but if he drops out, then that's got to go somewhere and ted cruz is a likely place. >> maybe heavy feather mat. dropping like a heavy feather. michelle goldberg and matt welch. good to see you both. thank you for your time. that is "all in." "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, alex. thank you very much. and thanks to you at home as well for joining us this hour. on a night where it has already been night for a really long time, if you think about it. this is officially the shortest day of the year. and if you are a light-based life form that's kind of a bummer. that said, it's also kind of happy news if you're a light-based life form because it only gets better from here. this is the shortest day of the year, which means tomorrow technically, infinitesimally not quite so short. brighter days are ahead. literally. hang in there. we're also steaming ahead toward the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016. and that of course means a presidential election in this

country. it means a brand new leap year. it means a new summer olympics in rio this year. i think the summer olympics are in august. 2016 also means one very, very big impending birthday. a big nordic birthday. in terms of the big nordic countries, here's norway. right next to norway here's sweden. now we're going to skip that little bit in the middle there. and then on the right side that's russia. and in 1917, in the midst of the giant international conflagration that was world war i and of course the russian revolution, in 1917 that little slice of life between russia and scandinavia, that little slice of life between russia and norway and sweden, they extricated themselves from everybody else and became their own sovereign nation. 1917 finland was born. which means all of next year is preparations for finland's giant

100th birthday party. which they're going to gear up for it all through 2016 so that they're basically ready to pop a giant helsinki cork in 2017 to celebrate turning 100. and on that occasion, in the build-up to the big centennial, the big turning 100, on that occasion a very nice thing has happened because finland is in this geographically super interesting position between the other nordic countries and russia. finland has a ton of strategic and interesting coastline. finland has lots of lakes, generally speaking finland is a very good-looking country but it's also kind of short. a better term would probably be flat. the highest peak in all of finland is 4,300 feet tall. which means the highest point in all of finland is roughly the same elevation as kenton, oklahoma. but what's fascinating about the

highest point in finland is that highest point is not even the tallest point on that individual mountain. the summit of the mountain that has finland's highest point on it, the summit of that mountain is not in finland. it's in norway. so it's very sad. if you're walking over the top of that mountain from the norwegian side, you get to the top, you get to the summit and that's great but then you have to go downhill a ways and cross the border before you get to the tallest point in finland. well, now on the occasion of finland turning 100, norway has come up with a very nice gift idea. norway has decided to give finland that mountain. just as a present. as a gesture of happy birthday, good buddy. if this goes through, if they move the national borders between norway and finland about 500 feet in one direction and 650 feet in the other direction, not only will finland get a new highest point at the summit of that mountain, they will now

proudly be able to say their national highest point is the summit of a mountain and not for nothing, they get a new mountain. which anybody would like for their birthday. so it's a very nice offer. the head of the norwegian mapping authority has already personally signed off on it. she told a local broadcaster, "i must say that i think it is a very good idea." "it's a nice gift." what did you get your special someone for christmas? starting to feel a little different about it now, aren't you? who knows if this will happen? finland mainly seems delighted that they may receive this gift. one cranky finn did tell the bbc last week that taking on the new mountain would be "too much paperwork." "we would have to redo all the maps and count all the elk and wolves again." yes, the bbc found one person in finland who doesn't like the idea because you get a new mountain and then you've got to count all the stuff on the mountain and plus you've got to

move the squiggle. yeah. there's one crank who doesn't like the idea. otherwise, they seem pretty excited about it. the norwegian government, at least their mapping authority, they seem like they're into the idea. and so maybe we will get a significant international border shift in the coming year for the nicest possible reason, because one country wants to give another country a mountain as a birthday present. and you know what? nothing ever goes like that. nothing ever works out like that in international relations. usually even the nice stuff, even the easy stuff, even the stuff that is only even nominally international about our relations goes a little hinky when it has the least chance to. usually, the rule that applies here is what can go wrong does go wrong. >> miss universe 2015 is --

colombia! [ cheers and applause ] >> oh, my god, oh, my god. the crying. don't mess up the mascara. they give her the miss universe sash. they give her a big bouquet of flowers. yeah. there's the flowers. then they give her the very fancy crown, which looks very precarious, but they put the crown on her head. placed on her head by no other than the previous miss universe, who also happens to be from colombia. and then this is the part where this nice woman from colombia just stands there waving in her sash, with her flowers wearing her crown. this goes on for about 2 1/2 minutes total from when she was announced the winner to this moment, which is when the unimaginable happens. >> okay. folks. uh.

