i'm tamron hall. thanks for watching. the best of "hardball." good evening. i'm chris mathieus in washington. call it a political earthquake, an unraveling of the system of a revolution. 2016 changed the face of american politics forever. there was donald trump, the collapse of the clinton dynasty, the revolutionary fervor that reshaped the democratic party with the socialist senator from vermont, bernie sanders, even the growi call for a third party solution represented most effectively by gary johnson, and

all of these elements will rewrite the political narrative for months. all of these four, trump, clinton, sanders, and johnson have appeared at town halls. >> you and i look at the world differently. you look at it inside the beltway. i'm not an inside the beltway guy. i'm an outside the beltway guy. >> the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway. >> can you tell the middle east we're not using a nuclear weapon? >> i won't say that. i'm not going to take it off the table. >> you might use it in europe? >> no. >> there's games you could have played, if somebody could have assassinated hitler before he took over germany -- >> name a foreign leader you respect? >> i'm having an aleppo moment. >> i'm giving you the whole wor world. >> i know. >> joining me, john, april, the author of at mama's knee, and

"new york times" reporter jeremy peters, an msnbc contributor. we begin with donald trump. he made waved in march when he told me he believed women who get abortions should get some sort of punishment. a new phrase this year, walk it back, after facing criticism from the left and right. here's the following exchange that made a major focus on the anti-trump campaign ads for the rest of the year. here's thatmoment. >> should the woman be punished for having an abortion? this is not something you can dodge? if you say abortion is a crime or murder, you have to deal with it. should it be punished? >> people would say yes. >> how about you? >> i would say it's a very se serious brb and a problem we have to decide on. >> you're for banning it? >> are you going to say put them

in jail? >> i'm asking you because you say you want to ban it. what does that mean? >> i'm pro-life. >> how do you ban abortion? how do you do it? >> you'll go back to a position where they had where people will perhaps go to illegal places. >> yeah. >> but you to ban it. >> do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no? >> the answer is there has to be some form of punishment. >> for the woman? >> yes. >> ten cents, ten years. >> i don't know. >> you take positions on everything else? >> i do. it's a very complicated position. >> april ryan? >> that was a tough -- that was a major moment during this campaign season, but he got over it. but it goes back to that issue, and still rings so vivid and so harsh, hearing him say that its ora crime. he basically said it was a crime. now, what happens is he goes back and they deal with that in 2017 at all, it goes into,

should women be put in jail? should have be legal ramifications, and that's a tough thing because roe v. wade was put in place to give timelines and parameters from what timeline to timeline you're allowed to have an abortion. it's a tough issue and it goes down the road he tried to step around about women and how women are viewed. it's a tough issue. >> jeremy, no problem saying the male involved in a pregnancy if you have an abortion, should not be punished. a quig answer on that. >> he dink. i think two things. one, this whole episode is indicative of how donald trump ran his campaign and is likely to run his candidacy, which is he makes up a significant portion of it as he goes along. you could tell he hadn't thought it out. as hooe thought through it, a few more clicks down the logical road, finally, when you pushed him, ye, there must be some form of punishment, but he hadn't thought about it and he didn't

airport or factor in the ramifications of making such a statement is. that's a position, by the way, that not even the hardest of the hard-line abortion opponents would support, putting a woman, punishing a woman for getting an abortion. they actually repudiated that after he said it. and the other thing here, and this i think speaks to what -- >> here's my hunch. i'm going to go to john because john knows this world. i think what he was doing there was projecting what he would be the logical implication of people who believe that you're killing human life. and not only just killing a form of human life, but people. >> he's saying i'm pro-life, if you're pro-life, you believe we should make abortions illegal. if you make it illegal, there's got to be a penalty. here's the key, none of this mattered in the election. >> tell me why because i need to know? >> two reasons. the first is you have the conservative side. they want to make sure they can trust donald trump. he did two things. be but out his list of who he

would nominate to the supreme court. he made mike pence his vp as running mate. that checked the two baoxes he had for conservatives. that let him become the anti-washington reform candidate. >> i think, and i agree with you, but you forgot the third box, abortion. that is o of the theme pieces, you know, pro-life for the republican party. he had to fall under that banner that he was pro life. >> i think he was mimicking what he believed they believed. >> he might have been, but at one point, there was a question and he answered it in one of the harshest ways possible for the republican party. >> who do you vote for if you don't agree with abortion? >> that's when he said that. >> he said i'm pro life, but he did the other things, checked the boxes, and they were

