electorate. but after spending most of 2016 talking about how divided the republican party is and how the divided party always loses, it turns out we're half right. the divided party always loses, but it's the democrats who were divided. those were sanders' elections out in washington state who said, no clinton, we want to make our sanders point. so the question for 2017 is who and what can bring democrats back together. because they've got to figure out how to fuse the sanders' wing and the clinton/obama wing. that's all for tonight. ari melber picks up our coverage right now. tonight, new allegations stirring up some big conflict of interest questions over the trump empire. some questions you may not have heard yet. we're digging into a brand-new report about trump cease son advertising apparently million-dollar access to their father, donald trump, and this is after the inauguration. also new, donald trump will go under oath in the lawsuit that he brought, and new details on the $25 million trump university

settlement he has to cough up. in other news, the durst interrogation video. why he says he was high on meth when caught on that hot mike with damaging statements. we begin tonight with two big reports on new allegations against the trump family selling access, reportedly, to the white house. first, the center for public integritity reporting today donald trump's sons launched a texas nonprofit to sell access to their father on, get this, the day after the inauguration. we can show it to you. here is what they filed with the state of texas. those names listed are directors gentry beach and tom hanks jr., along with donald trump jr. and eric trump. and they say for $1 million, you can enjoy a bald eagle package or for less, a mere half million the as grizzly bear or a quarter million the elf package. the $1 million gets you a private reception and photo opportunity for 16 guests with president donald trump or a multi-day hunting and/or fishing excursion for four guests with

donald trump jr. and/or eric trump and team. as you can see, we are reading their quotes, but we want to report late-breaking tonight, trump transition officials pushing back. they're depicting this as, quote, merely initial concepts that haven't been approved or pursued by the trump family. a transition official also telling msnbc tonight they're not involved in any capacity and they won't be involved in, quote, prizes for donors. meanwhile, the other story today, donald trump's brand-new hotel blocks away from the white house, but a source is telling the think progress website that the kuwaiti embassy, which has regularly held his kuwaiti day national celebration at a four seasons hotel in washington has now canceled its reservation after, according to a source, members of the trump organization were pressuring the ambassador to hold the event at the trump hotel. now, the ambassador is telling msnbc that report is, quote, totally false and unfounded. and the change in the venue, they say, was rather for a, quote, breath of fresh air.

"the washington post," though, has been reporting that foreign governments were already looking into usinghe trump hotel to get access. one foreign official quoted, and this is in a separate report saying, why wouldn't i stay at his hotel blocks from the white house, so i can tell the new president, "i love your new hotel." isn't it rude to come to his city and say, i'm staying at your competitor? so what happens if trump's children, who are trump advisers, break the law? well, trump aide and adviser, newt gingrich, has his own idea. >> in the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the white house the way he wants to. he also has, frankly, the power of the pardon. it is a totally open power. and he can simply say, look, i want them to be my advisers. i pardon them if anybody finds them to have behaved against the rules. period. and technically, on the constitution, he has that level of authority. >> let's be clear. newt is correct, the constitution gives the president

the power to pardon criminals. the larger question is, why would a president, who hasn't even taken office yet, be surrounded by people thinking about pardoning criminals in his own administration? joining me now with a lot of late-breaking news is jud legume who authored that think tank report on the kuwait officials. and norm who's been speaking out on a lot of these issues. we have so much i'm going to get to, jud, your story. but norm, starting with these other reports here, the trump transition is saying, well, we didn't get behind this. but i'm holding in my hand and we can put on the screen the texas filing. it's brand-new. it's four people. two of them are trump family members. it's last week. it looks pretty clear, norm. what do you make of this? and is this a problem if they are promising million-dollar sales access to the

president-elect? >> ari, of course it's a problem. you cannot sell access to the highest office in the land. if these reports are accurate and we knowtha that the trump sons did entity in texas, it's a naked auction to -- for million-dollar bidders to spend time with the president. it's extraordinary we're already seeing this, but it's not surprising that the sons are doing it, ari, because tone at the top. the father, the president-elect, has said that he feels the rules don't apply to him. he's wrong! one of the reasons that this and the hotel allegations are so disturbing is because you have the specter, in the case of the hotel, it's the reality, of foreign government money coming in. our constitution forbids donald trump from accepting foreign

