look." i'm halle jackson alongside louis burgdorf. see you tomorrow. for now, "morning joe" begins now. ♪ >> ho, ho, ho! >> >> do you hear it? good morning, everyone. it is thursday, december 22nd. let's play it a little bit. so nice. >> let's play it a little bit. >> it's going to make us happy. ♪ >> come on. that's not traditional. >> with us we have former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. i was going to make him sing. >> you don't want to do that. your 2 million viewers will disappear. >> chair of the african-american studies -- >> 2 million viewers? willie will tell you that you have to count armed forces radio. well over 87 million every morning armed forces radio. >> in washington, nbc political analyst, he will sing for us,

former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele. >> look at that christmas vest. celebrating baby jesus' birth. >> and white house correspondent for "the huffington post" sam stein. >> where's the hanukkah music? >> would you like to -- why don't you sing it for us? >> it's too early. i don't want to do that. >> no. i don't want to. >> front page of "the new york times" has a lot of great stories here. fascinating stories. first of all, sign ups jump for obamacare. people are voting with their feet here. if republicans believe they're going to repeal this law without having something in place to replace it, they are making a mistake that will crush them in

2018. mark it down, republicans. just mark it down. >> you don't take away -- >> you can make them better. >> you can replace it. you don't have a plan to replace it right now. health savings accounts and that stuff, that ain't going to cut it for the people who already know they have health care. we'll talk about this in a second. but the suspect in the berlin attacks, they knew. they knew about him. they wanted to deport him, but apparently they didn't have the right papers. also the trump kids citing a quagmire saying they won't get involved in charities. i think being in new york, you would understand this because you're in politics and have been in politics a long time. you might have understood it quicker than the trumps. if you're ivanka trump and st.

jude's hospital comes in every year and asked you to donate and you do that and you make st. jude's hospital a lot of money and then they come to you this year. sure. and then suddenly it's on the front page of "the new york times" and instead of doing what you've been doing all these years, you're trying to do something improper and unethical. i don't think it's the case. it really does underline and highlight there are a new set of rules and even things they think they're doing whether to help st. jude's hospital or somebody else, they just got to be extraordinarily careful. along, especially, with their father. >> we've had plenty of examples in the past of children, siblings, whatever of presidents who have gone off and done things. some well meaning like a charity. some less well meaning and have got in trouble for it. >> like billy. that was good stuff. that was a good cause by the way. >> we're in a gray period now. we're in between administrations. i think in terms of once he's

president, you've had ethics offices from both the bush and obama administration very clear that you can't do this stuff. it just isn't allowed under the rules. >> so i think they'll figure that out. i wonder, a coffee. let's say ivanka is not in the white house. >> is there a product that trump hasn't branded yet. >> you're being snide. to be honest with you, i'm not blaming you for the press coverage on things like that, but if you're doing a coffee for st. jude's hospital and over the years people, go, i'll pay $20,000 to sit with such and such and have coffee, you know, we have these charities where people will come to this set or go somewhere else or watch you go to your company and print money and people will do that and contribute to do that. i guess what i'm saying is isn't there -- i don't know. i know she's not going to do it anymore. is that unethical? >> apparently the ethics people

think that actually when you're in office or child of a president going out and raising money explicitly for different causes. >> for st. jude's hospital? really? >> i think so. >> what if ivanka was working for, let's say, the clinton foundation to raise money? that was the standard here. are you raising money with the ability to actually then gain access to someone in the administration? the problem here is that ivanka is going to have a seat at the table. yes, it's a charitable cause. it does good obviously st. jude does intense good. but because she's part of the administration and explicitly working in the transition team and because donald trump has said he's going to turn to her for advice on policies like, for instance, paid leave, then it becomes a question of are you actually paying for access? >> really good point there. one difference is this is st. jude's hospital and not the trump foundation.

i understand what sam means. it's not quite as much sort of inside dealing where you pay to the trump foundation which forwards our name. but, yeah, it is a good -- i think it's a really good question. it's a quick -- >> it's a great question. i think we can't really get at it because we haven't settled questions around the conflict of interest. if you have a broader cloud over the issue, we can't get to the substance of the question that you're asking. >> before you get to this question of the charity, which may be well intentioned, they are a wash in conflicts. you saw yesterday that they settled two union fights that he was having over unionization in las vegas and in washington because otherwise it would have ended up in front of the nlrb which he appoints. you have a hotel in washington he owns where he's a tenant leasing from the federal government that he controls. >> we have spoken out on that. i don't think anybody should go to that hotel. they'll never make enough money

to be worth the horrible signal that is sends there. i'm talking again coffee. charity. david axelrod coming on rai raising -- $100,000 from donald trump for an epilepsy foundation and do we put jared and ivanka in a different place than we put the boys if they're not in the white house. >> from what i have seen they are trying to pour through this. it really is -- the incoming is quite incredible. i'm sure to an extent had no idea what was allowed and not allowed. the coffee situation, the problem is people could be buying access to ivanka. obviously. >> and since she's going to be

in the -- >> she's been doing it all these years. >> if she's going to be in the white house and working on women's issues and paid leave, that's much easier. >> she has real, i think, a real platform in mind. wants to do a lot of good with it. has to figure out exactly what can and can't be done and that's quite frankly a problem that will confront anyone. >> a lot like sam stein. he has big plans. big plans. >> let's get to some of the top headlines. the massive international manhunt is intensifying for a tunisian national identified as the suspect behind the deadly truck attack on christmas market in berlin. we now know that amri arrived in july of 2015 and lived mostly in berlin. he was mobile and used a variety of aliases.

german police labeled amri as a risk and monitored him for months. he was scheduled to be deported after his asylum request was denied in june. that was delayed because he didn't have identity papers. >> it would seem like a good reason to deport someone if they don't have the right papers. >> they need papers to deport him. let's bring in nbc news correspondent hans nichols joining us live from berlin with the very latest on this. and this question. hans? >> reporter: he didn't have a valid passport. tunisia wasn't acknowledging him so they couldn't deport him. this is the front page of the newspaper. this is the mass market tabloid that really kind of gets at germany's it. it basically means deportation fail. now, here's what's happening

this morning. the christmas market is open here. you can just see it right behind me. you can walk along the path of where that truck jumped the curb and went along memorials everywhere, candles. moments of silence. to give you the other side, i spoke to the pastor of this memorial church. he said second-guessing authorities on this, which in general germans are very reluctant to do. second-guessing authorities, he said, isn't a very christian attitude in this season. he also said it wasn't a very adult one. a mixture on how much authorities are to blame. we know for six months he was monitored and they didn't continue that monitoring. he was initially -- they started to monitor him because they thought he was planning a burglary where he would take assault weapons for some sort of attack. even with that sort of threat, they had one extension of monitoring him and not a further one and stopped monitoring him in september. and in so many ways, guys, it

reminds me of the conversation in paris where they simply do not have the resources to monitor all of these radicals. guys? >> hans, nbc's hans nichols, thank you very much. president-elect donald trump took a couple quick questions from reporters yesterday about the tror threat. >> in the wake of the san bernardino attack one year ago, then candidate trump called for a total and shutdown of muslims entering the united states. later in the campaign trump stopped talking about a muslim ban saying he preferred the term

extreme vetting. in interviews, candidate trump endorsed the idea of creating a data base of muslims which the transition has recently denied. also yesterday, trump seemed unfamiliar with a statement the transition put out in his name on monday. the statement said about the truck attack in berlin, "isis and other islamic terrorists continually slaughter christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad."

>> all right. much to sort through there. michael steele, first of all, help me out on the muslim ban deal. obviously he caught a lot of backlash from that. he late in the campaign started talking about he wasn't going to do muslim ban but extreme vetting from specific nations. i heard him say that a couple weeks ago. specific nations that were war-torn and had a lot of terrorists coming out of them. i think that's the last statement he's made on this. am i correct? >> i think that's right. and so from what i'm hearing the extreme vetting position is where this administration would like to be. the language around a muslim ban is very toxic as they try to build, you know, new inroads and relationships here in washington and around the country. so i think on the heels of something like this, it gives donald trump an opportunity to

clarify to your point the position of the administration which the reporters were trying to get to yesterday. it also gives them an opportunity, joe, to talk about how the global community needs to be better coordinated to avoid the kind of gaps in information gathering and gaps in intelligence gathering that allows them to fall behind what the terrorists are doing. puts them in a position where the idea of a muslim ban or extreme vetting is less the target of those who would be opposed to it and focus is more on how do we globally together work to avoid this from happening in the future. >> the fact that you can't deport someone that you think is going to do something, commit terror acts against your country is another country that won't take them is problematic to say the least. this headline in "the new york times" is something the trump campaign needs to take a look at. the ambiguity yesterday in that

press conference will lead to headlines like this, which says right there that trump appears to be supporting the muslim ban once again based on his vague comments yesterday. i do not believe that's the position of the administration, but steve rattner, he needs to clarify. >> he needs to clarify. a couple other things. one, you have the specific problem of someone that claims political asylum and there is a long standing international protocol that people can claim political asylum and countries will deal with that. the second problem you have is that these refugees and displaced persons and terrorists even are much closer to europe than they are to here geographically so they are pouring into europe. the third problem is that europe is a continent with no borders but no single police force or security apparatus to track them. they don't know who is where when. while it's possible things have happened in this country, especially in our situation located where we are and with

our security apparatus and what they have is night and day. >> when it comes to security, europe is just the worst case scenario. they have no borders. no unifying police force. if you're a terrorist, you say why don't we just go to brussels because they're just not serious. you can go from brussels anywhere in europe and watch these attacks. >> in the reporting we saw the resource questions. it's not only the geography of the situation but also questions around do they have the money? are they allocating the resources to do the kind of policing to prevent such acts. i'm interested in trump's response to the transition team's press release. we saw islamist terrorists attacking christians and he corrected it. this is an attack on humanity. i'm interested in the kind of -- the coordination that he seemed not to know about the press release and the correction. what did that suggest?

>> exactly. i think that's fascinating. first of all, the first one can be explained better than the second one. >> i think the correction was hopeful. >> the correction was nice. >> i think the first one, sam, where he wasn't quite aware of the statement sent out in his name, that happened during the campaign at times. i think the correction actually was as some of us have said was actually hopeful that he generalized it to make it more of a fight against humanity instead of just framing it in terms of a holy crusade against christianity. >> he pulled back the curtain a little bit on how these press releases get made. often times it's the product of a communication shop. the principle will get a glance at it and sign off on it. occasionally they don't. i'm not surprised that trump wasn't aware of the statement. i think you're right, the fact that he globalized it more

beyond christianity is an interesting development and something you would imagine a barack obama might do. and maybe even get criticized for doing. but this sort of gives us a window into trump's real world view, which is he doesn't necessarily view this as an epic religious battle but as a humanitarian issue and something you can't just put into christianity versus islam. the question is does he implement that into counterterrorism policy? i don't think anyone knows what his counterterrorism policy is right now in part because he hasn't actually clarified it in some time. >> still ahead on "morning joe," the kremlin says diplomatic talks between russia and the u.s. have frozen but the state department says they don't know what russia is talking about. >> you know why? they're not talking. they're frozen. >> we'll speak this morning with ranking member of the house intelligence committee about that. what is the real reason that john bolton didn't get picked -- >> this is my favorite story of

the day. >> as secretary of state. "the washington post" may have unearthed the answer. >> it doesn't really matter. >> yes, it does matter. >> it means it worked out fine. >> it worked out fine. i don't care if it was his glasses. >> there's a song. i believe it's a beatles song. we'll talk about it. we'll be right back. >> get rid of those sideburns. >> what sideburns? >> you heard me. you hippy. >> get rid of those sideburns. >> look, i don't know what you think sideburns are -- >> don't argue with me. just get rid of them. >> mattingly, i thought i told you to trim those sideburns. go home. you're off the team for good. >> fine. still like him better than steinbrenner.

