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 some say it's hard to

convince people that what they are reading is not even remotely true. big chill, bitter cold and snow. whether the worst of it is over. we begin with politics and new reaction from donald trump speaking for the first time on "the washington post" report about russia intervening to help him win. here's what he said about who he thinks is behind it. >> i think it's ridiculous. i think it's just another excuse. i don't believe it. >> do you think the cia is trying to overturn the results of the election to weaken you in office? >> if you look at the story and what they said, there's great confusion. nobody really knows. and hacking is very interesting. once they hack, you're not going to catch them. they have no idea if it's russia or china or somebody. it could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. they have no idea. >> why would the cia put out the story that the russians wanted you to win?

>> i'm not sure they put it out. i think the democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country. >> senator john mccain is joining the list of republicans who want the investigation. here's his reaction to the president-elect's response. >> i u don't know what to make of it because it's clear the russians interfered. now whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to elect a certain candidate, i think that's a subject of investigation. but the facts are stubborn things. they did hack into this campaign and they did it, i think, with some what seemed to be effective. >> the ranking member of the benghazi committee is criticizing president obama saying russia's involvement in the u.s. election might have been prevented. >> you think that decision to not come out as definitely before the election was a

mistake by president obama? >> i do think it was a mistake. i think it was a mistake earlier not to react more forcefully when north korea hacked us because those kind of lack of deter rans invited the russians to meddle and with impunity. >> today's headlines covering the fallout suggest a rift between the president-elect and the cia after his transition team dismissed the reports. the "new york times" is summarizing it this way u. a breach has e emerged between donald trump and the national security establishment with trump mocking american intelligence assessments that russia interfered in the election on his behalf and vowing investigations into criminal activities. trump is taking a break today. carly fiorina, his former rival, as well as joe manchin are among those meeting with him. for new reaction from donald trump to the tillerson pick, let's bring in peter alexander.

good day u to you, peter. we heard trump's first comments on the possible choice. what's he saying? >> it's exactly right. the transition team says that no announcement is expected any time soon. earliest it would happen this week. nbc news has been told that tillerson will be his selection for secretary of state. they already alerted his corporate board. he would be paired up with the former u.n. ambassador. this morning donald trump was specifically asked in a conversation with fox news about tillerson. why do you like a business executive as your chief diplomat and here's what the president-elect said. >> why does a business executive make sense as the chief diplomat? >> in his case, he's much more than a business executive. he's a world class player. he's in charge of the largest company in the world. he's in charge of an oil company that's pretty much doubled the

size of his next nearest competitor. it's been a a company that's been unbelievably managed and to me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players. he knows them well. he does massive deals in russia. he does massive deals for the company. >> donald trump followed up this morning with a tweet where he basically punk waited that point saying whether or not i end up with tillerson, whether i choose him or not for state, the chairman and ceo is a world class player and a dealmaker. stay tuned. what else we should stay tuned for is what would be a selection a tough confirmation series of hearings specifically given the scrutiny that he's going to face. a lot of republicans urging donald trump and republicans to be wary on russia. specifically marco rubio tweeting the idea that someone who is a friend of vladimir putin is not the kind of person he wants as secretary of state. this reflects the thought that

tillerson has a close, cozy relationship with vladimir putin. john mccain, another influential republican, saying to our colleague at nbc news kasie hunt that this relationship, quote, needs to be examined. so that's all the backdrop going forward on the big prize within this administration, the seat at secretary of state. it looks increasingly like it's going to be rex tillerson. >> what did we learn? >> we heard a lot. you played some of the most important clips. the one is the idea of the cia's analysis suggesting that russia was trying to influence this election. donald trump basically saying this is ridiculous. he thinks this thing is all over and this is the democrats pushing this idea forward. there was one other note that was striking. he was speaking about his son-in-law jared kushner.

