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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  December 19, 2016 9:00am-10:01am PST

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russian hacking issue to change the election results is unfortunate. that actually under mines our democracy more than any other conversation we are having now. >> what did trump inc. know and when? were they in touch with the russians? those are open questions and the electors have a right to know what the answers are before the election if the u.s. government has the answers. failure to act? obama's former defense secretary said american inaction emboldened vladimir putin so meddle in the u.s. election. >> i think putin saw the united states with drawing from around the world. i think there is actually the problem has been that president obama's actions often have not matched his rhetoric. his rhetoric has often been tough. but then there's been no follow up and no action. >> and secret santa. the putin-trump connection, the gift that keeps on giving for
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"saturday night live." >> donald, i want to state officially that we in russia are so happy that you are u.s. president. >> well, thank you. >> we think you are the best candidate. >> sure. >> the smartest candidate. >> no doubt. >> the manchurian candidate. >> i don't know what that means, but it sounds tremendous. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. 538 presidential electors meeting in state capitols and d.c. to make donald trump officially president. today's magic number 37. that's how many defections it would take to throw the trump presidency in doubt. any surprise rebellion would throw the election to the republican controlled house of representatives. joining me now, katy tur, washington post political correspondent ann geurin, mark murray and jacob soboroff.
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mark, let's talk about the electoral college is doing today in ale roing time zone across the united states and what difference it would make. >> the electoral college when you are a voter in new york, cafornia or texas, when you vote for hillary clinton or donald trump, you are voting for their slate of electors. what happens is if donald trump ends up winning a state that those electors, the people participating today are the ones who end up casting ballots. it is very unlikely we'll see a huge number of defections. these are your party officials, people who have been elected and don't want to vote against how that state ended up breaking. this is why we are talking about this versus why we talked about -- we didn't talk about it in 2008 or 2012. this was a really close election. there are still bitter feelings. when you look at the numbers according to the "new york times" that donald trump's electoral vote margin is 46 out
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of 58 elections. of course we'll discuss the popular vote where donald trump ended up trailing hillary clinton by 2.1 percentage points. that put him in 47th place out of 48 elections where you have had the popular vote. that's one component. as you mentioned our current electoral college count now has donald trump at 306 electoral votes, hillary clinton at 232 and so for donald trump to end up getting below 270, there has to be 37 defections. i don't think we'll see that. we might get a dozen. that might be the most. certainly it will be difficult to get to the 37. then just one final note. when you look at the number of faithless electors we have had it's been just 9 since 1948. we'll probably get close to that number of at least might have more faithless electors than we have seen in one election for a while. but clearly you have had nine
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since 1948. you need 37 to get donald trump below 270 and i don't see it happening. >> indeed, jacob, you are there in the state capital in texas. what are you seeing there? >> i want to be clear. all we know for sure is that there will be one faithless elector. there is word that a democrat in michigan may vote for bernie sanders instead of hillary clinton. but there is one here in austin texas who around 2:00 local time, 3:00 on the east coast will be casting his vote not for donald trump, although of course donald trump won and won with a big margin here in texas. the process is really quite fascinating. what happens is the electors from the state and it corresponds to the number directly to the members of congress from the state. second to california across the entire united states. they will go into the house chamber here in austin, texas.
