or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. happy friday, i would like it introduce you to the impeccable, awesome name, right, the "impeccable." there are not many ships that look like this in the world. it's got a strange design. the big, high catamaran hull. it's an even -- it's known for towing an array sensor system. it's basically a giant sonar array, a giant listening post, part of the reason this ship,

the "impeccable" looks like s d sander block, its strange, awkward shape, part of what accounts for its design and shape is because it's meant to drag behind it this thing that listens to the ocean. what that sonar array that it drags behind it, most of what it's listening for is submarines. but that is what explains the awkward visuals here of this ship. the "impeccable" is about 300 feet long. it's very slow. at the best, goes 15 miles per hour. while it is towing its sonar array it only goes about 3 1/2 miles per hour. it's very slow. it's unarmed. even though it's a u.s. navy ship it doesn't have any big guns on it. mostly civilian crew. in march of 2009 right after barack obama had been sworn in for the first time as a new president, that ship, the "impeccable" was poking along 3

miles per hour across did south china sea when a chinese frigate zoomed up and crossed right in front of it within 100 yards. cut it off. that was a slightly worrying development. but then within hours it got worse. within hours chinese military planes started do multiple flyovers really low over the "impeccable" like 600 feet over the "impeccable." that started on a thursday in march 2009. and it kept going for a few harrowing days. after the initial confrontation on thursday, on friday, this is again march 2009 right after obama was sworn in. the confrontation started on thursday, on friday the chinese started verbally threatening the "impeccable" saying if it didn't leave the area, it would face the consequences. by the weekend, by sawn, that confrontation had gotten much bigger. the "impeccable" was still alone on the high seas but by sunday there were five chinese ships surrounding it including one that got so close, got within 50 feet of the "impeccable" and the civilian crew -- remember, this

is unarmed ship. i don't know if this is protocol or they macgyvered this because they didn't know what else to do. they got out the fire hoses on board. they got out the fire hoses on board the "impeccable" and they literally shot the chinese ship with fire hoses to try to get them to buzz off. and that incident led to this sort of amazing formal statement from the pentagon at the time. quote, because the vessels' intentions were not known and the impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the -- excuse me -- because the vessels' intentions were not known, the impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the chinese vessels in order to protect itself. the chinese crew members responded by disrobing to their underwear and the vessel continued closing to within 25

feet. so think about this. our ship is surrounded by five of their ships. our ship is a u.s. navy ship. it's identified as such but unarmed. our civilian crew on this navy ship shoots the chinese guys with fire hoses. the chinese sailors strip down to their underpants for some reason like as if getting your clothes wet is the big problem with being hit with a fire hose, but while they are in their underpants, their ship decides they are undeterred and it keeps getting closer and closes to within 25 feet. what happened then is that the "impeccable" decided finally that they actually would leave. and you would think that that would be the point where the confrontation de-escalated, but at that point it actually got worse. because as the "impeccable" turned to leave, these chinese vessels, even though they had been telling this american ship it had to get out of there, once it started to try to get out of

there, they threw junk into the sea, a bunch of pieces of wood and other debris into the ocean right in front of the "impeccable" which almost caused to crash. this is big enough stuff that it could have conceivably damaged the ship, sunk the ship. they had to do emergency stops and take emergency maneuvers to avoid this junk that the chinese ships had offloaded into the water. ultimately as the impeccable was pulling away from the confrontation, the chinese sailors grabbed like -- do you see like a straight line off the ship there off our right, the left side of the ship there underneath that guy? chinese sailors grabbed -- they were like poles or maybe grappling hooks or gaffes. there's some conflicting reports about what they were using, but these long tools off the deck on one of these boats to try to grab on to the impeccable's tail. they used these grappling hooks or whatever it was they had to try to grab the sonar array out

of the water that the impeccable was towing. they tried to grab the thing out of the water and steal it. now, luckily the sonar array is a big mama jammer and did a good job of getting away from this, but the chinese didn't end up with the sonar array, but still, that whole confrontation was nuts. and remember, this went on over a period of days. this was like a five-day confrontation at this point. with the flyovers and the frigate cutting them off and the five ships and the fire hoses and the trying to steal the sonar array. and then back home in washington we've got this brand-new president. heck of a test for a new president, right? he's been in office all of what, six weeks at this point? and what the new president decides after this incredible confrontation, what he decided to do was to send the impeccable back.

