sort of most profound way that a parent and child can be a friend, dying just a few days later. that being confirmed at this hour. breaking news by nbc news. more now with ari melber in for rachel maddow, good evening. >> thank you at home for rachel maddow, good evening. >> thank you at home for watching. i'm in for rachel who is out tonight. we have a lot on this breaking news. the day after "star wars" actress and longtime mental health activist carrie fisher passed away at the age of 60, her mother, as chris was just reporting, her mother debbie reynolds passed away at the age of 84. she was best known for her role in "singing in the rain." she was just 19 at that time. she was nominated for a golden globe as the character in "the unsinkable molly brown." we have some political news in the show tonight but we want to begin with nbc's gabe gutierrez who has more on this story.

>> tonight as mourners gather at carrie fisher's memorial on the walk of fame, well wishes are pouring in for her mother, debbie reynolds who was rushed to the hospital. according to law enforcement sources, the 84-year-old was at her son's home when someone called 911. this video from tmz shows an ambulance leaving reynolds' son's home this afternoon. reynolds' career has spanned nearly seven decades. including some of the most iconic films of the 20th century. she's hollywood royalty, the first wife of pop mega star eddie fisher who divorced reynolds to marry her best friend, elizabeth taylor. >> i don't choose well. i don't blame anybody but myself. but i just seem to have very pore taste in men. singing in the rain >> singing in the rain made her famous back in 1952.

casting the 19-year-old alongside song and dance veterans gene kelly and donald o'connor. >> they've been dancing 30 years. i was dancing for 3 months. so i was hysterical. >> decades later her daughter would become princess leia, hours after fisher's death tuesday following a heart attack reynolds thanked fans for their support and condolences. i am grateful for your thoughts and prayers. they are now guiding her to her next stop. love, carrie's mother, she wrote on facebook. >> gabe gutierrez with a report on the passing of debbie reynolds just a day after we were reporting carrie fisher's passing. fans of them around the country reacts. we'll get to political news tonight. but first in addition to that report we just aired, i want to go to our los angeles bureau where nbc news's gadi schwartz is also reporting the story. what can you tell us? . we just spoke with debbie reynolds agent tom markly.

he has confirmed that debbie reynolds has passed away. he spoke with her son a little earlier. she's gone to be with carrie now. she loved taking care of her and now she's gone to be with her. the mother and the daughter so famously close here in hollywood. many people showing their support right now online. but obviously debbie reynolds, one of the most famous actresses of her time. mother of carrie fisher. and when carrie fisher was hospitalized, carrie fisher passed away, it was a very, very difficult time for debbie reynolds. she was obviously in mourning. we understand that she was taken to the hospital because of shortness of breath. we can confirm that she has passed away. her son saying she's gone to be with carrie now and she loved taking care of her. back to you. >> and you mention the family. obviously, this must be quite a toll on them when you think about a mother and daughter dying a day apart.

>> it absolutely is. but you also have to remember that this was a family that was embracing of all their problems, all their tribulations and they were also a family that seemed to embrace the humor in it all. so we saw that in a lot of the interviews with carrie fisher. we also saw that in her mother. so you have to imagine that both of them right now may be finding solace in each other. >> gadi schwartz in los angeles. thank you for your reporting. we appreciate it. again tonight we can confirm lenl endary actress debbie reynolds dying at the age of 84. we will update on the story as we learn more. this happened, confirmed by nbc news just moments ago. we do turn back to politics. you are watching the rachel maddow show. i'm ari melber in for rachel maddow. it was on this day when bill clinton had 23 days left as president and being the ambitious type on this day he told folks he was still working on one thing to do before leaving office. and that was peace in the middle

east. clearly that's a topic that tends to arise at the end of some administrations. and on this day in 2000 it wasn't going well. >> a final push in the last weeks of clinton's presidency, but clinton's demand that israel and the palestinians agree in principle to his peace proposal hits a wall. at the white house today, president clinton clearly frustrated. >> we're all operating under a deadline. just some of us know what our deadline is. both sides know exactly what i mean and they know exactly what they still have to do. >> now, that december there was also a president-elect, of course, and that george h.w. bush was announcing his pick for defense secretary, donald rumsfeld. was asked about president clinton's mideast effort. here's how bush used his voice to discuss america's view on the world stage. >> would you push the palestinians and the israelis at this point to conclude a peace treaty or do you fave ter status quo? and do you favor this clinton