government money in the first place. >> and norm, part of the question is whether they even get it, over at the trump transition. because the response wasn't, wait, we need to withdraw this filing in texas. we in no way do this. the response was, well, these are just, you know, general ideas we're brainstorming. they may be brainstorming, but i'm holding the package here. the bald eagle practice is a written offer for a private reception and photo op for 16 guests with president donald j. trump for $1 million. it doesn't seem like something that is just brainstormed at this point. >> well, we know that there have been a serious of these supposed that are non-brainstorming. we know that the president-elect's daughter sat in on a meeting with the head of state, japan, in a country where she's trying to do business. that she wore a bracelet, over $10,000 on tv that she then tried to sell. we know that the kids sat in on

the meetings with the tech executives. and then, you have this blurring of government and business lines. and we know that donald trump, himself is refusing to step away from his conflicts. ari, i'm afraid it's like the emperor's new clothes. everyone is afraid to tell the emperor that he is about to violate the constitution, not to mention law and just plain old good taste. >> and you say everyone. it may be that people told him exactly what he couldn't do, and that's why he canceled the press conference. we don't know why he gave two weeks' notice for a press conference, longer than usual, jud, and then canceled it. maybe there were requirements or restrictions proposed that he didn't want to deal, so he's trying to just move on. now, your story is different from this charity one. you have a separate piece of reporting, you say, a source told you that there was pressure, explicitly, from people on the trump side to book with their hotel on a federal

government. what did you find? >> well, i think what's important to realize is, and i talked to the ambassador a couple of times today, i tried to talk to them for over a week before my story came out and was not given a response. but i was able to talk to them today, and it's amazing how much of it they don't dispute. we know that they were scheduled to have this at the four seasons, prior to the election. that was in the early fall. we know that right after the election, they canceled that arrangement and signed up with the trump hotel. and we also know that this happened just a couple of days after the event which you referenced in your introduction, that the trump hotel had for diplomats there. and in my conversations with the ambassador today, he let me know that he was invited to that event. he wasn't able to attend, because he was out of town, but he did call them up and express his regrets -- >> and that's very important. there's a constitutional dimension to that, because if

these foreign governments are explicitly trying to put this money in the trump organization to curry favor with donald trump, that is exactly the kind of gift that is banned under the constitution, which is different than bribery, where you have to have an evenings exchange. you don't need an exchange, that's just banned. but on the flip side, you said you talked to the ambassador. i want to be clear for our viewers, the first story, there's a lot of evidence, because it's written down in the trump family's own name. the second story you have here is based on a source, but unlike the other story, the ambassador now tonight, you must acknowledge, disputing this. he's disputing your story, says you're wrong, and says they didn't do that. totally false and unfounded. what is your response to that? >> one, he's not denying that they're having it at the trump hotel. >> i don't want this to get lost in the fog. he is disputing the core point of why your story would matter. people can move a reservation,

that's fine. people cancel dinner reservations all the time. he is disputing the core of your story that it was moved in response to trump officials. >> it's ambiguous as to whether there was pressure or not. but i stand by my story that there was pressure. i talked to a source, as i wrote in my piece, with direct acknowledge of these arrangements. i've also reviewed documentation that confirms the source's story. and so, i stand by that story. i don't think he has any choice but to deny he felt pressure. his story is that it has nothing to do with the fact that this is the president-elect, that he just, by coincidence, happened to decide to move this to the president-elect's hotel, after the election, when prior to the election, he was not planning on it. that's his story. but i have done reporting that tells a different story. and i stand behind it. but regardless, this is a constitutional matter, regardless of whether there was pressure or not. and i believe there was absolutely pressure. >> okay. and i wanted to get your response there on the record on

that. norm, take a listen to more newt gingrich, where he says, look, this is a pie in the sky, the idea of a blind trusteeship. beuse so much of what is in e assets of the trump is known and that's just reality. >> you can't say the trump tower is not the trump tower or the trump hotel is not the trump hotel. and you can't say that the kids, who run it, aren't his children. >> what is your response to that? >> like most of what newt gingrich has said for decades, phony baloney. no one is saying to strip the names off the build or to disown the kids, ari. we're saying, do what every president has done for the past four decades in the name of law and decency. get an independent trustee. not a family member. turn your interests, your ownership, and your operation interests over to the trustee. let the trustee deal with it. all donald trump needs to do is