he basically said he would like jared to be doing deals going forward overseas, including an effort to try to bring peace to the middle east. it just sort of reenforces an idea that trump is going to be speaking about the business entanglements, conflicts of interest not just for donald trump but ivanka and his son-in-law. this will be addressed in what's supposed to be a news conference taking place on thursday. but based on his comments t it looks likely that jared and ivanka would be moving this direction. a source familiar with their thinking tells me it's quote, likely they come to washington, d.c. >> there will be a lot of discussion, that's for sure. peter, thank you very much. join iing me now is a politico reporter and jeremy peters, msnbc contributor and reporter for the "new york times." let's get right to it. i want to play for you what reince priebus said about your paper's story that the rnc had been hacked. >> it was not hacked.

>> why were they involved? >> it's really simple. when the dnc was hacked, we called the fbi and they came in to help us. and they came in to review what we were doing and through our systems went through every single thing we did. we went through this for a month and we were not hacked. so if we were not hacked and that is absolutely not true, where does that story lie? >> what's your reaction to that? >> it's interesting because if the rnc was not hacked and the russians are behind this, it would suggest that by only hacking the dnc the russians were trying to sway the election against hillary clinton and for donald trump. so i was a little confused to what the point the chairman was trying to make there. but certainly to say that the insist that the rnc was not

hacked points to or suggests that what the russians motives really were here. >> but if the rnc was hacked, to what end? nothing was released? is this something to use for down the road if need be? >> i think there's just so much that you don't know about who was really involved and the extent of the damage that at this point what i'm looking at going forward here is to the degree at which congress gets involved. you have this extraordinary statement from chuck schumer, jack reid, the two top democrats and you have john mccain and lindsey graham saying they are going to push for more congressional investigations. that could really blow this wide open. >> so we went from the trump team bringing up the weapons of mass destruction to the president-elect's comment this is morning. what do his comments suggest to you about the type of relationship we're going to see tween president trump and intelligence agencies? >> it's not starting off on a

diplomatic foot. what's interesting about donald trump's response to me is that he's very focused on this idea that people are questioning the results of the election because of the hacking. i think the real questions are the ones that jeremy alluded to in terms of the actual interference of a foreign power in our elections and the hacking that's a real problem. so i think donald trump is focusing in the statement that he released, focusing on this idea of, look, i was elected and nothing happened. the real focus should be on the actual hacking and the interference. i don't think people are really questioning right now whether donald trump won this election. i think by focusing on that element, he's not paying attention to the real issue at hand. >> so do you say you want to see how far this goes in congress? with voices like john mccain saying they want to see an investigation, how do you think

this goes? >> i think it becomes a dominant story line. and probably a story line that donald trump would not hope to have shadowing over the first part of his presidency here. i think these congressional investigations have a way of taking on a life of their own. they can very much distract from whatever donald trump's domestic and foreign agenda is in the first 100 days. >> let's turn to the fall out over rex tillerson's presumed nomination to secretary of st e state. any situation where his relationship with vladimir putin ends up working to u.s. advantage? >> donald trump is trying to say that in terms of his foreign policy why not have relationships with foes. this is also coming from a president-elect who often times criticized the current president obama and republicans have criticized president obama for establishing relations with

cuba, for example. what this pick really speaks to is donald trump wants someone who shares his world view and he's also praised tillerson's business experience. of course, there are questions about that. parking lot of managing the state department is a huge entity. but there are really big questions coming from republicans about whether tillerson could get con if you remembered by the senate. you're hearing from marco rubio, from lindsey graham and john mccain questioning this pick. this is the next top diplomat of the united states. so i think there are a lot of questions about these business dealings and particularly as it pertains to russia. this is an issue where the republicans in congress are at odds with the president-elect. >> to that end, i want to play u what john mccain told kasie hunt about rex tillerson. here's that. >> vladimir putin is a thug and a bully and a murder.

