i'm eric bolling in for bill o'reilly who will be back on tuesday. please remember that the spin stops here because we're looking out breaking tonight, vladimir putin responding to obama administration efforts to punish his country for meddling in the election but not the way you might think. the russian leader mocking the president's actions as irresponsible diplomacy and issuing forward thinking well wishes to president-elect donald trump. welcome to "the kelly file." i'm sandra smith if for megyn kelly. one day of president obama orders sanctions and the expulsion of 30 rush hand intel operatives from the united states, president willed mere putin downplays it saying, although we have if rating to

retaliate, we will not respond to irresponsible kitchen diplomacy but will plan our steps based on the policies of the trump administration. we will not create problems for u.s. diplomats. we will not expel anyone. charles krauthammer observing that the russian strong man isn't keeping his feelings about the current president is secret. >> putin is showing his complete contempt for obama, the way it laughs it off. it's a smart move on the part of the russians. you put no pressure on trump and give him the option to drop the sanctions. these sanctions are meaningless. >> we'll have reaction from governor mike huckabee on how the next administration should handle this. first we go to peter doocy in florida with more on

president-elect trump's answer. >> >> reporter: one of his top priorities in the first week of the new year is to great briefed by high ranking officials about the evidence that they have that makes them so sure it was russia and not somebody else trying to impact the november result. mr. trump agreed to hear these officials out a day after dismissing intel about russia insisting instead that in the age of computers nobody knows what's going on. and just weeks after he said people pushing a story line about russian hackers trying to throw the election in his favor were embarrassed about hillary clinton's loss, trying to explain that away. transition officials said this morning that the president-elect has no plans to privately reach out to mr. putin about the obama administration's punishment until after he gets the intel briefing next week. but he has publicly reached out to the russian leader giving him

a hat tip for pledging not to retaliate against the united states until he takes the temperature of the next president's attitude toward him tweeting, put putin. i always knew he was smart. mr. trump doesn't need briefings daily because they often contain the same thing back to back but he says he gets them when he needs them based on guidance from his staff. so it sounds like someone on his staff told him he needs to be briefed about election interference. there will be a lot more details about who will be briefing mr. trump over the weekend or the first part of next week. >> thank you. today's reaction from president-elect trump and president putin suggests there's no shortage of affection between the two men but their friendly back and forth comes at the same time some of mr. trump's advisers are recommending a cynical approach in dealing with

russia. >> this has all of the earmarks of a ploy. i mean the way this was set up, russian foreign minister sergey lavrov is reported publicly to propose to putin that russia expel 35 diplomats. they report the recommendation of the foreign minister and then vladimir putin says no, with no, we won't do that. what a sweetheart. this could be intended for the effect that they want to create, which is vladimir putin is a man you can do business with. >> joining me now, governor mike huckab huckabee. good to see you. >> thank you very much. >> you just heard it from ambassador boll on ttonbolton's. could president putin's response to the president be a ploy? >> he's ignoring obama. he's doing something that really does the one thing no leader

wants to have happen and that is to be taken lightly, to be ignored, to be treated contemptuously and that is what putin is doing to obama. and by saving his praise for trump, he's saying there's a new sheriff coming to town, we'll deal with imh. this guy obama is irrelevant. that's a strategic move on putin's part. he's no friend to the united states and he's not looking after our best interest. but donald trump is not looking at russia's best interest. these are two smart guys sizing each other up in the ring but i believe they bring to the table something that putin did not have for obama and they is they have respect for each other. i don't think putin has any respect for obama. >> well, ambassador bolton, he's suggesting that the same-sexes th -- sanctions should be tougher and that stands in stark

contrast to what we're hearing from your republican colleagues. do you agree with him, he's saying if what is alleged is true about the hacking that the sanctions should be tougher, do you agree? >> sure. i think it's fine. go ahead and put some tough sanctions on. let me just ask this question. does anybody really believe that the united states isn't attempting to hack the russians, the iranians, the chinese, the north koreans. and if we're not, we're stupid. of course we're trying to do that. we haven't been caught. and if we get caught i'm sure we're going to see some outrage among those nations. the one thing i think that is being missed here is that every nation is trying to hack other nations. it's part of cybersecurity. but what really happened was not something that changed the outcome of the election. what happened was that a very dumb democrat gave his password away to the hackers, whatever they were and hillary clinton destroyed government documents and kept a whole lot of state

