stein, but it was delayed after a challenge from president-elect donald trump. that does it for us this month. kasie, you're back with us tomorrow, right? >> tomorrow and wednesday. >> great, good to have you with us. for lewis, i'm ali velshi. "morning joe" starts right now. >> kellyanne, i just retweeted the best tweet. i mean, what a great, smart tweet. >> mr. trump, we're in a security briefing. >> i know. this could not wait. it was from a young man named seth. he's 16. he's in high school. and i really did retweet him. seriously. this is real. >> there is a reason that donald tweets so much. he does it to distract the media from his business conflicts and other very scary people in his cabinet. >> oh. that does make sense. >> very clever, sir.

>> that's not why i do it. i do it because my brain is bad. >> the way i see the tweets you're talking about, he's basically giving voice to a lot of people who have felt that they were voiceless. he's communicating with people in this country who felt like they have not been listene to. that's what's going to matter at the end of the day. did we improve people's lives? did we solve the problems the american people need solved? are we addressing the concerns of people who are tired of being tired and who cares what he tweeted on some thursday night if we fix the big problems. that's the way i look at this. >> good monday morning to you. it's monday, december 5th. >> we're getting into the holiday season. >> counting down to christmas. for christmas we have a huge story in europe. >> whoa. >> here we go. brexit, brexit.

>> another italy. i retweeted when you talked about austria that was seen as a positive for the eu. italy last night. boom. the hammer comes down. the international community is reverberating with that and then donald trump tweets on china. it's called disruption. >> it is. we have bill neely coming up. we'll start with who we have on set. managing editor of bloomberg politics mark halperin. msnbc analyst and professor at the university of michigan public school of policy harold ford jr. >> secretary of what? secretary in waiting. >> we didn't make it. >> did that happen? >> i'm disappointed. >> as you saw, we have the president on the council of foreign relations richard haass. >> we have cabinet members in

waiting. >> author of the forthcoming book, "a word in disarray." >> what's remarkable is i gave this to my kids this summer. jack. summer reading. what's remarkable is it was written post-brexit and predicted everything that is happening right now pretty remarkably. it is a world in disarray. >> also with us from outside boston, columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius joins us this morning. great morning to have everybody on here. >> david, we're sorry we were -- we wanted to get you on because we thought there might be something to talk about in the foreign policy realm. instead we're just going to talk football. >> it's nice to be here in mike barnicle country. >> yes, you are. >> we'll start with this. president-elect donald trump took an aggressive approach toward china last night as he

pushed back over his complaint with the conversation of the president of taiwan. on friday trump became the first american leader to speak directly with taiwan's government since the u.s. began formal relations with china in 1979 creating speculation over whether trump will stick with the one china policy continued under the last six presidents. last night on twitter trump responded to the uproar saying he does not need permission to speak with taiwan. "did china after us if it was okay to devalue their currency making it hard for our companies to compete? heavy tax on our products going into their country. the u.s. doesn't tax them or to build massive military complex in the middle of the south china sea? i don't think so. "the washington post" is citing unanimous sources who claim the call was trstrategic saying it s months of deliberations among

trump's adviser about a new strategy of engagement with taiwan. >> mark halperin, what's the reaction? what do you think the political fallout will be? what's your take on what he did? >> there's a quality to how they're dealing with everything vetting foreign policy, everything. that's dangerous. i see why people are unsettled. i agree with "the wall street journal" editorial. we've not had leverage over china for a long time. this is easy leverage. this shows in some areas he doesn't plan to be an inbox foreign policy president. he wants to try to change the board and to get leverage over countries that a lot of areas we don't have leverage. i think people who are unsettled by it better get used to it. it's the way it's going to be. >> he will be a disrupter.

you were with me when we voted on whether to pass mfn for china. they're going to have to stop selling intellectual property and other things. long story short. they would do nothing. the record would be worse every year. we would have the debate again and we had no leverage over them because we wanted to get into their market so badly. it was one of the things that nancy pelosi and i agree on but it was so frustrating. we never held them to account. i'm not saying this is the way to do it. we have policy experts here that we'll get to in a second who i suspect will be very troubled by this. i can tell you at least where i sat in congress and where millions and millions of americans sit out there, a lot of people are saying, you know what, pushing back a little bit on china not the worst thing for an american leader to finally do. >> it's what voters found app l

appealing about him. you described a subset frame as well as any could. the art of the deal if you read the book, this is what he does. he tries to find leverage points and found them with some great success and sometimes not great success but majority successful in his business life. he's doing it here. almost like criticism we saw last week around the carrier deal. some of my former colleagues and every democratic friends say it's not a sustainable approach but if you're a hard working american whose job could be shipped overseas and you see the president make a call, they are awakened to the fact that people view washington as standing up for rich, powerful, narrow interests. now they're standing up for every day hard working americans. people will support it whether it's right or not. >> an interesting column about the pressure this is now going to put on a lot of other ceos. mika, it is about leverage.

it's about the art of the deal as far as china goes. we'll hear whether it's a good idea or bad idea from the real experts. think about this. it cost nothing. he took a phone call. and he tweeted last night. and in his mind, i'm sure, he's pushed them back and is showing that he's setting up to a tough negotiation down the road on all the things he talked about during the idea. good idea? bad idea? we'll see. >> the only thing that is really curious and possibly even troubling to me, richard, is that mike pence even said this had no deeper meaning. those who say this was a long-term strategy that was really thought out even before the campaign is not true. it's just a phone call. there's a little bit of a lurchy quality here i would think would make folks in the foreign policy a little concerned. at what point is a tweet going to be real damaging or a phone

call the wrong call to make? >> this is allowed the united states and china to deal with all else with establishing an economic relationship to potentially dealing with north korea to global issues like climate change. the question you have to ask yourself is does this give us leverage or rather is taiwan the one place you don't want to potentially have a confrontation with china given the geography and everything else. >> what's your answer to that? >> my answer would be no. this is not the place you want to have an issue with china. this deals with the unity of the country. you also have to look at the geography and look at the military situation and everything else we've got going on. >> let's talk about how china responded to it. it seemed the foreign minister was trying to push it away from trump and said this is a cheap trick on the part of the taiwanese. >> i was just in china last week. the chinese very much want to

have a good relationship with the united states. they want to get off on the right foot. so that's why they put this on taiwan. but then when mr. trump followed up with the tweet, that made it seem less about taiwan and a new signal that there's a new sheriff in town and there's a new policy and mixed signals coming out of the transition. my hunch is chinese now are trying to figure out what it is and we have to be careful that they don't retaliate in ways against taiwan. taiwan is economically overwhelmingly dependent on their ability to export to china. suddenly china shuts down those exports and it will hurt taiwan a lot more than it will hurt china. do we want this to be the opening chapter in a new relationship with china? >> david ignatius, james fallows said it would be hard to overstate the big headed nature of accepting this phone call.

would you agree with james as well as richard haass that this is a phone call that should not have been taken? >> i think it shouldn't have been taken without a careful strategy for what to do with the knock on effects. what trump did in engaging directly with taiwanese president was to go at the law of the providence for the u.s./china relationship. the understanding about taiwan goes back to the 1972 communique that nixon and kissinger negotiated. everything is built on this idea that there's one china and we're not fundamentally going to challenge that. trump has put that in play. if it's all about leverage and bargaining, you can argue getting an extra source of leverage is sensible. as richard said, there are so many things the chinese could do that would -- back in 1969

there's a mad man theory of how history works and sometimes you just have to be the mad man and he was claiming that north korea would see how crazy and erratic and volatile nixon was and would make concessions they wouldn't otherwise. i sometimes think trump with his impulsive statements, he's crazy like a fox and would think he'll get new concessions. this wasn't the area to play with that idea. it's too delicate. >> play the man mad you're saying at times when it helps you. it never hurts in they think you're crazy but not here. >> not on this one. i think trump by doing the unconventional, trump gained himself leverage. carrier may be a good example. but going after the shanghai

communique and the basis of stable u.s./china relations i wouldn't think is wise unless you had a deep plan for what to do next and next and next. >> and monday morning may not be the time to pick a fight with two people who know as much as richard and david do but "the wall street journal" editorial captured it perfectly. for a lot of americans letting china continue to do what it's been doing is not the right way to proceed. donald trump put china at the center of his campaign. while there are risks to this and it goes after something established, there's no cost to americans. americans don't see cost in accepting the call. if it unsettles the chinese, american say go ahead. >> you want to play in a situation where you're prepared to escalate more than the other guy. for china, this goes to the core of their national identity. they're going to be willing to take anything to do with taiwan much farther than the united

states. secondly, if we get off on a thing about taiwan, this then makes it impossible to move ahead on the rest of the relation. we have to ask ourselves, foreign policy strategy is about priorities. is it our priority to have a showdown over taiwan or i would say why isn't our priority to have a showdown over north korea. >> this isn't about taiwan. >> once you set it in motion, you can't control the dynamic. we ought to be setting things up to make sure that north korea could not have nuclear weapons on missiles that can reach the united states during mr. trump's administration. >> i'm just saying -- >> this is not likely to be the way to get their help. >> i'm just saying in my negotiations a lot of times i find the one thing that the other person wants that i have absolutely no interest in and that's what i walk in saying. that's what i want. i'm not going to walk out of here until you give me that. and then they don't realize that actually all they want is money. and so in the end they flip it

and you get money. i'm not saying -- i understand exactly what you're saying. i understand that this does go back to 1972 and a lot of work that dr. brzezinski did in 1978 and 1979. i understand that concern. i don't think he gives a damn about taiwan. i think he does care about north korea. we'll find out. we'll find out whether he has a sense, you have a sense being in china over the past week that the chinese really want a good relationship with us. >> david ignatius, richard said that china could retaliate by limiting exports to china. what other retaliation could there be? what other retaliation could we suffer because of mr. trump's phone call? >> well, certainly the chinese would want to demonstrate their ability to control the military situation on the taiwan strait

