we'll be back tomorrow morning, bright and early for "a.m. joy," do not miss it. and you know what's coming up next? "hardball" on msnbc. stick around and eat more turkey leftovers and watch that. how not to run for president and win. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. when donald trump rode down the escalator at trump tower on june 16th, 2015, to announce his candidacy for president, even those who hoped he would shake things up wondered how long he'd last. his attack on mexican immigrants that day stoked outrage. it was hard finding an expert who predicted that he would end up taking the oath of office. but over the next 17 months, trump roared past a field of 16

republican challengers, and one of the best financed and best-prepared democratic candidates ever. and at every turn, he seemed to check the box for what not to do while running for president. trump went to war with a popular news anchor on a conservative network, attacked a beauty queen for gaining weight, called for his democratic opponent to be locked up and put away, said women who get abortions should face criminal punishment, and defied republican orthodoxy on war, relations with russia, and trade. he called for banning an entire religion from entering the country, and whetheathered a st over recorded comments from 11 years ago, that seemed to endorse assaulting women. for the next hour, we'll show highlights or lowlights of the most confounding, out of the box presidential campaign ever. a campaign that broke every rule, yet somehow turned out on top. and that's the story tonight, how not to run for president and win. i'm joined for the hour by former chair of the republican

national committee, michael steele, "usa today's" washington bureau chief, susan page. "usa today's" senior political reporter, heidi przybyla, and howard fineman. and tonight we begin with donald trump's comments about women. for months, trump's approval rating among women hovered at stork lows. the conventional wisdom said they would preclude him from ever making it to the white house. he then enflamed the problem. at the first primary debate, trump was angered by a question moderator megyn kelly asked him about his past statements on women's looks. he didn't let it go, attacking kelly again and again over the next week. let's watch him. >> she gets out and starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. and you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. she asked me a question, it was an inappropriate question. it was a ridiculous question. even the other candidates came up to me and said, that was absolutely out of line. the fact is, she asked me very

inappropriate questions. she should really be apologizing to me, you want to know the truth. and other candidates have said that. >> susan, i thought, just as a guy watching this thing, that megyn kelly, who -- and nobody's not a competitor in this business. everybody's doing their job, trying to get ahead, that she won that exchange. that she made him look out of control, that his temperament was totally out of whack, and she seemed calm and tough doing her job. >> i completely agree. she acted like a professional, asking an appropriate question. but not enough to cost him the presidency along with a series of other exchanges where you might take them in isolation and say, at the end of the day, he lost women, hillary clinton got 54% of women, but he won white women by 10 percentage points and that was a surprise. >> well, what did you make of that, heidi? i thought the out of the blood thing, i didn't even get it the first time. like, this guy's gross. but it didn't seem to stop him. >> it actually created that outcome, chris, because it was

such a good question and it did parlay back his exact words, which spoke for themselves, to all american women. and he was very upset about that. and he couldn't let it go. because if you look at this war he had with megyn kelly, it started with that, and that is what prompted the blood coming out of her wherever comments, but he continued to beat up on megyn kelly for the duration of the next couple of months, even when, looking at news reports, she was behaving no differently than her male competitors, asking questions no differently than her male competitors, but trump kind of made her this unwhu unwitting symbol of sexism. >> he broke the oldest political rule in the business. when you're in a hole, stop digging. michael, he just wouldn't get out of that fight with this popular anchor women. >> he loves rabbit holes, and the more he finds, the more he finds an opportunity to go down them. and the interesting thing about the exchange with megyn kelly, he did the one thing that you

wouldn't think was possible, he made megyn and fox news a creature of the vast right-wing conspiracy against republicans running for office. in other words, you found republicans chiding fox and megyn for the way they engaged with donald trump. >> let's take a look at this first debate. hillary clinton knows how to fight, too. she seemed to bait trump by bringing up a former miss universe, who accused him of making fun of her weight. trump blew this story into a much bigger deal by spending the next few days attacking the beauty queen. >> she was the winner and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight. and it was -- it was a real problem. we had -- we had a real problem. not only that, her attitude. i saved her job, because they wanted to fire her for putting on so much weight, and it is a beauty contest. i mean, say what you want, bill, they know what they're getting into. it's a beauty contest, and i said, don't do that. let her try to lose the weight. can you imagine i end up in a position like this? so that's the way it is.