sign a piece of paper to lift this cloud from his head. the trustee will worry about all of that stuff. newt gingrich is just covering up for mr. trump's apparent resistance to advice. the papers are reporting, when people try to tell him he has to do this stuff, that he doesn't want to listen to them. he throws them out of the room. they used to call me mr. no when i was in the white house. donald trump needs a mr. no and he needs it badly. >> right. and with all this power here, if you are an incoming president and you look up tonight and you didn't that two of your children were incorporating two entities last week with two other businessman, you would think you would want to put out a statement other than just, we're brainstorming. you think you would want to say, a, we're focused on running the company or b, we're running the country, not starting new companies. we are going to stay on this

story. we appreciate both of your expertise and reporting, norm eisen and adjust legum. >> thanks, ari. still ahead, donald trump will be under oath in a lawsuit in january before he's sworn in. we'll show you what that means and why he looks different sometimes when he's testifying under oath on video. also, the berlin market attack, that manhunt underway this hour after authority release the only person detained in the case so far. a lot of news. stay with us. you're watching msnbc. when you have a cold, you just want powerful relief. only new alka-seltzer plus free of artificial dyes

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january is a busy time for any incoming president, but for donald trump, it's about to get busier. a judge just ordered the president-elect to answer questions under oath for up to seven hours in the first week of january. now, trump could get out of this if he wanted, because it's all about his lawsuit. he is suing two chefs who bailed on his d.c. hotel in response to statements trump made denigrating mexican immigrants. now, trump's testimony will be notable, because it could show a very different side of him.

on the campaign trail, of course, he is loud and plays tough. >> no! get those lights off! off! turn them off! they're too -- they're too bright! turn them off! >> i mean, first of all, this guy's a choke artist and this guy's a liar. you're with telemundo and telemundo should be ashamed -- no, no, you're finished. you've obviously been proven to -- >> but a very different donald trump emerges when you put him under oath. now, this is not something you see most presidents do right on their way to inauguration, but in some rarely-seen videos, a much calmer, even more pragmatic trump emerges. >> i think we would have really been helped if we would have had that restaurant that we wanted to have very much. i think it would have made the building more successful. and i think he would have done well. >> did it cause you any concern that all of these entities

wanted to apparently distance themselves from you in the wake of your comments? >> i'm a big boy, i understand. >> there's trump under oath in a deposition, polite, even understated. now, some critics say all of this shows that trump's tough persona is an act. that he's some sort of studio gangster that can't really hang in the streets. trump's aides counter that his versatility is actually a great skill for business or diplomacy. you have to have an ability to modify tone and strategy based t on the situation. well, whatever you think of trump's litigation skills, what's clear here is youave to keep using them. of course, there's another case, of course, trump u., where new details are appearing this week showing that trump must personally agree to the $25 million agreement. and trump promised to file after the election new lawsuits of women who accused him of unwanted sexual quacontact. many people have learned not to

take trump's pledge to sue as any kind of idle threat. "usa today" says he started 2,121 cases he's been involved in. joining me now is joe conason, and paul singer, washington correspondent for "usa today," who's been tracking trump's thousands of suits for his publication. what do we see, paul, when donald trump has to sit down and testify under oath? >> the two things are interesting. one, as you mentioned in the top, that he becomes a much more restrained human being. i mean, he acts very professional and speaks in very limited answers. he's not as sort of ongoing and loud as he normally is, on the stage. the other thing that's interesting, and i think this is more relevant in this case, he frequently takes the defense that his sons or his daughter bor worked out most of the legal

arrangen'tmen arrangements in these contracts. he doesn't know the details. from the clip you were showing, it's from one of the other restaurant lawsuits. the same thing, i don't know the details, my son worked it out, i know the generalities. as president-elect, he doesn't want to say that. he wants to be the guy in charge. >> it reminds me of the old "snl" church lady skit, how convenient if you don't remember any of the details. again, though, in fairness to strategy, that's exactly what you're supposed to do when you're forced to testify under oath. in response, here's donald trump without a mastery of many details or preparation in a deposition. >> what'd you do to prepare for the case? for the deposition? >> i would say virtually nothing. >> do you have anything on paper related to this case? >> no, i don't. >> did you have any understanding about the key business points in the lease negotiations? >> no, i didn't.

