truly is worth revisiting on the internet. that was a santa who just did the right thing. >> absolutely. bless him. that does it for us on this tuesday. i'm alex witt alongside ali velshi and and "morning joe" starts right now. the relationship between exxon mobile's tillerson and vladimir putin and russia, and it's a business relationship and as the head on exxon mobile, it's where the oil is, and i think this is getting blown way out of proportion. >> it's tuesday, december 13th. we are counting down to something. >> what? >> christmas? the holidays? with us on set, nicholas -- >> 12 days. >> hi, mika. >> 12 days until christmas. >> i know.

i am stressed out about it. my kids are apparently showing up. >> you have bought them presents yet? >> i don't know. i keep trying to face-time them and they decline me. i figure what it is. they always decline me. i think i figured it out, though, and i got a bit phoep g >> they are cartoon versions -- >> i will say yes. >> i will send one to alex. >> you have done any christmas shopping yet? >> not yet. i have great ideas. >> you are regifting. >> we have the president of the council and foreign relations,

richard haass. and in nashville, tennessee, pulitzer prize winning historian and nashville cat, jon meacham. >> one of the ways we christmas shop down here, there are willie geis geists busts at the bookstore. >> can you get those at the student hall of fame if you need one. >> by the way, i am going to rewrap a lot of jon meacham books if people give -- >> how many do you have? >> five or six. never opened them. >> well, you got him on the show. >> donald trump settled on a choice of secretary of state, and sources tell nbc news his choice will be exxon mobile's

rex tillerson. and last night, mitt romney said it was an honor to be considered. i have high hopes. sources tell nbc news that trump called romney to inform him he had not been selected for the position, and romney told trump he was honored to be considered. >> i will speak for myself, i am grateful that mitt romney would put himself out there, despite all of the differences they had in the campaign and do it simply because he wanted to serve america. >> now i am just hearing tillerson is official at this moment. >> and so richard, "the new york times" writes a flawed secretary of state and are concerned about

the connections to russias, and they think trump needs a more seasoned foreign policy pro, and talk about rex tillerson and other ceos. what are the upsides and down sides? >> the upside is people like rex tillerson as a great ground truth, and they have dlt with local leaders, and they just know a lot about the world. they are experienced negotiators. >> also, i have heard you say before that they are not ideological. >> they are the opposite of, say, john bolton, who wants to bomb everybody. >> well, in some ways the kphaoub tea in the united states, joe, have emerged for

the obvious reasons, and most american firms, the lion share of their business is over sees, and for an oil company, obviously the lion share of their business is overseas. >> i don't know what is going to happen on capitol hill, but he has the full support of pretty credible people. >> condi rice, and -- >> yeah, you guys were worried the idea was raised to donald trump by condi rice, and -- those are foreign policy heavyweigh heavyweights. >> just to round it out, it's the public sector and the private sector are two completely different worlds in terms of the management skills, and there's a difference between ground truth and diplomatic

foreign policy experience, and if you look at the successful secretaries of state recently, it's the relationship with the president. more than anybody else, it depends on donald trump because there can't be daylight between the secretary of state and himself because when the secretary of state operates around the world everybody else around the world has to believe that that person speaks for the president himself. >> and this is like "celebrity apprentice," and it was donald trump looking for somebody who was qualified and up to the task, and somebody who had a personal comfort level with rex tillerson, and rex tillerson is a big guy from a big corporation, and as we said yesterday, aubgs yawn is in more countries in the state department, and has more employees than the state department has employees, and this is a big person that donald trump can relate to. >> he has skills on the world

stage. he can be a good administrator, and i think if he's in that position, if you had a large corporation or corporate sovereign, basically, you are doing huge capital products that have 30 or 40 or 50-year time frames, and the question is whose interest is he going to represent. >> now that it's official. a background on rex tillerson for you, born and raised in texas and he studied civil engineering and joined exxon mobile 40 years ago, and his life-long passion has been boy scouts of america, and he also served as president of the organization when it voted to allow openly gay youth to join

and earn badges, and he spearheaded projects in the united states, yemen, and most notably russia where he helped to bring exxon into the post soviet market partnering the oil giant with the struggling state companies. >> jon meacham, there seems to be a couple parallels here, and you can go back to the pick of robert mcnamara, when he went over to run the dod. and eyesisenhower wanted to hir people that he didn't know, people that were running huge corporations and didn't need the job and instead were doing it in part for public service. and it seems trump in this

process has gone a long way from initially want to go hand out this possession as a patronage job to rudies, and checks off the boxes that ike was looking for in his cabinet secretaries. >> exactly, and the thing that struck me the most about this is the bet on tillerson is basically the bet that trump asked the country to make on him, which is i have been in pursuit of private profit and my own business interest all these years, and now i will go and work for you and i have been successful in the private sector and hoping to translate that success to the public sector, and to some extent, i don't know this, but my sense would be that trump to some extent sees himself and motivations in the mirror when he looks at tillerson. >> how are you concerned about the big red flag people have

about rex tillerson and his relationship with exxon mobile, and he went into eastern ukraine and won the order of friendship from vladimir putin. do you worry about him if representing exxon mobile over the united states? >> that's why you have a confirmation process, and the fact that he was questioning santions, almost every businessman i know, and they worry they are going to pay a penalty or their company will pay a penalty while other countries will exploit those openings, so he is skeptical of sanctions doesn't shock me. >> you will remember this, richard, in the early 1980s, the

neocons were killing ronald reagan because he lifted the grain embargo against the soviet union because he wanted to help farmers in the west, and i am foug not saying that's the wrong -- right thing to do -- >> what they are doing in aleppo, it's outrageous, and what they have done in europe is outrageous, and all of this comes into context where russia emerged in some ways as, a, if not the farm policy challenge facing the united states. >> if he is compromised he's compromised in the one respect, rex tillerson cannot make a recommendation on the lifting of sanctions against russia because that would obviously be a billion-dollar plus for the company he used to run. >> and i think as richard points

out, the unwinding of his relationship is easier than donald trump's and his relationship, and let's say he steps away from exxon mobile and steps away and has nothing to do with it. there are other senators that have a say, and they say they want to know more about tillerson's relationship with russia. >> and there's a question of who the number two position in state would be. john bolton is the man reportedly under consideration by trump at the state department and he believes the hacks into the -- >> richard is already shaking his head. >> what is wrong with this guy. it could have been a diversion by the obama administration. >> it's not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the dnc and rnc computers was not a false flag operation. and let's talk about what they

said about hillary clinton homegrown server, and the question that has to be asked is why did the russians run their smart intelligence service against hillary clinton's server, but their dumb intelligent server against -- i believe it has been politicized -- >> he tried to clean it up, but it's just outrageous, outrageous claim by john bolton, a guy who supported the invasion of iraq in 2003, and still thinks it's a great idea today, a guy that wrote an opt ed for the "new york post" last year that said let's blow up iran, and the complete opposite of donald trump in every way, and the idealog suggesting it's not the

russians that hacked in, it was barack obama. >> so interesting about this year, just when you think your capacity for surprise is exhausted, somebody says something and you go, wow -- >> where did that come from? >> how outrageous is that? talk about fake news. >> john bolton, especially for rex tillerson, who has not been in state -- i know you need to be careful, and would you -- >> you can be careful, but this is just being honest. >> and jon brings a range of positions that i, for one, do not agree with, whether it's -- >> bombing the world? >> and he has arrangements, and a confrontational approach with the world. >> and still thinks that

invading iraq was a good idea. >> and it just seems a lot of this with the idea you want to have a more stable world in part so you can focus on rebuilding america. i don't see how it gels with the political -- >> you have a secretary of state will be gone two-thirds of the time and you need somebody that will run the bureaucracy at home while he is on the other end of the globe. >> this is jones territory to talk about a false operation. and why would barack obama want hillary clinton to have her e-mails leaked. he endorsed her. >> i think donald trump is getting pressured -- >> by who? >> by neocons, and people opposite of him.

and it would be an absolute disaster for the state department and it would be a disatlantic ci disatlantic cidi disaster for the secretary of state whoever that would be, and i don't have an opinion and will sit back and see where it goes. >> disaster fits john bolton in this position. >> we said donald trump is the last guy in the room and he trusts himself above all, and i invite our viewers to go back and read his recent comments about the iraq war and see what he might do with iran and another country like that, and he believes despite everything we know, we were right to go in. >> and trump campaigned against that constantly. it was the core of his foreign policy message. >> so if he puts one of his most important selections, a guy that

still thinks -- one of the few people that still thinks invading iraq and loses thousands and thousands of lives and trillions and trillions of dollars, if he still thinks that's a good idea, when he ae eviscerated jeb bush for hesitating on this at the campaign, he's playing into his crit critic's hands, and he needs to sell "e" sun sorry. >> so just really before we go, one other announcement, gary cone, the number two executive at goldman sachs will be -- another goldman guy. >> the good news is willie and i have been looking for a job at goldman sachs for a long time, and there are a lot of openings

at goldman sachs since donald trump was elected president. >> it was a headline in the "huffington post"s, a large number of openings at goldman sac sachs. >> what about this guy? i have not talked to anybody that has not said he is extraordinarily capable, and of course jon meacham, it goes against the populist in a major way, but, again, goes back to the ike model, i am going to get business people to run the government. >> mika's suggestion, i sent my book over on the south sea bubble. can i ask a quick question of richard and mika because you lived through this, and one of the things about foreign policy is it's not shape by one person but a ecosystem, and what is your sense of tillerson, flynn

and trump? do they know each other? >> i think of the entire group that has been so far hired, i think flynn will not make it one way or another, whether now or further down the road. >> good way to not make it is to keep taunting the cia the way he s. and lots of luck there, fella. >> in this case, they were not announced altogether, so i think it's one of the questions which is how well does this group look together. you want it so the arguments, they are inevitable, and it's got to work as a team and that's something that i think will be one of the real challenges when you have such distinct personalities that don't have a history. it's the opposite of 41, they all knew each other for years and there were few leaks. the challenge here will be to

take the big personalities who may not agree on a lot and keep it all in house. >> jon meacham, there's a clue to your answer, and we could play the game, which one of these do not belong in this group, condi rice, bob gates, jim baker, rex tillerson, mike flynn? mike flynn doesn't belong there. tillerson comes, willie, from the group that endorsed him, and i think, nick, you said -- >> yeah, i said that. >> he is going to be a realist. you don't have time to chase fake news and it seems to me that tillerson probably has little use for flynn. >> we'll find out and we will see the pecking order soon. >> and car hrly fiorina was the

and she will join us for an interview here on "morning joe." and plus, reince priebus, and the former ambassador to russia joining us. >> bill karins, we are sorry, we heard you were number two for secretary of state. >> i tried going for my interview and didn't make it through the security. >> what was the problem? >> he's a neocon. >> i will do what i normally do, keep doing this job, i guess. $2.5 million -- this number will spread, and the big arctic blast is on its way, and it's negative 24, and windchills in fargo, and even detroit is down to 2.