there's -- i have to apologize. [ cheers and applause ] the first runner-up is colombia. [ cheers and applause ] miss universe 2015 is philippines. listen, folks. let me just take control of this. this is exactly what's on the card. i will take responsibility for

this. it was my mistake. it was on the card. >> and the music played. and both ladies just stood on stage unsure exactly what to do. until the previous miss universe returned to the stage and uncrowned miss colombia and crowned miss philippines, who in fact was the new universe. it's not exactly international relations, but it goes to the point here. what can go wrong does go wrong. comedian steve harvey was the host of the miss universe pageant last night. he was clearly very sorry that that happened. he then got on twitter to personally apologize again in writing both to the philippians and to a well-known college in upper manhattan. he was trying to apologize to the philippines and the nation of colombia. later somebody fixed his tweet so that he did. but it's not how it started out. i'm telling you. as a general rule what can go wrong does go wrong. did you ever have that

experience where you're looking at things online and you have a few different tabs or a few different browser windows open and your speakers are on and you find that from somewhere you can't totally tell they're all playing different streams of audio that you hear all at once overlapping so you can't understand any one thing, they're just playing too many things playing all at once i? thought that was the experience i had today when i got to work and i started to live stream on my computer the big u.n. session they had today on combating transnational terrorism and the threat from the isis. i started the live stream and i kept thinking i was doing something wrong. but it turns out i was not doing something wrong. [ multiple sound sources ] that was the broadcast. that was the live stream today of this u.n. session on combating isis and some other issues. in the distant background you can actually hear the person speaking in the language he is speaking, in this case english. but equally at the same volume in the same foreground you can

hear all of the translators of all of the other languages all speaking all at once at the same volume. and as art that is kind of amazing. it was like an audio tableau vivant of the tower of babel. but as politics i think the reason their live stream could sound like that is because they're pretty sure that nobody's watching most of the time. there's not going to be a big online outcry when this is what happens on the live stream. this is what they put out to the world. that's it. it is starting to feel like we are in a moment where things like this, as confusing as they can sometimes seem and as small an audience as they expect to attract, as hard as they can be to sometimes get your head around, it's starting to feel like we're in a moment where this is the really constructive stuff that's really going on in the world. or in some cases at least the most interesting stuff that's going on in the world. we're in this moment where even big, powerful reasonably efficient countries are finding that they cannot get things done nationally, internally but they

can come to international agreements as a way of making at least some show of progress. here's an example. here's beijing choking today through another red alert air quality disaster. schools closed and offices closed across beijing today because it is basically toxic to be outside. china nationally cannot seem to get a handle on that terrible problem in their own country. but the chinese government surprised everybody by making ambitious pledges along with 194 other countries to slow their emissions and switch to more renewable energy sources on a pace that hopefully will slow down the effects of climate change. nationally having a hard time. internationally taking great steps. here in this country you see this phenomenon in the case of a guy like this whose name is adam szubin. he's been president obama's totally non-controversial nominee to be the american government's point person on shutting down the terrorists' access to money and stopping isis's financial networks. there is literally no substantive opposition to his nomination whatsoever but

because of our own sclerotic screwed up politics the republican-led united states senate cannot bring itself to confirm adam szubin to that job, even though they do not object to him. at the same time, though, the u.n. security council just convened a security council meeting of treasury secretaries including our own jack lew and finance ministers from major countries around the globe to develop a global program to shut down isis's money, to shut down terrorist financing. we can't get it together to do that properly within our own government even when our government doesn't internally disagree on the subject. but we have found a way to work with other countries including countries we sometimes don't get along with to put together some sort of way forward on that difficult crucial international problem. on the iranian nuclear deal, the prospect of a nuclear iran. on climate change. on international terrorism. on the worst problems in the world. is there reason to be hopeful