>> what's gouing on there, paul? >> i've seen this in a lot of depositions of prior cases. the lawyer will ask a question and he will say, i don't really have that information. my lawyers will get back to you. i don't really remember that agreement. and they'll show him a document and he'll say, that sounds familiar, but my lawyers know more about it than i do. in these depositions, he generally takes the position that he knows the general thing and his name is on the agreement, but he's not really active in negotiating these deals that he's involved in these lawsuits for. again, interesting to see as the president-elect. >> and joe, just on the politics here, he started this case, he could get out of testifying in january if he wanted to. it's weird, right? >> it is weird. you know, it's a perilous situation, ari, for anybody, any politician to be under oath, giving testimony that way. you know, we discovered in the paula jones case, when bill clinton was president just how perilous it was. and i think the fact that trump is so litigious himself, has threatened to sue people, has

used lawsuits to intimidate particularly little people in the past, could come back to haunt him. i mean, you know, as the saying goes, the sky is black with chickens coming home to roost, should these lawsuits go foard. >> and of course, as we've been pointing out, there's just a lot of gap here, and you just get -- if you thought donald trump got too much press as, you know, a candidate, he is the president. the president under oath is huge by any means. and yet on the trail, joe, he would always stress that he didn't settle. he would use his litigious nature to paint a picture that was just broadly inaccurate of him never settling. take a listen and then i'll get your response. let me get your response. take a listen. >> i don't settle cases. i don't do it, because that's why i don't get sued very often, because i don't settle. unlike a lot of other people. very easy to have settled. this is a civil -- let's see what happens at the end of a couple of years when this case is over. >> joe, go ahead. >> as we see from paul's excellent reporting, you know,

that was about as rue as many other statements that trump has made. he's settled a lot of cases. and he has used litigation, as i said before, to intimidate other people is and force them to settle when, perhaps, he owed them more than he settled for. so, he's settled quite a few cases. and the general point that he's making is true. what's interesting about his demeanor under oath is, he knows there's a consequence. you have to be careful when you're under oath. there's no consequence for anything he says on the stump. he can say whatever he wants, and he has. but when you're under oath, you better listen to your attorneys. and the attorneys are telling him to give these non-responsive answers. >> and joe and paul, you're both great reporters, which makes you great fact checkers, but you don't have the power to prosecute for perjury when you catch politicians lying. that is one big difference. joe and paul, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> thanks for having us. >> and an update on the trump university bill that we mentioned. it's $25 million and he's got to

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taking a look at international news, we're following the latest from berlin on that christmas market attack. tonight, an islamic state group claiming responsibility, although no public offer of proof meantime, police continuing to search for the suspect or potentially multiple suspects. on monday, 12 people killed, nearly 50 wounded when that truck rammed into a christmas street fair. now, it's still unclear if according to a authorities this was a planned terror attack. earlier the state department said does, quote, bear the hallmarks of previous terror attacks. nbc's matt bradley covering the story for us from berlin. what can you tell us.

>> reporter: ari, not much has changed in the last few hours, police released the suspect who arrived here in germany about a year ago almost to the day and applied for asylum. he was detained last night near the crime scene which is, of course, behind me. and as you mentioned, this was a large truck that rammed into a crowd of people, killing 12 and injuring dozens more. now, this investigaon is kind of back to square e, islamic state has declared that -- or claimed responsibility for this crime, but there still is no suspect. and that means that whoever committed this crime is still at large. but there's still probably some evidence that's going to be yielded from this crime scene. if you think about it, ari, and i should leave the legal details to you, but, really, there's two crime scenes here. there's the larger crime scene in which this perpetrator drove this truck into this crowd of people and killed 12. and there's a smaller crime

scene, inside the cab of the truck where police found a dead man, a polish national, who's believed to be the cousin of the company that owns the truck. now, this crime scene within the truck is probably going to be yielding some more evidence. and that could lead to the perpetrator. ari? >> matt bradley, appreciate your reporting. we'll stay on that story. now, coming up, the russian hack investigation. will there be an independent inquiry? republican mitch mcconnell doesn't want that. also, the robert durst interrogation video. why he says he was, quote, high on meth during the filming of the jinx.