i believe that the relationship between tillerson and vladimir putin needs to be examined. >> tillerson has not been named officially by the trump team. do you think the president-elect and his camp could change their minds on tillerson depending on the reaction to the leak that he's the apparent choice? what might they have learned since his name has been out there? >> my u reporting as of yesterday afternoon said that this isn't quite done yet. i would be shocked if it weren't tillerson at this point, but there's been no signature on the dotted line, so to speak. i do think, ultimately if it's tillerson, he gets confirmed. while you saw marco rubio and john mccain come out and say that they have concerns, the chairman of that committee bob corker said that he thought that tillerson would be a solid pick. so i do think that there's a chance for some controversy and some drama surrounding this

nomination. i do not expect an entirely smooth confirmation process, the kind of process that donald trump would want. but ultimately, he probably gets his pick. >> but does it only take three republicans to block it? and if that's the case, you have mccain, lindsey graham, who came out in opposition. what if marco rubio joins that team? >> that's right. it is a big unknown just how much they will be in opposition. i do think that for the republican senate to not grant the republican president his joychoice for secretary of stat would be such an extraordinary thing that it it's almost inconceivable. now that said, this election and the last couple of years here shattered all of our expectations and the conventional wisdom around what governing should look like. i just don't know. >> you have stop itted doing predictions as i tried to get you to do throughout this campaign. so kaitlyn, trump picking tillerson over romney.

do you think because of the trump supporters couldn't stomach a romney pick given the vitriol between them during the campaign? >> part of the reason romney was involved in this process was because of people like reince b priebus and others in the establishment types of people were kind of interested in this pick. and whether or not donald trump ended up picking romney, what he did effectively was put romney in a place where he koulgd not then be in a position to continue to criticize him. so for donald trump, just meeting with mitt romney and having him come in for meetings was really a win for him in terms of kind of signaling that he has bridged or made bridges to those who have been unfavorable to him, that he is putting aside, burying the hatchet and makes romney in a difficult position of criticizing donald trump, particularly since he said that trump did something he could

never do, which was win the election. >> because trump can come out and say sore loser, he wanted to be secretary of state and we know he's done that it before and may do it again. thank you so much. happening now, a wintery blast packing heavy snow is making its way east after slamming the northwest. power lines were down with the snow causing highway pileups and thousands of flight cancellations. . let's go to mor began rath ford. how many cancellations and what's it like right now? >> there's already been more than 1200 flights cancelled. if you're trying to get out of chicago, especially at one of these regional flights, the likelihood is slim to none. the airlines said you should check with your carrier if you're planning on flying today. this is in response to the massive storm system that swept from the west coast to right

here in the midwest. take a listen to how people are reacting. >> downed power lines, mountains of snow. and exasperated neighbors. >> the older i get, the more i hate this weather. >> reporter: residents in the midwest bracing for a winter that's set to be colder than average. >> when i turned around, there was an inch and a half of snow on the sidewalk that had had just cleared. >> that cold front starting out west blanketing tens of millions of americans under a winter weather edadvisory. with temperatures feeling well below zero. neighbors found themselves trapped at home with no power and no way to escape. >> it's pretty much impossible to get out of this apartment complex. >> in parts of ohio, nearly three feet of snow. neighbors in chicago staying

prepared. >> i have my car set with extra food, water, blankets, the whole thing. >> you're enjoying the winter weather. >> yeah. >> you're not nervous about this. >> no. it's what we do in chicago. we're cold. >> where some say the worst is yet to come. >> we're going to be in for a whole world of hurt because we have had wonderful weather until the middle of december. now here we are. it's going to be negative 10 next week. >> reporter: all these people who you see inside o'hare actually had to brave the cold outside. there's about 300 trucks that the city has deployed to clean up 4 to 6 inches of snow outside. we're expecting to see 3 more inches tonight. this is like many other cities across the country are still under a weather weather advisory. >> let's take note. you are inside. you're a smart cookie. you don't want to be outside on this one. coming up next, tillerson's