the impeccable had left, right? under these very difficult circumstances. the new president decided to send the impeccable back to the place where that confrontation happened but this time he sent the impeccable with a friend. president obama ordered that the impeccable should this time have an escort. and it should be a 500-foot-long guided missile destroyer, which it goes without saying, is not an unarmed ship. and that in march 2009, that's how china welcomed barack obama to the white house. welcome, mr. president. hope you enjoy your time. and when that happened in march 2009, that very dramatic incident was widely described as the sort of wooliest event between the american military and the chinese military since -- since, well, come to think of it, since the last time we had a brand-new president just taking office. that street fight in the south china sea with the fire hoses and the chinese dudes in their underwear and the grappling hooks and all the rest of it, that happened in the spring of 2009 when we had a brand-new president obama.

exactly eight years earlier in the spring of 2001 when we had a brand-new president bush, we had sort of a similar tale to tell. and what happened in the early days of that transition to a new president was, frankly, even more harrowing. in 2001, it was a large u.s. navy surveillance jet flying over the south china sea when a small chinese fighter jet with a single pilot on board roared up to intercept that big american aircraft, and in this particular case details are a little bit disputed by the two sides, but the bottom line is that interception by the fighter jet went very badly. and the two planes collided. the chinese fighter jet crashed. the pilot's body was never recovered. the american plane, the much larger plane, had 24 crew members on board, 21 men and 3 women. the plane was -- look at it, really badly damaged by the

collision. that aircraft only barely was able to emergency land but it had to land in china on hainan island. this is a really serious thing. serious not just because of the crash. the chinese ended up holding on to the american crew for 11 freaking days. and those 24 american service members, they did eventually get out. they did eventually get home safe. i should mention that china also eventually shipped home the surveillance plane many months later in a number of boxes. but this was a remarkably intense incident. it was remarkably intense test for the brand-new president. george bush had been president all of ten weeks at the time that that happened. here's the thing, though. that hainan island incident is remembered and it sort of looms large in the early days of the bush presidency. even before that incident with the island crash landing, china had already welcomed the new president bush into office with another shot across the bow

almost literally in an incident involving another small u.s. navy ship. the bowditch. it is named after the man who invented modern maritime navigation in the 1800s in massachusetts. in march 2001, a couple weeks before the hainan island incident, right after george w. bush was sworn into office, this little ship, the bowditch was in china, in the yellow sea, like the impeccable, the bowditch is an unarmed. yes, a u.s. navy ship. a research vessel. a civilian crew. right after george bush was sworn in in 2001, the bowditch was doing its research in the yellow sea when it was -- say it with me now -- intercepted by a chinese frigate, this chinese naval ship zoomed over to the bowditch, came within a hundred yards, told it had to leave the area. now in that incident nobody

ended up taking their clothes off or shooting anybody with a fire hose, but the bowditch did turn around and leave and just like new president obama decided in 2009 when it happened to the bowditch, yeah, it left but came back several days later with a massively well armed friend, with a u.s. naval warship. you know how people say the presidential transition can be a dangerous time in terms of national security? all right, it's a time when our adversaries like to test the united states. they like to take advantage, first of all, of any confusion in the transition. take advantage of inexperience among the new people in charge in the government. push the new president a little bit to take advantage of the inexperience of the new administration. you've heard that about presidential transitions. this is what it looks like in practice. right? it's not an esoteric idea. this is not an academic idea that you read about in policy journals that you don't know about in the real world. this is how it happens.

