this sunday morning donald trump, the russians and the 2016 election. the cia has this sunday morning donald trump, the russians and the 2016 election. the cia has concluded the russians intervened to help elect donald trump. who as a candidate praised vladimir putin. >> i think i would have a good relationship with putin. >> at issue, how did the russians interfere? why did they do it? to what extent did they succeed? i will talk to donald trump's incoming chief of staff reince priebus, the top democrat in the house intelligence committee adam schiff and the former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. plus, early reaction to donald trump's apparent choice for secretary of state, rex

tillerson. the chief executive of exxon mobil who has a particularly close relationship with putin. >> a great advantage is he knows many of the players and he knows them well. >> and mike rowe of "dirty jobs" fame will be here. >> i put our lives at risk. >> at what democrats can learn from donald trump on how to win over working class voters. joining me for insight and analyst doris kearns goodwin, kimberly stshgs trasse and rick stengel. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning.

when "the washington post" story about russian involvement in our election was posted online friday night, it was nothing less than explosive. the cia included the russians interfered. further, in september, the white house wanted congressional leaders to sign off on a statement supporting efforts to support the integrity of the election. two republican lawmakers including senate majority leader mitch mcconnell who was not persuaded by the cia conclusion would not sign on to it. this is not about the results of the election. it's about a hostile foreign government trying to influence our election. just as the russians had been accused of doing in germany and italy just in the last two weeks. as stunning as the conclusion, equally remarkable was donald trump's decision to side with the foreign government over our own chief intelligence agency. donald trump declared war on the intelligence community in a statement filled with hyperbole

friday night. these are the same people that said saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. the election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest electoral college victories in history. it's time to move on and make america great again. "the new york times" is reporting that intelligence agencies have concluded with high confidence that russian hacked the republican national committee computer systems but chose to leak only democratic party documents. rnc spokesman shawn spicer tweeted don't miss the exclusive interview with elvis riding on his unicorn with santa. and trump has consistently down played intelligence about russian hacking. >> it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. okay? >> meanwhile, he has publically flirted with putin numerous times. >> i was in russia. i was in moscow recently. and i spoke indirectly and directly with president putin who could not have been nicer.

i think i would have a good relationship with putin. who knows? he has been a leader more than our president has been a leader. >> inviting russia to conduct espionage against hillary clinton. >> russia, if you are listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> leading senate republicans are preparing to launch a probe into russia's involvement. >> if the evidence is what i think it will be, then we will have a bipartisan effort to sanction putin and his inner circle for their interference not only in our election but destabilizing the world. >> before he leaves office, president obama is looking into it, too. >> the president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election. >> the man who appears to be trump's choice for secretary of state exxonmobil's president rex

tillererson has deep ties to putin. in 2013, the kremlin awarded tillerson the order of friendship, one of the highest honors for civilians. >> my relationship with vladimir putin, which dates back almost 15 years now, i've known sim since 1999, and i have a very close relationship with him. >> i believe that vladimir putin is a thug and a bully and murderer. and i believe that the relationship between mr. tillerson and vladimir putin needs to be examined. joining me from stanford university and the former u.s. ambassador is mike mcfaul who was banned recently from russia for what he says are his close ties to president obama. welcome the "meet the press." >> thanks for having me. >> tell us a little bit about why everyone is so convinced that what happened in the united states fits a pattern of what russia has been doing in other countries. >> well, because russia has this capability.

and they're motivated for political purposes to do these kinds of things. what is really striking about the last 48 hours, of course, is that now the intelligence community is starting to directly give us news about the way these dots are connected. remember, you and i have talked about this many times. we knew some things, like we were pretty certain about the dnc cking by the russians. what we didn't have reported before was evidence that they gave that data to wikileaks. we also didn't have the data that you just described in your intro that they hacked the rnc, the republicans. those are pretty big new facts. and i think they demand real attention in terms of some kind of investigation. >> in your determination as somebody who obviously with deep knowledge of the russian system, what's putin's motivation? what does he get out of donald trump's election? >> you know, i think it's two things. one is revenge against secretary clinton.