the cold air on the way. this is the peak, and this is the feels like temperatures thursday through saturday morning, and minneapolis, the worst for you, negative 26, and at negative 18, and then taking it east on thursday and friday. pittsburgh, negative 7 on friday morning, and new york city negative 5 as we go through friday morning, and how about our friends in maine, those will be one of the coldest mornings they have seen in years, negative 32 windchill expected for bangor, maine. and watch out for light snow in st. louis. you are watching "morning joe," and we'll be right back. 2

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♪ ♪ it would be the most exciting council on foreign relations ever. >> no, it wouldn't. >> what is on the front of the "new york post" today willie? >> oh -- >> no. i am moving on. >> the giants. >> that's the back. okay. >> over the weekend, my dad -- >> he's not on the front. >> no, he's not. he is just back from oslo, and he took part in the forum -- >> let me tell them about your dad, he respect me a great deal now, and we're very, very close. we sit and talk about foreign policy for a long time and i was talking to him a couple weeks ago, and i said, do you have a speech? he said, yes, i have a speech. >> and i said where? he said i am going to oslo.

i said, oslo, huh? he said, yes, it's in norway. he loves me like a rock. >> also on the stage, dr. henry kissinger and the theme of the talk was the u.s. and world peace after the presidential election, and he talked a little bit about america's role on the world stage. >> in the 19 mid-50s after winning world war ii, the united states was in the position of having a strategic vision by virtue of what it was, the decisive victor and the monopoly of real power, and at that time there was a widespread predisposition to trust the united states and to follow the united states, and indeed, the desire to imitate the united states, and today this is much less the case.

we need to grow up in order to lead the world, but we have a chance to do so because there's nobody else who can lead the world. russia cannot by itself, and it can only do so and it becomes a satellite politically of the chinese, and then the chinese and the russians have to be able to compel us, which i don't think they can and the standoff and conflict will become one choice. >> and he reflected on the analysis of the president-elect's twitter habits. >> gradually the leadership will begin to be more cohesive, and assuming the president puts a halt on his own inspirational

and eccentric perspectives on the world articulated on the basis of instant imagination and ability to reach the public in a very general level, and i think in effect the administration will have to go through a process of maturation, and that matches the needed maturation of the american people because the american people are not made yet to make the sacrifices that general leadership entails, and that was the case in the '70s, '80s, and the '60s. >> a very polite way for him to ask the president-elect to stop tweeting. >> i love watching mika watch her dad, and he remembers the speeches as a teenage girl.

>> willie, i could not help to feel a bit melancholy watching that. this was the nobel ceremony -- >> i am done with that. >> they would steal the ideas, and the singer guy stole some of my best songs and did not show up for the ceremony. >> i don't even want it any more. >> and by the way, they are a dime a dozen now. you have to roll up your window because they are throwing them at you. seriously, let's talk about how angry right now henry kissinger is because we did not play any clips of him. >> there's that. >> and there's no alternative to the u.s. leading the world. he said russia and china can't do it, and the alternative to them not leading the world is

us. >> let's be honest, and people don't want to say, historians will write this, and i will go to a historian in a second, that's what we have seen, with barack obama, aleppo is falling, and aleppo is falling because the united states could not bring together the western powers and the international community to save the suffering there. because we drew a red line, and when it was crossed we did absolutely nothing. >> and it's just -- >> weapons of mass destruction -- >> it's indescribable what is happening there now. >> we have seen some of the most horrific pictures on a daily basis unfolding and the united states has sat back and done nothing, and is that how the world looks when america does nothing. >> there's that, and we have hurt ourselves when we did not follow-through on the trade agreement, and we have gone to an era of under reach, and it's

been an opportunity to challenge the new administration to get it right. >> jon meacham, i think you are probably a bit like me, and i, obviously, and you are a pretty good historian like me -- i'm joking, you are great. i think in terms obviously of time periods, and i sit and look at the clock ticking, and we're almost a fifth of the way through the 20th century, and our foreign policy in the 21st century, it has just been disastrous. it has been inconsistent and willsonian, and then it has been isolationists, sort of a new kind of and how are historians going to look back?

are we looking at a replay of what happened in britain in the 20th century? >> i hope not, obviously. but you are, there's a bumper car quality to the last 16 years or so, and forced on us in many cases by vets. you know, the period that i go back to, obviously, is the early '30s, because you had -- there was a moment where the durability of american institutions was in question, right? so democratic capitalism was in the dock, and you had totalitarianism, and kphaouyou isolationists country, and what dr. brzezinski was saying was right, but it was a postwar

phenomena. churchill said you can count on americans to do the right thing after we exhausted every other possibility, and we built the cold war order, and we stabilized the world, after japan attacked us and hitler declared war on us, and we get there eventually. looking back on bush and obama, i think we are going to have to figure out to what extent was the middle east tending toward a greater sense of order after the surge at the end of the bush years, and to what extent did obama over correct from that? >> the question is what did president trump believe, and he seems to think it's a bad deal for us, and is there some precipitating event that changes his view on that in the days and

weeks ahead? >> coming up, as we go to break, the problem is there's so many mixed signals? >> many, many. >> we are going to be isolated. we are not going to -- >> but an event will focus that. >> he wants a more powerful military and says he will wipe out isis quickly, and i think that's why the selections are so important. general mattis, and if tillerson is secretary of state we will have a disproportionate impact -- we will find out if there's irony there. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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♪ ♪ so willie, what is on the front of the "new york post" today? i am just checking through this stuff. >> what about the giants? i have not watched any --

>> they beat the cowboys the other night. >> good year or bad year for the giants? how about the jets? >> not so good. >> joining us now, brett stevens. >> bad news for everybody close to brett. >> he's going to be santa clause at christmas. >> brett promised his mother he was going to shave his beard when hillary clinton won, and now he is going to be like zz top. >> and he is entitled, how i learned to love putin. as donald trump told joe scarborough last year, i country does plenty of killing also. >> that was a good interview. >> in september of 2013, putin

warned in terms of syria, russia intervened in syria two years later and in march of 2014, the russian defense minister told secretary -- defense secretary, chuck hagel, russian military exercises would not lead to russia being in ukraine. after this election season, political outrage has become pass yea. why worry about mr. putin when it's so much easier to love him. >> my argument. >> that was tongue and cheek for the -- there's always somebody that doesn't get it and it's usually from new york. >> most of our audience probably

got it. so if you take it back even beyond barack obama's administration, think about the message sent to vladimir putin, the last president, the 43rd president, allowed the invasion of georgia, and did nothing about it. the 44th president, allowed an invasion of ukraine and did nothing about it, and now we move to the 45th president. >> and he wants another reset. and it's weird, arguing against the reset with russia was one of the republican and even one of trump's talking points during the campaign. mocked hillary endlessly for the reset. and rightly so. obama should have known after the invasion of georgia in 2008 that there was no point in trying to do business with vladimir putin. >> you remember what obama said right before he got elected in 2012? >> of course, after the election, i am going to have --

>> yeah, beautiful music here. >> exactly. >> obama -- there's the cliche fool me once, shame you on, and that was bush's story, and fool me twice, shame on me. and then there is fool me three times, which is what? fool. i find so extraordinary, and appointing rex tillerson, and a large part of the appointment is trump's idea that he is going to strike some kind of grand bargain with the kremlin exchanging sanctions in ukraine and maybe recognition of russia's expansion in ukraine for various other russian promises and i am glad you read that paragraph because putin has an unbroken record in the last couple of years in breaking every serious promise he has made. >> so let's play devil's advocate here. i am sure you heard some trump

supporters saying, well, it has not work when we tried to confront putin, and we played bad cop and why don't we try to cooperate with him and find out if there are areas the united states and russia can agree on and this resentment that fueled his russian foreign policy since 1991 may dissipate. >> i think the premise of that is wrong. when we started to apply sanctions to russia, you saw a kremlin pressure, and so the.the now is to do our best to keep our foot on their neck rather than take it off and recognize their conquest of one of their neighbors. >> what are the implications do you think for syria, this proposed reset, and we are talking about aleppo, a

horrifying scene getting more horrifying, and they are executing civilians to finish the job there. russian planes are the ones flying air cover, and this is a russian and iranian-backed mission, and what do you think donald trump does about that? >> he said he is not going to give any aid to the pro-american rebels there, which means putin will be allowed to consolidate his position, anding there may be a grand bargain in which we concede syria to the russians, and tell our foreign friends not to support other sunni groups and apply more diplomatic pressure on iran in the event they continue to violate the nuclear deal, and i don't know if that is the deal that tillerson, much less the

russians have in mind. iran is a big client for the russians. >> let me ask you, richard, to respond to what rick tyler said yesterday, communication director for ted cruz. >> i forgot his name. >> i am sure i will hear it again. >> yes, you will. >> rick tyler said that putin was a paper tiger and his military equipment didn't work in syria and they couldn't fly the planes in the desert and the economy is still a wreck, and that basically their involvement in syria move into crimea was actually a smoke screen to cover up what a weak country it is, that they are still an economic and social basket case, and political basket case. >> it's true the economy is narrow, and it's largely an oil and gas duh phaug raw fee, and

but what putin has shown in ukraine and syria is he can use military force decisively, and to underestimate them is wrong, and the new administration may continue to introduce forces around russia? do we think about reseuz tinge the question that president obama wouldn't do which is providing greater arms, and russia is not -- >> the obama administration said there's nothing we can do. you can humiliate putin, and you can say, listen, the more troops you send in, the more american exercises we are going to run in p poland. >> yeah, we had an obligation to them. and the point you made -- >> why didn't we?