and then decide what military asset we move in to show our resolve. those are the situations where you get accidents, unexpected developments. i think in terms of what richard was talking about, we have all been saying that our priority for the next president is to deal with this threat of a north korea that could soon deliver a nuclear weapon onto u.s. soil. that was job one. every sensible republican and democratic strategist was adpreagreed on that. it was seen that a key, a pathway to that was to get chinese cooperation. the problem is that the chinese have to appear to back down and lose face to be helpful to the united states on north korea, that's not good. >> all right. let's go to europe now. italian prime minister renzi announced his resignation after voters rejected a constitutional referendum he was backing that would have drastically shifted the balance of power from parliament to the executive

branch but was widely seen as a vote on renzi's policies compared to the poll list trend moving across europe. meanwhile, in austria, a liberal who ran on a pro-eu platform defeated right wing populist in that country's presidential election. the election was a redo of sorts. van der bellen won in may but they claimed widespread irregulari irregularities. >> this is the second time the party in austria who feared the most have lost. it looks like austria is firmly committed to immigration with the eu. your take on italy? another self-inflicted wound. this didn't have to happen. you say this is just like brexit with the center left pushed a referendum that didn't have to

happen. >> got a lot of his agenda through the parliament without this reform and remember the line the president said, you have to choose fish versus steak. you don't have two choices. you have one choice and people use it as a way to express frustration. >> this another critical blow for the eu? >> it weakens the center. extremists of the left and right. this didn't just lose. this got hammered. it lost 60-40. >> and so when is the french election? >> this spring. german later. >> there's a picture last night that someone was tweeting around. i retweeted it. just from may of 2016, david ignatius, you had barack obama, the leader of france, the leader of germany. the leader of italy. and i forget the fifth leader.

all of them are going to be obsolete within a year unless merkel figures out how to survive. the world has radically changed in the last six months. >> another one bites the dust feeling looking at the array of leaders. renzi was particularly attractive figure of the center left. he was somebody who barack obama saw as the key to a more dynamic europe. obama went out of his way to host renzi when he was in washington a month or so ago. his problem is that he picked a fight without having a real personal power. the constitutional changes here that were rejected by the public honestly they are technical matters that a lot of people think they make basic sense. it wasn't about them. it was about people in italy saying we want change even when our prime minister is a young,

charismatic, forward looking person. that is now in train everywhere. >> it was david cameron who was the fifth. how quickly we forget. >> let's bring in bill kneneely from vienna, austria. what does this mean going forward? >> i think a lot of the european establishment will have had a sleepless night. there was a moment of relief here in vienna when the far right candidate norbert hofer lost the vote to become president to an independent. the main center parties that have governed austria since 1945 weren't even in the final runoff. they can have their sigh of relief. it's still in a sense a bit of a poll list revolution here in austria even though the far right didn't win. talking about italy, that's the more important result.

matteo renzi was the future once. not any more. demolition man. he wanted to kick-start the ailing economy but he was demolished by this referendum and was kicked out of power. not even close. 60-40. this was a howl of anger from italy's population. youth unemployment at 40%. they've had 63 governments in 70 years. in many respects italy is a political basket case. there may be early elections and the five-star movement led by a comedian may do very, very well in those elections. so if europe's establishment had a sleepless night last night, they've got more to come. italy elections probably. france definitely. netherlands, germany. the far right doing well in all those countries.

the populist way we saw with donald trump and brexit still sweeping across the west. >> thank you so much. here's a picture if we can zoom in on this thing. look at that. cameron gone. obama about to go. merkel, we'll see. renzi. >> he's right. italy had over 63 elections. the joke about italy is chronic stability since world war ii. the difference is most of this took place within a very narrow part of the political spectrum. renzi's defeat potentially opens up italy to something much bigger and something much different. >> i guess you would call it more radical left. five-star movement. the mayor of rome. this is extreme populism italy style. this is anti-eu. it's very much again what we're seeing in several other parts of europe. this is europe's fourth largest economy. what happens in italy has consequences for europe.

>> shouldn't southern europe want eu? they're the takers. >> they're the takers. >> at some point i hear all of this hand wringing and i listen to bill, we have to address the unsettled nature of the body politic. something is happening. we can't say we're destroying mainstream europe and hurting america. people are speaking. when people speak, if you subscribe to the business of politics and public service, you have to sit back and say what is it we're not providing? we think we're offering a way for the future but people aren't embracing it. so something we're not doing right. i say that -- i don't mean we around this table but those who share the view that this is not the right approach for europe or not the right approach for america, when will they address what's happening economically to every day hard working global citizens? >> donald trump was elected to disrupt. he was elected to disrupt dome

ci -- domestically and internationally. i suspect there will be several other major disruptions on the foreign policy front coming. they're going to be very, very calculated. >> these aren't disruptions he's causing. something like italy will reach him in his inbox. >> also breaking news as we were coming in. the leader of japan who i guess met with donald trump is going to be the first japanese leader to actually visit pearl harbor. >> it's really important. >> it is important. i suspect they probably discussed that in their meeting. >> we'll look at the widening search for secretary of state and also joining us, senator chris murphy from the foreign relations committee and four-time ambassador christopher hill who spent a lot of time on u.s. policy toward china.

plus, a fake clinton conspiracy story leads to a very real gunman at a d.c. pizzeria. that story is ahead and on tomorrow's show, mike pence joins us. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. they are the natural borns enemy of the way things are.

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until someone else scoops your story. switch to comcast business. with high-speed internet up to 10 gigabits per second. you wouldn't pick a slow race car. then why settle for slow internet? comcast business. built for speed. built for business. so donald trump's search for secretary of state is expanding. advisers said there were only four candidates left with president-elect named five last week on "meet the press." there are some other candidates out there in the running.

also, former ambassador to china and ex-utah governor jon huntsman is also reportedly in the mix. "the new york times" says that even democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia could be under consideration. david petraeus was on the shows yesterday. we'll get to that in a little bit. let's talk, david ignatius. a lot of names out there. i actually of course our "morning joe" official pick is richard haass. he would be a tremendous secretary of state. i don't know. some people have been critical. i'm comforted by the fact that default position was rudy giuliani and he's moved well beyond that. and has expanded this list. what do you see when you look at this list? >> joe, i have the same feeling. if richard refuses this absolutely you have to keep

searching. what's interesting about this list is that they haven't settled on a particular person. i think they were wise to keep looking after giuliani. giuliani just in terms of temperament and various factors didn't seem like a good fit for that. david petraeus in some ways is ideally suited but he has some issues that have got to be resolved. i found interesting not the length of the process, i think it's go ahead to have a careful search. good to cast a wide net. the sniping in public about the names on the list, i can't remember anything quite like that since maybe the days of lyndon johnson where there was -- >> it's really ugly. >> what that tells me, joe, is that when the secretary is finally named, we're likely to see one of those administrations where you get a lot of leaking and kind of backroom brawling that surfaces in leaks to people

like me and things that appear in the press. nigh it's not the best way to conduct foreign policy that may be ahead given the back and forth we see about this pick. >> we know if there are two candidates that are divisive, you have rudy giuliani on one side which the foreign policy establishment and most people would be horrified. he would be a great, i think, dhs secretary, department of homeland security. just great. he's qualified for that. one of the most ill equipped candidates i've seen to be secretary of state for a lot of reasons that would come out during the confirmation hearings. on the other side you have mitt romney and whether it's the measur mercers or all of his right-wing supporters, mitt romney would be a very divisive candidate.

there are so many others now. mitt romney comes and for the good of his country goes through the process and donald trump actually had a great conversation with mitt romney and liked him very much. if he was not facing so much blowback, romney would be secretary of state. he's facing tremendous blowback especially from the people that romney ran against in 2012. >> there's some grassroots opposition as well but voices of huckabee and gingrich have been important. i don't have a good sense of where his head is at. he wants a wow pick. he wants someone who can go to foreign capitals and impress foreign leaders as his representative. i think he wants someone who obviously will be in sync with him. >> he has to choose someone to whom he's joined at the hip. jim baker was the most successful secretary of state over the last couple of decades. no disrespect to others. besides the talents he brought

to the job was the closeness of his relationship with 41. donald trump has to think of someone that's part of a team. >> you're making the argument for rudy giuliani right now? what would you think of secretary giuliani? >> there are other drawbacks not just getting through confirmation but lack of foreign policy experience. >> do you think rudy giuliani would be a good pick or bad pick? good or bad? >> i have questions -- i'm say -- it's not that the only criteria is that you're close to the president. it's necessary but not sufficient. he has to choose someone he's close to. that's not the only consideration but also someone that can bring to the job everything he needs to have a successful secretary of state. >> you are all of our favorite. the names you've heard, do you have a favorite? >> i feel good about senator corker. jon huntsman also has a lot of

experience. >> i had heard last week, david ignatius, jon huntsman's name going around. this guy was actually -- he came out talking positively about donald trump before most of the republican establishment. i was actually surprised how early he came out speaking positively of donald trump. and ambassador to china, this actually -- a guy that would be differential. this would be a very, very fascinating pick. not a lot of enemies here. >> it would be a smart -- huntsman would be a smart pick. i've seen huntsman in action as ambassador of china in our visit there. he was all of the things you would want a diplomat to be. well spoken. thoughtful. funny. in private had a real sense of the chinese and of his assignment. i think the fact that a

relatively moderate republican is on this list -- >> so rex tillerson runs the biggest, well managed oil company in the world. knock like exxon. he follows a chairman who many people in the industry regarded as maybe a notch better as a manager, lee raymond, but tillerson hasn't run the business into the ground. what i found interesting was something is telling the president-elect you need to look at a smart business person. you need to broaden your search. and so this name ended up. you were the first person, joe, to put that out, i think. so it tells us that up in trump power they're having a more wide ranging conversation than people might think about what the country needs.