plan that calls for a de facto division of jerusalem? >> we have one president and the current president is president clinton and our nation must speak with one voice. therefore his is the voice that needs to speak. having said that, i will tell you, i'm impressed by his efforts to bring the folks together. obviously, we hope it works. we hope it works. >> now, bill clinton's last-minute peace deal did not work and the bush administration didn't get much further on that front. eight years later when barack obama was president-elect and he was asked about the middle east, israel was three days into a ground invasion of gaza. >> with the situation in gaza i've been getting briefed every day. i've had consistent conversations with members of the current administration about what's taking place. that will continue. i will continue to insist that,

when it comes to foreign affairs, it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time because there are delicate negotiations taking place right now and we can't have two voices coming out of the united states when you have so much at stake. >> you can see the simple pattern here. a long bipartisan tradition especially on foreign affairs where presidents-elect tend to stay out of the fray because it can be confusing and in some cases even dangerous for the u.s. to have two foreign policies having appear at once. even on matters not as dire as war in the middle east, presidents-elect have generally respected this unwritten rule. >> clinton was a study in transition today attending a meeting on the state budget, reading briefing books on how to set up a national government. one of clinton's first problems may be an escalating trade war with europe. the u.s. just raised tariffs on some european products 200%. >> i don't want to comment on it.

we have one president. he has to make those decisions. i don't want to get in the way. >> bill clinton there staying out of george h.w.'s way just as his son would later stay out of his way just as barack obama would stay out of george bush's way and on it went. it's that long history that makes the actions over the current trump over the last few days so unusual. past presidents have declined to offer an opinion on foreign policy. but donald trump has gone farther than that after the israeli government contacted to team to ask for help on a resolution, trump called on the obama administration to condemn the resolution. he spoke directly with the president of egypt that sponsored that resolution, direct interference, obviously, the u.n. vote was even briefly canceled and for a moment it appeared perhaps the president-elect was scuttling a u.n. resolution against the

wishes of a sitting american president. that's a big deal on process regardless of how you feel about the individual resolution. now, the vote did happen. the u.s. abstained. that infuriated the israeli government and the president-elect took to twitter to say this. quote, we cannot continue to let israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. they used to have a great friend in the u.s. but not anymore. the beginning of the end was the horrible iran deal and now this u.n. stay strong, israel. january 20th is fast approaching. secretary of state john kerry, who is still right now america's top diplomat, and he will be so until january 20th, responded directly to the president-elect's tweets today in an interview with nbc's andrea mitchell. >> i think there are limits to what the administration can undertake at this point in time. we understand that, but i'm not going to get into a debate with the president-elect on, you know, twitter or whatever.

it's just not -- i'm not going to do that. there's plenty of time afterwards -- >> is it confusing allies and adversaries? >> i think it's having some impact, obviously, on allies who are questioning what's going on. but they have their own policies. they're not going to be swayed and intimidated by a tweet. they're going to pursue their interests and their own values and that's what diplomacy is all about. >> they're not going to be intimidated by a trump tweet. john kerry's actually telegraphing a lot in that new response. he's waving off trump's tweets as so much digital piffle and he's saying that neither the current administration nor serious allies will take trump's typed-out slogans seriously. it's more than rebuttal. it's kind of philosophical and strategic choice about how to deal with trump's twitter alter-ego. it might come all the way from the top. because on the day that twitter

trump was kveching and campaigning about obama's approach to the situation, the president took time from his hawaii holiday vacation and called actual trump. then donald trump announced that call before the white house telling reporters today -- this was around 5:00 eastern, that he'd spoken with president obama. >> he phoned me. we had a very nice conversation. we had a very general conversation, very, very nice. appreciated that he called. >> there's a tradition of some circumspection about these conversations, after trump announced it the white house released their official statement, quote, this morning from hawaii, president obama phoned president-elect trump. today's call like the others since the election was positive and focused on continuing a smooth and effective transition. the president and president-elect committed to staying in touch over the next several weeks and agreed their respective teams would continue to work together to effectuate a smooth transition of power on january 20th. that's official speak, but it's obama's way of saying pay no attention to the man behind the twitter machine. we're good.

