punishing putin. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm steve kornacki in tonight for chris matthews. president obama struck back at vladimir putin. this afternoon, the white house announcing sweeping new actions to punish russia for what our intelligence agencies conclude is its role in interfering in this year's presidential election. 35 russian diplomats who the president called intelligence operatives were given 72 hours to leave the united states. russian intelligence services were sanctioned, as was the head of one of those intel services and three of his deputies. three companies were also sanctioned. they allegedly provided support to russia's cyberoperations. in addition, two facilitie in the u.s. owned by the russian government are being shut down. in a statement, the president said all americans should be

alarmed by russia's actions. in october, my administration publicized our assessment that russia took actions, intended to interfere with the u.s. election process. these data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the russian government. and he said, there could be additional moves made against russia. these actions, the president's statement saying, are not the sum total of our response to russia's aggressive activities. we will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place ofur choosing, some of which will not be publicized. late today, president-elect donald trump reased his own statement. he said, it's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, i will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week, in order to be updated on the facts of this situation. for more now, aisle joined by nbc's ron allen. he is at the white house. ron, just in terms of what the administration did today, there are a couple of different fronts that they are proceeding on when

it comes to these sanctions, what exactly did they do and what effect, practically speaking, what effect will all of this have on russia? any? >> reporter: i think, some. they certainly hope so here at the white house. and what's most important, i think, steve, is that these sanctions, which basically freeze assets and restrict business dealings with americans go to the highest levels of the russian government and name names in the intelligence service. and those individuals may not have a lot of intelligence that they have access to, but this is meant to be a deterrent. and i think it's important that the allegations were not just about hacking into the election, but also about harassing diplomats abroad and about russian spying here in the united states, which is why those 35 so-called operatives are being expelled and why those two russian-owned compounds are being shut down. they're allegedly involved in espionage. and there were a number of

russians who were named to our allegedly well-known cyberthieves, who have been accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets from the united states, from financial institutions, and from ecommerce companies. so this was sweeping and it was beyond the election. and also, i just want t point out that apparently, the was no involvement by the incoming trump administration in this. lisa monaco, the director of homeland security and counterterrorism here, made a point of saying that they were notified this morning, the trump administration was, that something was going to happen and presumably what was going to happen, but they were not consulted. they were not brought into the loop and into the decision-making process about what the united states would do. also, the administration -- the obama administration has hinted strongly that the public portion of this is only a small part of what they're going to do. they've hinted strongly for weeks now, for months, that a, we're not even going to tell the public anything that happened, so it's significant they did

reveal all of this, but i think it's pretty safe to assume and based on president obama's statement that there is much more that they are going to do or are doing that's covert, that the administration says the targets of this action will know something has happened, but the public will not. and i've heard a number of analysts say, that might be more punishing and bet the attention of vladimir putin perhaps more directly, because this is the kind of uff he does. or he's been known to do, covert activities, when he was back in the spy community, in the kbg. so a very sweeping set of actions taken here by the administration, undering mounting pressure to do something, of course. and it remains to be seen how president-elect trump will react to this, what he will do, but clearly the obama administration has tried to lay out a set of steps that they have taken that to some extent, president-elect trump has to respond to. he has to either continue these sanctions or stop them.

and by doing so, he takes a position, and obviously, there's a lot of pressure in congress, bipartisan pressure, to take very strong action against the russians, because the election, because of a number of other things, as well. >> steve? >> ron allen at the white house. the white house also saying, russia's cyberactivities were intended to influence tlex, erode faith in the u.s. democratic institutions, sew doubt in the integrity of our electoral process and undermine confidence in the constitution of the u.s. government. i'm joined by james woolsey, a former director of the cia. he was an adviser to trump's campaign on national security and intelligence issues. and jeremy bash was chief of staff to former defense secretary, leon panetta. so donald trump has a big decision to make. he's coming into office 22 days from now. the president who's leaving office just put these brand-new sanctions in place. if donald trump's asking you for advice, does he keep those sanctions in place or get rid of them, what would you say? >> well, rather than forecast