>> well, over twitter, trump even urged people to hunt down a supposed sex tape, which turned out to be nonexistent. howard, again, he goes into the hole, fights like a man in a fox hole. he wants to fight on this line against women. >> chris, let me suggest two themes here that we're going to be discussing for this entire hour. the one is that the media failed to analyze how trump used the media. let's talk about that for a second. he loves the controversy. he courts the controversy. he uses the controversy. he sucked the energy and wind and attention out of every other candidate in the race donald trump's motto was and is, if the attention is on me, no matter what the cause, it's a good thing, number one. the second subpar to that is, attack, attack, attack. always attack your accuser. so that's one thing. we in the media miss the way he used us the entire year. and the second big point is,

people want change. and wanted change, and they will pick up whatever cudgel they need to pick up no matter what you say about that instrument. that's what happened this whole year. >> and the irony is, of course, to make your point, the guy who got hurt in this next episode is the guy from the media. the biggest bombshell of the campaign was in early october when audio surfaced from that 2005 interview, actually, an overheard comment by donald trump and former "access hollywood" host, former "access hollywood" host, billy bush, talking about women prior to a promotional shoot. listen to what donald trump says he can get away with, because he's a celebrity. >> i got to use some tic tacs, just in case i start kissing her. you know, i'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- i just start kissing them. it's like a magnet. i just kiss. i don't even -- and when you're a star, they let you do it. you can do anything. >> whatever you want. >> grab 'em by the [ bleep ]. >> so he's president of the united states elect and billy

bush is out of a job. i guess that's what happens to the media story. that one i thought, was probably mortal. >> we all thought -- >> it felt like it at the time. >> it was like the 56 mortal wound that we thought -- remember when he said john mccain wasn't a hero and we thought that was a mortal wound. and that was like an innocent time from long ago, that that would have been so devastating. i actually think, with all these candidates, and multiplied for donald trump, your strength is your weakness, your weakness is your strength. his weakness is he says outrageous things and will never back down or apologize, and that's his strength, because people say, they want change and things shook up and that done on my behalf. >> every fight he had was with the establishment. everything he said, as gross as it was, no matter what it was, no matter what you thought of what he said, it also said, subtext, i'm not one of them. >> and therefore, i'm a change agent. >> heidi, the issue here with that tape, we all thought would be about women, how there would be -- i thought a lot of women must have, because the women vote wasn't that bad for him,

compared to everything -- sort of a standard women vote. less than a majority for the republican. it seemed like he benefited and women weren't as outraged as people were attracted by his insolence. >> we all went back to our partisan corners. but let's also point out that there was a significant gender gap here. and for the first time, the democrat -- in a long time, the democrats took married woman. so i don't think we can completely dismiss this and say that women decided at the end of the day that this was all okay. i think this would have been a mortal wound, and it definitely was going into that final debate in las vegas, it was very grim. i saw no surrogates on my plane flying out there, other than jeff sessions. so i think that had the fbi not jumped back the and shook things up a little bit, and some other intervening factors, that this may have really been a mortal wound. but i think it's also a little depressing for some women, who did kind of put things on -- their reputations on the line, in coming out in terms of what the lesson is, because of the

blowback -- >> he hasn't settled that stuff yet. >> can i say, it's depressing for everybody. it's not just for women. it's depressing for everybody that he was able to use these things in the way that susan said, to show in an odd, upsidedown way, his insolent bravery. >> and the gender gap this year, 11 points, that's not a record. that only matches the record from 1996, which was a bob dole and bill clinton and can you imagine that donald trump did as well as bob dole did among women? >> and for me, i think it still boils down to the fact that people in the media and the political class continue to look at this election through conventional lenses. and they looked at -- >> excuse me for living. >> i know, i know. but here it is, with the egg on your face, after this guy has weathered all these storms, it really goes to what you were saying, idheidi. at the end of the day, people were looking at this and maybe put off, but also attracted at