secrets on a private server in her bathroom which was unsecu d unsecured. that could be the focus of a lot of attention. >> you've said that every conversation that we've had, this didn't have an impact on the election. is that important? ambassador bolton makes the point that the russian efforts being incompetent or insufficient shouldn't make us feel better. it's not important to make the point that there's evidence that had an impact or any effect on u.s. elections. >> i think we ought to be doing what we can to say, look, that's unacceptable, we're not going to tolerate it even while we're attempting to do it to you. i get that. that's part of the postering and the diplomatic move that we have to take. this is a good time for us to explore the holes in our cybersecurity defenses and maybe the great focus, instead of putting om sanction on russia,

although i don't have any problem with that, maybe the resources that we are expending ought to be to plug the holes in our cybersecurity vurnl rab vulnerabilities. i don't hear the outrage about how dare these people get by because we were weak in our defenses and had b holes in it. in the case of podesta, it wasn't a big hole or cybersecurity. my gosh, the man gave him the password. he was spoofed and he took the bait. that's what happened with the wikileaks. if it was the russians. even though assange said it wasn't the russians. >> are you confident that president-elect trump is ready to deal with the cybersecurity in there are black markets of hackers out there that they demand large sums of money. they're very good at what they do. and they're all over the place.

this is a continued threat that we face. duping do you think he's prepared to fight that? >> i do. i think he's putting people in his cabinet and on his national security team that will be focused on it. will he personally go in and create a fire wall? no. i doubt he's that tech savvy. but he's putting people in place that recognize the importance of it. one of the things i would love to see the government do, instead of putting smart young kids in prison and ruining their lives, tap into what they know that we don't know about how to get into these security systems. i mean that would be a pretty fair deal to find out how did you get into the defense department computer any way and find out where the vulnerabilities are. that's what i would like to see president trump do. >> the idea of the

president-elect, soon to be president trump tweeting about this exchange with putin, are you okay with that? the latest, great move on delay by v. putin, i always knew he was very smart. are you all right with that? >> you know, here's why i am okay with it. it's donald trump's way of bypassing a media that will never accurately filter were reflect or portray what he's say. dump can do more in 120 characters than the "the new york times" can do in its sunday paper. it's a brilliant stroke. >> he says he plans to continue to do it. it will be interesting. thanks for being here tonight. advisers to the president-elect aren't the only one to suggest that putin is engage in a ploy. the article in the dailily beas raises more questions about the russian president's intentions with a headline that reads, quote, putin outfoxed obama,

lies in wait for trump. i'm joined now by katrina pearson, senior adviser to president trump and the kmek tif director of the foundation for children. katrina, moscow laughs off the obama amoudministration's sancts and promises to respond in kind. quite an article. i mean is putin laying a trap for trump? >> of course the russians are mocking president obama. he has 21 days left as president an all of the sudden it's time to punish the russians? it's worth pointing out that the only reason vladimir putin has risen to the level of power today is because of the foreign policy impotence of this administration over the last eight years. we didn't see nearly this outrage when the russians were

involved in ukraine or crimea or syria. but suddenly now that e-mails have been leaked, it's a problem. >> kevin address the timing. the timing is what everybody like to talk about in the weak wake of all of this. if they knew this for months. chairman mccall was telling obama do something about this months ago. why are they acting now? it's a difficult answer. >> yeah, that's a great question. i would agree that on one square you could say this may be too little too late in terms of the obama administration. i want to go back to something you said with governor huckabee. it's not the impact of the hacking, it's the fact. when russia decided to engage in espionage and interfere with our elections, it had a big impact that people want to talk about. but the mere fact that they're doing is something we need to talk about. america is really uneasy with

the coziness that donald trump has with putin. and one thing we need to look at is not just fighting among ourselves about this, but making sure we engage in some of the things that the governor talked about in terms of going after russia ourselves. >> to be sure, kevin, he made these comments about vladimir putin on the campaign trail and was then elected president. the american people weren't too uncomfortable with that relationship. i want to throw to this. it's important to remind everybody. when president obama newly elected president obama was promising outgoing russian president about more flexibility, this was back in 2012, you'll remember it when you see it. >> after my election i have more flexibility. [ inaudible ] >> and to remember, president obama was leaning in and said there, this is my last election. after my election i have more