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male vo: comcast. he's in the business of exploring and finding oil across the globe. so you have to go where the oil is at. the fact that he has a relationship with people like vladimir putin and others across the globe is something that shouldn't be embarrassed by. it's something that i think could be a huge advantage to the united states. that's reince priebus defending the president-elect's reported pick for secretary of state. trump has yet to publicly announce his choice. tillerson under fire pr his business relationship with the russian president.

let's bring in karen bass, member of the house foreign affairs committee. let's get right to it. do you agree with reince priebus that if tillerson is picked as secretary of state, his relationship with vladimir putin could be useful for the u.s.? >> absolutely not. i don't believe that at all. i think it's an inherent conflict of interest. he has hundreds of millions of dollars, $500 million worth of deals that were interfered with with russia because of sancti sanctions. so my concern is that having somebody with a conflict of interest like that when we as congress or president obama imposed sanctions against russia, that's in a direct conflict with his financial interests. so i think this is an inappropriate aprointpointappoi. i hope three or four republicans will cross over and not agree to this apountment. >> what if he would valued stock

there is with exxon mobile? >> that's personally. this man's job his entire life has been for exxon mobile. he wouldives and four years he goes back to working for exxon mobile. i don't see how this could be appropriate. what does this say to the rest of the world? the reason he's qualified is because he makes deals. it's clear that trump seems that that is what's important. it doesn't matter. you're going to apoint a labor secretary who doesn't want to have employees. he wants to have robots. what does this say u to the country and to the world? >> many people saying pretty nontraditional cabinet picks thus far.

he's taken criticism for having intelligence briefings only sporadically, not daily, as the previous have done. here's his rational. let's listen. >> well, i get it when i need it. >> is there some skepticism? >> these are good people giving me the briefings. if something should change, immediately call me. i'm available on a minute's notice. 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. >> does that make sense? does he have a point? >> it's frightening. we know this man knows very little about the world. he demonstrated that through the campaign. what i hope they are doing in the intelligence brief sgs not just giving him intelligence information, but essentially tutoring him about what's going on in the world. you can't tell me that they are telling him the same thing every day.

the world is a big place. we have threats from all over the globe. and for him to be that flippant and air rant to say he doesn't need intelligence briefings when this man had no background in this at all before he ran for president. so i think it's very frightening. i think it's consistent. it's consistent with him not having very much intellectual curiosity is and taking the presidency very lightly. i guess u he's going to triage that to his secretary of state o o, whose background is e we make good deals in oil. >> how about the topic of russian hacking? "the washington post" report this weekend that it the cia think it was deliberately meant to help donald trump win the election. is that report plausible? and secondly, do you think russian involvement changed the election outcome? >> i certainly don't know. if the intelligence community is saying that this is what took place, and we do have tons of -- why did all of the hacking

reveal just information on democrats? apparently, i guess there was notion there was hacking of republicans too, but none of that information was released to the public. what is one left to assume? it's very clear that putin wants sanctions removed and if donald trump is going to be his good friend, then i think that some of the sanctions that were impose bid executive order, donald trump could remove. i think it's in putin's interest. . i think putin is playing trump. it's clear that all you have to do is compliment him and say he's wonderful and then he's your friend and ignores any conflicts or difficulties with an individual as long as they give him praise. >> the same report saying the congressional leaders are briefed in september if not earlier. so why is the public just learning about this now and should congress have made that information public before people went to the voting booths? >> that's very troubling to me. i'm just learning this as well. i wish that they would have made

it public. it's very interesting that mcconnell blew it off and said it was partisan and then shortly thereafter his wife gets an appointment to be on the cabinet. so it's really hard for me to look at trump's apopointments i a genuine way. they seem to be self-serving. he has mcconnell in check mate by having his wife there. i really think congress theeds to investigate this. i'm glad on the democratic side representative cummings has agreed to go ahead and investigate. so i'm hoping that that moves forward, that we have a commission that really looks at it and the leadership that we have on the democratic side i believe should move this forward. >> congresswoman, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me on. chaos after twin bombings. how it happened and the grp turkey is blaming. i love that my shop is part of the morning ritual around here.