the same time. >> i think we're taken with the exclamation point when something happens. oh, my god, he did that. we read the headlines, the big paper in the news, oh, my god, oh, my god. and people out there go, huh, they're making a big deal about this. let me think about it myself. >> the thing we have to keep coming back to, as well, in terms of not overanalyzing exactly what happened here with trump's message and trump's voters is that always, always come back to the fact that half of the registered electorate, the voting electorate, chose not to vote. there's been some really compelling journalism out of these milwaukee districts, for example, philly districts, of these voters who voted in 2012, but were so disheartened by what has or hasn't happened, and didn't feel like this would make that big of a difference in their lives and stay home. >> i have an obvious point to make, first woman nominee for president, and it didn't work in her favor, in terms of consolidating the votes of women. >> i was also going to say that donald trump may have, in an odd way, also meat politics so

distasteful, dragged it down so far, it depressed the vote of everybody but his firmest allies. >> the panel's sticking with us, and up next, donald trump's angry rhetoric on race. from day one of his campaign, he painted ethnic groups with a broad brush, using racial language and imageries. he called mexicans rapist, and that kind of talk would have destroyed any other politician, but not in this case, trump. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

welcome back to "hardball." well, recognizing an opportunity, every savvy businessman burst on to the political scene by warmly embracing the birther movement, calling into question president barack obama's nationality. >> why doesn't he show his birth certificate? you know what, we wish he would? because i think it's a terrible pale that's hanging over him. >> nobody ever comes forward or knows who he is until later in his life.

it's very strange. >> he may have one, but there's something on that birth certificate, maybe religion, maybe it says he's a muslim, i don't know. i have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding it. >> you have people now down there searching -- i mean, in hawaii? >> absolutely. and they cannot believe what they're finding. >> i still would like to see his college records. a couple of things. trump comes along and said birth certificate. he gave a birth certificate. whether or not that was a real certificate, because a lot of people question it, i certainly question it. >> outrageous. anyway, questioning president obama's birth certificate provided trump with the foundation upon which he built his 2016 campaign. so it's not entirely surprising that he declared his candidacy by attacking an entire nationality. here he goes. >> when mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. they're not sending you. they're not sending you. they're sending people that have lots of problems. and they're bringing those people with us.

they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, i assume, are good people. >> well, accusations plagued his campaign to the bitter end, of course. and for more on how trump demolished political norms with discussing race in america, i'm back with our panel. michael steele, msnbc political analyst, susan page with "usa today," heidi przybyla also with "usa today," and howard fineman. let's go over this thing. the racist thing jumped out at me. what is that based on? >> it's based on bonds that had been committed by illegals here in the united states, over a period of time. so you take one or two instances and kind of glom them together and it becomes a pejorative representation of everybody. so trump has this unique way of taking language and sort of exploding it up. so, you know, you can do one thing, but then all women, all

right? you can say one thing, and it's like, well, i've been hearing from a lot of people. so that kind of political rhetoric worked very effectively for him. and he was able to -- because he could always, as you said in the clips, deflect. he said, i'm not saying, someone else said it. it may have been one guy standing in a corner whispering to himself. >> let's get back to journalism for a second, on one point. he said, let's just fact check this. i've got people out in hawaii, and you won't believe what they're coming up with. then he goes to this manchurian candidate theory, that not only guy snuck in the country, but he assumed a false identity. that he wasn't the guy going through harvard law, he wasn't the guy at columbia, what was that about? that he was some mysterious pretender. well, it was about raising a cloud of dust about barack obama. and not based in fact. and in fact, saying things that were shown to be disproven. things that you could prove were

not true. and these suggestions, maybe his birth certificate said he was a muslim, that wasn't true. nobody knew who he was until he got into high school or college, that's also not true. it's a rhetorical technique and, that is dangerous and that journalists have an obligation to call out. >> you know when you go to a criminal -- i watch them. someone once stole my card and i learned how it was done, you make up completely different stories, that have nothing to do with reality, so the jury thinks there's plausible deniability, what's it called, shadow of a doubt. just make up a story, because that might be true, too. it might be true that he doesn't even exist as barack obama. it works for some people. >> this is bringing back flashbacks to the campaign trail, actually, right after the primaries in new hampshire and bill clinton was telling voters to be careful, because a lot of this is going to happen during this campaign. and it's not about facts anymore, it's simply about