>> because this administration believes in shrinking america's footprint, and announcing in advance they are not core strategic interest, and when you do things like that, you end up with situations like in 1950. >> most people in the add pheup administration wanted to do that, and obama was the outlier, and it was a place we didn't want to have a showdown. he analyzed himself out of it and it was a mistake. >> he and ben rose while having a ham sandwich, which was the administration, the nsa and the dod and the state department all minimized. >> this incoming administration could draw a red line from the

first day. >> we have got to be there -- >> we have got to be there for our nato allies. we have to have a strong commitment. the 45th president has to commit strongly to nato. >> the wall street journal's brett stevens, thank you very much for joining us. >> congratulations on the beard. >> it's impressive, isn't it. >> still ahead, incoming white house chief of staff, reince priebus will be our guest "morning joe" will be right back.

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♪ ♪ >> i think the president-elect may say one thing and do another once he's here because the truth of the matter is it's a big, complicated world. doesn't matter how smart you are, you have to have the best information possible to make the best decisions possible.

if you are not getting their perspective, their detailed perspective, then you are flying blind, you know, part of what we have done is to just hammer away at the basic principle that intelligence shall not be subject to political spin, and i'm very proud of the fact that over the course of the eight years the message i have sent to every intelligence agency is i want it straight. >> and president obama weighing in on donald trump doesn't need daily intelligence briefings. >> it's not just the briefing, it's the back and forth between the briefers and the president and it's a useful half hour

every morning. >> so the president-elect can tell the intel agencies what he's interested in. >> it's the back and forth, and he could say i have questions and i don't understand that, and why are you saying that? he will say i am contemplating a policy thing here, and the intelligence can go in that direction. >> we are hearing rumors this morning, and it's been percolating around that donald trump is thinking about moving the embassy in israel to jerusalem, and if that, in fact, is the case, do you want that part of the briefing, what impact will that have in the middle east and across the world? >> never want to be surprised. you don't want to have something and say, why didn't i think about that happening before? >> makes no sense. still ahead, donald trump was scheduled to address any potential conflicts of interest pertaining to his business this thursday, and now that news

conference has been postponed until next month. peter alexander joins us ahead with the latest reporting on that, and plus, incoming white house chief of staff, reince priebus, joins us. yeah, with liberty mutual all i needed to do to get an estimate was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voila! (sigh) i wish my insurance company had that... wait! hold it... hold it boys... there's supposed to be three of you... where's your brother? where's your brother? hey, where's charlie? charlie?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance

welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 13th. >> willie, let's talk about the "new york post" for the entire

topic. >> no, no. don't even look. still with us is richard haass, and contributor to "time" magazine, and msnbc political analyst, elise jordan. >> go up to 57th street to your holiday inn and spoke cigarettes with willie. >> we do it every day. >> we had ronaldo on over there in the lobby smoking away. how do you run that fast if you are smoking? >> it's a european thing. they smoke, they nap and they play soccer. it's great. >> all right. donald trump has selected officially his secretary of state. he tweeted minutes ago i have

chosen one of the truly great -- >> a lot of people after i reported that, they were what? huh? >> huh? you get that reaction a lot. the "washington post" reports he will be publicly endorsed by robert gates, and former secretaries of state, condoleezza rice, and james baker, and support for tillerson that we first reported on "morning joe," and dick cheney expected to endorse him as well. >> how powerful is that -- you worked at the state department, how powerful is that when you have john mccain, and marco rubio and lindsay graham suggesting they may have

concerns about rex tillerman? >> well, rice is not going to support a candidate for secretary of state. >> she is one of the experts on soviet policy. >> she was mocked in the bush administration for being too concerned about russia. >> well, she was right, too. >> just like mitt romney. >> but i wonder if john bolton -- they are going to tempt him for deputy, and so bolton will be such a distraction -- >> you mean set his mustache on fire so tillerson can walk straight through? >> yeah, otherwise he would be a distraction given his ties to oil, and there will be a hearing about climate change.

>> everything donald trump doesn't want brought up, the invasion of iraq, and the fact that bolton supports iraq, and then they will start take into trump's statements in the past where they say he supported the invasion of iraq, and this would be a bloodbath that donald trump doesn't need, and he just selected rex tillerson that will probably get through with flying colors because of the people supporting him, and why bleed out for a guy that thinks invading iraq was the greatest idea in the world. >> and john bolton didn't help by suggesting that the russian hack was really barack obama, and tillerson, i think he's okay. >> my question is, he defied the

u.s. government on a couple of occasions, using to go to russia to various forums since the sanction started, and is this where united states can have sanctions against a country, and it's okay to still go ahead with your business activities. >> and as to the climate change, "the new york times" while being critical of the pick actually said they were somewhat hopeful that rex tillerson could have influence over donald trump to keep paris intact. >> yeah, and i think for people's whose main concern, the head of exxon mobile will not be a popular pick no matter how you slice it, and tillerson comes from a long line of choices for donald trump, generals and big people, and he didn't want career bureaucrats, and in rex tillerson, he sees a guy a

little bit like him, he thinks, anyway, a big ceo and manager. >> and mitt romney said he was very honored to be considered. >> jon meacham, following up on what willie just said, donald trump is getting business leaders, most of whom he did not know before he was elected president of the united states, and we heard his cabinet would consist of newt gingrich, and rudy guiliani, and chris christie, and now all four of those are not in the administration and we are hearing names and seeing people nominated and selected that he didn't even know a month ago. >> yeah, i think a lot of people in the center and on the left worried it was going to be the

"star wars" bar scene, and now it's the chamber of commerce, right? and what willie just said is right, trump -- we all tend to see virtues in other people we think we ourselves possess, and it's human nature, and now we see trump who has gotten to the presidency of the united states by pursuing private profit and arguing his ability to pursue private profit now put to use to the country will be a good thing, and so finding other people who share that isn't surprising. >> mika, instead of the "star wars" barroom scene, we have a goldman sachs boardroom scene, and that's your scene if you are trying to paint this. >> and it's all incredibly rich when you consider how hard donald trump hit hillary clinton just for giving speeches to

goldman sachs and now he is hiring most of their staff for his administration. >> and this guy is supposed to be the best and the brightest and an extraordinary talent, but you are right, we are a long way from running ads that are showing lloyd blankfein, and that should be a hint that lloyd would be the only one not getting a position in the administration. >> house speaker paul ryan and mcconnell support an investigation into the hack, and any foreign intervention in our elections is entirely unacceptable and any intervention by russia is especially problematic because russia has been an aggressor that consistently undermines american interests, and senator mcconnell said, defies belief that somehow republicans in the

senate are reluctant to either review russian tactics or ignore them. >> the russians are not our friends. invaded crimea, and senator mccain and i and some of our democratic friends met with the delegation from the baltic countries just this past week to say that they are nervous about the russians, to put it mildly, and the senate intelligence committee is more than capable of conducting a complete review of this matter. senator schumer will soon join us on the committee and he can review this matter through the regular order. i think we ought to approach all of these issues on the assumption that the russians do not wish us well. let me say that i have the highest confidence in the intelligence community and the central intelligence agencies, and the cia is filled with

selfless patriots who risk their lives for the american people. >> first of all, let's give a cheer for mitch mcconnell. there was nothing passive, and some republicans in the house were a bit more passive because they were afraid they were going to insult donald trump, but good for mitch mcconnell for coming out and saying it defies belief there are any republicans in my senate that don't want to get to the bottom of this, and get to the bottom of whether the russians impacted this election or were trying to impact the election? >> it's important that this is bipartisan or nonpartisan and we should look at it as a national security issue, and put it apart from the democratic and republican politics. this is important, and this is part of the context for which we have to now deal with putin and deal with this russia, and so i thought what mcconnell did was statesman like and exactly right. >> let me ask you, jon meacham, if you can think of any president in u.s. history where

a foreign power was alleged with good evidence to actually interfere in an american election, is this the first time in 240 years of our republic that this has ever happened? >> has mika just had a sip of coffee? >> yeah. >> here we go. in the 1970s -- >> okay, you can turn it off -- >> you asked. you asked. i didn't volunteer this. there was early concern and it actually created the paranoid style and it was one of the first great examples where the federalist thought the french were trying to do it and the republicans thought the british were trying to influence this, and it was part of the hamilton and jefferson struggle and in there was concern about we were cooperating with the nixon

campaign -- >> you mean before the election where he reached out to north vietnam -- >> yeah, and said hold on. and there have been moments, but i can't think of one where there has been this systemic question, and what richard said is right, we have to absolutely look into it. i am a little concerned from the president-elect's team the sense that he is prejudging what a probe might find is a little disturbing. why not go where the facts lead you. >> they have no choice, and they said it yesterday and i will say it again today, this probe will go on for two years. anybody that ever has been around washington knows, this is a at least a two-year probe. this is benghazi on steroids and it's not going to be republican versus democrat, as we saw from mitch mcconnell, you will have a lot of republicans, lindsay graham, and john mccain, and jeff flake, i can name ten or 20

other people where it makes sense in their states if they are republicans to make sure the russians were not trying to influence the election and donald trump and their team need to understand they will testify before the senate and house for two years so they might as well cooperate. it's not going anywhere. it's not going away. >> and not only the way they handled it but the way they talked about the intelligence services broadly, and they said this is the people that brought on the iraq war, and they are not denying anything happened, it's the way they turned against the people he will need, and it's agencies he will over see, and there's the public fight between trump and the cia over the russian hacking, and given t "the times" reseuz tinge the interview with flynn where he said the cia lost sight of who they actually work for. they work for the american

people. they don't work for the president of the united states. frankly, it's become a very political organization. >> flynn who served as the head of the defense intelligence agency from 2012 to 2014 also said it's all political with the cia's leadership, accusing them of helping barack obama's re-election in 2012, quote, they have really been lying to the american public, he said, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. >> that's unbelievable. richard, how in the hell do you have a guy in that position accusing the cia of lying? i talk about this investigation that is going to go on, and the cia can cut the new administration to shreds everyday with selective leaks, and they will if this relationship is not cleaned up, and to have somebody as your national security adviser who is

accusing the cia, and as i said, yesterday, it's the organization on the tip of the sphere in the fight against terrorism everyday, and to accuse him of lying it's mind-boggling. >> also the cia is a tremendous asset. it is really important for this president and this administration, and they speak truth to power. i remember during the iraq war, and they said in the aftermath, we, by the way, should not get out quickly because iraq is going to unravel really fast and the bush administration didn't want to hear it and the cia had the guts to speak truth to power and that's who they are and the most academic part of the u.s. government in some ways, and these are their careers, and these guys and women are dedicated to it, and i don't think anybody if it's a national security adviser or anybody else, ought to pick a fight. >> it's stupid politically. >> it's the dumbest thing can you do.