what i would advise him, let me just say what i think, myself. >> i think that the obama administration missed a bet on this by not taking legal action. now, for anybody who is overseas and was hacking into us, we're probably not going to get them extradited from russia to the united states. but for people in this country and for people who have done something that there is evidence of, there's a crime, i don't see why not to proceed under the criminal law with some of these individuals. i think that puts us more in a position of having made a judgment that have enough evidence for it to be an indictable offense. and i think that then the rup russians are in the position of having to explain or defend

themselves. and rather than being in this curious situation that the obama administration has gotten us into, which is -- >> does that mean you -- do you think -- >> -- just politics. >> do you think the sanctions then are not a good idea? >> well, i think some of them are. and i think they would have more teeth, the ones that can be utilized this way, if they were brought in to our legal system. i don't see a reason in this case not to do that. >> jeremy, you hear james woolsey mention the word "politics" there. this is interesting. in 22 days, a new president is coming into office. there was nothing compelling president obama to take this step today, as opposed to collecting all the information, collecting all the evidence, and apparently, they're telling us they think they've got more coming in the next 22 days, and handing it off to the next president, saying, here's what we've got. you're the president, you have to live with as president whatever sanctions you decide to impose or not to impose, and let the next president make a decision. there was an affirmative decision to do this now and to

take this out of the purview of the next president. does that demonstrate, do you think, on the obama administration's part, a judgment they didn't think donald trump was going to make the decision they wanted? >> well, the most interesting document that the white house released today was an assessment by the fbi and by the department of homeland security. it's called a joint analysis report. and this lays the factual predicate, the unassailable factual predicate that russian intelligence services were in fact behind the effort to put a thumb on the scale of the u.s. election, which is an astounding statement in and of itself. and what this document does is it actually gives the basic information, which actors within the russian government, what were their internet protocol addresses, what was the malicious code that they used to try to infiltrate our democratic process. and i want to mention one line from this document that is so revelatory. i want says, this activity by russia was directed at the u.s.

government and its citizens. and i think the point is that the next administration, when they come in, they will find that russian hacking and russian cyberactivity will be directed at the whole government, not just the obama government, it will be directed also at the trump administration and government under donald trump. and so they're going to have to deal with this, one way or another. this is not something they can turn a blind eye to. this is nothing to sweep away. >> just to update your question here. are we just discovering this now? i mean, there are some specifics here, obviously, in terms of what came out through this wikileaks, from the e-mails, through the democratic party and everything. but the idea of russia, the idea of an adversary, the idea of a country that has the ability to potentially hack, at least, would be trying to get into a political party, into the government, into an educational institution. i mean, that's one of the things this report seems to say, that this has been happening for a long time before now. >> it's been known since the summer and it was revealed publicly in october and now here

we are post the election by a few weeks and the full complement of information can now being released. >> to come close to quoting president clinton in a different context, it all depends on what the "this" is. the russians have a program called disinformation. they doctor photographs, they rewrite things, they for -- they have a lot of people, thousands of people involved in doing it and they've been doing it since the 1930s anyway. and they use it to go against constitutions in the west that they believe damage them. they go against democratic political parties in europe, go against the catholic church, go against jews. they believe that anybody that might resist their views and the power they want to have, they would like to undermine their credibility. and so, russians have been doing this for nearly three quarters of a century. what's new is cyber, which has

this characteristic of being able to be masked much better than the other methods of moving militarily. >> so obama administration today saying that they have unmasked it. yet the man you advise still given no public indication that they've persuaded. russia's made public comments saying you can't prove anybody did it. you advised -- >> he may well be thinking and consulting his senior people, which i would suggest is what you want him to do. >> is he taking it seriously enough, though. you've been around him. is he taking it seriously enough, in your judgment? >> i'm sure he'll take it seriously. that may not mean make a decision in one day. >> let me also add, because director woolsey led the central intelligence agency and knows how important it is when there

is strong trust between an agency and a president and also when there isn't strong trust, how damaging that can be, in both directions. i personally believe that having served at the cia and i believe director woolsey would agree with this, that it is going to be very important for this white house and this administration to listen to the intelligence briefings and, to receive those intelligence briefings and hear from the nonprofessional analytic cadre at the agency and across other intelligence agencies and to take them into consideration and put it into the policy mix. they may come out with a policy view that some will agree or disagree, but at least to have that factual basis of the intelligence picture has got to be a critical part of presidential decision making. >> and they don't need to talk about it. teddy roosevelt had it right, speak softly and carry a big stick. and sometimes the softly is so soft, you aren't heard at all. they would be far more effective, i think, by using their cyber and other tools in such a way as to brace russia