let's remember that vladimir putin thinks that she intervened in his election, the parliamentary election in december 2011. and has said as much publically. i heard him talk about it privately. number two, president-elect trump supports a lot of foreign policy positions that vladimir putin supports. you just played several of them in your clips. right? so it's very rational in my view that he would rather see president-elect trump be the next president of the united states instead of secretary clinton. now, i want to add one thing here. sometimes people jump to the conclusion that this was somehow coordinated with president-elect trump. i don't believe that for a minute. but did the russians take some actions to try to help him? i think the evidence is circumstantial enough that we really do need this bipartisan, independent investigation that others are calling for. >> set aside the hacking aspect of this.

any concerns you have about an administration, if rex tillerson is secretary of state, that wants to forth closer personal ties and closer ties with vladimir putin's russia? >> yes, to be honest, yes. now, when i was in the government, i supported exxonmobil's work with the largest oil company there. we thought that it was in america's national interest to strengthen economic ties, but then russia intervened in ukraine, and they annexed crimea and they supported guerrillas with their own soldiers in eastern ukraine, and the obama administration rightly sanctioned the russian companies including the ceo of their largest oil company,

exxonmobil's part eer in. we can't reverse those sanctions in the name of economic interest unless russia changes its behavior. so i want to learn more. i want to hear the hearings. i want to know what mr. tillerson thinks about a broad set of issues, not just energy ones but initially this is disturbing to me. >> mike mcfaul, former ambassador to russia under president obama and now from stanford university, thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. joining me now is the outgoing chairman of the republican national committee and the incoming chief of staff for the president-elect, donald trump, it's reince priebus. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you, chuck. >> let me start with apparently a big announcement that may be coming this week, and that has to do with secretary of state and outgoing exxon ceo rex ti tillerson and the early reaction is not very good, mr. priebus. alarming and absurd says bob menendez the top democrat on senate foreign relations. john mccain, a matter of concern to me, referring to mr. tillerson's close relationship with vladimir putin. lindsey graham called the pick unnerving. is he definitely going to be the

pick number one? how do you respond to the criticism? >> well, first of all, there is no announcement today on secretary of state. there won't be an announcement, i would assume, until maybe early to mid next week. and the president-elect is making a decision. and so he has a lot of great choices. and a lot of accomplished people. he has talked to a variety of folks from as you know rex tillerson to mitt romney to rudy giuliani to david patraeus, bob corker and many others. you know, this sort of analysis is a little premature. but as to rex tillerson, he is one of the most pre-eminent people not only in the united states, but in the world. so i think that poking this prematurely is something that just isn't, number one -- it's not helpful, but it's also not accurate. i mean, this is a guy who has business relationships in every continent in the entire world.

>> that's fine. but does that qualify him to be secretary of state? >> immediately, everyone is jumping the shark on this. >> does that qualify him to be secretary of state? >> sure. i think he is qualified to be secretary of state. absolutely. >> just having business deals, that qualifies him? >> it's not just business deals. an extensive knowledge of our relationships across the globe and extensive knowledge of international law and extensive knowledge of how deals are put together in places of the world that are very sensitive and inter-governmental relationships that are very unique to rex tillerson. so, yeah, i think he is not just qualified, i think he is someone that's preeminent in the entire world. >> but should it be troubling to somebody that for instance the united states government lobbied rex tillererson not to attend an

event in russia earlier this year and sort of a global expo event that vladimir putin was hosting, and the united states government was hoping that rex tillerson would not go, but he did. he could. they didn't prevent him from going. but he put exxon's interests over and above the united states. do you understand why that would unnerve some people about the idea of him as america's chief diplomat? >> well, it might unnerve people who think the best route for our country to go is to ignore people and to have an enemy list and adhere to that list. i just don't believe and neither does the president-elect that solving the world's biggest problems are best done by ignoring people and having crummy relationships across the globe. we just don't believe that talking to people and having relationships is a bad thing. >> should we expect that sanctions -- >> i would venture to guess that rex tillerson doesn't agree with that either. >> should we expect regardless