raising the suggestion, putting the suggestion out there and letting it multiply. and we're seeing that not only by trump, but by some of the people who are some of the leading conspiracy theorists, quite frankly, who have now been brought on, like michael flynn. if you look at some of the things he was tweeting just days before the election about hillary clinton and child pornography and money laundering. it's really crazy stuff. >> can i say, we're beating around the bush here a little bit? donald trump goes for the perceived weaknesses of any public figure or anybody that stands in his way. with his voters and with a lot of other people, we need to talk about race, we need to talk about religion, and we need to talk about ethnicity. he was going after the first black president, the first african-american president. he was going after the notion that he was a muslim, which was somehow supposed to be a mark against him, in this society. and he was going against latinos and mexicans in particular. and in this rough market place

of politics, he was willing to go, he was willing to touch buttons that other people have not been willing to do. as a matter of fact, not only gingerly do it, but to do it aggressively. anything that smacked of criticism of him, he brushed off as political correctness. he was attacking the entire culture of the last 20 or 30 years of the supposed consensus that wed, that you don't speak that way about other people. >> to make that point, by the way, like he's the only one ever to shoot the moon. >> yes. >> anyway, in may, donald trump accused a federal judge, curiel, who presided over a class action lawsuit of trump university, he called him incapable of hearing the case fairly because of his mexican heritage. let's watch him here. >> i have had horrible rulings, i've been treated very unfairly by this judge. this judge is of mexican heritage. i'm building a wall, okay? i am going to do very well with

the hispanics. >> if you invoke his race as a reason why he can't -- >> i think that's why he's doing it. >> you talk about building a wall, make the mexicans pay for it, then make the mexican american judge pay for it. saying, he can't give me a fair hearing. >> now they're saying they're going to make mexican restaurants pay for it, because everybody knows they're not paying for that wall. but he crossed over those kind of racial and gender barriers that up until now have been completely off-limits in our civil discourse. >> so why does he get away with it? or did he just do what he wanted to do? >> i think it's enabled a certain segment that we didn't realize, you know, kind of what that -- how large is that segment in our society is. >> you've got 4%. >> i think it's a lot larger than people like to admit. >> the reality of it is, he injected race in a way in which a lot of people said, finally, someone is saying what i'm

thinking. and that may say a lot about how we have not dealt with race in this country. but he understood that well enough to be able to pick that particular scab off the civil rights movement and off a -- >> or immigration, for that matter. and there were legitimate questions about immigration, but he took it in the most extreme fashion. >> he got 29% of the hispanic vote? he got more of the hispanic voters than mitt romney did. >> we'll talk about that over time. when we come back, that is an interesting -- we better know more about the hispanic communities than generalizations. trump's over the top attacks on his opponents are coming up, from petty name calling, like little marco and lyin' ted and crooked hillary to telling ing hillary that she ought to be in jail. trump used degrading personal attacks against opponents. did it work? you tell me. this is "hardball," the plaux. we live in a pick and choose world.

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you have to brand people a certain away when they're your opponents. like jeb bush, we call him low energy. jeb bush is a le-energy person. so low energy that every time you watch him, you fall asleep. you have lyin' ted cruz. that's my nickname, lyin'. i say, lyin'. how would you spell that? lyin' ted. lyin', we call him lyin' ted. little marco, by the way, is a

choke artist. he's l-i-d-d-l-e. don't worry about it, little marco. >> gentleman, you've got to be better than that. >> that is high school and a bad high school. welcome back to "hardball." that is a look back at how donald trump resorted to name calling during the primaries. well, it was clear trump relished hurling insults at his republican opponents, he took a more degrading approach to his campaign against hillary clinton, attacking her ethics, her experience, even her health. >> crooked hillary clinton, oh, she's crooked, folks. crooked as a $3 bill. in fact, she's the most corrupt person will ever to seek the presidency of the united states of america. her international donors control her every move. >> she is a dangerous liar. >> she's the devil. he made a deal with the devil. >> unstable hillary. >> she's really pretty close to unhinged. >> honestly, i don't think she's

