, let's shop small for our neighborhood, our town, our home. on november 26th, get up, (all) get together and shop small. that was his whole time in the senate. in march before the people of north carolina had gotten used to the idea that they had a senator named joseph bratten, it was time to replace him. the voters didn't get to replace him. the governor of jake got to replace him because it was an unexpectedly open seat. and the governor decided to look

to a very prominent north carolina citizen to take bratten's senate seat. he decided to give it to the president of the university of north carolina. and the president of the university of north carolina at that time, 1949, was a really interesting guy. he came from an academic background, had been a history professor. he ended up proving to be a politically skilled guy. when he became president of unc, he made lots of friends in washington. he turneded that into lots of federal funding for unc. he was broad-minded for his time. there had previously been a quote on as the number of jews that unc would accept at its medical school. when frank porter graham became the president of unc, he scrapped the jew quota. frank porter graham, unc president. in 1949, he was unexpectedly vaulted into the united states senate. when he was asked to fill the open seat when the senator who jump won the seat unexpectedly

died. when frank porter graham was given that seat in 1949, in north carolina, there were certain segments of the population in that state who were not going to stand for a guy like him getting a job like that. and the reason that it's worth talking about today is because you should have seen the campaign that they ran against this guy. he just -- he had been president of the unc, got appointed to the seat. you should see how they ran against him. look at this. white people, wake up before it's too late. you might not have another chance. do you want negros working beside you, your wife, and your daughters in your mills and factories? do you want negros eating beside you in public places? do you want negros riding beside you, your wife, daughters, in cabs and trains? negros sleeping in the same hotels and rooming houses, negros teaching and disciplining your children in school. negros sitting with you and your family at public meetings. negros going to white schools

and white children going to negro schools? do you want negros occupying the same hospital rooms with you and your wife and your daughters? do you want negros as your foremen and overseers in the mills? do you want negros using your toilet facilities leave that one for last. it says in the box, "northern political labor leaders have recently ordered that all doors be opened to negros on union property. this will lead to whites and negros working and living together in the south as they do in the north. do you want that?" then the money part of it. frank graham, the newly appointed senator, the governor of north carolina put in the open senate seat says at the bottom of this flyer, "frank graham favors mingling of the races. he admits that he favors mixing negros and whites. do you favor this? want some more of it? if you do, vote for frank graham. if you don't, vote for and help elect willis smith for senator. he will uphold the traditions of

the south." that was the willis-smith campaign for senate in 1950 in north carolina. you know this kind of stuff went on, but takes your breath away to see it, right? the campaign for willis smith for senate that year, they also famously doctored a photo to make it look like the incumbent's wife, to make it look like frank porter graham's wife had been photographed dancing with a black man. it was a fake photo, but they circulated it in north carolina in the senate race that year. in 1948, right, just the year before frank porter graham had been nominate to the seat, two years before the senate race, president truman had ordered the desegregation of the u.s. armenia. famous landmark in american history. 1948, the desegregation of the military. famously, that was in -- ultimately a huge success. in 1948, 1949, when the decision was fresh, in that north carolina senate race against frank porter graham, with the wake up white people flyer and

fake photo of his wife with a black man, in that environment, that senate race, the desegregation of military was another lit match for dry grass. and one of the other things the campaign for willis smith did that year, and that race, they put out flyers accusing frank gram of nominating, god forbid, a black man to go won't. to that kind of audience, to the kind of voters that willis smith was trying to scare up for that senate race, that was almost the ultimate outrage. a black man to west point? and that almost unbelievable, all race, all the time campaign against frank porter graham, for that tennessee seat in 1950. it worked. frank porter graham had been appointed after the previous guy died in 1949. but by 1950, thanks to that racist campaign against him, he was voted out, and so willis smith became a u.s. senator, and