>> to be intellectually curious here something that donald trump has never been accused of being, comforted by the fact that this is expanding and we're seeing good names. the names are getting stronger by the week. >> another name would be bob gates. >> he was seen going in there. who knows. that would be incredible. >> talk about somebody whoould be a grand slam. if you had bob gates as secretary -- i'm getting chills here. bob gates as secretary of state and general mattis at defense, that would be your strongest defense/state combination in our lifetime. >> there you go. >> wow. >> we got to go. they're yelling at me. david, wouldn't you agree? bob gates at state and you had general mattis at defense, could you think of a better one-two combination in your lifetime at state and defense? >> those two have together just

extraordinary experience. they lived through the cold war. there's nobody who understands how our government national security institutions work better than bob gates. read his memoirs and it's the textbook on how this stuff works. you know, the fact that the president-elect is consulting bob gates asking for advice in itself is a positive factor. >> bob gates served eight presidents. you know general mattis has served eight commander in chiefs. that's extraordinary together. not as good as richard haass. he's like babe ruth. extraordinary. send a message across the world that we mean business. and bob gates, most importantly, your father's favorite employee ever. >> exactly. my father loves bob gates. they're good friends. >> they spoke this summer at the atlantic council and the way he was talking teared up.

it was amazing. >> didn't he win the first award? >> he did. nick burns joins the conversation straight ahead. you totanobody's hurt, new car. but there will still be pain. 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™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

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with us now from boston, former u.s. ambassador nicholas burns professor of diplomacy and international relations at the harvard kennedy school of government. >> good to have you on, mr. ambassador. first of all, some of the latest names for secretary of state. >> richard haass, of course, at the top of our list. >> i think this broadening of the search may pay off for donald trump. if you look at his performance over the weekend with tweets and phone calls, he needs somebody who can center him a little bit and give him sense of calculating the risks of starting the biggest crisis with china in 40 years. so jon huntsman certainly. david petraeus. bob corker. mitt romney. bob gates would be the ideal choice. all of these people would have credibility on center right and some on center left and the other important thing here is

this has to be a national security team. the way we run the government in modern times is the secretary of state and defense and secretary of treasury have to work together every day. i'm a huge admirer of general mattis at defense. if he could get a moderate at secretary of state, the first president in history with no prior public policy and military experience would be grounded a little bit and people could help him to decide how he gets his waye iing crises with nato or the chinese. >> you call the call with the taiwan leader a significant mistake. >> exactly right. because, you know, donald trump is going to be free to change whatever policy he wants to change. but this one china policy goes all of the way back to nixon and kissinger and jimmy carter when we formalized diplomatic

relations. it worked and maintained stability and allowed us to help the taiwanese protect their democracy within taiwan itself. when he made that phone call whether it was inexperience or whether it was calculated, and i think it was probably calculated, you're buying a crisis now with the country that's most important to you on north korea. i think that donald trump has been talking about north korea would agree that's probably the most dangerous problem he's going to encounter as president starting on january 20th. if you need the chinese there, if you need them on climate change, if you need them on stabilizing the global economy, why start your administration with this crisis? i thought it was a big mistake. >> richard, let's talk about the phone calls in general. you had a phone call with a leader of pakistan. a lot of people concerned about that. a phone call to the leader of the philippines. others concerned about that. do you see a problem with a phone call setting in stone u.s. policy or is it just a congratulatory call?

>> phone calls can be great using 41 as your template. he used to dial people all the time. it was a way to invest in relationships for someone in transition or president early in his term it can be great. you never want your first phone call to be a crisis when you need something so using telephone to invest is a great idea. >> look at the pakistani call. you're great leader. great people. despite the fact that donald trump himself has been critical of pakistan in the past. is there a danger with donald trump being donald trump? that's what donald trump does. except he's now schmoozing on an energy level. is there any positive side to that or is it fraught with more danger? >> the positive side with pakistan is they feel resentful of the united states. we shouldn't kid ourselves. pakistan harbors the world's

strongest terrorists and provides sanctuary to the taliban so we need a more conditional relationship with pakistan and we'll have to move there. the question is whether this kind of phone call investing in him personally helps. i'm not so sure. it also makes the indians wonder what's going on and ultimately the indian relationship is a more kwenconsequential one. >> they will have to deal with the career bureaucracies at the pentagon and state department. how have the elections in national security so far been received in the permanent bureaucracy of foreign policy? >> you know, as i talk to people, mark, they're as as astonished with all of us. i want to put this question to nick burns who spent his career in our foreign service and one of the most distinguished products of it. what are former colleagues saying to each other as they

watch this weekend twitter circus about the most delicate respect of u.s./china policies? >> i think they're worried about two things, david. first, most people at state agree and defense as well that this public spectacle of parading candidates before cameras in a reality tv environment is demeaning to them and will discredit some of them eventually and it's not right. secondly, the foreign service and civil service, they'll be 100% loyal to president donald trump. that's what they're trained to do. they also want to be connected. as you know, president trump and his team have not reached out to dod and treasury and taking their intelligence briefings and it's obvious from the phone calls that the right message speaking truth to power bringing up terrorism with pakistanis would have been the way to go. i think they're worried. what i get is that the rank and file want somebody with experience. jon huntsman, david petraeus,

mitt romney. someone like that. not someone so extreme that they're going to put american policy at risk. >> ambassador nicholas burns, thank you so much for being on this morning. still to come, keeping american jobs on american soil. good for carrier and 1,000 employees but is it crony capitalism? "morning joe" is back in a moment. [vo] quickbooks introduces jeanette.

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>> tonight we head to the woods of westchester county to search for the most elusive of all. hillary clinton has recently been cited by a bunch of white people with facebook. >> blonde, about 5'6".

seemed like it wanted time to itself so i immediately started running after it. >> i just want to thank you. >> we decided to check out the spot with michelle had her sighting to see if there was any trace. we decided to lure her to us with the one thing we knew would entice her. an article about the recount in wisconsin. we placed it at the edge of the woods. set up our night vision and waited. the search moves to a shoprite on the hunt for hill. >> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> we were expecting to perform better with suburban women in particular. we saw those numbers a lot stronger than what happened on election day. we do think that was because of the comey letter. we saw a lot of young people go to third party candidates. we think the letter had a lot to do with that as well. there were a number of reasons for this. >> the clinton campaign puts millennials on their long list of who is to blame for what happened on election day. of course, campaigning in the

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>> welcome back to "morning joe." >> let's let this go a little bit. ♪ since we have no place to go, let itsnow, let it snow, let it snow ♪ >> bill karins, are you over there? >> he's busy. >> did he leave? >> i wondering if we could have snow. >> it's going to rain. forecast, rain. all right. there's your forecast. >> it's going to snow. >> it's the top of the hour on this monday, december 5th. with us we have managing editor of bloomberg politics, mark halperin, former congressman harold ford jr. you told us it would rain for a few days. >> not on christmas. >> i hope one day i can run for office again because if i do, you know what i'm talking about, right? you know what i'm talking about. which commercial of yours i'm going to borrow? >> if loving the lord is wrong, i don't want to be right.

>> this is what i'm going to borrow. call me. >> that's terrible. >> richard haass is here. >> the one you talked about earlier that ran against me, the senate committee ran it on his behalf. >> nothing you remember. >> don't remember anything else at all. >> by the way, while we're recruiting richard haass as secretary of state, can i say if you or your loved ones live in new york city, a lot of people are talking about this guy right here as the next mayor. i don't know. >> i kind of like it. >> richard haass for state. harold for transportation. >> harold for mayor of new york city. >> we have a mayor in the city. columnist david ignatius. >> do you want to run for mayor of washington? what do we predict for you? >> i just want to get through

christmas. take care of my three daughters. small ambitions. >> also joining the conversation, former u.s. ambassador christopher hill. the dean of international studies at the university of denver and author of the memoir "outpost, a diplomat at work." >> president-elect donald trump took a controversial approach with china last night. >> on friday trump became the first american leader to speak directly with taiwan's government since the u.s. began formal relations with china back in 1979. creating speculation over whether trump will break with the one china policy continued under the last six presidents. last night on twitter trump responded to the uproar saying he does not need permission to talk with taiwan. "did china ask us if it was okay to devalue their currency making

it hard for our companies to compete? heavily tax our products going into their country? the u.s. doesn't tack them or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the south china sea. i don't think so." "the washington post" citing unanimous sources who claim the call was strategic saying i was the product of months of quiet preparations and deliberations among trump's advisers about a new strategy for engagement with taiwan that began even before he became the republican presidential nominee. but yesterday morning vice president-elect mike pence said there was no deeper meaning. >> this was a courtesy call. the democratically elected president of taiwan called to congratulate the president-elect and as a gracious -- >> nothing new should be read into it? >> i don't think so. >> i think i would say to our counterparts in china that this was a moment of courtesy.

the president-elect talked two weeks ago in the same manner that was not a discussion about policy. >> chris hill, what do you think? >> well, the issue is that for some 38 years we've run china with the following issues. a one china policy which means no official relations with taiwan which means no such courtesy calls and at the same time we've had something called a taiwan relations act which kind of lays out what precisely the relationship with taiwan is including armed sales so frankly when you look around the world at all of the mess going on whether in syria, north korea, one thing that isn't broke that is the way in which we deal with china and taiwan. so, you know, the adage of it ain't broke, don't fix if. i'm not clear why they need to start changing this. i understand things happen. this was -- what he felt was a courtesy call.

i get that. what i worry about is some sort of doubling down and deciding somehow we've got to make some big time change in a policy that has served our interest very well for almost 40 years. >> richard haass, i completely understand that. playing devil's advocate because after he took the phone call, there were conservatives and others that said, wait a second, you gave him $2 billion last year in military equipment. you can do that but you can't take a phone call? explain to americans that don't understand this sort of careful dance we've been making between the mainland and taiwan and the united states over the past 38 years. >> it's been a careful dance. we're able to provide help for taiwan and china knows they could never use military force to reunify china. >> you understand how silly that sounds to some americans that we'll sell taiwan $2 billion worth of military equipment to

defend against china but donald trump can't take a phone call as well. you know a guy in scranton, pennsylvania, is saying it doesn't make sense. >> the answer is it may sound silly. it's a game of symbols. taiwan doesn't do certain things. doesn't become an independent country for example. they understand they can't declare independence and take unilateral actions to change the status quo. china understands it can't take unilateral actions to change the status quo. taiwan has thrived. its economy is booming. it has a democracy. the best way to ultimately influence the political evolution of china is for taiwan to continue to thrive. be an example of open politics and successful market economics. that's more of a threat to china

than anything else. >> david, explain again following up on my question to richard. explain why this is so vitally important to the chinese? >> this is the rock on which the u.s. china relationship was built. the issue that henry kissinger and richard nixon had to spend the most time convincing the chinese that we did not threaten their fundamental interest. the thing that worries me about this weekend, that's take mike pence that it was just a phone call, not a big deal. trump followed it up when he was criticized by the sharp tweets that went to the max accusing china of being a currency manipulator, accusing china of militarizing the south china sea and going all of the way to the big issues. and i think we saw something important about trump that when he's cornered, he can be impulsive. i'll bet every world leader around the globe looked at this

and drew lessons from it. it's the follow on more important to me than the phone call itself. >> can we get someone on the show that agrees with me on this? anybody? i look at the relationships with the chinese since we put this bedrock down and i see chinese ripping us off and manipulating us and doing whatever they want all over the world on climate, on north korea. >> it's actually that scene where the british prime minister says there's a lot of taking and not a lot of giving whether you talk about climate change or currency manipulation or whether you talk about -- military expansion in the region if you want to talk about them stealing our intellectual secrets and all of the things we debated and had nancy pelosi and me on the same side year after year after year after year fighting against extending mfn until they made reforms.