flexibility. katrina, look back, reflect to that moment in 2012 to today. >> that's to my first point. look at what this administration has done globally. that's why no one is taking this seriously. to your earlier question is this a trap, is vladimir putin playing donald trump in some weird way. the answer to that is absolutely not. it is in the best interest for the russians that vladimir putin come to the table with a neutral slate with a president trump and work out some of the problems that we have globally, the best interest of both nations. vladimir putin has to appear extremely powerful to his people and he knows two things about donald trump. number one, he knows that leading from behind is not in the trump dna. and number two, there will be no such thing as an emergency red line in the sand. so i suspect that these two powerful men will come together and hopefully do very good things for the country. >> kevin, with in the same question to you.

has obama been outfoxed by putin? >> well, i don't know about that. i will say this. for the past six years it's clear that russia is not our friend and i think that president-elect should not praise vladimir putin. i think what he should do is take the approach of ronald reag reagan. we need to make sure we're clear and direct and tough with russia. they're not a friend of ours and we need to make sure that we destroy this myth about her us partners in the future. they're not in our best interest >> thanks to both of you for being here tonight. tonight british prime minister blasting c ining john a move that ties one of america's strongest partners tighter than ever to the incoming trump administration. tony perkins is here on why he believes this administration was so wrong and why is israeli bond is to important to our country's future. and the iconic new year's

eve celebrations in times square will have more security than ever. jonathan gilliam who was in charge of the fbi's new year's eve security in 2010 is here to explain what you can do to stay safe. and there's a battle brewing in washington over obamacare. and now the president himself is getting involved on capitol hill. we'll show you how he is trying to blunt gop efforts to repeal and replace. >> we will repeal the disaster known liberty mutual stood with me when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. liberty did what? yeah, with liberty mutual all i needed to do to get an estimate was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voila! (sigh) i wish my insurance company had that...

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that's over 6 times faster than slow internet from the phone company. say hello to internet speeds up to 250 mbps. and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. breaking tonight, secretary of state john kerry facing major backlash for his wednesday speech. this time from the british prime minister. the uk's teresa may shared harsh words for mr. kerry last night. may reportedly believes we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally, in particular the people of israel deserve to live free from the

threat of terrorism with which they have had to cope for too long. joining me now is family research council president tony perkins. first off explain to us why is our relationship with israel so important? >> well, it's important to us as a nation, it's important to us as evangelicals in this country. obviously we just celebrated the birth of jesus christ who grew up in bethlehem. but for from the standpoint of americans, i think we have a moral obligation to stand with this tiny country. increasingly, genocide is becoming a problem in that region of the world because of the failed foreign policy of john kerry and barack obama. so we have an obligation, g geopolitical obligation, they're the only real strong ally. we've got others in the area we're working with but none are

like israel. >> what kind of damage was done by abstaining from the vote last friday and furthermore, the speech we just heard from the secretary of state, john kerry. >> this is john kerry and barack obama putting the icing on their half baked failed cake of foreign policy that has just been a disaster in the middle east in the last eight years. look, there's no question. this is a setback. the trump administration coming in is go move quickly to work to get the u.n. to reskend this. it doesn't have a lot of teeth but it does stigmatize israel. >> what kind of confidence do you have that that's going to take place and what does the relationship look like under the new administration? >> i think -- well i think we've already seen it's very strong, even in the tweeting that has gone back and forth between the prime minister and donald trump. look, i think they will move quickly. i think they'll put the squeeze on the u.n. the u.n. has to reverse this. and i think the american people

need to understand, when they're talking about settlements, these are not tents put up in the back yards. these are thriving communities where you are university, a medical center, you have an industrialplex where palestin n palestinians are working alongside arabs and jews, have a high standard of living. the peace process is working if the politicians in the u.n. will stay out. are there problems, yes. but for the u.n. to do what they did and for john kerry to make the statements on his way out the door is a major setback. >> you're still hearing in the obama administration that 0 bam he's may's government is the greatest friend to israel, says secretary of state john kerry. you clearly don't see it that way. >> i would use this bib la call analogy, there is no fruit to suggest that is the case.