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welcome back. 31 past the hour, here's what we're monitoring. ash carter is in iraq for an unannounced visit. he's meeting with iraqi leaders. he was expected to get an update on the fight against the islamic state. there are 5,000 u.s. troops in iraq. happening now in turkey, officials are vowing vengeance in the aftermath of last night's deadly twin attacks near a soccer stadium. 38 people were killed and 100 wounded. the nation declared a day of mourning to pay tribute for the dead. let's go to matt bradley. has anyone claimed responsibility? what do we know about what happened, the events leading up to this? >> thanks, alex. there's been one claim of spoblt so far from a group known by tak. it's an offshoot of an outlawed political party. nbc has not been able to

independently verify this claim. prominent government officials had already blamed the kurds before tak issued this claim of responsibility. we should note that kurdish groups are frequently targeted by turkey's regime, which is led by the president. so twin bombings lesds than a minute a part left 100 wounded. first car bomb struck riot police as they left a stadium. moments later, a suicide bombing hit a nearby park. most of the casualties were policemen. all of this it illuminates what has become a new normal. the country has so many enemies and they have been getting bolder and bolder. over the past few years, turkey has been hit by jihadis. they have dealt a body blow to the industry and this it attack

seems like it will do more of the same. >> matt bradley, thank you so much. donald trump dismissing concerns he's turned away some intelligence briefings. coming up, i ask a former cia analyst how much the briefings really change from day-to-day. i have asthma... ...one of many pieces in my life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. breo opens up airways to help improve breathing for a full 24 hours. breo contains a type of medicine that increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents. breo is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. once your asthma is well controlled, your doctor will decide if you can stop breo and prescribe a different asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid.

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new reports of a rift over his dismissal that russia was trying to help him win the election. trump doubling down on his position. >> i think it's ridiculous. i think it's just another excuse. i don't believe it. >> joining me is a senior policy adviser for the counterextremism project and military analyst. are you surprised by donald trump's response? >> i am a bit surprised. the president's daily brief is something that every president, republican and democrat, usually typically gets every morning.

sometimes that's verbally given by their briefer from the intelligence community and sometimes they choose to read the documents that compose the brief. it's a bit surprising because this does not fall within the precedent of how presidents receive and want to receive the briefing every day. >> word has had his vice president is getting them. does that suffice? >> it's really important that the president is up to speed on these matters. it's one thing to delegate in terms of policy and it's one thing to delegate in terms of staff. but the brief is called for a reason. so while i think it's great that it mike pence is getting it, usually they get them under normal circumstances. typically the president does get the briefings as well. so usually both of them would be receiving these on a daily basis. >> how unusual is it for president of this kind of a riff with the intelligence community? >> i think it remains to be seen. i don't want to say there's a riff just yet. it's early. he hasn't taken office yet. to come out with a statement like this does create some

tension. they have expressed some concern. there's a lot of people behind the brief. this is not a one page memo. the entire u community works on this 24 hours, 7 days a week. you have briefers early before dawn preparing the package of information that covers countries around the world. it covers global threats. it covers sbijss. it covers terrorism and this is something that's a huge effort that the intelligence apparatus is set up to do and dismiss it or diminish importance, i can see why they u might be upset. i think this would make any community upset when that much work goes into what's one of the best intelligence products in the world. >> interestingly in their it initial response to the reports, trump's team released a statement saying these are the same people that said saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. these people and integrity and working 24/7 on these briefings