right now that we are having sort of a moment of international constructive action? just take syria. syria is a black hole of despond. it does not seem like syria is looking over the edge of the abyss. it feels like syria is the abyss. it feels like a bottomless pit of hopelessness and terrible consequences being compounded all the time. that said, the u.n. security council just agreed to a framework to try to settle the war in syria by political means. instead of trying to force it through that terrible, terrible unending war. is that just talk or is that real reason to hope? and how do we know? take afghanistan. tonight six american families are waiting to hear the worst news ever. on this christmas week we learned today that six american soldiers were killed in action in afghanistan today by a taliban suicide bomber on a motorcycle near bagram air base just outside kabul. this is year 15 of the united states military killing and dying and getting hurt and

expending incredible effort and incredible resources to try to accomplish some national objective that will let us leave that country finally. today with 10,000 american troops still there, with six americans killed and three americans wounded along with three afghan police also wounded in that same attack today, with increasingly dire current warnings that the taliban are back in the driver's seat, that they may be about to retake helmand province, where so many western troops including americans and british soldiers died to take it away from them, in the face of that dire news from afghanistan tonight, the u.n. security council today did what they do. on afghanistan today they extended the travel bans and the asset freezes, the system of sanctions against members of the taliban. it was a unanimous vote today in the security council. and what i want to know is, is that reason to be hopeful? is there the possibility of real progress, real resolution? is there a friendly gift of a mountain anywhere on the

horizon? or is it safer honestly not to get our hopes up? what kind of a moment are we in? joining us now for the interview is someone who might know. u.s. ambassador to the united nations samantha power. madam ambassador, it is great to have you here. thank you for being here. >> great to be here. i should show that video to my council colleagues, a little pep talk. >> well, half pep talk, half worried. let me start with afghanistan. obviously there's this terrible news about the six americans killed and a number of americans wounded and afghans wounded in this attack today. when the security council does something like extending sanctions, is that a sign of failure because it's just an extension of something that we've been doing for a long time and there aren't new ideas, or is that a sign of resolve that should give us some hope that there's unanimity in some way forward? >> well, afghanistan, like sadly a number of theaters of conflict now, is a place where there are terrorists. and i think almost regardless of what the question posed to the security council on afghanistan,

you'd be able to forge unity as it relates to terrorism. where we run into trouble is making sure that the enforcement of the measures on terrorism are airtight, as we've seen on foreign terrorist fighters and money flows and so forth. that's why we're trying to tighten the screws on that. but also when it's state violence like that by the syrian government on innocent civilians or even now by russian airplanes on markets and medical clinics and so forth. that's when the security council divisions emerge and people tend to choose sides in a manner that shuts down the process. >> on syria does that mean essentially almost kind of structurally or by definition that in order to come to an agreement about a way forward to try to seek a political solution to that conflict that you can't actually get to any of the crucial issues like whether assad has to go, whether the civil war will be resolved in a way that preserves the syrian government or that eliminates it? >> that's been the problem up till now.

for nearly five years of division on those grounds. but i think isil is the proverbial trip to the gallows that focuses the mind maybe. and i think to the degree we've seen progress over the last two or three months with the vienna process and then with this security council resolution on friday unprecedented that we're rallying all together united on a political track, i think it is somewhere -- maybe it's deep down in putin or maybe it's closer to the surface. one can't yet quite tell. there is a recognition that as long as there's not a political transition, as long as most of the sunni population in syria has chosen the opposition side, there's not going to be the kind of shared effort against isil that russia believes is in its interests. even if russia itself isn't really striking isil right now, is propping up assad, is hitting moderate opposition groups more than they're hitting the terrorists themselves. it remains quite confusing. but still what we see is them embracing at least the conversation about what a political track would look like. and i think it is the isil