and tonight we can tell you that worked. after whatever obama said on that private call, trump rushed out to tell the world it was, quote, very, very nice, so the two sides of this same phone call coming out pretty similar. the only other side to this call is, of course, twitter trump, the man you just saw about your own eyes coming out and saying this is all very, very nice and he appreciates obama's transition call. he was talking tough on twitter today, just this morning, apparently upset that obama had suggested that he could have beaten trump if they had been able to face off against each other. doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory president o statements and roadblocks. thought it was going to be a smooth transition. not. once you take a moment to get over the fact that our incoming president is making a "not" joke, that's "wayne's world," i'm not even sure he did it correctly, then you wonder what does he mean it was not a smooth transition especially when he was saying on twitter the

opposite. the custom is we have one president at a time. when you see donald trump come out you get the feeling that that custom is alive and well. but that's just some of the time. on twitter, unchaperoned and shouting out to the world and to the u.n. and the israelis, if donald trump hasn't been recently soothed by his newfound mentor president obama, there are again suddenly two presidents at a time. he called me.

he called me. we had a very, very good talk about generally about things. he was in hawaii. and it was a very, very nice call. and i actually thought we covered a lot of territory. a lot of good -- >> are you satisfied with the transition thus far? >> well, our staffs are getting along very well.

and i'm getting along very well with him. other than a couple of statements. that i responded to. and we talked about it and smiled about it. and nobody's ever going to know because we're never going to be going against each other in that way. so but he was -- it was a great conversation. >> president-elect donald trump this evening, that was hours basically after tweeting that the fact, in fact, the transition was not going smoothly because of inflammatory statements and roadblocks from president obama, leaving some wondering which is it. joining us now is john harwood. what do you make of the two trumps and this effort by obama to be in his ear? >> what we've seen with donald trump is somebody who has got a very strong ego and who is very impulsive. so when he reads an account of david axelrod interviewing president obama and president obama suggesting that he could have beaten donald trump in the election, that feels wounding to him. he responded aggressively in a tweet making fun of the fact that president obama had campaigned and not been able to

pull hillary clinton across the finish line. then he acts to e israel resolution at the united nations anthen sends out those tweets this morning. then, when he actually talks to president obama, he then comes out and says, oh, it's fine. you know, people have said that one of the idiosyncrasies of donald trump is that the last person who is with him who speaks to him has a lot of influence. there's an example of that. >> are you saying he has poor impulse control and is malleable? >> i don't think i would be the first person to say that. donald trump has not restrained himself from lashing out against people during the campaign in ways that was counterproductive, that his staff wishes he didn't do. and you know, in the way this played out today on the transition, sean spicer was on a transition conference call and was asked about donald trump's tweets and said, well, they speak for themselves.

and you know, earlier he had said in interviews the transition was going smoothly. and donald trump later affirmed that in his own comments today. so it's difficult to know from what one moment to the next what words from donald trump are important. you know, one of his advisers said after the campaign was, well, his supporters took him seriously but not literally. >> sure. >> people in the press took him literally and not seriously. that's sometimes a difficult thing to parse. >> as i was talking about before the commercial, both john kerry and barack obama were seeming to take the tone that you don't take the tweets that seriously. there may be something for a lot of folks to learn not only in diplomacy but in the press.

on the flip side when we think about parenting sometimes we say, when children can't get positive attention they will seek negative attention because any attention is better than being ignored. with donald trump, he may feel that the tweet was a cycle of negative attention but he got a call from the president. so in his mind this may be all good. >> there's no question about it. and first of all, attention is something that donald trump clearly relishes. and had wholly, separately from this, he made very effective use of a slow day in the middle of a holiday week by having sean spicer on the call today say, well, later in the day he's going to have a big economic development announcement, then he walked out at the end of the day, he had a phone call with the ceo of sprint and made a brief statement saying that, well, they're going to bring 5,000 jobs to the united states because of me. these had previously been announced as part of another event donald trump had with a japanese bank executive. but he managed to transfix a lot of people for the course of the

day on the fact that what's this big announcement that's coming. it wasn't that big. it's not nothing. and certainly 5,000 families are going to be happy with those jobs and another 3,000 from a different company. but this is the way donald trump manages to seize the spotlight and hold it. >> well, it's bizarre. talk about jobs. he may be saving sprint's job, vp of corporate communications if he's willing to do their announcements of things they already agreed to do, it had nothing to do with him, just so he can stand there, i'm sure it will work for some time. i'm not sure for how long. we have an economist on later this hour. there's documented evidence these are not new jobs that relate to donald trump at all. we're out of time, but briefly. >> ari, this is fantasy football right now. reality is going to hit the new president and his team in the face when they come in and that's when we're going to decide whether any of these tactics work or not. >> exactly. that's sort of why we're in this

two presidents period. john harwood, thank you as always for your insights. quick question for you guys.