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why certain people are not trump's ideal candidates for administration jobs. >> ideology or what? >> "the washington post" reports that president-elect trump wants his administration figures to look the part. case in point, john bolton? quoting from the "post" several of trump associates said they thought john r. bolton's brush-like mustache was one of the factors that handicapped the bombastic former u.n. ambassador in the sweepstakes for secretary of state. donald was not going to like that mustache said one associate who spoke on the condition of anonymity, please. thank you very much. i can't think of anyone close to donald that has a beard that he likes. >> this reminds me of when judge bork was interviewed and everyone was going after his precedence. he was, like, i just don't know

that people trust somebody with a beard like that. every time i see him, i confuse him with somebody that i grew up with actually and watched on tv every morning and maybe that's donald trump's problem too. captain kangaroo. >> alex. that's not right. >> it is. do you want captain kangaroo as your number two person at the state department. >> this is ridiculous. this is ridiculous. i think of my father who doesn't have a mustache but he's one scary guy. >> sam, you don't know who captain kangaroo who is. >> i do know who captain kangaroo is. this is terrible. awful. >> there is one difference between captain kangaroo and john bolton. captain kangaroo's bushy eyebrows are brown.

>> bolton does not remind me of captain -- >> do you get a brush to brush that thing? >> what if he showed up tomorrow and had a clean shaven face? that might change the dynamics? >> it's too late now. is this actually true? if it is -- because if it is, this is totally crazy. it's totally crazy if this is true. >> why are you sure it's not? it was said that one of the reasons trump took so long to find a secretary of state is he wanted someone that looked like a secretary of state. >> rex tillerson doesn't look like secretary of state. he looks like a corporate ceo of exxonmobil. >> claire mccaskill said she knew he would pick mike pence because he looked the part. he did do pageants. >> this is a crazy way to pick a cabinet.

>> i think you're revealing yourself and you're revealing yourself because you're angry, sam, because you -- i can finish? sam has a mustache and beard and knows he's disqualified now from serving in donald trump's administration. >> it's funny but it's not funny. >> donald trump met with two ceos who he has taken to task recently over what he says are the high price tags for contracts with the federal government. in tweets and public comments, trump has criticized the cause of lockheed martin's massively expensive f-35 jets and says the cost for new air force one built by boeing was "out of control." he also suggested the order be canceled. >> yesterday trump welcomed boeing ceo and lockheed martin.

>> we're all focused on the same thing here. make sure that we give our war fighters the best capability in the world and do it in a way that's affordable for our taxpayers and his business headset around that is excellent. talked about air force one. same focus on making sure we get the best capability to make sure the president is secure and that we protect national security and that we do it affordably. >> costs down. primarily the f-35, need to get the cost down. that program is very, very expensive. >> security concessions from lockheed martin? >> it's a dance, you know. it's a little bit of a dance. we'll get cost down and get it done beautifully and these are great people. amazing people. >> lockheed didn't talk after

the meeting but a statement issued saying she appreciated the opportunity to talk about the f-35 program and cutting costs with the president-elect. >> it's a lot easier if you're a boeing ceo to take care of the problem surrounding air force one instead of a $4 billion budget. maybe it's 2.5 billion. you can work that out. f-35 problem is a massive problem. it's an extraordinarily expensive program. it's not going to be easy to cut those costs. >> all true. i think the broader question is whether this is what trump should be doing while he's waiting to become president-elect and there's a lot of problems in the world as we were just talking about. the f-35 is a problem but is it really the biggest problem we face right now in this country? >> it's a big problem if you look at the defense budget. >> there's that story in "the washington post" a few weeks ago about $125 billion of waste in the pentagon budget. if you read the story carefully, that was over five years. it's 25 billion a year.

25 billion a year in a $4 trillion budget is not nothing. >> 25 billion adds up. i think if you look, a lot is symbolic whether you look at what he did with carrier. with carrier he sent one message to ceos. with boeing and lockheed martin he's sending another. if you do business with the government, i've got no problem calling you on the carpet if i catch you overcharging us. >> i think that's more it. i appreciate what steve is saying. you're right. there are bigger issues for the president-elect to be focused on, and i'm sure they are. at the same time, these are little wins. these are little signals that he can send to a broader community to say a couple things. one, we're not going to play this game the way it's always been played. we'll take a closer look and bring more scrutiny to the types of programs that you're getting paid for particularly if we're talking about saving the taxpayers money, we're going to do that. i think that sort of helps

embolden the remarks made during the campaign. a lot of supporters out there appreciate that. now, once he's in the oval office to steve's point, we'll see how it plays out. right now i think something like this works more for him than people want to give him credit for. >> also, mika, it's sending a message to members of congress specifically, you know, on the defense appropriations committee or armed services because you have a debate over one of these weapon systems and it's amazing how it goes across party lines and you can see who has lockheed jobs in their districts and who has boeing jobs in their district and of course the more money for these programs, the more jobs in their home districts and so sending a message not only to ceos but also to members of congress that it's not going to be business as usual. >> so steve has done the math. he has his charts. he has found out that there are

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>> what do you think? i want to ask you. what do you think about when, let's say, you have a tv show and you retweet. >> i know someone that has a tv show. >> you retweet people saying that you're handsome and that attacking somebody who is on the other end, they say, i'm watching you. he's handsome. would you retweet that if somebody did that? >> that would be very weird. the word would be needy. >> that's so needy. makes me sad this christmas season that there's so many needy sad people out there. >> hallie jackson and in washington, columnist at the washington examiner, kristen's

latest piece looks at russia and the republican party and writes in part this. "in 2012 when mitt romney named russia as our greatest geopolitical foe, democrats stuff scuffed and accused republicans of trying to ignite a new cold war. now it is democrats who sound like cold warriors. president-elect trump's overall favorability in the same poll comes in at 44% and nobody is claiming that america loves trump. a majority of trump voters view russia as unfriendly, despite in the same poll saying that they think trump views russia as more of an ally." kristen, explain. >> there have been a lot of discussions lately about how the republican party is now in love with vladimir putin and it certainly is the case that the polls have changed pretty

dramatically in just the last few years. if you go back to 2012, 2013, democrats slightly more positive toward wikileaks and slightly more positive toward vladimir putin but we're still talking very, very, very negative. very small shades of ay. what's been fascinating is to watch the way now in which the discussion of vladimir putin has come partisan and people are falling into their partisan camps on this question. every time there's a headline about the election being hacked by putin, there's a group of trump supporters that all they hear is vladimir putin wanted to stop hillary clinton from being in the white house. i made a joke that if clinton campaign was the titanic, you could get 30% of republicans these days to say they're favorable toward the iceberg. it's become a partisan debate rather than one about who is or isn't america's ally. it's about who does or doesn't like the president. that's caused more democrats to say they dislike putin and

wikileaks at the same time slightly more republicans, far from a majority, say they are positive about putin. >> how does president-elect trump navigate this? >> it's funny. i'm thinking the real implications here are going to be how the president-elect sees these numbers. we all know that he likes to look at sort of where his supporters and the american people now that he's president-elect are. i think looking at this you have to wonder how does it influence what the policy will be toward russia and then the flip side curious about kristen's take on this is how russia feels toward president-elect trump. we know it's more favorable obviously than toward president obama but they're not overly optimi optimistic. extremely enthusiastic necessarily. at least not yet. >> put that poll back up that we just put up for a second. approval and disapprovals of putin. that's just disgusting. i mean, that's just really, really disgusting if you're driving in the car at 35% of trump voters have a favorable opinion of vladimir putin and

only 9% have a favorable opinion of barack obama. >> unfavorable 51 to 90. >> this is partisanship very clearly. we're seeing this not just in poll questions about vladimir putin but almost any poll question you ask as soon as you insert a name like barack obama. as soon as you bring up something that is in any way tied to the presidential election, it doesn't matter what it is. you could come out and say what's your favorite color and if all of a sudden you said donald trump's favorite color is blue, suddenly you're going to see an increase in the number of republicans saying their favorite color is blue. at the same time if you said donald trump's favorite color is blue, you'll see the number of democrats saying that's their favorite color decrease. everything nowadays is being viewed through this partisan lens and especially this discussion of russia. so long as the claim is being made that donald trump's presidential election victory comes with an asterisk that he

didn't earn it. he got it because putin intervened for him, it will remain linked to this partisanship and we won't be able to have a nonpartisan objective discussion about what we should do about these really troubling allegations of what russia did in our election. >> it's partisan madness that reminds me of the poll in 2005-2006 where it may have been a majority or close to a majority of democrats believe that george w. bush knew about 9/11 before the attacks came. just partisan madness run amok. >> we need to drill down on what we immediate by partisanship. when partisanship leads us to draw certain kinds of conclusions that would lead us to identify with someone that we think is over and against the interest of the country. it's one thing to say partisanship leads us to say if donald trump says he likes green, we like blue. it's another thing to say, right, that partisanship will lead us to identify with someone who obviously for some people at

least stands over and against the country's interest. i'm trying to drill down. >> let's drill down a little bit. a new york magazine article the day before said that americans these days and not just republicans, they just aren't afraid of russia the way they used to be afraid of russia. and that putin is not the boogie man that many of us actually believe -- that i believe he is. like for a lot of americans, what cold war? >> so not only does it apply to russia, it also applies to china and also to a range of bad actors or good actors. however we want to describe them. i'm trying to think what does it mean when partisanship colors our lens in such a way that we can't think about the issues. >> it's been horrible. it's been horrible now for about 30 years. >> i don't disagree with that. put it in a slightly different context. you had a guy running for president who wanted you to think he was close to putin and had a relationship with putin and could do business with putin. whatever you want to call it. he picks secretary of state in

the same category who got a medal of friendship from putin so his people look at him as their leader and they say well if this guy thinks russia is not so bad, maybe we should think russia is not so bad. then you get into partisanship thing because the other chart you showed up there, the democrats who disapprove of putin have gone the other way in part because the republicans have gone with they've gone. now we're in this backwards situation of what i least grew up thinking -- ronald reagan thought it was the evil empire and we were soft in my background. >> michael steele? >> i think ronald reagan was right and still is. i think mitt romney was right in 2012. i think the onus right now is on republican leadership. forget this partisan/nonpartisan crap. they need to take seriously what our intelligence community is finding and has found. and this idea that all of a sudden now we're going to give a pass to listen to some of the republican leaders out there talk about this and play down

what the russians and putin have done in this election. irrespective of donald trump. it's not about that. it's about your fingerprints on our election. our republican leadership taking to heart what mitt romney said just four years ago should now come to the table and square that up. i think not just with the republican party but with the american people. >> hallie, we're talking about the embracing by some people of just doubling down on what michael just said of a man who led an invasion against crimea, violating an international treaty that we entered into. we get the ukrainians to give up nuclear weapons and said we would do everything to make sure their borders and their sovereignty was protected. >> help shoot down a civilian airliner. >> killed over 200 people. a lot of women and children on that plane. assassinates whenever he feels

like it. journalists assassinates political opponents in the shadows of the kremlin. this is not -- any republican saying that they see vladimir putin favorably are idiots and i wish they would get out of my party right now. >> these points have been made for the president-elect. he knows this. you can't underestimate the 18 months of messaging from donald trump that is pro-russia to people who support him and i would say this. picking up on michael, this issue -- specifically russia -- real concern inside the intelligence community. i pressed an official on it this week. if he doesn't trust -- if the president-elect doesn't trust intelligence assessments he receives from the intelligence community, how are americans supposed to trust the cia, the fbi and some of these analysts? the response was it may be different when he's president because he'll get more briefings, more operational briefings, et cetera. i'll say this. i think the dni positions, director of national intelligence has not been picked yet. a sense inside the team they

want to wait for russia stuff to settle because it will be a lightning rod for whoever is named to that position. >> thank you very much. still ahead, rattner's charts this morning. dig into a really important issue concerning the economy and the election. he's going to break down the numbers, which point to a real crisis in this country. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ ♪