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yes, yes! live whole. not part. aleve. robert durst is back in court, fighting over new video testimony from the millionaire about the multiple murders he's been accused of over the years. now durst is one of the infamous defendants and fugitives in modern american history. authorities have pursued him on spec suspicions for murdering his wife, murdering his friend in order to cover up murdering his wife, and from murdering his neighbor in an incident that led to a trial where durst admitted to dismembering that person's body, but the jury ultimately acquitted him of murder. tomorrow, a judge will hear arguments over new testimony from durst, who ran into even more legal trouble after that hit hbo documentary "the jinx" focused on his case. nbc's gatti schwartz has more. >> reporter: after more than 2 1/2 hours of questioning, a frail robert durst sitting across from the prosecutor now charging him with the murder to

have durst's longtime friend, susan berman. >> i think you want me to go through details of susan. >> i do. okay, now, what i would i ask for? >> tell me. >> if i tell you those things, i'm pleading guilty. >> reporter: the video and audio of the interrogation were recorded separately and were submitted as two different pieces of evidence. nbc news is showing them together for this report. throughout the nearly three-hour interview, durst and the prosecutor go back and forth. the prosecutor asking why durst would agree to be interviewed for the hbo series "the jinx," a documentary that profiled the mysterious deaths of three people in the millionaire's life. >> when i did the interviews for "the jinx", i was on meth. the whole time, i was on meth. >> reporter: but when challenged by the prosecutor, durst said that doing meth didn't affect the voracity of his interview. in one of the most pivotal scenes in the documentary, the producers hold up an envelope

written by susan berman's killer and a letter durst wrote to berman years before, confronting durst about the similarities. >> can you tell me which one you didn't write? >> no. >> reporter: shortly after -- >> there it is. you're caught. >> durst caught on a hot mike alone in the bathroom muttering to himself. >> what the hell did i do? killed them all, of course. >> reporter: taking a page from the documentary in the interrogation room, the prosecutor asks the same question. >> can you tell me which one of these you didn't write? >> i couldn't begin to. >> reporter: while denying they were identical, durst did acknowledge they were similar and when asked directly about the deaths of susan berman or his wife, kathleen durst, who went missing in 1982, durst responds with this >> if you had killed kathy, would you tell me? >> no. >> if you had killed susan, would you tell me? >> no. >> reporter: prompted by the

d.a. in texas, durst does discuss killing and dismembering his neighbor in texas, a case of which he was acquitted of murder. >> cutti inting up that body i doing was the hard way. cutting through a bone is not easy with anything >> reporter: and then before the interrogation ends, durst asks the prosecutor, what's in it for him. >> what's going through my mind is, if i tell you what i know, that answers your questions, what can you possibly do for me? >> reporter: durst's attorney is out outraged over the release of the interrogation. >> this could very easily affect the jury pool. >> reporter: that was gatti schwartz reporting. and we have more. o joining me now from los angeles, criminal defense attorney, tom mesereau, who has defended michael jackson, suge knight, among many others. you're certainly qualified. before we get into what was on the tape, explain why from a defense perspective, you think the tape might not even make it

to court? >> reporter: well, my understanding is that this prosecutor, who's very experienced, very savvy, and has been investigating mr. durst for a long period of time flat-out knew he was represented by a lawyer. not just one lawyer, various lawyers. and instead of contacting those lawyers and asking for an interview, he flew right to louisiana, went around their back, and got someone who, i understand, has some mental health issues and some physical health issues, to sit down and talk to him. i think it's unsavory and unprofessional. >> so that's on whether it gets used. now on what's in it. this was a fascinating interrogation. we just saw some of it. part of what the prosecutor did was sort of soften durst up over time and say, well, we're only going to talk about what you want. we can talk about it in hypotheticals. walk us through what he was doing as an interrogate. >> well, he was basically trying to do a number of thix. first of all, he was trying to calm mr. durst down, get mr. durst to relax any defenses he may have. he wanted to get him talking. he wanted it to be

