make it easier than ever to communicate, travel, and grab a quick nicotine fix. but experts want you to be aware of the dangers and mindful of your personal safety. will the real donald trump please stand up? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. there have been two big competing messages coming from the president-elect, donald trump. the first is a message of unity and reconciliation. the second message came in a late-night tweet, of course. the next president criticized those thousands of protesters taking to the streets in opposition of his election, and the media, of course, when he accused of inciting the protests. he wrote, just had a very open and successful presidential

election. now professional protesters incited by the media are protesting. very unfair. a few hours later, trump seems to do a complete 180. he tweeted, love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. we will all come together and be proud. why is trump still tweeting about his critics? and suggesting the media is out to get him? is he like the boxer who continues punching his opponent after the bell rings? the election is over, mr. trump, and you won. in a sign of stability for many republicans, vice president elect mike pence was named by trump the chair of the transition team. other namesn the team include three trump children, donald jr., eric, and ivanka as well as his son-in-law, jared cukushner. he offered a positive tone. i want a country that loves each other. asked whether his thought he rhetoric had gone too far in the campaign, he responded, no, i

won. he suggested he would now turn more positive, saying that was true of his victory speech early wednesday morning as well as his commen comments with mr. obama thursday. joining me now, hugh hewitt. ron reagan, and "new york times" reporter yammish alcindor. >> these two competing messages, what i saw, i thought his trump the night he won brought the markets under control, which were 800 bad to positive about 300 or 400. it stabilized the international markets, which was a responsible thing to do. i thought his meeting with the president was fine and even respectful, talking about the president's accomplishments in a positive way. never heard that before. i thought the tweeting was crazy and i wonder what's running the mind of donald trump. mr. hewitt, we have been through a lot of this together now. we are war veterans. we have been in the bunker. let's see if we can figure out, is donald trump a little loony?

is donald trump got a ms. hyde -- a dr. jekyll and mr. hyde. which one is the good guy, the bad guy? he uses both the good guy and the bad guy. which one is he? >> i think he's the good guy. we had -- >> trump is the good guy who hides the bad guy. >> the good guy is hyde. we had the best 72 hours the republicans and conservatives had since the financial panic in the fall of 2008. and the putting of vice president-elect pence in charge of the transition, more good news. the meeting s yesterday with pal ryan and mitch mcconnell, great news. the supreme court is saved, terrific news. i think donald trump is going to find being president as much fun as ron's father and hopefully as gracious as he was in the oval office and as winsome toward his critics as his father was. i haven't felt this good in

years because i think the opportunity to undo some of the damage of the last eight years is in front of us. to rebuild the military, which is an urgent need and donald trump has promised and to put an ornlest on the supreme court. there are 99 other federal judges, and harry reid broke the filibuster so it's all majority rule. >> except for the filibuster rule still applies to supreme court justices. so the democrats can still filibuster -- >> no. >> you can say that if you want to, but it's not true. that's an argument, not a fact. let me go to ron reagan here. ron, what's your reaction to the two trumps or do you just see one? take some time. >> well, this is the two tweets you mentioned, the first of which was almost certainly written by donald trump. the second of which may or may not have been, are exemplary of the drama that is about to play out both in public because of course donald trump is the president of the united states, but also just as importantly,

within donald trump himself. the question we are going to have answered here shortly is whether donald trump will remain the sort of figure he was in the campaign, thin-skinned, unable to contain himself, incoherent frequently, or whether donald trump can become the kind of man he needs to be to be the president of the united states. now, hugh used to work for my father in his administration. and he's aware of my father. he's familiar with my father. he doesn't know him as well as i do, of course, but suns since he brought my father up, i have to say as a point of personal privilege perhaps that i find myself in a state of cognitive dissonance here when i watch donald trump about to take the oval office. i remember sitting in the oval office with my father. though we dis agreed about politics frequently, i was always impressed by his enormous dignity. yes, he had fun sometimes being president of the united states,

but he saw it as a gigantic responsibility, one that required preparation, deep thought, long thought, about issues. and hugh will back me up that ronald reagan, despite his critics saying he was shallow and all of that, had all those other qualities. he thought long and hard about issues here. now i think about donald trump sitting in that chair, and i think about the dignity that my father had. and the only way i can think of to explain this to you in this cognitive dissonance is asking you, all of you, if you can imagine in your wildest dreams ever hearing an audiotape of my father bragging about his fame and how it allows him to molest women at will. i think we all know the answer to that. the presidency demands enormous dignity, and we're shortly going to find out whether it has the power to compel dignity. >> do you want to respond to that, hugh? >> yeah, i think ron is very right. his father was one of the most