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>> all right. >> i think we're old. >> i'm saying -- the version you want is the classics. >> we want classics. >> it's like they did "rudolph the red-nosed reindeer" and they had carlos santana doing it.

we want classics. >> carlos santana? >> i'm making stuff up now. we want the dudes from the '40s and '50s. >> steve rattner has charts looking at issues connected to presidential election. >> a new study shows how this connection goes. let's look at what's been happening to deaths from drug overdoses over the last 20 years. so what you can see here is that the red line are drug overdoses and they have soared from about 17,000 back in 1999 to 52,404 in 2015. by comparison, you can see that deaths from guns and from car crashes -- car crashes came down for a long time and stable. guns have been trending up slightly but way less than from drug overdoses. what the study does is takes a look at counties and divides them into counties with more or less drug use and drug overdoses. if you turn to the next chart, you can see what that means.

so nationally trump didn't really do that much better than romney among counties broadly across the country. if you look in the industrial midwest, for example, you can see that trump's margin over what romney got four years ago was 16.7 percentage points in the counties with highest amount of drug and opioid use and counties with the lowest amount it was smaller. even in new england, which you don't think of as having a huge drug problem, it does in rural new hampshire and rural maine and so on. there was it even more dramatic in that trump outperformed romney significantly in those counties but actually underperformed romney in the counties not necessarily surprising with the least amount of cases. >> i want to be clear. i have mocked and ridiculed -- i would never do that with you -- people that said, hey, trump won obama voters because everybody was on heroin when they voted. you're not suggesting that. i just want to let my viewers

know that what you're saying is that economically disadvantaged areas that are struggling voted for donald trump and bernie sanders in the democratic primary more than hillary clinton. >> you can see that very clearly. >> also though, there are other socioeconomic factors that other things that are going on at the same time. >> i'm not suggesting they voted for him because they're on drugs but connected to a range of socioeconomic factors. >> struggling economies where two things go hand in hand. >> if you want to talk about struggling economies, let's look at the last chart. it says struggling economy at the top. you can see again if you look at the midwest, which lost so many of its manufacturing jobs in the counties, studies by penn state scholar county by county and the counties that had the most economically difficult conditions, mix of unemployment, things like that, they used a bunch of statistics -- >> let me stop you there. michael steele, this screams

bill clinton 1992. we're talking about the obama voters that switched to trump. you look at that chart, that's why bill clinton won. he won what he's now calling the angry white men. he won those people in new hampshire. he won those people in the industrial midwest. the clintons lost because they didn't connect with their voters. >> absolutely. 1992, you know, reagan democrats known as bubba went back to bill clinton and sat on their couch from 1996 until donald trump awoke them this election cycle because in large measure, he had the message that cut through a lot of the noise that have been cluttering their airspace. clinton didn't have a response to that. she couldn't do what her husband did to bring them back into the stable and keep them anchored to what she was doing. she tried to do the same thing with the obama coalition. that was not transferrable to

her. her campaign never really got their head around that. donald trump did, figured it out. in many respects, joe, what donald trump did was give them through television reality tv, a space to hang out until he was ready to talk to them about politics. >> nobody had a message like donald trump. no other republican had as effective of a message. they did have a message aimed at this group of people. do you think any republican would outperform mitt romney in the industrial midwest in new england just given what has happened? >> no. no. no. no. >> maybe not by those margins. >> donald trump was a one off in those states. i remember a weekend before i saw their final ad that people thought was anti-semitic, i think did not think so but i actually tweeted, which is funny, he's hired. poor lloyd. lloyd's biggest problem is he has no one working under him because they're all working at the trump administration. i remember tweeting the weekend

before, if republicans want to win in wisconsin and michigan and industrial midwest in the future, they have to take this populist tack. they did. and trump won those states. >> what you see is that in the industrial midwest and in new england, you had these huge disparities between how he did in the most economically disadvantaged versus the less economically disadvantaged. it's less pronounced than appalachia. the theory is that because in appalachia things have been bad for a long time. in the industrial midwest and in these rural parts of new england, this is kind of a new phenomenon. people are even more unsettled and more unwilling to listen to someone that comes in and has a different story for them. >> to put an exclamation point on this, and i can't say this enough, despite all of those numbers, hillary clinton would have won if she had visited those areas. hillary clinton would have won if she had visited wisconsin. she would have won if she visited michigan. she would have won if she did

what barack obama did four years ago and take out ads on big ten football network throughout the fall. she would have won. you can't win if you don't campaign there. >> you can't pull out a crowd at the drop of a hat. >> we have to investigate vladimir putin but all of those numbers are i suggest skewed because you only had one person campaigning in those areas, right? >> ironically, by background, she's much closer tied to all of that than he is. she's from a very modest background from the midwest. >> she's midwest girl. >> he's a rich guy from queens. >> weren't some of his plans last minute to go to some of these places? here's the difference. hillary clinton could have made those plans, but she could not have gotten the crowds. i think, i mean, what he could do a pop-up crowd of 5,000 with hours notice. >> i think the most remarkable example of that was michigan.

i guess, you know this better than anyone else, people on the campaign trail said he tweeted something earlier in the day said i'm going to michigan at midnight or something like that. >> the last rally. >> weekend of and happened on a monday. >> 32,000 people there. >> we laughed at the concept he would use instagram and rallies to -- >> now he has to make america great again or there won't be a second term. >> hallie jackson, thank you so much. we need to give rattner a camo. >> he gave me one. >> we'll be right back. >> the manhunt continues for the prime suspect in this week's deadly attack. they are the natural born enemy of the way things are. yes, ideas are scary, and messy and fragile. but under the proper care, they become something beautiful.

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♪ ♪

okay. by the way, do you know what the correct answer is? it always is nat king cole. you know when christmas season started for us, it was the morning after thanksgiving. my dad had this big reel to reel player. you knew at 6:00 a.m. he turns that thing on and you hear nat king cole. that's christmas. what was your favorite christmas present ever? >> my daughters gave me a big mug with red writing on it that

says crazy -- ever. i use it all the time. >> what about from your parents? >> no. they gave us hand me downs, a shovel to work outside. i don't know. >> of course a starter shotgun. >> no. also the chainsaw. i got the chainsaw. >> your family -- rattner, do you have a favorite christmas present? >> i got hanukkah presents in my family. >> what was your favorite present? >> i got hanukkah presents. i got a couple great things to use like music and stuff like that. i never would have gotten for myself. very thoughtful. >> i got an evel knievel bike. >> did you jump over trash cans? >> put the board under. >> we would do that and have

trash cans. sam, do you have a favorite present? >> we have jewish people. all we have is jewish people. i'm the one wasp on the weather channel. everyone else is jewish. >> you get more presents. it's all good. >> the guilt. >> what's your favorite holiday present? >> when you got this gift, were you wearing your footyy pajamas. >> the love of my parents. >> mine was a bb rifle. the squirrels in the neighborhood were scared of me. >> i love my mug. i'll bring it in. >> you know what mine was? thanks for asking.

>> i'm scared to ask. it's going to be a long story. >> elton john's greatest hits in 1975. i just stared at it for about ten minutes. >> i got an andy gibb record. >> what's your favorite elton john song? >> "don't let the song go down on me" which i listened to 8,000 times. >> that's pretty good, joe. >> what about yours, sam? >> i like "rocket man." >> i'm on twitter a couple months ago. i was listening to "rocket man." i say "rocket man" subline pop and these people wrote nasty responses to me. >> why? >> i don't know. >> it's a classic. >> you know, i think that they were probably, like, teenagers smoking a lot of pot in the late teens when the song came out and youngers brothers and sisters liked it and they probably -- i think -- yeah, i'm trying to

remember who wrote the nastiest thing. >> we should do a mean tweets episode for "morning joe." >> that would be fun. >> can we do that today? alex, can we do a mean tweet segment? >> all we have to do is go to chris cuomo's account. >> don't go there. >> you're a bigger person than that. >> don't shoot down. >> i'm not. >> you're totally -- you're totally punching down. >> i'm just reporting. >> we could find something. >> seriously. come on. >> i want to do mean tweets. >> i get a lot of -- >> we're doing it at the end of this hour. okay. are you in? okay. can you put them on cards and we'll read them. we won't know what they are. okay. all right. let's get to the news. the massive international manhunt is intensifying for 24-year-old anis amri, a tunisian national identified as the suspect behind the deadly truck attack on a christmas market in berlin. berlin police have confirmed to

nbc news they found a wallet containing ining amri's person information in the truck on tuesday afternoon. we also know that amri arrived in germany back in july of 2015 and lived mostly in berlin but officials add he was very mobile and used a variety of aliases. german police labeled him as a potential risk and had previously monitored him for months. he was even scheduled to be deported after his asylum request was denied in june. that was held up because he didn't have identity papers. those arrived this weekdays after the attack. hans nichols has been covering the story from berlin. hans? >> reporter: life is returning to normal here in berlin. the christmas market behind me has opened up. they are having stalls selling sausages. you can actual lly walk along

makeshift memorials about where the truck jumped the curb and brought violence to this peaceful christmas market. markets are now open. the conversation is shifting toward recriminations and second-guessing. the front page says deportation fail. others are less critical. i suspect we'll see this conversation playing out here in the next couple days of just what authorities missed and how they missed it and why they decided -- >> all right. now president-elect donald trump took a couple quick questions from reporters yesterday about the terror threat. take a listen.

