thank you. and billy is doing well. i mean, he's 98 years old, but he's doing well. i also want to give a very special thank you to the men and women of the united states military. incredible. because not only did we win with evangelicals by massive numbers, not by, like, two points, like by many, many, many points, but we won with the military and we won with law enforcement big league. so, we are in your debt, and we will never, ever let you down. we will honor your service and

sacrifice that begins with restoring respect for the american flag, right? the american flag. which has been taking abuse lately, and i can only speak for myself, but i don't like it, okay? i don't like it. and we're going to finally take care of our great veterans and that's another group. so amazing. so amazing the veterans and we're going to be naming somebody very, very soon to head up the va, and we're going to get it taken care of, folks. we're going to get -- it's time. it's time. people that come into the country illegally, people that come into the country and cause problems, they're taken care of better than our vets in many cases. yeah. time to take care of our vets.

[ chanting ] do not worry. we are going to build the wall, okay? don't worry. don't even think about it. we're also going to rebuild our badly depleted military. we have the greatest people on earth. our military is depleted. but we will be smart with how we spend our money. we're not going to spend $4.2 billion on air force one. is that okay? i mean, we all like beautiful aircraft, but boeing is going to do a much less expensive job than that. they ordered a new plane. they're in the process, and i said, how are you doing? well, there's massive cost overruns. and i said, no, there's not.

there's not going to be cost overrun. so you're going to see it. we got in sort of toward the end, but that's okay. we got in, in time. we got in, in time. but no $4.2 billion airplane. america will be a strong nation again. but we will also be a fair and just nation. there is a very, very special guest, okay? and i want to bring that guest on stage in a moment. he is someone who cares deeply about justice, who believes all people are equal in the eyes of the law. he is a great, great man. he's an alabama native. he could have run for the rest of his life. nobody even wants to run against him. he spent 15 years as a federal prosecutor, served as the alabama state attorney general

and represented you in the united states senate for 20 years, including 20 years on the judiciary committee. and people don't even know because we think of him as a senator. he was a great, great, legendry prosecutor. lot of people forgot that. he appeared right here at this stadium 16 months ago and put on a make america great again hat. he was the first senator to endorse me and really the first major endorsement i had. and he never endorsed a presidential candidate and very few candidates before, but he saw what i had to say, and he saw the response from the people of alabama. he's someone i'm very proud to call a friend and a man i've chosen to be -- and by the way, this is a great honor for the

state of alabama -- to be the next attorney general of the united states, alabama senator jeff sessions. come on up, jeff. come on up. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you, mr. president-elect. what a great honor it is to have you back in my hometown, mobile, alabama.

i do remember that event 16 months ago. how many of you were here on that day? whoo! it was and the united states political establishment, i don't think is any doubt that for your effort and your campaign, mobil played a historic role and a momentum that built. it is just no doubt about it. >> that's where i think where people begin to see this was more than a normal campaign, but a movement. and i think the american people have spoken in so many ways in this election. thank you for the honor you have given me, the opportunity to perhaps have a different role if my life. if that would occur i would give

my honest and best effort every single day to make you proud, to make the american people proud to serve with equality and justice. this country needs they believe you have the ability to lead us in a new way. i think they are encouraged by the new and fresh cabinet you are assembling, putting people in there that have determination and dedication. i want to say thank you to mayor stimpson and his team and the county who all those who have helped make this possible, now and last time. it's been really a great thing there. so mr. president elect, thank you so much for the opportunity to work with you the opportunity to see you develop as a candidate, the opportunity to participate in a movement that i

believe can help make america great again. god bless you. [ cheers and applause ] >> he's an amazing man. [ chants of "trump " ] >> jeff san amazing man. and working with him i know we'll make these incredible strides that our country has to make and restoring safety and justice for all of our people. and again, alabama i know. because i get so many letters from the people of alabama and

every other form of communication -- including tweets. [ cheers and applause ] sthoer proud. they are so proud of him. and we're proud of him. so thank you. thank you jeff. fantastic. so great. you know jefd talked a little bit about the election and his endorsement. and if you want. do you want me to discuss that evening one more time? because this will be it. should it? yes or no? because i could give you a beautiful rhetorical flowing speech. and we could all fall asleep together, right? or we can discuss it. and this is our last stop as i said. and i'm really here because i promise you during the wild day that we had in august, long time ago seems like. and it's just a lot of things came out of that day. it opened up the eyes of the media. even the media that dislikes us all. it opened up -- no, but it opened up their eyes.