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they will have a ballot like you or i do or the viewers do on election day. they will fill out the ballot for president and vice president. what happens then is those ballots are tallied, sent to washington, d.c. one copy of the ballots is sent to vice president joe biden and the president of the senate. another to the federal archives. on january 6 in washington, d.c., at our nation's capital, those ballots will be tallied and counted. it's only then the electoral vote is certified to become president-elect of the united states going on to be inaugurated january 20. we are seeing a small group ornd 200 people protesting wanting to catch the electors. only nine electors cast faithless votes over the course of the last century. that's far short of the 37 donald trump's opponents need to stop him from becoming the
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president-elect of the united states and ultimately president. >> the reason why this has been more fraught than it otherwise has been is the russian hacking and the russian hacking leaking and the pinpointing by nbc news by cynthia mcfadden of putin since the election and since donald trump cast grave doubts to dismiss the speculation from what the intelligence community has been saying. the latest trump tweet says if my many supporters acted and threatened people like those who lost the election are doing, they would be scorned and called terrible names. that's a reaction in part to hillary clinton's leaked audio from the donor thank you to some very angry donors last week. >> it's interesting to hear donald trump calling out other people for calling folks terrible names, but the
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transition and donald trump himself including the team are pushing back on the russian hacking scandal. kellyanne conway said it was nonsense for the electors to use it as an excuse to change their vote. now she's blaming the white house. josh earnest in particular, for ginning up the controversy. when asked why donald trump wasn't taking what the cia and fbi have concluded seriously, why he wasn't admitting that russia may have had a hand, why he was not calling openly for a full investigation and saying no matter what, this is the most important thing that should be done in the early stages of the administration to make sure the american public know that we are not going to allow a foreign government to interfere in our elections in any way. kellyanne conway said i want to see the evidence, basically, calling on cia director john brennan to tell her, the public and donald trump what the evidence was that suggests that
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russia may have been involved in trying to interfere in the election. but the trump team doesn't necessarily feel as if they need to go out and fully admonish russia or fully agree with the cia and the fbi, particularly because there are poll numbers that show a number of their voters don't really seem to care about this. nbc news did polling over the weekend and found that 55% of people were concerned about russia interfering in the election. that breaks on partisan lines. 86% of democrats are concerned. only 29% of republicans wor concerned. when they were asked if they believe russia helped donald trump, the number is lower. only 37% of americans say they believe that russia helps. on partisan lines while 61% of democrats felt that way, andrea, only 8% of republicans felt that way. this is not an issue that they feel they need to answer to to
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the base of support at least, even as the majority of the country does feel it is a problem. >> let's talk about whether or not the russian involvement in this which we have reported which has been confirmed is being taken seriously enough. john podesta's first interview since the election. he, of course, was the largest victim of the hacking. ten years of his e-mails were hacked and leaked. this is just part of his interview with chuck on "meet the press". what does distorted mean? >> a foreign adversary directly intervened into our democratic institution and tried to tilt the election to donald trump. >> and that's the basic issue with all of the focus by the trump people, whether or not this was an attempt to
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delegitimize them. the criticism of hillary clinton's comments. some thought sour grapes. russia, a foreign power tried to intervene in the election. whether or not they succeeded isn't really the issue. >> podesta is trying to redirect attention and outrage to the idea and his allegation and that of the u.s. government. not only attempted to meddle and fish around in the election which they and other foreign powers allegedly have done in previous elections. but did so with an intent. and that's new. he's making that allegation frontally. the white house appears to agree. but no one so far has said that intent to help trump equalled an outcome that did help trump.