willis smith, i think, i think he knew why he won. out of all the people who worked on his campaign, he took the guy who had come up with the idea for the flyer. he took the guy who reportedly personally used the scissors on the doctored photo of frank graham's wife with the black man on the dance floor. he took that race specialist from his campaign with him to washington to be his administrative assistant in the united states senate on his senate staff. interesting. even though he only brought back as a june the yeas are staffer, the junior staffer -- junior staffer, the junior staffer proved to be ambitious and hard to tie down. the junior staffer didn't have that much interest in staff work in the senate. he wanted to keep running those kinds of campaigns. he wanted to keep running campaigns like that willis-smith campaign that knocked out the incumbent senator in north carolina in 1950. by 1952, that staffer was back out on the campaign trail this time working for the presidential campaign. this time working on the overtly segregationist presidential campaign of a failed candidate

but longtime southern senator named richard russell. by 1960, he was on another campaign, working on a north carolina governors's race that time. supporting an insurgent candidate, 1960, whose only issue in his run was race. this congressional staffer supported a candidate called bev lake in that race. bev lake only ran for governor because of the insufficient fervor he saw for segregation among the existing conservative while politicians in north carolina. "the mixing of our two great races in the classroom and then in the home is not inevitable and not to be tolerated." so for this one campaign operative who specialized in this stuff, nominally a senate staffer, he was a campaign operative, and this was his specialty -- segregation, segregation, segregation. he cornered the market at least in north carolina on running campaigns that turned everything into race. that turnpiked everything into

white fear of encroaching black people particular -- turned everything into white fear of encroachi encroaching black people particularly among your daughters. he was good in this campaign including the one that got him into washington. the campaign pro who had run the expertly confederate race-based campaigns decided the best candidate he knew of to run for the next big open seat in north carolina would be himself. so he denounced frank porter graham's beloved unc as the university of negros and communists. he proclaimed the civil rights act of 1964 was "the single most dangerous piece of legislation introduced in congress." he ran himself for the united states senate seat in north carolina. that was open in 1972. and that is how we got jesse helms. and jesse helms, senator helms, ultimately got to the senate too late to stop that hated voting

rights act the first time around. he didn't get there until the 1970s. when the voting rights act was up for reauthorization for the first time in 1982, jesse helms filibustered it, in his words, until the cows came home. he did everything he could to try to get rid of the voting rights act. that was in 1982. 1983, he led an epic filibuster of the federal holiday that would honor martin luther king. when he finally relented with his martin luther king filibuster after days of stopping that holiday, the a.p. interviewed him about what he had done. this is kind of amazing. stumbled across this today. i was looking at old newspaper clippings. "he said in an interview that he realized his opposition to the bill and comments about king had angered the black community. but helms said he didn't expect to get much black support in his re-election bid anyway. "i face reality. the blacks have a history of voting democratic down the line." so screw it.

jesse helms did overlap with one african-american senator during his entire tenner, carols -- tenure, carol mosely braun. according to all involved, jesse helms look wanted at carol mosely brawn, his fellow senator, and turned to orrin hatch and said, "watch me make her cry. i'm going to make her cry. i'm going to sing dixie until she cries." and carol moseley-braun and her press secretary later described it to the "los angeles times" saying he did, in fact, get right into her face and sing "dixie" into her face. ♪ oh i wish i was in the land of cotton old times there are not forgotten ♪ ♪ watch it, i'll make her cry." jesse helms' epic filibuster because the martin luther king

holiday. the a.p. asked, are you worried about how this will affect you political? you're in a state with a lot of black voters. nl only was he not war -- not only was he not worried, he was doing that on purpose. that's what he was building his political capital on. filibustering that mlk day thing, he came back to that again and again in his political life. pro proudly. that was something he was not ashamed of. he used it in his re-election efforts. it can spike a particular white vote if you do stuff like that. even if it costs you most of your black or all of your black vote. can you go negative in the black vote? even though jesse helms did everything he could to block the king holiday, his filibuster although it stretched out over days and he used different procedures, it didn't end up being a single-person filibuster record. the record longest filibuster ever done in the united states senate by any one senator all at one time, that record actually is not a jesse helms record.

