good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. donald trump was down, he knew he could rally his base by saying or tweeting something provocative, something many in crazy. well, the campaign is over but president-elect donald trump pattern. since winning he's attacked the said millions of people illegally voted. today we awoke to a new tweet. trump wrote, nobody should beequ citizenship or a year in jail. well, to repeat trump's earlier declaration of another matter, there needs to be some form of punishment. his story about military veterans protesting a flag being burnt on the campus of hampshire college in massachusetts. they recently said burning a flag is protected by the first amendment.

their right to do it. would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the american flag. here's mitch mcconnell. >> if someone wanted to show their first amendment right, i safety, but we'll protect our first amendment. it, as we've said, but you believe it's protected by the first amendment. said. activity is a first amendment protected right, a form of unpleasant speech, and in this of protecting rights of speech.

>> michael steele is the former chairman of the republican national committee and an msnbc political analyst. and eli stokels is national reporter for politico. gentlemen, it's great to have you on. this morning glory of trump's this morning? tactic. he's got two serious problems have this ridiculous claim without any evidence whatsoever, and contrary to what everyone knows, that millions of people voted against him. so here is two problems. the president who did worse in the popular vote. this is a man who wants to talk about his mandate to do all these great things, but a majority of the american people voted against him by millions. sees trying to discredit that by this phony argument. the other problem he has is this. isn't going to be able to keep. he's not going to be able to

build a wall. is contrary to what he wants to do. you want to help stand up to big business, but you don't abolish the consumer financial give tax rates to very wealthy people disproportionately. so what you have here, he's got attention away from the fact that he is a minority president, almost an accidental president, lot of things that go against what he said. burning is a serious american to change the subject from his inability, i believe, to deliver on his promises. first question. does anybody believe you can, under any constitution, reading of the constitution, any supreme court we can imagine having, and having a statute agreed to by the court that you can be punished for flag burning?

>> no. i'm sorry, congressman. >> i just don't, by any reading or interpretation by the court, whether you're talking about language they've drawn not long ago -- >> hillary supported this a while ago. but it's free speech, it is protected speech. it has not been corded off like some other speech has, like you can't go into a theater and yell fire. that has potential to harm other visitors. individual who is making a protest. the court recognizes that and protects it. donald trump with a little too much here. of grand plan to divert -- >> what is it? >> i think he got up and he saw this story about the burning of and it annoyed him. and he just tweeted out, anybody who does that, by god, they should go to jail.

viscerally and that's going to be the solving of problems. >> this wasn't somebody at west someone at hampshire college, an edgy college that's a bit to the kind of behavior wasn't considered offbeat or even out of line at a place like that. it was considered a righteous statement of indignation they didn't like the result of and they have the right to do that. reaction by trump to see on fox news because it's going to rile up conservatives who don't like to see that. he's done this so many times, and understands when he comes no constitutional expert, but amendment, it's the 14th amendment. citizenship and saying this is

over the line -- he's driving that wedge. he's saying to people who don't like seeing a flag burn, i'm with you. somehow seeming like they're defending flag burning when actually they're defending the constitution. that you can't outlaw flag burning and you can't strip someone of their citizenship under the 14th amendment. if you were born here, you're a citizen here. newt gingrich said the other day that i thought was pretty smart going to chase the rabbit, i'll pick the rabbit. they'll chase it. this is an example. >> you get up in the morning and let's not continue to underestimate this man's shrewd

people, and he's clearly got he didn't just talk about this, that there was voter fraud. when he starts proposing very controversial things, the fact minority president we've ever to be a problem. this is, i think, part of a calculated strategy. i do think it is interesting that he, as you noted, scalia wrote the opinion and was very this, and he cited scalia as his favorite justice. pronunciation problem there. scalia was actually the advocate of fag burning, not flag burning, and i think that's where he got himself a little bit confused. let me go to this thing here about trump and his ability to keep contact with his people. i have a theory that he gets up every morning with sweat.

he feels like he's lost his audience overnight. even when he was doing well in doing terribly, when his numbers were dropping and they were teleprompter and said, no, i want this audience to react i want to know they're there. connect with people out there. and does he it every day, >> you see him retweeting supporters, just regular people who are tweeting to him about how great he is or how the media is terrible. members of the media by name just by retweeting things his supporters are sending to him. >> back to you, congressman, when you say i know the people concern about illegal immigration. immigration in any country, and it makes sense everywhere else in the world. but this idea that 3 million people somehow got the ability states like new hampshire where

there aren't many mexican americans, or mexican immigrants, there aren't that some, and somehow they all got the license from democrats to vote, and nobody noticed it? nobody noticed those 700,000 americans voting in new hampshire? why must all right wing people believe this nonsense? >> you know how those shifty democrats are, they just kind of work the angles. nobody noticed it on election day? works the angles. he works his angles with his base all the time. this is a continuing of a narrative that says -- you're logically, you won, why are you having this fight? the arguments he wants to make downstream. to barney's point, that's the shrewdness of what he does. not only does he -- >> is it illogical? also provides the holes.