sailors screaming at each other, close enough that you don't need the radio. threatening to sink each other's ship. throwing debris in the sea. planes getting buzzed out of the sky, the crew members getting held. it's serious stuff when these tests happen. in the spring of 1961 when the new president was jfk, that's when khrushchev announced he was going to seize west berlin. the implication was that he would seize it by force. oh, yeah, what are you going to do about it, mr. brand-new president? ronald reagan was president and the soviets decided it would be a time to have no warning border skirmishes, standoffs over hostile territory. huge, huge military exercises. the transition to a new president is a time when america's adversaries push it. and usually we expect that just after the new president is sworn in. usually we expect that, you

know, some time in the spring. well, in this transition that we're going through now, whether it's by accident or on purpose, we don't know yet, but we've got an unusual thing going on in this transition which is even though we've not yet had an inauguration, even though the current president is still in office, the incoming president has already set in motion a new foreign policy posture toward china in particular. a new foreign policy based on insult and provocation. and so this year spring has come early, and now this just happened. all right. it was in the south china sea international waters. our old friend, same ship, the bowditch, same ship that had that scrape back in 2001 right after george w. bush got sworn in. the bowditch yesterday back out there again, still unarmed vessel, still doing research, still with a civilian crew. this time the bowditch was using what looked like model airplanes. this is what they look like, autonomous little drone subs and

they measure various ocean conditions. the bowditch apparently had two of these vehicles out in the sea collecting their oceanic samples and then it came time to bring them back on board. they had two of them out there. the bowditch picked up one of their little drones, but when they went to go get the second one, a chinese warship showed up. it launched a small boat, and then chinese sailors in the small boat grabbed the u.s. navy drone and stole it. they apparently didn't need grappling hooks this time like they did with the "impeccable" and its sonar array. they're just six feet long, so they were able to grab it out of the water when it came up to the surface. but then they took it. this is not good.

the u.s. military says, quote, it is a sovereign immune vessel clearly marked in english not to be removed from the water. clearly marked that it is u.s. property. pentagon spokesman was very blunt. quote, it is ours. it is clearly marked as ours. we would like it back. and we would like this not to happen again. after the chinese sailors yesterday stole this navy drone, the bowditch apparently radioed the chinese ship that took it. they demanded that they give it back. the chinese basically said, yeah, we hear you, then they sailed away with it. the u.s. has now issued a formal diplomat complaint to china over this issue. it's not entire clear why china took it. this is not like when they kept our high tech surveillance aircraft that crashed on hainan island and sent it back to us in a number of boxes apparently trying to reverse engineer as much of the equipment as they could. this little drone thing, it's cool, but it's not going to have a lot of intelligence value to the chinese. this is a commercially available thing.

if china wants one of these, they're expensive, they're about $150,000, but you can just buy them. this particular one does belong to the u.s. navy, though, and china taking it and refusing to give it back is basically just a one-finger salute to the united states of america. it's meant to be an embarrassment, meant to be an insult, meant to be a diplomatic provocation. and the timing would appear to not be random. at the same time that this has all gone down, late last night, china also announced and released footage from its one and only aircraft carrier conducting its first ever live fire, live ammunition real missile exercises. china only has one aircraft carrier, although they're working on more. they fly these j-15 fighters off the deck of it. last time they announced for the first time and released footage showing they have done live fire real ammunition exercises that show the ship itself using real missiles to destroy targets at sea and display its offensive capability.

they've never done that before with their aircraft carrier, but they announced it last night. so they've just done it for the first time and they made sure to send out the footage. that comes at the same time that we also just got brand-new imagery of china having erected big, new anti-aircraft guns on the man-made islands that they just constructed in the south china sea. when the president of china was at the white house in september, he stood there next to president obama at a joint press conference and told reporters that china would not pursue militarization of those islands that it was making in the south china sea. now those islands have just sprouted anti-aircraft weapons. so that is the last 72 hours. the anti-aircraft emplacements on these chinese islands, first ever live fire exercises by the chinese aircraft carrier and now chinese sailors have stolen a sovereign u.s. navy vessel in broad daylight. they just sailed off with it. presidential transitions are a time when other countries like to test us. over the last two presidential transitions that we had, that has meant overt very aggressive testing by the chinese military.

now, granted, these kinds of tests usually wait until the new president is sworn in and again most new presidents wait until they're sworn in before they start insulting and threatening and up end decades of carefully formed policy. apparently with donald trump we don't have to wait until spring. apparently the tests this year start now. how are we going to get that drone back? ery day starts better with a healthy smile. start yours with philips sonicare, the no.1 choice of dentists. compared to oral-b 7000, philips sonicare flexcare platinum removes significantly more plaque. this is the sound of sonic technology cleaning deep between teeth.