>> thanks for being here tonight. >> all right. have a good evening. others are questioning whether plump and prime minister netanyahu are becoming too close, ben cannon writing having america publicly reassert herself as israel's best friend with no daylight between us could have us ending up as israel's only friend and israel as our only friend in the middle east. joining me is richard fowler. is the relationship getting too cozy as some are saying? >> so far the relationship has been some tweets. but buchanan has long be hostile to israel. he has a long track record of that. it's a silly idea that having

alliances and relationships with other countries is like marriage or dating where you have to have monogamy. you don't have to have monogamy. israel is a country that the u.s. has an alliance with. having special relationships with other countries actually is good for the united states and good for prestige and power in the world because it shows other countries that it's good to be a friend of america and you'll get good things when you're our friend. and the big problem with the way obama has done things is he's followed this model of hostility to israel and it's got us absolutely nowhere. we had one crisis after another that was total concoctions of the obama administration. they made america look foolish, they undermined our power and prestige with the other countries. when you treat your friends poorly, people don't want to be your friend. >> you mentioned the tweets going back and forward. one of donald trump's most recent tweets, stay strong

israel, january 20 is fast approaching. he says he's going to be rewarding the jewish community, he's going to stand behind israel. are there -- i mean there are skeptics out there about the relationship getting too close. what do you say? >> here's my point. i think the idea to describe the obama/israel relationship as hostile is far from the truth. this past september president obama and the state -- john kerry state department worked to pass a $38 billion aid deal to the country of israel. $3.8 billion a year over ten years. i'm sorry. i've been all akprosz thcross t country. if you asked flint, michigan what they would do with that money, they would tell you they would do a lot of things. israel is a friend to the united states, a $38 billion friend for us to say that the relationship is hostile is far from the truth. but pat buchanan is right. we cannot support israel when

they make good decisions. a job of a good friend is to tell another friend when they're making a bad decision. jews right here in america, 44% of the jews here in the united states do not believe in settlements. they think settlements will compromise israel's security moving forward. i got to tell you, i think the far right is out of touch with the jewish community. >> noah, going back to buchanan's piece, he says this is going to make the republican party become the pro-israel party. democrats will look divided and conflicts. >> yeah. the republican party is already the pro-israel party and it has been for quite some time and it's on basic foreign policy questions this is an area where there's a stark contrast between the left and the right. the right wants strong american support with liberal democracies that share our same enemies and future in the world and the left doesn't really support our allies as strongly. and that's really frankly to the shame of the left. that is something that i'm on the right and that is something

i'm very proud of. >> richard, to bring this full circle -- go ahead. >> one second. $38 billion in support in come on. that's the biggest aid package in american history. >> most of that money is required to be spend in the u.s. defense industry. >> exactly. that -- you are -- you're exactly correct. >> all right. let's bring -- hold on. richard, i'm going to get you back in here but i want to go back to how we started this because it's actually the way buchanan ended the peace saying the policy must one day collide with america's first policy. what is the future here, richard? >> the future is this. pat buchanan is correct. israel has to realize that we have to maintain other alliances in the middle east. when we favor israel over other countries, we create a powder keg and continue to create this

divide and conquer strategy. >> i got to leave it there. >> obama's alliance -- >> i want to end here because this was breaking tonight. >> they're not aligned with iran. let's stop. don't mix things up. >> lawmakers are planning to introduce resolutions formerly condemning this decision. coming up, teacher's unions are lashing out at the president-elect's pick for education secretary but she has one very influential supporter. we'll tell you who in a moment when david wool and kathy arue will be here to discuss the kois of betty da boss. >> one of america's and the world's greatest foes was executed ten years ago today. what can we learn from saddam hussein's first intergator.

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developing tonight, growing debate over president-elect trump's pick of betsy devos to serve as the education secretary. watch. >> there is a consensus in this country that she doesn't want public schools and she's fought against them in michigan and the charter schools in michigan and the public schools in michigan are doing poorly. >> but one conservative making the case for devos says opposition proves why she's an inspired choice. former reagan secretary write an op-ed, quote, by nominating a champ'n of school choice and local control for secretary of education, trump sent the teacher's unions into panic. david wool is a trump supporter when katcathy areu is here as w.