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any way, whether there was an intent or whether that intent was successful from the trump transition team's perspective that's bad news. to your point, they see it as an attempt to undermine and delegitimize their victory. >> what john podesta didn't appear willing to talk about, he conceded they had made mistakes when asked about wisconsin. you and i traveled for a year and a half on this campaign. what they are not yet willing to talk about, they are not coming to grips with the fact that their analytics were wrong. he talked about how they fielded twice as many people in wisconsin as president obama's campaign, success campaign had. that isn't the point really. the point is whether she went there, whether they went to enough places and whether the volunteers were doing what they expected in wisconsin, in michigan. we know there was not enough travel to the white working class parts of pennsylvania
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where donald trump did well. >> and their turnout operation as large and ambitious as it was in philadelphia fell short of the mark. so there were a couple of ways in pennsylvania that, yes, they could have done more. whether they would have been successful is open to question. certainly there were things they chose not to do or did late in pennsylvania that could have been done earlier. >> this is not acknowledging there was clearly an effect from the comy letters after the wikileaks that broke at the same time as the "access hollywood" tape. within an hour or two of "access hollywood" the latest worst hit of trump's campaign you had the beginning of the wikileaks leaking of john podesta's e-mails which took a lot of attention away from the negative
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story developing against donald trump and was a reminder of the private server. they were completely unrelated, but any time we talked about e-mails and leaked e-mails, a lot of the voters were thinking, oh, that's the private server. it was a negative against hillary clinton with the very republican college educated, suburban voters around milwaukee, philadelphia that she was needing to get against trump. >> you're exactly right. it's important to note it's very difficult to gauge the comey or wikileaks effect to say how many points did it take from hillary clinton. following the race for the last year and a half as you and i and ann were doing throughout that hillary clinton's toughest moments were always the ones where she was front and center in the news media environment when the talk was about e-mails. when the talk was about her, her numbers were never that great. when the focus was on donald trump that made her situation better. in the last two weeks of the
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campaign we had an environment and a news environment that was a lot more about hillary clinton or e-mails than about donald trump and negatives. >> thanks to mark and jacob, katy tur and ann gearan. the russian ambassador to turkey has been shot during the opening of an art exhibit in the capital of ankara. richard engel is live in istanbul. how did security break down and what do we think the motives are? >> reporter: details are still coming in. it seems karlov was speaking at a russian sponsored art photo exhibit featuring russian and turkish artists. a few minutes into the remarks a man in a suit, clean shaven, dark suit and tie stood up,
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shout shouted allahu akbar. you can hear gunshots and he drops to the floor. there are media reports that say the gunman showed some sort of security badge either posing as a police officer, powas a polic officer to gain access to this diplomatic event. in addition to saying allah allahu akbar spoke turkish and perhaps arabic as well. there are reports he said something about aleppo saying the crimes in aleppo can't go unanswered. we are still trying to confirm this. there were numerous -- two russian reports saying he's died. but so far we have not been able to confirm that. so far the russian foreign ministry is saying only that he
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was shot, hospitalized and the kremlin is in touch with turkey for the latest developments. >> richard engel, thank you very much. obviously a very difficult place in the world and a troubling shooting today. coming up, more on russia's role. a colorado congressman who doubts the russian role in the hacking. pout. down came the rain and clogged the gutter system creating pout. a leak in the roof. luckily the spider recently had geico help him with homeowners insurance. water completely destroyed his swedish foam mattress. he got full replacement and now owns the sleep number bed. his sleep number setting is 25. call geico and see how much you could save on homeowners insurance.
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i would characterize it as a thinly disguised covert operation intended to discredit the american election and to basically allow the russians to communicate to the rest of the world that our elections are corrupt, incompetent, rigged, whatever. therefore, no more honest than
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anybody else's in the world. i think that given the unprecedented nature of it and the magnitude of the effort, i think people seem to have been somewhat laid back about it. >> bob gates, former defense secretary to george w. bush and president obama. former head of the cia under bush 41 with a blunt assessment of russia's role in the presidential election. california republican congressman joins me now. thanks for being with us. now that bob gates has come out and there has been a statement by the fbi as well as the cia. are you willing to accept that russia tried to outcome the influence of the american election? >> first, let me note when you were introducing me before the break you said i had doubt that russia did this. i have never expressed doubt
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that russia had hacked into these e-mails and made them available to the american people. i never doubted that. what i have said is i don't care who provided us the e-mails. the e-mails were factual and thus the american people. this is just a frantic effort to try to discredit an election because the american people rejected the liberal left effort. the massive campaign against trump. and the media cannot accept that the people have rejected them. >> we are talking about 17 intelligence agencies, the fbi. the issue is whether a foreign