that record was set against civil rights legislation, but it belongs to this guy. >> i wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to vote down segregation and admit to negro race into our theaters, into our homes and churches. >> that was strom thurmonds, south carolina, 1948. he ran for president that year on a segregation ticket. the basic idea behind his run for president was that the two political parties in our country were not racist enough that year. thurmond had to run for president in order to create a whole new party specifically to meet the racial needs of his constituents. >> the southern revolt against president truman reaches its climax at birmingham under the

states' rights banner. alfalfa bill murray joins in the protests against the president's civil rights program. more than 6,000 flocked to the convention to select the presidential ticket. 13 southern states are represented in the session which precedes the nomination of governors thurmond of north carolina and wright of mississippi as party standard bearers. governor thurmond attacks the civil rights plank. >> it simply means that's on the part of this president to dominate the country by force and to put into effect these uncalled for and damnable proposals he has recommended under of guise of so-called civil rights. i ask the american people from one side or the other had better wake up and oppose that program. and if they don't,t next thing will be a grace state in these

-- a totalitarian state in these united states. >> strom thurmond running for president in 1948 to stop the totalitarianism of civil rights and desegregation. he ran and did all right, lost. it was 1954 before south carolina was ready to elect him to the senate. and south carolina would not stop for another 40-plus years until strom thurmond became the oldest man ever in the united states senate. he still holds the one-man filibuster record for the more than 24 hours as a one-man filibuster against civil rights legislation. even at his 100th birthday, everybody was still talking about strom thurmond's segregationist run for president back in the good old days. >> when strom thurmond ran for president, we vote for him. we're proud of it. [ applause ] and if the rest of the country

had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had these problems over all these years either. >> that was in 2002. and it -- obviously went over great in the room but not in the country when senator trent lott said that. i think by 2002, some of the charm of these old southern guys like strom thurmond and jess helms, it was starting to wear off a bit. at the point he said that, at strom thurmond's 100th birthday, trent lott had been the top republican in the united states senate. two weeks after he said that on tape, two weeks after he said we would have been better off as a country if the whole country had voted for the segregation president like mississippi did in 1948, two weeks later he resigned his post in the senate. i should tell you, 2016, trent slott a very, very wealthy lobbyist, most recently seen this week in "the new york times" enthusing about what a bonanza the trump administration will be for lobbyists like him and his clients. ultimately seeing how well he's

doing, trent lott is probably better off as a loifbt and not a senator -- a lobbyist and not a senator. but it's important as a country to know that basically trent lott couldn't stay on as a senator. he certainly couldn't stay on as the top republican senator in washington once he was caught on tape talking the way he did about strom thurmond and his segregationist run for president. at some point, guys like, this the politics of guys like this, became something that normal politics choked on. there did used to be a lot of these guys around. and for a while, it felt like they were all going to live to be 500 years old. they all mostly died out. and i'm 43 years old. over the course of might have lifetime, i have seen it become ethically unwieldy for anybody in mainstream politics to ally themselves with guys like this. this breed of reconstructed, you know, white, southern, race politicians. over the course of my lifetime, i have watched most of those guys die out. most of them. most of them.

not all of them. that ends up being really, really, really important for what's about to happen next in our country. that's next. for lower back pain sufferers, the search for relief often leads... here... here... or here. today, there's a new option. introducing drug-free aleve direct therapy. a tens device with high intensity power that uses technology once only available in doctors' offices. its wireless remote lets you control the intensity. and helps you get back to things like... this... this... or this. and back to being yourself. introducing new aleve direct therapy. find yours in the pain relief aisle.

martin luther king jr. was killed, his funeral was organized as basically a massive procession. and his casket was led by mules. and the guy who led the mule train with the casket in the procession of kimartin luth king's funeral, the guy who you see there on the left side with the white shirt behind the flag there, he turns out to himself have had an incredibly and now news-worthy role in american civil rights history. it's important in terms of where he came from and what he did. it's also important for us right now. you will see that story next and it will blow your mind. thanksgiving at the anderson's.

i was stoked. that's my holiday. we invented it. so i'm like, "pass the stuffing!" and... it's not stove top. and i'm like, "what?" i wait all year. 364 days to enjoy delicious stove top stuffing.

