that's going to do it for this hour. mtp daily starts right now. if it's friday, how deep do russia's spy games go? tonight russia's role in the presidential election. >> the president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review. they are expressing concern

about the security of its election. an exclusive from a guy who got rich creating fake election news. and we will show you how he does it. >> you see what people like and you give it to them. it's simple. >> we will hear from kellyanne conway on whether trump's cabinet picks fit with trump's campaign promises. this is mtpdaley and it starts right now. >> this is chuck todd here in washington. you don't want to miss this exclusive on tracing the source and we embedded the reports with it. it's the question a lot of folks are asking including president obama. the president ordered a full

review of election related cyber attacks. they want to deliver the evidence of the russian government's role and whether they were trying to intervene. >> the president directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process. it is to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders to include the congress. he expects to get a report prior to him leaving office, yes. we will see what comes out of the report, but certainly there will be a report to a range of stakeholders to include congress. >> the administration officials told us the president is concerned that russia will go

unpunished for the behavior unless he acts. despite briefings linking russia to them, donald trump downplayed the possibility that russia was as involved in the election as the intelligence community believes. >> i don't think anybody knows it was russia that broke into the dnc. she is saying russia, russia, russia. it could be russia, but it could be china and lots of other people. it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? >> just this past october, the obama administration accused the russian government of waging a digital campaign to disrupt the election. 17 intelligence agencies agree that russia had its hand in the cyber breeches. the substance or scale of what was approved remains unclear and how close was it to putin. the president's announcement comes as pressure is growing for congress to get the real story on how much influence russia had in the election.

they said it's time necessary a probe. marco rubio backed that up on "meet the press" a couple of weeks ago. >> if you look at what happened in our election and the sort of things that were interjected into the process, they are very similar to the sort of active measures that you see with the russians use in the past in places like eastern europe to interfere with the elections. is it worthy of international scrutiny? >> absolutely. >> he intends to hold hearings on alleged russian hacking. all of the people i pointed out are republican voices the would be allies are joining with democrats to buck the president-elect on this soft tone he has with russia. 27 senators including 12 republicans called on trump to stand against russian aggression and support nato and ukrainian

sovereignty. with national elections coming up in germany, they fear they are next. just last year, hackers infiltrated the parliament's network and the intelligence agency concluded it was the work of counterparts. another piece of the seemingly growing puzzle of russia's involvement in a lot of western democracies these days. joining me now is pete williams. explain he wants this reviewed. what does this mean? calling all the agencies and saying me what you got and we will put together the report or he wants 17 reports and we will put it in one report? >> he wants the intelligence community to do this. bear in mind we found out about this today, but we don't know when it was starred. it could be already in the process. the officials have not told us that. it could be that they are well

along the way of doing this. you can think if he wants it before he leaves office, they have a month to do it. they started on it, but presumably this will be a single report summarizing what the intelligence community believes russia was up to in terms of the u.s. election. >> this order, the implication and the announcement or potential implication is that the obama administration believes if they don't do this review, trump never will. >> i think that's certainly a given, given his skepticism about whether the russians were involved at all. 180 degrees from what the intelligence community has been saying. you showed the clip from the debate. he repeated this with "time" magazine. he said it could be russia or china or a guy in new jersey, he said. he said the intelligence community doesn't know. opposite of theirs.

at the very least the president believes if russia is not called out on this, the trump administration is unlikely to do anything. it begs the question of if the president asked for and gets smoking gun or proof that russia was behind this, it begs the question, what is the u.s. going to do about it and that raises the question of whether the president, president obama would try to do something to retaliate before leaving office in mid-january. to say here you go, congress. begin. >> whatever it is, it will be great fuel for the hearings that congress intends to do. congress and he jump-starts it anyway. he will be hearing from the house and the senate and they will be chaired by republicans in the administration of

republican president who has great skepticism about this. >> it's going to be one of the interesting -- who knows if it's a total side bar story or the main stories or one of the main stories. pete williams, thank you very much. let me turn to malcolm, a terrorism analyst and executive director of the terror project. germany believes there is russian interfere and italy. it led to the resignation of a pro eu style of leader that led to his resignation and we heard about brexit and our election here in the united states. how confident are you that this is a plot to disrupt democracy?