>> trump did it not announce a change in policy. he took a call that unsettled the chinese and now when he negotiates with him on the list of things you raised, maybe they'll be aware that we're not going to settle for what's been done. there's risks and too much improvising going on for comfort but it's an issue we don't care about and to me that makes it better. >> chris hill, mr. ambassador, i think that is the biggest concern. if this is planned and calculated and you say we're going to use this as leverage because we know that we don't care about it and we'll use this to lean on something we do care about, north korea. that makes more sense. i think the greater concern has to do with the improvising that many fear may be going on in trump tower. >> the president may want to change the one china policy. he shouldn't do it by picking up the phone. he ought to consult with congress and have some studies and he might want to talk to

someone in the state department now and again about this. we may want to change it. a president as commander in chief but also presiding over bureaucracy and presiding over institutions. i would like to see a little more institutionalization and i think that's what's worrisome. you better we need the chinese for north korea and need them to back off the south china sea and helpful on a lot of issues. the question is do you take agreements that have been in place for 40 years and threaten to rip them up over issues that we want the chinese to do because they could put some pressure on us. they could say, okay, americans, we'll push on some other issue that we're not expecting them to do. we'll double down by providing some assistance to north korea. we'll create some tension in the india relationship. they have some arrows as well. i guess my point is i would like to see a little more thoughtfulness on this and a little more consultation. we are not one man rule in this country. >> china also has politics.

it is an authoritarian country but it has politics. this is the most nationalist explosive issue in china which is unity of the country. when the chinese wake up in the morning, they look at this country of these different dialects and ethnicities and geography and don't take it for granted. taiwan is the most emotional issue in china. this will make it much harder for china to be seen to work with us on north korea because this could lead to a nationalist explosion online in china. that's the sort of thing we have to be careful about. >> we want to talk about tariffs. a couple things i need to get off the checklist from you since we have you here. we're talking about secretary of state and institutionalization of foreign policy which is vital. it is absolutely critical for this administration to start institutionalizing this and having an analytical construct from which they can work and they don't have that on foreign policy so to that end a couple

secretary of state names that have been floated out here other than richard haass, bob gates. we all think he would be a grand slam with mattis at defense and then also jon huntsman speaking of china. his name came up. what do you think of those two? >> those would obviously be terrific people. i guess the issue that worries me is we've got a lot of candidates, which is a good idea, but we have no sense of what the president is really looking for because when you look at those candidates, they kind of go across the range of things. i've never heard of giuliani and jon huntsman in the same breath but there we are. so i think -- i would like to get a little better sense of what the president wants to do out there. >> i think to help you out here, i think actually what the president wants is somebody that is an expert in foreign policy and somebody that he's

comfortable which richard haass said james baker so effective. the problem here the person that he's comfortable with is ill equipped to be secretary of state. he's comfortable with david petraeus but a lot of problems come along with a general. >> not to speak of the need to move the capital down to centcom in tampa because that would be a lot of generals running our country. so i think we need to be a little thoughtful on that point as well. you're quite right. the best secretaries of state are those that have a great relationship with the president. baker is certainly the gold standard there. george schultz had it as well. bonnie rice had it and was able to make changes. that's very important. i would like to get a better sense from the president of what he wants to do in the world. does he want to create crises where there aren't crises? does he want to resolve things and have other countries work with him?

there are a lot of different skill sets and certainly someone like bob gates or jon huntsman would answer the bill. >> 100%. after brokering a deal to keep a thousand manufacturing jobs in indiana last week, donald trump issued a far more sweeping policy on twitter yesterday morning. "the u.s. is going to substantially reduce taxes and regulations on businesses. but any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country and thinks it will sell its products back into the u.s. without retribution or consequence is wrong. there will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies wanting to sell their products back across the border. please be forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake. the united states is open for business." some criticized trump for his

approach. the carrier deal which delivered millions of tax subsidies to the company which trump supporter sarah palin warned could be a precedent for crony capitalism by dealing with individual companies but after trump warned another indiana company about leaving, vice president-elect mike pence wouldn't say for sure if trump would take the same approach. >> does he now pick up the phone and call the other companies who are going to move overseas? >> i think what you're going to see and the president-elect will make those decisions on a day by day basis. >> isn't it picking winners and losers? sarah palin calls it crony capitalism? >> i don't think it's picking winners and losers at all. what the president-elect did with carrier reach out one american to another and ask them to reconsider. he told them that we're going to do exactly what we said we would do in this campaign. we're going to make the american economy more competitive.

>> harold, free marketers are going to hate this approach. people on the right will hate this approach. i'm sure "the wall street journal" will hate this approach. you actually had an editorial writer in "the wall street journal" -- no "the washington post" talk about how this would put pressure on ceos of major corporations to say, okay, i'm not going to have to do more than just worry about the tyranny of shareholder maximumizatimaximu maximumatimaximu maximumatimaximu maximumation and what do i do with my workers? the second i can make three more cents, do i fire them all and move jobs overseas? this puts pressure on the ceos to do more than just look at the bottom line. and look at the social contract that they have or used to have with the people that worked for them. >> nothing wrong with the

political optics here are a grand slam for him as if he's using his power to stand up for hard working americans who felt left out and forgotten. the economic part you have to answer a couple questions. if you go back case by case basis, can you create consistency and stability in a policy. people will raise questions around whether or not economically it makes sense to provide help to carrier but not to another company, and he'll have to reach a point where he has to explain it. i hope what comes out of it is something more constructive. perhaps we'll begin to understand better as politicians and lawmakers and public policy makers what is it that small and medium and large businesses need? what is it they need to compete in a global industry where they face pressures from tax laws and other countries and regulatory laws in other count rries and hopefully president-elect will become flexibility from a policy making standpoint and able to understand that. if i worked at that carrier

plant, i would be happy that job was saved. we need a more sustainable and understandable policy moving forward. >> the reason most of those plants are going to close is not because american ceos will send those jobs abroad. most of those plants are going to close because of technology. productivity, automation, artificial intelligence and there's a real opportunity and need for this president and in congress to do is to come up with a policy that equips americans for what's coming. driverless vehicles. artificial intelligence. that's a much bigger issue. >> unfortunately they are not going to be enough jobs to train people. >> that's the social issue we have to think about. >> trump's carrier deal could make american capitalism better. mark halperin, he talks about the fact that he says there are some ceos that will welcome

this. that will welcome the fact that they aren't sort of captive to maximizing the profits down to the very last cent. they can look at workers and look at the workforce and see if they can bring some stability to their company. >> there's good pressures and rationale pressures of why this has been happening and technology and cost of labor in this country and then there are reasons that are less good in terms of shareholder pressure. i think this model is the one off as the president-elect says you can't sustain industrial policy to fix what ails america but short-term in terms of people feel berg about the economy and shaming ceos and boards of directors to say let's make it work in america, i think it could have that effect. you may not need to make deals with people. the positive publicity that carrier got is worth tens of millions of dollars. negative publicity of moving overseas now is really negative.

>> corporations do worry about their brands. that's something that the president with the power of the bully pulpit understands friends. he's done it with ford from the beginning. interesting to see if ford moves their jobs to mexico. ambassador hill, let's talk about what happened in italy and austria yesterday afternoon. you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief mid afternoon after the austrian results were in. the middle held as it pertained to the eu and then of course more gasps late into the evening as disaster struck in italy for anybody who is a supporter of the eu. what's your take on italy? >> well, as we say in foreign policy, it could have been worse. obviously it was a set of reforms that didn't pass. i think renzi is doing the right thing in stepping down. it speaks to the fact that europeans and even italians that

benefited tremendously from the european union, they were joining a civilization, not a bureaucracy. and i think there's been a huge amount of upset at the notion that somehow they lost control of their country due to the european union. i think people are kind of taking that to heart. i think that austrian example is a good sign that maybe this whole process can be slowed down a little. the brexit people think they sent a tide in motion. in europe, most europeans understand the european union for what it is. an effort to end war on the continent and create a sense of civilizational purpose. that was not what the brits came in with when they decided to leave. they were looking at it as a transaction. it's a good sign that austria kind of held there. obviously there's a lot more

work to be done. especially on immigration that sadly has become the sort of litmus test. the metaphor for all problems of loss of control. >> christopher hill, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," a man arrested for firing into a pizza restaurant. he was reportedly investigating a fake news story. one of the biggest fake stories from the election. we'll get a live report on that. also ahead, missing millennials. are young voters to blame for the clinton campaign's loss? "the washington post" says yes. we'll look at their argument and, tomorrow, the vice president-elect mike pence joins us live. "morning joe" is coming right back. needed to do to get an estimate was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voila! (sigh) i wish my insurance company had that... wait! hold it... hold it boys...