substantially. and instead of issuing awful statements and insulting and getting into this crazy kind of spin that they're starting to get into, it looks like, what about saying something that's friendly and helpful, because they've just lost 90 people, military people, and the red army corists. a big constitution in russia. why not offer sympathy for that. >> i want to be clear what you're talking about, you say, getting this crazy kind of spin. where are you seeing the crazy kind of spin? >> i was thinking of the obama administration and i'm thinking particularly of their trying to make the overall situation back with the situation with israel look as if israel is the problem and its settlements. and i think that is very far from true. i think the heart of the matter is that the problem is that the

palestinians want to kill -- >> i just wanted to be clear, you weren't talking about today's announcement today i the report that was put out today? >> one needs to pay attention to what has happened and led up to it. >> very quickly? >> a different frame, of course we'll express sympathy for the plane crash that took down 90 members of the russian vocal chorus, but russia today is doing a number of nefarious things around the world. they are allowing the liquidation of aleppo and the assault on a civilian population. they are confronting nato and nato allies all across europe. they have annexed crimea and control krooung. they're doing things that are not helpful. i think that's got to be the frame, the mode. i agree with senator mccain and senator graham. this has to be job number one for the next administration. >> and the irony, boy, if anybody remembers four years ago, it was mitt romney, president obama's opponent who said, russia, putin is our number one geopolitical foe.

he was ridiculed and this is ow the obama administration ends. there is definitely some irony there. james woolsey and jeremy bash, thank you both for joining us. coming up, the first big fight of 2017 will be about obamacare. that's ahead. plus, call it a rockette revolt. several members of the famed dance troupe don't want to perform at donald trump's inauguration tonight. we're going to meet a former rockette who says they shouldn't perform attrump's big day at all. and a special end-of-the-year edition of "hardball" roundtable. we'll pick the biggest game change moments from the politics year of 2016 and something to expect in the year 2017. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

♪ ♪ well, if you want to sing out, sing out ♪ ♪ and if you want to be free, be free ♪ ♪ 'cause there's a million things to be ♪ ♪ you know that there are ♪ and if you want to be me, be m♪ ♪ and if you want to be you, be you ♪ ♪ 'cause there's a million things to do ♪ ♪ you know that there are ♪ all right, tomorrow on "hardball," join chris matthews for a special look back at some of his hardest hitting moments from the presidential campaign.

he'll have highlights from his college tours, from town halls with donald trump donald trump, hillary clinton hillary clinton, bernie sanders, even gary johnson. that is tomo, 7:00 eastern, we'll be right back. was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voila! (sigh) i wish my insurance company had that... wait! hold it... hold it boys... there's supposed to be three of you... where's your brother? where's your brother? hey, where's charlie? charlie?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance whfight back fastts, with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum -tum -tum -tum smoothies! only from tums

and welcome back to "hardball." democrats are preparing for battle in the next few weeks as republicans in congress and president-elect donald trump have repeatedly said their first order of business in the new year will be to repeal president obama's landmark health care bill, obamacare. they are all calling for a national day of action on sunday, january 15th. that's just a few days before trump will be sworn in. and in their first stand against republican efforts to roll back health care reform, democrats are pushing for organized rallies across the country to oppose any changes to medicare and the affordable care act. the democrats say, quote, it is important to bring the american people together to fight this radical proposal. millions of americans voted for

donald trump after he promised not to cut social security, medicare, and medicaid. must be held to those promises and should veto any legislation that cuts these vital and necessary health programs. earlier this month, when pressed by reporters, republican senate majority leader mitch mcconnell failed to describe the gop's replacement for the millions of americans receiving health care through obamacare. >> we will move right after the first of the year on an obamacare replacement resolution, and we will work expeditiously to come up with a better proposal than current law, because current law is simply unacceptable and not sustainable. >> will there be any framework established before you do a repeal, in terms of replacement -- >> we'll let you know. we're going to move forward first with the obamacare replacement resolutions. what comes next is what comes next. >> does that mean -- >> that means as i said earlier, we'll move first with the obamacare replacement resolution and then we will come with what