are the teacher's unions in a panic right now? >> i think they're angry. this is one of the worst choices ever. >> why? >> what she's done to michigan's school system is horrific. she's put so much money into the charter schools and taken away from the public schools which is every teacher's biggest fear. we're trained to be public schoolteachers and we know the rules. the charter schools are unregulated, you don't know what's going on and they rank poorly. so giving more money to poorly functioning schools is taking away from public education. >> let me give david a chance to respond to that because politico has the latest piece on the michigan schools. she spent two decades pushing school choice there. but despite that the state's overall academic progress has failed to keep up pace with other states.

your response? >> well in many states the charter schools do wonders. of course the unions are against them. the charter schools were private schools take money out of the union's pockets and take power away from them. >> why is she going to be good? >> because she believes in school choice. she believes in schools suffering from attending overcrowded classrooms, underfunded schools, allowing them to get into private schools, one to one academic treatment and edge cakes. >> not true. >> from 25 years representing young kids in juvenile court i've seen the difference between the ones who fail out of public schools and the ones who get funneled into small schools and end up succeed. the success is extraordinary, the difference is compelling and that's why she's going to be a great secretary of education. >> if our school system looks anything like michigan or detro detroit's education thanks to she and her family and the money they've put into tcharter

schools -- >> a lot of the criticism is that she's been smeared by the unions and for the left for being a devout christian, wanting to give children the right to attend private school. you know, the right says she's been unfairly criticized through this process. >> maybe the right doesn't understand education fally. everyone should spend a year maybe being a teach near a classroom and you would understand what happens and what goes on. the charter schools, the "the new york times" came out with an article a year ago explaining that charter schools are not doing any better than failing public schools, quite the contrary. charter schools are ranked the lowest. and many michigan the charter schools are at the bottom. >> i'd love to see the details of that study. that hasn't been many my experience. the idea this kids have the option of going to possibly christian schools if they're

christians, what's wrong with that? i like the idea that the choice is a primary issue. >> let's transition. yet another fight lawmakers are gearing up for as we know is obamacare. fox news is confirming that on wednesday president obama will work with congressional demeanors to safe his signature piece of legislation from republican efforts to kill it. k cathy what does that look like? >> he's going to make sure that his legacy does not go down without defense. he's going to try to convince the senate and the house democrat to rally behind him and make sure that the repeal and replace doesn't take place. >> and david, i mean, there's even disagreement within republicans about what they're going to do when they repeal what they're going to do to replace. where are we at? >> well, i agree with cathy in respect that this is mr. obama

trying to protect his legacy and not do what's best for the american people. the premiums have skyrocketed through the roof. the exchanges have fallen apart. the mod is collapsing and mr. trump does aplow in two aspects along young adults up to 26 to keep their coverage if they're living with their parents. >> i see you shaking your head. are you -- >> he agrees with that. those are the two fundamental parts of obamacare that will be left in effect. but the ishs is tars -- when th deducts the penalties of not signing up are obamacare, look for an executive order to take that awe off of the table. mr. trump will replace it with health care exchanges that will actually work. >> we don't know what he's going to replace it with. there are some republican senators who have said they're not going to support a bill that doesn't replace. you have to have a replacement

and he hasn't even spoken of such a thing. he doesn't know what to do. >> i was just asking you the question, do you think obamacare is working? >> absolutely. 20 million people are enr insured. so what are you going to do? take it away? what is going to happen to 207 million people insured right snu. >> the exchanges have collapsed, the premiums have gone so high people can't afford it. it doesn't work. >> i got you both fired up on a friday night. happy new year to both of you. thanks for being here. tonight marks ten years since saddam hussein's execution. and the man who interrogated him said the brutal deck tart gave him warnings for america and sincerely surprised him. john nixon is here to describe his time with saddam. we'll talk to jonathan gilliam about what's being done to protect americans this new

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developing tonight, new york city staking unprecedented security measures for new year's eve. 7,000 police officers on the street and 65 sand filled trucks. but will it be enough to guarantee a secure new year's eve and avoid attacks like we've seen in europe. joining me now for the man who over saw the security in 2010. good to see you. >> good to be here. >> new year's eve, we're right in the heart of it right here. >> you're right in the heart of it. >> you walk around, the crowds are so thick already. you can only imagine saturday night. i imagine it's a daunting task to ensure the safety and security of the thousands of people who would be on the streets. >> millions of people. they're estimating 2 million people this year in times square alone. we're one block off of it and as people come in they look behind