>> in the wake of the san bernardino terror attack one year ago, then candidate trump called for a total and shutdown of muslims entering the united states. later in the campaign, he stopped talking about a muslim ban saying he preferred the term extreme vetting. in interviews, candidate trump also endorsed the idea of creating a data base of muslims which the transition recently denied and yesterday trump seemed unfamiliar with a statement that the transition put out in his name on monday. the statement said about the truck attack in berlin, isis and other terrorists continually slaughter christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad.

>> something happening there. >> we talked about this last hour. it's very interesting. again, he's taking specific christians being attacked and attack against humanity going against a presidential statement said before. you know, a lot of people looking at that clip going how would he not know that a statement was put out in his name a day or two before. that happens sometimes. >> it does happen sometimes. there's so much going on in a transition. sometimes you glance at the statements. if you're the principle. sometimes you don't. they put them out in your name. you get the general okay on the staff to do it.

it happens. very interesting and hopefully a positive sign that he's not making this like a crusade against christians. it was pretty strident in saying this is against humanity in general. >> it's a really important statement. over and against the invocation of the phrase islamic terrorism so to have those two side by side suggest there may be room for movement here. >> we talked about progression of the muslim ban. something last december that we attacked on this show. i said i couldn't vote for a republican that supported a muslim ban. trace the movement. there has been movement. he got away from the muslim ban saying we're going to do extreme vetting and look at specific countries. we heard that throughout the end of the campaign. i may have heard that in a speech a week or two ago. but this does add some ambiguity

because of the way he answered the question. >> the muslim ban came into effect after the san bernardino shooting. i think it remains or did remain on his campaign website until the very end. but he kind of moved away from it. he talked about extreme vetting, as you mentioned, he was saying while countries that are epicenters of terrorist activity that pose particular problems, we'll vet people coming from them. problem is we didn't know which countries he was talking about. seconda secondarily, countries associated with terrorism are countries like belgium and france and the u.k. now, i don't think he means we're going to vet everyone from those areas. the presumption is that we will vet in his world muslims coming from those countries. that would be a slippery slope. the thing that is incumbent upon the transition team at this juncture although i'm not holding my breath they'll do this is to come out and

explicitly say what the counterterrorism policy is that donald trump will try to institute once he's in office. >> any chance they get to talk to anybody publicly on the trump team need to ask the question, does donald trump support the muslim ban? does the president-elect support the muslim ban. yes or not? >> they've been evasive about that. it's tough. >> but get a yes or no out of that. do you support a muslim ban? >> he says no but he says i support extreme vetting of people coming from problematic countries. then you have to go to the next question, what countries? how does it work? >> a muslim ban is banning muslims from across the globe. that's offensive. when you start talking about extreme vetting from places that spur terrorism, that's good policing. that's actually what americans want. they want you to say, okay, here are the problem spots. it's what mike bloomberg did with policing. circled problem spots.

a lot of people called him a racist for doing that. this is where the overwhelming majority of crime in the new york area occurs. >> that was problematic. >> that was policing that put the murder rate at yauan all-ti low. it helped people in those neighborhoods. >> mika raised the point that you have refugees and they like the guys in germany not in those countries but europe or places like that. how are you going to -- >> i'm not going to give them a visitor visa to the united states of america until there's extreme vetting to make sure -- we have to now worry because the borders are so weak in europe. we now have to worry about visitors visas from europe here. >> just real quickly, competing values here. you used analogy with new york police. commitments that we threw out the window in the name of this policing. there's an instance in which we

have to think about what extreme vetting means and how will it square with our other commitments around freedom of liberty. >> that's the key point because extreme vetting is located in the middle east thinking about someone from syria or refugee from that part of the world. what happens with extreme vetting when it bumps up against europe where there are no borders and easy transfer and translation of bodies across these lines? and that's going to be an important definition for this administration. >> that's what i'm saying. if you are an immigrant to europe, we know that europe in a lot of these places aren't doing the extreme vetting they need to do to stop attacks in their own countries. i don't want people that europe hasn't vetted coming over here on a european visa. >> we already have a very extreme vetting process in place. we have a system for refugees to come over to america. we have actually resettled

miniscule amount compared to european countries. what additional steps do we have to take? >> i actually -- >> is my question. >> if mika will stop saying thank you, i can answer your question. after a recent attack we found out and democrats alike agreed, i'm not sure but i think even dianne feinstein agreed the visas, visitor visas especially for tourist visas was extraordinariy lily lax. they would get a visitor visa to united states of america and quick trip here to create an act of terror, that's the sort of thing that i think even democrats would agree we have to tighten up. >> the whole issue on all of this is really the devil in the details. and they are -- trump administration is to be forgiven at this stage of transition for not having those details. but all of the questions about civil liberties or proper

security all come down to the way you implement something like this that's never been implemented. so the question for reporters, i would think, is, okay, exactly how is this going to work? >> they're not going to have that answer yet, steve. the answer they can have today is there is no muslim ban. the president-elect said he's going to do extreme vetting. we're still working on that. we'll give you details in january. they can do that. they have to at least be able to answer that threshold question. are you going to discriminate against all muslims? >> all muslims. >> right. but just to go back to what you said a minute ago, you're talking about the idea of somebody who got to belgium somehow or another and we should have extreme vetting of that person before we let them into the united states. but presumably some belgian person born in belgium won't have the same level of vetting. so aren't we talking about some kind of profiling where we're going to pick out people who look like they might be terrorists. >> if someone was born in belgium and if they have done

anything that's raised the alarm of belgian police, they should be vetted in an extreme manner as well. >> you can only find that out once you start vetting. are you going to vet everybody? >> if somebody wants to come to america, then you say that you run a check on belgium police if you talk about someone born in belgium. >> let's make sure we understand what you're saying. some muslim person, let's say born in belgium. muslims born in belgium. never done anything wrong in his life. he's muslim and a belgium who is catholic or christian or whatever he or she is subject to the same level of vetting. you won't do anything different with this one person who is muslim that lived in belgium all his life? >> right. if they're born in belgium. if you're going into belgium or france or somewhere else from a third country, i mean, i guess a bigger issue here that we need to talk about is the fact that europe is letting us down.

they are letting us down with their porous borders and letting us down -- angela merkel gets on the front of "time" magazine as person of the year last year for basically an extraordinarily reckless policy that makes everybody feel good but allows refugees that just aren't processed properly to flood into europe. and now they're able to go across europe and commit acts of terror. i hope everybody felt good about that. >> most of them are just desperate people. do i need to say that before i state the reality? it will take a lot of time. yes. most of them are desperate people. terrorists were allowed in because they have porous borders and because their policy -- even the latest attack in berlin. they don't have resources. they're not investing in protecting their people properly. >> it's a huge problem. one question is does anyone know

what extreme vetting actually means in terms of the process and procedures that you would go through? it's a great term but what does it mean? >> it's up to the trump administration to define that for us. they're not going to do it right now. >> that would answer your questions. >> they will do it in coming months with help of sam stein. sam can't work for him. he's got facial hair. >> it's not going to work. still ahead on "morning joe," in the face of rising premiums, fewer options and threats of repeal, signups for obamacare are up. what this means for the future of the law. plus nbc's kristen welker latest reporting on donald trump's agenda today in florida. >> you have to admit that john bolton -- do we have the side by side. >> no. >> i want to put up john bolton and captain kangaroo. ben, you haven't seen this, right? >> i saw it earlier this morning. >> let's see it again. kids are just waking up on the west coast right now. >> there's no similarity at all.

>> there are a lot of similarities. only difference is -- >> which is which? >> i can't tell. >> you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. says it won't let up for a while. the cadillac xt5... what should we do? ...tailored to you. wait it out. equipped with apple carplay compatibility. ♪ now during season's best, get this low mileage lease on this cadillac xt5 from around $429 per month, or purchase with 0% apr financing. i'ts your tv, take it with you. with directv and at&t,

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♪ >> there it is. there it is. don't let the sun go down on me. you can just listen to it all day. >> have you seen him perform it? >> i have. i have. >> great. >> i don't like christmas presents, but i would just like for christmas one year -- >> i got the message. >> i would like to be in the general vicinity of elton john or paul mccartney. >> that can be arranged. >> can that be arranged? >> it can be arranged. >> that's all i want for christmas. >> santa just heard that. >> any christmas.

>> you know what's cool about elton john, i'm glad you guys asked, i can't stand -- >> did anyone ask? >> i can't stand the rock stars that will play their songs, most recent songs, but feel like they're too good to play songs that made them big. i read a "rolling stone" interview with elton john when they come up and say they love your song, that's the sweetest, kindest thing they can say. it's just as important. it's really nice. that's all i have to say. >> joining us now from palm beach, florida, nbc white house correspondent kristen welker. and on capitol hill, "the new york times" reporter. kristen, we'll start with you. donald trump announced a familiar name joining his administration just a short time ago. >> reporter: he did. not elton john, mika, but someone folks will be familiar with. this is breaking news here.

just about at 7:30 in the morning. he announced that kellyanne conway will be counselor to the president. she's of course the campaign manager who helped him win the first female to run republican presidential campaign. she's someone who well helped with his outreach to women voters. she's, of course, a frequent presence on this show and a lot of television shows. she's also a mom of four. so pretty incredible what she has done over the past year or so. she has indicated she plans to move her family from new jersey to washington d.c. we're also tracking a few other positions this morning though. as you know, president-elect has yet to name a va secretary and agriculture secretary. i am told that the name that has emerged to the top of the list four va secretary is toby coscrove.

obama looked at him to head up the va. he said he wanted to stay with the cleveland clinic. >> that would be big. >> reporter: it would be big. the president-elect has made this one of his top campaign priorities so a big task there if it does go to dr. cosgrove. a couple other names we're looking at. carl icahn to be a special adviser to help the president-elect overhaul regulations. that's getting more scrutiny. carl icahn a billionaire investor. folks saying if the president-elect wants to drain the swamp, why put so many billionaires adding so many to his team. the pushback on that is he's an outsider. he's someone who is successful but who will bring a fresh set of eyes to washington, d.c. and then finally economists peter navarro. a sharp critic of china. he'll head the white house national trade counsel. this is raising some eyebrows

comm among some economists. because he's been a sharp critic of china, could he help to start a trade war. those are names we're tracking here from palm beach today. i spoke to one of president-elect's top advisers who said that he has another day stacked with meetings. as you know, yesterday he came out and surprised all of us and had a quick press availability. no indication he'll do that again today but we would welcome that. back to you. >> kristen welker, thank you very much. kellyanne conway news is really interesting to me. what do you think went behind that? >> well, it didn't look like she was going to be in there. this is one case where donald trump did stand up for somebody that worked on the campaign and said find her a position inside the white house. looked like she was going outside the white house. it's very interesting position she's going to have. she's not going to have any

direct reports. she's not going to be involved in policy. she's not going to be in the meetings where decisions are made. she is going to do at the white house what she did for the campaign. she's going to be on tv. so she wanted to be inside the white house and trump put her in a position where she'll be in the white house. she's not going to be part of the decision making process. she's going to keep doing what she's been doing in the campaign. very interesting about draining the swamp. they're not draining the swamp. in fact, yesterday they even said, newt gingrich clarified that trump never really liked that term and they're not going to use that term again which is convenient because the only swamp they've drained is the one right outside goldman sachs. >> it's not a washington insider crew in the same way some past ones have been although there are a lot of members of congress. certainly it will be