quick question for you guys. do you all spend new year's day doing that big family dinner with the whole gang, maybe the one uncle who watches fox news all day or these days reads breitbart.com. then it's in your best interests to please stick around for our next segment. xe

this year it is estimated $70 million of taxpayer money was wasted on food stamp fraud. so is it time to end the program altogether? >> it is estimated. it is? now, that was fox news just yesterday reporting on the use of food stamps formally known in the federal government as supplemental nutrition assistance. fox news source that $70 million fraud claim to the federal government specifically to the agricultural department. but they've not put out any new information about fraud.

we called them today to ask about that figure. they say they don't know where fox got it. fact checkers who review these claims find there's zero evidence that fraud is at an all-time high. it's declined in recent years. the agricultural department does try to track it generally. in 2013, not exactly news, theyed is the program had a fraud or trafficking rate of 1.3%. it's not exactly clear why this topic is arising now. we know it's not a response to actual news from the ag department. but breitbart news, which used to be run by trump white house senior adviser steve bannon, just published its own article saying that food stamp use has risen during president obama's presidency. that's technically true although it wasn't linked to new data either. it ignores key facts. it also rose during president obama's predecessor. it does spike during recession. but that's just the numbers. in politics two dynamics are at play here. making the program sound flawed so you can try to cancel it and the effort to tie president obama and liberals to providing food stamps as if it's something bad, a tactic that's been tried many times most memorably by newt gingrich back in his 2012 run for president.

>> barack obama is the best food stamp president in american history. the fact is barack obama is the best food stamp president in american history. that's a fact. the fact is barack obama is the best food stamp president in american history. that's a fact. >> you just say it. you say it over and over. now, when newt gingrich was challenged on what he was really saying basically in that claim there at a fox news debate, it was very clear where the republican audience was. >> speaker gingrich, you recently said black americans should demand jobs not food stamps. i got to tell you, my e-mail account, my twitter account has been inundated with people of all races who are asking if your comments are not intended to belittle the poor and racial

minorities. you saw some of this reaction during your visit to a black church in south carolina. you saw some of this during your visit to a black church in south carolina where a woman asked you why you referred to president obama as the food stamp president. it sounds as if you're seeking to belittle people. >> first of all, juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history. now, i know among the politically correct you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable. >> notice there that the politician complaining about uncomfortable political correctness is literally backed by a crowd that's so uncomfortable with the topic itself they don't even want that

question to be heard. yes, let's talk about political correctness. more broadly gingrich's answer is a classic sleight of hand blaming a solution for the underlying problem. when more people are unemployed or hungry, more food assistance is needed. just like when more floods strike, more housing assistance is needed. it's quite the political feat to blame the government providing those basic provisions for the underlying causes that made them a necessity. and that's just a point on policy. before you even get to the politics of using coded language and race to drum up images of a welfare queens or rampant food stamp fraud. now, if what is old is new again, we have to ask absent new facts or government data, why is this all coming up again now? joining us is joan walsh, a national affairs correspondent at the nation. why now? >> well, why now is because we have fox news, which is awaiting

a president donald trump by rerunning their greatest hits. fox has done this before. they did it under obama. they chased this idea of food stamp fraud. but it goes way back to ronald reagan. ronald reagan in the '60s talked about strapping young bucks buying t-bone steaks with their food stamps and everybody knew who he was talking about. so when newt gingrich talked about obama that way, it's a dog whistle. we've heard it before. we'll hear it again and hear it a lot under president thumb. but there's one really interesting thing here. first of all, seven out of ten states that are top food stamp recipients are red states. they voted for donald trump. the politics of this is very interesting. also most able-bodied adults on food stamps actually work as well. so it's not just people sitting around, you know, lazy, flipping channels, it's really a crisis of the low wage job market that we've gotten ourselves into which republicans have no solutions for. >> you mentioned there's a lot of this nutrition assistance