of who is secretary of state that one of the first orders president-elect trump will do is lift sanctions against vladimir putin and many of the cronies? >> not at all. i wouldn't go to any conclusion. the only conclusion you should have is that talking to people is something that president-elect trump is going to do. it doesn't mean that he is not going to be tough. it doesn't mean that we're not going to make sure that the american position is always advocated for. the idea is to put america first, not just in the united states but america first across the globe. but these preconceived notions that how dare you cut a deal with the russian government because you need to have -- you need to go where the oil is at is absurd. of course, he is going to cut that deal. that's what rex tillerson did. but that doesn't mean that the positions of president-elect trump are not going to be extremely tough in putting america first. >> let me move to the reports in

the washington post, "new york times," nbc news confirmed it the assessment from the cia is not only did russia interfere, make an attempt to interfere in the 2016 election to be disruptive but they actually were trying to be disruptive in order to help donald trump. the transition put out a statement that essentially he humiliated the cia in saying that donald trump didn't believe the assessment from the cia because these are the same people that said there were weapons -- that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. does donald trump have confidence in america's intelligence? >> of course he has confidence in america's intelligence. but we don't have confidence in "the new york times" releasing a report of unnamed sources of some kind of study that itself and "the washington post" said was inconclusive to claim that

because the cia had hacked e-mails of the dnc and rnc and only used dnc e-mails that meant russia was doing this. the rnc was not hacked. we had the fbi in the rnc. we have been working with the fbi. we have had expert intelligence here and -- >> well, why -- >> no, hang on, chuck. no, the rnc was hacked. >> explain why you had the fbi there. >> the dnc was hacked. we called the fbi and they came ino help us. they came in to review what we were doing and went through every single thing that we did. we went through this for a month. we were not hacked. wait a second. if we were not hacked -- that is absolutely not true -- then where does that story lie? >> nobody with the -- let me ask you this. not a single person connected to the rnc was hacked?

no republican vendor who had interaction with the rnc was hacked? you had a specific denial that the rnc network wasn't hacked, and that doesn't mean that the republicans associated with rnc weren't hacked. do you rule categorically rule this out? >> i don't know why you are so hot about this. the fact of the matter -- >> it's not about me. >> the rnc was not hacked. number one, the rnc was not hacked. chuck, number one, the rnc was not hacked. i don't know of any employee on any of the gmail accounts that was hacked, and so what i am trying to tell you that are rnc was not hacked number one and by the way, that is the specific allegation that was made in the actual new york times article. the article did not say affiliates of the rnc and the employees, and -- >> welsh the -- >> no, wait a minute, chuck. the article said that the rnc

was hack adn don't be defensive with me that i u am disputing a specific fact that -- >> h not me. >> and i am disputing a fact that was in this specific article to create this firestorm and what we were told by the fbi and two days ago and we have checked back with them about this issue, and repeated the fact that the rnc was not hacked. so you tell me where this story is at? why would the press run with something that was not true? >> let me ask you though about the cia's assessment. i understand you want a specific denial about the rnc. the cia made this assessment. donald trump so ignored the assessment. do you not believe russia was involved? do you not believe anything that russia was attempting to infiltrate the u.s. election system in any way, shape or form? >> here is what i'm saying. number one, you don't have a single source -- i've given you a source specifically, me, who runs the rnc to say that the rnc was not hacked. you tell me who the specific source on the other side of this

that says the rnc was hacked. okay. you say we covered that. >> my question is not about the rnc. reince, no, no, no. >> i am getting to it, chuck. >> no, my question is about whether or not russia tried to infiltrate our election in some way, shape or form. the hacking of the dnc, the hacking of john podesta. you don't believe -- you and donald trump do not believe russia was involved in that at all? that's what your statement said friday night. >> what i'm asking you, chuck, is tell me what the specific source that you have other than a "new york times" article that claims that through unnamed sources who they say was inconclusive, what source are you using to be so adamant to get a response from me on something that doesn't have a source to it? what's your source? >> what you are saying is, until the cia comes out and produces somebody on the record, you are