conversational. he wanted it to be a little folksy, and he was doing his best to make sure that mr. durst answered what i consider to be trick questions that were not going to help him no matter what he said. >> what's a trick question in that context? >> well, a question like, if you were guilty, would you say so? how can you give an answer that helps you? it's a very, very savvy, tricky question and he had someone who he thought was vulnerable to a question like that, who frankly shouldn't have been there to begin with. >> you know, one of the caricatures of anyone accused of a violent crime in culture and public life, often the way we cover it in news is oh, this is a bad person that did a bad thing. when, in fact, people who come closer to these situations, even when there are crimes committed often find, these are people, everyday people who may have done a bad thing. what did you think of the prosecutor emphasizingthat, an almost compassionate framework, if he had an agenda, because he started talking back and forth with durst about how he

prosecuted cases with nice guys who got angry, made a mistake, did one violent thing one night what was that all about? >> that was to do two things. number one, the prosecutor is hoping this interview will be played to the jury when this case goes to trial, if it does. and he wants to get some information to the jury through his questions. that's obvious. and number two, he thought these questions would get mr. durst talking. you know, this is a very experienced, savvy prosecutor. he's been around for a long time. he's been successful in a number of high-profile cases. and as i said before, mr. durst had nothing to gain by sitting down with him. and the prosecutor should have notified his attorneys before he sat down and asked him a single question. >> tom mesereau, thanks for your time. appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, that russian hack investigation. will it be independent or run by republicans on the congressional intelligence committee? also, does first lady michelle obama have a political future ahead? (war drums beating)

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we've done some news, we've done some policy, now, we're just doing politics. we've got liz smith, democratic strategist and former deputy campaign manager for martin o'malley, as well as rick tyler, cruz spokesperson and msnbc political analyst. so we'll begin with a political fight that just about everyone agrees has high stakes. russia hacking the election. now, mitch mcconnell still rejecting calls for an independent select committee to investigate. he says a congressional panel run by republicans is fully capable. republicans just want that committee to handle the inquiry. but chuck schumer, the top democrat, is making this his first big fight with trump, why is chuck schumer making this his first fight with trump? >> this is an area where he can find bipartisan agreement, and we've seen that with senators mccain, graham, and now even gardner, to some extent, coming out on the same side here. but as marco rubio said during

the campaign, and i think it was very wise, that this might be an attack on democrats today, but tomorrow the russians could turn on the republicans. and so what chuck schumer is trying to do is to say, this is an attack on all of our democracy and as such, it deserves bipartisan attention, independent attention, you know, not just thrown in the middle of all of these different committees. and republicans hawks, people who have been fighting russia for years, can find a lot of middle ground with him on it. i think it's a smart political fight for him to pick. >> so chuck schumer's the incoming leader and this is his first fight, so we'll see how he gets along with the democrats. he's using this, of course, as leverage, because he can block nominations and do a lot of things to make republican life difficult. so there's going to be an investigation. it depends on which form it's going to be. and my sense is that republicans aren't going to try to let it get out of control. they are going to have an investigation and see what happens, but they're not going to let the democrats use it as a political battering ram. >> but doing it as the select

committee is actually the way to do it. you can have mcconnell and schumer and you can have a report that leads to bipartisan support. and bipartisan respect. and in some ways, that's a lot better way to do it, more bipartisan -- >> yeah -- briefly -- there's the political side to it, right, and then there's also the work flow side. which is, is this important enough, if you want to give people the benefit of the doubt and say the thing about this substantiavely substantively, is it important enough to zero in on it. >> i think it is important, but what's -- you've got to juxtapose that against, trump wants to come in and it's critical for him to have momentum in his first hundred days and going into his first two years. and if this becomes a side show, in other words, it undermines his credibility, undermines legislative momentum, takes up news space, then that's what they want -- >> right. and i'm going to go to one other thing. you're almost raising a paradigm where donald trump will be

looking at this based on how it affects him and not the country. but i would hope that's not the case. >> except that you're going to have democrats who are going to try to make it so that donald trump is not as strong, because, look, first thing they're going to do -- >> you're saying they're going to use it as a political cudgel. i'm pausing there. you'll still get to talk. michelle obama being asked by oprah about her political future, which is something that keeps coming up, even though she's pretty strongly ruled it o out. >> would you ever run for office? >> no. no. >> no kind of office? >> no. that's one thing i don't do. i don't make stuff up. i'm not coy. i'm pretty direct. if i were interested, i would say. i don't believe in playing games, you know. it's not something i would do. but it also speaks to the fact that people don't really understand how hard this is. and it's not something that you cavalierly just sort of ask a family to do again. >> two things jump out there.