this states that went for trump, those are the states we found with the highest obamacare enrollment. what is the linkage, it may not even be that the trump transition folks are thinking about this policy strategy, but their allies here are trying to paint the picture of what these programs do. >> donald trump actually ran against cuts to the underlying safety net specifically social security and medicare, but he didn't rail against food stamps. he didn't talk like a budget cutter which he's going along with paul ryan, paul ryan's budget as well as donald trump's tax cuts are going to require food stamp cuts. we don't really know what he thinks. but we've got this tradition of the white working class sadly hating programs that actually benefit them. really believing they've come to blame the government for their joblessness or the fact that their jobs pay low wages. so they resent, even though they benefit. and this is a weird conundrum for democrats, obviously poor

hillary clinton couldn't sort out, and i think we'll be spending a lot of time thinking about how to do that in the years to come. >> what do you want to hear from donald trump on the racial component of this after the campaign he ran? >> he won't talk about the racial component, he would defend newt gingrich from that. i just think it will be very interesting on which side he comes down on. is he a new kind of populist republican who really wants to spend money whether on infrastructure or a safety net or is he going to not pay much attention and go along with the people who want tax cuts, he wants that, but also major, major changes to the cuts slashing the safety net. >> and if these are his messages will he be their vessel? joan walsh, appreciate it. president obama may only have 22 days in office but today he took a major step towards protecting his legacy here at home. that's next. all right. check this out.

these are two land forms that sit right next to each other in the deserts of southeastern utah. beautiful. the acres of land around them have long been considered sacred land to native americans and for decades even back to fdr there have been efforts to place this area under federal protection from any outside development. today something you may not have heard about yet in one of his final acts as president, president obama did just that. he declared the barriers buttes of southeastern utah and the gold butte in nevada to be officially national monuments. over a million and a half acres of land that is now as of today under federal protection with the stroke of the president's pen. of course, the question is always with things these days,

will it stay that way? opponents of the monument designation are already asking president-elect trump to rescind president obama's national monument designations. it's unclear if he can. that's an unfolding story. president obama's designation was made under a 110-year-old antiquities act and so far no president has ever tried to actually test another president's authority under that. will donald trump be the first to try? watch this space. trump transition officials

trump transition officials told reporters on a call today there would be a big announcement from donald trump. >> i was just called by the head people at sprint and they're going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the united states. they're taking them from other countries bringing them back to the united states. and masa and some other people were very much involved in that. so i want to thank them. and also one web, a new company, is going to be hiring 3,000 people. >> that was the excitement. no economic plan, no real details, no explanation of how this deal came about including

whether this was a new deal and whether trump was involved in bringing the 5,000 jobs to the u.s. and the one company delivering these 3,000 jobs. donald trump isn't even in office yet but he's pioneering a new type of government rollout for quite small business announcements. consider it the pr form of corporate welfare. trump makes an announcement on behalf of u.s. companies for workers. he ensures that he's on screen that he, not the ceo, is literally announcing news and allows him to take a bow before any of the details are known. he said he was bringing $50 billion or 50,000 jobs into america from a deal with a japanese company, softbank. but in actuality reporters demolished those claims revealing the nfbment was likely destined for the u.s. regardless of who was elected. in the case of carrier, trump

said he was saving, not adding, saving 800 jobs that were going to be moved to mexico. then with further documentation, we learned carrier was granted millions of tax breaks the kind of deal that donald trump had previously attacked politicians for plus, yes, folks, we're stay on the story, it turned out carrier was still sending many of those jobs to mexico and shuttering a separate indiana plant and sending those jobs to mexico, too. now tonight hours after donald trump was happy to announce those supposed 8,000 new jobs, again some demolishment. we are learning these are not new jobs. they're the same jobs from that softbank announcement from earlier this month. this was just the president-elect repackaging an old announcement of jobs and trying to tell everyone they're new, like a hand me down stimulus. studies have estimated obama's auto bailout saved 1.5 million jobs. we want to be clear here so this

chart is as clear as possible. that is your comparison. 1.5 million to the 800 in the carrier deal. if barack obama was like donald trump right now and held individual announcements for every 800 jobs he saved the size of that carrier deal, he would have held one of these thank me press conferences every day for more than five years. now, most presidents do have pretty strong self-esteem, but only donald trump has the rapper level chutzpah to literally thank himself. folks, he just channelled aubrey drake graham to basically say, you could thank me now. here's the tweet. the u.s. consumer confidence index for december surged nearly 4 points. the highest level in more than 15 years. thanks donald! end quote. thanks, donald. the consumer confidence index, of course, not exactly a pure economic metric. i doesn't rate the economy, doesn't count jobs or the markets.