problem and the fact that they recognize that absent a political transition the kind of unity that we need against terrorism is going to be very hard to find inside syria. >> when you look at the syrian conflict and the way that it evolved and the types of policy approaches that have been taken by us and other countries around the world who wanted the bloodshed to stop and you look at what hasn't worked, how do you think it ends? not how do you want it to end but how do you think it's going to end? what kind of time frame should we be thinking about? i feel despair when i look at syria. when i look at what has failed that has been tried thus far. >> well, it's true. sanctions have been tried. we brought a referral of the war crimes to the international criminal court to the security council. that was vetoed by russia. political negotiations, various waves of them over the years. i think what's needed is the stakeholders outside of syria who each have their proxy, as it were, in this fight. so russia and iran backing this regime almost no matter what they do. they use chemical weapons. russia claims it was someone else who uses chemical weapons.

iran sort of files in, you know, thousands of advisers and so forth. russia now actively participating. on the other side a number of countries in the gulf who are supporting different opposition groups. there are hundreds, maybe thousands of different military factions and that's where one -- >> you're getting to the part where i have despair. you're explaining my despair well. >> but it's also the case that the spigot is controlled by in many cases people outside. it's going to be very hard to put the genie back in the bottle. but having all those countries who are stakeholders around the table for the first time united around a common platform where a lot of details are left to be sorted out like at what point does assad go, you know, in this political sequence, elections are in 18 months, how do you get calm before the elections so elections can be actually free and fair and internationally supervised, so many questions. but getting everybody together and then making sure that the syrian opposition itself is relatively inclusive and unified so there's also someone on the other side of the table from the

government. that's how you get there. >> the military side of the united states trying to engage with the opposition seems like it has been sort of a disaster. is the diplomatic front in terms of trying to engage with the opposition any more likely to succeed? >> well, i think -- i mean, there have been big gains against isil in syria backing different factions. i think the train equip program it's fair to say, asking syrians who've been, many of them barrel bombed, had their families destroyed, to leave the country, renounce the fight against assad, and go back in, it just proved that they wanted to stay where they were, they didn't want to leave, when they left they wanted to come back in where they wanted to come back in. it was very challenging. so i think now the approach on a military side, i'll get to your diplomatic question, but is to work with those factions on the ground as best we can who are actually fighting isil, of whom there are many moderate opposition groups who are doing. and there's no workaround to the fact that you need a ground force to fight isil. you can't do this, as we know,

from other theaters as well, from the air. and i think we do have more and more moderate opposition groups stepping up and saying we want to fight. >> you're seeing that proportion increase in terms of moderation on the opposition? >> i'm seeing -- what we're seeing is more opposition groups coming forward, not wanting to leave the country for an elaborate train and equip program but saying we're already fighting isil -- >> groups the u.s. is comfortable calling moderate. >> yes. i think -- yes. absolutely. and we've seen also with the kurds taking kobani and other parts of northern syria, and you know, we're only 68 miles from sealing off that border and actually denying isil control of the turkish border in a way that would be helpful. on the diplomatic front, it's again, extremely challenging because of the heterogeneity and just the sheer number of groups, but that's what the riyadh conference was about. it was the first time that number of groups came together around a common platform. al-nusra and isil, the two security council designated groups of course not present. there are groups that no one in

the international community will support, of course. and the idea is get everyone together so you can turn your sights against the al qaeda affiliate and against isil. i mean, again, a lot has to go right. a lot has to break right. but the amalgamation, if you had said three months ago we'd be sitting in the security council with iran, saudi arabia, qatar, egypt, russia, the united states all agreeing on the same framework, you know, you'd not have thought that that was -- >> it's important to mark those benchmarks when you get there because it does feel like the slough of despond from a high height. but following steps along and knowing the degree to which we're engaged and trying to find a path is heartening. and thank you for being here. >> of course. >> thank you for the work you do. >> thank you, rachel. thank you. >> u.s. ambassador to the united nations samantha power. we got her to come here in studio. we'll be right back. stay with us.