one, that was michelle obama's version of, "did i stutter? i've said no, stop asking me." both of you know, sometimes you want to tell reporters that. but number two, a very interesting dynamic where she's saying, this was a lot of strain on our family once, we don't just jump into it again, which could be read as an echo of what the clintons went through, twice, or it could be a seeming warning to the trumps coming into office, hey, you don't mow what it's like until you've sat here. >> to all of the above. i don't know in how many languages she needs to say no. but this is someone who has always stated, she does have a distaste for politics. if anything, i think it's more indicative of the fact that democrats are a little bit in the political wilderness. they keep try to hang on to the stream of michelle obama running for president, because she is very talented. but i'm going to take her at her word and believe her that she is not going to run for president. >> rick, liz is saying that

democrats are pathetic and sad and just delusional. >> separate pathetic and sad. >> we'll do a headline later on one of the websites. liz smith, colon, democrat. but is there something revealing here in that the fan fiction about michelle obama is fine that she's a graceful, wonderful woman, and first ladies are often popular, but it might go to something deeper in the problems of the democratic bench? >> well, the democratic bench is almost nonexistent. but i don't think michelle has any -- the first lady has any interest in running for any office. having said that, they are going to stay in the city, which is sort of unprecedented. >> you mean washington? >> yeah. so i think they're definitely going to have an influential and outside role. we'll see what they do. they're young and i think they'll have an exciting future. >> staying in the city is something insiders don't care about, but it means that barack obama is much closer to trump. i was speaking to a white house official recently who said, yeah, the calls come in. more so than in other handoffs, trump is calling in. >> yeah, and michelle obama

spoke about that last night, and i thought it was incredibly gracious of her to say that we are going to do what the republicans do when my husband was elected and we're going to root for him and be there for him when he needs us. and that's a different place from where a lot of democrats are today. and i think it made her look extremely gracious. and a lot of democrats would be smart to follow her loead. >> it's interesting. liz smith, rick tyler, always a pleasure. rick, your piercing blue eyes match your light blue shirt today and it always throws me off for just a second. thank you for being here. from the board room to the situation room, how did we get here? we've got a reality tv show expert to explain the problem with covering donald trump as entertainment. that's straight ahead. with my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the possibility of a flare was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal. until i talked to my doctor.

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here's a quiz for you. do you remember the first reality show in history? it was a 1973 documentary called "american family" about a real family in santa barbara, california, and the producers couldn't have predicted the parents of that family were going to get divorced on camera, but it revealed a dynamic that's powered reality tv ever since. conflict is key. in 1992, mtv debuted a new series based on that show, "the real world," and unscripted tv was never the same. then business executives figured out another ingredient. celebrities, adding celebrities to unscripted reality spawned several hits that americans did love, "flavor of love" debuted ten years ago.

then "the osbournosbournes," "cy fit club," "keeping up with the kardashians." and michael herschborn argues that celebrity reality tv is popular because it's a logical extension of our deep human instincts for competition and status played out across a larger than life celebrity tableau, celebrities that americans have come to identify with. hers herschhorn has written that the grand daddy of them all, "celebrity apprentice," works because it offers a picture of darwinian competition in a hamster cage. a set of modern psychological experiments that place real people in artificial situations to see what happens. now, as far as many voters were concerned, this past presidential campaign was offered as a series of celebrity reality contests that was good for ratings and obviously good for the master of that medium, donald trump. but is this lens any way to cover a new government, let alone run it? our guest today, fittingly, is

