i did not believe that comey was the new j. edgar hoover. i thought that he would do the right thing for the country. comey who is, of course, a republican, refused to divulge this information on russia and the presidential election. >> do you believe jim comey should resign, senator reid? >> of course, yes. >> good morning and welcome to "a.m. joy." okay. this is how bold donald trump is. just an hour after my interview with outgoing senate minority leader harry reid on allegations that russia intervened in the u.s. elections that helped donald trump win, andrea mitchell told us secretary of state will be putin pal rex tillerson. he's known putin since he represented interestses in the 1980s and he also broerked a

multi-billion dollar oil deal with russia, eventually blocked by sanctions imposed by the u.s. and its allies in response to russia's aggression to ukraine, sanctions which tillerson oppose. here's the besties toasting their lucrative friendship back in 2013. tillerson is just the late on a long list of trump advisers who have moscow ties, trump security adviser mike flynn who gave a speech for russia and trump's daughter who vacationed with putin's girlfriend and carter page, scrutinized for the fbi for his dealings with russia and who just happened to be in moscow thursday for meetings with business and thought leaders. and, of course, there's the man who resides on truck tower's 43rd floor, former campaign

manager paul manafort who left the campaign over his alleged ties to a pro-political party in ukraine and has been apparently back advising the campaign since before election day. joining me now, matt welch, editor at large for "reason "with the magazine and "washington post" opinion writer jennifer rubin, msnbc contributor malcolm vance and michael mcfall. ambassador mcfall, i want to start with you on this. for americans who may be looking at all of these russian ties and maybe being uncomfortable with it and not understanding how it could be problematic, what would you say to those who say so what if donald trump is surrounded by lots of people who have an affinity for vladimir putin? >> well, the most important so what is that the russians not only have these connections with people close to president-elect trump, but that they may have done something to make him

president, and that has to be something that all americans care about, democrat, republican or independent. we have to have free and fair elections in this country, and there's just mounting evidence now to suggest that there was interference and the only way we're going to get to the bottom of it in my view is to have a bipartisan independent commission to look into everything, including the long list of things you just listed. >> and, you know, jennifer rubin, you wrote an excellent piece in the "washington post" outlining what you think the capitol hill republicans should start doing, the questions they should start asking. i want to play you what john mccain told our own kasie hunt, and this was yesterday, when kasie hunt asked about the russians and donald trump's doubt that they were behind the interferences in our election. take a listen to john mccain. >> well, in his case he's much more than a business executive. i mean, he's a world class player. he's in charge of i guess the

largest >> that's actually donald trump talking about mr. tillerson. let's go to zo t number five, john mccain talking about the russians. >> i have no doubt that the russians were involved in very serious breaches that we have all seen about. whether they were intended to help donald trump or not, i do not know. that has to be the subject of overall hearings that we're going have on the armed services committee. the whole issue of cyber attacks. >> and jennifer rubin, is the time and place to start to litigate this a confirmation hearing for mr. tillerson, or do you think there should be separate hearings specifically on russian involvement in the election? >> i think all of the bomb i think, unfortunately, listen, john mccain is an american hero, but i'm not hearing very much. i'm hearing nothing actually from senator mitch mcconnell who is the senate majority leader who is accused in the "post" reporting of refusing to go

public on a bipartisan basis with evidence that the cia had that he was intervening directly on behalf of donald trump. i'm not hearing from tom cotton or marco rubio. where are these anti-russia hawks? so i think we have to take every opportunity whether it's an independent commission and, yes, at the confirmation hearings, and i think in that same interview john mccain indicated that if tillerson didn't satisfy his concerns about his ties with russia that he would not vote for him, and i think every republican, every democrat should take that position. but one thing the man is not qualified to be secretary of state. i can't think, except for his relationship with putin, why in the world donald trump would have chosen him. >> well, actually, let's talk about why donald trump said he chose him and this is cut three, and i want to play that and get matt welch's take. this is donald trump explaining why he did in fact choose mr. tillerson. we're going to pull that up in a second. matt, the question is going to be whether or not the senate --

the senators that are looking to confirm or not confirm mr. tillerson are going to delve deeply into his russian ties and business interests. we do have that sound bite. here's donald trump talking about tillerson. >> he's much more than a business executive. i mean, he's a world class player. he's in charge of i guess the largest company in the world. he's in charge of an oil company that's pretty much doubled the size of their next biggest competitor. it's been a company that's been unbelievably managed, and to me a great vac is he knows many of the players and he knows them well. he does massive deals in russia. he does massive deals for the company, not for himself but for the company. >> he says he's done massive deals for himself, massive deals for the company. i think he meant country, but let's listen to tillerson himself back in february during a speaker series when he didn't know he was going to get this job talking about some of the massive deals he's done for the country.

do we have that sound bite? do we have it? yes, okay. let's play it. >> but i'm not here to represent the united states government's interests. i'm not here to defend it nor am i here to criticize it. that's -- that's not what i do. i'm a businessman, and you would be surprised how many times i've had to have that conversations with heads of state who want to say to me, well, look, i know you can have some influence on the president. i need you to go back and tell him this, okay? and there's only been two occasions where i did that because it was a matter of national security, and they did not know how to get a message to the white house, so i did it. >> all right. you actually alerted us to that clip. do you know which presidents he was talking about? >> no, no, and it's unclear the national security issues were. certainly this should come out in a confirmation hearing because i would like to know what it's about, and he's under no obligation to keep it

private, a private citizen and ceo of a company and there's no problem in sharing it. >> will the republicans in congress have the stomach to delve into some of these issues or whether or not they have a president of their same party tillerson sails through? >> this morning john mccain and lindsey graham along with chuck schumer talked about the troubling status of the russian ties and how congress on a bipartisan level needs to investigate this. i read this as a shot across the bowe at the tillerson nomination and all the discussion about this. only a 52-48 majority of republicans in the senate right now and more than ten of those senators didn't endorse or retracted their endorsement of donald trump. a lot of them are russia hawks. jennifer rubin is absolutely right where the hell is marco rubio and some of the traditional russia hawks out there so i think you'll see very specific pushback against tillerson. look, there hasn't been a complete novice in the secretary

of state position since at least the 19th century and that's because -- i couldn't pick piazza it back before 1880 on this stuff. no. we have people who have government experience of some relevance. doesn't mean that they are good, but his only experience here as a transactional figure making oil deals. keep in mind donald trump several times in the campaign said about iraq that one of our problems there, in addition to going in there and all that kind of stuff, is that we didn't seize the oil. so in addition to the russian things, one of the questions we've got to the ask tillerson once he's on the -- on the dock there is that good policy. are we going to go and seize the oil fields of isis next and is that something that we should do? that could be kind of a corporate cronyism the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time. >> the other thing to add to that is andrea mitchell also said john bolton, who is the u.n. ambassador, is set to be the deputy secretary of state. this is not a plan to plays well in the sandbox with others. >> yeah. >> and i cannot see him playing number two to a novice, a