all there. >> she also lacks the mental and physical stamina. >> you see all the days off that hillary takes? day off, day off. >> she gives a short speech, then she goes home and goes to sleep and shows up two days later. >> you ever see her 18-minute speech? bomb, bomb, bomb, see ya! >> and then she can't even make it to her car. isn't it tough? i think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. no one is more corrupt than crooked hillary clinton. nobody. >> does this all make you feel good? anyway, we're back with our panel. i'm amazed that looking in the rearview mirror is pretty staggering. anyway, the name calling, is this going to teach our young daughters and grandkids and all, if you want to get ahead, sticks and stones will break their bones. >> well, we actually see signs that kids are learning this lesson, right? we have these scattered incidents, anecdotes about kids being abusive, including in

neighborhoods where you think that wouldn't happen. here's a question in politics, can you put the tooth paste back in the tube. is it going to be possible for someone who follows the traditional rules, the normative rules of courteous behavior and rhetoric? >> let's ask the gentleman from the rnc. is anything going to put this -- because trash talking is working. >> i think it's out. i think you have elections to look forward to in the future, particularly in primary settings, in which candidates take it to another level. i really do. i think that door has kind of opened, simply because it sort of drives people farther into the conversation. they was defining his opponents because he knew that that would resonate with the audience. and that would be something that would stick with them. so no matter what else she said or did after that, they would always look at jeb bush as low-energy. >> we were all amused by this, and frankly we thought, look how off-message he is, look at how off-script he is. can you believe he said that?

and yet at every point, there was a strategic reason why donald trump would want to say look over there. because there was some news stories that weren't very flattering. if we actually got to his taxes, and he's even doing out now, now that he's become president-elect, tweeting about hamilton -- >> we'll get back to that very spoon let me ask howard about what you said earlier. it seems to me everything we've talked about in this program, is designed to show the kinds of things he would point to if he lost. he lost because of the way he treats women, the way he talks about minorities and his opponents. it was unacceptable to the american people. and all of that we were wrong about. >> if such votes is history made. i mean, it is what it is. he won, as he said. he was asked, i think, after the election if he regretted anything that he had said. he said, no. i won. to him, that's the only reason, the only rationale, the only justification. i would say, as somebody who's in the digital media, who's in social media, i think the personalization of politics, the

fact that it's gone from programs and agendas, more and more to the personality and the intimate relationship that social media allows between the person, the candidate, and the voter, editing everything else out of the way, chris. when you're talking to donald trump via twitter or facebook, you're talking directly to him. barack obama was the first to use this, with facebook. he had 20 million facebook friends. he used it in what we would generally regard as an uplifting, hope-filled way. that was the good side of the growth of social media. donald trump is the combative side, the side that knows that a car wreck, as it sells on tv, a train wreck, a confrontation, a name calling is goung to sell on social media. >> in an unprecedented move last summer, trump also called on russia, which was behind the cyberattacks on political organizations in this country, to find hillary clinton's e-mails. let's watch him. >> i will tell you this, russia,

if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. >> there's another no-no. making a coalition with a government that for years was -- not the government, but a nation that was our enemy in the cold war, but going against a rival in the world, as your ally. >> you know, i have a different interpretation of that. i kind of get some of his c sarcasm than anything. >> did the russians hear it that way? >> probably. i think he meant that more as sarcasm. but of course, it was not played out that way. that's the thing about trump. you know, he's like, all right, fine, if the russians are doing this, hey, guys, while you're in there, find these e-mails and push them over. >> and he was pushing on an open door as far as russia is concerned. >> chris, you and i and maybe michael, certainly not the ladies here, grew up in the era

of the cold war, when russia was the number one enemy. a whole generation of people have grown up without that in their thinking. trump was very secluhrewd to pun that. >> but the critical world in that statement was not "russia," the critical world was "e-mail." anytime he could talk about hillary clinton's e-mails was a bad day -- >> i understand that. if he wouldn't have been so light-handed talking about e-mails. >> some day somebody will have to explain to me why e-mail was a killer for hillary. i have never gotten the evil of that word. it's not the worst thing that's ever been done in american history and it's treated like that. up next, she's secretive. can we stipulate that, hillary is secretive. the moment trump says "women who have abortions," when he said they should be punished. you're watching "hardball," the