the replacement actually will be. i don't know how many times i have to say the same thing. >> paul singer is a white house correspondent with "usa today." katherine rampel is an opinion writer with "the washington post." so what will this look like? practically speaking, obamacare was passed in 2010. every republican running for office since then has been running on repeal and replace. you'll now have a republican president, a republican house, a republican senate. they've got that trifecta they've been looking for to repeal and replace obamacare. i know there's no detailed replace plan out there right now, so take us through it. practically speaking, what do you think will go down in january? >> practically speaking, what we exct the republicans to do is to pass what they call a budget reconciliation bill, which does noreire a 60-vote majority in the senate. that's the key. they only need 51 votes to pass that thing. and it can happen. it's some fairly simple language, saying that we are repealing these chunks of obamacare, comma, effective day, a couple of years from now.

because they have been pretty clear that you can't just pull the plug all at once. what they're going to do, as i think the majority leader is trying to explain, is first you pass a thing saying, yes, we are closing down this law. but, you also say, but it remains the law of the land until we pass some other legislation that replaces it. you can't just have know health care system at all. >> so, katherine, they've got this -- the democrats have this day of action on the 15th. hillary clinton spent the entire campaign saying, don't elect donald trump, he wants to repeal obamacare, donald trump's going to be the president, democrats aren't going to have the votes. is there anything they can do? >> the best thing they can do is to educate voters. because the problem is that obamacare is a brand. it's very unpopular. the things that obamacare does, for the most part, very popular. and americans don't actually realize that the things that they like about the law are part of the law itself. so what democrats nee to do is gin up support, to educate their base, and even beyond their base to get them to say, hey, keep

these things around. maybe rebrand it, do whatever you want, call it trumpcare for all i care, but they need to gin up -- >> is there an indictment of democrats that they haven't been able to do that for six years? >> absolutely. >> i've been hearing that since they began, once people learn the basics of this,hey'll like it. i haven't seen the numbers turn in six years. >> no. americans don't like obamacare. again, it's the name "obamacare," the affordable care act, whatever you want to call it, but they actually like the things it does. they like the fact that you can't be denied insurance based on pre-existing conditions. they like the fact that young people can go on their parent's jurns plans. they like a lot of these various features. they like subsidies, for that matter. they like being able to get medicare if they're poor enough to get medicaid. there are many components of it that are crucial to people's lives, that people don't expect to be going away, that could potentially go away, for that matter if republicans get their agenda. >> paul, you mentioned the comma, the idea that, he this will be repealed, comma, fective whatever.

you kick the can down the road a little bit. what about, too, i'm kind of imagining a scenario here, where republicans quote/unquote repeal it, but they also leave in the ban on denying people coverage with pre-existing conditions, they leave in some kind of language that allows kids to stay on the parent's policy after they're 18, after they're 21. they keep doing it year to year, as an emergency extension or something. so they've repealed it, but they've left the popular stuff in place. is thawhere this cou go? >> yeah, in fact, speaker paul ryan has laid out some proposals for how he would change the health care system, and they're very clear that they want to maintain some of those provions, as you're saying, you know, pre-existing conditions, in particular, tt are popular and that they see as useful and are sort of broadly supported. i think what they're really going toimor is the mandate that you have care, that you have health care, the man date that employers provide it. those are the sort of things that republicans really want to target. the question is how you do that without just throwing a whole

bunch of people off of health care or making health care completely unaffordable >> and the whole thing unravels, right? if you say that insurers cannot deny people coverage, who have expensive pre-existing conditions, but you don't require healthy people to get conch, which is essentially what this one unpopular piece of the law does, the individual man date, then the whole system unravels, because the people who would be cheap for insurers, who offset the risk of the expensive six people drop out. and then that jacks up prices. so then the next layer o of people drops out. >> i get what you're saying, but is there a bigger picture lesson here for democrats. the idea of after six years of trying to explain what you're explaining to the american people, the idea, look at this component, this component, this component, if you're going to do some kind of major edition to the social safety net, it's got to be easy to understand. it's got to be social security. you turn 65, you get social security. >> ideally, that would be lovely. the problem is that health care is really freaking complicated.