foreign policy novice. >> right. it's going to be -- this is going to be very hot, and i can't imagine it's going to go well. >> assuming that they both get confirmed. malcolm nance, what are some of the other questions that people on these confirmation hearings should be asking because tillerson, you know, to matt's point is a complete novice in terms of foreign policy, only a deal-makers and the deals he's been making include an oil deal with russia had a was scuttled by sanctions that were placed on russia because of their intervention in ukraine. i can see them cutting one deal which is lifting those sanctions which immediately helps exxon's bottom line. >> you know, what's absolutely amazing about the trump campaign is their motto was america first, and i'm not seeing that in their transition team. what i'm seeing that other people's interests, exxon's interests, the interest of the russians are coming well above the united states. you know, based on the "post" reporting and cia report and the other information i'm sure we're going to be getting in droves

here about the russian hacking, it appears that, you know, partisanship has trumped nation, has trumped country, and that's one of the questions that will have to be answered at these hearings. will they, tillerson, will he actually be the ceo of exxon when he's up there, or does he plan on being the business manager of the united states, or will he understand what secretary of state is because in his little video there, that -- he described the role of secretary of state, the person who goes and acts in a diplomatic capacity to transmit messages for the president of the united states. he'll have to figure out what his role is and the senate will have to hold his feet to the fire. >> apparently marco rubio has made some sort of commentary about vladimir putin and there it is. being a lend it of vladimir is not an attribute that i'm hoping for secretary of state. nice that marco rubio had something to say there. michael mcfall, you know, we only talked about mr. tillerson

so far, but does the accumulation of so many pro-putin voices around donald trump trouble you? >> well, it's a mixed bag. i mean, obviously mr. tillerson knows vladimir putin probably better than almost any american that is not in the government. i think you have to -- i think it's henry kissinger and steven segal and him as far and when we used to count these things. so he does know mr. putin well and that translated into a $300 billion potential joint venture back in 2011. when i was ambassador i knew that the exxon mobil operation in moscow well. it was a big business deal at a time before they -- the russians invaded ukraine, that the obama administration supported, but the -- the real problem in my view is that he's one-dimensional. he spent his entire career at exxon mobil, and there are lots

of issues in the portfolio of the secretary of state that don't have to do with energy. what about north korea, what about icbms and the nato alliance, and i could go on with many -- a long list, and, you know, i believe he should get his hearing and the confirmation should go forward in terms of a hearing, but prima facie, the resume does not look like somebody ready to be sec >> and i will just end this segment by reading a tweet by a gentleman named evan mcdowell who says he's an eu affairs consultant saying alexander dugan has said washington is ours. it's now ours. now we just have to drain the swamp at home. that is the view apparently from moscow. thank you all. coming up, how the united states could come to resemble the congo. stay with us. he gets a lot of compliments.

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i'm not active in the transition, but i'm watching and. >> well, are you talking to the president-elect is the question? >> i'm watching the transition. i'm not active in it and i don't want to talk about who i'm speaking to, but i'm aware of what's going on. >> on friday paul manafort, donald trump's former campaign chair, distanced himself from the transition following reports he had returned to advise on donald trump's cabinet picks. manafort formally left the trump campaign in august amid questions about his ties to a pro-russian party in the ukraine. and in november he was subject to an fbi inquiry about his foreign business connections, connections which rely on his

expertise that polish the notorious list of strong men around the world. among the list of clients who called an manafort to handle their scandals and massage the issue, dictators in the dominican republic, nigeria, equatorial begin and somalia and the newest addition, america's very own wannabe strong man donald trump. matt welch is back with me awit our other guests. i want to throw this out and throw it out to the panel. "the guardian" has a piece entitled will donald trump's victory empower africa's strong man saying the tide has turned after obama's efforts to promote democracy abroad. observers noted not one of the 29 leaders the president-elect has spoken to in the week following his election from sub

saharan africa. will donald trump's election empower africa's strong men? >> well, what it does it says to african strong men that the united states cannot insist on dem sit way it has, if it has someone who tells the press that they are bad people and tries to repress voices and we have seen that where america goes there's always this moral authority. that is going to be missing if we have president-elect not respecting human rights or other voices. >> well, you know, we've had this situation where china is very active on the african continent and part of the reason they are successful is they don't go in with a lot of demands about human rights. they go in and do business. >> right. >> donald trump is more along that lines, i would think. >> and you have to admit it works. china's strategy worked. a lot of african leaders say we need paved roads and we need hospitals and schools and china built that for us, and they -- and they left them alone on

human rights and violations and labor all all that have in africa itself so that worked of addressing africa's practical needs and we need to address that because that's where the america is talking about democracy and freedom and between china and coming and talking about infrastructure building and investment even though it came at a price for africa, so there is now a moment that we need to reflect actually how america is viewed abroad because it has lost a lot of credibility and especially in the africa and middle east and -- >> on what level? >> credibility because there's a disconnect between the prompings freedom and democracy and actual implementations in different countries of what is that freedom and democracy and supporting all of these things and allowing that while talking about democracy and freedom. this is going to be a point reflection for americans. where did we lose credibility, why? will donald trump increase that discredibility or all of that,

but a lot of leaders around the world are saying we're going to cut deals with him and it's not going to impact us much in africa and the middle east and different parts of the world so they are not panicking as we are. >> speaking of practical needs and cutting deals. ivanka trump has her shoe collection manufactured in china and now it's moving to ethiopia where the labor is even cheaper. >> yes is. >> is that a net plus for a country like ethiopia, or is that just using the continent for cheap labor? >> well, my first thing is this. if your message is make america great again and that's what you would stand for i would question why you're taking jobs anywhere else outside of america in the first place, that's the first thing. secondly, ethiopia does not have a good record in human rights. for example, repressive regime, president obama went there last year and was criticized for going, whether or not it's a good thing that america interact

in ethiopia, i'm not sure if that's important but if it's being seen as hypocritical in terms of freedom and democracy there needs to be some sort of moral authority that says we do stand for something and that's really important. it can't just be about cheap labor especially in a place are exploited on a day-to-day basis anyway. >> one of the base ease on which people opposed this intervention in iraq is there was a migrating for doing it and eventually the reason was we're doing it for human rights and democracy and there is something hypocritical about doing that whereas leaders in the country and middle east and africa know that donald trump isn't going to make that case. he says we should seize the oil in iraq. >> and he also ran as someone who is less interventionist than anyone we've seen in a long time and less than hillary clinton in this case. we are involved in warfare on the african continent and he's said i'm less likely to do that. for those people who are not interested in us being more

involved in the yemeni war, for example, donald trump might be a breath of fresh air as far as we know. but we don't know. when you operate from a portion of foreign policy ignorance which he does you can have all the instincts in the world that are great, those instincts will be thrown out the window because we saw that with george w. bush. >> when people talk about trump being less interventionive the history of mbut a u says that the violence is a great way to control the population and tamp down the press and it's often to do more aggressive warfare, not less. >> let's look at ethiopia. donald trump's daughter is going to make shoes there. ethiopia has a parent that has zero members of the opposition. there have been protests among the people in ethiopia for the last ten to 12 months. thousands and thousands of people have been arrested and killed and the american state department under president obama

has had a light touch, please, please, please, let's go dow something about that. with the trump business having shoes manufactured there, it just gives the imprimatur is doing business with us and we can't be that bad of a regime and we'll continue to oppress people. >> it's hard to even imagine what a trump administration that's primarily concerned about doing business does about a situation like that, especially when you people like john bolton floating around. >> i was just in iraq, and i'll take us back for a second. what a lot of iraqis and people overseas are saying is at least he's saying it as it is. at least he's saying what we want the oil. at least he's saying what we want is a business deal and that actually from an overseas perspective, they are saying, voila, he's telling us the truth. this is the way america has been driving us crazy about talking about something and doing