>> it's $60 billion a year on the intelligence community? i assume we spend that because we see it as worth investing in, and it's a tremendous asset. >> and itwhat is so offensive about this, the cia bends over backwards to protect us, and their life is dedicated to p protecting the united states from terror attacks and they get no credit when they do it, because they can't put out press releases and can't reveal all that they are doing and they get attacked when certain things that go wrong, and for somebody like general flynn to make that cheap shot against the cia, it's just unfathomable. i don't know how donald trump has an affective foreign policy with this guy sitting where he is, unless he cleaned it up with the cia. >> it doesn't seem to be a factor of foreign policy if flynn is going to have his way

with it given his views with the cia, and i am concerned how detrimental it will be with the recruitment of assets to risk their lives to provide this information when the president of the united states is claiming he doesn't care about it and doesn't use it. >> donald trump has postponed this thursday's news conference where he was expected to address any conflicts of interest pertaining to his business. let's bring in peter alexander from the white house. peter, when will he unveil his plan to address those concerns? >> reporter: this was an abrupt announcement last night, and donald trump tweeted about this and some of the tweets happening after 11:30 at night. we will walk you through some of the news providing hints about his plans, and he said even though i am not mandated by law to do so i will be leaving my businesses before january 20th so i can focus full time on the presidency, two of my children, don and eric, his adult sons

plus executives will manage them, and he writes no new deals will be done during my term in office, and he adds i will hold a press conference in the near future to discuss the business cabinet picks and all other topics of interests, busy times. this was supposed to take place this thursday in a news conference and it would have been his first news conference since july, more than 130 days since the last press conference, and to be fair he has been asked a series of questions since then, not only in the debates, but in a series of interviews, and it underscores the complexities of trying to overcome the potential ethical concerns, and the conflicts of interest going forward, and i was told by a top transition official early this morning it's an issue of capacity and clarity, and capacity desiring to focus on the personnel issues most immediately, and on clarity as they try to, in this person's

word, unpack the existence of the planning. >> thank you. nick, what do you think? >> seems like a bit of a bait and switch to me. he's talking about something not on the table which is new deals. and the concern the business deals and arrangements, he has sprawling conflicts around the world that are unprecedented for an incoming president, and he has to send signals and layout ground work on how he is going to unpack the existing conflicts, and forget the new business, and he's doing business in turkey and taiwan, and what the world needs to hear is how will he handle the current conflicts he has. >> and also with "celebrity apprentice." >> that has worked out. >> when he knew he was going to run for president is when steve burke called him up and went over and talked to him and asked him to sign a long-term deal,

and trump said when he said no to that, he knew he was running for president. that was the triggering point if he was going to walk away from this show that he created and loved, and that he was going to run to president. >> on the tweets and the announcement he made, turning the businesses over to don and eric will not clear up any conflict of interests, and don and eric act on the orders or at least the implied orders of their father, and the only way to make this clean and clear is to give it up to an independent trustee, and he is not going to do that. >> what do you do, though? i am not taking one side or the other, but i think if i worked my entire life in a family business and i had three children and my children working in a family business, it would be awfully hard for me to say,

hey, jack and kate, why -- >> you got elected president of the united states, i think you could step away. >> i could step away. >> yeah, he should be able to step away. >> i am saying the kids. if it's a family business that has been in your family for, what, 50, 60, 70 years? you tell the kids -- >> i can't imagine, if you get elected president it changes everything, and you are like, great, good job, and walk away. >> but the kids, even shut the business down for eight years? >> i say for four or eight years we are going to let somebody else handle it, and it's not what we want, but just to completely eliminate any conflict of interest, and think that the oval office could in any way be used by ivanka walking through and shaking a hand of a head of state or somebody that can impact a deal, you have to make a clean break. i never thought he was going to make a clean break.

>> yeah, and hillary clinton needed to do that when she was secretary of state. >> worked so well for them. and white house chief of staff, reince priebus joins us, and next hour, carly fiorina, fresh off her meeting with the president-elect. ♪ style lets you stand out from the herd. what's inside sets you apart. the cadillac escalade. enjoy our best offers of the year. ( ♪ ) ♪ you gotta to be cool, calm, collected ♪ ♪ look your fear in the eye ♪ you gotta be shaking off the pressure ♪ ♪ gotta be taking your time ♪ had my ups, downs, run-arounds ♪ ♪ my dark and despair

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and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. ♪ ♪ >> joining us now -- >> can we talk to nick for a second? >> if you want. >> what was your suggestion? >> the best thing for him in the public is to go public with the company, and bloomberg when he was mayor handed the reigns over to somebody else not in his family, or you can do like a monitor come in who is appointed who can root around and report back to who has access to the books. >> an ombudsman. >> oh, okay. >> yeah.

>> and the incoming chief of staff, reince priebus. thank you for being with us and congratulate you on the seal behind you, and that's quite bold, very, very bold and screams authority. >> thank you so much and for having me on the show. >> let's talk about the issue that we just reported on, and that we are talking about with nick. what is the president-elect's plans to talk about -- the divestment or getting rid of some of the conflicts of interest he might have and why did he delay his press conference? >> first of all, one of the reasons is we are in the middle of a pretty huge announcements as we have been talking about this morning, secretary of state and other cabinet positions, and it's not the easiest thing to do. when you have massive real estate holdings and you need to find a way to extract yourself

from all of that, it takes a lot of time. one thing i can assure everybody on the panel, people are not just sitting around and doing nothing about this, but there are multiple meetings every single day with a lot of lawyers and making sure that government ethics are followed and that the best decisions are being made as to who and how the business is going to be run moving forward. this is not the easiest thing. it's also something that the american people embraced and one of the reasons i believe donald trump won the election, putting aside the messaging and what he did across the country, and you know, the 25,000 people showing up everywhere he went, to the debates, and everything else, put that aside, and people elected donald trump because he was extremely successful and he never hid his success and that's something people voted for and i don't think we are backing off from that, but what we are do something making sure the things you are all worried about are put to an end and eliminated as best as possible under very

complicated circumstances that i think you will all be pleased with once all of it gets sorted out. >> mika? >> so is it under consideration -- is it, i guess, understood, there's massive complications with the kids taking over? >> well, i don't know about that, mika. i think when you are working through government eiththics an finding ways to minimize any sort of conflicts of interest, everything is on the table, and the thing i can tell you is that we don't want -- why would we want problems and conflicts? we don't. neither does president-elect trump. he doesn't want to deal with problems and conflicts, he wants to deal with the american people and the huge job of leading our country at a very -- i think it's a very difficult time. we have the economy and isis and problems all over the world. that's what he cares about. he's not sitting around and

thinking about retail businesses, you know, around the country. so we know this is something that we have got to deal with, and i want to assure you all, we are. >> willie? >> willie geist, and -- >> good morning, willie. >> and secretary of state, the nominee, tillerson, what was the advantage he had over romney? >> well, number one, it comes in the chemistry, and governor romney is impressive and so are so many others we talked to, rudy guiliani, and david petraeus and bob corker, and at the end it was chemistry, presence and sregs and tvision, ability that rex tillerson had to maintain relationships across the world in places that are not easy to have relationships in

during the different administrations, and so he's good at being a diplomat, and he is a diplomat that happens to drill oil and the good lord did not put oil in all freedom-loving democracies across the world and yet tillerson was able to make it work, and donald trump and rex tillerson, they hit it off and have a similar issue of how to get things done. >> a lot of concerns about russia and a lot of concerns about the fact that donald trump has said things that many believe -- his critics believe make him too cozy with vladimir putin, and obviously tillerson received a friendship award in 2014, and many suggested him being a friend of vladimir putin is not comforting. what do you say to those critics and concerns? >> i don't know why having relationships with people that would otherwise be potentially difficult would be a bad thing,

it's a huge advantage. other people won this award, astronauts and athletes and musicians, and it's people that have done things to help relationships between russia and places around the world, and he has done that, but not because one day he wanted to wake up and say i want a relationship with vladimir putin, and he had work to do in drilling and exploring oil fields throughout russia, and he did it and struck great deals. if you want to have peace around the world, we have to understand that ignoring people and acting as though people do not exist is not the way to get it done. ronald reagan did not do that, he did not ignore gorbachev, and other countries around the world, and henry kissinger did not ignore china and russia and he talked to people. donald trump did not make a secret about this and he said throughout the entire campaign and in debates, yeah, i am going

to talk to people, and i am going to have relesionships and i am going to get something done, because what is has been happening in the past is not working. are we better off today across the world with isis and libya and syria? are we trying to argue the way things we used to do things is working? it's not. >> elise? >> chairman priebus, as an executive, rex tillerson has supported lifting sanctions against russians and russian officials involved in the encourage of crimea, will he support lifting sanctions on russian officials? >> he said they were ineffective because they were not being enforced, so his point was unless you are going to enforce the sanctions, they are not effective. i know where rex tillerson is on this, and he believes the

santions and threat of sanctions are key to diplomacy, and he is not against them but he is setting up sanctions that are not enforced and he was not for the iran deal, by the way, and he did not think it was a good product and it would not put america first and that's what it's all about. president-elect trump wakes up every day putting america and americans first, and this is what he i thinking about, and with the whole team being put together, we will have an extraordinary cabinet that can represent the united states across the world. >> nick? >> just to follow-up, is the president-elect thinking we should keep sanctions in place or not? >> look, here's what i would say. i am not prepared to outline our foreign policy -- >> unsure right now? >> here's what i would tell you, if you are going to have sanctions in place, they need to be enforced, and that i can tell you for sure is something he

beliefs in, and as far as where that product goes next, you have to wait and see. we are just getting our cabinet put together now, and as i think president-elect outlined many times over the last six weeks, sitting down with our generals and leadership and formulating our policy and revealing that to the people will be our first order of business. >> is john bolton, is he in consideration for deputy secretary of state? >> i think everything is in consideration, mika. we are not eliminating people, and i am not going to announce the elimination of folks right now. >> why not, start here. >> we can give you a white board and next time you can draw lines through names in real time. >> yeah, you know that president-elect trump, and i know you all speak frequently -- and rex tillerson and the entire team will sit down with the vice