characterized in any number of ways. it's a big movement conservative cabinet if you cut along ideological grounds. probably as conservative a cabinet as we've seen. >> it as conservative of a cabinet as we've seen. i have to say this morning i'm getting vertigo when you look actually at what's happening with the foreign policy selections because you can tell -- we were thinking he would be a disruptor at home, but you look at who he's picked to deal with china. you look at his ambassador to israel who is stridently pro-israel. look at his secretary of state pick who is far closer to arab countries than israel is comfortable with. you can go down the line. this appears to be a president who right now seems to be more interested in causing disruption across the globe and moving u.s. foreign policy to where it's

never been than even at home. >> throughout the campaign, donald trump has said that he wanted to renegotiate trade deals, that he wanted to look at china. he had been tweeting about china's role in the world and whether or not the u.s. was being strong enough with the people that it has to deal with. i think that in some ways these picks just continue what was a disruptor change election and his message to the world being that if i get elected, a lot of things are going to change including our relationships with other countries. >> steve? >> well, i agree with you about disruption abroad. he'll have to reconcile a lot of different views on things like israel. i would say the disruption to ben's point at home could be massive. he's picked a set of people on the domestic policy side and i will put china in that in a sense because trade relates to that, that go beyond anything reagan did. you have a budget director who voted to shutdown the government because he was to the right of john boehner and said we should stop paying the national debt

because we couldn't incur anymore debt. you have hhs secretary who is in favor of repealing obamacare with a much different program. you have an education secretary who has been somewhat hostile toward public education. a labor secrery that has questions about the minimum wage. you could have a revolution in -- i mean a revolution in policy here beyond anything we've seen if the stuff these guys have said they believe in actually happens. >> this is far more conservative, michael steele, than any cabinet at least back to hoover. i know it's more conservative than any cabinet any modern day republican has had. and it's going to be fascinating to see what happens through that procs and it does seem to me, michael, the democrats need to stop thinking they're going to take donald trump down with a head shot talking about him and his personality. they need to instead focus on

sort of this radical right wing agenda. and hammer that home every day. i think that would actually make more sense than thinking -- people obviously don't care about donald trump's perceived weaknesses. >> you know, politics and personalities passa at this point for a lot of voters out there. they baked that well into the cake during this campaign. i think the emphasis is going to be much more what you just said. focusing on the policy initiatives that come out of the administration. but to something steve just said. i hear a lot of folks on the left sort of take where these individuals are or were on a particular personal perspective or view of what they did in public education or done in business and projecting that this is where the administration is going to be. we don't know yet what donald trump has done is assembled a team of rivals, a team of outsiders, a team of individuals who do have a different perspective on government.

what i think his job is going to be as a pragmatic populist is going to be able to shape that so take what devos has been doing on education and translate into a broader policy on education that goes beyond charter schools. i think that's what we're going to be looking for going forward more than any individual policy. >> i want to pushback on that a little bit. policy is personnel. the people he's surrounding himself with and their agendas and their life's work come into view. i wrote a piece in "time" where i said if we want to -- based upon his nominations, if we want to see how donald trump is going to govern, let's look at what happened in north carolina. what happens when you have a kind of conservative extremism or radical or however we want to describe it, running government. what will it look like in terms of details of governing. what will happen to medicaid and public education and to the most vulnerable? it's in this kind of setting

when i'm asked the question, joe and mika, do you want -- >> you're saying this is someone who helped elect donald trump. >> at least according to some people out there, right? by not voting for hillary clinton, right. >> as if the only way to oppose donald trump was to vote for hillary clinton. >> i just did that for your twitter feed. go ahead. >> i think the point here is what does it mean to say that we want him to succeed? what do we actually mean when we ask the question do you want donald trump to succeed? >> you mean like -- michelle obama said she wants him to succeed because he's our president. >> but what does that mean in detail? all morning what i've been asking, what do we mean by post partisanship? what do we mean by disruption? what do we mean by succeed. if we mean by succeed that these folks that he's nominating to his cabinet, if approved, what will it mean for them to execute on their policy positions and what will it mean for the most

vulnerable in this country? >> it's not their policy position. it's the president's policy position but donald trump is not turning over policy to these individuals for rough shot and wild on what they want to do. >> no one proved that more than barack obama who made his foreign policy apparatus irrelevant by talking to one dude in the white house. >> i just look at the inner circle of president obama and now that kellyanne conway has been brought into this inner circle around the president, i think it's going to be fascinating to see how that works. i think that she understands how to translate for him in a very adept way and is able to sort of push things out there and get around conversations really smoothly. but i'm not sure she's liked within the circle. does that make sense?

i think it's really interesting there. >> i think it is really interesting. our story today when we talk about her new appointment, we call her the trump whisperer because she, one, understood how to talk to trump and explain things to him and really didn't push him or be too forceful but did know how to translate him to the general population. we'll see if he does do extreme things if they carry out super conservative policies and schools are changed and our policy withchanged and sell them to the american public in some way that other people will not be able to. she won't be the press secretary as others have said, she's going to be on tv regularly and she's going to explain to people this is why we had to take away entitlement programs or public schools are losing funding because we'll have america be better and here's the way we're making america great again. in some ways, that's what she'll be. a trump whisperer but an

american people whisperer they hope. >> i totally agree with you. fascinating. i didn't think she was going to be in there. i thought she should take a big deal for herself and go into the private sector with four kids. all right. thank you so much. still ahead, congressman steve israel is preparing for life after congress. the new york democrat joins us next and we'll give him some tips. really? okay. we'll be right back. they are the natural borns enemy of the way things are. yes, ideas are scary, and messy and fragile. but under the proper care,

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all right. this morning there's a front runner for who democrats want to run for president in 2020. in a "usa today" sufficiepoll, new excites most democrats. 44% of democrats say bernie sanders or vice president joe biden running. 34% like elizabeth warren. 23% back another run by hillary clinton. 62% of democrats say clinton should not run again. all right. eddie, what do you think? >> i completely agree with that. >> all of it? >> i think we need some younger energy. i understand -- >> what about some of the energy

that's in there? we've got elizabeth warren. we've got -- i mean -- why? >> as a fundamental reckoning in the party from my vantage point we need to go left. elizabeth warren and bernie sanders -- >> not too far left. >> bernie sanders and elizabeth warren may be the energy we need. >> let's ask steve israel of new york who is retiring after 16 years in the house. you're leaving but things are just getting started. don't you feel like the world is spinning out of control. >> the world no longer rotates. it just careens. i thought i was here to apply for jobs as paid intern on "morning joe." >> i'll take your resume and put it under consideration. probably not. so what do you think though about someone entirely new? when you look at what has happened and the landscape, is that so far out of context of where we need to be?

>> two things, number one, we are in this debate as democrats as to whether we need someone who can appeal to populism, someone that can appeal to the middle class, someone that can do a good ground game. we need all of those things. >> who is that person right now? >> we've got a bunch of folks who are running for dnc chair. tom perez just announced. secretary of labor. big fan of his. we have got to have a leader who can continue our diversity, expand our diversity but also tap into those anxieties of middle class voters. that's where we fell short. we can make it up. second thing is this. we have to stop writing our own obituary. we need to exploit opportunity. here's what i mean. do you remember in 2008 we elected a democratic president, democrats reached a high water mark in the house of representatives in our majority, had the senate and misread, some would argue, a margin as a mandate. we doubled down on stuff. a year later we start losing democratic local officials. a year after that we lose 63

seats in the house. two years after that we lose the senate and lose control of redistricting. this is going to happen to the republicans. if they misread a margin for a mandate and start doubling down and repealing the affordable care act, start tinkering with different policies, tinkering with medicare, we're going to have a good 2018. we have a wind at our back. >> i think trying to bring tech in, there's someone in place who could be a breakout star. >> we have to focus on local elections before we figure out who our nominee for president is going to be. >> so everybody is focusing on hillary clinton losing but as you know, the bigger challenge to the democratic party is getting those 900 state legislative seats back and 62 house seats that you've lost

which people can blame -- you can't blame 900 legislative seats or 12 senate seats that have been lost or all of the governorships that have been lost. it has to start at the ground floor. i know you agree with that. look at those numbers. how did democrats lose their way with so many voters? >> we did not sufficiently talk to those middle class anxieties. there's a trauma occurring with middle class voters. second thing, it goes back to what you said in 2008, 2010, we made a decision to plus up our numbers in the congress. we reached that high water mark in the house and senate. meanwhile, we started losing local elections. we started losing state legislato legislators. they took control of redistricting maps until 2020. it's just catastrophic. so we've got to go back to the

basics. what are basics? figure out how did governor of montana, a democrat, win montana when donald trump was winning montana. >> how did barack obama win indiana in 2008? >> those are fundamentals? go back to those. the thing that pains me the most are voters who supported barack obama in 2008, 2012 and voted to donald trump. we need to get them back. >> congressman steve israel, thank you very much. quick question? >> quick question. so you had donor class of the democratic party with a huge set of issues that was very different from the working folks you were talking about. how do you now resolve that? >> look, the democratic party was always able to do both. i think it's a false choice. we can continue to talk about bread and butter issues for the middle class and unify our party. as i said before, we have to learn sometimes how to sit back and exploit opportunity. if the trump administration and a republican congress decides that they're going to repeal the

affordable care act and they'll tinker with medicare, we will be able to exploit those mistakes and we'll have a good 2018. you watch. >> all right. >> if i'm lucky enough to be invited back here on this show in three months, we won't talk about democratic divisions. we'll talk about republican divisions. >> i told him it's a no go on the internship. sorry. steve israel, thank you. >> i work cheap. >> we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me,

the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful to me.

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the world's largest convenience store chain revealed yesterday that it has delivered items to 77 customers in reno, nevada, since making its first delivery in july. amazon, on the other hand, celebrated its first drone delivery last week. but that was in the countryside of the uk. these companies face a major hurdle here in the u.s. current faa regulations require drones fly at less than 400 feet and always remain in it operator's line of sight. you know what? i can order a slurpee from the 7-eleven near my parents' house. i used to walk to the 7-eleven. now i can get -- yeah. and it will be in sight. i remember the lights of the 7-eleven from my bedroom window growing up. >> candy and slurpees. >> and pizza pockets. >> okay. >> that's where it all started. >> still ahead -- >> keep going. >> still ahead, we have a live

report from berlin on the manhunt for the suspect in monday's terror attacks and officials say the man they're looking for is well known to counterterrorism officials. plus, a top congressman on intelligence issues says the u.s. waited too long to respond to russian hacking. we're going to ask california democrat adam schiff if he holds the president responsible. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ he has a sharp wit. a winning smile. and no chance of getting an athletic scholarship. and that is why you invest. the best returns aren't just measured in dollars. td ameritrade.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, december 22nd. almost there. >> almost. >> it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. out west. with us, former treasury official steve rattner. chair of the department of african-american studies alt princeton university, eddie glaude jr., and michael steele, and senior political editor and white house correspondent for the "huffington post," sam stein. >> front page of "the new york times" has a lot of great stories here. fascinating stories. first of all, sign-ups jump for obamacare. >> yes. they extended it. >> people are voting with their feet here, and if, i will say it again, if republicans believe they're going to repeal this law without having something in place to replace it, they are making a mistake that will crush them in 2018. >> yeah. >> mark it down, republicans. i just -- mark it down.