something else. so the thing -- the fact of the matter is america never cared about the human rights in africa and that disconnect is driving them crazy and he's saying it as it is, and whether it's rwanda or iraq or whether it's congo or ethiopia, they are saying it is at least for the first time we can have an honest conversation about having it as it is. now we have to hear people are saying that. >> the fear that i have is, that you know, donald trump might be a strong man but he's not the strongest man. there are people who are seasoned politicians who understand this game of political chess, and given that donald trump seems to be driven by his emotions i wonder how easy it would be for him to be swayed by people who are much stronger than him. >> yeah. >> and essentially be manipulated by those people. >> yeah. >> so those the issue that i have. he isn't the strongest man. >> in africa he's going to make shoes or his family is. they are going to do business in

a place that's quite repressive. what they are doing is taking jobs away from america and china where in china the job of one person, that same salary, they are going to give to five ethiopians, not a good thing for ethiopia or the couldn't net because they are going there to exploit the african people. >> and "people" speaking of the strongest man, it appears the person who is the most influential around the world now may be vladimir putin. matt welch and all our guests, thanks for a great discussion. >> more "a.m. joy" after the break.

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>> this friday the new installment of "star wars" premiers nationwide. can't wait, and some white supremacists on twitter already have their knickers in a twist. last week right wing twitter started a hashtag dump "star wars" campaign claiming the writers were branding donald trump as a racist this. nonsense was circulated by trump conspiracy theorists and former "a.m. joy" member jack zoniac who tweeted "star wars" writers rewrote and reshot "rogue one" to add in anti-trump scenes calling him a rates of. disgusting, #donald trumpstarwars. a writer responded immediately with this tweet calling it completely fake. and there was another twitter conspiracy shot down this week when he tweeted and deleted this tweet claiming that the gunman at the d.c. pizzeria was an

actor insinuating it was a false flag, handling a little alex jones there. we here at "a.m. joy" aren't surprised to see his interesting take on race and accuracy. take a look at what he told us in philadelphia this summer. >> in the last 100 years, he said make america great again? >> america came together to solve big problems. we talked about world war ii. we talked about the civil rights movement, absolutely. times where america put these divisions and this us versus them mentality aside. >> it might not have been so unifying. >> we got the lyndon baines johnson vetoed that bill three times while the republicans passed it. >> no, the civil rights -- >> no, he actually pushed it over. >> use the force, jack. use the force. h presents itself?

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s. 350,000 door knocks, that's a record, but we also saw in the general record a superior ground game didn't work. >> i didn't have the superior ground game. >> hillary clinton did. >> no, she never had anything like we've got going on in louisiana, not even close. she didn't have a ground game in louisiana. she didn't spend any money here. she did everything in florida. she did nothing in louisiana. we were left out. that's a big, big mistake. don't make that mistake. >> less than 24 hours before louisiana's election day for u.s. senate, the democratic candidate foster campbell, you just saw there, discussed strategies that works and those that don't in a political campaign. campbell lost his race last night, but when it comes to money he's mostly right. hillary clinton did spend most her ad money like states like florida and nevada and ohio rather than louisiana or north carolina, the state democratic party there did spend some money on north carolina's governor's

race and that helped them oust governor mccrory but according to an article by public policy polling the democrats really won the ration the old-fashioned way, they earned it. quote, the seeds of mccrory's defeats were really plant by the moral monday movement december 2013 months after mccory took office and it's a lesson with progress i was dealing with trump. push back hard from day one. joining me now is the executive director of state innovation exchange and tom jensen, director of public policy polling. i'll start with you on this, tom. you looked at how democrats were able to oust governor mckrory in north carolina. walk us through how they did it? >> well, really what happened is pat mccrory got into office. he was popular and seen as a moderate. he won a lot of support from democrats and independents in this election in 2012 and soon after he got into office he started doing a lot of things that weren't moderate. he refused to expand medicaid

and cut unemployment benefits and allowed guns in parks and bars. he -- he cut a lot of voting rights, so all these sorts of things that people thought he was a different sort of republican, he did these things people no longer thought he was a different sort of republican, but those are the kinds of things that voters can soon forget if you don't make a real effort to keep them in the heart of voters' mind and the moral monday movement under the leadership of reverend barber did an incredible job of keeping those stories in the headlines week after week after week and driving down mccrory's popularity. >> and he -- and you write in the piece as well that the moral monday movement managed to remain popular itself throughout which is not common for these kinds of civil rights movements. i want to read a little bit of what reverend barber himself wrote for "the nation" published on december 7th about it, north carolina, a case study for resistance in the trump era. this is reverend barber. we took our stand in public and we exposed the vulnerabilities

of divide and conquer tactics to cross racial, cross class fusion coalition building along with much of the rest of the country. north carolina fell victim to the extremism we've not yet experienced in donald trump, but we could not be deceived by the extremism we have endured under pat mccareer. nick, the important part there i think is that they built this cross-racial, cross-class fusion coalition. is that something that democrats can emulate outside of north carolina? >> yeah. they absolutely should. i think one of the things that's been frustrating as a progressive to watch is how we've often focused as progress i was on washington, d.c. and focused on federal oh, and i think one of the things that our organization, state innovation exchange was createded to do a couple years ago was to really focus in and dig in on the states and build up power from the ground up, and in the same way that reverend barber worked in north carolina is what we want to do in state legislatures

around the country. you can win back people's hearts and minds by focusing and being where they are, so passing legislation locally that matters to people, building narratives locally. i think those things are really important and organize locally. that really is how i think that the way progressives can win back power across the country. >> but, tom, in order to pass legislation that matters to people, democrats actually have to have some power, and they are at an incredible deficit in terms of statehouses around the country. republicans have total control of 30 out of 50 so how do democrats build back bit by bit just getting power at the state legislative level which, again, draws the district for congress as well as in the states? >> well, i think that one slight boss sieve outgrowth of the 2016 election is that it will be a much better climate for democrats running against donald trump in the mid-term elections

in 2018 and then the election in 2020. you'll have the opportunity to pick up legislative seeds and have a role in redistricting as you elect governors in those states as well. the really big lesson with north carolina as it pertains to the national level, they need not to get depressed and fight hard back against donald trump because what we really saw in north carolina is when the moral monday movement kept all of this stuff in the news that the republicans were doing, it really turned voters against the republicans. pat mccrory got elected as a popular governor. by july of 2013 as the protests were going on, his approval rating was down into the 30s. his approval rating never recovered the next 39 months when he was in office. he was always under water, and i think there needs to be a similar movement to hold donald trump accountable for the things he does so that he can't just get people to move on to the next thing and forget about what he did yesterday, what was key in north carolina was that -- was the moral monday movement

kept at the center of voters' minds everything extreme that the state government had done. >> and that issue of fighting back hard, i can't tell you how many times i hear this from democrats that they are lacking the voice of clarity and fight in the democrats, in the national democrats they see sort kind of a pathetic response in a lot of ways to donald trump. i want to play a little bit of reverend barber, just what that voice of moral authority sounds like. >> it's possible to shock a bad heart and revive the pulse and in this season when some people want to harden and stop the heart our democracy. we are being called like our foremothers and fathers to be the moral defibrillators of our times. we can't give up on the heart of our democracy, not now, not ever! >> reverend barber has an advantage in that he's a pastor and a civil rights leader and he has that natural sort of voice of authority.