president elect presence, and make those decisions, and they are coming soon. >> the reports came out and they thought the election had been influenced by the russians trump said said these are the same people that said saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and so does the president-elect believe the cia and intelligence services are playing politics and pushing a personal agenda rather than looking out for the greater good of the country? >> well, look -- let me just say this. he totally respect and admires the men and women that -- >> didn't soupnd like that in that statement. >> i am speaking for myself. i don't understand where some of this stuff comes from, in regard

if you are me and chairman of the republican national committee and the "new york times" puts out an article that says there were two sets of e-mails, two hackings that occurred, the rnc and dnc, and the russians, so they say, chose to only use the dnc e-mails in order to help donald trump and hurt hillary clinton. my problem with all of this is the whole premise is wrong, because the rnc was never hacked. the rnc, as we have been told by the fbi was probed and the russians never got into the rnc system, and i am spending all weekend trying to beat back a story that is premised on something that is totally untrue. the question i would have is how did that possibly get out there? who put it out there? what intelligence agencies put it out there and now we find out the agencies don't agree with each other on what i am talking about or what you are talking about, so i don't know what to tell you, willie? >> the man that will be

president inasmuch as a month, the cia is -- i will read it to you. >> i know what he said, i saw the text. >> number one, is that true, and it doesn't translate into i don't respect the men and women that work there. he totally does. but i do think that leadership and direction and vision matter, and i think that that's something that we are going to work on and president-elect trump is going to work on, and, look, whoever is leaking to the press shouldn't be leaking to the press. i hope you would at least agree with me that people in these agencies should not be leaking information to the press. that's the problem, right? so something isn't right. that has to end. >> do you believe, though, the cia is pushing a political agenda, that there's a personal agenda behind the leak? >> when you say the cia -- >> people within the cia. >> someone.

why else would there be an article that says the rnc and dnc were hacked and therefore all these things happened and now we have this conclusion if the whole premise of that entire thought process is based on something that is not true, leaked by someone in those agencies? i think something is not right. i understand your concern, but i wish there was a little concern going the other direction that said, you know, this is not a proper way to proceed and it's not appropriate. >> reince priebus, thank you for being with us. we know that you have a window that we agreed to before, and that we have blown through that window, and we apologize for that. >> fine, guys. >> let's talk about the packers now. >> thank you, reince priebus. we will let you go. >> see you, guys. >> it seems to me, willie, and the follow-up from what you have said, this is what has been unartful about how the trump -- i am not talking about priebus

there, and there are always leakers in the cia and there are people, as i said before, know how to cut politicians and cut presidents to shreds. it's very easy to say, and you know what? there are people inside the cia who are leaking false information about the russian deal, but i have great respect for the agency overall. there are just bad actors in there, but that doesn't detract from those in the agency that have been doing a great job. that would not have been hard to say. and he does have a point in that "the new york times" ran with the story, that the rnc was hacked and the russians decided not to go with it, that the fbi was denying and the rnc was denying and they could have

separated that out instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. >> that was my point, in trump's statement, in the personal statement from the president-elect, there was no nuance, and he said these are the people that said there was weapons of mass destruction. what will the legacy -- >> wait, are we going to break because alex keeps screaming we have to go to break? >> only for the last 12 minutes. >> there's a new issue -- >> this will not stand. and you're talking to youro doctor about your medication... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage.

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♪ ♪ >> the three state -- >> we're working here, okay? what are you doing? i can't stand the people that come to the set at the last second. >> you never do that. >> we are here since 4:30, willie and i, and it's like smoking our cigarettes and going over the scripts. >> working the phones. >> and mika just wondered around. patch me through to the queen. >> the three-state recount effort spearheaded by jill stein

has come to an end. trump picked up 162 votes. >> that hurts. >> but all 162, russian nationals. >> that's just wrong. stop talking. >> and it cleared the way for the state to certify trump's victory in pennsylvania. in michigan last week the state supreme court denied stein's appeal, and all the money raised and spent, and nothing comes of it. >> they got 160 more votes. >> it's good the green party candidate -- capitalism is -- >> it's way more than she raised in her campaign. >> pretty good marketing. trump should not be critical of her, and that's making marketing great again. why did the michigan recount get stopped? anybody know? >> no. >> we must dig into this, willie.

>> call the queen. >> i think if we knew anything about history, it's historians tend to disagree about history and this may be an area where historians do end up kweubling just a little bit. >> white house press secretary about how others will judge president obama's administration on syria, and discussing the obama legacy, and we will talk about that cover story next.

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ways wins. especially in my business. with slow internet from the phone company, you can't keep up. you're stuck, watching spinning wheels and progress bars until someone else scoops your story. switch to comcast business. with high-speed internet up to 10 gigabits per second. you wouldn't pick a slow race car. then why settle for slow internet? comcast business. built for speed. built for business. in the last few days, you have named cabinet heads, department agency people, at epa, at labor, at health and human services, education, who are diametrically opposed to what those agencies have been doing for the last eight years. fair to say you're going to take a wrecking ball to the obama legacy? >> no. i don't want to do that at all.

i want what's right. >> joining us now is the editor of the new republic, eric bates, the magazine's new issue convenes five leading historians and political observers to discuss the legacy of barack obama in the age of trump. and he writes in part this, obama came to office with an ambitious liberal agenda. he sought to make america great by emphasizing unity over division, civic responsibility over corporate greed, international engagement over foreign intervention. eight years later, what lessons can we learn from his successes and failures? and how much of his legacy will survive the coming onslaught? that's a big question. there's a lot that could be undone. >> thank you for being here despite the fact you once crushed nick's heart with one assignment, rolling stone. >> and said never again. >> that piece. >> it lasted. >> we try to forget about that. >> eric, a dream deferred.

explain the title. >> we were planning the issue before trump was elected. we held the discussion two days after trump was elected. everyone was really in a state of shock. we had gone from the expectation hillary clinton would be elected and obama's legacy would be snulgzized over the next four years to wondering if any would last at all. >> caught last, when you look at how little he passed legislatively the last six years of his administration, how vulnerable is barack obama's legacy? >> very vulnerable. what surprised me is some of the panelists were pointing out a lot of what he did is beyond being touched. rescuing the economy from the great recession, bailing out the auto industry. andrew sullivan pointed out his foreign policy, moving away from neoconservative interventionism to more of an -- if not an engagement stance, at least not going to war all the time, something trump campaigned on effectively and he thought would last and be institutionalizedinate trump. the other thing is what he

brought to the office personally. a lot of people were talking about how he's going to be remembered for the scandal-free administration he ran, the very ethical approach, the intelligence, the poise. now, those are very ephemeral things. those aren't policy that's going to last. a lot of people wondered whether republicans are going to be able to roll back obamacare. somebody referred to the republicans, the dog has now caught the bus. you know, 13 million people have health insurance. can they really bear the political price of rolling that back? >> no, they cannot. >> exactly. >> they had the repeal side down, mika. they never had an adequate replacement. if they think they can go out with health savings accounts, there are going to be people out there who go where did my insurance go. >> let's talk about foreign policy. we were talking in the break about syria. can we all agree we're witnessing a holocaust? >> it is staggering. >> we're witnessing a holocaust in our lifetime. >> yeah. >> how does that get seen in the

rear-view mirror? >> if you look at obama's legacy on that, he took a lot of steps in that direction. if you look at nuclear nonproliferation, a lot of people are saying that's something else that's probably going to last under trump. >> won't syria stay with barack obama, the same way iraq will forever be linked to george w. bush? >> i think it depends on what happens. i think it depends on whether there's way forward there or if the trump administration can imagine a way forward there that -- >> what's left? aleppo is falling. the red line has been crossed. the human suffering -- >> more than done. >> yeah, i don't know how it can get much worse. >> yeah. >> now. >> one of the things pointed out, i think andrew sullivan again said he thought one of president obama's biggest mistakes was his fight against isis. the fact he took that at all, undercut his coherence of his own foreign policy and he thought was one of obama's

biggest mistakes. >> which one? >> going after isis. and libya came up time and time again. >> eric, how much of that was informed by barack obama coming in as the antidote to george w. bush, trying not to be george w. bush, sometimes to his own peril, like somewhere like syria. >> john judas pointed out obama was elected on an anti-bush platform and everything he did was informed bike that. that really was the basis of his foreign policy and we're not there anymore. he successfully took us away from that so we're in a different place than when he was elected. >> eric bates, thank you very much. look for the few issue of "the new republic." >> still ahead, it's official. donald trump nominates exxonmobil ceo rex tillerson for secretary of state despite concerns over his ties to russia and vladimir putin. we'll have complete reaction and analysis straight ahead. we're back in just a moment. world ugly and messy.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 13th. 8:00 a.m. on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. out west. with us, we have political writer for "the new york times," nicholas confessore. the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, and pulitzer prize-winning historian, jon meacham. >> breaking news. >> donald trump has officially picked exxonmobil chairman and

ceo rex tillerson for secretary of state. last night, mitt romney posted on facebook saying it was an honor to have been considered for secretary of state of our great country. my discussions with president-elect trump have been both enjoyable and enlightening. i have very high hopes that the new administration will lead the nation to greater strength, prosperity, and peace. sources tell nbc news that trump called romney to inform him he had not been selected for the position. romney told trump that he was very appreciative of the time to meet and for being considered. >> i have to say, i think we should all be grateful, nobody has to be, but i'll speak for myself, that mitt romney would put himself out there. >> absolutely. >> despite all the differences they had in the campaign, and do it simply because he wanted toserve america. so richard haass, this morning, "the new york times" ritewrites flawed choice for secretary of state. they're concerned about some of

the russia connections, but more to the point, they think that donald trump needs a season ed foreign policy pro. talk about your experiences dealing with rex tillerson and other ceos. what are the upsides, what are the downsides? >> the upside is people like rex tillerson have an extraordinary amount of what i would call ground truth. the people who run these big oil companies, they're all over the world. they have dealt with all sorts of complicated local conditions and situations. they have dealt with local leaders. they know a lot about the world. that's, i think, the upside. they're experienced negotiators. they have presence. >> also, i have heard you say before that they're not idealogical. they are the opposite of, say, john bolton, who wants to bomb everybody. >> oh, my god. well, he's different. >> differences by and large, in some ways the business community of the united states, joe, has emerged as the most international constituency in the united states, for the