>> despite the fact that i wrote a book called the plot to hack america that out lined how russia carried out these cyber operations as part of their global hybrid military warfare. they call them military operations or they compromise a political system in their interest. the russians have not only done this for the united states in the last year, they have done it against the ukraine and a stonia, georgia, lat via. we know they hacked german parliament a year ago with the same hacker mal wear and systems of russian intelligence that they hacked the dnc with. this is a large scale operation on russia's side. they view it as a way to balance out their weak economic policies by gaping information against people and putting in allies that they want. >> ultimately the motivation is to simply keep europe and nato

off their back at the end of the day? that's what this is about? >> i think it's bigger than that. if you speak to other experts like mike mcfall, they believe that putin is trying to exercise strength and most of this exercise is against his own population. it's a propaganda war. you see mass bombings in syria with relatively antiquated russian systems. they were pushing nato back and with donald trump now as their ally who met all of their strategic goals they promised them, they can push nato back or even dissolve it to the point where they can exercise even greater influence and hopefully bring a broader growth to russian economy. >> at the end of the day, he fears these multicountry organizations. however you want to call it. malcolmenance, earthquakes appreciate your perspective on

this. let me bring in the panel. michael steel. former white house communications director. and nbc news presidential historian. michael, i will start with you. during the cold war, how much did either side try to use it and is there historic parallel. and the reason why truman reacted so sharply was that they were trying to do exactly this and the same with elections. >> anita, this is for many democrats it's like they want to prove they didn't -- this was an unfair or rigged part of this. i almost wonder if it looks too

partisan, will it actually make it harder for them to punish? >> it was frustrating starting in july when it became clear. everyone who looked at the issue and said the committee was not only and the clinton campaign. we all felt like if somebody caught them stealing the you documents, it's a huge story. breaking into john's home to steal his personal files. it's a huge story. instead it was like a wow, did he really write that about chelsea clinton story. >> nobody was sure. there was a vagueness. >> what did you need?

you had a lot of people in the intelligence community saying yes, this is what happened. >> that was all reported on. the fact that it didn't gain mass with the public. just enough vagarie. >> the public was getting the salacious daily e-mail from the selective wikileaks that the groups that had stolen the papers made to begin with. you can never say it did, but it was not helpful. if you talk to the people from the clinton campaign, it was debilitating. >> how is it not an act of war. the american presidential election, that's a version and that's the level stuff. >> what makes this not reach that level is the fact that it's cyber. at the end of the day we don't

have our hands and eyes and ears of what the brave world is not about. we focus on what happens with social media and we explain and cry. there is a whole back story and they needed to reference what is beneath the surface. we haven't equated with the level of seriousness that you are talking about. somebody physically doing something. that was different from hacking somebody's e-mail. >> the thing that the new president is play towards russia for the republican candidates who ran for reasons that we don't fully understand.

the proof will be there. it won't be a question at a debate. >> it still begs the question, what will you do about it. >> a lot depends on the findings. >> the public's reaction to the findings. how definitive does it get? >> it's not just those two. >> this is going to be -- this won't be as partisan as people think. >> this is the beginning between trump and the republicans. >> you guys are sticking around. the growing conflict of interest questions that many people are bringing up with president-elect trump. we will talk to kellyanne conway. one of the sources in macedonia

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this, breaking news. we are expecting joe mansion to announce there will be no government shut down as a few have feared. he and other red state senators have been holding up a vote on the resolution to push for extended benefits for retired coal miners. we don't know for sure yet whether they fully struck the deal or whether it's done, but senators don't like being here late at night on a friday and certainly don't want to work on a saturday. it looks like a deal is near. no government shut down and the bill will pass which expires in april. we'll be right back.