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i'm richard lui with your hour's top stories. nbc news confirming donald trump has appointed k.t. mcfarland to be national security adviser. and dan is advising the transition effort. and green party nominee jill stein officially submitting a petition seeking a recount in wisconsin. she'll also be seeking potentially recounts in michigan and pennsylvania. for now, back to "hardball." >> welcome back to "hardball." one of the more memorable moments for our "hardball" college tour, some might call it a highlight of the campaign, or a lowlight, was an interview i did with donald trump in green bay, wisconsin, a few days before the state's republican primary. it came after a question i asked trump about the issue of abortion. >> should the woman be punished

for having an abortion. >> look. >> this is not something you can dodge. if you say abortion is a crime or abortion is murder, you have to deal with it, under the law. should abortion be punished? >> well, people in certain parts of the republican party and conservative republicans would say, yes, they should be punished. >> how about you? >> i would say it's a very serious problem. and it's a problem that we have to decide on. it's very -- >> but you're for banning it. >> well, wait, are you going to say, put them in jail? >> i'm asking you. you say you want to ban it. what's that mean? >> i am against -- i am pro-life, yes. >> how do you ban abortion? how do you actually do it? >> you'll go back to a position like they had, where people will perhaps go to illegal places -- >> yeah! >> but you have to ban it. >> do you believe in punishment for abortion? yes or no, as a principle? >> the answer is that there has to be some form of punishment. >> for the woman? >> yeah. there has to be some form. >> ten cents, ten years, what? >> i don't know.

>> why not? >> i don't know. >> you take positions on everything else. >> i do. >> what about the guy that got her pregnant. is he responsible under the law for abortions? or is he not responsible? >> it has different feelings, different people. i would say no. >> he did have an answer on that, didn't he? >> we've heard him figuring out his position on abortion while you were talking to him. >> but he had a positn on the man's responsibility rather quickly. that was a much quicker answer. >> that was quicker on whether you should punish -- >> what do you make of that? was he trying to find his way in an uncomfortable, blind way, find his orientation with the pro-life people. they must be for some kind of abortion, punishment. what does that mean zw? >> the giveaway was, there are some inside the gop who would, you know, say, yes, punish the woman. so, once you then begin to probe that, and say, well, what's your position? because you want to ban it, then all of a sudden, to your point, he was like, okay, let me do the math. 1 plus one equals -- and tried to find his way. i thought that was one of the

more profound moments in the campaign for a lot of reasons. because it really was a touchstone inside the gop, for those who do believe that. and they had to reconcile that view with the family members who have a different point of view. but more importantly for trump, i think he realized, these things are complicated. he kept saying it, but i don't think he really appreciated how complicated it really was in that moment, until you pushed him on it. >> i think it's a poignant moment, because i think it's a moment that when trump makes his first supreme court pick, we're going to look back on, because i don't know that trump himself, the way he was flailing around, he didn't want to really say what he personally -- >> what's he mean by pro-life. >> it shows how far he may be willing to go in terms of appealing to that wing of the party. and you see that already in some of his rhetoric, after the election, in that he says that he's okay with the court's decision on gay marriage. separate standard for roe v. wade, should go back to the states. i think women are going to remember that moment -- >> i don't know what he was

thinking when he was sitting there, chris. he was thinking, why did i agree to do this interview? and i think -- not to butter you up anymore than i -- >> don't -- >> now, wait a second, wait a second. that was probably the most sustained questioning on any one point that he got during the entire campaign. so when i say, he was regretting that he sat down for the interview, he managed to avoid that kind of thing, that kind of situation, almost exclusively, and it showed that he hadn't really thought through what he was doing. he was making it up on the spot, right there. >> well, there was another piece of that. >> and he went to the right of most of the pro-life community on that. >> the irony of the whole thing is, and i don't knock the journalists, i'm not a media critic, but i don't dislike him personally. i get along with him personally. so when i was going at him, there wasn't any viciousness about it. i was just trying to get the answer. maybe that's why he was honest.