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25 past the hour. joining us now from outside trump tower, kristen welker. donald trump made his latest cabinet announcement this morning as race for secretary of state continues. what's the latest? >> reporter: that's right. president-elect donald trump announcing that he has tapped dr. ben carson to serve as his secretary of housing and urban development. dr. carson has accepted. it's an offer that was given several days ago. one of the challenges for him is he doesn't have any experience in that area. but today president-elect trump calling him passionate and dedicated to serving those communities. also breaking news in the sense that he's expanding his search for secretary of state. the biggest position of all to include jon huntsman. he's of course the former ambassador to china under president obama and also ran for president back in 2012. he also served as utah's

governor. sources within the transition say that he's really one of the candidates that's more on the outer rings. the candidates talked about most publicly and frequently include rudy giuliani, mitt romney, and of course he's gotten a lot of criticism for his past criticism of donald trump when he was a candidate. other names like bob corker as well david petraeus. he's really one to watch. we're told that the president-elect was very impressed by him but of course his challenge the fact that he plead guilty to mishandling classified information. wei he was on the sunday circuit pressed on that and how he would handle that in confirmation hearings. listen to what he said. >> pressed on whether you made false statements to the fbi. director comey said you did. your attorney told "the washington post" that you simply forgot about the journal. are you challenging the director's conclusion there? >> no. look, i mean obviously i made a

false statement. at the time i didn't think it was false. frankly i think if they had, they might have pursued that more. i would also like to add by the way something he left out, which is that the fbi in the agreement acknowledged that nothing that was in my journals that i shared certainly improperly ended up in the biography or made it out to the public. >> reporter: so significant that the former cia director was out on the sunday circuit. a little bit of a test run, if you will. trump advisers have been adamant he's not rushing to make this decision because it is such a significant one. so far no time line on when we're going to get a name. we know deliberations will continue today inside trump tower. back to you. >> kristen welker, thank you very much. and a piece yesterday from "the washington post" says that, yes, you can blame millennials for hillary clinton's loss. the article points to a national exit polling showing clinton underperformed president obama's

2012 share of the vote among those between 18 and 29 by five points. joining us now, columnist at "washington examiner." this is what you do. so first of all, do you agree with that thesis overall and what else can you add to clinton's loss and millennials because i feel like bernie sanders is a factor here. he could have been perhaps more successful with millennials. >> younger voters certainly did not turn out for hillary clinton in the way that they did for barack obama. i remember being at the republican convention in cleveland. i was on a panel with kellyanne conway, who i don't think at the time was yet campaign manager for the trump campaign and was speaking very candidly about sort of her thoughts on what it would mean and she said cool is not transferrable. the idea that hillary clinton can magically reassemble barack obama's coalition including young voters was a fantasy and she was left vulnerable on that

front. exit polls show that she got in the high 50s. still beat donald trump by a significant margin but not significant enough. the fact that she performed under the 60% threshold. at harvard university this past week where the campaign managers got together, robby mook said they were aiming for trying to get 60% of the millennial vote and she couldn't quite get there with younger voters. >> harold, a lot of people are trying to dig into this on why hillary clinton lost. the further we get away from the election, the more we realize, at least i realize, just how negligent the clinton campaign was. they should have never lost wisconsin. they never went there. they should have never lost michigan. by the time they went there, it was too late. they should have never lost pennsylvania. they were focusing on ohio and florida. if they had just held their --

those three states, which donald trump should have never won, then hillary clinton would be president right now. >> there was a belief among a large group of people in that campaign that donald trump offended normal sensibilities of so many americans be it on issues of gender or race and that alone could create the kind of support she would need among millennials and women and others. she lost the women's vote by ten points nationally. at the core of any successful get out the vote effort or for that matter any successful political campaign, there has to be a coherent vision and theme and message particularly around economics. more so this time because donald trump had it easy and bernie sanders had an easy message to understand and richard and others noted to place on a bumper sticker. we didn't have it. we had a position on every conceivable issue in this campaign. but there didn't seem to be as you and i both know in a

campaign whether it's national or local or both, there has to be something you can rally around. when you're that close, you have to step away to understand what may have happened. >> politics 101. it really is. if you can't strip -- i've said this for 25 years. if you can't strip your campaign's message down to a bumper sticker, you need to go back into a little room and sit there alone and figure out why you want to be elected. >> it's easy to be against the person you're running against. you have to have something that you're for. that might have been deficient in the campaign. >> particularly easy to be against this particular person they were running against. so much advertising and convention and rhetoric was about tearing him down and they tore him down. numbers were not great on election day. >> neither were hers unfortunately for them. >> there's no theme to this pudding.

the danger is when democrats and others look back on the campaign, there will be temptation to attribute the loss to this, that, mechanically, we didn't do this, get out the vote. the question is why in a sense weren't they more motivated to go out and vote and that ought to be the lesson. that ought to be what people think. >> think about the branding involved here. i've been asking for two years what's her message and every time a clinton person would say to me an answer that lasted two minutes which is not good. make america great again versus i'm with her. >> barack obama hope and change. >> i think it also has a lot to do with how does somebody view a particular candidate affecting their lives personally. you may be able to get up on stage with beyonce and jay-z at a huge rally in cleveland but if you're a young voter and worried about how will i afford health insurance? i don't feel like thinks are on the right track, you may be

willing to gamble on a donald trump in that sort of situation and that's the sort of thing that caught them off guard. you do need a message that doesn't need to be dumbed down but it needs to be able to be boiled down and simplified and i think in this case hillary clinton's message what would the first 100 days of a clinton presidency look like, i don't know that anybody could spell that out clearly with a trump candidacy you at least know securing the border, dealing with trade, et cetera. you knew what that looked like whether you liked it or not was a different question. with clinton, it with a too all over the place. >> what was hillary clinton's campaign slogan? >> stronger together. >> i thought it was i'm with her. >> that was near the end. that was after the allegations around donald trump and women coming forward, i think that became the -- couldn't answer that. but one of the things that didn't get recognized by my campaign is the competitive senate races were, also happened to be the battleground states. so trump benefited from get out

the vote effort funded by outside groups that normally play in the presidential race but played in the senate races to create checks and balances if hillary clinton were president. benefited from that. the campaign, i think, at times just didn't recognize that some of these things, these trends could happen. we talk about on this show michigan. hearing from friends of mine and former colleagues that the numbers he's winning by is so outside in largely democratic areas are below the means, there may need to be greater focus there. >> you talked about michigan before the race. >> they ran a strong race. i think everybody has to step back and understand that blaming here and there, there has to be some introspection as well. >> after romney's team lost, they sat there and said what did we do wrong and talked about it. that's what campaigns need to do. that's not happening here. all of the fingers are pointing

out. nobody is looking in. explaining that they lost the race they should have won. they lost a race that if it were run ten times they should have run nine out of ten times. they didn't do it. we saw an unbelievable statistic. we'll have to check this. did she outspend him on ads in swing states 25-1? i read an extraordinary number. >> go ahead, kristen. >> she may have outspent him on tv but we know donald trump is able to get a ton of leverage out of a single tweet. as fascinating as one thing donald trump did much better than hillary clinton was use social media. >> he reached people. millions in a tweet. thank you so much. coming up, a bull in a china shop is how politico's mike crowley's describes trump's handling of the flap with china over his call with taiwan. more on the high diplomatic stakes ahead.

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>> you've been in office just a month. many people are probably surprised that you decided to come to china so soon. why now? >> now because you see i view the relationship between china and the united states as highly significant. as one of the very most important relationships that we have. >> what a statement that was. >> i know. >> just 41 days into his presidency. >> bush 41 was in beijing doubling down on the one china policy so donald trump took a different approach. slightly different. a nuance really here. joining us now politico's senior foreign affairs correspondent michael crowley. president and founder and editor for "time" ian bremer and foreign policy magazine david,

good to have you all onboard this morning. >> ian, are you mourning the loss of unified europe? how significant was the vote? >> renzi was really unpopular. decided it wasn't just a referendum on political reform and also on him and he got hit. italy is not a country that's well and strongly governed. so it's kind of reverting back to status quo. the five-star movement, you're not going come in right now. >> you're not as concerned. >> not about that. i'm more concerned about brexit. i'm more concerned that there aren't any strong leaders in europe anymore. merkel is going through her own electoral campaign. the transatlantic relationship on both sides was what underpins globalization at its weakest now. >> so the french and german elections over the next year are the big ones? >> those are clearly the big ones. italy will not have a snap

election. >> what about italy? >> i think that what happened in italy is worrisome. the broader trend, which includes the u.s. and includes hungary and near miss in austria and what will likely happen in france, you know, all suggest that, a, the european idea is at biggest risk since it started. and, b, the atlantic alliance is at risk and that's the foundation of our whole international security policy and you have a president of the united states and a national security adviser of the united states who said we're not going to honor the most fundamental as ek aspects of the nato alliance. there will be focus on that more than in a long time. >> at least since 1945.