going to dispute this the entire time? >> no, i'm not -- i don't know whether it's true or not. if it is true -- >> you don't -- that means you do not believe the assessments of the u.s. intelligence community. >> wait a second. now you are circuitous here. >> i'm saying -- i'm asking you -- you guys have the sourcing. you are getting briefings on this. you have been briefed. the president-elect was briefed on this. it's clear that you don't believe it, and i'm asking you why you don't believe it. >> number one, i don't have -- i'm not in those briefings, first of all. eventually, i will be. but the second thing i'm telling you is you have no source, no conclusive source that you are using other than a false article in the "new york times" somehow claiming -- >> you keep falling to the "new york times." you are ignoring "the washington post" report because you want to deny the rnc aspect. i understand that. >> i'm not. i am not ignoring the washington

post report. >> the conclusion had to do the cia's assessment -- do you believe -- let's clear this up. do you believe -- does the president-elect believe that russia was trying to muddy up and get involved in the election in 2016? >> number one, you don't know it. i don't know it. there's been no conclusive or specific report to say otherwise. that's the first thing. the second thing i would tell you is that you don't have any proof that the outcome of the election was change and forget who did the hacking and even if someone did the hacking -- >> do you want to know? >> someone did the hacking. >> does president-elect trump want to know? does he want to know. >> what specific -- of course we want to know. >> there's going to be an investigation. >> he wants an investigation? >> i don't know what investigations he wants. but yes, we do want to know, but what i don't want to do, chuck, is to have a debate with you on unnamed source that the article said was inconclusive and why

they hack and didn't hack and someone hacked. look, we don't like it, and i don't like it, and we want to protect the country first. no one wants it. we want to protect american interests. it's america first. i don't want the dnc hacked. i don't want anybody hacked. i don't know who did the hacking. that's my point. >> you dispute 17 intelligence agencies that have assessed that russia agents were behind this? you dispute this? >> chuck, this is insane. in the same article about the 17 agencies, it said it was inconclusive. you are forgetting the most important piece. >> it was inconclusive about vladimir putin, reince. it was not inconclusive that russian agents were involved. there's a difference. i understand why you are trying to parse this. but there is a difference. do you not believe any of this? >> i don't know who did the hacking, chuck. the article is based on a lie that the rnc was hacked. so the entire premise of the article is false. the sources are unnamed. the report was inconclusive.

listen, i don't want anyone hacked, okay. but the point is that we need to find out more facts about this situation, and then we can make intelligent decision later and you and i can have a more intelligent conversation about what to do about it. >> all right. >> reince priebus, we have to leave it there because of time. >> you bet. >> until we meet again. thanks for coming on. >> you bet. when we come back, 12 members of congress have seen the full cia assessment. we will hear from the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, one of the 12, adam shchiff of california. before we go to break, we have one final election result from 2016 to report. louisiana held its senate runoff election yesterday to replace david vitor. republicans will hold on to the seat. john kennedy, no relation to the kennedy family, defeated foster campbell with nearly 61% of the vote. with that, we can now finally say officially, republicans will hold 52 seats in the next congress, democrats will

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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. welcome back. now another perspective on the russian involvement. when the white house had intelligence about russia and the election to share with congress, they convene ad gang of 12. these are house and senate members. one of those attending the

meeting was congressman adam schiff of california. he heard the evidence that russia was trying to tip the scales in donald trump's favor. schiff is the top democrat in the house intelligence committee. congressman schiff joins me now. welcome to "meet the press." >> thanks. >> i know you were listening to my interview with reince priebus, the incoming chief of staff. he was denying, was looking for sourced information that would somehow prove this allegation was not ready to accept the conclusions of the intelligence reports that say russia was at least trying to do something with this election. obviously, the cia went further. what can you share with us to prove something to reince priebus to say you are wrong on this? >> first of all, i thought that interview was breathtaking. there's no doubt that the russians hacked our institutions. you don't have the director of national intelligence making a public statement the way he did in october without there being a broad consensus of all the intelligence agencies. frankly, i don't know a democrat or republican who has heard the

intelligence that would quarrel with those conclusions. i think that's fact one. the russians definitely -- this was not china, this wasn't a 400 pound guy in new jersey or anyone else. this was the russians. second, in terms of what the russians were after, they were after discord and in this they were spectacularly successful. but it wasn't alone. they had a candidate with pro-putin, pro-russian views who belittled nato, who was willing to potentially remove sanctions on russia and by contrast they had in secretary clinton a candidate very tough on russia and who they blamed as ambassador mcfaul said for the protest, the mass demonstrations against the corruption in the russian elections in 2011. you would have to believe -- i can't go into the classified information. but you would have to believe that the uniform nature of the hacking and the dumping of information that was damaging to secretary clinton and helpful to