comfortable compared to hillary clinton -- >> i don't think they were that comfortable. he went very far with that. >> john, you probably know this, but if you talk to social conservatives in the movement about a real turning point in the campaign, it was when he stood on stage in the third debate and made that very vivid description of what a late-term abortion is like. there are conservatives i spoke with who said that was it for me. i have never heard a candidate describe it in that graphic of terms before. >> he cleaned it up after carly fiorina made the mistake she did in the debate. that's when it came, it really became a big issue. >> i think he became a pro-lifer and managed to do it even with the odd statement he gave to me. anyway, thank you, john, april, and jeremy. still ahead, the stars of the great new movie "hidden figures" is the story of three african-american women mathematicians who helped launch the american space program.

a totally trul story. octavia spencer, taraji p. henson, and janell monet, also kevin costner and pharrell williams. they're coming up next. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. just say, show me cars with no accidents reported find the cars you want, avoid the ones you don't plus you get a free carfax® report with every listing i like it start your used car search at carfax.com

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>> which one? >> both. geometry and speaking. >> ruthy, get me the -- you think you can find me the frame for this data -- >> the alcorhythm, yes, sir, i prefer it over the uclickian. >> welcome back, that was a scene from "hidden figures" the story of three african-american mathematicians and the key role they played at nasa. it sets the struggle for equal rights in the backdrop of the space race. where even at nasa, they were separated. this is a film about women who broke barriers in more ways than one. here's a clip. >> catherine, we all going to end up unemployed in this junk. >> you're welcome to walk 16 miles. >> or sit in the back of the bus.

>> you have identification on you? >> we're just on our way to work -- >> at nasa. >> i had no idea they hires -- >> quite a few women working in thspaceprogram. >> that's john glenn. >> what do you do? >> engineer, and i'm proud of the devil to work with you. >> how could you ogle these white men? >> it's equal rights. >> if you were a white man, would you wis to be an engine? >> i wouldn't have to. i would already be one. >> hidden figures is out in select figures at christmas time, fact, christmas day, and a wider release on january 6th. i'm joined by those people who made this movie come to life, including the stars of the film, turasuchy p. henson, octavia spencer,monet, thank you, and you look glamorous. in the movie, you're dressed like bure kratsz, the great kevin costner is here, and

singer/song writer pharrell william, and the director ted melfy melfy. thank you. taraji, you dominate the movie. i have to say that, and the scenes of putting up with jim crow and putting up with jim crow in a federal institution, but what grabbed me in the beginning was the cop who stopped you guys, and in your '57. i love those. we all do. always love them. stops you in the car, and he's got the usual color mentality going on. black/white thing going on, and he says you're in the space program. and his patriotism kicks in. >> yes. >> tell me about it. >> well, i think that's the overall message of the story. when we put our differences aside as humans, that's when we're able to move the human race forward. because at the end of the day, we're all humans. you know, a mind doesn't have a color. you know, when it comes to calculating numbers, i don't

care what color you are. i don't care who you sleep with at night. can you find the math? >> i love the score when this person taraji is playing is a smart woman like everybody, has to go to the bathroom. everybody knows the experience of having to go to the bathroom now, and she has the color bar. it's like a bad dream. i have to go to a building where there's a colored woman's bathroom, and you have this great music. tell me about the music. >> the music was largely just led by -- >> it's called running. >> yes, sir. that song was just based on a story. it's like when we got the script, it's like, okay, these women are living in the matrix of thephysics and gravity for african-ameri n african-americans was heavier and twice as heavy for a woman. so having to run to the bathroom on the other side of the campus, and there were campus spikes, but for women, we forget as men, long skirts, long dresses, so

they had to run, rain or shine, 30 to 45 minutes round trip, to the other side of the campus just to use the bathroom. >> so ted and the ladies here, high heels are a big part of this for some reason. maybe it's your photography, but the women look great, but you're always shooting the legs, the shoes, and the shoes at one point get caught. you almost get killed in this, it's in the mind of a wind tunnel. you're in a wind tunnel. you look great, by the way. everybody is looking at the legs, the shoes, and you get stuck. the guy says the shoe ain't worth it. i mean, and then there's the other scene where you're running to the bathroom. high heels, so women in high heels being african-american, in a jim crow setting, and wearing high heels. >> yeah, we did it all. just like we continuously do every day. what's so inspiring about this film and these women is that they did not allow those