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sort of an amazing story broke late tonight about the republican race for the presidency. i did not expect this.

but it had to do with ben carson and the ben carson boomlet, which now appears to have evaporated if current polling is accurate. the "wall street journal" is reporting as of late tonight that in the month of october, when the ben carson surge was in full swing, when it looked like he was doing great, his campaign that month raised a total of $8.8 million, which is a great number. but they spent that same month way more than that. they spent $9.5 million that month. overspending, spending more than what you have raised, especially in good times, that can be one of those ominous signs that your campaign is going under. it certainly means you are no longer treading water. the campaign's chief financial officer told the "wall street journal" tonight about these figures. "i don't know who gave it to you, but they were not supposed to." everybody's been watching for the ben carson collapse somewhere other than the polls. these financial details from the "wall street journal" tonight may be the first real signs of it. we've got more on the republican race and much more just ahead. stay with us.

the first democratic presidential primary debate this year was the one that happened in las vegas. that was the one where jim webb and linc chafee were still running around. hi, guys. that debate with five democrats on stage, that drew 15 million viewers. the second democratic debate was last month. they held it on a saturday night in iowa at the exact same time that the undefeated iowa hawkeyes were taking on the minnesota golden gophers in their blockbuster college football game. did i mention that the game and the debate were both in iowa, both starting at the same time on a saturday night. that debate shaved about half of

the audience off the first debate. that one brought in about 8.5 million viewers. the third one was this past weekend. this saturday before christmas. it brought in even fewer viewers than the previous one. nielsen numbers look like it's roughly 7.85 million people who watched saturday night. and of course the republicans have been putting up blockbuster ratings for their zillions of prime-time highly promoted debates, some of which have had over 20 million people watching them. but look at this. compare these ratings to 2012. remember, in 2012 president obama was running for re-election. so there's no democratic party debates. right? it's just the republicans holding their hilarious, riveting, bizarro 2012 primary with herman cain and newt gingrich and all the rest of them. i mean, in 2012 the republican debates were the best show on television by a mile. and i say that as a person with a tv show on television. everybody was watching the republican debates in 2012. you could not turn away.

but compare the numbers. more people watched the democratic debate this past saturday than watched any of the republican debates in 2012. what? more people watched the democratic debate this past saturday than almost every other democratic debate in 2008. which was the barack obama-hillary clinton blockbuster year. there were 15 debates that year on the democratic side. the fourth highest debate that year was held on msnbc. it drew 7.77 million viewers. this saturday debate, this snoozer saturday night before christmas, beat that number. did i mention that was hillary versus barack? so yeah. the democrats have buried their debate schedule in a haystack, and it is impossible to find this year. compared with the republicans this year the numbers of people watching the democratic debates are much smaller. but compared with previous years, even this year's democratic debate numbers are ginormous.

yeah, the republican numbers are breaking the scale, but the democratic numbers are historically huge. republicans are into this election. but what do the huge debate ratings mean for who's likely to win the election? it's hard to know. it is hard to tell at this point whether big debate audiences are going to help or hurt either party. i do have one metric, though, one last metric i want you to look at. check this out. during the last democratic debate this saturday, this snoozefest in new hampshire the saturday before christmas, the candidate who attracted the largest number of new twitter followers over the course of that debate was bernie sanders. bernie sanders went up more than anybody else on twitter during the democratic debate. during the last republican debate, the republican debate last tuesday in las vegas where 18 million people watched, during the last republican debate you want to know who the candidate was who attracted the largest number of new twitter followers during the republican debate? also bernie sanders.

he had a great night that night too. on republican debate night. there's one clear metric that shows which candidate did their campaign the most good over the course of the last republican debate and over the course of the last democratic debate. and in both instances for whatever reason it was bernie. ratings schmatings. this race this year is just freaking weird. weird and awesomely unpredictable. and i love my job. this is the one place we're not afraid to fail. some of these experiments may not work. but a few might shape the future. like turning algae into biofuel... ...new technology for capturing co2 emissions... ...and cars twice as efficient as the average car today. ideas exxonmobil scientists are working on to make energy go further... ...no matter how many tries it takes. energy lives here. i built my business with passion.