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1961 as soon as jfk became president khrushchev tested him by threatening to take west berlin. khrushchev felt that jfk's response was weak and wishy-washy, then by the summer of 1961, the east germans and

the soviets were building a wall that ran right through the center of berlin. 20 years later the brand-new president was ronald reagan, there he is being sworn in. 1981, soviets tested his responses, tested to see what kind of president he'd be with surprise soviet troop movements and border confrontations. by the fall of 1981, the soviets were carrying out the largest military exercise ever carried out by the soviet union. america's adversaries have a special way of welcoming newbie presidents. and it's often very dangerous stuff. today with news that china has seized, stolen a u.s. navy unmanned sub, on that same day coincidentally that china has launched its first ever live fire exercises by its aircraft carrier, today president obama tried to gently, gently, the incoming administration into figuring out what it's talking

about before it keeps talking so much particularly to other countries. >> since there's only one president at a time. my advice to him has been that, before he starts having a lot of interactions with foreign governments, other than the usual courtesy calls, that he should want to have his full team in place, that he should want his team to be fully briefed on what's gone on in the past and where the potential pitfalls may be. >> as far as we know, the incoming president is still not taking briefings from the state department even before he speaks with other world leaders, nor is he regularly attending the intelligence briefings that are being prepared for him every day. but he has apparently, at least it appears that he has already provoked china enough that now

they've got one of our subs and the navy has to figure out how to get it back. the transition to a new president is always a good time to test the waters if you're a foreign power. it does seem like it's starting early this year. joining us now is michael beschloss, presidential historian. great to have you here again. thanks for being here on a friday night. >> thank you, rachel. >> is it fair to say that new presidents, not just the new term of a second-term president but a new president taking over does tend to get some tests from america's adversaries. is that a pattern? >> it absolutely is a question of when not if. and you know, we heard, rachel, i think you've talked about this when president obama met with president-elect trump, he said one of your biggest problems is going to be north korea. go back in time. 1969, richard nixon was in office about ten weeks when we

americans had a reconnaissance plane the ec-121 shot down over the sea of japan, all 31 crew on board were killed. and nixon and kissinger, his national security adviser, were boweled over. they didn't expect this. they didn't know why it was happening. kissinger later said we were unprepared and we screwed up. that was a time when nixon had been in public office for -- had been in public life for 22 years. very experienced, very clear about his foreign policy. now we have president-elect trump who has no foreign policy experience has been vague about a lot of aspects of what he intends to do with foreign policy. as you said, he has done already a number of things that some of these powers might consider to be provocative. >> on that last point there, it does seem to me that -- and the white house i think has been very restrained about this, but when trump in particular took that call from taiwan's president thus putting at risk, putting at question decades of this relationship with china in

terms of how we recognize the chinese capital and taiwan and the one-china policy, when he did that, that signaled a change in american foreign policy of such a magnitude that i think it's surprising that it happened during the lame duck period. it happened while we still had another president. is that unusual, that not just you change into a different foreign policy mode with a different president but that the changes would start to come into effect even before the new president was sworn in? >> you got it exactly right. it was virtually unprecedented that it was this early during the transition before he becomes president. and from everything we know so casual. richard nixon opened the way to china in 1970, '71, '72 after all these years of america not speaking to the chinese, but that was an opening that was carefully orchestrated, nixon

making contact with the mainland chinese. he knew what step 92 was going to be after taking this first step. we don't have evidence that president-elect trump was thinking if i call taiwan, you know, what is going to be the result of that? how will the chinese respond? what will i do in response to that? >> is the obama administration in a position here if they are in response to the president-elect, does that make the calculation different for president obama in terms of how he responds? >> it does to the extend this was not what i did. this was the president-elect's doing. but at the same time president obama wants to keep the peace and for the time that he remains as president he's going to have to deal with these things. >> michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian. great to have you here tonight, mike, thanks. >> my pleasure, we'll all stay tuned. >> seriously.

tonight, i can tell you one little piece of good news sort of. you know the lame stream media? tonight the lame stream media has been redeemed. christmas miracle, hanukkah miracle. miracle of your secular but still believing choice. this story absolutely freaking pitiful that it has come to this, but it is next. stay with us. hi, we're the hulford quads. (laughter) we're in 8th grade. technology is the only thing that really entertains us. i'm gonna use this picture on sketchbook, and i'm going to draw mustaches on you all. using the pen instead of fingers, it just feels more comfortable for me. be like, boop! it's gone. i like that only i can get into it and that it recognizes my fingerprint. our old tablet couldn't do that. it kind of makes you feel like you're your own person,