obvious reason. that increasingly, most american firms, the lion's share of their business is overseas. for an oil company, obviously, the lion's share of their business is overseas because that's where the oil happens to be. their dna is international. >> this choice seems credible. i don't know what's going to happen on capitol hill, but he's got full support of some pretty credible people. >> condi rice. bob gates. >> you reported yesterday that the idea was raised to donald trump by bob gates, condi rise, jim baker, dick cheney has also endorsed him as well. >> publicly. >> publicly endorsed him. so these are, whether you like some of them or not on the list, those are foreign policy heavyweights who came to donald trump and said take a look at this guy. >> there's the other side of the story to round it out is the public sector and private sector are two very different worlds in terms of the management skills. there's a difference between ground truth and diplomatic foreign policy experience, which

is what you're getting at, and the single most important thing, if you look at the successful secretary of states is the relationship with the president. more than anyone else, it depends on donald trump. there can't be daylight between his secretary of state and himself, when the secretary of state operates around the world, every other government has to think this person speaks for the president of the united states. >> we were going through the process, a lot of people were saying oh, this is like "celebrity apprentice." we have said, it was donald trump looking for someone who was qualified and up to the task and somebody he had a personal comfort level with, which he does with rex tillerson. rex tillerson is a big guy from a big corporation. they have been, as we said yesterday, exxon is in more countries than the state department. he has more employees than the state department has employees. and this is a big person that donald trump can relate to. >> yeah, look, i think he has

skills on the world stage. he can be a good administrator. and i think if he's in that position, i think if you head a large corporation, it's basically a realist foreign policy, boss you're doing huge capital projects that have 30 or 40 or 50-year timeframes. you have to see ahead pretty far. all good skills. the question is whose interests is he going to represent. >> so now that it's official, a little background on rex tillerson for you. he was born and raised in texas. graduating from ut austin, where he studied civil engineering. he joined exxonmobil 41 years ago in 1975, where he has spent his entire career. his lifelong passion has been the boy scouts of america, still listing his rank of eagle scout on his resume, according to the dallas morning news. he also served as president of the organization when it voted to allow openly gay youth to join their troops and earn their

merit badges. tillerson rose to become had leader of exxon after spearheading projects in the united states, yemen, and most notably, russia. where he helped bring exxon into the post-soviet market, partnering with the oil giant with a struggling state-owned company. >> you know, jon meacham, there seemed to be a couple historical parallels here. one, you can obviously go back to a pick like robert mcnamara, straight out of the auto industry, when he went over to run dod. and eisenhower, i was talking yesterday about stephen ambrose's description of eisenhower as only wanting to hire people that he didn't know, who couldn't ford to do the job, which were people who were running huge corporations. and didn't need the job, but instead, were doing it in part for public service. it seems that trump in this

process has gone a long way from initially wanting to hand out this position as a sort of a patronage job to rudy giuliani to selecting somebody that two weeks ago he didn't know. and it sort of checks off the boxes that ike was always looking for in his cabinet secretaries. >> exactly. and the other, to me, the thing that struck me the most about this is the bet on tillerson is basically the bet that trump asked the country to make on him. which is, i have been in pursuit of private profit. i have been in pursuit of my own business interests all these years. now i'm going to go work for you. and i have been successful in the private sector so i'm hoping to translate that success into the public sector. to some extent, i don't know this, but my sense would be that trump to some extent sees himself and his motivations in the mirror when he looks at tillerson. >> so richard, how concerned are you about the big red flag

people have with rex tillerson, which is the relationship with russia? exxon has done a ton of business up there. he's been outspoken in his opposition to the sanctions that were imposed when putin went into eastern ukraine. he won the order of friendship from putin. do you worry about him reptding the interests of exxonmobil as well as or above the united states? >> that's why you have confirmation hearings. two, he's going to have to get rid of all sorts of assets, like anyone else going into government. there's a whole drill you have to go through. he'll go through that. the fact that he was questioning sanctions, i have to tell you, almost every businessman i know questions sanctions, particularly sanctions they see as somewhat unilateral. they worry they're going to pay a penalty, their company will pay a penalty while other companies or countries that aren't as much under the sanctions will exploit those openings. again, that he's skeptical of sanctions doesn't shock me. >> and richard, you'll remember this. i think better than anybody around the table, the early

1980s, the neocons were killing ronald reagan because he lifted the grain embargo against then the soviet union was he wanted to help farmers in the midwest. >> exactly. >> and again, i'm not saying it's the right thing to do. i'm just saying, everybody acts like this is the first time questions like these have ever come up. they have come up for a very long time. >> i think it's his bad luck, if you will, that all of this comes forward at a time where russia, their involvement in the campaign, what they're doing in aleppo, which is outrageous. what they have done in europe, which is outrageous. it all comes into context where russia has emerged in some ways is a if not the major foreign policy problem for the united states. >> rex tillerson cannot make a recommendation on the lifting of sanctions against russia because that would obviously be a billion dollar plus-up for the company that he used to run. >> yeah, and i do think, as

richard points out, the unwinding of his relationship is a lot easier than donald trump's and his relationship, which is to say he just steps away from exxonmobil, sells everything off and has nothing to do with it. john mccain has put out concerns. there are other senators who will have a say in this at a confirmation hearing who say they want to know more about tillerson's relationship with russia. >> then the question of who the deputy will be, who the number two position in state will be. john bolton is the man reportedly under consideration by trump for that job at the state department. he said over the weekend that he believes the hacks into the dnc -- >> richard is already shaking his head. >> what's wrong with this guy -- could have been a diversion by the obama administration. >> it's not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the dnc and the rnc computers was not a false flag operation. let's remember what fbi director james comey said dealing with hillary's home brew server.

he said we found no direct evidence of foreign intelligence service penetration. but given the nature of this, we didn't expect to. the question that has to be asked is, why did the russians run their smart intelligence service against hillary's server but their dumb intelligence services against the election? i believe that intelligence has been politicized in the obama administration to a very significant degree. >> richard, he tried to clean this up, but it's just outrageous. outrageous claim by john bolton. a guy who supported the invasion of iraq in 2003, still thinks it's a great idea today. a guy who wrote an op-ed for "the new york times" last year saying let's blow up iran. a guy who hasn't -- just doesn't see a war that he doesn't support. the complete opposite of donald trump in every way. ideologue's ideologue. here over the weekend, saying, suggesting that it was not the

russians who hacked in. it was barack obama. >> what's interesting about this year is just when you think your capacity for surprise has been exhausted, somebody says something, and you go, wow. >> where did that come from? >> what imagination. >> how outrageous is that? talk about fake news. >> on the outrageous scale, it's pretty high. can i say one thing about the russian investigation? >> i would rather you talk about john bolton for a second, because john bolton, especially for rex tillerson, who hasn't been in state, is john bolton, and i know you need to be careful, but would some say -- >> you can be careful, but some of this is just being honest. >> would he be the worst selection to be rex tillerson's number two? >> look, john brings to it a range of positions that i for one do not agree with. >> bombing the world? >> whether it's on iraq or abrogating the iran agreement. he has a suspicion of institutions and arrangements and a confrontational approach

with the world. >> still thinks that invading iraq was a good idea. >> and it just seems a lot of this at variance with an idea that you want to have a more stable world, in part so you can focus on rebuilding america. i don't see how it gels with the intell intellectual thrust. >> you have the secretary of state that's going to be gone two thirds of the time. you need somebody that can actually run the bureaucracy at home while rex tillerson is across the globe. >> he's the opposite of rex tillerson. tension is good, i guess, for a team of rivals, but this is alex jones territory to talk about a falsified operation. why would barack obama to have hillary clinton have her e-mails leaked? it hurt her terribly. he endorsed her. it's nonsense. >> still ahead on "morning joe," donald trump meets with another former rival. >> we talked about the opportunity that the president-elect has to literally reset things. to reset the trajectory of this

economy, to reset the role of government, to reset america's role in the world and how we're perceived in the world. and i think it's why he's getting such fantastic people in his administration. >> is there a role for carly fiorina in the trump administration? the former presidential candidate joins us ahead for an exclusive interview. plus, former u.s. ambassador to russia, mike mcfaul joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. world ugly and messy. they are the natural born enemy of the way things are. yes, ideas are scary, and messy and fragile. but under the proper care, they become something beautiful.

(chuckle) ( ♪ ) come on, dad. ( ♪ ) ♪ they tell me i'm wrong ♪ ♪ to want to stand alongside my, my love ♪ ♪ whoa, talkin' 'bout my love ♪ ♪ talkin' 'bout my, my love ♪ you ready, dad? ♪ whoa-ooh ♪ ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh ♪

my dad called them up and asked for "the jennifer garner card" which is such a dad thing to do. after he gave his name the woman from capital one said "mr. garner, are you related to jennifer?" kind of joking with him. and my dad was so proud to tell her, "as a matter of fact, she is my middle daughter". so now dad has the venture card, he's earning his double miles, and he made a friend at the company. can i say it? go ahead! what's in your wallet? nice job dad.

what's on the front of the new york post today, willie? >> stop. >> um -- oh. >> don't go there. >> no. >> i'm going to move on now. >> too early? >> the giants. >> that's the back. okay. >> over the weekend, my dad, dr. zbigniew brzezinski -- >> he's not on the front.