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so on friday night, on friday's show, we brought you a special report about the poisoning of a town in michigan. the lead poisoning of the town of flint, michigan. it happened on the watch of michigan governor rick snyder through the actions and the inactions of people who report directly to him. it raises a lot of questions about what rick snyder is doing now to respond now that we know that flint and its kids have been poisoned. that report that we did on friday got a really big response, including some angry response. tomorrow night, people on all sides of this story prepare to see red again because tomorrow night we have new documents obtained under the freedom of information act which i think pushed the story into even more deeply unsettling territory. we're going to have that story and those documents for you here exclusively tomorrow night. when you've got a house

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no, i think -- no, these people, honestly -- i'll be honest. i'll be honest. i would never kill them. i would never do that. uh. let's see. no, i wouldn't. i would never kill them. but i do hate them. and some of them are such lying, disgusting people. it's true. it's true. [ cheers and applause ] it's true. but i would never kill them. and anybody that does i think would be despicable. >> i would never kill -- mm, let me -- never? donald trump tonight in grand rapids, michigan talking about the criticism he has received for embracing a pseudo endorsement that he recently got from russian president vladimir putin. again, donald trump. "i would never kill reporters. uh, let me see." presidential campaign this year is weird. about a week ago a monmouth

university poll showed mr. trump at 41% on the republican side. and that as an absolute number may or may not mean anything to you, but look at what it means in relative terms. that gives him an astonishing 27-point lead over his nearest rival. that poll showed such a commanding lead when it first came out we thought that monmouth poll was maybe an outlier. but then a "washington post"/abc news poll came out the next day showing pretty much the same thing. so did the most recent fox news national poll. in that one, mr. trump is up by 21 points over his nearest rival. he polls better than ted cruz, marco rubio and ben carson combined. the latest public policy polling shows mr. trump with his largest lead yet in that poll. based on the latest national averages mr. trump is now leading the republican race by on average more than 20 points. and here's why that's a really important metric. no republican presidential candidate in modern american history has ever had a national lead of 20 points or more at

this time in the race and then not gone on to win the republican nomination for president. let me say that again. in modern american history any republican nominee with a polling lead of 20 points or more at this point in the race, throughout modern american history anybody with a poll lead that big at this point has won the nomination. the polling now says that if donald trump doesn't win the republican presidential nomination that will be historically unprecedented. donald trump apparently is not going anywhere. but today we did lose one republican candidate for president. south carolina senator lindsey graham officially called it quits today. so that means we can now poof him off our list. one two -- oh. so soon? that means we started at 17 candidates. we're now down to 3 -- sorry, 13 candidates left on the republican side. the i'm still here list includes juggernauts like george pataki, mike huckabee, my boyfriend jim gilmore as well.

jim gilmore took pains to reassure everyone today after lindsey graham's departure that he, jim gilmore is still very much in it to win it. to governor gilmore's point, though, i will say he's right, that with senator graham leaving jim gilmore is now the only military veteran in the race from either party. even though senator graham was polling at less than 1% in the polls, his departure could have a bigger impact than you might think. as long as you don't think about it as just redistributing his support. there's two ways in which lindsey graham's departure may change the race in a noticeable way. first it may get more u.s. senators off the sidelines in terms of making endorsements of various republican candidates. until now most republican senators have stayed out of the race, they have not declared who they're going to endorse. that may be out of deference to senator graham, who is both a long-time republican senator and also very widely liked by his republican and democratic colleagues in the senate. his departure also does one other thing, though.