and it began to a certain extent here, it began on june 16th. remember the escalator. coming down the escalator with melania. and i talked about crime, i talked about borders, and i talked about trade. nothing much changed. we just got more severe and frankly things got worse. things got worse. and it made more and more of an impact. so when i announced we had a big primary. we had a total of 17 people. and i remember they did a report one time. and it was interesting. but a they did a report and it was about three or four months into the campaign. and they said trump has four months of experience doing this. and my opponents had 236 years. right? [ applause ] 236. you add up 25 years and 30 years

and 20 years. and it is going to start to pour -- i will stay out here. to hell with the suit, right? [ cheers and applause ] i didn't know it rained in alabama. but you know, rain is good luck. right? rain is good luck. so -- and i never liked this suit anyways. so we'll throw it away after. but -- but it was an amazing thing. so we did that and we got into the general. and we all know what happened in the primaries. and they said they were the meanest primaries in the history of elections in this country. and they were mean. they were nasty. and i general got good support. ben carson and chris christie and a lot of other people supported. but -- and ultimately most of them came around. a few didn't. a few came around right after the election but, you know, that is not quite the same thing. but we started off and it was

amazing. that evening we were set up incorrectly by the media. they all said texas was in play. they said georgia was in play. they said utah was in play. and they weren't in play. and i never thought they were in play. he shouts out "liars." only in alabama can we do that. "liars." us [ applause ] but what happened is we tend to believe the media. we believed walter cronkite years ago. this is not walter cronkite. so we tend to believe them. and yet i go out and we have crowds like this. the crowds in pennsylvania and ohio and iowa. always a massive crowd. and even after the election. this is just a thank you from me to you and the folks. [ cheers and applause ] by to have crowds.

we had a crowd last night. that the manager said was 30,000 people. and i read the palm beach post tomorrow, the one that just came out. and there was a line in the second paragraph -- now,s the it was one of the biggest crowds that i've seen. you couldn't even see the end of it. it was a field. actually a field. last night, orlando. it was incredible. and i read the palm beach post today. and i read the post today. "donald trump spoke before hundreds of people." right? very dishonest. but that's okay. hundreds of people is not 25 or 30 thousand people. do we agree with that? but they know what they are doing. they all know what they are doing but i guess it didn't work because we're here together, folks. right? the movement. but we've been hearing and i've been hearing the texas and i go to texas and we have these

massive crowds. we have one crowd in texas that filled up a stadium. the line was so long. and those are the people that didn't get in. the line was like 30 blocks long. all the way back to a highway, or houston. they said texas though is in play. that means we're doing wadly badly. because we're supposed to win as republicans. and georgia. and as soon as the polls open they go breaking news. donald trump wins the state of texas. donald trump wins. this is like immediately. we win georgia. we won utah. and did you see my competition in utah? this guy came out of nowhere. i mean, my wife said trust me he's not doing well. but they had him even with me. and they had me maybe not winning utah. and by the way, as soon as the poll, the real polls came out. we won it in a massive landslide. and that guy, i don't know what

he was trying to prove. all we were going to do is lose the united states supreme court, potentially. if he -- okay. so let's assume the race is closer because we won by a lot. it wasn't even close. but let's assume we needed utah, which frankly we thought we needed. we really thought we needed utah. and let's assume we didn't win utah. what does he gain? do you know what he gains? i won't say the name of a magazine guy who worked so hard. so many of these people misread us for two years. they misread us and they are still misreading us and i love it. i love it. they are still misreading us. so we won that. but then ohio came in. and we were almost ten points up in ohio. we were ten points -- more than ten points up in iowa. and iowa, you never win like that, the republicans, certainly. and so we won them by big numbers. and then we came down to

florida. and florida was even. florida was even that whole night. the big big beautiful state. i love florida. and it's even. and then all all of a sudden. we haven't hit the pan handle, right? anybody live in the pan handle? [ cheers and applause ] oh i love the pan handle. and, you know, you had to see the people. they were so devastated, the media. the anchors. so they have been saying for months and months that trump is going to get absolutely killed. i remember three weeks before the election. one of them, i won't say the name. he said how is trump going to lead the rest of his life? because this is one of the most devastating defeats. he will suffer so badly. and his whole career -- which is true, which is good. like your football team, right? how good