how can democrats find the way to get that kind of authoritative voice, you know, the elected democrats, because they certainly don't seem to have it now especially lake harry reid who is a tough guy walking away? >> one of the important lessons that the guests also talked about is to listen locally, to talk to people where they are. hear kind of what's going on and talk to people where they are and the ways that they understand, so if you're -- if the legislature or if donald trump is pushing back against women's rights, civil rights, the environment, those sorts of things i think progress i was i was and democrats are right on the issue. we just haven't been talking to people in ways that they can understand because we've been talking past them from washington down, and, again, i think the lessons that reverend barber has established for all of us, and i think we should learn, is really to just -- to

focus locally, organize locally, listen to people locally and build movements from the ground up. >> absolutely. yeah. the party your members want to see you fighting. they want to see you fighting for them. >> that's right. >> and democrats need to lose that lesson. thank you very much. appreciate you guys. >> coming cup. >> in our next hour we will look at donald trump's incoming cabinet and we have a special visitor from the north pole. more "a.m. joy" after the break. >> okay, people. tomorrow morning, 8:00 a.m., santa's coming to down. >> oh, my god!

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donald trump's favorite news source, breitbart.com this week tried to refute global warming by featuring an unrelated video from weather.com about la nina while claiming, quote, global land temperatures have plummeted by one degree celsius since the middle of this year, the biggest and steepest fall and no to

breitbart, earth is not cooling, climate change is lead and please stop misleading americans and this video. >> here's the thing, scientists don't care about your opinion. cherry picking and twisting the facts won't change the opinion nor the fact that the earth is warming. >> and weather.com offered the right wing site one last piece of advice, quote, to our friends at breitbart the next time you write a collide change article and need fact checking article, we're here for you. this topic is too important to get wrong. up next, how fake news almost turned deadly. stay with us. many people clean their dentures with toothpaste or plain water. and even though their dentures look clean, in reality they're not. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists on the denture, and that bacteria multiplies very rapidly. that's why dentists recommend cleaning with polident everyday. polident's unique micro clean formula

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it's now clear that so-called fake news can have real world consequences. this isn't about politics or partisanship. lives are at risk.

it's a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly. it's imperative that leaders in both the private sector and the public sector step up to protect our democracy and innocent lives. >> there was no shortage of shocking headlines this election season. real news, actual facts that sometimes felt unbelievable, but then came fake news. the completely made up stories, sometimes outlandish, that often reached a larger audience than real news. while some suspect these types of stories cost hillary clinton the election and pose our threat to the democracy the consequences of fake news became all too real last sunday when a gunman fired a rifle inside a washington, d.c. pizzeria, the man believing a made-up story that claimed the clinton campaign was involved in a pedophilia ring operating out-of-that pizza parlor. joining me is a podcast and back

with me malcolm nance and jennifer rubin. >> peter, i'll start with you. that headline sounds so insane that it's hard to believe anybody would believe it and walk us through how fake news stories like that are spread. how it goes from facebook to twitter to reddit. tell us how it spreads and what it reddit. >> yeah. it starts oftentimes either on websites like breitbart, info wars, conspiracy clearing houses and goes to places online where people who are inclined to believe this stuff meet and share this together, on reddit, and there's sort of this like -- they bounce it back and for the, like it's a broken game of telephone between the conspiracy theorists and the people who are pushing them forwards and then eventually, you know, it will break, it will bring in more people and you have casual news users who are just stumbling across on reddit and feel like they found something big and horrible, for instance, like a

chilled sex ring operating out of a pizzeria in washington, d.c. >> what is it for those who don't know reddit? >> sounds like a much more terrible thing than it is, a big message board where people who want to comment on the news go and read and talk to each other, and 90% of reddit is just benign conversation. 10% is like lunatics who are either believing very hateful things or believing just very unlikely things, and what has happened in the last year, like everything else in the world which has become less stable and more strange, is that fringe of people have found various ways to take over like more and more of reddit, to make sure that their ideas are getting surfaced at a disproportionate rate. >> we know donald trump, there was reddit, sub red united states, group of editors who were much into donald trump and really liked it and sort of grew and grew and grew and a lot of these fake news stories, like the absurd things that hillary clinton was involved in a

pedophilia ring spread among them. is that happening just in the u.s. or is it also happening outside the country? >> well, you know, earlier we were talking about the russian hacking which was of actual real news, you know, real information which may have actually come from a real source, but when it's hnessed and weaponized and then turned over and propagandized by fake news organizations, it becomes a professional term of art we use in the intelligence community is disinformation, and what is happening today i see is not just that you have these people who make crazy stories and puppet them online for click bail. as a matter of fact, i was involved in one of the incidents on this station, where on this station we put out a warning that some. e-mails and news stories coming out about hillary clinton in her speeches were just fake. they were just propaganda, and somebody created those stories just to earn money off them, but we're now coming to this confluence of where professional

disinformation agents like in russia, plus click baiters, plus crazy people are all coming together and creating a global fake news empire. >> and p.j., to come back to you for a second. pew research did a study from january to february and found that 62% of americans get their news on social media. 18 misdo often. two in ten adults get their news from print newspapers. meanwhile, buzzfeed did a poll this past tuesday, an online survey of over 3,000 adults, fake news americans, fool american adults, according to the survey 75% of the time, so that people are very much open to believing in it. >> yeah, and, i mean, that's -- like that's a staggering idea to think about, and we want to think that, you know, we're smart and everybody else is dumb and part of problem is when you do consume news on facebook, which i do, like do all the time. reputable outlet like the "new

york times" or "wall street journal" is packaged exactly the same as like the worldstre worldstreetjournal.news.fake and we've not caught up with the intern.e.t. net packaging. >> some of what we're learned at is the fake news stories target conservative readers and they were the target of a lot of this. is there some responsibility in these sort of proper conservative movement or in the mainstream media to debunk it, and even how would that be dumb? >> the most dangerous thing is we've just elected someone who is the source of lots of fake news. that's how he ran his campaign, you know. it's a little bit troubling when the republican party goes and elects somebody who makes up these very same kind of stories. there were lots of people protesting or celebrating rather in new jersey after 9/11. i won by a landslide. it's a series of neighboring news stories that come out of his mouth.

so i think this is the grave danger that we face is that we have a president now or will have a president now who either believes this because he's usually gullible or he doesn't believe them and he uses them just the ways the russians do to manipulate and confuse and distract. >> and a lot of his will followers will only believe him and he can disseminate that fake news from his twitter feed and they won't believe anything that any of you say, they just believe him. p.j., nice to meet you. malcolm and jennifer will be back. still to come, cabinet chaos and black santa. more "a.m. joy" after the break. .