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power tried to hack and succeeded but also leaked it to wikileaks. it's not the issue of output but the interference and whether that hacking -- >> the american people -- >> let me just finish. >> okay. >> needs to be retaliated against or should have been prevented, whether the cause -- and this is one of the things i have posited. whether the cause according to bob gates was weakness on the part of this white house. >> let me just say again if people are giving the american people why are you so upset about it? no one said this at all affected the outcome of the election by the fact that the american people now know information they didn't know before. asked if we could arrange an
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event to dislodge reagan support in the upcoming election. now that was treason. accepting wikileaks that they actually hacked out of the system involuntarily and said we want to know what information you have. that's just the american people getting more information. >> so you're saying that stolen information is an appropriate thing to be leaked by a foreign power. would you like it if russia hacked your e-mails and produced ten years of your g mail account? had all of us reading through whatever is in your e-mails. >> whatever -- >> stolen information put out for everyone in the world to see. >> well, for one thing what we need to do is focus on e-mail security. but when you are a public official, you know that you are the target of such hacking. that's number one. when we are talking about this particular case, let's figure out. what's worse -- hillary destroyed e-mails that were
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under subpoena and she destroyed them. >> does that justify. if the russians are, whoever it was hacked into the system and gave the american people that information that provided more power to whoever. >> those 33,000 e-mails were under her purvier. according to state department rules. >> she destroyed them to keep information from the american people. she destroyed them. now we are being upset by the people who gave information to the american people. those e-mails were under subpoena. she destroyed them. >> excuse me, sir.
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>> you're mixing -- >> if they did hack to give us the information the american people deserve to have that information. >> let's say you are mixing hillary clinton's private server which i have long criticized which is a completely separate issue from the russian hacking into the dnc and john podesta. a completely -- >> it's exactly the same issue. it is exactly the same issue. >> it is not. >> someone destroying evidence and running for office. >> well. >> and they don't expect that their e-mails then can be hacked into and the american people aren't going to get to know what she destroyed? that's the real issue here. >> it was reported you were under consideration for a position in the new administration. you are comfortable with the russians having done this to the u.s., having hacked, in fact, into the state department. you're comfortable with russian hacking against u.s. targets. >> we have systems that are
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vulnerable to hacking, whether it is the russians or anybody else. when you have systems available to hacking, information will be provided that perhaps somebody wants to keep secret. in this case the american people because there is an election involved should have had the right to know what's in the e-mails anyway. >> just briefly to nail this down, are you still -- do you believe under consideration for some role in the administration? there's talk that cow youtube deputy secretary of state to moscow. >> actually we were talking about the second spot, the number two spot at state. i decided it's better for me to be in congress and a senior member of the foreign affairs committee and the science committee to further those goals that president trump has in mind, rather than trying to be part of the bureaucracy. >> thank you very much.
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good to hear from you. thank you, congressman. coming up, shocking verdict. one of the biggest economic players on the world stage guilty in court todayme. more coming up next. this is "andrea mitchell reports." ♪ music playing
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for the financial times. >> christine lagarde runs the international monetary fund. she came into it in difficult circumstances because her predecessor had just been forced to resign amid this lurid sex scandal. she has managed to stabilize the imf, a potentially difficult time. she's gone through the financial crisis in the aftermath and the euro zone crisis. the fact this is coming now is very unfortunate, very damaging. the result today isn't devastating. the imf is meeting this afternoon. the imf board to decide on her fate. they will probably let her continue. it's debilitating at a time when frankly, the global economy needs a calm figure at the helm of the world's largest multilateral financial organization. >> in fact, you've got brexit
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and the aftermath of that and whatever is going to happen as the uk and teresa may, the prime minister negotiated that ex-tri indication. there were a lot of big issues out there. >> that's still the greek crisis as now questions about currency turmoil. china is an issue people are watching nervously now. yes, christine lagarde earned respect on the international stage for her calm composure. the fact she pulled the imf together and really got the staff to rally around her after this damaging scandal that came before her. and she's basically managed to create a lot of consensus and strike a deal with member governments in the euro zone which is a nightmare to deal with. the reality is most of the board members, most want her to continue. but at the same time this is damaging and casts a spotlight on a curious wrinkle of global
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international affairs which is traditionally the head of the imf has come from france. in fact, the last four out of the six have been from france. given the scandal bubbling, that power is increasingly shifting out of europe into countries like china and elsewhere, many emerging countries are saying, well, why do we need to have the head of the imf always come from france given we have the scandal around madam lagarde and domenic strauss khan out before because of a scandal as well. >> parenthetically you have other international organizations, the u.n. in great -- let's say disregard because of its failure, total failure in syria. u.n. agencies are working effectively but u.n. peacekeeping is famously ineffective. >> yes. >> and the world bank under jim kim. not exactly a major player.