donald trump was both coincidental and accidental and the russians didn't know what they were doing to believe that they had no interest in helping one candidate that simply is not credible. >> i understand that. let me play devil's advocate here. this happened before with intelligence assessments, which is political figures essentially it's a form of confirmation bias. they only see the intelligence that supports a point of view they have going into it. is there any chance here this is confirmation bias on the intelligence community in general or on those folks that are interpreting the intelligence? >> no, i don't think so. i think the circumstantial evidence, which is all i could talk about publically, is so profound that you would really have to believe that to accept reince priebus's argument that the are russians are not capable of hack iing the republican institution, and the russians have prove even they can hack

any public institution, government institution or private institution, so it is not to a credible argument. the fact that we have a president-elect who is willing to disregard the overwhelming evidence on the basis of the russian involvement in the hacking of institutions, tells me this will be a president who will disregard even the best assessments of the intelligence community when it doesn't suit his own version of events. that is extraordinarily damaging. i will say one other thing. the reason that this russian campaign has so successful is that you have the rare specter of a presidential candidate and president-elect willing to give the russians cover. this is effective because the russians can put out on their tv and the sputnik that the president-elect of the united states doesn't believe they were involved. that is so extraordinarily beneficial to russian propaganda. it what made this so powerful. and so damaging to us. >> let me ask you this. in "the washington post" story,

apparently the president wanted to go public with this information and have sort of a bipartisan statement about it. apparently, two republicans and one of them is mitch mcconnell, objected to it. what can you say about that allegation in "the washington post"? >> well, i can say this. we certainly have had gang of eight and other briefings on this issue. we have had plenty of discussions both before the election and we have had briefings since the election about the russian meddling and there wasn't a bipartisan agreement either before and i think we are seeing some bipartisan interest in investigating thereafter. but i can say this. there was really nothing preventing the administration on its own from being more declaratory in terms of what the intelligence showed. i have an urgent administration to be more forthcoming with the public. i think they should. i think we should work with our european allies to sanction this behavior. >> you think the decision to not

come out as definitively before the election was a mistake by president obama? >> i do. i think it was a mistake earlier frankly not to react more forcefully when north korea hacked us. i think those kind of -- that lack of deterrence invited the russians to meddle and consider they could do this with impunity. i hope we will have a bipartisan joint investigation of the intelligence communities or a commission like my colleagues are proposing, this ought to be a non-partisan issue. this is not about re-litigating the election. it's about getting good information to the american people about what happened and preventing it and deterring the russians in the future. >> adam schiff, i have to leave it there for time. appreciate you coming on. the top democrat on the house intelligence committee from california. thank you very much. coming up, we will have more on this evolving story about russia in the u.s. election, rex tillerson. later, someone who made a career of celebrating blue collar workers, mike rowe on why his

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welcome back. it's panel time. rick welcome back. it's panel time. recently retired is rick stengel who joins us. welcome back to a civilian life. kimberly, great to see you. doris and michael. let me start with the former rnc chair. first of all -- >> that was fun. >> it's clear that they want to -- that the trump folks want to zero in on this narrow question about whether the rnc was hacked. a former head of the rnc, what do you know? >> what i do know is all the -- reince was right in terms of what the fbi has reported back to them, that there was no hacking, per se, of the rnc. that's been a very clear.

i think where the cross was, was on the distinction between whether or not trump is going to accept the report of the cia that says that there was evidence that the russians were involved generally in this race. not necessarily specifically with hacking the rnc. there's no evidence of that. but with respect to their involvement, their fingerprint on this election, that's the question. >> look, there's two parts to this story. i can see this is why reince is unhappy. the first part was russia involved in hacking institutions and generally sewing discord in the election. everyone can agree that happened. >> not everyone is agreeing to that. >> i understand. but what they are unhappy about and legitimately so is the piece of the story for which there is no evidence this was done to aid donald trump. i spoke to intelligence officials. this is what i know. they got into the dnc site. they took information and obviously distributed it. they got on the rnc system.