>> a major shake-up in a race for secretary of state. moments ago, donald trump said in a statement that former new york city mayor rudy giuliani, consider a top contender removed his name for any position. it was not related to anything they found while vetting. trump's incoming chief of staff said giuliani passed with flying colors. what happened? this is a job that giuliani lobbied for publicly. giuliani withdraw his name in a meeting last tuesday. the transition did keep mentioning his name through today. >> the mayor was a constant presence pretty much in the waning months of the campaign and endorsed the president-elect earlier on in the summer or spring. mayor giuliani is still in the mix. >> whether it be rudy giuliani or mitt romney or general petraeus or senator corker or john bolton and others bring

extraordinary background and qualities to this. >> giuliani is out, but sources tell my colleagues and a transition official confirmed that goldman sachs president and coo is in. he has been offered a job as the top white house economic adviser. he is the third goldman sachs alum to be offered a job. he picked a 17-year goldman vet and a-time banker steve bannon is the top white house adviser. trump attacked goldman's influence and here's trump in the campaign going after ted cruise and hillary clinton's goldman ties. >> i know the guys at goldman sachs. they have total, total control over him. just like they have total control over hillary clinton. total. they have no control over donald trump. i don't want their money. i don't need their money. they have no control.

>> the top transition adviser and donald trump's campaign manager. welcome to the set. it has been a while. let me go to goldman sachs. he railed against them. three goldman sachs alum with fairly prominent positions. >> he rallied against the political influence. he said that they don't have influence over him politically and they will not have influence over him politically in the white house. they will working to w him to implement the vision. >> what would you say if hillary clinton appointed three goldman sachs guys. >> i don't remember myself being critical of president-elect obama's cabinet positions because every president has the right in the peaceful transfer of power to make his own decisions. in the case here, the first criterion is that they be qualified and capable of doing the job and to do it within the structure that the

president-elect set forward. he has been straight forward about his vision for each of the cabinet positions. >> let me take another look. this is not the first goldman alum to serve in this very post. the chief economic adviser in the white house. it's almost a goldman seat. i don't to be that chi shay, but almost every president had one serve at some point. was the trashing of goldman campaign rhetoric and bs? >> remember he is talking about political influence. these are cabinet positions and people who will serve -- >> they are political appointments! >> they are helping to roll back bad policy we had. this president wants to create $25 million over ten years and unleash energy in a way and have a revolution like we have seen. he needs people around him who believe in that and can help execute. you will not find better people

than at the top of the finance and at the top of the markets and understand the way markets work. somebody has taken distressed companies and turned them around. each of them men are proven job creators and that's a centerpiece of his administration and his tenure in look what he did with carrier in indianapolis. >> let me ask you about this. withdrawal today, it does seem as if it was out of the mix. was everybody being polite until rudy giuliani was able to withdraw? >> it's a mutual decision. they will be close friends. great advice. i grew close to him in the campaign. in addition that, he is a lucrative and successful and in

demand private sector business. it's difficult for people to walk away from that. until the two of them had agreed to this mutually, it was up to them to -- >> i find an interesting phrase you used. mutual decision. donald trump was not sold on the idea of rude i giuliani. >> no, all i meant is the president-elect trump accepted mayor giuliani's decision to withdraw his name and obviously the president-elect is considering a number of people for that post that the actual scope has widened of late. you mentioned rex tillerson, head of exxon. intriguing pick to many people. he issa active in crush ra and yemen and the developing world across our globe. he has the business experience that donald trump values. >> what is among the criterias for state. let's take rex tillerson and

mitt romney. they have different takes on putin. obviously you are sending two different messages depending on who you pick. is the putin -- is the candidate's position on putin part of the criteria? >> the candidates? i believe everyone should recognize it is president-elect trump's position that will dominate the role across the globe. >> this is an implementer. everyone needs to remember this is an implementer. >> we will take the counsel and we always feel welcome, he is a master listener and learner. he is sending a message in tone and content to the world through the secretary of state pick as to how or whom he nls will help implement his vision and who will be the trump doctrine and he is clear on how he views vladimir putin and perhaps double down and defeat terrorism