thoughtful and underrated thinkers of our past century. and i hope, for example, donald trump studies his presidency and says how did ronald reagan start? with jim baker and jim deaver. rather than trying to aarrange the white house the to one person, if you put steve bannon and kellyanne conway, you'll get a shadow of what ronald reagan did. a lot of input so he could retreat to the oval office and think. everything that ron said, and obviously hoe knows his father better than anyone in washington, d.c., is absolutely true. >> from the outside, i knew that about your father, president reagan. we have to do this another night. he had tremendous understanding of the constitution, he understood the role of the other people. and he put it all together. that was his salute to the constitution, recognizing how it all work eed together. one of the most consistent themes of donald trump's

campaign a call to repeal and replace obamacare. >> my poll numbers are going through the roof. you know why. i believe a big part is obamacare because we're going to repeal it and replace it. >> obamacare has to be replaced. and we will do it and we will d it very, very quickly. it is a catastrophe. if we don't repeal and replace obamacare, we will destroy american health care forever. >> but now, president-elect trump seems to be softening that hard line somewhat. here's what he told "60 minutes" today for a broadcast on sunday. let's watch. >> when you replace it, are you going to make sure that people with pre-conditions are still covered? >> yes, because it happens to be one of the strongest assets. also with the children living with their parents for an extended period. we're going to very much try to keep that. it adds cost but it's very much something we're going to try to keep. >> that's something. he's taking the two most popular features of obamacare and saying

he's going to somehow finance those without having a larger pool of people insured by obamacare. that's the hardest thing to square that circle. according to the "washington post" mr. trump said a big reason for a shift from his call for an all-out repeal was that thursday meeting at the white house with the president, who he said suggested areas of the affordable care act to preserve. here's trump again. i told him i will look at his suggestions and out of respect, i will do that. either obamacare will be amended or repealed and replaced. that's news. amended is a word of conciliation. but i'll tell you, there is this squaring of the circle problem. we went through this whole thing as they put together obamacare. yes, the middle class would like to have their kids being covered before the kids have jobs and a way to pay for, even their responsibility to take upon themselves to insure themselves in their 20s, for example. of course, people who have diabetes ii or something like that, and they have somhing which is a prexisting condition would very much like to be insured.

if you only insure people who have serious health conditions and have extra kids as dependents, it's going to run out of money quickly. you can't have one without the other. is he headed towards an acceptance of the large part of obamacare? >> it's really unclear what he's going to accept in obamacare. i have talked to so many people, so many supporters over the last year who that was their driving force, the fact he was going to replace this. i think a lot of supporters are now wondering, what is he going to replace it with? he has a mandate from his supporters to repeal obamacare. he made that a very big part of his campaign. it's going to be really interesting if he starts to amend it and whether or not it's going to lead to a revolt of the people who put him into office. >> the problem would be if he repealed it, all the people who are covered are now out of insurance. ron, this is a problem. he wants to fix it, that takes a few months to figure out how to fix it. if you have a more conservative

investigation of version of it, fine, but you can't just drop everybody. they're going to die. that's probably drastic. but they're going to lose insurance. >> obamacare is romney care, and romney care is a republican plan. this is the republican alternative to universal single paying health care. these are these features that everybody loves. nobody loves the fact if they're sick, they cent get health insurance. you tell the insurance companies i'm sorry, if somebody comes to you and wants to buy a policy, you have to let them buy a policy. you can't charge them more because they have an illness, but that will not work, period, unless your mandate that everybody buys insurance. that's just a fact. >> ron, i like the gray part of your hair up front. you're getting to be a very mature gentleman. you notice that up there? >> i'm following hugh. >> hugh looks great. hugh, let me ask you, i was

impressed today that the guy from jersey got dumped again. third loss of the year. didn't get elected president and now getting dumped from the transition boss. this was a hell of a decision. who made that? kushner? who in the trump organization said no more jersey governor? he has too much baggage. we'll bring in mike pence and made him head of transition? >> president-elect trump yesterday spent part of his day with the speaker of the house, paul ryan, and mitch mccacconne and i wouldn't be surprised if they whispered to him, we like to work with mike pence. if we want to get off to a fast start, why don't you ask him how to staff up? a lot of names on the list that are floating around are establishment names. that means people who have good, conservative, reformist ideas and also now, as you do, as everybody knows, washington is a unique place to do business in, better to have somebody who has been there for a long time like mike pence, and chris christie

hasn't been dumped. he's been made vice chair. he's still around. it's a big circle, but mike pence is the big player as joe biden was for president obama. >> a good bet that mike pence made on this guy. he bet on the horse and the horse won. ron, thank you. it's great to have your perspective. yamiche, more time for you next time. these guys took all the ideas tonight. you're the best. i love the "new york times." i hope it's getting over its efforts to prevent us from having trump because they didn't work. coming up, the path forward for democrats. what's the best strategy for progressives. elizabeth warren and bernie sanders say they're willing to work with him, but they're drawing their battle lines for the fight ahead. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

