run. i am not committing anything. i learned a long time ago. >> interesting moment, joe biden, thereby 78. that's our broadcast for tonight. good night from new york. a tower treasure with some "hardball". good evening, i am chris mathis. >> those who said the worse about trump when he was a candidate heading up to defeat hoping to get some of that golden patriot as the man passed around. the search to fill that road is winding as i speak with new names added on like a traffic lineup in manhattan.

there is no indication that donald trump is anywhere near of making the key decisions of his presidency who'll search his chief diplomat. >> vice president yesterday. >> everyone he talked to or talked about whether it is rudy giuliani or mitt romney or patraeus or senator corkell or jon bolton and others. >> nbc news reports several new names have been added to that list even if they remained to be outside contenders. they say are faded of mitt romney and rudy giuliani . >> jon huntsman was critical to join the campaign. one of the top contenders, patraeus appeared on television to audition for the role. he answered questions about his guilty plea in 2016 from his handling classified government

information. >> five years ago, i made a serious mistake. i acknowledged it and i apologized for it and paid a heavy price for it and i learned from it. again, you will have to factor that in and 38 and a half years of otherwise, fairly in some cases unique service to our country. >> there is some news of trump tower today on another front. donald trump nominated ben carson to be urban development. a history of controversial of his own about president obama and race and sexuality. we'll get to that. some surprising visits today, former al gore who met trump and his daughter, ivanka today. >> most of the time with the meeting, i found it an interesting conversation and to be continued, i am just going to lever it at that.

>> i am joined by kristen welker, i don't know what's going on. all i know is this list gets longer and the ones that came to the vineyard earlier are not getting much good time out of this. it must be frustrating for rudy giuliani and the rest. your thoughts. what do you know. >> you can imagine and of course, you had mitt romney dining with president-elect trump last week. here is how to think about where things stand right now in terms of this race for the secretary of state, you had rudy giuliani and mitt romney who are the two top contenders but chris, we have been reporting trump's world was divided into these two top contenders, a lot of people saw rudy giuliani as so much of a loyalist and too many people thought mitt romney had been critical of donald trump during the campaign.

that's why you are starting to see those two contenders start to fallout of favor. president-elect trump is exploring new options including huntsman. you had trump making that controversial phone call with taiwan. >> at the same time, huntsman, had been supportive that he made it. saying that it could be a smart foreign policy decision and a warning to china that he will talk to them and a lot of critics as well. rex tiller son, he's going to be here tomorrow. look, at this point in time, chris, huntsman and tillerson has not met with trump. patraeus felt good about that meeting. he was out on a sunday circuit doing a tough run and answering tough questions that the fact

that he pled guilty. and bob corkel, that's where things stand but the over arching theme here. the bottom line, top officials say the president-elect trump is not in a rush to make a decision. he's going to take his time because this is such a critical choice for him, chris. >> kristen welker, thank you and don't back out even a foot. the dimension looks like those buses are about an inch from you. thank you very much for reporting from it. fifth avenue. donald trump nominated ben carson to be secretary of department of housing and urban development. last month carson's raised doubt about his qualifications. armstrong william says doctor carson feels he has no government experience and he's never run a federal agency. you don't get honesty like that.

when asked what made him qualify, doctor carson said this. >> i grew up inner city and i have spent a lot of time there and dealt with a lot of patients from the area and recognized that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. >> during the 2016 republican primaries, carson fired on, guess who? donald trump. >> he says he's pathological and he's got pathological disease. i don't want a person that's got pathological disease. i don't want it. at a fairly young age at 14 or 15 years old? i didn't. he took a knife and he went

after a friend and he launched that knife into the stomach of his friend but low and be hold, it hit the belt and the knife broke. >> if you tried and hit your mother over the head in the hammer, your poll number goes up. this is the only election in history where you are better off to stab somebody, what are we coming to? >> deep breaths sometimes. lets talk about this, secretary of state. >> yes, is dut. i think he's auditioning for looks and who's going to look right. what the hell, bring mitt romney him, he seems presidential and rudy even liked him and

kellyanne conway seems to have some power? >> she apparently does. >> look, for a change, lets take a slightly chairable view. i hope he takes his time. this is a man started on zero on foreign policies and does not know anything about diplomacy and the history of our relations with any countries. he does not know anything. >> taiwan has an issue with china? >> exactly. >> when these people who do have some experience, putting rudy giuliani is all right. mitt romney and patraeus and others coming in like huntsman when they say this is my view and i hope he's listening and considering and trying to figure out what kind of foreign policy he wants to implement. >> this could be fishy. >> if i had to guess i would say

corker or patraeus. he's taking his time and making the audition. he did the same thing for vice president, if you remember. here is what we are thinking about and they're all out there and trying to get their performance up. i think he made good picks so far. it is not like he picks someone like the second season of "the prentice." >> they're all credible. >> they are credible people. ben carson and secretary of -- >> well, he lives in a house. >> well, you don't have a picture of somebody you married but fall in love with somebody you meet. he seems to be going from such bizarre direction. he starts off and he's got john bolton. i would say a hawk and somebody else who does not have a foreign policy. >> i think he probably knows the

difference and he does not know it in details, perhaps. but, you know he listens to these people. >> we are talking about mitt romney, for example, mitt romney is so critical of the muslim ban. how are they going to work out. he would never take the job because he morally opposed it. >> exactly. >> if you call it something else. it is really a muslim ban. >> he's not hiding it. he's doing it by skills set. the one thing all these people have in common, they're not somebody that's going to say yes, sir. >> why would he considered a guy like huntsman and took the job and ran against obama for re-election, you have to have some measure of loyalty or history of loyalty. you don't run against the guy

who gave you fantastic post. >> there is a surprise number of reasons, one is he's moderate. the conservative is not going to say great, john. >> if you say china is everything right now. nobody knows china better than jon. >> and the mission on taiwan. he was the ambassador of china. >> as you point out the list of people who are not critical of donald trump. >> lets go to doctor carson. he's a likable person. he made controversial statements about president obama and about race and a topic that's brought up of homosexuality. here is the example. >> obamacare is really, i think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. >> i have been told that we are living in a -- what do you mean by that?