and try to get isis to be the jv team that is no longer announcing it was said to be by president obama. and yet we know that vladimir putin also does things that donald trump doesn't always agree with. that comes with the territory and he talked to over 50 heads of states since he became president-elect. he and vice president pence have. he is receiving calls and discussions issues with world leaders knowing that we still have another president and commander in chief for the next six weeks or so, but it doesn't mean he agrees with everything or most things these leaders are doing or saying. >> you may know your bones about mitt romney. is he still a candidate? >> he is. & i will support completely and whole heartedly whoever president-elect trump picks including secretary ever state. he has my complete loyalty. all i was trying to do was give

voice privately and with permission publicly to what i saw as a breathtaking onslaught of resistance to the idea. that came in a week when president-elect trump told the "new york times" on the record he was rethinking water borting and he confirmed with general mattis that he would take a look and he was not much interested in having as a priority in prosecuting hillary clinton and he is focusing on health care and immigration. it doesn't mean it won't happen and other people are in charge of it, but in the week when he said those things, the biggest news story for the grass roots was the prospect of secretary of state mitt romney. >> you were trying to make sure he didn't miss it. >> it was said to him privately. also what i think doesn't matter and what donald trump as the president-elect and president of the united states does is all that matters. i appreciate the fact that he

takes the counsel and the advice of many different senior advisers and ultimately we always know who is in command and control of the decision. he is a master decision maker and a brilliant accomplished businessman whose instincts and role intelligence is incredible. >> i want to ask you about general flynn and what happened in the contrary that surrounds his son. the former general and nbc military news analyst had tough words for general flynn earlier this week. i want to play them for you and get you to react. >> i was very strong in my endorsement of him. he was first announced in a seat position. i said he was correctly probably the best intelligence officer of his generation. i must admit i am extremely uneasy about some of these tweets which don't sound so much

as if they are political, but instead border on being demented. it needs closer scrutiny. >> those are tough words from somebody not known as a partisan. >> very tough words. the first part has not changed. that's that general michael flynn served his country for 30 years including five years in combat. many tours of duty and missed his older son's wedding and made it in the knick of time for his second son's wedding. these are his sacrifices. he talked about security and peace. he talked about government reform and he is another one who will implement what president donald trump's vision for the national security post is. i think what general mccaffrey said about this man's decades of service should not be under cut by recent events. that would be unfortunate.

>> why shouldn't people have questions about it? >> i didn't say they shouldn't. >> the judgment that maybe it's love for his son that made him not have not used correct judgment here. whatever it is, clearly a question he used wrong judgment here. >> they apologized. his son has been removed from the transition team. the fact is that i think everybody can relate to love for one's son. at the same time we really need to look at his full record. what qualifies him to be national security adviser and you find a long list of items in response to that question. >> if he doesn't have the respect of the military community, can he effectively do that. >> you are presuming he doesn't. he does. >> there is a lot of questions. it is bubbling and not a lot of people going on the record. caffrey is one of the few. would that be a concern? >> it's not a fact. people will come on tv if they

have something to say that is negative in that regard, but the question is does he have the trust of the president-elect donald trump and the trust and the backing of the military community who are looking at it through a non-jaundiced eye. so far is answer is yes. >> a lot more to get to, but i don't have that time. we will have you here again. nice to see you. still ahead, fake news equals big business in one small european town. nbc news went on the ground in macedonia to find out where supposed fake news starts. we have interesting details ahead. ♪ see ya next year. this season, start a new tradition. experience the power of infiniti now, with leases starting at $319 a month.

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if it's sunday, we are tracking the trump transition to talk about the latest on the cabinet picks. plus, we will have more mtp daily just ahead. first here's the cnbc market wrap. >> stocks close at fresh all time highs. the dow surging 142 points and now less than 250 points from the 20,000 level. s&p adds 13 and the nasdaqs 27. they are confident heading into the holidays. sent in the index and rising to the highest level since january of 2015. the gain was bigger than economists expected. investors are looking ahead to next week's meeting. the central bank expected to announce a rate hike.