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recognize that as the latest reports made clear, vladimir putin himself directed the covert cyber attacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me. >> hillary clinton speaking with supporters at a thank you event last night in new york city. "the washington post" was first to report that u.s. intelligence agencies concluded that russia intervened in the election not just to make mischief but specifically to help donald trump. "the washington post" report was a week ago tonight friday evening. later that night "the new york times" published a similar story citing its own sources. by the following day nbc news has confirmed the story, too. this week nbc news further

reported that putin was directly involved in the hacking operation. cbs news then reported that as well. you know what? that's, of course, just the lame stream media. why believe any of them? everybody knows they're all just out to undermine donald trump. on republican tv, the president-elect has been repeatedly scoffing at the russian hacking claims. fox news contributor, possible staid state department appointee john bolton said the whole thing was not only false. he said it's a conspiracy. he said it was a false flag. somebody else pretending to be russia attacking our elections just to make it look like russia attacked our elections even though russia didn't attack our elections. ooh. other fox news personalities have called the russian attack on the election think news. they've been berating anybody who believes it. fox news doesn't believe it or they didn't believe it until last night. >> foxes now has independently confirmed that russia-based

cyber militias were targeting in the summer of 2015 in an operation involved to interfere with the u.s. election. >> fox news has independently confirmed it so now remembers will be allowed to believe it's true, right? and the new administration now that it finally comes from independent confirmation by fox news? the new administration tends to like to take things from fox. like, for example, their nominee for housing and urban development. their transportation secretary nominee, their deputy national security adviser, fox news personality. the false flag guy under nomination for secretary of state, fox news contributor. two of the people being considered for v.a. secretary, fox news personalities. you see it's a big -- if it happens on that cable news

station, it also suddenly occurs to the president-elect. so now that fox news has officially come on board with the russia hacked our election story, maybe that will matter to the new administration and the president-elect? even though 16 government intelligence agencies and all other sources of news in this country really couldn't break through to him on it. maybe now that it's been on fox news, the president-elect will believe that russia attacked the u.s. election. but the president-elect is not yet president. and today president obama said there would be consequences for russia for what they did. he's still really not saying what those consequences might be. >> the relationship between us and russia has deteriorated, sadly, significantly over the last several years. so how we approach an appropriate response that

increases costs for them for behavior like this in the future, but does not create problems for us is something that's worth taking the time to think through and figure out. that's exactly what we've done. so at a point in time where we've taken certain actions that we can divulge publicly, we will do so. there are times where the message will be directly received by the russians and not publicized. >> at a point in time where we've taken certain actions that we can divulge publicly, we will do so. there are times when the message will be directly received by the russians and not publicized. there aren't many points in time left for the administration. presumably president obama is talking about taking retaliatory action against russia in the next month, within the last 34 days while he's still president.

we all want to know what those actions will be, but if the obama administration does act against russia particularly if it acts very aggressively against russia, that's going to be kind of a remarkable thing for the transition, right? we're about to have the most pro-russia president in modern american history. one who refuses to criticize russia on anything. one who refuses to criticize the russian leader on anything. one who has been almost fawning, almost submissive when it comes to russia and russia's leader. he will apparently be taking office in the immediate aftermath of the u.s. government taking some kind of punitive action against russia and likely against its leader. obama's going to do something and then trump gets the ball. that's a heck of a thing. and if anybody tells you you know what those certain actions are going to look like from the obama administration, they're full of it. because we really don't know. lots more to come tonight. stay with us.

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i understand that we're at what feels like a time of unprecedented partisanship. and for a lot of people, regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, it just feels like a dark time in american democracy. but you know what? when freaking santa claus is getting arrested, when freaking santa claus is getting arrested protesting at the statehouse, it might be time for all of us to re-evaluate how we're doing things in this country right now.