>> i mean very much like nazi-germany. i know i am not supposed to say that. >> do you think being gay is a choice? >> absolutely. >> a lot of people who go into prison, go to prison straight and when they come out, they're gay. >> obama, you referred to him as a psychopath. what did you mean by that? >> i said reminds you of a psychopath. because they tend to be extremely smooth and charming people who can tell a lie to your face. >> there you have the psychopath, smooth. >> i did noticed the smoothness of it. i won't go there. >> and the prison case. i have known ben carson and i really know his political views. >> i never knew him either.

>> he's brilliant and he's a neural surgeon and one of the best of his time. he has insane political views on a number of issues. i would worry about what he's trying to implement. >> over the week, by the way, a little light hearted here. "saturday night live" did it again targeted trump's transition efforts. >> next i am going to do what i promised my whole campaign and i am going to build that swamp. [ laughs ] >> you mean drain the swamp and build the wall. >> no, too many things. just smush them together, smush. >> once again, trump did not like it. he tweeted, just tried watching "saturday night live." unwatching and not funny. the impressions just get worse, sad. >> a defense of his twitter

habit, if the press covers me accurately, i would have far less reason to tweet. we are in for a tweeting president. all the things he's done and tweeting about china made no sense to me. i think he's doing a lot of things great with his transition. i wish somebody would take that thing away from him and i wish -- >> well, you have to sleep with him to do that, he does it at 5:00 in the morning. >> it does not help. >> real thing, reagan, certainly politically and historically because he made a choice to pick a really serious chief of staff. mr. president, it is not the smart thing this week. >> once you focus on jobs and staying away from the social

issue stuff. nancy reagan did that, too. did trump have anybody that says don't do that? >> priebus does not have the standing or telling trump not to tweet. i don't know. >> if you start to tweet and it gets out of hand, it does not go. >> or a white house jamming. don't they have control of the communication. >> mike pence, i was adviser to mike pence and i know reince priebus very well and kellyanne conway very well. one thing you have is tact. you don't go in there and pull him in the room and blast them out. you have to walk them threw why it does not made sense. he listened to advisers and act presidential. they'll get in there this week as well. quite frankly.

>> well, i think it is dangerous for the country of his politics, whether you a big aggressive or not, you don't want a president of the united states starting wars. >> he's got to be careful. >> we all agree on that. >> other countries are paying attention. >> they don't know. seriously.

the vice president was here presiding over the senate while a bill was named in the honor of his son who died in cancer, a cancer related treatment bill. he was here and it was sort of an emotional setting. he came off the senate floor and a small group of us talking to him and asking him about what does it mean? these are your final days of your time in office, did it add to your emotions. he began talking about him. he laughed because we thought that he was teasing. i love this place referring to public life. there is a question, are you going to run again? yes, i am going to run again. for what? for president. what the hell, man. >> that sounds like biden. we are going to run like that if you drop something like that. okay, go ahead. circle back again. mr. vice president, were you kidding? >> his answer was this.

he paused for four long seconds as he thought about what he's going to say. i am not committing to not running. i am not committing to anything. i learned a long time faith has a strange way of intervening. chris as you understand in the senate our place have no camera permitted. i recorded my video on the iphone. >> we have it. >> here it is. >> i am going to run for 2020. >> for what? >> for president. >> what the hell, man? >> we are going to run with that, sir, you know? >> that's okay. >> just to be clear, were you kidding about running for president, 2020? >> i am not committing not to run. i am not committing anything. i learned a long time ago of faith, faith has a strange way of intervening.

he seems like he wants us to think that he may run. he understood when i say mr. president, we are going to run that. this is going to be headline, please think about that. >> you know what would be great if they take a poll in the next couple of weeks, some big pollster for somebody else and they ask some people who may run, i bet you he will lead the pack. that would be a nice president. thank you, kelly o'donell. i want to see where it plays in the front page tomorrow, top of the fold or right or bottom? we'll see, we'll be right back after this.

is there no shame. have you noticed about it lately of huntsman, they cannot wait to tell how much they adore donald trump.

>> two months everyday he gets up and shouts out, i am not saying anybody particularly, i am just playing the field. does he want a professional or a realist or a neo con. nobody knows if trump knows the difference between the two. that's hardball for now, thanks for being with us, join me again tomorrow at 7:00 eastern time. see you then.

"all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in" -- >> i think the conversation that happened this week with the president of taiwan was a courtesy call. >> first it was a courtesy call. today, reports trump was intentionally provoking the world power. >> china has created the greatest theft in the history of the united states. >> the high stakes of donald trump's first global feud as president-elect. plus, what was al gore doing at trump tower today? tonight, my exclusive interview with the former vice president on his talks with ld trump and calls to ditch the electoral college. then, senator sherrod brown on why he's troubled by the ben carson pick for h.u.d. the massive victory for activists against the data