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welcome back. now to an nbc news exclusive. we tracked fake news to one of its many sources. we know where it ends up. on a lot of people's facebook feeds and shared by people close to the president-elect. where do the lies come from? that's what we wanted to find out. the answer at least in part is a group of teen agers is in a small town in macedonia. they met with one of the teens and got a close up look at his and this business. take a look. he asked that we kept his identity hidden. just a guy making a living in the small town in macedonia. >> i wrote as a celebrity to kill trump. the queen of england wanted to

meet trump and had a secret net manage mexico. >> hooey is 18 years old and said he made $60,000 in months writing, posting and sharing fake news articles about the american election. some 150 fake u.s. politics sites have been traced here. to dmitri's hometown. he was willing to lift the vail on the boot strap operation which garnered 40 million page views. to draw readers, his fake stories copied t style of more mainstream organizations, including nbc news. >> more clicks mean more cash. his only goal is to make his stories go viral. he said his main source of cash comes from supporters of donald trump. >> trump is not a politician like any other. nothing can beat trump supporters when it am cans to social media engagement.

that's why we stick to trump. >> alexander smith was part of the team cranking out the fake news articles. the first thing that comes to mind is did he really come up with this idea all by himself and had no help and no tool kit? like here you go and here's how to do this? it seems they are self characteristiced. we have seen examples of websites in the u.s. and elsewhere, but it seems to be concentrated for such a small town. these kids really are start up operations, if you will, at doing it from their bedrooms and started out very much trial and error. just posting dozens and dozens of articles every day. just seeing what stuck. that turned out to be content supporting donald trump and attacking hillary clinton.

>> it just seems like quite the coincidence that it's coming from here and is it really that organic? or is it in their best interest to make it look organic? >> it seems that are various different types of fake news that the teenagers and very young adults are working with. one type is pure copy and paste. there are certain fake news websites in the united states which they will just copy the article from and paste it on to their websites verbatim. that is a pure copy and paste operation. they do also take articles from the mainstream media and just inflate their own untruths. they got inspiration from elsewhere. it seems that they saw a certain

fake news website in the u.s. and thought they could make a quick buck by doing so. these kids have really got to where they are or certainly the particular teenager that said they spent last weekend with. he got to where he is now by process of trial and error and seeing what works quite frankly and it does. it earned him thousands of dollars. >> is he a ringleadero training others to do this? is this just word of mouth they all talked to each other and said look what i'm doing? let me show you how to get in on this. >> certainly the size of macedonia is a town of around 50,000 people appears to have contributed hugely to the fact that it's such an unlikely hot spot. it's a case of a few teenagers dabbling in the first when word got around that they were making a lot of money. everyone wanted a piece of the

action. and he said he was one of the first people to switch. that certainly spread and he said he is how hiring three 15-year-olds and paying them around $10 a day, good money for that town. you are not going to get that sort of money behind a bar. he is employing three of his kids and reinvesting into facebook all the time. he is not the top earner, but he is close to the top. he told us he is probably at least in the top 10, if not higher than that. >> all of his money is earned based on how much traffic a story gets with click advertising. >> yeah. >> go ahead. >> it's just brute numbers and

they post dozens of articles every day just in a pure bid. they also cross post to each other's facebook pages and cross post each other's articles to get the facebook algo rhythm not to discrimination and try to game to get the maximum numbers and it's just brute numbers to try to get as many thousands of people on to your website. there is only a small percentage that click through. >> there it is. macedonia. the fake news country of record these days. alexander smith, fascinating stuff. i have to admit you only created more questions than i thought were imaginable. good work and thanks very much. you can see more reporting on this story and nbc news.com. and breaking news from the hill, senator joe mansion just took the floor and the headline is no deal to move the deal forward just yet. guess what. six hours until a shut down.