they weren't able to get information out. the idea this was done to help donald trump, that that's the evidence for this that they didn't put -- rnc information out as well that showed them in favor of trump is not the case. >> the bigger question isn't about whether it impacted the election. we're having a dispute about the fact of russia's involvement. >> there's a global information war going on now. russia is the principal actor and the most malign actor. we have seen this from the state department for years. it's along a continuum. on the hard end is cyber terrorism and infiltration. the soft end is russia today and sputnik. candidate trump quoted russia today's stories and sputnik stories during the campaign. part of the idea is to undermine our institutions, undermine democracy, question the election and, in fact, it's a victory for russia and putin that here today we are talking about it. >> who won? >> questioning the election. >> that's what they were trying to do. >> what's troubling is that to

cast aspersions on the cia before you have taken the oath of office. he is going to have to use the professionals there. yes, they have made mistakes. they made mistakes but to bring that up as the most embarrassing moment in their history, you are going to need those professionals and many of them have died for us. many of the men and women have done noble things that we may not know about. of course, they screw up at times. to use this example -- i don't see -- there's nothing wrong with them saying they hacked us and yet i won the election. nobody is saying he wouldn't have won anyway. >> actually, people are. you have to put -- >> that's a broader context. >> there are people staging recounts. there are people suggesting in "the new york times" that maybe he only won this because russia interfered with the election. by the way, what makes more sense? i was struck by representative hiff sayin this just isn't credible. we're essentially saying that the russians did this to elect donald trump and the russians were the only people in the whole world who knew that donald

trump was going to win and had a possibility of winning this election and even the trump campaign didn't think this, and what makes more sense, because they assumed that hillary clinton would be the president and this is a way of deleg delegitmatizing her e e heck shun. >> let's go to rex tillerson. it seems an odd time to push this idea. it's very trumpian. there's something personally about rex that appeals to him. i have talked to people close to him. i get -- there's a lot that he likes about him. it seems a lot for the political system to handle the day after the cia comes out with this assessment, vladimir putin's buddy. >> there's a little indigestion there for the political folks. >> can he survive this? >> i think he can. i think from donald trump's perspective, back to your point, he likes this. he likes this pot being stirred the way it's being stirred, because he gets to see the meddle of the individual's involved. he gets to measure the

circumstances and how the playing field is aligning itself, and right now, tillerson from all accounts is someone that he really likes and this does not scare him off of tillerson and for donald trump this is an opportunity to double down on that and then to double down on the conversation about the russians' involvement and show how he is not affected by it. >> but what i would say is rex tillerson -- our diplomacy is not about transactions. it's not about cutting better deals. as reince put it. our diplomacy is about alliances. we have a candidate who undermined the power of nato, article 5, one for all and all for one. we have a secretary of state in rex tillerson who has this personal relationship, which is fine. but if it is just about cutting deals, then that's not what our diplomacy is about. >> but actually, it is. in a real sense, those relationships are based on transactions. >> they are but -- >> the way the american people see the transactions over the last 15, 20 years has resulted in a lot of bad policy.

>> over and over i've been in the room with the secretary of state where he is with foreign ministers and heads of state. you know what he talks about? freedom of speech, religion, diversity, tolerance. those are the issues that we talk about. it's not just about cutting deals. >> i think what's so important about the secretary of state role is that right now we have got a lot of generals in the administration, which i think is a great thing. they know leadership more than anybody else. we have more respect for the military than anyone else. they will not send people into battle as easily as they need to. you need the civilian/military balance. the secretary of state role is more important. >> you have to land this at some point. we have to go to commercial break. terrific conversation. when we come back, we will switch topics. we will talk about what democrats can learn from donald trump's success in wooing blue collar voters.

welcome back. we want to remember astronaut and senator joh welcome back. we want to remember astronaut and senator john glenn who died this week at age 95.