and the information, how do you think that remark makes people there feel? >> sure, i'm not going to sit here and say that intelligence is a perfect science. it's an art than a science. just like any field or profession, it's hard to have it be right 100% all the time. mistakes are made. if you look at the work of our intelligence community, if you look the at the security of our country every day, the types of incidents we don't see, the incidents that don't occur, that's because of the work of our law enforcement and the intelligence community. so there have been mistakes and the intelligence failure cited by the trump transition team was a big mistake in our history. i don't think that should be used to dismiss the work of the entire community. >> can you tell me how much they u change day-to-day these intelligence briefings? >> sure, so every day there's a new briefing. there's usually new information. it doesn't need to be something ground breaking. its response is sometimes to the president or senior officials

questions or follow up. there is no information in some cases and it's not predictable how much is going to be new or ground breaking. every single day there's new information in that briefing book. there's new topics covered or in the same country there might be developments. i'm just making up an example. if you have an ongoing operation, you want to be up to speed on that on the day-to-day u regular basis. >> thank you so much for weighing in. appreciate your insights very much. rudy giuliani, chris christie and others, why donald trump isn't appoint iing people who helped him get to the white house. and coming up at the top of the hour, with fake news in the headlines, where some of it originates. ♪ ♪

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his cabinet, i call it the 3 three g cabinet, i think that's

true for many of the appointments to trump's cabinet. they haven't had experience in the areas that they are being asked to manage in a very complicated world and a very complicated government. >> that's claire mccaskill airing concerns about the latest cabinet picks. let's bring in our panel. a welcome to you, my friends. i'll start with you, how ward. the line on the picks, is it a fair characterization or trump's unconventional approach brings needed change? >> i think the jury is out on that. i think how he performs is very clever, but we'll see if it becomes more than talking points. what i'm worried about is trump's competence. the stuff about not doing the cia briefings and to be fair the cia did not get it wrong on iraq. there were significant numbers

of people that did think there were no weapons of mass destructions and cheney squished their reports and prevent issed them from getting to the president. i worry when the president of the united states is not interested in intelligence briefings. >> so the unconventional approach does it worry you or might be beneficial. >> it doesn't worry me because i think donald trump is bringing in the people he can work best with. you need to see in order to be successful. he can't bring in people he doesn't trust. he doesn't want to bring in people with the experience as he said of hillary clinton. that's the wrong kind of experience. this is what he's been elected to do. >> one of my guests this morning suggested that trump is keeping mitt romney in his back pocket if the pick doesn't go over

well. how likely do you think u that is? >> i have no way of knowing. i u think donald trump is the most unpredictable person that's ever been elected certainly u to the presidency. so for me to guess what's going on in his head is futile. >> what about you, susan? howard make ss a good point, no of us should try to do that. there's something that would also suggest that mitt romney that this was an intentional disz. he put him out there so mitt romney was walking back all his vitriol during the campaign and will say he's a sore loser because he didn't get secretary of state. >> i agree with the governor and donald trump being unpredictable so it's hard to figure that point out. but at the end of the day, donald trump was very interest ed in mitt romney's points of view, as he brought him in running for president in 2012. he did bring up the issue of russia. he's been very well regarded on foreign affairs. and i think that it was a manner

of personalities and donald trump is more comfortable with someone who has wider business experience and has the same kind of views that he does. >> how about this? the family being involved here, in an interview this morning trump admitted he's exploring the legality of having his daughter and husband join the administration. here's why. take a listen. >> i would love to be able to have them involved. if you look at ivanka, she's so strong, as you know, to the women's issue and child care. nobody could do better than her. i just have to see whether or not we can do that. and she would like to do that and i'd love to have jared helping us on deals with other nations and see if we can do peace in the middle east and other things. . he's a very talented guy. >> so your point earlier that donald trump is picking people with whom he's comfortable

working. are you comfortable if the kushners join the government? >> two things, on the i-event ka side f she wanted to take up an issue, she could. it doesn't haveo in position with the government. she could start up a nonprofit or something like that. as far as kushner goes, i understand why donald trump would trust him to go on a mission like that. but i think that starts getting very complicated when you have all of his business interests at hand as well. he does run a billion-dollar company. i think that could be problematic for getting through the scrutiny of the public. >> same question, howard. also add this. say the election had gone the other way. what about cel sea clinton taking a job in the white house? would you be okay with that? >> both of them are illegal. after robert kennedy became attorney general under president john f. kennedy, the congress outlawed this. for example, in the senator, you