>> what about the lesson is, liberals have been calling for years, the idea of medicare for all? >> that would be simpler, both to understand and probably to administer, than having this patchwork of an increased medicaid system, this, you know, graduating subsidies, medicare, et cetera. the problem is that medicare for all sounds like socialism, to a large subset of the american population. it's a single-payer plan. >> you just had a socialist win 15 or 20 democratic primaries. i'm kind of wondering if obamacare unravels. did democrats move to the left on health care going forward and start saying, let's simplify? >> it's possible. it ended up being a very popular thing for the democrats during the primaries. i think, you know, you have to keep in mind, this was a law that passed without a single republican vote. i am not assigning blame to anybody for that fact. other than the fact that there

was no bipartisan support for this thing from the start. as soon as it was called obamacare, it became something that republicans could uniformly disparage and despise. if it had a better name for the bills, the polls always showed if it was called obamacare, people opposed it. if it was called the affordable care act, people didn't oppose it nearly as much. so to the degree this is tied to obama's legacy and passed without a sine republican vote has made it easy for republicans to oppose throughout the tenure of the obama presidency and to prevent it from being implemented fully, really interesting question now is, if they pass a trumpcare, could you see a position where democrats in the congress refuse to allow them to pass legislation they need to implement that, at which point we just have partisanship essentially trumping policy entirely. >> one party changes the transiti traditions a little bit on capitol hill, the other takes that and runs with it. thank you, paul singer, catherine rampell, coming up,

trump's inauguration just over three weeks away. and according to reports, some members of the radio city rockettes do not want to perform at the inauguration. when we return, we'll meet a former rockette who says they shouldn't. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ... but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... which adds fuel to my bottom line. what's in your wallet?

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and give to those who are not. donate now at stjude.org or shop where you see the st. jude logo. why can't i be a shark? i'm todd piro. here's what's happening. a syrian cease-fire is in effect. the truce excludes the iranian state group and al qaeda's syrian branch in the war-ravaged country. meteorologists say power

outages and travel delays are expected as a blizzard moves through northern new england. that storm expected to dump up to 2 feet of snow. and after dying just a day after her daughter, sources say debbie reynolds and carrie fisher will be honored side by side in a double memorial service. now back to "hardball." >> also, i've put together a list of people who have day greed to perform at your inauguration. it's, um, >> so many great names here, really, i love them both. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was "snl" having a little fun with donald trump over the reported difficulties his transition team is having when it comes to finding people who want to perform at his inauguration. among some of those who have declined requests so far, elton john, garth brooks, celine dion,

andrea bocelli. the trump team has secured performances from the mormon tabernacle choir, the radio city rockettes and jackie evancho from "america's got talent" who will sing the national anthem. buon tsday inn exclusive interview with marie claire, one rocketteescribed the turmoil that's ensnared the dance troupe since they've been asked to perform. the dancer said we do a lot of events, but there have been no events that could cause trauma and doing this would add trauma to some people. this is making our show, our job, our name branded as right-wing. some rockettes fear losing their job if they refuse to perform. last week the company managing the rockettes told nbc news that for a rockette to be considered for an event, they must voluntarily sign up, are never told they have to perform at a particular event. for more now, i'm joined by former rockette, autumn withers. autumn, thanks for joining us. i'm trying to figure out. so we've got one current rockette speaking out, not

anonymously right now saying she doesn't want to be there. i'm having a hard time seeing where the outrage or controversy is here. it's not a trump rally, it is an inauguration. and the rockettes have performed at past inaugurations. these are generally national events and the individual rockettes are being told, hey, if you've got a problem with it, if you don't want to be there, you don't have to be there. >> sure. >> correct, i think for a minute, we have to put all political leanings aside and kind of look at the overall rockette brand. which is, you know, there are strong women, they're intelligent women, they're classy women, they have been invited to perform at many, many, events and even past inaugurations, where we've had a republican president. however, i think what's different is, we've never had an incoming president who has publicly and repeatedly demeaned