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>> exactly. that's a good point, andrea. one of the things that will cause the imf to basically rally around christine lagarde and give her the support is not just that. we should stress it. it said she was guilty, didn't impose a sentence. her lawyer characterized it as a half victory. the reason why they will probably rally around her is they are very nervous that in the current climate with donald trump coming in as president next month having indicated he's pretty unhappy with the global order in place in recent decades there is concern that actually support from the imf from america could falter under a trump administration. if so, the imf definitely wants a strong figure at the helm that everyone can unite around. i expect to see the imf try to move past the scandal as fast as they can. >> thanks so much. >> thank you.
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>> we have terrible breaking news from turkey. the russian ambassador to turkey has been shot and killed. we'll get an update from richard engel standing by in istanbul next. ♪ ♪ see ya next year.
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and our update on the breaking news out of turkey. the russian ambassador to turkey died after having been shot today at an art exhibit. chief foreign correspondent richard engel is istanbul again. this is just terrible news in every level. fill us in with what you know. >> well, a lot more details since we spoke a few minutes ago. the russian foreign ministry saying that moscow's ambassador to turkey, andrei karlov has died. he was speaking at an art exhibit, a few minutes into his remarks when a young man, cleanly shaven in a suit and tie standing behind him -- behind where he was speaking in front
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of an audience pulled out his pistol and opened fire on the ambassador. then he began to shout first in arabic and then tirkish. he said allahu akbar he's a jihadi who has taken allegiance to muhammed and then in tirkish said don't forget aleppo and syria. you will not taste security if our brothers and sisters don't have it. everyone who participated in the -- all those will pay heavily who helped create the cruelty in syria. so the gunman clearly trying to link this shooting to russia's campaign in syria and the fall of aleppo which just happened a few days ago. there are numerous reports in this country that the gunman was
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a turkish national and may have been a police officer which would explain how he was able to get into that location dressed in a dark suit, carrying a weapon and taking that very sensitive position standing behind the ambassador as he gave his remarks. >> that's still shocking, richard. we are showing a still, if we can get it back up of the suspect, alleged suspect with a gun in one hand speaking with his hand raised and the assassinated russian ambassador at his feet. >> he's holding up one finger. that's a symbol a lot of jihadis to show one god. if you look at photographs of isis fighters and other fighters who process a similar ideology they often adopt that pose with one finger raised as a symbol that there is one god, one path,
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one faith. he starts shouting allahu akbar, holds up one finger. the ambassador went down like a stone. you could see it in the video. he just dropped. there is even a little bit of a footage of an exit wound as the bullet apparently entered from his back and came out around his collarbo collarbone. >> obviously at close range in a small space. if you could take a step back, we are talking about the relationship, of course, the backdrop here is turkey and russia, the conflict over the shoot down of the turkish plane. erdogan playing a real power play after the attempted coup that failed against erdogan himself. there is a whole political neck sauce there. >> reporter: we'll see how it plays out and the repercussions. obviously moscow will be furious about this. and the question is whether the
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blame will come down. there will be some anger at turkey obviously. if in fact it is confirmed this man was a police officer as reports in this country indicate. how did he get in the room, where was the breakdown of security. relations between russia and turkey had been terrible until a few months ago when there was this reproachment between the two countries. a lot of anger will focus on syria itself. aleppo has fallen. the next cities that the syrian government and russia are likely to target are one of the last rebel strong holds in and around the city of idlib and its environment. it is possible we could see a very angry response on the ground after this escalation in syria but there will be questions asked about did turkish authorities do enough to protect this critical diplomatic individual.