it's what makes thanksgiving, thanksgiving. i had to get out of there. i faked an attack of scurvy. scurvy. works every time. a federal judgeship is a lifetime appointment, and president reagan has been nominating young men for these jobs. 32 to 38 years old. people who could keep the reagan influence around for a long time. howeve one of mr. reagan's nominees is in trouble in washington. in trouble for saying that the naacp is a pinko organization and that a white civil rights attorney from his home state of alabama is a disgrace to his race. nbc news national political correspondent ken bodie is in our washington studio with more on that nomination. good morning, ken. >> reporter: good morning, jane. the man who said those things and who would be a federal judge is jeff sessions. part of the story over the struggle of sessions' nomination takes part in the senate, part

takes place in the belt of alabama where he was born and the struggle for voting rights was waged. let's look at both places. >> mr. sessions is a throwback to a shameful era which i know both black and white americans thought was in our past. it's inconceivable to me that a person of this attitudes is qualified to be a u.s. attorney, let alone a united states federal judge. >> jeff sessions iii, brought face to face with things he personally had said. for example, that the naacp and civil liberties university are unamerican. >> these comments that you could say about a county organization or something. i may have said something like that in a general way. and that probably was wrong. >> also brought face to face with the justice department civil rights attorney who knows him well and who was asked, is sessions a racist? >> i don't know whether he is or isn't. i probably ought to know, but i don't. i really can't say. >> but the would-be judge's case came in alabama. defendants in a perry county case, were political and civil rights leaders for more than 20 years.

albert was an aide to martin luther king jr. their scrapbook has all the marches. >> this is bloody sunday, albert can see, that is him right there. >> albert turner guided the mules at martin luther king jr.'s funeral. the federal government charged him with doctoring the votes, and mail fraud. >> i just don't think jeff sessions came in with an ounce of evidence. >> blacks charge harassment by u.s. attorney jeff sessions noting there was no investigation of white vote fraud. the justice department said it had no complaints about white vote fraud. >> others said they may have found voter fraud if they looked for it. >> i have seen letters that said we know you don't live here but want you to vote here. >> albert and evelyn were found not guilty.

the justice department said sessions had a good case. jack drake disagrees. >> i didn't think the government had a case. the impetus of it, i think, was to keep blacks from voting, to intimidate people. and they went right at the leadership they want to defeat. >> albert turner doesn't want him on the bench. >> a man like jeff sessions will be there for a long time and i honestly think he will be in the way of progress for quite a while. >> is i believe a disgrace to the justice department and he should withdraw his nomination and withdraw his position. >> and the jeff sessions nomination is not over, from my sense what i said is that if president reagan really wants jeff sessions on the bench he is

in for a fight. >> it does sound rough, thank you, ken. >> thank you, it was rough, he didn't make it. this was 1986, by 1986, ronald reagan had been president for five years, been through a lot of judges. he had never had a district court judge rejected, until 1986, they decided a guy like jeff sessions could not be choked down. this guy erased? no, that was 1986. the voters of the state of alabama decided they didn't care about him enough to keep him out of statewide or federal office. by 1996, he was vote d state attorney general, and by 1996 they sent him to the united states senate. he was sent back there since. in his time in the senate, he got on the same judiciary bench that rejected him in the earlier

phase of his career. >> i'm still concerned about some of the issues that have been raised with regard to the -- the wise latina quote where you said that they should make decisions that are better than a white male. throughout her career, she has associated herself with well-known activist judges. she clerked for justice marshal, well-known activist. >> he spits out just marshal there. he is talking about just thurgood marshal. as if that should be a black mark against them because he was such an activist. just marshal, who argued against the brown v board of education.

sessions is the last of what looked like it would be a die breed of old school, absolutely unreconstructed white southern senators. his race politics over the course of his entire career is part of why he has remained a relatively anonymous low-level senator on capitol hill. there is a reason he is not in charge of anything. but today president-elect trump announced his next pick for the attorney general of the united states is senator jeff sessions. joinings us now is the senior writer, ari berman, author. part of why jeff sessions was rejected for that federal judgeship when he was in his 30s, was because of the corroborated report of him making racist statements. but the other part of it was the prosecution he brought in selma. can you tell us more, what should we look at now? >> he prosecuted three people very influential civil rights

activists in alabama, people who had marched on bloody selma in 1955, who had been beaten and helped to build political power in alabama, who had virtually. the fact that sessions prosecuted them on trumped-up charges, the fact that he prosecuted them, the prosecutions took place in selma of all places, the fact they were prosecuted under the voting rights act, which were supposed to help african-americans, not harm them, was all outrageous at the time. >> and that was a case that went to the jury, the jury that went to the decision, he brought his charges.