women and said derogatory things about women. and i think that's what makes this a really unique situation and evaluates it above a situation of just doing your job as a rockette, as you would for any other event, and really evaluates it to a moral issue, a woman's rights issue. what does this say the optics of having the rockettes perform at trump's inauguration, how does that normalize this -- these comments and remarks that trump has made to women at large? and is that okay? >> well, let me ask you, from this perspective, then. donald trump is going to be inaugurated as president, because he won the election. this is an evenly divided country, pretty much, right now. in fact, between trump and hillary clinton, neither got an actual majority of the votes, and hillary clinton got more popular votes. that said, tens of millions of women voted for donald trump in this election. and you described the rockettes as strong, intelligent, classy women from everything i've seen, i certainly wouldn't disagree with that, but i bet those tens of millions of women who voted for donald trump would also describe themselves as strong,

intelligent, and classy. doesn't that make a statement here that's a little more complicated than saying, you can't perform because he's anti-woman? >> but i think you're dismissing his actual comments. i mean, he has talked about grabbing women's genitals, he has called them names, from dogs, pigs, slobs, crooked, nasty, and to have a beautiful line of women dancing behind him, i think, on a larger level kind of normalizes his derogatory comments. and i think, you know, i have republican female family members, and when you bring up his comments, they're very uncomfortable, and they still agree, this is a women's rights issue. this surpasses political leanings. and this isn't saying i, you know, they don't accept trump as the president. and they don't accept the election results, clearly, he is going to be our next president of the united states. but we're not really looking at kind of, if you're republican or democrat, yes, you have strong,

classy, intelligent women on both sides, but it doesn't discount what he said. and i think, as the cultural conversation is, you have to consider, you know, normalizing this. and to have thisconic line of female dancers dancing and kicking in celebration of somebody who has said the things that he has said about women, without remorse, is problematic. >> all right. autumn withers, a former rockette, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. all right, up next, a special d-of-the-year edition of the "hardball" roundtable. we'll get some predictions for 2017. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

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all right. welcome back to "hardball." 2016 has been a year full of memorable moments for some and forgettable moments for others. before we ring in the new year, we figured tonight may be a good time to look back and see which

political moments from 2016 were the real game changers. for that, i'm joined by our roundtable, andy carney with politico, hunter walker, national correspondent for yahoo! news, and beth fouhy, senior editor for politics at nbc and msnbc. so game changer. let's retire the term after this segment. we've heard it enough over the last decade. we'll come up with a new one the for the next election. the game-changing moments for the year 2016. amy, let's start with you. >> i just realized the moment i chose was actually in 2015, it's like a morass of 18 months. but i think it was the first republican debate in the primary. i went to this postmortem conference at harvard, and every one of the republican candidate who is ran against trump, when asked what was the moment when you realized trump was for real, pointed to that debate. it was when he took on megyn kelly, it was when he refused to sign the pledge, saying he would run as a republican.

it was when he proved that someone who had never done a political debate in his life could come out still standing, having kept the spotlight on himself, and i think that's when everyone realized this was real, this wasn't going away. >> that was august -- >> it wasn't a side show. >> 2016 is a state of mind. it's not a literal definition of time here. hunter, how about you? >> for me, i would say the two bernie sanders camign launches. and i feel like a lot of people don't remember this, because his official launch was actually sort of under the radar, he walked out in front of the senate, and there were a handful of reporters there. it was in april, and it was peak bernie sanders. his first word was, oh, when he saw all the cameras. and he said, i'm not going to take an endless amount of questions here. >> not a bad bernie. >> i am from brooklyn. and so he proceeded to launch his campaign and then the next month, he had a real launch that was on lake champlain, 5,000 people. and i think this showed, first off, that he was totally unconventional. i talked to a bernie sanders source who said that he did the