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>> extraordinary. thank you for the reporting. coming up, casting his ballot. bill clinton putting in his vote as part of the electoral college. he's an elector. after a break what americans say about the electoral college and the election. this is "andrea mitchell reports." amazing, too. bill clinton as an electoral college member. for adults with advanced non-small cell lung cancer
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well, a humorous take on electoral college day. it is election day part two. 538 members of the electoral college meeting across time zones starting at noon on the east coast despite protesters arguing that russia's interference is reason enough for electors to defect. joining me jeremy peters. a serious subject despite satire from snl. but let's face it. despite what kate mckinnon and others on snl are portraying no real protest will make a difference. donald trump is elected. they will confirm the election. if they didn't the house of representatives would. >> that's right. this reminds me of earlier in the year when there was a movement of republicans trying to derail the donald trump nomination. they tried to figure out a way to contest the convention and that didn't work. that didn't stop the media from covering it as if it were going
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to be a true contested convention. of course it was not and the media love as little bit of tension, drama, and amping up the stakes when, indeed, we all know what the outcome will be and it won't be as exciting as some would lead us to believe. >> there may be pivoting now but donald trump initially angrily rejected this as an attempt to delegitimize him but the briefings he received before election day pointed to russia. it is accepted by intelligence, the fbi, this is john podesta on "meet the press" in his first interview since the election with chuck todd. >> i would argue it's very much unknown whether there was collusion. russian diplomats said they were talking to the trump campaign. roger stone in august
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foreshadowed the fact they had hacked my e-mails and those would be forthcoming. when he said he was in touch with wikileaks and julian assange. carter page went to russia before the republican convention and met with a person in the russian hierarchy responsible for collecting intelligence. what did trump inc. know and when? were they in touch with the russians? >> so you've got questions being raised by former clinton campaign chair and at the same time a lot of people pointing the finger at clinton campaign folks. there are a lot of donor displeasure. $1.2 billion. he acknowledged to chuck there will be an accounting. people, democrats want to know where did their money go? >> $1.2 billion for an election that hinged on 77,000 votes. most people's telling of the time wasn't supposed to be close
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at all. the clinton campaign and clinton herself want to explain themselves to their donors. that's what the event thursday night was about when she said vladimir putin had a personal vendetta against her. but that doesn't square with the facts on the ground. it doesn't explain why she didn't campaign in wisconsin, why she didn't campaign heavily in michigan and why they let pennsylvania slip away and they could have campaigned there harder when donald trump swept them in all three states. somebody said to me earlier the russians may have hacked her e-mail account. but they didn't go into her calendar and delete her rallies in wisconsin. she bears some responsibility here. by not acknowledging that i think she's allowing that those in the democratic party who don't want to talk about the uncomfortable truths that their party is losing its grasp with working class america, allowing
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them to avoid having a difficult conversation. >> i want to rerack if we can get that back up. bill clinton in albany today as an elector. how bitter, uncomfortable that must have been for him, casting a vote obviously for her in new yo york, the electoral college is clear. for bill clinton to be in albany as the electoral college is voting today. when you realize it is only 77,000 votes nationally. she won by 2.8 million. it's just an extraordinary miscalculation on everyone's part. >> it really is, andrea. it should not have been this close of an election if you believed the clinton data they had early on. this is a campaign that relied heavily on that sophisticated data operation, polling, modeling. what they did is they failed to
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realize what people were thinking in the country. they focused on the scientific instead of the personal. they missed the big picture. >> science isn't always the right answer when you come to politics. thank you very much, jeremy peters. >> thank you. >> earlier in the program i talked with dana rohrbacher who had tough talk about the russian hacking and the impact of the intervention in the u.s. election. >> i'm comfortable with the fact that we have systems that are vulnerable to hacking, whether it's the russians or anybody else. when you have systems that are available to hacking, information will be provided that perhaps somebody wants to keep secret. in this case, the american people because there was an election involved should have had the right to know what's in the e-mails anyway. >> joining me now, dr. evelyn farkas. now a senior fellow at the atlantic council. welcome. >> thank you. >> the whole notion that the