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so we know how to cover almost almoanything.hing, even a rodent ride-along. [dad] alright, buddy, don't forget anything! [kid] i won't, dad... [captain rod] happy tuesday morning! captain rod here. it's pretty hairy out on the interstate.traffic is literally crawling, but there is some movement on the eastside overpass. getting word of another collision. [burke] it happened. december 14th, 2015. and we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ and here we are. north carolina with a third straight day of protests and arrests at the statehouse today. among dozens of other people arrested, police today arrested santa claus.

they arrested a woman nursing a baby. they arrested an elderly woman with a walker. all of the people who got arrested today in north carolina were there to protest just this extraordinary rewriting of governance in north carolina which was launched as a kind of surprise attack by republicans who are determined to strip power from the incoming governor now that north carolina's governor's race is settled and they know that the incoming governor is going to be a democrat. republican lawmakers called a sudden unexplained surprise session and passed legislation so the incoming governor will no longer control key state functions, key state boards like the ones that protect voting rights in north carolina. republicans are also making it harder for cases to reach the supreme court now that a majority of the justices on the supreme court they know will be

democrats. just for fun, republican lawmakers in this surprise session they gave their outgoing governor the republican governor who just got beat in the election who is only there for a couple more weeks, they gave him a one-time exemption in the law specifically so he could make a special appointment to one of the state's boards. it's an appointment to which he wants to name his friend's wife. the governor gave a six-year term with a six figure salary to the wife of his chief of staff and his ability to do that was created newly by this legislation that they just invented and dropped this week with no warning. when this emergency last-minute lame duck session began, there was some question as to whether the defeated outgoing republican governor pat mccrory, whether he would sign this stuff being handed to him by republicans in the legislature. the answer we now know is yes. he signed the first of these bills today less than 90 minutes after the legislature sent it to him. and they're still going. tonight republicans voted to -- look at this. slash the number of employees the new governor will be able to hire and fire from about 1500 employees to 300. since the new governor's a democrat, why don't we take away

1200 of the jobs he's able to name people to? they voted to require confirmation for the governor's cabinet nominees by the republican supermajority in the senate which previous governors hadn't had to do with their cabinet nominees. tonight the special session came to an end with that one law signed and the other one to strip more power from the incoming governor. that's now sitting on the desk of the outgoing republican governor, the guy that the incoming democratic governor just beat. this is banana republic stuff that's been happening over the last three days in north carolina. and by banana republic i do not mean the fancy version of the gap. joining me now is colin campbell, he's been at the statehouse from the beginning of this remarkable saga this week. thanks for joining us.

>> thanks for having me, rachel. >> do you expect that governor mccrory will sign this second bill that takes away so much power from the new governor? >> well, i think the likelihood is he probably will, but he's not said definitively one way or the other whether he plans to sign it. in the last hour released a news release praising the bill he did line about the election law. but one of the interesting questions for him, this is a bill that deals with the governor's appointment powers is the governor mccrory has actually sued the legislature before to get appointment powers back that they took away from him. interesting to see if he's comfortable with taking away appointment powers from his successor. >> watching from outside north carolina, the reason i said banana republic there was actually considered observation. this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that we're expecting -- that we expect to see in

american states. i mean, there are democratic held states that elected republican governors where the democratic legislature has not responded like this. like this is not a normal thing in other states' politics that you would strip power from the incoming governor once you learn he's going the be of the other party. is this something that's more normal in north carolina than it would be in other parts of the country? >> well, north carolina legislature particularly in the last five or six years since it's been under republican control has been very interested in putting more power in the hands of the legislature. the argument republicans made was legislators live in the communities that the people who vote to elect them come from and therefore they're somehow closer to the people and this is a conscious decision that they think that the legislature should be significantly more powerful and this the legislature was a year or two or a decade ago. >> but they're still giving governor mccrory the power to appoint somebody to a new job for six years on his way out the door before the incoming governor comes in. >> yeah.

and another member of his cabinet is getting a judge position that was also confirmed this week. >> that's amazing. and the number of positions, 1500 down to 300 in terms of the number of jobs -- >> they revised it up to 425. so it's consistent with what we had under the last democratic governor who left office in 2012. when mccrory took office they upped the number up to 1500 for him. now the same people are bringing it back down to 325. -- 425. >> wow. north carolina, a fascinating new suburb of venezuela. it has been a remarkable thing to see it unfold. we still don't know what will happen with that last bill. colin campbell, thanks for your reporting tonight. >> thanks a lot. >> those scenes of those arrests in north carolina, i mean, we've covered north carolina a lot over the last few years. the way they're going out from this election season is more than a bang.