the jury was almost half and half, there were like seven african-americans, five white people, came back in five hours and said immediately, no, not guilty on all counts. they absolutely rejected the prosecution here. >> absolutely, it was not a strong case by jeff sessions, that is what civil rights activists told him at the time, don't do this. it is politicly and racially motivated, so for sessions to lose this high profile case against black activists, and to be voted for by reagan was shocking. >> did he ever have any problems, how did he react when the supreme court basically gutted the voting rights act a couple of years ago? >> he never changed his life, he supported the supreme court decision gutting the voting rights act, saying there was no discrimination going on in alabama, or georgia, clearly he is not watching your show or reading my reporting. in his own state of alabama,

they required 31 dmcs, many in north carolina and alabama, the courts found that voter suppression law targeted black voters, there has been so much segregation that sessions has refused to acknowledge. >> if he is chosen, he will have a lot of influence on these type of cases. jeff sessions is a controversial nominee, not the only controversial person president-elect trump picked for a very important job today. we have much more ahead. there is a very important time in the news. please stay with us. jack be nimble, jack be quick, jack knocked over a candlestick onto the shag carpeting... ...and his pants ignited into flames, causing him to stop, drop and roll. luckily jack recently had geico help him

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this is raj goyle, from kansas, technically born in cleveland. he made his life in wichita, kansas. and he was elected to the state legislature in 2006. in 2010 after his two terms in the legislature, raj decided to try to take a big leap and run not just for the state legislature again but instead for congress. from his district in kansas, and this is what it was like that year to be raj goyle running for congress in kansas in 2010.

vote american, vote for the guy running against this guy. subtle, right? the guy running against raj did not put up the vote american billboard against raj, that billboard was put up by a supporter by raj's opponent, not by the opponent himself. but when raj goyle called his opponent out on this, about this billboard that his opponent supporter put up, his response was just that raj goyle was just distracting from the real issues in that campaign. so that really is what that looked like, true americans vote for pompeo, now raj's opponent is pompeo, who is known for dissenting from the republican's benghazi report, because even though the report concluded basically that hillary clinton

didn't do it, mike pompeo remains convinced that she did. so he dissented, he is also basically known for being the congressman from koch industry, they have been his biggest funders in his congressional life, ever since his first run, they have been the number one funders of mike pompeo, when he first got to congress he hired the former top lawyer to be his chief of staff and got to work on his top priorities which happened to be what koch brothers wanted for christmas that year, which was a super happy christmas. it was a, killing a registry of gas polluters, and b, stopping an on-line registry of product safety complaints, because that is what the people of his district wanted. now, after pulling that heavyweight for the hard-working people of wichita and writing brave op-eds like this, stop harassing the koch brothers, now

he is donald trump's nominee to be the director of the cia. he has no intelligence experience, outside of his time as koch industry guy on the intelligence committee. mike pompeo has to be confirmed before he takes over, by the senate. in the house, democratic congressman adam hiv shif callem "willing and willing to engage, both key qualities in a cia director. and whatever fight democrats are going to put up over some trump nominations somewhere, we're not seeing much of one here for the cia director, at least not yet.

the congressman for koch industry at least for now, appears to be on the path to the top agency. picking up for kyle.

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financial guidance while you're mastering life. from chase, so you can. every new day is like civics boot camp these days. you know what, it is a blessing to have clarity. a blessing to see things clearly, and have a clear understanding of what you're up against in the world, and why. that is a blessing. tonight after today's news cycle we're working our way down the list that the new trump hires are. we talked about the senator who was bipartisanly viewed as too racist for a judgeship, but now he is tapped to be one. there's a new hire that makes the other two look mainstream, next.