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welcome back. joining me and the panel is mike rowe. you may know mike from his welcome back. joining me and the panel is mike rowe. you may know mike from his series on the discovery channel "dirty jobs." he has written a post that has gone viral in which he says it's no coincidence that donald trump got elected at the same time that "dirty jobs" is successful. i want to get into this with him. welcome to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me at the grown-up table. it's a big day for me. >> thanks for not posing. you are in what we want to see you in, no tie. >> all my suits are rubber. >> you know, you wrote this has been about -- this election in many ways has been about the sort of -- what feels like the forgotten middle class, blue collar jobs. you wrote, what will that mean -- you wrote this in your facebook -- excuse me back in february 15, it seems clear companies are responding to rising labor costs by embracing automation faster than ever.

that is e limb snating thousands of paying positions of low-paying positions, and we all know what that it means. they feel desperate. >> yeah. the greatest threat to freedom was total anarchy. the second was total efficiency. there's a pretty interesting conversation about meaningful work, i think. honestly, it's a bit beyond my pay grade on "dirty jobs" the big lesson was there's an awful lot of people who are doing really important work who nobody really pays affirmative attention to. when we showed up and started do that, the conversations that came out of that were really interesting. now with the benefit of hindsight, somewhat prescient. we were hearing things at the network in 2004 and 2005 were

uncannily familiar to the conversations we were hearing around the gop. we didn't have the show on discovery that anybody thought would be a hit. and yet dozens of shows have emanated from that very thing. there are a lot of parallels. >> when i went to a working class county in michigan, i was talking to a guy that runs a fast growing manufacturing thing. he had this to say to me about the whole exercise of job retraining and what it means for somebody in their 40s. >> if you've been on this floor doing skill ed or semi-skilled work and you are 40 years old, you are not wanting to go to a computer-based job. you want to make things. that's part of the problem. you can have thousands of really good training programs. but the training needs to be the vocational. then there has to be the job openings. >> we always focus on job retraining. it's always about computers. it's always about -- it's about engineering. nothing wrong with that. but it's almost as if we're saying, those other jobs, they are going away. it's okay. some people want to touch

things. >> people ask me all the time, what's the big takeaway from the show? and there were many. for me, the thing i keep coming back to is the idea that as a group, there was a level of job satisfaction that was undeniable and surprising. it has to do with the ability to complete a task. people with dirty jobs by and large -- hate to generalize, they always know how they're doing every step of the way. we have almost taken that out of work today. your desk i'm sure it's beautiful, but it probably looks a lot at 5:00 p.m. as it does -- you don't have visual cues. >> you touched on this. can i ask you this on the introduction and one tof the things that got lost in the campaign is the difference of automation and globalization. everybody is accusing globalization of the thing that lost our jobs. when i was at "time" we did a story on a factory in upstate new york. 5,000 people making batteries. now it had 20 people making -- even more than it was before.

that's not about -- people do lose their jobs because of automation, not globalization. >> yeah. i wouldn't deny it. i would also say at the same time the thing that gets left out of the conversation is the fact that there are 5.8 million jobs available right now. we have a lot of people out of work and many more out of the work force specifically. 5.8 million jobs in the skills gap has to tell us something about opportunity. our enthusiasm for work, our desire to find a job that may not be our wish fulfillment but jump into it with both lands and see where it takes us. >> i think that what you showed, too, is a certain dignity that these people feel towards their jobs. job is more than just how you pay your bills and what you are doing for your family and what kid can go to college. it's what you feel when you go to work every day. somehow i think that's what mr. trump was able to tell the story to those people saying i'm going to make america great again, whether it's real or not to

bring back some of the manufacturing jobs. he made people feel connected. that's what a politician does. emotionally connects with the feelings you are feeling. i think your show shows that. >> well, it is alchemy to a certain degree and it is the what i call the "it's a wonderful life" phenomenon, where if you look at somebody's job, a and one of the best ways to pay tribute to it is ask the world what they would do without that job. and immediately, the sewage w k worker and the garbage worker and it is horatio al jer stuff, but it is reel. but it's very much for sale today. it's real. >> how much of this is our education system and also our leaders in that the message these days to every kid is, if you don't go to four-year college that somehow -- we got rid of vocational training. the smartest people i knew -- i grew up in a blue collar community. smartest people, almost all are skilled tradesmen. they knew that's what they wanted to do, were good as as well. >> you have to be a generalist when you are in that world.