if he saw the blood coming out of my eyes, he probably would have said, stop this interview. i don't know what he would have said. >> the first part of what you said is why he came on the air. but once he's live on the air, that's different from what a print reporter is going to have a chance to do. >> i know. i've been interviewing him since the 90s, so i've gotten -- it is something else. i think there's an area, where we all know. ask me about the penguins. there's a lot of areas i know nothing about. or even the penguins, i know nothing about. there are areas of vast ignorance, and that was one area where he was vastly ignorant, except for the guy. he knew that part. when we come back, trump's response to terrorism and his promise to ban muslims from entering this country. what -- that was supposed to kill him, that's an area that still scares people to this day. this is "hardball," the place for politics. . it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™,

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for over 100 years like kraft has,natural cheese you learn a lot about how people cook. i wish i had like four different mexican cheeses but in one super melty cheese. it does exist! you still have two cheese wishes left. we're back. in response to a terror attack in san bernardino, california, last december, trump made what is considered one of the most controversial statements and policy proposals of the 2016 campaign. an announcement that continues to haunt him and his detractors alike. a ban on muslims entering the united states. >> donald j. trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states, until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. >> heidi, let me ask you about

that. i think there's still a live concern to a lot of americans, there's going to be some sort of religious test on coming in the country, even if it's based on geography, there's still going to end up being islamic people. there are a lot of islamic americans who are quite rightfully scared about that. >> when he said that, the first reaction would be, well, that would be unconstitutional by the elite, i guess that would be us, or anyone who's floor, frankly, with the constitution. but the concept itself of stopping people who may have bad intentions who may be muslim from attacking us, that had broad support, because then you started to read the poll numbers. and then you started to see that it was actually a significant number of republican who is agreed with it. and as he began to caveat it a bit, and now we're at the point where it is just people from certain countries, it's becoming more accepted. >> and now the democrats may pick as their dnc chair keith ellison, a guy whose religious faith is islam. >> and i think that's the point,

counterpoint, in the political word, but i think heidi's really touched on how there are two evolutions that have occurred here. one is among the american people, themselves, who in polls near the end of the campaign showed some 50-some percent thought that islam was incompatible with the values of this country. trump understood that and spoke to it long before that poll resonated, more broadly. but now as he's assuming the reins over the government and getting that daily full-throated briefing on what the real stakes are, you've heard reince recently and others around the campaign sort of back that down. so, yeah, we still want to make sure we protect the borders, but. and that's going to be something he'll have to navigate over the next few months, i think, because the expectation is, you're going to protect us from these attacks. >> the problem is, having dipped into that to fuel his campaign, all right? >> yep. >> having done that, he's going to have trouble putting that back in the bottle, as well. assuming he even wants to.

and we don't know that. and by the way, it's not unconstitutional. there's no constitutional right to emigrate to the united states. but we have an understanding in this country that diversity and is our strength. donald trump has questioned that entire premise. >> this is where trump bragged that if he was elected america would start winning again and that would mean defeating isis although trump attacked hillary clinton's hawkish tendencies when it came to foreign interventions. it was aggressive to say the least. >> i would knock the hell out of the oil areas because they're rich as could be. i would bomb the [ bleep ] out of them. i'd blow up the pipes. i'd blow up the -- i'd blow up every single inch. there would be nothing left. we're going to declare war against isis. we have to wipe out isis. >> with troops on the ground? >> i'm going to -- very few troops on the ground.