it may make south carolina a lot more interesting very quickly. until now you've sort of noticed that almost all the republican focus has been on iowa and new hampshire. those two states are oversaturated by the candidates. and in terms of national attention things have been surprisingly quiet in south carolina. that may have been because of lindsey graham being in the race but so far behind to not be a factor sort of put a damper on south carolina republican figures getting involved energetically in the race in a way that didn't put them in lindsey graham's failing camp but didn't also alienate their serving senior senator. now that lindsey graham is out, expect south carolina to go off like a bottle rocket. today though officially south carolina senator lindsey graham is out. and if he were going to leave the race, our next guest called the date on which he would do it weeks ahead of time. joining us is political corporate case i lunt who weeks ahead of time basically knew that today would be the day that

lindsey graham would quit. casey, how did you know? how did you pick today? >> it was really tough, rachel. i just called the south carolina board of elections and i asked if they had vad anything if they had said anything about when it would be possible to get off the ballot in south carolina. i had several people suggest that i call the board because they had heard he might be thinking along these lines. they set this for the last chance that they could say your name is not going to be printed on any ballot. if you're lindsey graham and he's not just the senior senator from south carolina, he is in many ways the south carolina political machine embodied. i mean, he is the guy. he engenders all kinds of loyalty among the operatives in in state. if you were to get on that ballot and ultimately not do well and their internal polling was telling them he needed to do well in another state if south carolinians were going to get on board with him you don't want to go into the election and not

only post 2 percentage polling points. >> if he quit tomorrow he could have excused a bad result by saying yeah, i quit. there's a little bit of peacocking going on here in terms of what number he wanted to get, right? >> i do think that it also gives him an opportunity to play a very real role. wlaurp talking about with the primary being frozen so far is absolutely the case. again, the republican establishment in south carolina is so focused on him and graham is a master political tactician. nobody would want to cross him. they would know what would happen but he has a network that really matters in the state and he really could not necessarily with an endorsement but with the role that he plays down there could put his foot on the scale

for one of these other republicans. that matters very much to lindsey graham. i mean, the idea that he wants or that the republican party needs a candidate who can win in the general election, someone who can appeal to hispanics, somebody lo isn't turnings off women and swing voters it's been something of a crusade for graham over the past several years. he did it in his own race. he cleared the field of any legitimate tea party challengers but ran his own race as someone willing to say the courageous thing and willing to talk about the fact that undocumented immigrants should have a path to citizenship. he talked proudly about those things and he wants to be that be voice in the republican party. first it was about rand paul, then it became about donald trump and building the wall and now also to a certain extent ted cruz but it's pretty clear he decided that's not the best way for him to play that role. he could first in new hampshire and then in south kashl potentially be decisive in helping the establishment needs

to settle on someone because if they don't all the stuff you just outlined with the polls is going to end up coming true. >> i think your point there that he is really, really good at tactical politics and understanding how purchases and establishments work and that might be a skill that he brings to greater effect in this political contest than being the candidate himself. that's going to be interesting to see if he tries to be that guy. political correspondent kasie hunt who again called this weeks in advance. casey, thank you very much. >>, that is, rachel. i do think underestimating lindsey graham is never a good idea. >> fair enough. lindsey graham out of the race, when remember when the south carolina made the decision to take the confederate flag down, lindsey graham is the only republican candidate who believes that climate change is a real thing. lindsey graham other than jim gilmore is the only candidate on the republican or democratic side who has personal experience in the military and the only one

who would make jokes about booze and would swear while telling funny stories during the debates. he will be missed. we'll be back. [ cough ] no matter what nasty cold symptoms you get, alka seltzer plus liquid gels rush liquid fast relief to your tough cold symptoms. and they outsell mucinex liquid gels 2 to 1. alka seltzer plus liquid gels. ok, wehere's dad. mom. the twins. aunt alice... you didn't tell me aunt alice was coming. of course. don't forget grandpa. can the test drive be over now? maybe just head back to the dealership? don't you want to meet my family? yep, totally. it's practically yours, but we still need your signature. the volkswagen sign then drive event. zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first