little launch, because he thinks exploratory committees and all of that, you know, all of that considering is sort of a joke. and he was like, if we're going to launch, we're just going to do it. and that's why he did that. but also the same source told me that when they had the big crowd in vmont and then hillary clinton had a smaller crowd at roosevelt island in nework city a little bit later, that's when they started to realize that they might have more momentum than they expected. >> and that was also -- i ink -- we can play that. what hunter's talking about, in case we forgot it, probably a lot of people did. this is what he's talking about. that was that first sanders campaign launch. >> okay, thank you all very, very muc whoa -- for being out here today. let me just make a brief comment and beappy to take a few questions. we don't have an endless amount of time. i've got to get back. this capitol, this beautiful capitol, this country belongs to all of us and not the billionaire class. that's not raising an issue, that's winning elections. that's where the american people are. >> it's funny you mentioned, too, the second one in burlington where they had 5,000 people and they got more than

hillary clinton, i wonder, too, if that is the moment -- it's so easy to say this in hindsight, when the democrats who are already ready for hillary 2013, 2014, 2015, make sure no one else was in the race, wonder if they oversold her. >> my game-changing interview is not the "access hollywood" release, but the next day. i'm zooming ahead to the end of the campaign. it was after the "access hollywood" came out, that everybody thought that trump was done, the republican party, the leadership were telling him he had to apologize, questioning whether he could go on, distancing themselves. donald trump made the decision to double down. he was not going to back off. he was not going to do anything more than that really sort of minor apology that he taped the night before. he showed up at the debate at washington university in st. louis with women who had accused bill clinton of sexual assault or sexual harassment and seated them in the chairs in front of hillary clinton, to say, you know what, it's all men. men do this. i did this, your husband did

this, and it basically defanged that situation for trump. it was very risky. it looked like a stunt, but it really pulleded off. because after that, the whole discussion to have that "access hollywood" tape went way down. >> it was always awkwards for the clinton, hillary clinton and bill clinton to be going after donald trump on that front, because of bill clinton's own complicated history. i've got to put mine out there as well. mine is from 2016. think back now, the iowa republican caucuses, ted cruz beats donald trump. remember this, trump comes in second and there's that moment there where you're like, maybe this trump thing is going to fall apart. and the other thing that happened, marco rubio was right on trump's heels. third place in iowa, very close, almost got hit for second place, goes to new hampshire, rubio's got the early momentum and people are saying, if rubio could zoom up the here in new hampshire and you could clear the field, maybe rubio could beat trump and then this happened.

>> when you're governor of a state, the 30-second speech when you talked about how great america is at the end of it doesn't solve one problem for one state. >> your state got hity massive snowstorm two weeks ago, you didn't even want to go back. they had to shame you into going back and then you stayed there for 36 hours and then he left and came back to campaign. those are the facts. here's the bottom line. this notion that barack obama doesn't know what he's doing is just not true -- >> there it is. there it is! the memorized 25-second speech. there it is, everybody! >> how good would chris christie have been as a candidate if it hadn't been for all that bridge stuff pip still wonder. at that point, he wasn't going to be the nominee, but he made a decision, if it's not going to be me, it' also notoing to be marco rubio. and he took him down and took him out. and maybe trump wins anyway if it's not trump/rubio. the roundtable sticks with us. when we come back, predictions. what does the new year have in store. they're going to tell us. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ng the day with my. i don't use super poligrip for hold,

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take some time out of your new year's weekend to keep up with "hardball" online. follow "hardball" on twitter and instagram and like the show on facebook. you'll get access to exclusive interviews, videos, and behind the scenes photos, as we turn the page on 2016 and cover the brand-new political year. we'll be right back.

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want to make predictions anymore? this was the 2016 campaign was not the bt f punditry. that said, everybody makes predictions for the new year. most of the time they forget them at the end of the next year, so no pressure here. no one will pull this tape out a year from now. andi, give us a prediction. >> one thing, when we badly made the prediction that hillary clinton was going to win is the republican party was deeply fractured and 2017 was going to be about republican rebuilding. that discussion shifted to the other side since trump won and the republicans control the entire government. thatift is still there. it's just been covered up. so i think a prediction is that the republican party, like, we will see how the senate takes on trump, maybe this russian hacking will be the first -- >> is this mccain and lindsey graham against donald trump? >> right. >> susan collins. >> see where the rifts start to show, but that rift that we were all talking about is still there. even though donald trump won. so my prediction is the story of 2017 will still be about a