>> you don't take away things. >> you just -- >> you can make them better. >> you can replace it, but you don't have a plan to replace it right now. and health savingsathies and all that other -- that ain't going to cut itor the people who already know they have health care. also, we are going to talk about this in a second, but the suspectperberlin attacks, they knew. they knew about him. they wanted to deport him, but apparently, they didn't have the right papers. also, the trump kids citing a quarmire or saying they're not going to get involved in charities. and you know, steve, i think being in new york, you would understand this because you're in politics and have been in politics for a long time. you might have understood it quicker than the trumps. if you're ivanka trump and st. jude's hospital comes to you every year and says will you donate? you say, sure, and you actually make st. jude's hospital a lot

of money. then they come to you this year. you say, sure, i'll have the coffee, then it's on the front page of "the new york times." instead of doing something you have done all these years, you're doing something improper. i don't think that's the case. it does underline and highlight there are a new set of rules. even things they're thinking they're doing, whether it's to help st. judes or somebody else, they have to be careful. especially with their father. >> we had plenty of examples of the past of children, siblings of president who have gone off and dethings. some well meaning, some maybe less meaning. >> you mean like billy beer? >> billy beer? exactly. >> that was good stuff. that was a good cause, by the way. >> look, we're in a gray period now because we're in between administrations. in terms of once he's president, you had ethics officers from the bush and obama administrations

clear that you can't do this. it just isn't allowed under the rules. >> so anyway, i think they'll figure that out. i wonder, coffee, though. let's say ivanka is not in the white house. i'm just curious, just in general -- >> there a product trump hasn't branded yet? >> see, you're being snide. you are. i think that's really, to be honest with you, and i'm not blaming you for the press coverage on things like that, but if you're doing a coffee for st. jude's hospital, and over the years people go, yes, i'll pay $10,000, $20,000, to sit with such and such and have coffee, we all have these charities where people will come either to this set or go somewhere else, or watch you, go to your company, you print money, and people will do that and contribute to do that. i guess what i'm saying is, isn't there -- i don't know, is that -- i know she's not going to do it anymore, but is that unethical? >> apparently, the ethics people think when you're in office or the child of a president raising

money explicitly for different causes. >> for st. jude's hospital? >> i think so. >> really? >> think about it this way. it's sam. what if she was -- what if ivanka was working for the clinton foundation to raise money? that was the standard here, like, do you -- are you raising money with the ability to actually then gain access to someone in the administration? the problem here is that ivanka is going to have a seat at the table, right? so yes, it's a charitable cause, a fill an tlauthropic cause. it does good, but because she's part of the administration, because she's explicitly working in the transition team, and because donald trump has said he's going to turn to her for advise on policies like, for instance, paid leave, it becomes a question of are you paying for access. >> really good point there. i guess the one difference is this is st. jude's hospital and not the trump foundation. but i understand what sam means. so it's not quite as much sort of inside dealing where you pay

to the trump foundation, which forwards their name. but yeah. it is -- i think it's a really good question. and it's a quick -- i think it's a good learning -- >> a great question. i think we can't really get at it because we haven't settled the questions arnound the conflict of interest. if you have this broader cloud over the issue, we can't get to the substance of the question that you're asking. >> before you get to this question of the charity, which may be well intentioned, this and that. they're awash in conflicts of one sort or another. you saw they settled two union fights unionization in las vegas and washington. otherwise, it would have ended up in the nlrb, which he appoints. >> we have already spoken out on that. i don't think anyone should go to that hotel, and it won't be worth enough money to be worth the signal it sends.

i'm talking coffee, charity. david axelrod coming on, raising more than $100,000, donald trump giving him $100,000 for an epilepsy foundation. you know, it's just fascinating. i think it's something -- i mean, and do we put ivanka and jared if they're involved in the white house in a different, obviously, in a different mace than we put the boys if they're not in the white house. >> from what i have seen, they're trying to pore through all this and figure it out. it's not like they could fully expect everything that would come at them once donald trump won the presidency. it really is the incoming is quite incredible, and they, i'm sure, to an extent, had no idea what was allowed and what was not allowed. the coffee situation, the problem is people could be buying access to ivanka. >> right. >> obviously. they kind of can't do it. i don't think they set it up nefariously. >> she's been doing it all these years. but if she's going to be in the white house, if she's going to

be working on women's issues and paid leave, then yeah, that's much easier. >> she has real, i think, a real platform in mind. and wants to do a lot of good, and has to figure out exactly what can and can't be done. that's, quite frankly, a problem that will confront anyone. >> a lot like sam stein. big plans. big plans. >> big plans. >> let's go through some of the top headlines this morning. the massive international manhunt is intensifying for 24-year-old anis amri, a tunisia national identified as the suspect behind the deadly truck attack on a christmas market in berlin. we now know that amri arrived in germany back in july of 2015 and lived mostly in berlin, but officials add he was very mobile and used a variety of aliases. german police labeled amri as a potential risk and had previously monitored him for months. he was even scheduled to be deported after his asylum

request was denied back in june. but that was held up because he didn't have identity papers. those arrived from tunisia this week, just days after the attack. >> i don't understand. if you don't have the right papers, they can't deport you? >> they were trying to get the papers. >> that would seem like a good reason to deport somebody, if they don't have the right papers. >> they need papers to deport him. let's bring in hans nichols, he joins us live from berlin with the latest on this and this question, hans? >> reporter: well, he didn't have a valid passport. tunisia wasn't acknowledging him. therefore, they couldn't deport him. just to give you a sense of the fu feeling here. this is the front page of a newspaper, sort of the mass market tabloid that really gets at sort of germany's id. it says deportation fail. now, here's what's happening this morning. the christmas market is open here. you can see it right behind me. you can walk along the path of

where that truck jumped the curb, went along, memorials everywhere, candles, moments of silence. so i spoke there to give you the other side of whether or not there are recriminations. i spoke to the pastor of this memorial church. he said, look, sort of second guessing authorities, which in je general, germans are reluctant to do, he said it isn't a very christian attitude in this season. he also said it wasn't a very adult one. so there's a mixture here on how much authorities are to blame, but we do know for six months, he was monitored, and they didn't continue that monitoring. he was initially, they started to monitor him because they thought he was planning a burglary where he would take assault weapons for some sort of attack. even with that sort of threshold, they had one extension of monitoring him, not a further one, and stopped monitoring him in september. and so many ways, guys, it reminds me of the conversation in paris where they simply do not have the resources to monitor all of these radicals.

guys. >> all right, hans, nbc's hans nichols, thank you very much. president-elect donald trump took a couple quick questions from reporters yesterday about the terror threat. >> what's going on is terrible. in fact, we have intelligence here right now, what's going on is terrible. >> has it caused you to rethink or re-evaluate your plans to create a muslim reg stare in the united states? >> you know my plans. all along, and it's been proven to be right. 100% correct. what's happening is disgraceful. >> in the wake of the san bernardino terror attack one year ago, then candidate trump called for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. later in the campaign, trump stopped talking about a muslim ban, saying he preferred the term "extreme vetting." in interviews, candidate trump also endorsed the idea of creating a database of muslims

which the transition has recently denied. also yesterday, trump seemed unfamiliar with a statement the transition put out in his name on monday. the statement said about the truck attack in berlin, quote, isis and other islamist terrorists continually slaughter christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad. >> your comments about the truck attack in berlin being against christians, do you think that this might -- >> say it again, what? >> your -- the attack in berlin being against -- an attack against christians. >> who said that? when did -- when was that said? >> i think -- i believe you said it in a press release. >> so go ahead. >> so i'm wondering how this might affect relations -- >> an attack on humanity is what it is. it's an attack on humanity, and it's got to be stopped. >> all right, much to sort through there. >> yeah. >> michael steele, first of all,

help me out on the muslim ban deal. obviously, he caught a lot of backlash from that. he late in the campaign started talking about he wasn't going to do a muslim ban, but instead, extreme vetting from specific nations. i guess i heard him say that a couple weeks ago. >> that's correct. >> specific nations that were wor-torn and had a lot of terrorists coming out of them. i thing that's the last statement he's made on this. am i correct? >> i think that's right. so from what i'm hearing, the extreme vetting position is where this administration would like to be. the language around a muslim ban is very toxic, as they're trying to build, you know, new inroads and relationships here in washington and around the country. so i think on the heels of something like this, it gives donald trump an opportunity to clarify, to your point, clarify the position of the administration, which the reporters were trying to get to

yesterday. but it also gives him, i think, an opportunity, joe, to talk about how the global community needs to be better coordinated to avoid the kind of gaps in information gathering and gaps in intelligence gathering that allows them to fall behind with what terrorists are doing. it puts him in a position where the idea of a muslim ban or extreme vetting is less the target of those who would be opposed to it and the focus is more on how do we globally together work to avoid this from happening in the future? >> the fact that you can't deport somebody that you think is going to -- >> exactly. >> you know, do something, commit terror acts against your country, another country won't take them, is problematic, to say the least. this headline in "the new york times" is something that i think the trump campaign needs to take a look at because the ambiguity yesterday in the press conference will lead to headlines like this. which says, right there, which

says that trump appears to be supporting the muslim ban once again, based on his vague comments yesterday. i do not believe that's the position of the administration, but steve rattner, he needs to clarify. >> he needs to clarify. i thinkathizeler a couple other things. one, you have this specific problem of someone who claims political asylum. there is a long-standing international protocol tt people can claim political asylum and that countries will deal with that. the second problem you have is these refugees and displaced persons and terrorists even are much closer to europe than they are to here geographically, so they're pour nothing to europe. the third problem is europe is a continent with no borders and no single police force or security apparatus to track them. they don't knowho is where when. i think that while it's certainly possible things have happened in this country, the difference between our situation, located where we are and with our security apparatus and what they have is night and day. >> when it comes to security,

steve is right. europe is a worst-case scenario. they've got no borders, no unifying police force. if you're a terrorist, you say, why don't we just go to brussels because they're just not serious about hunting us down? then you can go from brussels anywhere in europe and watch these attacks. >> and in the reporter, we saw the resource questions. not only the geography of the situation, but there's also questions around do they have the money? are they allocating the resources to do the policing to prevent such acts. i'm really interested in president-elect trump's response to the transition team's press release. we saw islamist terrorists attacking christians, and he corrected it. so this is an attack on humanity. i'm interested in the kind of -- you know, the coordination that he seemed not to know about the press release, and the correction. what did that suggest? >> exactly. i think that's fascinating. first of all, i think the first one, sam, can be explained better than the second one.