you and see radio city music hall. what i see as an attacker, i see soft targets, i see them develop and dissipate. and that's what people have to realize. as an attacker, what they're looking for are soft targets to develop. they're looking for the information that you already know by being in and around the areas that you're at on a daily basis, and in this case a special event. >> i can't imagine what it's like to coordinate with 7,000 police officers. i mean what does that look like and what if something does go wrong? >> well, it's highly coordinated with the nypd because they're really a militarized unit. they're the biggest law enforcement agency in the world and almost as big or bigger than most militaries in the world. they're organized. here's the key to this. even the nypd cannot secure everything. and in times square it's a frozen zone. they're going to have 65 sand

trucks set up to keep large trucks from crashing in there. but it's up to the people visiting to ask two questions, when where and how can an attack happen. think like an attacker and look in that direction and look to see if you see anything odd. the other question you have to ask is how do i avoid these areas. immediately after times square, the other thank the nypd is incredible at doing is getting 2 million people out of time's square and that's where the soft targets develop everywhere. you have to avoid the targets. >> and as far as the threat level is concerned, i mean we're at the highest threat level that we've been at since the last time you ran this sort of security machine. >> i would just rather people forget about the security threat and just assume that we are always under a threat and an attack is possible anytime. >> should we really go out there? >> go out but be smart. you have to think like an attacker and you have to be able to look and before you go there

and say, if there's something that happens, i'm going to go this way. because you're thinking where would an attack come from. >> you did a fantastic job in 2010. i'm sure new york city is prepared and ready for this. it's a very american moment. >> and you have the best of the best out there. but you also have the most prepared citizenry that are free and have the ability to think like they want to think, think like an attacker tomorrow. >> thanks for being here. >> you got it. now to a kelly file exclusive. today marks ten years since iraq executed saddam hussein. the brutal dictator was captured in 2003 and would later be interrogated for weeks by a former cia analyst who says america still doesn't understand exactly who saddam hussein was. now he's speaking publicly for the first time about his history making encounter.

former cia analyst john nixon is here, an author of the new book "debriefing the president. the interrogation of saddam hussein." thank you for telling you story. >> i'm well. how about yourself? >> tell us about that. how did this all begin? >> well i was asked to come out to baghdad and to work on helping find saddam hussein and when we found him i was asked to identify him and i subsequently spent several weeks debriefing him afterwards. >> and you say this is still a man many of us don't understand. what did you learn about him during the interrogation process in. >> debriefing him produced a lot of surprises. first and foremost was that at the very end of his reign he had become largely detached from running the government. he was really busy writing novels at the time and he was not the master manipulator that

we thought he was. >> so you get called to iraq and get called out to actually id him. what was that like? >> fascinating. i was looking for certain tribal markings that he had on his hands and wrist area. and i was also looking for a bullet wound that he suffered in an assassination attempt long ago. i will admit the minute i laid eyes on him, after years of watching videotape and years of studying pictures, the minute i laid eyes on him, i knew it was him. >> and what? what told you that? i mean because that must have been such a moment. >> oh my gosh. well, i have it in the book and it's -- >> did he say something to you? did you say something to him? >> he lockoked at me and gave ma look that was similar to a cover of a book i had on him and it sent chills down my spine. and you know, we talked initially and you know, sometimes you just know certain

things and it's just beyond a shadow of a doubt. >> what kind of condition was he? >> he was in very good condition for a person who had just had his world turned upside down by being captured. minor abrasions and cuts on his arms and face. but he was actually -- when i saw him he sort of acted like he came here every saturday night and we were his guests. >> we're running a banner at the bottom of the screen saying it's not so easy to govern iraq. what did he say about that? >> i said, saddam, you're here, you're in prison, your government is no more. he had said that the united states would lose. and i said why do you say that? and he said you're going to find that it's no so easy to govern iraq. then he said, you don't understand iraq. you don't understand the arab. you don't know our history, our culture or our language. and i have to admit, he had a point. >> and as far as our current

intelligence relationship you said there's something we need to look back, learn our history, look at this moment. what do we learn from that moment? >> number one, if we want to know who somebody is and what a government is up to, maybe instead of ostracizing them or trying to, we should actually talk to them and have a presence in the country. we can learn a lot more than i . we're trying to figure things out from a distance. >> thank you for being here and telling your story. i know we can learn more as we read your book. >> with his tweet today, praising vladimir putin, president-elect trump stayed true to form. up next we'll show you how mr. trump dominated the medium and how this might translate to an evolving press going forward.