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six days before the election, november 2nd this year, a retired general named michael flynn tweeted this. quote, you decide. nypd blows whistle on new hillary e-mails. money laundering, sex crimes with children, et cetera. must read. that must read tweet about hillary clinton and her sex crimes with children, that's now gone. and now former general michael flynn who believes stuff leak that and spreads it around, he's now slated to be national security adviser. michael flynn this week tried to quietly disappear that tweet, tried to delete it, except, thanks to the way back machine, god bless you, nothing ever really disappears anymore. so he did try to take it down, but he can't make it go away. that said, the conspiracy theory that i consider to be perhaps the greatest obama conspiracy theory of all time, that

conspiracy theory was pushed by the person who was just announced to be michael flynn's deputy at the national security council, that story, greatest obama conspiracy of all time and who pushed it, that's our last story of the night tonight, and that's next. stay with us. monday is the day the electoral college votes. quit smoking. but when we brought our daughter home, that was it. now i have nicoderm cq. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. it's the best thing that ever happened to me. every great why needs a great how. ♪ everything your family touches sticks with them. make sure the germs they bring home don't stick around. use clorox disinfecting products. because no one kills germs better than clorox.

monday is the day the electoral college votes. and to tell you the truth in most election years, that doesn't warrant calendar space, but this year it does. some of the electors have been asking for an intelligence briefing on russia interfering to help donald trump win. that request was denied. and now at state capitals across the country, protesters are planning on holding rallies. the voting for electoral college happens in every state capital. protesters are hoping to flip enough electors in states that went for donald trump to go for hillary clinton. the prospect that this is going to happen is very, very, very remote, but, again, the electoral college will vote on monday. we don't know how big the protests are expected to be. but anytime something is planned for all 50 dates you should

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good-bye after his final end of the year press conference before heading off for a two-week family vacation in hawaii. that's why we got mele kalikimaka. presidents are never truly away even when they are on vacation. who knows, maybe he will hold another press conference, however, this is likely one of the last times we will see president obama in this kind of a setting. and regardless of whether or not you have liked president obama or not, there are going to be plenty of things people miss about him. maybe one of the things that i will miss most about him is how crazy he made the people who opposed him. that has been an unusual thing and occasionally riveting thing to watch over the last eight years. there have been lots of conspiracy theories surrounding president obama. i think, though, that my all-time personal favorite conspiracy theory about him was

one from 2008, the secret truth that barack obama secretly isn't black. i love this conspiracy theory then, i still love it now. >> you know, if you're born christian in africa, you're given christian name. if you're born arab in africa, and there are a lot of arab africans, you're given an african name. hence, barack hussain. the father was from africa. i can't verify this, but according to this guy, kenneth lamb, barack obama is not black african, he is arab african, and yet this guy is campaigning as black and painting anybody who dares to criticize him as a racist. it is the biggest con we've ever seen. >> this guy is campaigning as

black. that happened on laura ingraham's show. that was not her. that was a substitute guest host who not only believes that barack obama is secretly not black. she is also who donald trump just appointed to be one of his deputy security advisers. there is a lot of concern about national security adviser michael flynn and his love of conspiracy theories and fake news stories. that fear was not alleviated when it was announced that one of his top deputies would be a fox news personality, now we have the announcement of who his other adviser will be, and it is the person who says that anybody who believes barack obama is black has fallen for the biggest gig.

-- biggest con i think i've ever said. that said, monica crawly does have a place at the newschannel. so deputy security adviser it is. that is it for tonight. see you again tomorrow. msnbc live is next. good morning, everyone, i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc headquarters. it's 7:00 a.m. in the east. 4:00 a.m. out west. here's what's happening -- >> i mean you were nasty and mean and vicious, and you wanted to win, right? >> his thank you tour talking about his supporters as he trying to change his tune. what i can tell you is that the intelligence i've seen gives me confidence in their assessment that the russians carried out this hack. >> blame it on the russians. president obama talks about hacking and the election. reaction this morning to what the u.s. could do about it.