fractured republican par and where that starts to show itself. >> all right. hunter, how about you? >> well, you know, like you were saying, i think one of the big lessons of this year was predictions often go wrong. i personally don't like to make predictions. i'd love to see more reporting and less predicting from the media. that won't happen, people will keep predicting and many of the forecasts will be wrong. >> you just -- yes, i want to see more reporting, too. we got a couple blocks of this show. come on, what's going to happen here? give us one thing you think will happen in the year 2017. >> okay. onthing i'm comfortable saying, we did see priet come to trump tower, unexpected visit. trump announced he wanted to keep him on. i think he's doing that partially because he's hoping to keep heat on de blasio. i think we're going to see more investigations and indictments in new york. >> beth, what about you?

>> the contraceptive mandate in obamacare gets eliminated immediately as soon as donald trump takes office. price who's coming in as the hss secretary and mike pence, both very strongly against planned parenthood and other ways of protecting women's health, it's a very easy thing for them to do. >> how does that go over politically, what do you think happens? >> i think it's going to go over badly but it is something they have promised, part of their base, it's something these two men feel very, very strongly about. it's something that's very easy and very symbolic, a way to say, you know what, obama, you overreached here, you don't promise everybody free birth control and we're taking that back. there will a lot of political backlash but they're going to do it, anyway. >> doing 2015 for 2016, i'll give you a 2018 prediction for 2017. >> whoa. >> this is a hunch. it will probably be totally wrong. i got to put that before it. we were talking about this off the air, what happens to chris christie the new jersey governor? he's been shut out when it comes to a big appointment with the trump administration, didn't get the v.p. slot he wanted this summer. what happens? has to leave as governor of new

jersey at the end of 2017 then looking for a job. i think he's going to be a radio talk show host. i think there a station here in new york, a sports station, wfan, supposedly, the big host there, mike francesa says he's lee leaving at the end of 2017, that is when chris christie's term as governor ends. chris christie has already done fill-in stints on this station. chris christie could definitely be a radio host as far as i can tell. i think they need a big personality. chris christie has a future in the media and specifically sports radio. >> sounds like you're going do listen. >> i would definitely listen. maybe i'd call in. the roundtable is staying with me. up next, these three will tell me something i don't know. you're watching "hardball." the place for politics.

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all right. we're back with the "hardball" roundtable. now it is the tell me something i don't know segment. this is the easiest assignment in the world. andi, tell me something i don't know. >> i just came back from a few days off for the holidays and the thing that most people asked me and want to know is who is really running the show for donald trump? people have the impression somebody else must be planning to run the government for him, jared kushner, mike pence, paul ryan? who is running the show? that is the question that everyone is asking. >> do we have an answer? do we have any idea?

maybe it's donald trump. >> sometimes it's dronald trump. no, i don't have an answer to give you right now, but that is the question america wants to know. >> i know. i think every time somebody sees, whether it's a tweet coming from donald trump, or whether it's, you know, a statement today, sort of who had his ear. sometimes you coutell,uy look at the tv and sounding off, sometimes you wonder who has his ear. hunter, how about you? >> i just came from mar-a-lago, here with the couture and architecture report. first off and donald trump came out with don king last night, i don't know how many people noticed this, but don king was actually wearing a large button with donald trump's face on it. and the building at mar-a-lago is equally interestingly decorated. there are all these statues of human gargoyles, one looked like two guys about to embrace. i don't know, don't show it to pence. another one, it was like theches and weird rams heads. it's ornate. >> tell me something i don't

know. >> today the buffalo school board voted to oust carl paladino, trump's campaign co-chairman in new york, amid very racist comments about president obama, michelle obama. no word yet as to whether he's going to take the ouster and go. he may have to be physically and forcibly removed by a state official. i interviewed him in 2010 as an a.p. reporter when he was running for governor in new york, told us he wanted to put welfare recipients in upstate prisons. >> very controversial guy. >> and give them hygiene lessons. >> that's it for "hardball." "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on. >> the president-elect says move along as president obama strikes back. the white house announces new sanctions on russia. kicking out diplomats. naming names on hacking. tonight, how russia and president-elect trumare responding.