>> no, because he's just back from osbow. he took part in a forum. >> let me tell you something about your dad. i'm talking to him. he respects me a great deal. he called me stunningly superficial, but he respects me. we're very close. we sit and talk about foreign policy for a long time. i was talking to him a couple weeks ago. i said, you have a speech? he said, yes, i have a speech. i said where's your speech going to be. he goes -- he says, i'm doing to oslo. i go, oh, oslo, huh. he said, yes, it's in norway. >> also on the set -- >> loves me like a rock. >> also on the stage, dr. henry kissinger. the theme of the talk was the u.s. and world peace after the presidential election. he talked a little bit about america's role on the world stage. >> in the 19-mid '50s after winning world war ii, the united states was in a position of having a strateging vision by virtue of what it simply was,

the decisive fiviktder, and a monopolist of real power. and i don't think either condition prevails today. at that time, there was a widespread predisposition to trust the united states and to follow the united states. indeed, the desire to imitate the united states. today, this is much less the case. we need to grow up in order to be able to lead the world. but we have a chance to do so because there's nobody else who can lead the world. russia cannot by itself. they can only do so if it becomes a satellite politically of the chinese. and then the chinese and the russians have to be able to compel us, which i don't think they can. and therefore, the standoff and conflict will become more intense and therefore there's only one choice. >> dr. brzezinski also reflected on donald trump's leadership

style in what may have been one of the most elegant takedowns. >> assessment. >> analysis of the president-elect's twitter habits. >> gradually, the leadership will begin to be more cohesive. assuming the president puts a halt on his own inspirational and eccentric perspectives on the world, articulated on the basis of senainstant imaginatiod ability to reach the public in a very general level. i think in effect the administration will have to go through a process of maturation, which matches the needed process of maturation of the american people. because american people are not prepared yet to make this kind of sacrifices that general leadership entails and which in

different circumstances was the case in the '70s, '80s, and also '60s. >> willie, a very polite way of him asking the president-elect to stop tweeting. >> yes. that was about twitter. >> and for people -- >> i love watching mika watch her dad. the hives break out because she hears speeches she got as a teenage girl. >> willie, i could not help to feel a bit melancholy watching that. this was the nobel ceremony where we had, i think, three coming to us. >> done with them. >> still, they would steal our ideas. the singer guy sang some of my best songs. and didn't even show up for the ceremony. >> don't even want it anymore. they try to offer us one, i'm not showing up. >> by the way, they're a dime a dozen now. i mean, you have to roll up your window because they're throwing them at you. so seriously, let's talk about first of all how angry right now

henry kissinger is because we didn't play any clips of him. >> there's that. >> i'm joking. >> one thing zbig said, there's no alternative to the u.s. leading the world. he said russia can't do it, china can't do it. the alternative to us leading the world is no one leading the world. what we see when no one leads anything, it's called the middle east or europe. it gets messy. >> people don't want to say this right now, but historians will write this, and i'll go to a historian in a second. that's what we have seen. with barack obama. aleppo was falling. and aleppo was falling because the united states could not bring together the western powers. and the international community to save the suffering there. because we drew a red line, and when it was crossed, we did absolutely nothing. >> it is just -- >> weapons of mass destruction. >> -- indescribable what's happening. >> chemical warfare, we are seen

some of the most horrific pictures on a daily basis unfolding, and the united states has sat back and not done nothing. is that not how the world looks when america does nothing? >> we have also hurt ourselves by not following through on the trade agreement. in some ways we have gone from an era of overreach to an era of underwreech, and it's teed up, and the real challenge, an opportunity and challenge for the new administration to get it right. >> coming up, donald trump's former campaign rival carly fiorina is reportedly being considered for a top spot on his national security team. she joins the table next on "morning joe."

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fresh off a meeting with president-elect and longtime friend donald trump. former republican presidential candidate and former chief ex executive at hewlett-packard, carly fiorina. elise jordan along as well as willie geist. >> news to me. >> carly -- >> impressive, by the way,

knighted. >> this morning, we started the show by actually commending mitt romney, a guy that had bashed the hell out of donald trump, and who had been bashed by donald trump. for sticking his neck out there for the country, despite all the dish agreements. i think it says a lot about him, and also i think it says a lot about you. and donald trump, that -- and can you explain how that works? how political enemies can actually come together when it's in the best interest of the country? >> well, i think, first, donald trump won this election fair and square. despite the fact that some hillary supporters and maybe hillary herself still don't want to admit that, he is our president. i spent the last six months helping the republican party raise money, telling people that hillary clinton couldn't possibly be the president of the united states. telling people that i was going to vote for donald trump. i did. >> you also said that about donald trump, too. so how do you get from there to now being willing to serve the

administration? >> well, first, i think all of us, myself included, have great hopes for this president-elect. we want him to be successful. and i think he will be successful. he is in a position now to reset so much. to reset the trajectory of the economy, to reset the role of government, to reset how we're perceived in the world, to reset the role we play in the world. so i think that's why you see such accomplished people, mitt romney among them, rex tillerson among them, betsy devos, mike flynn. i think that's why you see so many accomplished people coming forward and saying we want to serve this president as he goes boldly and makes big changes which are necessary quickly. >> the reports are that donald trump's considering you for director of national intelligence. are those accurate? >> well, look. i had a really positive and productive meeting with donald trump yesterday. we talked about a whole range of issues. we talked about china, we talked

about intelligence threats and intelligence matters. we talked about geopolitical matters. that's obviously up to him, but i was really honored to have that opportunity to talk about what's going on in the world with him. >> did you talk about that specific position, though, director of national intelligence? >> we had a broad ranging conversation. >> no specific jobs. >> we had a broad ranging and positive conversation. >> what was it like when you walked in? just because it had gotten real feisty on the campaign trail. let's understate it. how did you come back together? >> first of all, i have spoken with him since the election. by phone. he is a very gracious and charming man. he was gracious in the phone call. he was gracious yesterday. when you walk into his office, it's a very welcoming and warm office. he has incredible paraphernalia around his office. >> yes, he does. >> incredible gifts from athletes and champions. i was particularly taken by shaq o'neal's shoe. that was unbelievable.

he was very warm. we embraced. he gave me a kiss on the cheek, and we sat down and had a conversation. >> how do you explain, again, the disconnect? i understand it because, you know, i have done it myself. and had it done to me, but how do you explain to americans who say, wait, he said all these horrible things about you. so explain to people how that works. because for most people, they say, oh, they're such hip kryp e hypocrites. but explain how it works in politics. and does it work that way in business as well. >> first of all, an election happened. an election is over. he is the president-elect of the united states. he is going to be every american's president. that's just a fact. and i think most americans accept that. maybe hillary and her team don't quite accept it yet. but i think most americans accept that. so if you love your country, you want our president to succeed. you put aside whatever it is. i have no ill will towards

donald trump. it's why i spent a lot of time trying to make sure that he won as opposed to hillary clinton won. because i know his policies will be better for this nation. >> elise. >> does it make you worried at all, after the experience of mitt romney putting himself out there, highly competent, qualified american, who wants to serve his country, and then trump's own advisers turned against him during the process and were publicly trashing him. does that give you pause as someone who is putting yourself out there to serve in his administration? >> it doesn't give me pause. i mean, i can't comment on all of the back and forth. what i know is that having spent a fair amount of time with kellyanne conway and steve bannon and reince priebus and jared, these are honorable people. i think they're trying to do their very best to advise this president to pick the very best people that share his objectives, that share his world view. look, these are important positions, and you better get folks who are going to do the job well.

i think, you know, of all the things that have been said about rex tillerson this morning, and obviously, he's very accomplished, one of the things i would like to point out is exxonmobil has done some superb economic development work around the world. >> do you know rex? >> i have met him briefly. you know, 80% of the economic development money in the world today is private sector money. and exxonmobil in particular has done some outstanding economic development. >> are you keconcerned about hi ties to russia, with putin? >> that's what confirmation hearings are for. i'm kwut sure senators will do their job and examine those ties. what i know is he's led an extremely successful company. that company has been generous and impactful on the ground all over the world. and so i think in addition to everything else he brings to the table, he brings an understanding of how the private sector and public sector can work together to advance

economic development goals in a way that is sustainable over the long term, because exxon has played a very important role in that effort. >> all right, carly fiorina. >> good to see you. >> nice to see you guys. >> thank you for coming in. >> still ahead, apple's tim cook and tesla's elon musk are among the tech executives set to meet with the president-elect tomorrow. we'll have more on that high-powered summit ahead on "morning joe."

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it is 39 past the hour. donald trump has postponed this thursday's news conference where he was expected to address any conflicts of interest pertaining to his business. in a series of tweets last night, trump wrote, even though i'm not mandated by law to do so, i will be leaving my business before january 20th so that i can focus full-time on the presidency. two of my children, don and eric, plus executives, will manage them. no new deals will be done during

my terms in office. i will hold a press conference in the near future to discuss the business cabinet picks and all other topics of interest. busy times. a senior transition source tells nbc news the announcement has been delayed until january. let's go to cnbc's sara eisen live at the new york stock exchange. is the market reacting to rex tillerson as secretary of state? >> well, we have been keeping a close eye on the stock of exxonmobil, which has been surging and made a big move higher. helped drive the dow to a new record yesterday. but that's partly because, mika, the price of oil has been gaining a lot, above $53 a barrel. remember, we had that landmark deal from mideast-led opec members including saudi, iraq, and iran to cut production to keep a lid on prices. we also got word this week that other non-opec members like russia, big producers, are going to voluntarily partake in the deal, which means we should have

a world where less oil is flowing. that boosts prices. that boosts the big energy producers like exxon. but yes, exxon also stands to gan positively from this rex tellerson appointment because remember, it has the joint venture with the russian oil company for a billion-barrel arctic drilling, which has basically been on hold since the 2014 sanctions that europe and the u.s. put on russia. if those are lifted or eased in any way, that could unlock a lot of value and potential for exxonmobil. so that certainly poses to help it. all in all, exxon's stock under tillerson up about 60% since he took over, since 2006, which is actually underperformed some of the other big oil companies like chevron, which was up more than 100% in that time. and the overall market, which was up about 78%. as for the markets, i mentioned the dow's march to record highs. 15 record closes since the election. the index is up about 8% since the election. we're holding our gains here.

one big test is going to be the federal reserve. today, it kicks off a two-day meeting. we'll get an announcement and a decision tomorrow afternoon. and everybody is expecting the fed to actually raise interest rates. it would be the first time the fed has done so this year because the economy is healing. markets are in a good place. the economy is considered ready for another interest rate increase. but the test for the markets, guys, is going to be the signal that janet yellen gives about how aggressive she's going to be with the outlook for interest rate increases next year. there's been a lot going on since the last fed meeting. we had the trump rally for stocks, a big sell-off in bonds. a sharp rise for the dollar as well. everybody on wall street is, trump is set to meet with tech ceos. some of the tech stocks have been under pressure since the election. they're considered losers. trump went after jeff basoe o bm

amazon, they're going to watch careful to see if the narrative chan changes, the trump administration has been considered bad news for technology. they're global and multinational as they expand overseas. we'll wait and see for the next 24 hours on that. >> sara eisen, thank you very much. up next, donald trump says it wouldn't be a bad thing if the u.s. got along with russia, but can putin be trusted? we convened a great foreign policy panel. we're back in a moment with that. ♪ looking for clear answers for your retirement plan? start here. or here. even here. and definitely here. at fidelity, we're available 24/7 to make retirement planning simpler. we let you know where you stand, so when it comes to your retirement plan,