it's a poll about how people feel about the economy. donald trump taking credit for a four-point bump in an economic feelings poll before he takes office. that's gone up, if you're keeping track, more than 80 points during president obama's time in office. we're waiting on that thanks barack tweet from the account. donald trump would like you to thank him for stock market activity. the world was gloomy before i won. there was no hope. "star wars" quotes here. now the market is up and christmas spending is over a trillion dollar. we don't think donald trump brought on the christmas shopping. we think it was christmas. the dow jones is up not a full 10% but a little over 8% since september. what you're looking at is now the recent gains in the dow. that is a steady gain over the last four years under president obama. here's the portion that donald trump is taking credit for. and he hasn't taken office. it's not about his policies. he's just showing up after

somebody else built something, then trying to profit off their work or trying to slap his name on the side of someone else's building. now that you think about it, donald trump has unveiled his economic plan. it looks a lot like his business model. former chief economic adviser to vice president biden. you were of this administration. we showed some of the numbers. the point there wasn't really tit for tat, it's how small donald trump's tat is compared to this record yet he's obviously very happy with it. >> well, that's definitely a big part of the point. it's really great that you're sticking with those stories. i was reminded of this comedian i once heard that said i have the world's greatest collection of seashells. i keep them on beaches around the world. he's obviously making claims for a trend that he's inheriting, a trend that's as different as the one that president obama inherited as day versus night. i was there in the oval office when obama made the decision to

help rescue the auto industry. there was a lot of pressure pushing against him. he made that call and that bar chart you showed is accurate. >> but did he go and make these weird announcements? i mean, this is a very different style here where with a lot less, there's a lot more noise. >> yes. donald trump's noisiness is, if you had a bar chart of donald trump's noisiness relative to obama's, you'd have the same kind of relationship there. in the stock market there's an interesting thing going on there. there's a bit of a trump bump in the market. a part of a much longer term trend. but what's going on is an expectations gain. he's talking about cutting taxes significantly on high income people, deregulating financial markets. if that sounds to you like the george w. bush 2000 agenda that got us into that mess, me, too. the kind of policies he's espousing and what will help his constituents. >> he ran very much against wall

street. we'll see where that goes. the other question is a little more economic, metaphysical but i want to ask you -- >> bring it. >> is there something wrong with someone with incoming power, a federal official, in this case the president, getting into this level of ad hoc casual detail about which companies are going to do what while he oversees a federal government, regulatory approval of deals? is there anything that concerns you about that? or do you buy the argument from trump boosters this is different, we need different. >> what we often have and this is just the way presidents will always be, is that if something good happens in the economy, the president will take credit for. i don't care who he or she is. >> sure. >> we're seeing a level of micro management and tweet shaming china around trade and all

carrier play. that's not a systemic approach to the kinds of manufacturing job promises that donald trump made. and the kinds of -- those kinds of interventions are very much at the level of micro managing specific firms. and i don't think that does end well. and it's not characteristic of that level of policy. >> and letting them off the hook easy if all a company has to do is go along with spin for jobs they've already made a deal on and let the government official do the announcement, well, that's the easiest corporate welfare ever. >> exactly. so donald trump like with the carrier thing, donald trump talks sticks but someone's handing out a $7 million carrot check there. so you have to look very much at the details. what we're not seeing is systemic economic policy that's truly targeted at the many constituents who voted for him because they've been on the wrong side of globalization, of inequality, they've experienced wage stagnation.

we're seeing a plan that's a gift to investors. >> not tired of winning yet. much more to come. stay with us. back in october on this show, rachel reported how

back in october on this show, rachel reported how president obama was bearing down and how he wanted to focus his efforts after leaving the white

house. he was interested in the structural democratic reform that many people agree is important but tend to say is either too intractable, too diffuse, or either too far in the weeds to ever be anyone's national crusade. we are of course talking about redistricting. obama plans to team up with former attorney general eric holder to take what some are calling a holistic political grassroots and legal approach to this, filing challenges to unfair redistricting maps, targeting these crucial but often forgotten down ballot that can determine who draws the maps for congressional districts all the way down the road. the next rewrite is in 2020. we know this is president obama's big plan after he leaves office. that had dribbled out. now what is new is we know who is going to lead this massive ambitious effort. literally the one thing president obama is saying he is going to focus on. that person is going to be on "the rachel maddow show" tomorrow. we think you won't want to miss it. around here, i'm lucky to get through