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you'll see what a fair price is, and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. now you're even smarter. this is truecar. you >> that plays great before the election. now we don't care, right? that was a bernie fan.

the election ended three weeks ago. hey, i don't know your vote anymore, but i'm telling you i'm very good at that. >> welcome back to "a.m. joy." if you need more proof that donald trump now that he has been elected is particularly -- has a particular predilection for mocking his own supporters, can keep tuning into trump thank-you tours or take a look at his cabinet picks. when it comes to his labor secretary pick, fast food ceo andy pudzer trump fans are not amused. soon after the nomination news broke on thursday breitbart publicly aired its grievances with an article titled "trump expected to tap labor secretary who prefers foreign labor to american workers." news flash, breitbart and pudzor r likes robot workers even more. ann coulter expressed her displeasure to nick kay haley, after nick kay haley i expect the next cabinet to be obama.

both used state of the union addresses to attack trump and when news broke that trump is expected to take carry cohn as the national economic council director, his third goldman sachs tap, his base could not stop tweeting their disappointment. but trump voters aren't the only ones lasting cabinet choices. earlier this week trump's intended national security adviser michael flynn and his son who at the time was part of the transition staff came under fire for their affinity for fake news stories and conspiracy theories, like the fake pizzagate fable that resulted in gunfire at a d.c. pizzeria last weekend, and yesterday we learned that trump will likely nominate exxon mobil ceo rex tillerson who remains a close business relationship with vladimir putin and in this decidedly undrained swamp the nomination that sometime slips under the radar as normal is senator jeff beauregard sessions for attorney general and this is the man who lost a federal judgeship in 1986 because his colleagues testified that he was a racist who joked about the

kkk. his confirmation hearings will begin on january 10. joining me now "new york magazine" contributor and jennifer rubin of twashd an lauren johnson and former intelligence operative navid mali. going through this almost rogue gallery in a lot of ways of cabinet picks, who concerns you the most? >> i've got to tell you, joy. feel like i'm in an abusive relationsh trying to fend self saying it will get bert and it just doesn't. i don't really have a good answer. i mean, flynn, from everything i know about him, from the people who know him, he's a terrible manager. he's not regarded highly by the intelligence community. i don't understand why he's the national security adviser. the only hope i have right now is the still unnamed director of national intelligence. when we saw, you know, when you have the cia pitted against the

president-elect and, you know, i can't imagine how pompeo is going to mitigate the only thing left is a strong director of national intelligence. there are two good names floated, ann townsend and michael mccall who is as congressman, you know, who i've met. both are reasonable. both have been sort of somewhat never trumpers, spoke out against his muslim ban. i think that they both have the temperament, the knowledge and hopefully hopeful hopeful hopefully validity and beyond that we have the angry mustache vote. >> that's very important in american politics. >> very quickly before i move off of you, explain why dni is important. >> the director of national intelligence, and we look at the

fbi and cia and talked about the comey left and it's important and malcolm nance has said this over and over again. the traditional fbi, the gum shoe folks and the counterintelligence folks and counterintelligence falls under the director of national intelligence and when you have the intelligence agencies, if you look at the presidential daily basketweave released in august, famous use case that people study, you see that the president was presented with intelligence about the attack or that there was something coming, so the dni is really important in shepherding all these massive agent swhois have their own culture and nomenclature and own language. >> sort of the coordinating role. >> that's exactly right and so important in assessing intelligence and passing it on to the president. >> we'll definitely pay attention to that. k.j. mcfarlane is on the list. a little bit about her because she's had interesting adventures with her social media.

>> show's deleted all of her social media accounts. she's deleted her website, thank god for way back machine, go back and look at some of those. the other thing with her is, you know, she's a sort will colorful past with her senate campaign. she was going to run against hillary clinton in the 2006 senate race and couldn't make it past the republican primary. in the 2006 republican primacy she accused hillary clinton flying black helicopters over her house in the south hamptons and spying on her and accused the campaign to rent apartments across the street spy on her. unlike general flynn, say what you want about him, on paper he has experience, without a doubt. she does not. she has not been in government since the mid-'80s, and even then she was basically a speech writer and a spokesperson. nothing wrong with that, but not fit for -- for deputy national security adviser. if you think about the folks -- the woman that's there right now, the first woman, is -- was a former deputy cia director.

makes sense. >> yeah. >> 2007, bush's appointment for the national -- for the deputy national security adviser was someone who had three ambassadorships before that. she's not fit for this. it's an objective fact. >> yeah. >> and i know that trump likes to have people that are good on tv. she's very smart. she's good on tv but she's not -- >> and lauren johnson, i want to come to you on another pick that's alarmed or confused a lot of people and that's ben carson for hud. when he was first tapped potentially to run health and human services he said, no, he didn't have enough government experience to do that job even though he thought he could be president and now he's being tapped for humptd you as someone who is successful both in the field of health care and in the field of real estate so you actually know the two things that he's supposed to be a specialist in, what do you make of the ben carson pick? >> thanks for having me, joy. what is remarkable to me most about ben carson's nomination is

the fact that he's the only appointee that has no connection to the area of the agency to which he's assigned, and so that is concerning. he has no expertise in policies of housing or urban development, and yet he's been tasked with this enormous responsibility with about 47 million -- $47 billion, and 80% of the country he's responsible for, urban communities, and it makes me wonder does the administration really value the or understand the plight and circumstances surrounding the urban community which is 80% of america? >> and, you know, the -- it was put out falsely that ben carson, what would make him appropriate for the job that he grew up in public housing. that turns out not to be true. armstrong williams said it it wasn't actually isn't true.

is it enough to have lived somewhere in urban america to run a bureaucracy as complicated as hud? >> that is amazing to me, and, again, i said that is truly amazing that they would have someone with no experience and just having lived or being near a community does not give you the -- the know how to be able to run a big agency as that, so that's very concerning to me and it should give us all of us in america pause. he doesn't even believe in the agency as a matter of fact which has come to a lot of nominees. he mentioned something to the effect where the government is trying to have -- he calls it -- i think he calls it some kind of a scheme, a social engineering scheme, he called, it so he doesn't even believe in the agency that he's set to run so that should be very concerning to all of us. >> and speaking of disbelief in the agency that you're tapped to run, jennifer rubin, you have

the exxon mobil ceo who donald trump has tasked to run the state department. exxon is one of if not the company that has been the most egregious in terms of denying the existence of climate change. they have an economic interest in pretending climate change doesn't exist so they have had the record on it since the 1970s. talk about the implications of that because we do know the defense department is preparing for the implications of climate change. it's a huge deal if the state department is run by somebody who just doesn't believe in it. >> well, it's very interesting. there's been a lot of litigation and a lot of attention focused on what many people have accused exxon of doing which is essentially what the cigarette companies did, had the research and put out information and denied t.rex tillerson now says he believes he's got it so the can i is d question is did he believe it when exxon was putting out information, or was he part that have scheme? there's a lot of questions to be asked about exxon's behavior, and this is why it also doesn't

make sense to nominate him because we're going to have a long exploration of his views of exxon's views and of exxon's behavior, and i would just aid i wish -- could add that ben carson is the only one that doesn't have information and terry branstad, the ambassador to china and the governor of ohio and i like her and i think she's smart, nikki heal he, brisk person, but she is going to the u.n. does she have any foreign policy experience? so i think what we have areig normouses and billionares and generals and with the exception of michael flynn the generals are clearly the best ones there, but this is pretty frightful stuff. you have loads of people who have never been in government and don't understand the difference between business and government and frank lit cast of characters that donald trump ran against. don't we have a little overrepresentation from goldman sachs here? do they really need three

people? isn't one enough? >> yeah. and i think it's four if you count bannon. >> you're right. >> it's a goldman sachs world over in the white house. we're out of time. thank you guys very much. >> coming, lisa bloom is here to talk about ohio's new heartbeat bill and why it's a huge glaring warning sign for women. that's next. he gets a lot of compliments.