♪ developing tonight from wikileaks, to deplorables we are looking back at 2016 attention-grabbing political headlines with the help of one of our favorite pollsters whose company created a visual representation of what got you

talking by analyzing more than two billion tweets. i'm joined by kristen soltis-anderson, and molly hemingway, senior editor at "the federalist." kristen, i will start with you first. election scandals, the themes that dominated 2016, what did we see? >> in 2016 people really started tweeting about the election after the conventions happened, and it was the issue of wikileaks, the john podesta e-mails, the dnc e-mails, and this just drip, drip, drip of things that were revealed about hillary clinton and her team and their internal discussions that really became a dominant theme in this election. >> yeah, i mean it is amazing. we are looking at a chart, kristen, of this data, and the big blue line at the top is wikileaks' hacking. and clinton's email came in second but you can see the domination of those election scandals and gaps clearly. >> yeah.

there were other debates, you know, things like trump university, these moments where, you know, judge curiel, things that were controversy where donald trump took a lot of heat. we don't find the twitter chatter about those issues had spread very far beyond sort of beltway elites, insiders, folks that were already fans of hillary clinton. but the stories that sort of got the most mainstream appeal and discussion were ones about either hillary clinton's e-mails or e-mails that had been hacked from the dnc or from john podesta. >> molly, that probably wasn't very good news for the clinton campaign to see that her e-mails were dominating conversation on social media? >> well, it is interesting too to compare how it looked with normal media, where you would have things that the media decided were really big stories. on twitter and elsewhere people were more interested in clinton scandals. this should have been a good indicator people were dissatisfied with clinton or that the problems she was having, whether it was her e-mail server people perceived as risking national security,

the wikileaks or even one of the other things this research shows is just how significant that comment about deplorables and irredeemable americans was, which we later learned from people inside the clinton campaign they knew was a big deal, but it didn't seem such a big deal in other media coverage. you can learn from how people are discussing in their normal habitat what actually capture it people. >> i want to get to more of the data, kristen, because it is fascinating. you look at the election and the candidates and their share of the conversation, the whole red dish pink area is donald trump dominating the conversation, hillary clinton in the blue. what a telling story that was. >> yeah. i mean donald trump was the number one topic among beltway insiders, among conservatives, among liberals, among our audience of everyone. normally i will say it is not a good thing normally to be the most discussed topic on twitter. typically we see that for conservatives hillary clinton would be top, for liberals donald trump or republicans.

jeb bush was a big topic among liberals for a while, but donald trump in the end wound up dominating everything. i think one other thing you will notice in the charts is that the discussion about donald trump was constantly shifting and evolving, there was always a different topic, whereas for clinton it was the e-mails through and through, a single narrative from beginning to end. >> molly, the data was divided up election, non-election topics. i have to have a little fun with this one. this is beyond election, the stories that defined the year. all right. show it and let me show you what the spike is in the far end and in the later months of the year, the cubs winning the world series. thank you! chicago girl, i confidence. i guess we didn't have the graphic up, but it was one of the stories that defined the year, not just a sports story but across the spectrum. thanks to both of you for being here tonight. good to see you. >> thanks. >> thank you. >> we will be right back.

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it's been a big year for "the kelly file" and we're grateful to all of our viewers on kelly file and to the fox news. we hope you will pick up kelly's book that offers insight into her life and the year that was 2016. here is some of the reaction we see on twitter. she says on twitter, every young woman needs to read "settle for more." jana says amazing book, you are an inspiration. thanks for writing it.

andrew concurs saying recommending to everyone i know. it is a great book. don't miss out and be sure to pick up your copy of "settle for more" today. happy new year and be safe and have fun. go to facebook.com/"the kelly file." thanks for joining us. i'm sandra smith. ♪ welcome to "hannity." russian president vladimir putin is responding to the obama administration imposing sanctions on his country. i'm kimberly guilfoyle in for sean. putin released a statement earlier today that reads in part, quote, although we have the right to retaliate we will not resort to irresponsible kitchen diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore vu russian/u.s. relations based on trump's policy. trump tweeted, quote, great move on the part of