i can't really figure out where crowley stands on this. >> let me try to help you. you might be able to glean from something here. he writes this in politico. this is about the taiwan call with the president of taiwan. the call is the latest of several post-election conversations between trump and foreign leaders that have raised alarms about whether the president-elect understands or cares about diplomatic protocol. let me give you a little hint. he does not. he does not care. one former senior obama white house official who handled foreign policy said on friday that world leaders may be wondering whether to take trump's word literally. this has all of the earmarks and randomness on the u.s. side said a former senior diplomat who served in the george w. bush administration. >> i thought the pakistani call

was more fascinating. donald trump calls the leader. you're fabulous. your country is fabulous. everyone in pakistan is fabulous when not so long ago he was actually harshly critical of pakistan. so what do world leaders make of the phone calls versus the previous statements? >> i think they are bewildered. in addition in that call with his pakistani call, he volunteered to personally help solve any problem the pakistanis had and said he would travel there. this was really dramatic stuff that nobody saw coming. i think this is going to be a recurring story line for the next weeks and months. does donald trump understand the implications of what he's telling foreign leaders when he says something that sounds like a dramatic shift in american policy or statement of new policy? is that calculated? does that come out of a meeting

or policy paper or does he just pick up the phone and has a vague idea of who he's talking to and says i'll do whatever i can. i wonder whether there's going to have to be a translator for the trump administration whether it's mike pence or trump's secretary of state but someone who follows up after these calls or goes over to these countries and says, hey, you know, i know what happened in the conversation. it's not exactly the way it might have surrounded. here's what our actual policy is. otherwise, you're just going to have total chaos. >> a guy with a broom. >> listen, donald trump is going to be the disruptor. and they are already making plans to disrupt in major ways. i guess what everyone has been concerned about over the past was the ad hoc nature of these calls. >> the philippine president has this. he made statements about brlowig

up the relationship and someone else comes out saying he didn't mean that. if you keep doing it, they don't pay attention to the translator. >> trump loves the philippine presidents who is a murderous lunatic and had great phone call. not realizing how this works. i think the big thing -- >> that's what happened with the japanese leader. i would love to come over and meet with you. trump said, okay, sure. so two minutes later he's off the phone and holding a press conference saying i will go to new york. >> but then this is important, he's having a meeting withi a bunch of countries pending so we have to figure out the trump formula and over other foreign leader has to figure it out. one part lunacy. one part incompetence and one part can he plan?

and everybody is trying to figure out what's the can he plan? what's the incompetence and what's the lunacy in each one of these? >> let me pressure you. i don't have the answer to that formula. if the past is prolog and we find in politics it is, certainly was with reagan, might we want to be cautious in underestimating what donald trump is doing? >> as we split up -- that's what we heard in the campaign when he won the primary and won the general. i'm not arguing here. i'm just saying we've made this mistake before. >> there's a lesson in 2016. it's don't underestimate donald trump. if there's another lesson of 2016, it's be very, very worried. >> let's have a lesson for 2017, which is foreign policy is different. he could be the most brilliant strategist that he's not sharing

with us yet but he has it planned out. our position internationally is weaker than it was when obama first came in. obama is not a stupid guy. yet his foreign policy legacy is in tatters because this stuff is hard to do. >> it's been disastrous. >> our allies are not happy with us and they're very concerned about trump. even if he's brilliant and has a good taiwan move -- >> as mark halperin does say, there are two countries we're closer to today than we were when obama was sworn in. cuba and iran. >> lunacy and stupidity or whatever else, when you look at. >> canniness is a third of it. >> except for rudy giuliani out front for himself and only one that puts himself in the running, the group of people he's looking at for secretary of state, does that match all of these words you're using? >> no. i saw somebody tweet yesterday and this is where i get all of my heavy information, i saw somebody tweet yesterday that

we're at the point where everybody is a candidate and all he's doing is ruling out people. you guys are probably candidates. >> no. i think you are though. he reads your twitter feed. >> on secretary of state, the confusion around what trump means when he says might argue for a secretary of state who is perceived to be really close to him, you might even say he might sacrifice some expertise and credentials in that person because you need someone that world leaders believe is speaking for trump and was in the room. if mitt romney goes out to translate or do cleanup after trump says something, a lot of leaders might say what does romney know about what trump thinks unless we see an improvement in the relationship level but also a level of exp t expertise and he defers to mattis. who is that candidate?

>> he doesn't know either. >> everybody when he was running was saying he was unfit. >> the fact he has this little idea in secretary of state this late in the process where the economic team is quite coherent ideologically -- >> no, he wanted rudy giuliani but he knows that rudy giuliani is not up to the task. >> thank you, everybody. >> come back, we have a lot to talk about.

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restaurant to self-investigate so-called pizzagate, a fake conspiracy theory that spread during the presidential campaign. what happened here is fake news with real consequences. armed with an assault rifle, the suspect sent terrified customers scrambling. >> the metropolitan police department arrived on the scene and immediately set up a perimeter. >> reporter: this image shows welch surrounded by police. >> his demeanor was bizarre. when you come into a place to eat, you ask for a host, grab a seat at the bar. didn't make eye space contact or speak to anybody.

>> he told police he came to investigate pizzagate. in an effort to crack down on fake news, reddit banned the pizzagate discussion thread on its site. >> you think people are very brave behind their keyboard, they're writing hateful messages but you don't think someone's going to do something about it. >> the owner said he's received hundreds of death threats. >> what happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories do come with consequences and i hope that those that are involved with fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today and to stop right away. >> reporter: police don't believe that anybody else other than welch at this point is

involved in what happened here. it should be noted incoming national security adviser mike flynn has tweeted some fake news stories unrelated to this particular one. mika? >> thank you very much. >> is -- you know, general flynn may have served admirably under barack obama. some people say he was very well respected there, but he has left a trail of crap behind him with retweets, with retweeting something about jews, retweeting something about muslims -- >> he's not -- >> i know he's not but he needs to step up and clean this up. he needs to apologize to

america. he is in one of the most important positions in the white house on january the 20th, he needs to apologize for what he has done. unrelated to this fake news story but with the other fake news stories, the retweets about jews, the retweets about muslims -- >> and not in a perfunctory way. it shouldn't just be i'm sorry or i was careless. he needs to explain all of this. he's not subject to senate confirmation. he's not responsible for his son but he's responsible for himself. >> he certainly is. >> we'll be right back. protecting biodiversity. everywhere we work. defeating malaria. improving energy efficiency. developing more clean burning natural gas. my job? my job at exxonmobil? turning algae into biofuels. reducing energy poverty in the developing world. making cars go further with less. fueling the global economy. and you thought we just made the gas. ♪ energy lives here.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's monday, december 5th. 8 a.m. on the east coast, 5 a.m. out west. with us on set, mark halperin, former democratic congressman harold ford jr., the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass and columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius. donald trump took an aggressive professional toward china last night as they pushed back over his complaint over his conversation with the president of taiwan. on friday trump became the first american leader to speak directly with taiwan's government since the u.s. began formal relations with china in 1979, creating speculation over whether trump will break with the one china policy continued

under the last six presidents. last night on twitter trump responded to the uproar saying he does not need permission to speak with taiwan, "did china ask us if it was okay to devalue their currency, making it hard for our companies to compete, heavily tax our products going into their country, the u.s. doesn't tax them or to build a massive military complex in the south china sea"? i don't think so. "the washington post" saying it was the product of months of quiet preparations and deliberations among trump's advisory team that began before he became the presidential nominee. >> what's your thought on what he did? >> there's an improvisational

quality on how they're dealing with everything, vetting foreign policy. that's a little dangerous. i agree with the wall street journal editorial that we have not had leverage over china in some time, this is easy leverage but this shows he does not plan to be an in-box foreign policy president, he plans to try to change the board -- >> the shape of the conversation. >> and to get leverage over countries that in a lot of areas we don't have leverage. i think people who are unsettled by it better get used to it because it's the way it's going to be. >> he is going to be a disruptor. harold, you were with me on whether we were voting to pass mfn for china. what always frustrated me was every year we said we're going to pass it one more year but cln is goi -- china is going to have to do better on human rights, stop selling intellectual property.

long story short, they would do nothing. we had absolutely no leverage over them because we wanted to get into their markets so badly. it was one of the things that nancy pelosi and i agreed on but it was so frustrating. we never held them to account. i'm not saying this is the way to do it. we have policy experts who i suspect will be very troubled by this. but where i sat in congress and where millions and millions of americans sit out there, there are a lot of people saying pushing back a little bit on china is not the worst thing for a leader to finally do. >> mark said it well and up described the substantive frame as well any could. "the art of the deal," this is what he does. he tries to find leverage points and he finds them sometimes without success but the majority with success and he's doing it here. it's almost like the criticism around the carrier deal.

some of my former colleagues and even democratic friends, i would agree, it's not a sustainable approach but if you're a hard-working american whose job could be shipped overseas and you see the president making a call on your behalf, democrats and republicans alike critical to the approach better awaken the fat that people view washington standing up for rich, powerful interests now they're standing up for every day americans' interests. >> it is symbolic. a very interesting column talking about the pressure this is going to put on other ceos. it is about leverage. it is about "the art of the deal." think about this, they cost him nothing, he took him nothing, he took a phone call and he tweeted last night. and in his mind, i'm sure, he's pushed them back and showing --

is setting up for a tough negotiation down the road. on all the things he talked about during the campaign. good idea, bad idea, we'll see. >> the only thing that really is curious and possibly troubling to me, richard, is that, you know, mike pence even said this had no deeper meaning, that those who say this was a long-term strategy that was really thought out even before the campaign is not true, it's just a phone call. there's a little bit of a lurchy quality that i think would make folks in the policy world a little concerned. at what point is a tweet going to be really damaging or a phone call going to be the wrong call to make? >> the united states and china have finessed the taiwan issue since 1979 and this has allowed the united states and china to deal with all else, from establishing an economic relationship to potentially dealing with north korea and issues like climate change.