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the president-elect today announced that retired general michael flynn would be his new security adviser. and that is not a position that requires any other form of announcement. that is it. no senate confirmation for national security adviser. for general flynn, that might be a blessing. last year, he attended the anniversary party for russian state-sponsored television. there he is there. and just to the right of him. see that handsome guy? that is russian president vladimir putin sitting with general flynn, who explained his actions, saying he was paid for that appearance. that is his defense, going to the dinner with vladimir putin and honoring state russian tv. his defense was i was paid to be there.

now he will be national security adviser to the president of the united states. general flynn was fired from the defense intelligence agency from 2014 as what was described from one side as leadership clashes. he explained it as, the military fired me for calling our enemies radical jihadists. i think it is fair to say, i think his supporters would concede that he is a fringe enough choice that you would probably hear, probably impotent opposition, for somebody like him having a big important role in the white house. a former colleague said his thinking process is not sufficiently analytical to test streams. if you listen to him, in ten minutes you will hear him contradict himself two or three times. flynn is known for putting stuff like this on twitter. fear of muslims is rational.

he is also on board 100% with the things that donald trump campaigned on, on national security, that more national figures may be expected to balk at. >> would you kill the family of a terror suspect, yes or no? >> i would have to see what the circumstances of that situation was. >> are you kidding me? what circumstances would justify killing the family and wife and child? >> it would have to be the circumstances that we were facing at that time. >> kill a wife and child? what can you tell me about the child? these are things that you should know. donald trump has said he would kill family members of terrorists, even if the families themselves were totally innocent. and president-elect trump has now chosen to have mike flynn as the person closest to him whispering in his ear and advising him as national

security adviser. general flynn has accepted the job offer, and as far as we understand it that is the end of that process. he's in, he is done. joining us is adam schiff, congressman, thank you for joining us. nice to see you. >> good to see you, too. >> broadly, what is your reaction to mike flynn being named national security adviser? >> well you know, shocked and gravely concerned about it. both for the reasons of his policies, they're well out of the mainstream when it comes to russia. his comments about turkey show a complete lack of appreciation on who is happening there. and more broadly, his views on islam, his failure to distinguish the perversion of that state by groups like isis. and his ideas, that there is a clash of civilizations between the west and islam, that they're incompatible with a relationship with the west. these are deeply disturbing ideas that the president-elect

has expressed, and to have the national security adviser on this is alarming, and the tenure is especially alarming. i think what was found and he exhibited on the campaign trail. this is somebody who is often erratic and shoots from the hip and a volatile personality. you want somebody to bring the national security experts, the secretary of defense and state, the national security council and reach consensus on very tough issues and often with the pressure of time. you don't want another volatile personality guiding the way of already an impetuous president-elect. >> we get vague characterizations of what happened during his tenure. he was at dia, not a very long time. he was there from 2012 to 2014.

he was asked to leave. you have the seat on the intelligence committee and obviously have your finger on the pulse on what is happening in the intelligence agencies. what can you tell us about why exactly he was asked to leave and what went wrong, what his colleagues at that agency thought about his tenure there? >> well, it has nothing to do with wanting to call islamic radicalism by its name. rather it had to do with his management style, which was one of essentially a bull in a china shop, the inability to work with others, enormous problems that were largely his creation, essentially a mess, that is what forced him out more than anything else. those kind of lack of qualities frankly will be a real problem as national security adviser. he is, you know, the equivalent of steve bannon in the national security arena. so you have one person who flirts with the alt-right and the extremism in steve bannon, in charge of domestic policy

advice. and now you have mike flynn, who is very much the same kind of a character who will be in charge of national security policy. that's a very dangerous, combustible mix for the country. >> congressman, before you go, i also have to ask you about the other major intelligence announcement today which was mike pompeo, the congressman, being named the trump nominee for -- to run the cia, to be director of the cia. you've sort of welcomed that announcement. you're not opposed to everything that trump has announced thus far. it sounds like you're keeping an open mind about when congressman pomp reo might be a good choice for cia. >> he's a bright, hard-working guy. i think he has the capability of being a good cia director. he can also, as you pointed out, be a partisan guy. and he certainly was in the benghazi hearings. he will need to set that aside to be an effective cia chief. he has to be tristrictly