>> what is this 3 million people voting illegally? i'm sure there is some illegal somebody who wants to be an who really, really wants to vote votes on occasion. but the idea of 3 million people, the hillary surplus, if you will, over him? everybody who has looked at this seriously understands these by the way, there wasn't a pattern in which that would have meant more votes not just for hillary clinton or other candidates who didn't do as well. claiming to be the tribune of the people obviously is unhappy percentage of the two-party her votes. him. to back down on expelling 13 million people, on building the

wall, on doing waterboarding. i have seen more -- he could have powered a state with the rotations of his back-pedaling. this is not accidental. able to give the people, many of the ones who voted for him, what they most wanted, which was the economic situation, the war on and this is a beginning of his effort to divert attention. he'll blame immigrants for illegal voting instead of being able to expel all of them. this is a pattern that he has followed. harder, though, because he's now he'll be the president of the republican senate, and he's scapegoats, but it's going to be hard when you're in total control of the government to >> thank you all for being here. coming up, one thing

democrats and republicans are starting to agree on is russia's role in the 2016 election campaign. sides of the aisle are calling for an investigation into it had on the presidential race. member of the senate foreign relations committee about that. and this is "hardball," a place for politics.

welcome back to "hardball." during the election, trump promised to favorably make ties with russia. could get along with russia and what, are we crazy? they say donald trump loves putin. i don't love, i don't hate. we'll see how it works. we'll see. with vladimir putin.

if we could get russia to help us get rid of isis, if we could actually be friendly with russia, wouldn't that be a good thing? security agencies suspected and russia, vladimir putin himself, of a cyber attack in undermining u.s. democracy. in october they formally accused the "washington post" reported russia helped spread fake news in order to dash the votes of hillary clinton. they said she was taking a drug for fatigue, and that the turkish troops in a coup. some of these stories were read more now by malcolm nance and

author of "the plot to hack malcolm, give us a sense. dnc material and the democratic world to bury people, don brazil and stuff like that. tell us about this mischief attempt to create propaganda that gets into the hearts and >> it's been very well documented over the last three has -- and we've always known this, because as you said a little earlier, people running around chasing the kgb and the soviet union, the country may have changed its political leadership, but they have not changed their propaganda and intelligence operations and they applaud every aspect of including highly

detailed using sputnik, russia today, and the "new york times" saw them operating who created thousands of pro-trump organizations and twitter feeds and facebook feeds massive scale. where they penetrated into the mainstream press here, they've gotten into one of the major into quality newspapers? which we do, i know the right doesn't, but i trust. into real journalism here? >> i personally can't attest to them breaking into the mainstream media, but what i can attest to is they broke through the entirety of the alternative media world that guided all of the trump campaign, tweets

coming from donald trump and tweets going through their pro-trump organizations. russia practically ran that. i myself have been attacked by pro-trump trolls and featured in sputnik once it came out that we operation. to diminish the worldwide respect for our democracy? >> i would like to think an led by a former kgb officer and director of the fsb would only want to create mischief and mayhem in the united states electoral system. deliberate, an organizational operation like this would have taken hundreds of operators who would have had to have watched carefully the machinery of the minute-to-minute basis with were

-- and obviously they only favored one candidate -- and that candidate was elected. democratic national committee and embarrassing people with all those e-mails. the republican national committee at all. >> no, not at all. hacks that occurred, as we understand it, was lindsey graham, an adamant opponent against russia and the ukraine, john mccain and colin powell. colin powell, who would have been the most noteworthy of the conservatives who would have endorsed hillary clinton, and mid-september. they got away with everything. >> i love your reporting. thank you very much, malcolm. we're now joined by democratic senator chris murphy. senator murphy, thank you. another show. we like that here as often as

possible. what can the senate do in a bipartisan fashion to really do kind of a fullbat the russians attempted to do, what they got away with, and the consequences of their nasty or mischievous work in this country? we can do. bipartisan investigation, and we can do it right now. trump is inaugerated. we can start that investigation, begin to collect the information record to have open hearings talking about what the russians election. mainstream media, but the fact they clearly penetrated that >> thank you, senator chris murphy. trump watch for this tuesday night, three weeks after the election. for politics.

trump watch, tuesday, i noticed during the campaign that mr. trump couldn't give up the stuff he did in front of crowds, even when the people out those lines, to quit the shots at opponents, he wouldn't, he couldn't, needing to know he had direct contact with the in the audience in front of him or those watching on television. what trump fears most, what all people did this public, was flop sweat, that feeling that you've lost the audience and they're not excited by your every word. today donald trump rose and said, nobody should be allowed to burn the american flag. if they do, there should be consequences, perhaps a loss of what was this about? once again trump had, in newt gingrich's word, given us in the media a rabbit to chase.

but what is trump himself chasing? of national attention, or is it what got him to victory in this campaign? is, another declaration in realtime that he's not one of "them." governing, unclear. in trump's mind is the name of his game. that's "hardball." join us tomorrow evening at 7:00 eastern. see you then.

>> tonight on "all in" -- >> you cannot let people die on very republican thing to say. >> donald trump's latest cabinet over obamacare and medicare. battle lines for what could be the first big fight for the trump white house. then, from his newly announced victory rallies to lashing out at reporters to threatening to revoke the citizenship of protesters, he's already abandoning efforts to unite the nation. bind the wounds of division. >> plus new concerns over sheriff david clark's place in trump's cabinet. then previewing tomorrow's big vote on democratic leadership. find common ground but to stand r