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you ever read those life advice books that say while you have to go after your goals, the biggest goals often come down to timing? dick cheney went from a house in wyoming to a defense at the pentagon and serving as one of the most powerful vips in history. the key to cheney's rise is his rise to defense secretary. but as for timing and goals, he wasn't first choice. >> with john towers defeat today, who is next for defense secretary? who does president bush nominate now? lots of speculation tonight, but no announcement. the vote against tower went about as expected. 53 against, 47 for. 3 democrats for tower, one republican against him. it was a historic moment. only the ninth time in history that a president's cabinet choice had been rejected by the u.s. senate. >> john tower was president george h.w. bush's pick for the pentagon. he was defeated.

it was the ninth time in history, first since 1969 when the senate rejected president eisenhower's nominee for the commerce department. only after the senate blocked john tower did the door open and the timing become ripe for dick cheney. after the senate flexed its muscles in stopping tower, it found no issue with dick cheney at all. he was confirmed 92-0. now are there any other dick cheneys in the house circling the trump transition? well, that of course depends on how all the first round draft picks do in the senate. these interest president-elect's choices for his cabinet. and there is usually deference from both parties to cabinet picks on the idea what the president ought to get to pick his team. so cabinet rejections by the senate are really historically rare. but there have been rejections of presidential nominees to the judicial branch. one of those guys is a guy now knocked to be the president-elect's attorney general, alabama senator jeff sessions. in 1986, rachel has reported on this, he was not confirmed by the senate as a federal judge

after the senate judiciary committee reviewed allegations against him that he said racially insensitive things as a prosecutor, which he denied. a republican-controlled senate, though, effectively blocked his nomination. and now here he is back up for a cabinet position. his confirmation hearings begin less than two fwreex now. how hard will it be? and how many other trump nominees will actually have trouble getting confirmed by the senate, something that is so rare? joining us for context is amber phillips, a "washington post" reporter who wrote about the four trump nominees that are potentially headed for the most trouble. amber, what is the scorecard? >> hey, well, yeah, like you said, it is super rare. not only for cabinet nominees to get blocked, but for members of one party to block their own president's nominees. the last time that happened was in the 1920s in the calvin coolidge administration. donald trump also has partisanship. you only need a bare majority to get through your nominees. republicans have 52. but there are at least four,

maybe even five nominees that trump has picked that are totally out of the box. and at least in a couple of the cases, the republicans have mentioned they're not really comfortable with them. you only need one, two, three republicans to block a nomination from going forward. >> you mentioned that they're far outside the box. and no one is against thinking outside the bun. but when you look at rex tillerson, under normal rules he is up for a post where you normally wouldn't get tax returns. but given his business tire, some are calling for that. >> exactly. republicans like marco rubio, rand paul, jeff flake all very prominent republicans on the committee that would review his nomination are really skittish about rex tillerson's ties to russia and especially his sort of friendship, his buddy with russian president vladimir putin. marco rubio tweeted, you know,

after trump announced rex tillerson, being a friend of vladimir is not really what i wanted in a secretary of state. >> and briefly, i want to get you on jeff session here. obviously the only one in that unique position of having been blocked before. where do you see that going? >> well, so senators tend to give deference to fellow senators, right? not only the fact -- not only this idea that the president gets to pick his or her team, but that you should give deference to your own colleagues. it's a decorum kind of thing. but jeff sessions in some way is a mirror of a lot of things that people are uncomfortable with in the republican party about donald trump. you know, donald trump's ties to the alt-right movement or his tendency to sort of play up that movement. jeff sessions trouble getting confirmed by a republican controlled senate in the 1980s because of statements he made or allegedly made about race could raise some political pressure for republicans to kind of block that up, shut that out. >> and he has denied them, but other folks under oath pressed that case. that's certainly going to come

up. amber phillips from the post, thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you. >> that does it for the show. i'm ari melber in for rachel. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence? >> what is that e-mail dress? ari@msnbc.com. "first look" is up next. i don't needle point, and i don't really like to cook. so this is my life, you see. traveling and being on the road and doing things that interest me. and that's going around. it's not sitting at home and taking care of things, which my mama does, and she's brilliant at it. i will do that one day when i can't perform any longer, but right now while i have my health and while i can still have my talent to dance and sing, which i will have to retire from dancing in another couple years, i like to keep on the go. time will retire me. >> this morning, the world is remembering iconic actress