we're going to have unbelievable intelligence, which we need, which right now we don't have. you have isis cutting off christians' heads, cut off anybody's head, they're drowning them. >> how are we going to take the oil? >> you'd leave a certain group behind and you take various sections where they have the oil. >> that question is very interesting because it's the biggest question in the world. of course, you always want the biggest part of the country, the oil. you protect it stuff to prevent it being bombed. how do you defend a certain portion of syria or iraq with oil? how do you do that? >> he has a secret plan. he outlines extremely aggressive steps, i'm going to bomb the hell out of them, without the commitment of u.s. troops. that's the problem that president obama has had trying to devise a strategy that work. americans are not ready for a

big deployment of troops. >> is he a hawk or a dove? >> is he a hawk or a dove? >> we don't know. >> he has everybody to hawks like john bolton and rudy giuliani. >> you have to read "the art of the deal," chris. he's not anything in particular. he's strictly transactional. >> iraq was a bad deal. >> the iran deal wasn't a good deal. >> but we're getting these retroactively. when we went into iraq he didn't say anything against that. >> deal with the bad deals that have already been done and come up with some deals of his own. >> his whole philosophy is keep your options open. >> i have a minute left. one big philosophical challenge to all of you. if you basically tell islamic people that their religion is questionable and they shouldn't let their relatives come into the country, how do you expect them to rat out the cousin that's causing trouble? because trump is saying somebody

should have dropped the dime on those people out in san bernardino because they were very suspicious out there. who will drop the dime on somebody living next door if they themselves feel under soug assault? >> that will be very hard to do. why should she hold an allegiance to the values we have if the american government is taking that attitude to them. >> i grew up in the country that has the highest concentration of muslims, just outside of detroit in dearborn. and they were the first person to have their american flags outside their restaurants, their gas stations. in part because of patriotism and because they were scared of exactly this type of scenario. a lot of them are my friends, my friends on facebook, my friends from high school. and they're deeply, deeply distraught. i know muslim people who are legitimately wanting to move to canada. it's not that hard because of that population. >> i wouldn't limit it to that. i wouldn't end here on muslims. i would say that every american

has an obligation, including donald trump, to understand and appreciate the virtues of diversity and tolerance in the country. however he ran, i think he has to do that now for the good of the country. and by the way, if there's a muslim registry, i'm signing up. >> i did this show in the spirit of black humor like this is really gallo's humor, but there's a lot of information that we're getting that makes you shaking. we're back with final thoughts about where we're headed from here.

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unsettling. in fact, weirdly almost comic in its absurdity. michael, susan, heidi and howard, all of you -- i'll start with michael. how did it happen? considered off base, out of line, wrong. >> the first time in the longest time the american people said to political establishment and the media, we got this. we'll decide this election, not you. they wanted a nuclear option in this campaign and they got it in donald trump. >> and half the people disagree. >> yeah. >> i don't think this is what elected him, he got elected because the number one reason people gave in exit polls for voting for a candidate was ability to bring about change. and the voters who said i want change vote for him 6-1 s you don't think it was the way he said change. >> when you talk about the

voters that we didn't think he was going to get that he got, it was the change message. it wasn't all of this. >> a hail mary for change combined with the fact that the democrats have failed to hold on to those white working class voters who were so strongly behind bill clinton. i don't know how many times i went out into the field and talked to people who had voted for bill clinton, a guy in coal country who used to have a job in a mill on the back of a porch now cleaning houses. because of people like him who felt they'd been abandoned by the democrats and hillary clinton was trying to build on and she wasn't completely genuine about completelying the parts of bill's agenda like nafta that hurt them. >> in kentucky my years there, i wasn't surprised that donald trump won. what i'll say is the conversation that is the country, the argument that is the country goes on and it will continue. as barack obama said, hey, you know, this is an ongoing conversation here. progress is made in zigzag, not

in a straight line. there may be some good things and strong issues that donald trump puts on the table that do need to be discussed. let's hope they can be discussed civilly in his administration. >> thank you, michael steele, judy paige. i'll be back at 7:00 eastern with another edition of "hardball." see you then. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. >> a special response team overcomes an apparent act of sabotage on a fight call. >> there was so much water and soap othe floor. it was meant for us to slip and slide on. >> a female inmate is accused of misconduct. >> if you're standing here and accusing me of stealing, give me a lie detector test. i will pass it.