executive michael herschhorn. thanks for being here. >> great to be here. i feel like i'm the stripper that comes in at the end of the party, just to lighten the mood up a little bit. >> you are that person. >> an honor to be that person. >> and you're here because you understand this election. this has dominated this election cycle, but many are concerned about trump as a celebrity president. what is your advice to president concerned about that? >> well, i think it's important -- i think what some of the conservatives have said is correct, to not take him literally, to take him seriously, but not literally. trump was speaking to an audience of people that really understood reality tv. people like us, like well-meaning, you know, urbanites tend not to watch reality tv. we don't understand that language. and it's a very different language from the one we're used to talking. it's a language that likes conflict, it's a language about being an alpha male, about dominance, and it doesn't actually seek any kind of resolution. and trump is really the greatest celeb reality talent of all

time. >> you just said something so important, i want to repeat it. reality tv fights don't seek resolution. so who what do they seek? >> they seek endless conflict, because conflict is interest. >> when you say conflict, it sounds familiar to donald trump and the way he has orchestrated not only his electoral college victory, but also the transition period. conflict with kellyanne conway, does she speak for him or not. conflict with mitt romney, is this a real date or not? >> right. it literally is the bachelor down to the candlelight dinner with mitt romney, after which he's kicked off the show at the end of the hour, right after the commercial break. so, everyone has been kind of sucked in, including this network, cnn, and other networks, into really covering this presidency or the incipient presidency as a kind of reality show. everybody wins. it's a proven formula that's great for ratings. it's, of course, terrifying for the country. because it has nothing to do with governance.

and i think the thing that i found about reality talent is that reality talent, really great reality talent either doesn't know or soon forgets the difference between reality and television. and trump feels to me like someone like where we don't really know if he understands what the joke is or not. and that, if i came across this guy and i was like i have a chance to put him on a show, i would be like, this guy's awesome. i'm sure he's a lot of fun at a poker game or a dinner party, but as president, it's kind of terrifying. >> so when you say the press shouldn't, in your view, fall into just covering this as reality show celebrity entertainment, but when that is what is on offer, right, that's the difference, is, the president gets a certain amount of built-in coverage, no matter whom he or she is, and as you just outlined, there are other incentives for this. so what do you actually think should be done differently against that onslaught of tense, conflict-oriented content? >> i think it's very hard, because we're all almost like rats in a cage.

we're just feeding off of this. it's almost about not watching the birdie, right? it's when he brings al gore in to talk about the environment and appoints a rabidly anti-epa person in charge of the transition, all of these things are misdirects. so it's crucial to just not pay attention at certain points. like, we're all the saps that on any reality show, the person that breaks down and cries is the loser. so for liberals and progressives who are moaning and are upset and angry, that's a win in the reality tv production paradigm. and giving trump that is really something that i think he wants. and that people who support him want. >> from that prism, do you think that he did better in the debates, according to the audiences you describe it for celebrity tv, than he was given credit for at the time? >> i think he was playing a completely different game than the one we were watching.

and that game was, you know, when we go into a pitch meeting with a reality star, we say, go crazy. do some nutty stuff. like, you know, it doesn't really matter what you say, whereas, i think, in the news business, people are looking at him based on content. it really isn't about content. it's about show, it's about performance, it's about what jeb bush said, which is sort of endless chaos. >> and yet briefly, final point is that reality shows themselves are not as popular as they once were. >> right, it's almost like they sort of birthed their demon spawn and now kind of roll up and die. so, you know, reality is going to be around for a while, was it's not the cultural force it was, which is sort of fascinating. >> is that because it's been diluted? >> i think it's lost a little bit of the sense of fun, when we were doing it eight to ten years ago, the buyers to a certain degree have forgotten why reality is fun, michael

hirschhorn, thank you for watching. i am ari melber. and you can e-mail me about reality tv or the demise of everything we're doing at ari@msnbc.com, feel free. "hardball" starts right now. first family feud. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm joy reid in tonight for chris matthews. once upon a time, bill clinton and donald trump were friends, or at least friendly. they golfed together, trump donated money to the clinton foundation, he defended bill clinton in the press. bill and hillary were even guests at trump's third wedding to melania. then came an election where donald trump attacked hillary clinton as crooked, dishonest, unstable, unhinged, a criminal, a nasty woman, and oh, yeah, the devil. he also paraded out a series