he wears his army hat, walks around

with his army shirt looking all nice. and then people just say, "thank you for serving our country" and i'm like, that's my dad. male vo: no one deserves a warmer welcome home. that's why we're hiring 10,000 members of the military community by the end of 2017. i'm very proud of him. male vo: comcast. this week ohio lawmakers passed not one but two bills that would impose some of the strictest abortion bans in the country. the first passed on tuesday is known as the heartbeat bills banning abortions after the heartbeat is detected, before many women even learn their

pregnant and bill 127 was passed on thursday banning abortions after 20 bikes and neither includes exceptions for rape or incest. >> lisa, you alerted me and many others to the passage of the heartbeat bill. explain, it because to a lot of americans they will listen to the plain reading of it and sounds like it's it's a good idea and is it not an idea and why not? >> many abortion providers won't give abortions until five or six weeks into a pregnancy so what the heartbeat bill would do is essentially ban virtually all abortions in thetate of ohio, and the legislators this week are emboldened by donald trump's election and has promised to appoint pro-choice judges and supreme court justices so this is potentially the case that could go up to the u.s. supreme court and reverse "roe v. wade," and that's why i'm trying to sound the alarm about it. >> pro-life judges, i think you meant to say. we have a graphic that talks

about these sort of rash of laws that were enacted by states from 2011 through 2016 and accounts for 30% of all abortion restrictions since roh moo-hyun. you have this acceleration of these kind of laws around the country. what -- even before donald trump came along, what was emboldening that acceleration? >> joy, i mean, this has been a concert effort by the pro-life movement for years to take it on a very local level to try and really take down "roe v. wade" piece by piece by piece in every locality and get it through state legislatures to pass varying kinds of abortion bills. you saw this, for example, in texas when you had the very famous filibuster of the bill that went through and now there's a whole swath of texas where it's very difficult to get an abortion, where women have to travel 50, 60, 100 miles in order to get an abortion so this has been a trend that's been ongoing for many, many years now, but i actually think, you know, with the trump administration coming in, the thing that's going to be really i think worrysome for pro-choice

advocates is tom price being head of health and human services. he wants to de-fund planned parenthood and 68% of women paid more for birth control and 58% couldn't afford it before observing dear and now women get contraception without co-pay. and now you'll see contraception not being accessible for women and you'll see a confluence of not enough contraception and an increasing and limited ability to have abortion. >> the restrictions on contraception are next and when that happens it actually increases the seeking of abortion services. let's actually listen to tom

price and this was from february 10 of 2012 at the conservative political action conference in washington, d.c. listen to tom price about contraception coverage. >> the main sticking point is whether or not contraception coverage will be covered under insurance plans and whether or not people will be able to pay for it, especially for low-income women. >> where do we leave this women if this real is rescindeded? >> bring me one woman who has been left behind. there's not one. >> and lisa, that attitude of tom price saying it's no problem to restrict their -- their coverage under obamacare has led a lot of women in a brooking study to start stockpiling contraception out of fear of the incoming administration. what do you make of that? >> right. he could not be more out of touch with women's reality. many women cannot afford contraception across the united states, but it's that kind of fake news and false facts that permeates the right-to-life side of this debate. just this week in texas, for

example, booklets that women are required to be given if they want an abortion are amounted to add false information about abortion like it's tied to breast cancer. it's not, like that it's a dangerous procedure, it's no. it's one of the safest medical procedures, but it's that kind of phony information that permeates the debate. >> and as an attorney, to stay with you for a second, what would happen, for instance, if you had a complete restriction on contraceptions to say nothing of abortion services, is there any sort of legal redress for women who, for instance, would be denied contraception at their local pharmacy because of religious liberty laws which is another thing that people are worried is coming under a trump administration? >> well, a couple of things. first of all we do have a fundamental right to use birth control. that's the griswold decision, bedrock constitutional law, but that doesn't mean we have a fundamental right to have our local pharmacy give it to us, and that's why the right has been very successful at restricting not only abortion access but birth control access and let's be clear on a factual

level. what happens when women don't have the right to choose. women died. girls die. up to 5,000 women and girls died every year in the pre-"roe v. wade" years from coat hanger abortions, back alley butchers, and that's what we're going to return to in ohio and nationwide if women lose the right to choose, and it is a very real risk by the way, because donald trump can appoint supreme court just citieses, going to appoint one immediately. we have three others who are the liberals who are 78 years old or olders, so it's very, very real risk that "roe v. wade" ends in 2017 or 2018. >> and that's the desire of many evangelicals who supported donald trump, many of them on the issue of wanting to see "roe v. wade" overturned and see abortion bans nationwide. do you detect in this any desire among democrats to fight this and this latest bill is in ohio where a lot of democrats and moderates were looking to john kasich as the model of sort of

moderation and their savior from donald trump. this is happening in his state and he's very likely to sign that bill. >> certainly this has been democrats on the hill and in the administration and in judiciary, women i would say, have all taken stands to try to protect and defend contraception. certainly the contraceptive clauses of obamacare which came under attack in the courts and then they repassed it after the hobby lobby case and now they re-expand it had closing that loophole and in the senate, for example, mitch mcconnell tried to get rid of that sort of the very narrow, semgs that allows a contraception to be widely provided under obamacare and that was actually blocked in part by the republican women such as susan collins from women and olimpia snowe from maine so there's been a bipartisan consensus of women to block a lot of the bills and really protect the contraception clauses in these bills and

that's happened in the last eight years. with the new congress coming in, we're not really sure what we're going to see and a lot of those women have left. for example, olimpia snowe left and there's really one or two pro-choice republican women left in the senate so will they have the tes to overturn it? the question is most likely yes and when do they replace it with? >> how big is the risk of "roe v. wade" being actually overturned in the next four years? >> code red, real, and i think the problem is we've been hearing this for so many years that after a while many of us think, oh, real, yes, real, because of donald trump's sworn, you know, desire to get rid of the pro-choice side of the bench, and "roe v. wade" only hangs in the bench and we saw fertilized eggs suing their mother, sofia vergara under louisiana's law where an embryo is a person and can sue the woman to come into life. this is a country we live in and

many of us think that case has a chance of surviving, i mean, so we really all have to stand up and rise up on this issue to protect women's rights because they are very seriously in danger. >> lisa bloom has told us code red, pay attention to this issue. jane newton small, thank you. coming up, donald trump isn't very interested in intelligence briefings. he explains why next. ugh. heartburn. sorry ma'am. no burning here. try alka-seltzer heartburn relief gummies. they don't taste chalky and work fast. mmmm. incredible. can i try?