>> i think the correction was hopeful. >> the correction was nice. >> the first one, sam, where he wasn't quite aware of the statement that had been sent out in his name, that happened during the campaign. at times. i think the correction actually was, as some of us have said, was actually hopeful. that he generalized it to make it more of a fight against humanity instead of just framing it in terms of a holy crusade against christianity. >> he pulled back the curtain a little bit on how these press releases get made. i mean, oftentimes it's the product of your communication shop, you know, the principal will get a glance at it and sign off on it. there's occasions where they don't, probably not a good occasion, but it happens. i'm not surprised trump wasn't particularly aware of this statement, although you would like to think that he would be more aware. but i think you're right. the fact that he globalized it more beyond christianity is sort of an interesting development. something you would imagine barack obama might do, and maybe even get criticized for doing.

but this sort of gives us a little bit of a window into trump's real world view, which he doesn't necessarily view this as an epic religious battle but as a humanitarian issue, something you just can't put into silos of christianity versus islam. the question is, does he actually implement that into actual counterterrorism policy, and i don't think anyone actually knows what his counterterrorism policy is right now, in part because as we mentioned, he hasn't clarified it in some time. >> still ahead on "morning joe," what "the washington post" calls donald trump's government casting call. the president-elect reportedly in search of a certain look when it comes to filling out the cabinet. and how that may have kept one man who looks curiously close to captain kangaroo from getting a job. >> and first, he blasted them on twitter, and now he's invited them to trump tower. we'll tell you what came of the president-elect's meeting with executives from boeing and lockheed martin. first, here's bill karins with a check on the forecast.

bill. >> joe, the holiday weekend is really sneaking up on us in a hurry. we need decent weather so everyone can run their aerrands. we're watching light snow in new england, an inch or two in many areas from central new england northwards. how about the storm in the west? keeping people up all night with heavy rains. not often we say heavy rain, los angeles, phoenix, that's going to move to the north. now we're getting snow north of albuquerque to taos, and also areas in durango and aspen getting fresh powder later today. the rest of the forecast, the rain will exit boston and snow showers will exit as we go throughout the day. we're okay everywhere else, maybe airport delays, phoenix and l.a. because of the weather there. then as we begin to look at the extended holiday forecast map, we're going to watch on friday the storm moving into california. this is the christmas eve forecast for saturday. storm over the rockies. that's where the worst will be, and that will head to the east. an all-out blizzard in the dakotas as we go throughout

christmas day. i want to leave you with amazing pictures from yellowstone park. this is old faithful going off in zero degree temperatures. instantly evaporating and forming immense beautiful cloud formations. pretty cool stuff. the winter can be equally as beautiful. all right, christmas tree in new york city. only a couple days left. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you totaled your brand new car. nobody's hurt, but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

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there is new reporting this morning about the potential reason why certain people are not trump's ideal candidates for administration jobs. >> ideology? >> it's important. it's important. "the washington post" reports that president-elect trump wants his administration figures to look the part. case in point, john bolton? quoting from the post, several of trump's associates said they thought john r. bolton's

brush-like mustache was one of the factors that handicapped the bombastic former u.n. ambassador in the sweepstakes for secretary of state. donald was not going to like that mustache, said one associate who spoke on the condition of anonymity, please, thank you very much. i can't think of anyone that's really close to donald that has a beard that he likes. >> you know what this reminds me of? this reminds me of howell heflin when he was interviewing judge bork and everybody was going after bork's precedence, and heflin was like -- >> the beard? >> yeah, you know, i just don't know that people trust somebody with a beard like that. you know. the thing about bolton, though, is, every time i see him, i confuse him with somebody i grew up with, actually, and watched on teefrb every morning, and maybe that's donald trump's problem, too. captain kangaroo. >> oh, my god. >> so -- >> alish. >> you're having to ask yourself. >> that's not right.

>> no, it is, do you want captain kangaroo as your number two person at the state department? >> this is ridiculous. >> no, let's look. mika. >> i thi of my father. who doesn't have a mustache, but he's one scary guy. >> i mean, sam, you don't know who captain kangaroo is. >> i do know. this is terrible. this terrible. >> awful. >> well, i will tell you, there is one difference between captain kangaroo and john bolton. captain kangaroo's bushy eyebrows are brown. john bolton's bushy eyebrows aren't. >> bolton does not remind me -- >> do you get a brush to brush that? >> what if bolton showed up tomorrow with a clean shaven face. that might change the dynamics. >> i don't think so. i think it's too late now. >> can we step back. i don't know if this is true. is this actually true? >> i'm sure it's not. >> if it is, this is totally crazy. it's totally crazy if this is

true, right? >> why are you sure it's not? it was said that one of the reasons trump took so long to find a secretary of state is he lo wanted someone who looked like a secretary of state. >> we'll be talking to the ranking member of the house on intelligence, adam schiff. >> plus, the struggle to secure the so-called white house north. more concerns around trump tower and how businesses are now paying a high cost around that building. "morning joe" back in a minute. we live in a pick and choose world.

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the state department is pushing back on the kremlin's claim that the diplomatic dialogue between russia and the u.s. has frozen. kremlin spokesman dimitri pescough told a state sponsored new agency yesterday that the u.s. and russia don't communicate with one either, or if they do, it is minimal. he said the kremlin expects donald trump's administration to take a fresher, more constructive approach. while coshing against excessive optimism. the state department was quick to refute the department's claims noting that the secretary of state, john kerry, spoke to the russian foreign minister as

recently as tuesday. >> i don't know what to make of his comments. i think you should ask mr mr. peskov was he means. what i can tell you is from our perspective, there's no break in the dialogue and communications are not frozen. that doesn't mean that we agree on everything. it doesn't mean that there is intention between the united states and russia between a range of issues. >> joining us from capitol hill, ranking member of the house select committee on intelligence, democratic congressman adam schiff of california. i do think it's clear that those statements of minimal communication seems overstated since there have been open communications with the secretary of state, the sitting secretary of state. but adam schiff, what are some of the concerns about having too much communication with russia? >> well, i think the problem has been that most of the communications apart from the very specific military communications to deconflict air space in syria, most communications have been pretty valueless. i think the russians for most of the last year have played

rope-a-dope with the administration, with secretary kerry. they have gone through the motions of trying to negotiate, but really, what they want to do is buy time for the military assault on aleppo. they wanted to change the facts on the battlefield before they engaged in any serious negotiations. so yes, we have been talking with them. but they have been largely fruitless talks. and i think this was just the russians' way of poking their finger in our eye in the eye of the administration. >> if you could wave a magic wand, how would we be talking to russia right now? >> well, you know, the problem is not just talking to russia but i think vis-a-vis syria, there hasn't been any what if to back up secretary kerry. he could talk all he wanted, and i admire his tenacity and his relentless pursuit of peace in the region. but unless there was a what if, unless the russians had some sense they would pay a cost if they didn't help bring the syrian regime to the table, there was little the russians wanted to do to help us. >> so take that further.

exactly what would be said to russia? what would be the stakes that would be laid down? what are the actions that would be taken? what specifically would you like to see happening that is not happening now? >> well, what i would have liked to have seen happen were sincere negotiations to try to bring an end to the violence, and far more attention to avoidance of civilian casualties, but that was not what the russians were interested in, and we had very little leverage to bring that about. i think that what we have seen since the election is an acceleration of russia's military efforts. they want to do as much as they can. they don't care about provoking the obama administration. they realize they're going to have to have some kind of a different policy once donald trump takes office, but they wanted to accomplish as much as they could militarily before that took place. >> i understand that. but what should we be doing? what actions should we be taking right now? what do you think would be productive at this time? >> you know, i think it's very hard to say because there's not

much that this administration can do. i think the russians simply want to wait out the obama administration. and the question is, what will the new incoming administration do? will it continue to, as it has expressed, make common cause with the russians in syria? will it help the russians eliminate the moderate opposition? never mind going after isis. that's been obviously a second-tier priority, which you can see from the fact that isis recaptured palmyra while the russians were bombing aleppo. much remains to be seen about what the trump policy will really mean, but i don't think in the interim few weeks there's much the obama administration can do. >> if the obama administration can do nothing, and there's no productive ideas that can come to the table, what do you think the next administration should do, number one priority? goal, action, words, what should they do? what's the answer to the

question? >> well, and i would say this. probably the remaining thing the obama administration can do is try to continue to help with the huh manitarian crisis. help get as many people out the are still trapped in aleppo. that they are doing. that they should continue to do. i'm talking about more macro changes in syria. in terms of the incoming administration, you know, i think they have to try to balance the desire to want to have a different relationship with the russians with the fact that the russian interests are not the same as ours in syria. there is a narrow, you know, set of interests that overlap in terms of eliminating isis and al qaeda, but more broadly, there isn't. the presentation of the assad regime is not in our interest. that means the refugee crisis will continue, the insurgency, the war will look more like an insurgency rather than the ground holding rebel enclaves we have seen in the past. so very difficult choices facing the incoming administration. >> congressman adam schiff,

thank you very much. and still ahead this morning, the lives they lived. from muhammad ali to david bowie, justice scalia, prince. "the new york times" magazine is out with its tribute to the icons lost in 2016. we're back in a moment. ♪ music playing

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you know how great i am. i don't have to tell you. i can let my trainer tell you. tell them, what are we going to do? >> float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. rumble, young man, rumble. >> that's what we're going to do. you heard it. that's my trainer. he'll tell you. >> wow. remember that? muhammad ali is one of the people who passed away this year. remembered in the new issue of "new york times" magazine. the lives they lived issue. the magazine's editor in chief jake silverstein joins us now. this must be something to put together. and what names on the list this year. they're all just -- >> it was a tough year.

we lost a lot of big, important people who had huge, huge impact on this country, on the world, on our culture. i mean, muhammad ali, you know, obviously, his impact is hard to even measure. at the time of his death earlier this year, a lot of obituaries tried to take that measure. we usually try to do it in this issue is the obituaries have been written. we try to tell one specific story. in the case of ali, a really moving story that a lot of people don't, which is this one little story about a day in 1981 at that point, he was living in los angeles. a young african-american man named joe had gone up to the top of an office building and was threatening to jump, and a crowd had gathered, and a friend of ali's was in the crowd and called the champ. he jumped in his rolls royce and drives over with his lights flashing and talks the guy off the ledge. the guy was saying i'm note

good, and ali was saying i'm your brother, i couldn't lie to you. he talked him off the ledge. beautiful story. at this point, he was just a couple years away from his diagnosis from the sort of beginning of his long decline. >> where that man is today. >> my goodness, you have antonin scalia. >> yeah, and scalia, again, so many obituaries have been written about scalia's many accomplishments. emily wrote about scalia and the tension between his originalism on the court and his skepticism of science, and went back to one of his first dissents in 1986, and a case about teaching creationism in louisiana schools. we also pointed out that scalia, speaking of science, had been two studies had proven he was the funniest of all justices in terms of the amount of laughter in all of the arguments. >> david bowie. >> what do you say about david bahho? how do you begin to -- >> is there a story you could find that no one knows? >> in this case, it was --

often, we lost so many musicians and singers this year. the interesting thing when a great artist dies is what people respond to is their own relationship to that person's music or art. and it's very personal in that way. we lost bowie, prince, many others. we asked the novelist who won the national award for his book, the underground railroad, to write about him. he wrote a very interesting piece, but one of the details was a story of his son, 2 years old, to whom he sings ashes to ashes as a lullaby. the kid says, what's a junky? because the word is in the song. he said it's a person who likes garbage. the kid, his son, he loves garbage trucks, as many kids do, so he accepted that as the definition. >> okay, so you have prince here. also, i mean, for all of us hoar at the table, for sure, gwen ifill. that was a shocker for us. a lot of us didn't know she was so sick. >> and she, you know, i mean,