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we will stand up to bigotry. no compromises ever on this one. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was elizabeth warren, the senator from massachusetts, last night with rachel maddow, preparing to stand up to a donald trump presidency. she was there and also at that place. senator warren and bernie sanders now two of the de facto leaders of the democratic party, you might say, say they'll stand up to bigotry against minorities. here it is. >> bigotry in all its forms, we will fight back against attacks

on latinos, on african-americans, on women, on muslims, on immigrants, on disabled americans, on everyone. whether donald trump sits in a glass tower or sits in the white house, we will not give an inch on this. not now, not ever. >> this is america. and we are not going to throw out 11 million people in this country who are undocumented. we're not going to turn against one of the largest religions in the world, people who are muslim. i do not want to see muslim kids, and we're hearing about this already, who feel intimidated in the country and frightened in living in the country where they grew up. that is not america. we do not want to continue the attacks against women. >> protesters are in the street again, the third straight night. you're looking at a live picture of a protest in miami. how do democrats in the age of

trump counter his presidency. his knee jerk resistance, the best or only answer at the moment, the party appears leaderless. >> one writes democrats are a body without a head right now. sanders and warren are two of the highest profile figures left standing and they know it. there's never been a better moment for either of them to fill the vacuum with the left-wing populist idealogical message. the first fight among democrats could come over the race for party chairman of the dnc. four people have said they're interested. keith ellison of minnesota backed by sanders, and chuck schumer, they're behind him. former chairman of vermont, howard dean. new hampshire party chair ray buckley, and martin o'malley. are you in this race? are you into this to get the chairmanship of the democratic national committee? >> i'm certainly looking at it. i have been approached by members of the dnc and

encouraged to give it a very serious look. that's what i'm doing. look, our party needs to rebuild. we did about -- we did worse with all of our traditional constituencies that made up the democratic party coalition, and the other side was far more energized. we need to understand what the message is here. i believe when we arrive at that moment of understanding, which i believe is aroundconomic message, that we will get to the point of rebuilding our party. building up a bench, having a 50-state strategy and speaking to the issues that concern people most. that is their sense that their national government no longer works for them. no longer understands their hard work and their suffering, and that they're not getting ahead. that's where we trailed off. i don't know, we have to take some time to figure out how much of this was messenger, how much was message, how much of this was a lack of organization at

the grassroots. that's what we're in the process of doing as a party. >> thank you. >> when we return, let me finish with a huge question of where president-elect trump is taking himself. this is "hardball," the place for politics. with beyond, you have a natural pet food that goes beyond telling ingredients to showing where they come from. beyond assuming the source is safe... to knowing it is. beyond asking for trust... to earning it. because, honestly, our pets deserve it. beyond. natural pet food. the market.redict but through good times and bad... ...at t. rowe price... ...we've helped our investors stay confident for over 75 years. call us or your advisor. t. rowe price. invest with confidence.

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president-elect trump is taking himself. this is a critical time and a critical question. why? because before he talks the country in any direction, he will first tame himself in that direction. if mr. trump picks a bunch of angry people eager for trouble types, that will be the name of the game for the next four years. if he picks a group of people looking to advance changes they truly believe will be good for the country, eager to find ways to do it, and people to do it with, that an altogether different thing. and one area that worries me is foreign policy. i was impressed with his opposition at least in hindsight to the iraq war.

i saw a sign of heap because the political establishment of this country, democrats and republicans, backed that horrendous decision down the line. that decision which cost so many lives and threw the middle east open to the hell we have burning there today. is he really going to pick a war hawk as a secretary of defense? is he going to let the people who took us to war in 2003 take another bite of the apple? just listen to the neocons. they're dying for another u.s. entry into battle over there. iraq, then libya, then the endless call to throw our young men and women to syria. the endless battle cries against iran. picking someone like john bolton for secretary of state or any position of power would be a betrayal of months and months of offering the country an alternative to the pathetic stupidity of the iraq war. the first job of the president-elect is to do no harm. picking john bolton or any neocon hawk would be for donald trump to jump into bed with a

viper. that's "hardball" for now. thank said for being with us. to all the veterans who served our country, thank you for your service. join me again tomorrow night at 7:00 eastern. see you then. oments. they're everywhere. and as a marriot rewards member, i can embrace them all. the new marriott portfolio of hotels now has 30 brands in over 110 countries. so no matter where you go, you are here. join or link accounts at membs.marriott.com.

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