the question is does this give us leverage or is tie one the place you doesn't want to -- >> what's your answer? >> the answer is no. this is an existential issue. it deals with the unity of the country. you have to look at the geography and everything else. >> it seemed the foreign minister was trying to push it away from trump and said, oh, this was a cheap trick on the part of the taiwanese. >> i was just in china last week. the chinese very much want to have a good relationship with the united states. they want to get off on the right foot. so that's why they put this on taiwan. then when mr. trump followed up with the tweet, that made it seem a little bit less about taiwan, more that we were sending a new signal, that there's a new sheriff in town and there there's something of a new policy and there's been some

mixed signals coming out of the transition. my hunch is that the chinese are trying to figure out what it is and we have to be careful that they don't retaliate on taiwan. taiwan is economically dependent overwhelmingly on exports to china. do we want this to be the opening chapter in a new relationship with china? >> james fallow said it would be hard to overstate something about the pig-headed nature of this this phone call, accepting this phone call. would you agree with james as well as richard haass that this is a phone call that should not been taken? >> i think it shouldn't have been taken without a careful strategy for what to do with the knock-on effects. what trump did in engaging directly the taiwanese president

was to go at say the law and the profits for the u.s. relationship. the understanding about taiwan goes back to the 1972 communique that nixon and kissinger negotiated. everything is built on this idea that there's one china and we're not fundamentally going to challenge that. trump has put that in play. if it all about leverage and bargaining, you can argue getting an extra source of leverage is sensible but as richard said, there's so many things the chinese could do that could put our interests in that region at risk. i found myself thinking about something that richard nixon said to haldeman in 1969 when he said "there's a madman theory of how history works and sometimes you have to be the madman." he was thinking that china would see how crazy and volatile nixon

was and they would make concessions. this i would say want the area on which to play with that idea. it just too delicate and important to china. >> play the madman, you're saying, at times when it helps you. it never hurts if the batter thinks you're a little bit crazy but not here. >> i think by doing the unconventional, carrier, may have -- going after the chinese administration i wouldn't think it was good unless you have a plan for what is next and next and next. >> the wall street journal editorial to me captured it perfect. for a lot of americans, letting

c china continue to do what it's been doing is not the way to proceed. donald trump put china at the center of his campaign and while there are risks to this, there's no cost to americans. if it unsettles the chinese -- >> i couldn't disagree more. this is not an existential question for the united states. this is a policy preference. for china, this goes to the core of their national identity. they're going to be willing to take anything to do with taiwan much farther than the united states. secondly, if we get off on a thing about taiwan, this then makes it impossible to move ahead on the rest of the relations. we have to ask ourselves is this the priority? is it our priority to have a showdown over taiwan, i would say why isn't our priority to

have a showdown over north korea. once you set it in motion, you can't control the dynamic. we ought to be setting things up to make sure north korea can't have nuclear weapons on missiles that can reach the united states -- >> i agree. >> i'm just saying -- >> it's not likely to be the way to get their help. >> i'm saying in my negotiation as lot of times, i find the one thing that the other person wants that i have absolutely no interest in and that's what i walk in saying, that's what i want. and i'm not going to walk out of here until you give me that. and then they don't realize that actually all i want is money. and so at the end they flip it and you get money. so i'm not saying i understand exactly what you're saying, i understand that there is a -- that this does go back to 1972 and a lot of work that dr. brzezinski did in 1978, '79. i do understand that concern. i don't think he gives a damn about taiwan.

i think he does care about north korea. we'll find out whether it unfolds or whether he has a sense, as you got a sense being in china over the past week, that the chinese really want a good relationship with us. >> david ignatius, really quickly, richard said that china could retaliate by limiting exports to china. what other retaliation could there be, what other retaliation could we suffer because of mr. trump's phone call? >> certainly the chinese would want to demonstrate their ability to control the military situation in the taiwan strait and we'd have to decide what military assets would we move in to show our resolve. those are the kind of situations where you get accidents, unexpected developments. i think in terms of what richard was talking about, we have all been saying the top priority for the next president is to deal with this threat of a north korea that could soon deliver a nuclear weapon on to u.s. soil.

that was job one. every sensible republican and democratic strategist was agreed on that. it was seen that a key -- a pathway to that was to get chinese cooperation. the problem now is that the chinese are going to have to appear to back down and lose face to be helpful to the united states on north korea, that's not good. >> still to come, justice in america, the case of a police officer murdering a man, will it end in a mistrial? >> it better not. >> but first a check of the forecast. bill? >> chicago got some snow, pretty good there. the roads were treacherous last night and it continues this morning. the snow is moving through new england. we picked up an inch, half an

inch through much of pennsylvania and the boston area. that will be exiting as we go throughout the morning. and the carolinas, just a few downpours left in georgia. behind that louisiana is getting drr drenched and later 5 million people in an area of concern. in the northwest we're watching snow this morning, even areas of portland we have snow there. we're going to get it in the next 24 hours. great for ski countries and for the northern rockies, too. winter weather in the northern half of the rockies. for new york city, didn't get the snowflakes, just some light rain. that's ending as a speak. you're watching "morning joe." right back. ♪ deck the halls with boughs of holly ♪

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donald trump's search for secretary of state is expanding. last week he said there were only four candidates left but vice president mike pence named five yesterday on "meet the press," mitt romney, rudy giuliani, senator petraeus, bob corker and rex tillerson, jon huntsman is also reportedly in the mix and even democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia could be under consideration. david petraeus was on the shows yesterday. we'll get to that in a little bit. let's talk, david ignatius. a lot of names out there. our "morning joe" official pick is richard haass.

he would be a tremendous secretary of state. but i don't know, some people have been critical. i am comforted by the fact that their default position was rudy giuliani and he's moved well beyond that and has expanded this list. what do you see when you look at this list? >> joe, i have the same feeling, if richard refuses this absolutely you have to keep searching. what's interesting about this list is they haven't settled on a particular person. i think they were wise to keep looking after giuliani. giuliani just in terms of temperament and various factors didn't seem like a good fit for that. david petraeus is ideally suited but he has some issues that have got to be resolved. what i found interesting is not the length of the process, i think it's good to have a careful search or the number of names, again, good to cast a wide net but the sniping in public about the names on the

list, i can't remember anything quite like that since maybe the days of lyndon johnson. >> yeah, it's really ugly. >> what that tells me, joe, is when the secretary is finally named, we're likely to see one of those administrations where you just get a lot of leaking and kind of back room brawling that surfaces in leaks to people like me, things that appear in the press. it's not the best way to conduct foreign policy but you can't help but think that that may be ahead just given the back and forth we're seeing about this pick. >> we know this, mark halperin. if there are two candidates that are divisive, you have rudy giuliani on one side, the foreign policy establishment on one side would be horrified. he would be a great i think d.h.s. >> department of homeland

security? >> yes. he's qualified for that. he's the most ill-equipped to be secretary of state for a lot of reasons that would come out during confirmation hearings. and then on the other hand you have mitt romney, and whether it the mercers or all of his right-wing supporters, mitt romney would also be a very divisive candidate. we found that out. mitt romney comes -- >> but there's so many others now. >> there's so many others now. mitt romney comes and actually for the good of his country goes through the process and actually donald trump actually had a great conversation with mitt romney and liked him very much. and if he was not facing so much blow back, romney would already be secretary of state, but he is facing tremendous blow back, especially from the people that mitt romney ran against in 2012. >> i mean, there's some grass roots opposition as well but the voices of huckabee and gingrich i think have been pretty important. it seems wide open now. i don't have a good sense of where his head is at.

he wants a wow pick, he wants someone that can go to foreign capitals and impress foreign leaders as his representative and want someone who will be in sync with him and his team on reshaping the board. >> mr. secretary? >> he's got to choose somebody to whom he is tied at the hip. jim baker was one of the best, one of the reasons beside the talent he brought to the job was the closeness of his relationship with 41. >> so you're making the argument for rudy giuliani right now. what would you think of secretary giuliani? >> there's other drawbacks, not just getting through confi confirmation but his lack of foreign policy experience and diplomacy. >> do you think rudy giuliani would be a good pick or bad pick? >> he'd be a terrible pick! >> it not the only criteria that you're close to the president.

it's necessary but not sufficient. donald trump needs to close somebody he's close to and he's got to choose someone he believes can have a successful -- >> it's not going to jump out at you. >> do you have a favorite? >> i feel good about bob corker. i feel good about jon huntsman. >> me, too. >> i heard last week jon huntsman's name going around. this was a guy who actually came out talking positively about donald trump before most of the republican establishment. i was actually surprised how early he came out speaking positively of donald trump. and ambassador to china, this actually would -- and a guy that would be very deferential, this would be a very, very fascinating nipick.

not a lot of enemies either. >> huntsman would be a smart pick. i've seen huntsman in action as our ambassador in china on a visit there. he was all the things you'd want a diplomat to be, well spoken, thoughtful, funny, in private had a real sense of the chinese and of his assignment. i think the fact that a relatively moderate republican is on this list as being looked at is interesting and positive and he's certainly somebody i can see at secretary of state. rex tillerson is a fascinating name. >> tell us about that. >> rex tillerson runs the biggest, best managed oil company in the world. there's nothing like exxon. he follows a chairman who many people in the industry regarded as maybe a notch better as a manager, lee raymond, but tillerson certainly hasn't run

thes abo business into the grou. what's interesting is someone is telling the president-elect you need to look at a smart business person, you need to broaden your search. this name ended up. you were the first person, joe, to put that out i think. it tells us up in trump tower they're having a more wide-ranging conversation than some might thing about what the country needs. >> coming up, peter alexander joins us to tell us how the trump doctrine is playing out on local media. and in oakland, a warehouse party ends in dozens dead. the latest on the investigation when "morning joe" returns. ♪ music playing

the way i see the tweets you're talking about, he's basically giving voice to a lot of people who have felt that they were voiceless. he's communicating with people in this country who felt like they have not been listened to. so that's what's going to matter at the end of the day, did we improve people's lives, did we solve the problems that the american people need solved? are we addressing the concerns

of people who are tired of being tired? who cares what he tweeted on some thursday night if we fix this country's big problems. that's just the way we look at this. >> i'm tired of being tired. >> i'm tired of being tired for a long time. >> joining us from washington -- >> he's never tired. >> look, he's wide awake! >> i have two kids under the age of 3. i'm tired consistently. let be clear. >> he hides it much better. you look full of vim and vigor. >> peter's got a look -- >> hold on. how old are your kids? >> i have a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. it's holiday card time. if you can get two smiling at once, it like a big win. >> boys, girls? >> two adorable girls, ava and emma. making sure this is rolling at home. we're going to save this for

when they're old enough. >> good luck 12 or 13 years from now. you have two girls, don't you? >> i do. it's not fun. you're going to get old quick. we have a look at president-elect's first four weeks on twitter. >> donald trump mastered twitter in 2015, used it for promotion, attacks. he's still looking to try to capitalize on what he has described as a tremendous modern form of communication. weeks away from his inauguration as america's 45th president, donald trump will take his place as this country as tweeter-in-chief, allowing him an unfiltered platform to air his views. but it's also made him a tantalizing target. >> oops, i did it again.