nonpartisan. i think he can do that. what i have to recognize, what americans have to recognize is the elections have consequences. trump won, mike is a conservative. he's not a moderate. that is the president's prerogative to pick. i think he can set the partisanship aside. i'm counting on him to do that and run the agency well. >> congressman adam hiv is, schiff, ranking member of the intelligence committee. always a clear and sober voice on scary issues. thanks for your time. appreciate you being here. >> thank you, rachel. we'll be right back. stay with us. o is for out of this world. l is for loving the seasonal cuisine. a is for access to everything, including the aisle. r is for reclining in tailor-made bedding. and i, must be dreaming. s... so long, jet lag. polaris, from united.

at this point in the show, i had something else we were going to cover, but i scrapped it. the thing i need to say about the michael flynn national security adviser announcement. it's an announcement, it's done. all a president-elect or president ultimately has to do to get a national security adviser is ask somebody and have them say yes. this is done. that means it will not be discussed all that much compared to the other people who have to go through the senate confirmation process. the choice of michael flynn really is a different kettle of fish than anything that i think even we might have expected from the trump campaign. michael flynn calls islam a political ideology hiding behind a religion. michael flynn calls islam a malignant cancer. michael flynn did sit next to vladimir putin and take moonor to go to a gala honoring russian state television and has been a frequent guest on russian state television and says he sees no

difference between russian state television and, for example, msnbc. he will now be the closest person to the president of the united states on a day-to-day basis on all foreign policy issues, on all military issues, on all national security issues. and he is way outside anything that anybody on the left, right, or center might consider to be the mainstream either in thought or temperament in terms of national security issues. and it's done. and trump gets him unless he has some change of heart or, you know, awakening of conscience about doing something like this for such a key position. i would also say that mike flynn has been on the payroll, his intelligence firm has been on the payroll of turkey including during the trump campaign. without him disclosing that while he was working for the trump campaign. this is just -- i know he's not going to get as much coverage as the others who have to get c confirmed the next few days. stick a pin in that. it's a really, really important,

really, really worrying announcement. all right. back to our regularly scheduled programming. back in a second. [ sneezes ]

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plus, unstuffs your nose. oh, what a relief it is. here's one tantalizing little giblet to made tate upon. if jeff sessions does get appointed attorney general, he is a u.s. sitting senator. one of the reddest states in the country from alabama. because of that, there is zero drama as to which party his successor will come from. alabama has a republican governor, if jeff sessions leaves the senate to go be a.g., the governor of alabama will undoubtedly pick a republican to replace jeff sessions. that will be one of the safest jobs in the country, right? whatever republican gets appointed to the seat in alabama, that is basically a guaranteed job for life. but here's one potentially hilarious thing to watch for in that process. one of the people who could be appointed to that u.s. senate seat by the governor of alabama

is the governor of alabama. he could appoint himself the same governor of alabama who was last heard on this show saying this -- >> i stand behind you, and i put my arms around you and put my -- and include you. i love that, too. putting my hands. >> alabama governor robert bentley right now is facing possible impeachment proceedings at home because of the circumstances of that sex tape. one of the people he could appoint to replace jeff sessions is himself. chicagoland let him escape the -- which would let him escape the threat of impeachment for the sex tape, and. it would be a job for life, and washington, d.c., is nice this time of year. so keep an eye on robert bentley and the prospects of him appointing himself in alabama.

everybody can borrow my tape when that happens. we've got the sex tape, all ve r verbated, you can use the subtitles subtitles. see you monday. msnbc live is next. good morning, everyone, i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. 7:00 a.m. in the east, 4:00 a.m. out west. here's what's happening -- strange bedfellows, president-elect trump meets with hundred of his fiercest rivals during the campaign. we'll tell you what could come from that powwow. nchlt mixed reception. v.p.-elect hears from both sides as he attends a big show on broadway. it's the message afterward that's grabbing attention. the first three picks, what do they tell us about a donald trump administration? there are plenty of critics, and we'll hear from both