again, a person with such impact. and she, of course, really important journalist. correspondent at "the new york times" before she moved to television. first african-american woman to host a major political affairs show. a vice presidential debate. she was such an inspiration to so many young women and young women of color. that's what we chose to tell the story of, which is the story of this young woman in newark who really idolized her and got a chance, who wanted to be a newscaster and got a chance to interview her via skype and said why are you taking -- i'm sure you have a lot to do. why are you taking so much time to do the interview with me? she said, sophie, because i was you. a really moving story. >> that's beautiful. i want to put some of the other names on the list. you have janet reno, natalie cole, and pat summitt. >> and gwen ifill, pat summitt, janet reno, a real similarities. these are women born between the

late '30s and early '50s who faced a lot of challenges as women trying to accomplish what they accomplished. you can see a kind of common denominator between them. strong will, determination, real original people. >> absolutely. >> very, very brave. just inspirational. >> what a great issue. we're looking for "the new york times" magazine's the lives they lived issue, out this weekend. and online now. jake silverstein, thank you so much for coming in. >> good to be here. >> still ahead, donald trump's campaign manager kellyanne conway is taking a job in the white house. and she joins us next on "morning joe." s. i'm victoria alonso and i'm an executive producer... ...at marvel studios. we are very much hands-on producers. if my office... ...becomes a plane or an airport the surface pro's perfect. fast and portable but also light. you don't do this 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for... ...decades if you don't feel it in your heart. listen, i know my super power is to not ever sleep. that's it. that's the only super power i have.

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liberty mutual insurance let's bring in dominic chu. the dow tried to hit the 20,000 mark, but just couldn't break through. any indication, what's holding it back? >> it's been trying for a few days now. i feel like a broken record because i am one. we keep watching for this thing, but we got some catalysts this morning. a better than expected economic number, the u.s. economy grew at 3.5% last quarter. better than some analysts expected. maybe that's enough to power things. we're ronly about 60 points awa from that. we'll see if theidatesa can get us there. it seems like i need it to happen so we can move on from it. whatever happens, it's going to happen. trump is also having issues as well. we heard kellyanne conway, new counsellor, but also defense contractors. boeing and lockheed martin responding to donald trump here.

the ceo of boeing, if lock heed's ceo, they both met with him. boeing's ceo made a personal commitment to donald trump that the air force one cost thing would not run out of control. you have lockheed's ceo saying they're committed to delivering a affordable fighter jet for our armed forces and allies. beyond that, you also have other cabinet appointments as well. the business world is keeping a close eye on carl icahn. he's now a special adviser to trump, focusing on regulatory reform. also, other things to note, the china trade critic peter navarro is going to lead the newly created white house national trade council. trump's team said he'll work to reduce trade deficits and promote growth. he's been viewed by some as a trade protectionist. >> dominic chu, thank you very much. >> joining us now, the newly named counselor to the president, kellyanne conway. this is exciting and unexpected. how are you? >> i'm great, mika.

thank you for having me. >> tell us what went behind this decision. we have spoken a little bit. there's a lot of factors at play. >> i appreciate your counsel and your friendship throughout and that of many others. essentially, my major concern is and will always be my four children, but i'm very convinced that this is a family friendly west wing and white house. i have seen donald trump up close and personal with his own children and his grandchildren, and certainly his 10-year-old son and his wife. and i know that he is very pro-family. i have seen, i have witnessed, and i have heard firsthand the way he has treated women and men frankly in the trump corporation over a number of years and i'm also excited to work with the senior team in place to support them how i can. it's a weighty responsibility. if you have the president's ear and his trust and you're honored and humbled enough to have this opportunity, i think it's very difficult to say no. and the president-elect is a very persuasive man. >> what does he want your number one priority to be?

>> he probably would want my number one priority to be what it has been, which is to be a more discreet adviser and somebody who helps him to effectively -- supports him in his effective connecting and communicating with america. i think nobody is the master of brilliant communicator and connector that he is, that's how he won this campaign, how he became president. if i can support that, i will. in addition to, i know in speaking about the role with jared kushner, he made an excellent point. he said we would like to tap into your data and strategic and data background. we'll see what ends up in the port foal yeah. i'm there to support them they need me to, and i think essentially it will continue to be what it's been. >> can i ask, if john bolton's mustache ruined his chances? you would know. >> i wouldn't know that. i fear i'm not an expert on mustaches. i'm a yankees fan and i'm not

allowed to have facial tear. >> what about looking the part? >> looking -- >> just what's going on here? you know trump. i know trump. is there something to this? >> no, i think it's not fair to say that people are in or out based on how they look or quote looking the part. i think it's being the part. donald trump knows that first and foremost. he looks like a strong leader who speaks his mind and has an amazing successful portfolio outside of politics. in the end, he is that. he doesn't just look like that. look, you wouldn't be meeting with over 100 men and women at this point, mika, dozens and dozens of people, only a fraction of whom will end up serving in your cabinet and in senior roles if you were concerned about that. so i think it's been a tremendous process that he's undertaken, and what's amazing to me is that he's met with over 100 people who are offering their advice and their counsel and vision and experiences, and yet he is still ahead of

schedule from past administrations, republican and democrat. that's pretty remarkable. >> michaelsteele, jump in. >> kelly, congratulations. i can't think of anyone better for that. your service in terms of this campaign has been underrated, by the way. >> tireless. >> i think what you have done is amazing. to that point, you're now a counselor to the president. how do you see yourself navigating what will be some serious competing interests as this administration begins to take the ground and take the hill, if you will, that it needs to take legislatively as well as politically? how do you see yourself in between those two competing worlds? >> that's a top priority, i would say, for all of us in the administration, in the west wing, michael. a great question. we see many people tying to get in the president-elect's way even before he takes office, which is unfortunate. i think that's what the protests are about, and other folks in

hollywood and elsewhere trying to get in his way. we have to do what we have done all along, which is focus and put our heads down. ignore the naysayers and critics and recognize this is a man who has said he will be the president to all americans. even those who did not support him. even those who didn't vote, frankly. so many of his policies are meant to help everybody. if you look at the child care and elder care tax credits he and his daughter have talked about. if you look at his create 25 million jobs in ten years and unleash energy investments, that stimulates the economy and projects economic growth that is a rising tide that lifts all boats. at the same time, i have seen him try to include people from very different backgrounds and very different viewpoints. that's what leaders do. they don't shut folks out just because they disagree with them or didn't support them. i have seen -- we have all seen frankly in the process, through the transition, a president-elect who has brought in democratic office holders, who has talked to them on the

phone, who has gotten tremendous support from mr. obama, i think it's set a great tone, but i also think it sets a great content moving forward and passing some of the legislation. >> sam stein, go ahead. >> kellyanne, congrats on the gig. well deserved, as everyone has said here. we were talking earlier on the show about the tattacks that to place in berlin, one of the question joe and the rest of the panel were trying to get our heads around, a two-part question. one, the muslim ban that came in place after san bernardino, is that still operable? yes or no. then the second thing is, if it's not and the policy is extreme vetting, can you walk us through what that means? what specific things are we talking about that aren't taking place now, would a trump administration apply to the vetting process? >> sure. sam, so the president-elect many times during the campaign since the december san bernardino attack of a year ago, has said, has really sirkm scribes what he

said from the previous december in explaining it's about extreme vetting. that extreme vetting kauch contemplates getting tougher with countries known to train and harbor terrorists. this is not complicated in terms of there are countries that are known to do that. we know that isis is also promised/threat eened to, quote blend in with refugees, syrian and otherwise. we know germany now is added to the list with france and italy and belgium and of course the united states of america, falling victim to these random attacks that are inspired by isis. and so you've got hillary clinton referring to them as our, quote, determined enemies in her convention speech. donald trump being willing to call them what they are, to defeat them. and also, if you look at his plan, which is still on the website, if everybody wants to pull it up. he also calls for a much more robust collaboration with many of our allies and even with

countries that we don't work with closely on a number of policy issues to come together and have a strength in numbers approach to defeating radical islamic terrorism. isis is fairly new in terms of terrorism around the globe. it was created through the vacuum that was left in the way we came out of iraq, frankly, and it's grown in strength. it is not retreating, it is not abating. ask germany. also, i think having a president of the united states and a commander in chief who's willing to put this as a top priority and respond to the growing number of americans who say they feel less safe over the last four to eight years is a great start. >> ben ginsberg. >> kellyanne, congratulations. >> thank you. >> always good to have a wily political operative as part of the white house mix. as you were talking with your role with the president-elect, what's the mix that you think you'll be taking on between long-term strategic issues and the sort of emergency firefight of the day? >> i think anyone's portfolio

includes some of that. i don't imagine that we'll be a white house that's immune to unforeseen circumstances and events. this happens every time. i have spoken to people who have had a role similar to this in previous administrations, democratic and republican, and it's an important balance. it's going in every day and focusing on what your portfolio is, what you are expected to do on behalf of the president of the united states. at the same time, being flexible and nimble enough to recognize that there will be times when you can't even -- you're taking off of that and there are crises to deal with or there are unforeseen circumstances that have popped up. i mean, i know donald trump, and he's a leader who is able to be nimble and resilient, and just as politically speaking all the times he was counted out, betting against donald trump is a real fool's errand, as everyone has come to realize. even in addition to the politics, policywise, his consistency and his clarity on a

number of issues really mattered because i even ask people to this moment, what exactly was hillary clinton's message? it's very difficult for people to answer that question. it's very easy for them to answer about donald trump. you take that and make those a long-term strategic initiative, and then you become nimble enough, and i think it's important to have a cohesive senior team that works together and knows that. >> kellyanne conway, thank you so much. >> thank you, mika. thank you, everyone. >> see you soon. eddie, final thoughts? >> three words for 2017. >> yeah. >> we need to imagine. >> we need to imagine. >> those are four. >> imagine, resist, love. >> ah, i like it. okay. imagine, resist, love. what a day, and some breaking news. kellyanne conway getting that -- i'm surprised by it. i thought she was seriously considering taking a job outside. but they must have realized they really needed her. >> yeah, she was such an essentially part to sort of the way the thinking went. >> yeah. >> within the campaign, that it makes sense to bring her into

the white house. karen hughes, valerie jarrett. >> balancing a lot. >> okay. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much. hi, there, i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning on the run, german authorities in an all-out search for this man. the manhunt now across all of europe as new details emerge. the suspect was supposed to have been deported, but his papers came too late. and weighing in, donald trump taking questions from reporters for all of 72 seconds. doubling down on his muslim ban after the germany attack. >> you've known my plans all along, and it's -- i've been proven to be right. 100% correct. >> tapping into his deal making, tough negotiating, donald trump meeting with defense contractor ceos. >> we're going to get the cost down and we're going to get it done beautifully. >> plus, no deal. north carolina legislature descends into