>> mr. trump, please stop retweeting all these random, real people. you're not getting any work done. >> minutes after "saturday night live" parodied the upcoming leader, trump tweeted baldwin as sad. and baldwin tweeted back "release your tax returns and i'll stop." >> i'll going to be very restrained if i use it at all. >> how has he done? in the last week, over the 90 tweets. some celebratory, for example to welcome bag tiger woods. and some combative, "cnn doesn't get it, they'll never learn." shortly on a recent flag burning tweeting his outrage "there must

be consequences, perhaps lost of citizenship or a year in jail." >> i can tell you firsthand that there are posts that he makes that otherwise could not be heard or seen by those 25 million people. >> reporter: but are trump's comments on twitter dangerous? >> i think he'll learn has he goes along. you have to be careful. it's sort of a way around the press. >> reporter: trump is not without his critics. one woman unleashing her own tweet storm. you're the president-elect. pick your battles, man. you're embarrassing yourself. that tweet liked more than 65,000 times, showing even twitter is a two-way street. >> mr. trump has plenty of fan, one recently describing him as the ernest hemingway of 140

characters. for the million of followers, president-elect himself only follows 42 contracts, you two among them, but among them are trump properties, trump family members. >> what do you cover, what don't you cover, what tweets do you let pass by, especially if he's making things up, talking about 2.5 million illegal votes. i guess that's a real problem for a lot of people in media, trying to figure out exactly how to sort through this, what to report on and what to ignore. >> obviously you have to fact check when there's facts that are inaccurate. the guy is soon to be inaugurated with president. we listen when he speaks and have to communicate that. he's used that pretty effectively. >> what are your girls names? >> ava and emma.

>> cute! adorable. >> that's awesome. >> he doesn't expect that. he's still asleep. let's bring in someone speaking of still being asleep, kasie hunt -- >> i've actually been awake for a long time. >> that's what i mean. way too early -- what time is it now? first look. kasie anchored it this morning. >> did you a great job. >> thank you. >> it ha's hard for the media t figure out exactly what to do with this. if you ignore it, you're ignoring something the president of the united states is saying. if you focus on it too much, others are saying you're doing what trump wants you to do, distracting from some other issue out there.

>> peter is right, every word is monitored very carefully. they raised journalists do you use twitter? almost all the hands in the room went up. they said guess how many americans use twitter? they said something about 20 to 30% of twitter, the rest are not. but they've all seen trump's tweets. once he takes office, does he start using different forms, more traditional forms of communication to talk to the american people because he'll have access to them, the oval office. >> i could go around to the press any time i want. it's like being the "new york

times" without the overhead. >> and you have to provide content that people find interesting. i think there's a movement now in journalism as much as anything else in analyzing how we're going to cover him when he tweets things that aren't true. you can't just say the president-elect treated x -- >> the president claims -- >> even more than that, without any evidence. i think it's a powerful movement that should have been existed during the campaign. he's welcome to tweet whatever he wants but he can't just say things that aren't true and -- >> mitch mcconnell, who doesn't really go outside the box, he's very careful. he said, look, i think we have to be careful about saying things that aren't true about twitter. >> was he talking about the illegal votes? mitch mcconnell crossed him on a tweet. >> flag burning has been the one in particular for a lot of republicans feel this is first amendment speech, it bleeds over into other issues that are

important, citizens united, money in poll tex, et cetera. he was very much at odds with him there. the political side of this is every time this happens, every republican out there, you saw mike pence on the sunday shows, he's in a rough for years of explaining every one of these things. >> he seems to be doing fine, though. mike pence is going to be on tomorrow, by the way. up next, "time" magazine reveals their person of the year on wednesday. and we have an recall look at their final candidates. >> i think it's merkel. >> we'll be right back. ♪ monday, monday

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the death toll in a warehouse fire in oakland, california continues to climb as crews comb through the charred remains of the building miguel almaguer has the latest from the seen. miguel? >> reporter: mika, good evening.

firefighters have been going bucket by bucket to clear this debris field. the death toll stands at 33, but we are told that number will climb. overnight the heart breaking recovery, the number of those who perished inside a warehouse dance party expected to rise. firefighters still searching through ash and debris ten feet deep. many bodies are still unidentified and several people are listed as missing, like 22-year-old alex vega, his family, like others, may need to provide a dna sample for a positive i.d. >> i don't want to say was but you know what i mean. he is in the prime of his life. >> with flames exploding through the warehouse over the weekend, there remains no official cause for the deadliest fire in oakland's history, but those who lived here and survived believe the fire was electrical. >> a lot of people are hurting right now. the only thing i can think of is people who are lost and their

loved ones. >> with a maze of furniture inside and a makeshift staircase, the ghost ship say the property had two access points, a main door and emergency exit. witnesses say the fire started on the first floor. nearly 100 people were upstairs where a deejay played music and most of the bodies were recovered. >> i woke up and my room was filled with smoke, like a fog of smoke and i looked over and i could see an orange glow coming through the window. >> never permitted for residential living or parties, public records show neighbors complained of blight, a city inspector arrived at the property last month to look into illegal houactivity but they we unable to go inside.

>> the man leasing the building tells us "this tragic event consumes my every moment. my heart is broken." this morning so are many others, a horrific tragedy with a death toll still mounting. those had lived inside the warehouse say it was common knowledge not just here but with city officials that many people lived inside the warehouse. some tell us they paid a few hundred dollars a month in rent, others say they paid upwards of a thousand. >> miguel, thank you. >> what a horrific story. >> we'll follow the developments of that story. >> now for "time" magazine's person of the year. the 11 contenders include in no particular order facebook's mark zuckerberg, president-elect donald trump, beyonce, hillary clinton -- >> what's beyonce on for?

>> i don't know. >> vladimir putin, turkey's presidenter president ero -- erdogan, flint. >> dan: michigan whistle blowers. >> somebody else me out, what did beyonce do? >> she had a great album. >> i think trump can get it. >> watch it be beyonce. can you imagine? that's it, shut it down. kasie, who do you think it's going to be? >> i'm with mark. how could it not be donald

trump? >> they missed it last year. >> when i worked there, i tried to make bob gates person of the year every year. it never -- >> was it merkel last year? >> yes. >> so it seems like they really probably have to -- if there's anything that tells you what has changed the last year. >> oh well. >> so the person of the year will be revealed this wednesday. >> i'll be holding my breath. >> there's so much snark at this table. >> the jury for the michael slegr case returns for deliberations. can they reach a verdict. the question is how could they not reach a verdict? >> does it end in a mistrial? >> you know what, the judge should hold them in until 2015. this is insane. he was shot in the back. >> live report next on "morning joe." they are the natural born enemy of the way things are. yes, ideas are scary,

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is it a force of nature? or a sales event? the season of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the season of audi sales event. just minutes from now deliberations will resume in the trial of michael slegr, the south carolina police officer charged with murdering walter scott. joining us is gabe gutierrez. is there a sense this jury will be able to come to a decision? >> reporter: hi, mika. good morning. based on what we saw on friday, that appears extremely unlikely. we appear to be looking at a hung jury possibly in this case. the jury asked the judge to go home for the weekend after that dramatic day in court. in an extremely rare

development, we're seeing some of the inner workings of the jury, a lone juror sending a note to the judge saying he could not in good conscience convict michael slegr. >> we do believe in my heart we will see justice for my brother. >> michael slegr charged with murder also waits. >> we'll just wait till monday. >> jurors going home for the weekend where a panel of 11 white people and one black man are dead locked, a single juror sending this note to the judge. >> i still cannot without a reasonable doubt convict the defendant. at the same time, my heart does not want to have to tell the scott family that the man that killed their son, brother and

father is innocent but with the choices i cannot and will not change my mind. >> in a follow-up note, the foreperson clearly seemed frustrated. >> that juror needs to leave. he is having issues. >> the 11-1 deadlock nearly led to a mistrial but the judge told the jury to keep trying. >> it's not over. we kept hearing it's over, it's over. it's not over. >> during the month had much long trial, slegr told the jury he was in fear for his life and shot scott in self-defense after he ran to his car and grabbed a stun gun. >> previous jury questions seem to indication that the panel was heavily considering a manslaughter conviction, not murder but again, jury deliberations are set to continue in just a few minutes. no telling how long they could

go. they be still deadlocked. that judge could declare a mistrial, mika. >> thank you very much. we'll be following the developments of that story. >> he was in fear for his life? he shot him in the back repeatedly. i'm at an absolute loss. as i said, if i were the judge, mark halperin, i would keep the jury in until hell freezes over. this is clearly murder. and, no, i was not sitting in the jury box but we see the videotape when it mattered the most. the police lied about it after it happened, before they knew that this tape was out there. they found the tape out there. it is one of the clearest examples of murder -- i don't need to see testimony. i'm sorry. you see the actual incident. >> but you have to have a process. >> i suspect if this jury can't reach a verdict, they'll have to retry him. >> it's unbelievable. >> final thoughts, kasie.

what did you learn today? >> final thoughts. i'm interested -- i was interested to listen to richard haass talk a little bit about the potential ramifications from the phone call that president-elect trump had with taiwan but also with the tweet, whether or not donald trump does eventually start to use twitter in a different way or how our international partners if predictability is the base of how we interact with the world, how do they interact with trump. >> i have the wall street journal on the phone with me but i'm going to go with getting leverage over china might be a good thing. >> i noticed in some of the conversations we had today that people are having a hard time just covering a story. they have to attach really negative words to every action instead of just reporting the story. us not included because we -- this is what we do is analyze but i notice reporters that come

on want to attach something negative immediately. >> as harold said, the carrier story is a great example. it's something we need to look at and analyze it. we may be talking about something new. i understand why economic conservatives, libertarians would be very angered by this move but for the press to be reporting it the way it is and bending over backwards to talk about how this is the worst thing that ever happened, they need to look at the steven pearlstein column in "the washington post." >> it's a new world. >> just think. be open minded and see. >> by the way, vice president elect mike pence will be our guest tomorrow morning. and that does it for us this morning on "morning joe." ali velshi picks up the coverage right now. >> with no negativity. i'll keep open minded. i'm ali velshi in for