obstacles to deter them and stop them from their dreams. y yes, we were dealing with racism, sexism, classism, but the great thing about when nasa and all the men and women put all of those isms to bed and buried them all, that's when they achieved the extraordinary together. they realized at the end of the day, we all bleed the same color. >> kevin, great to have you on. i think of you all the time, and i'll say this a lot of times, but i think i have seen "13 days" 100 times and you played it in a white world, and it was the same time period. this movie includes the reality of american life much better. >> you know, it seems like a lot of stories don't get told. they are in the pages of history. they don't come out. you can give some of that a pass because how many stories can you possibly tell? if you look beneath the surface,

you'll find the story. the think i found disturbing was that if you are going to tell the original story of john glenn, right, not about the women who are working off to the side like we know, but if you're going to tell the story of john glenn, there's a moment where he was going to go or wasn't going to go. like telling a joke and maybe leaving out the punch line. there was a moment where he was going to go or not go and it hung on the balance of a young woman who was going to have to do the math by hand. i don't know about you, but in great story telling, you don't leave out the bit. if we don't learn about the human computers, i can see that story emerging, going, i would have liked to have known about that a long time ago. but not knowing about the seminole moment where he says i ain't going nmunless i know, that's something we should have known about. >> he was a good guy in the movie, right? >> he was a good guy, period. i knew something about him that i didn't know that made him that much more of an american hero,

because he did something that was unpopular at the time. he put his life in the hands of this african-american woman. if her numbers didn't match up, he wasn't going to go. if her numbers matched up, of course, he went. >> he wanted to know where he was going to land? >> absolutely. >> key information. they got to get to it. but you were in the help. >> i was in "the help." >> and i remember that meal you cooked up for inwhite lady. we're all going to remember that. this tastes interesting. so you have gotten at it from the jim crow thing a couple ways now. >> yeah, jim crow is a very difficult time to immerse yourself in, but when you're doing a period film, we have agency as contemporary women that african-american women did not have in the jim crow era. so there's something wonderful to be said about the solidarity we fel on the set, very insulated. ted created a safe place for us to work and have fun. >> i like the way you term it,

you look up at the sign that says colored computers, still up there. they designate you by your ethnicity. let's take another look at the movie. >> catherine, go find your wait over there. >> that colonel is a tall glass of water. >> that, he is. tall, strong, demanding. >> i bet he's like the day and night. >> mary, it's so late, please have some shame. >> i will not. he's coming over. >> now, why would he be doing that? >> because mary's waving at him. >> i'm not ready. >> fix your hair. >> hello, colonel. i'm dorothy, that's mary, i believe you met her husband, and this is catherine. >> she's not married, she's a widow with three beautiful little girls. so well behaved, angels on earth is what we like to call them. dorothy, slice of pie? >> i would love one. excuse me. >> you already have a slice of

pie. >> so it's so great you're doing this. i'm so glad you took this project. and everybody took it, because hollywood needs it. let's talk. this is not a reaction to -- not a redo, but it's something. >> we need to see the story. we need our little girls to see the story, little boys to see the story. we need people to know that historyasn't a bch of white guys in a room. the history of nasa was very diverse. nasa celebrates these women. these women are not hidden from nasa. it was great to tell the general public that. >> guys. thank you all. it's an honor to meet you all. kevin, and pharrell, music, gets even me, mr. straight arrow. >> you can keep the mugs, we'll get you hats. i said politics can culture are together. >> by the way -- >> they're the same thing, this collection, whatever you think of it, culture and politics are together. we have to put it all together. merry christmas to everybody. >> merry christmas. >> i was deg to say, you're not

mr. straight arrow. we have been watching you for years. >> yes. >> and your interviews and the bay that you keep people straight is amazing, and when people veer off and don't answer the question, there's no one that slices through it better than you. >> thanks. >> that's why you call it "hardball." >> thank you. that's not in the script. we'll be right back. thank you. we'll be right back. hold, because my dentures fit well. before those little pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. even well fitting dentures let in food particles. just a few dabs of super poligrip free is clinically proven to seal out more food particles so you're more comfortable and confident while you eat. so it's not about keeping my dentures in, it's about keeping the food particles out. try super poligrip free.

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well, here we are at the end of the year, a good time for me to thank all the people who bring "hardball" to you night after night. you don't see them, but i certainly do. i know how important, supportive, and valuable they are. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us, and happy holidays.

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