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protect women's rights because people say,

let's just get a sandwich or something. "or something"? you don't just graduate from medical school, "or something." and we don't just pull smoked chicken, bake fresh foccacia and hand-slice avocado. there's nothing "or something" about it. earlier this morning on fox news sunday donald trump was asked about his decision to skip his daily intelligence briefing. this was his explanation. >> i don't have to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years, could be eight years, but eight years. i don't need that, but i do say if something should charges let us know. >> just let him know. so coming up, some like really good guys are sort of like fighting back on the foreign intervention into the united states election. some of them, one of them, will

join me live, and you don't want to miss that.

wikileaks is back in the news after the cia reportedly concluded that russia interfered in our election to boost donald trump's bid. individuals with connections to moscow provided wikileaks with thousands of hacked e-mails from the dnc and others, including hillary clinton's campaign chairman. many of you may not be surprised the drip, drip deluge of anti-clinton propaganda by wikileaks run by julian assange from his hideout inside the ecuadorian embassy in london where he's holed up to avoid rape allegations in sweden which he denies and possible extradition in the u.s. over wikileaks publication of national security info has been one of trump's biggestates and now wikileaks has competition with trump leaks aiming to

disseminate information to the american politics. joining me is pete dominic, jarrett hill, contributor for nbc blk and a member of the coalition against trump. so explain to us what trump leaks is and what is its purpose? >> i run the group called the democratic coalition against the trump and now called the democratic coalition. what trump leaks is, in the summertime i came across a couple different documents that proved that trump has a very long-standing relationship with russia. now, remember, he said that he didn't have any business ties to russia. he didn't know anybody in russia, and that was just untrue, so we started using this trump leaks hashtag just to make it simple for people and that's housed on twitter, you know, under my handle, but key of this is to make sure that everything is just housed in one place and that's -- that's what we're doing is to make sure that all

the trump scandals are all just in one place. >> i want to give an example for people of what you guys have had. they call it the dorkin report. ten exhibits here tying donald trump to moscow, showing his travel and business in moscow. i think you've shown he has over 200 companies that are registered in russia. just very quickly what is the dorkin report and is it different from wikileaks? >> the report put it all together, the same idea as trump leaks, to put it all in one place. the report, again, it's a self-titled just to make sure i sand by the report. the second version has 24 different pieces of evidence that show very clearly undoubtedly that trump has had long-standing ties to russia for decades. this is not something that's come overnight. this is something that has been, again, he's done anything from commissioning artwork, you know,

for $40 million in russia. there are over 200 different trump-named companies in russia, and there's just a lot -- there's a lot of different things that he has not admitted to us about his international business relations and with rush specifically he's denied it, and it's just a blatant lie, an outright blatant lie and that's the biggest problem that i had so to make sure we had a professional way to present it to congress and also to the white house which we did present it to them, that's what we did with the dworkin report. >> i want to come to the table here because you guys are in the business of relaying information and we'll start with you, pete and half of your callers are probably getting news from sources that may be questionable and have probably don't even know what her talking about. is it important to have a curated list of information about donald trump that's trustworthy, and do you think this is sort of a reasonable answer? >> yeah, yeah. for me personally, as a host,

you know, and part producer of my radio showers, i love to have a place that aggregates all this information. i was just saying the other day to one of my producers is there anybody that abrogates anything trump has said, done that we found out alone because there's so much that comes out every day. >> yeah. >> not alone his twitter feed and much less the appointments that he makes and i love this idea but do we even need it? of course we need it because we like evidence but he appointed paul manafort as his campaign manager. i'm glad that scott is doing this in one place and, a lot of people say, really, we need evidence that he has all these relationships in russia. his own son has talked about it a number of times. >> a lot of people feel like the media should have been doing this and haven't. >> but the real problem is the fact that people don't trust the media right now. whatever we say is going to be disputed especially if it goes against donald trump. then it's the media bias, whether it's fact or proven or backed up or substantiated. >> wrong. >> wrong.

so it's frustrating because it's like how do you have a conversation when he can tweet whatever he wants to tweet and it becomes fact for a lot of people that follow him, a frustrating situation. >> answer the question then, jay, how does the media get around the fact that donald umhas an unfiltered access to the people who support him and they only believe what's in the twitter feet, not anything that scott or anything that anybody in the media says? >> past presidents have had direct access to their voters in the past and that's the way it comes in when you've just been elected president. you have the biggest mandate that you're going to have in your presidency. when barack obama was elected did all the videos from the white house and to his supporters is and george w. bush did the same thing and as time goes on and the support wanes they realize, oh, my gosh, we need the media and they come back to us. a very unique time in our miss history where a media is untrusted. all this fake news, hard to discern what's fake and what's real and there has to be a real come to jesus moment amongst media providers and media disseminator disseminators, facebook and

twitter and those kinds of nokes to figure how the how we sift the shaft from the wheat and find out what's news and is certified as news. >> is it really that difficult to determine, the idea that a pedophile ring was run out of a pizzeria joint and is it that difficult, is it that hard to figure out what's real and what's fake? >> no, no, because a lot of these points of evidence are coming from corporate sites. there are different pamphlets and things like that that he's been featured in. you know, this is all just a distraction from bad policy, and i think the thing that's important to note is this is not -- this is not just fake news. this is brand a. this is people telling us what to think. this is people trying to confuse us, and that is the not right. that's not american. that is intravenous. >> i just want -- this whole

conversation is an important conversation for us to be having, but more alarming thing to me is that it doesn't matter what is real or fake because when it is real, all these relationships with russia and the appointments he's making, when we doe know that's real, a lot of people say i don't care. i don't care. >> yeah. >> and russia used to be bad to every republican in the senate, that's for sure and most in the house and now we have all these relationships with russia and now they are not as bad so now we don't care because it's our guy. i don't know how to explain that or do something about it. >> a bit of irony because we talk about his supporters who took him literally and those who took him seriously and it's all about semantics and correctness and all these things and when we look at donald trump in the long run it's going to be about what did he say and how do we respond to it and take that message forward? >> yeah, that's also the thing, the immediatad is getting stuffed into the feedback loop, a lot of people don't care, don't care no matter how bad the stories about drew.

you not only have trump supporters who care but i've yet to find evidence that other than lindsey graham elected republicans, some of whom are on the record longtime hawks actually care because partisanship trumps love of country. evan mcmullin has been tweeting about that epically. >> and this is something i saw a lot when i went to trump rallies during the campaign when you were ask people why are you supporting trump and what do you think even if his policies are antithetical to potentially your own self-interests and people like women, for example, would say, oh, i don't believe that he groped women or i think it's all just part of the showers, part of the reality tv show and that is part of the problem here is that it's -- we've so intermixed reality tv with reality that people don't see the difference anymore and they just think it's part of entertainment. they don't see that there's actual policy implications here that actually really dangerous policy implications here that could have huge effects not only for our country and foreign

relations and how they live their lives hand until you see the effects drip down and people begin to feel them they are really not going to care. >> we have evidence of that because you have donald trump literally appointing somebody heading the labor department that feels like robots should replace people and there's real world implications and i wonder if it's a reality show. trump is still going to have his fame on "the apprentice" and it's all show and people can't be brought to the fact that trump's own administration is mocking them. >> again, there is -- she was just saying about the groping. some women said they didn't believe it, but some people who do believe it are okay with it, so it's a question of our own morality, of our own values where some of us thought we had a certain agreement on what is decent behavior and what is indecent behavior, and now we know that when certain people do it, it's excused, and to some extent right. it's just a big showers, and i think frankly, i mean, i said this on twitter the other day, i