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two things still to come tonight. both with amazing visual/auditory elements. the first is the musical talents of the spouse of one of the leading candidates for president this year, mind blowing. the second is the best new thing in the world by a mile. it is a truly happy story that comes with a photo that when i saw it today it made me fall down on the floor of my office and kick my feet like i was 3 and having a tantrum. both ahead. stay with us.

a couple months ago, ben carson's wife candy belted out a seriously impressive treatment of the national anthem at a campaign event in iowa. at that time, dr. carson was leading donald trump by double digits there. i don't know if those things were related. i don't know if he was surging because his wife was singing at his events. but now that the polling situation for dr. carson isn't quite as good, it looks like the carson campaign might be trying to recapture some of that

old polling/singing magic because this was the tonight in concord, new hampshire. ♪ joy to the world the lord is come ♪ ♪ let earth receive her king ♪ let every heart >> people always say that a candidate's spouse is his or her secret weapon. candy carson may, in fact, be a powerful political weapon on behalf of her husband but she is no secret. she also plays violin. do you know that she has just put out a christmas album? it's called "a very candy christmas." now that she's back out singing carols at his events, if ben carson has a christmas surge in new hampshire now, i think we will know who is responsible. ♪ happy new year

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i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet? best new thing in the world, and today it comes from a very unlikely place. the united states senate. which despite themselves, managed to do something constructive right before they went home for christmas. it also resulted in the best new thing in the world tonight which is a picture i will show you in a second. the context here is this man, the first iraq war veteran ever elected to the u.s. congress. patrick murphy. captain in the 82nd airborne combat veteran, winner of the bronze star. he came back from baghdad in 2004, decided to run for congress in 2005. he beat a republican incumbent. went to washington as an anti-iraq war vet. he held on for two terms in a

conservative district. he ended up lotsing his seat in the big red republican wave of 2010. even though he knew he was from a very tough district for a democrat, patrick murphy led with his heart and made him the lead advocate of don't ask, don't tell. as a straight man and a combat veteran representing a conservative district. he did that even though he knew he would pay for it at home. patrick murphy is a fundamentally good person. he has done a show focused on veterans issues here at msnbc. you may have seen it, "taking the hill." he's also been a frequent guest on this show. in may you might remember there was a terrible train derailment in philadelphia which killed eight people, wounded more than 200 people on that train. congressman patrick murphy was onboard that train when it derailed. he helped people out of the train. he kicked out emergency windows. he helped the first responders find the wounded. he then stayed there as on on scene correspondent through the night and into the next day helping people and helping explain what happened.

he's just a great, great guy. and right before the senate went home for the weekend for the christmas break last order of business, they confirmed good old patrick murphy to be undersecretary of the united states army which brings us to the aforementioned best new thing in the world because whether or not you like patrick murphy as much as i do, and boy do i like that guy, whether or not you have any particular feeling about him being our new undersecretary of the united states army, inarguably, this is the best new thing in the world, the photo that we got today of how his family felt about the proceedings in the senate where daddy got confirmed. did i mention the vote was late in the day on friday? last order of business? yes, it's exciting for daddy to be confirmed as undersecretary of the army but also can i use my ipad, mommy? there's fruit ninja to be played. congratulations to congressman, now undersecretary patrick murphy. congratulations to your family, sir. may all of your achievements be

this riveting for your kids. best new thing in the world. truly awesome. that does it for us tonight. see you again tomorrow. good evening, lawrence. >> rachel, i like patrick murphy more than you do. >> no. i'll fight you for it and i'll win. >> okay. we're going to go all high school on this. >> yes, indeed. >> thank you. >> take it easy. so now the biggest liar and i mean biggest liar in the history of presidential campaigning is calling the candidate who beats him in the polls a liar. >> donald trump is a jerk. >> oh, really, jug head? >> he is becoming isis' best recruiter. >> she should apologize. she lies about everything. >> when asked if clinton would apologize, her spokesman said, "hell no. >> if it gets too hard, just quit, who cares? >> i want to thank everyone who has taken this journey with me.