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so wherever your retirement journey takes you, we can help you reach your goals. call us or your advisor t. rowe price. invest with confidence. 47 past the hour. in syria, the battle for aleppo is nearing an end. the syrian government is now in control of nearly all, by some accounts, 98% of eastern aleppo, which was previously held by rebel forces. the latest fighting has left the streets, quote, full with dead bodies. according to the volunteer group, the white helmets, unicef released a state this morning citing reports from a doctor in the city saying many children, possibly more than 100, unaccompanied or separated from their families are trapped in a building under heavy attack in eastern aleppo. they have received reports of

pro-government forces killing at least 82 people, including 11 women and 13 children, as they attempted to flee their homes. adding, it is, quote, a complete meltdown of humanity. >> and joining us now, professor of political science at stanford university, director of the institute for international studies, and the former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. and former dod official and former executive director of the graham talent wmd commission, now a senior fellow at the atlantic council, dr. evelyn farkas. ambassador mcfaul, let me start with you. these reports out of aleppo this morning are horrific, but they have been horrific for five years now. we're just hearing it again this morning. sergey lavrov, the foreign minister for russia said the air strikes will continue until, quote, the bandits have been run out of town. presumably those bandits are the women and kids and doctors being killed today. what more can be done at this late hour? >> i don't think there's much that can be done in aleppo.

i think it's a horrible tragedy. a giant failure of the international community, including my former administration, the obama administration, and how to deal with it. but there's no good options now there. i think moving forward, it will be interesting to see what happens in the rest of the country as we continue our operations against isis. but what happens when we achieve victory? what happens when we take raqqah? do we just hand it over to mr. assad now in the new trump administration? that's where the next phase of this fight will be. >> ambassador, what were the specific failures of the obama administration? you described them generally. what could have been done over the last five and a half, six years to prevent the scenes we're seeing this morning in aleppo? >> so, these are all counterfactuals. i don't want to claim had we done one of these things it would have been different, but in the early phases when there was a chance for negotiations,

we didn't push hard enough for that. we relied on the russians. we hoped they would bring assad to the table, and that never happened. i was part of those negotiations and that never happened. second, there was a red line drawn about weapons of mass destruction. and the president, after they used the weapons of mass destruction, decided not to use force. i think that was a big mistake. even some of that force, maybe it wouldn't have gotten rid of weapons of mass destruction or stopped mr. assad, but even taking out some airplanes and taking out some air bases might have reduced the carnage in aleppo. and third, remember, russia is one of the partners bombing aleppo. russia is one of the people attacking these civilians that you just reported on. and we have tried to negotiate with russia, and i fear moving forward that we're even going to negotiate with them more, and we're going to septembaccept th narrative in syria in the new trump administration. that worries me deeply. >> dr. evelyn farkas, how did it

get this far? we are looking at genocide. we're looking at crimes against humanity. and we have for several years now. and neither the obama administration nor the western world nor the united nations stepped forward to stop this slaughter. the slaughter of women, the slaughter of children, the targeting of doctors, the targeting of hospitals. war crimes. and yet the international community sat back and did nothing. >> i mean, i think it was very short-sighted because the other aspect of this was that the refugee flow that the war in syria caused, very directly and negatively impacted europe, and even u.s. politics. and we still haven't seeb the end of the impact of that. so the refugee flows are still continuing. we're having hundreds of people dying, if not more, every day on the mediterranean, still trying to cross. of course, the russian human

rights atrocities are off the charts. i mean, this is unprecedented, what they did in aleppo in particular, targeting hospitals deliberately, it's almost worse than grazny, which they also, where the russians fought within their own federation against the ch czechechens and flattened the c. >> it's rwanda. why did we do nothing when our president and our congress and our allies could see these horrors unfolding every single day? >> we should -- joe, we should have done a safe zone. you know, no-fly zone with a safe haven under it. we should have done that. we could have done that in a lot of different junctures, but the military, you know, they mean well, but they paint a picture for the civilians about all of the obstacles and the cost. so it takes a lot for the civilians then to counter that and explain regardless of the cost, regardless of the risk, we need to do this. certainly, before the russians intervened in september of 2015,

it would have been a lot easier to set up a no-fly zone and a safe zone under it. >> let's bring in republican congressman dana rohrabacher, the chairman of the subcommittee on europe, eurasia and emerging threats. dana, how did the united states sit back and do absolutely nothing as assad was slaughtering his people and the russians stepped in and joined in on that slaughter? why did we do nothing? >> well, that's a question that's based on false premises -- >> no, it's not. no, it's not. >> well, you want me to answer your question? >> no, i don't want you to lie on my television show. >> is this channel every time they ask a question, and somebody tries to answer the way they want to, they interrupt that guest. >> we don't let people come on the show and lie. >> let me put it this way. >> what happened before, you lied before? we wouldn't cut you off unless you lied. are you saying the russianed didn't target women and children in aleppo? >> are you going to let me answer? >> i just asked you the question again. i asked you the question. >> okay, good-bye. good-bye. if you're not going to let me

say anything, it's good-bye. >> dana rohrabacher, thank you. thank you so much for being here. >> i'm a guest on your program and you're not letting me have a say. >> i asked you a question twice. >> you don't want me to answer the question the way i'm going to answer the question. >> you have ten seconds. go ahead. go. >> answer the question. >> all right. so now you're going to give me a chance. all right. the bottom line is, we are at war with radical islam. we are at war with people who want to destroy us. you're talking about a no-fly zone where we are shooting down russian airplanes? >> no. >> we need to be working with the russians to defeat radical islam. >> i asked about the women and children the russians were targeting. are they targets? >> we aligned with stalin in order to defeat hitler. stalin was a horrible man. he murdered millions of people, but we knew hitler was a bigger threat. today, the biggest threat is radical islam to our safety. if we keep trying to focus on

all of the faults of russia so that we can't work with them to defeat this common enemy, you're not doing any service to the people of the united states or the cause of peace. >> i think we found common cause here. you're comparing vladimir putin to stalin. i think that's an apt comparison. >> i don't care when we compare him to. we need russia on our side to defeat radical islam as we allied with stalin to defeat hitler. talk about a no-fly zone. we're going to shoot down russian airplanes, and by the way, there is a lot of question as to who those people are on the ground who are -- >> they're women and children. >> now claiming to be moderate muslims, and we have ended up financing radical islamists. >> michael mcfaul, let me take it to you. we have seen in press reports women and children being targeted. hospitals being targeted by the

russians. dana rohrabacher actually says that they're muslim terrorists. what can you tell us about what you know? >> i want to mention two things. first of all, we are in syria fighting terrorists. it's called operation inherent resolve. google it, look it up, you'll see we have been fighting for a year and a half, tens of thousands -- several thousand saudis, billions of dollars, to kill isis. what you're witnessing in aleppo, there are some terrorists there, yes, but the majority of people there are innocent people, just like you said. i don't believe that bombing aleppo into rubble is going to defeat the terrorists. exactly the contrary. the images of aleppo are inspiring terrorists all over the world. that strategy is not going to work in the long term. >> evelyn farkas? >> yeah, and if the russians -- i totally agree with everything that mike mcfaul said.

if the russians don't compromise with us, i mean, we have been trying to get a compromise all the way back to when mike was working on the account, you know, many years ago. we have been trying to get compromise with the russians. the russians should understand, there will be no peace in syria unless there's a negotiated transitional government, unless the moderate opposition has a seat at the table, because there will be a low level terrorist insurgency or an insurgency against assad in addition to the terrorists already fighting assad. and we tried very hard -- >> assad is not our enemy. neither is russia our enemy. the radical islamicists who have been murdering americans by the thousands since 9/11 -- >> congressman, should we be an accompli accomplice. should we be an accomplice to evil? >> that's the only government who has given refuge to the christian population of that area. >> are you --

>> he's not our enemy. >> hold on. one at a time, everybody. elise. guys, hold on. hold on. hold on. >> stalin -- stalin -- stalin. >> if you could cut dana's microphone so we could have the question asked. if dana will stop talking we'll have the question asked. go ahead. ask dana a question. >> what do you believe are the roles of american values in our foreign policy, and what is the line to be drawn when it comes to our potential alliances and the full-scale atrocities that they may be committing? >> with assad and putin. >> the most important line we need to draw is what will make sure that the american people are more secure against those enemies that want to destroy us. we are now in a battle -- >> does it make us more secure if we're partnered with these unsavory allies? >> can i talk more than ten seconds to finish a point? >> you waste about 20 seconds

asking that question over and over again. go ahead, talk. >> right now, we're facing an enemy that wants to destroy western civilization through a terrorist offensive against us in particular. and for us to vilify and to, i would say, yes, it may be a lot of these charges are maybe accurate of what we're hearing right now. assad isn't the enemy. the enemy is the people who want to destroy us. our basis should be in negotiation and our policies, what's going to be securing the united states of america? not make it worse. >> can i just add something here? from here in palo alto. i agree with congressman rohrabacher, but the problem on the data is that assad is not fighting isis. russia is not fighting isis. we, the united states of america, and our allies, are fighting isis. and when i was in the government, we tried for many years to say we need to fight the common enemy. and instead of fighting isis,

they decided they were better to fight what the people we were supporting. i agree if we could get them to support our common fight, but they're not a member of operation inherent resolve. they have other interests. in the long run, those images from aleppo will be around for years inspiring the very terrorists that congressman rohrabacher want to fight. >> it's 9:00. that's all the time we have. dana rohrabacher, thank you. a little different than the dana i served with. former ambassador michael mcfaul, thank you. and dr. evelyn farkas, thank you as well. >> that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much. good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle. we have breaking news for you. donald trump, well, he makes it official. naming rex tillerson as his secretary of state. but his ties to russia are raising alarms among many. >> i'll use russia because i know russia really well because i worke