believe that there's something wrong with donald trump. i'm no psychologist, but there's something seriously wrong. >> wrong. >> he doesn't seem to be interested or care about the american issues. he is treating like a tv show. >> he just said, just played the clip about not getting his national security briefing, like i'm like really smart that. sounds sort of like what a teenager might say, right, but not what a president. united states might say. that's normalized to americans at this point. >> again, we've never lived in a time where we were arguing over facts, like, this is proven. we know that this is true. >> no, it's not, and -- and this is the president of the unid states now and he has the ear of everyone and everything that he says now we have to take into consideration. >> scott, i'll give you the last word on this because you're the one trying to aggregate the information. who do you see as the audience for the dworkin report? >> make sure to visit our website at

democraticcoalition.org, but i think that the biggest problem is -- is that media hasn't been able to work together because they are too competitive, and that's been an issue as well, so they will track down a story and they won't dig in further and there's further in every aspect of the way so i want to make sure that it's clear that trump leaks is for the people. the people have a right to know. this is all just a distraction from bad policy. bad policy. >> yeah. >> that are not going to just strip back things for decades. this is over 100 years. they want to roll it back so that, you know, it's basically run by white men and that didn't work out very well for us and i think it definitely needs to change. it's pretty ridiculous. >> and i like the fact that you tout the fact it's run by americans and in the american interest and documents are obtained legally. >> absolutely. they are all obtained legally. not just court cases or anything like that.

again, there are criminal actions. i have 36 different criminal actions that we filed against -- against trump and his campaign, and, you know, most of them, 16 members of the campaign, most of them occurred during the course of the campaign itself and that's part of it as well. >> scott, we'll definitely have you back on to talk about what you've been able to find. we do follow trump leaks. thank you. >> take care, thank you. >> coming, a closer look at donald trump's likely secretary of state rex tillerson and his relationship with put pumpt but vladimir putin but first santa is coming to "a.m. joy." ♪ we wish you a merry christmas ♪ ♪ we wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year ♪ >> i love it. >> we'll see you in just a minute.

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those are hard working americans who can keep their jobs here and where it's okay to say merry christmas. you can say merry christmas because donald trump is now the president. you can say it again. it's okay to say. it's not a pejorative word anymore. >> christmas, love and rejoice with the election of donald trump, the tyranny of scrooges and grinches has come to an end, the chopping down of christmas trees and the silencing of carols and the crushing of candy canes is no mar. klaus is free from his icy north pole prison as the war on christmas has ended. just kidding. none of those things ever happened because unlike klaus the war on christmas is not receipt. the same cannot be said, however, for defender of santa's racial representations who are very real indeed. >> by the way, for all of kids watching at home. santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should -- we should also have a black santa. >> well, ho, ho, hold on to your santa hats, boys and girls

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he wears his army hat, he gets awalks aroundliments. with his army shirt looking all nice. and then people just say, "thank you for serving our country" and i'm like, that's my dad. male vo: no one deserves a warmer welcome home. that's why we're hiring 10,000 members of the military community by the end of 2017. i'm very proud of him. male vo: comcast.

santa clause has got a little more color in his rosy cheek this is year because for the first time in the 24-year history of the mall of america in bloomington, minnesota, children got to share their wish list with a black santa. he flew through for a four-day stay in the mall's santa experience, which allows kids to get face time with santa by appointment. this santa came with credentials. he is ae retired veteran is a graduate who has been suiting up for two decades. his naughty list got longer because internet haters going to hate. but santa larry was a a hit with his young estefans who reportedly kept his nice list

filled with appointments for his weekend stay. i'm so excited to welcome santa larry. welcome to "a.m. joy." it's so great to talk to you. first, i have to ask you about your experience being the santa at the mall of america. what was the naughtiest thing that happened and nicest thing that happened? >> merry christmas and thanks for having me. i had no naughtiness going on while i was there. everything was perfect for me. >> excellent. there was a little bit 06 a backlash in the beginning, but how did you overcome that from the few people who do not understand how awesome santa is and hated orphan you a bit. >> i listened to taylor swift's song "shake it off." >> when santa shakes, he has a belly that can shake with him. i have to allow my guests in. so santa larry, i want to allow little pete, who we assume has

been mostly nice this year. i believe he has a question or something on his list. >> hi, santa. what a privilege. it's such an honor to sit on your lap here on television. that went really awkwa really fast. so real quick, i know you can't do everything, but do you know anyone at the electoral college hoping to get my daughter a scholarship, lyrics to the russian national anthem. if there's any orange body spray left in stock, i want to get in style. if you could bring prince back to life and a sack of cannabis for my neighbor's glaucoma. >> asking for a friend. >> i was kshed about that. but now i'm comfortable with it. if they still make those and hair if it's not too much to ask. >> you're asking a lot. >> i'll see what i can do.

>> i love that off stock response. >> maybe you've been naughty. jared, what's your list? >> i didn't come up with a list. i wanted to ask a few people that were like, i don't know if that's going o to happen for me. that's what i wanted. >> do you get a lot of political requests from adults who don't understand what you bring is toys? >> no, i don't get any political requests. i'm here to bring love, peace, joy and happiness to everyone. >> and let me ask you in terms of we know that global warming is real and climate change is happening. has it affected your home in the north pole? >> a little bit. just a little bit. we need to work on that. >> we need to definitely work on that. let's talk about the sleigh for a minute. technology is moving forward, but santa has been powered by ra reindeer. is that still the case or have you gone electronic on us? >> it depends on how the reindeer are feeling.

it f they are tire d from workig to hard, i use technology. >> we have to ask about rudolph's nose. he's an actual deer and he is a mammal. how does his nose glow the way it does? >> with managic. with christmas magic. >> i'm going to throw it back to our panel. >> does elf on the shelf report to you? >> absolutely. >> asking for my daughter. good to know. >> is there a hybrid sleigh on the way? we're concerned about the environment? >> i'll see whattic i can do. >> do you use gps? >> he's santa. let many ask you on a serious note, what are the kinds of things kids are asking for? >> hover boards, ipad 4, cell phones, you name it. i had an innocent child when i asked her what she wanted for christmas.

she said i don't want anything. i just want people to be nice. >> santa works for apple. >> before we go and thank our panel, i do understand that you might have a song for us. do you think we could hear that? while i thank everyone -- >> we wish you a merry christmas, we wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year. >> santa, we love you. >> i want a hug. >> we're so glad you're real. santa larry, you're the best santa. he assume to produce love. >> ask we hated each other. >> santa, thank you so much. we appreciate you. we love you. >> shout out to minnesota and to texas and arkansas. >> we love it. santa has some favorites because they probably were nicer than they were naughty. >> you have my address? >> i've got it.

>> he also knows if you've been sleeping or awake. be sure to join us next week for more "a.m. joy." merry christmas. thank you. up next, more reaction from donald trump. alex has more news at the top of the hour. stay with msnbc.

hello, everyone. i'm alex witt in new york. here's what's happening right now. new reaction from president-elect donald trump in his first sit-down interview since the election. he explains why he isn't taking daily intelligence briefings. >> i don't have to be told the same thing every single day for the next eight years. i don't need that. >> but there's more. he also says why he thinks the cia report on alleged russian hacking is coming out now. the answer may surprise you. and new questions over fake news. why