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time for "the lid." let me bring back the panel. michael steele, anita dunn and michael beschloss. this joe manchin decision to potentially hold up and threaten a government shutdown. good politics for the democrats? >> i think joe manchin is showing the people of his state who he stands with and i think that's always good politics. >> good politics for joe manchin or good politics for the democratic party? >> no, i think he's sending a message to people around the

country, who he stands, who the democratic party stands with. that's not bad politics. >> all right. rudy giuliani, a mutual decision, as kellyanne conway told me. >> you couldn't wait for this. >> i have to say, i thought that was interesting. she was very careful, twice, to say it was mutual. >> needs to spend more time whiz family. >> this was not rudy's decision. >> i get the sense it wasn't. and i think that it goes back to rudy campaigning so hard for the position they didn't want to give him. and i think that just kind of starting rubbing a whole lot of folks internally the wrong way. and donald trump has shown, he can have you dangling out there for as long as he wants you on the hook. >> you know, there is something that others have pointed out to me and i've noticed too, with trump, is the more press you get involving trump that isn't about him, that doesn't play well with the boss. >> that's exactly right. >> that hurt paul manafort. he became a story, good-bye. >> it's like theodore roosevelt, had to be the bride at every

wedding and the corpse at every funeral. >> but how would you -- is trump thinking the right way on that front, when staff gets too much press, it's a problem? >> you know, chuck, there was a time in american politics where if staff showed up in photographs, they got in trouble in campaigns. and you know, what we can make america great again here, okay? >> when was their last appearance? >> but it does speak to the people around him and the roles that they understand they have to play with trump. so when you look at that inner circle of bannon and priebus, those are two guys who are not going to be looking for a camera or that public conversation. that suits trump just fine. and i think if whether you believe what happened with kellyanne and her comments about mitt romney, whether it was part of the narrative, the quickness with which that pulled back to get her back behind the curtain i think speaks volumes to your point. >> i have to say, i think romney would be the smartest pick for uniting the republican party, i

think. but maybe -- >> i don't think a romney pick unites the republican party. >> you think it would divide -- >> i think it would divide it. >> the other question, let's say it ends up being rex tillerson, on the russian theme, this is somebody with a pretty close relationship with putin. was this whole reality show about choosing a secretary of state over the last month really to disguise the appointment of someone who may have been a front-runner all along. >> that's an interesting thought. >> because the reality is that if you go back and looked at the 2012 foreign policy debate between barack obama and mitt romney, romney clearly lays out that he sees russia as the single greatest threat. >> i think he's on a bit of an "i told you so" tour. >> i think a lot of people still disagree with a lot of the things he says, but the reality of this is, this is going to be an incredibly important signal to the rest of the world.

and how trump decides -- how the president-elect decides to go on this one is going to tell us a lot about this. >> i think he has his pulse -- >> a fascinating little -- >> very conspiratorial. >> from an historian, no less. usually you're the last one. very interesting. michael beschloss leaving with us a nice cliff-hanger for the weekend. half the break, congress battles the bots, stay tuned. i work 'round the clock.

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in case you missed it, no matter what you thought about the year in politics, 2016 rocked. ac/dc had a killer summer tour this year. come on and listen to the money talk. sting and peter gabriel played to sold out audiences across the country. the boss hit the road with the e street band and slash played with axle rose for the first time in 22 years. but you might have missed them or had to pay through the roof to sit in the nosebleeds, even though you kept hitting the refresh button the exact moment the tickets went on sale. so who's to blame? robots, of course. seriously. ticket master estimates that bots gobble upwards of 60% of the most desirable seats for shows, so scalpers can mark them up and sell them for a congress. but in case you missed it, congress is on the case. the house passed the bots act this week, to make it illegal to circumvent the security measures of ticketing websites. if it becomes law, there are

doubts that the legislation will actually work. bots are pretty smart. congress is, well, congress. but it's the ultimately battle of man versus machine. and ultimately, i hope, i do not have to say that i, for one, welcome our new robot overlords as i'm speaking to a robot-driven camera right now. that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back monday with more "mtp daily." don't forget to catch us sunday on "meet the press." ari melber picks up our coverage right now. hello i'm ari melber. it's 6:00 p.m. on the east coast. you're watching msnbc live. and tonight donald trump on a victory tour of states he won. and big news about the job rudy giuliani won't be getting. and mass murderer confesses. dramatic video of dylann roof's confession played today at his murder trial. and there's no such thing as a lame-duck president when it