the age of the specialist, the generalist gets short -- farmers need to dig the spring cellar and hang the dry wall and do all of these things, and it does not take a small brain. $1.3 trillion in student loans and still p pushing the same path for the most people as though it really is some sort of panacea, but with 5.8 million jobs, 70% of them don't require the four-year degree, so between knowledgement and enlightenment, we need to celebrate the jobs that are available. >> i want to end on that note. that was what i took away from you in our conversation, which is, let's celebrate work. let's celebrate all -- these jobs, make people feel better about working some of these jobs. >> dirty job is a good job. >> absolutely. >> mike rowe, this was great. >> thanks for having me. >> hope we can have you back again. >> i will be back next week. >> because if it's sunday, it's

mike rowe. this is a dirty job. it's a different type of dirt. we will be back with end game. we will see if mike rowe sticks around or not. we will talk about donald trump has been saying about russian involvement in the election just this morning.

we are back now with end game. donald trump has been talking this morning. we have been learning he is still not acknowledging this russian involvement, doesn't we are back now with end game. donald trump has been talking this morning. we have been learning he is still not acknowledging this russian involvement, doesn't believe it. is there a danger here that they are overdenying? >> i don't think there is any problem in acknowledging that russia would like to destabilize this country and took actions to do so and to express you're rage about that. >> why isn't he doing that? >> again, because i think this story as it was presented this weekend mixed up these questions of whether or not russia was involved, but also the suggestion that somehow that made his election ill

legitimate. that is what they are pushing back against. there's a benefit to them of separating it out. >> i think they will. i think they will get over this hurdle. they will make their case about -- as we saw reince do this morning. but i think at the end, they will because the tillerson nomination potentially will force them to. >> doris, go bigger picture for me here as you are better at than anybody, which is to have a president-elect go after the cia like this. presidents and the cia have had disputes before. it usually doesn't bubble up this public. >> no sh, the interesting thing that nixon had enormous hostility towards the cia. but he knew the cia knew he had been trying to win his election by having a back channel talk with the south vietnamese to stop peace talks johnson wanted to start. he promised somehow or the campaign did, if if you do this deal, i will give you a bert deal. so he thought that he should not

be bad to the cia or they will say something. he never said anything. obviously, they -- as i said before, the cia has made mistakes. but they have done extraordinary things. they are professionals. you have to work with them. a lot will be there. what does it do to morale to do this? i hope he pulls back on the cia and mentioning wmb. >> i think that larger issue -- we have been nibbling around -- there's this information threat to the u.s. and a lot of it comes from russia. what are we going to do about it? what happened when the berlin wall fell is it was the end of history for us. we retreated. the russians realized, the wall fell without firing a shot. it fell because of the information revolution that the u.s. pioneered. they started building up. they started building up television stations throughout the periphery. they started all of these places. this is now a threat to us. you don't have to invade a country if you control its information space. >> given -- >> we have forgotten about the cold war. that's part of the problem. not me but others are young. >> not john mccain. >> and not vladimir putin. >> it's important to remember, it's a long history. we have an adversary there.

this is a direct attempt by what was an adversary, still is, to hack our system. that is scyber warfare. >> what are you going to do? >> you have to do something about it. >> what does the obama administration that has been pushing to get into the public about russia's involvement, what does it do between now and inauguration of the incoming administration? that becomes the big question for the trump administration once that -- if obama does something, do they continue that or do they do something different? >> you talked about picking a fight with the cia. there's a difference between picking the fight with the agency or with the unnamed leadership that is putting out some of this information, which i'm sure if you are in the trump camp does seem to be highly political to a certain degree. >> i will leave it there. what a show. what a week. i feel like i say it every week, which i'm sure we will. that's all we have for today. the two-hour special that i would always love to have, we can't make happen. we will be back next week. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

♪ and a very good sunday to you. i'm richard lui in new york. welcome "pulse of america" right here on msnbc where your voice can be a heard in realtime throughout the hour, and here are the stories that we want to get your pulse on. the expected nomination of the exxonmobil ceo rex tillerson raising