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american people had the right to know what was in private e-mails by then private citizen john podesta is extraordinary. >> yes. they have the right to know that russia hacked in to the dnc system and also into hillary clinton's campaign system. so into john podesta's e-mails. beyond that the public has no right to know anything else. they don't have the right to know what's in your e-mail or mine. i find it extraordinary he's saying it's okay to have a police state and the government should know what's in everyone's e-ma e-mail. >> as long as the product is factual rather than not factual. he was under consideration at one point for deputy secretary of state. that's now a position that's wide open, perhaps. it could be elliot abrams, richard haass. a lot depends on rex tillerson and what works for them as they look at confirmation issues and the relationship to russia. that's front and center. are you surprised to see officials including donald
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trump, the president-elect with so much praise for vladimir putin after what we have seen in ukraine? >> i'm shocked. i'm even more shocked that donald trump has denied the intelligence reports, that he still hasn't come out. i understand it may be political. i don't know why he has to be so defensive about what the intelligence community told us with regard to the hacking, that it was done to influence the elections to help him. the reality is, as you mentioned earlier, the election wasn't won by russia for donald trump. it may have had an effect or it may not have. it doesn't matter that it's russia. it could have been saudi arabia, china, iran. i would imagine, i would hope that tomorrow once he's feeling less defensive that the president-elect will say, you know what? we need a joint investigation. yes, congress should proceed with what the senators have proposed as of this weekend. and look into what happened.
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just like we did after 9/11. this was an attack on our democracy. >> let's talk about the advice the president-elect is getting chiefly from michael flynn, his designated national security adviser, a post that's not confirmable and the deputy k.t. macfarland. they have yet to appoint an assistant to the president to counter terrorism to replace lisa monaco, the most pivotal figure in the battle against isis. reports that they may not nominate someone, that michael flynn thinks he can be both national security adviser and assistant to counter terrorism. what's your advice? >> my advice would be that's a mistake, especially if you consider that your top priority. i'm worried about how this incoming president 13we7bds to prosecute the war on terrorism. he has to be careful to strike a balance between being tough and bombing them, as he said. and also dealing with the
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recruitment issue. as you bomb them you can cause new recruits and see radicalization. these things happen because sometimes of brutal measures. i'm not saying that's necessarily why this man unfortunately shot the russian ambassador. but if you are not careful with the tactics you use and putting it within a context of a broader policy to counter terrorism then you can run into increased radicalization to include in the homeland. so if it's your top priority you should appoint someone who is very skilled, very experienced on combatting terrorism, not just when it comes to the military and the intel world which we know general flynn knows. >> thank you very much. thanks for your help today. more ahead. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc, the place for politics. and crest complete has a sugar shield to protect teeth from sugar found in everyday foods. crest complete. shield your teeth from sugar. so sugar may visit, but it's not sticking around
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ifbe ow y ge onldbeulmir ch on facebook, on itte hallie jackson is next on msnbc.
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hallie in warm florida. >> sunny florida. hi, everybody. i'm in miami just south of where president-elect donald trump is at his resort in palm beach. we are watching breaking news out of turkey. the russian ambassador shot and killed in the an art exhibit where he was speaking. turkish officials say the attacker shouted al akilahu akb and condemned the killings in aleppo. the latest from bana in aleppo. this 7-year-old got a lot of attention with tweets. now there are buses to evacuate the people there. back here state side members of the electoral college voting today. this hour the electoral voting begins in wisconsin, in minnesota and in three other