can have your spouse be your chief of staff, but he or she cannot be paid. that's the only way, according to law right now, that one of donald trump's families could end up working for him. they could work for him, to wor nothing as a volunteer. they cannot take a paid position. >> i'm sure they would be okay with that. >> i was going to say, well, they have our sources of income. we can put it that way. >> howard, let's turn to russia. the allegations it interfered in the u.s. election. here is robert bear on that yesterday. take a listen. >> having worked in the cia, if we had been caught interfering in european elections or anywhere in the world, those countries would call for new elections. any democracy would. if the evidence is there, i don't see any other way than to vote again. >> is he right? would a new election be the fair solution here? would that be possible, howard? >> i think this is why the recounts are important,

whether -- no matter who is demanding them. the truth is, we know now that russia did interfere in american elections. i believe the cia, certainly not donald trump who has spoken many times with no evidence to back up what he is saying. but we need to find out if this had an affect on the elections. that we do not know. we do not know if what the russians did affected the outcome of the election. i think it's premature to call for new elections without knowing exactly what the effect of the russian interference was. >> the fact is is that we will never know what the exact affect one. no one is charging that they hacked into voting machines. they're talking about the information that was put out there that was leaked out there about hillary clinton and her staff. we will never know. donald trump is the president-elect. no matter what happens going forward, no investigation is going to change that. but taking away the politics of it, which i think should be done, we have to narrow the scope of this vest -- and have an investigation if a foreign

entity did come in and try to influence the elections in the united states of america. >> okay. guys, i want to ask about you something i was reading in "the new york times." trump is not rewarding a lot of loyalists with cabinet jobs. look at rex tillerson. he is the latest who had virtually nothing to do with the campaign. why is trump ignoring the people who got him to the white house in the first place? >> well, i don't think he is necessarily ignoring people who got him into the white house. we could look at sessions, look at bannon his chief adviser, reince priebus, his chief of staff. there are a couple of people who were very out there for donald trump, even some of the most difficult typeimes, meaning chr christie and rudy giuliani. it didn't work out that way. rudy giuliani was interested in one position. it wasn't that he couldn't get a job in the administration. that one just didn't seem to work out for him. >> okay. howard, last thought to you.

>> i agree with susan on this. those guys, both of them are very controversial people, lightning rods. christie is below 30% approval rating and facing a potential investigation now that his staff has claimed that he wasn't telling the truth about whether he knew anything about bridge date or not. i know rudy well. he is a lot of fun. i worked with him on a couple of issues. he says very controversial things. i think there's probably some people in the trump staffers saying, is this -- you will say a lot of controversial things yourself. do you want your staff doing it as well? i don't know anything about rex tillerson. i do suspect that as the ceo of a major corporation that he is probably not going to make too many remarks off the cuff. i think that's something that trump has to consider when he is putting together his cabinet. >> howard and susan, good to see you both. in our next hour, cashing in on fake news stories. we will hear from one man who writes them and some people who read them.

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i'm sorry, we were talking about savings. i liked his way. cha-ching! talking about getting that moneeeey! talking about getting that moneeeey! savings worth the hype. now that's progressive. hello, everyone. i'm alex witt here in new york at msnbc world headquarters. here is what's happening right now. we begin with politics. new reaction from donald trump speaking for the first time on "the washington post" report about russia intervening in the u.s. election in order to help him win. he dismissed the report and said the democrats are behind them because of their election loss. trump then offered this take on president obama's call for an investigation. >> do you think this is part of an effort to undercut you? >> well, it could be. i think president obama has been terrific. he has been very respectful of the process and everything else. i saw that. and i want it,