a road trip soon. maybe with a bigger car so you don't have to remove his head, but, ike, thanks for being here, sir. that does it for us tonight. see you monday.. there from the very beginning when president obama delivered the keynote address up in boston back in 2004 p. >> there is not a liberal america and a conservative america. there is the united states of america. >> there is not a black america and a white mark and latino america and asian america. there the united states of

america. >> even at first glimpse, we all knew, i did, i thought we were witnessing something special. here was my meet reaction after he was finished with that amazing speech. >> i had seen a first black president there. the reason i say that is because i think the immigrant experience combined with african-american background combined with incredible education combined with beautiful speech, not every politician felts help with speech, but that speech was a peace of work. >> sure was. got it at the place where abraham lincoln once stood to hear the future president kick off campaign. coldest day of the year. >> in the shadow of the old state capitol where lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, i stand before you today to announce my candidacy for

president of the united states. >> every 50 years or so, they come about. join me now by msnbc. michael msnbc, glad we have him, presidential historian and chris january sen. you covered this as a news person every day. i think it's so important we look back and catch the dynamic of this. the wonderful trend of a guy who comes from nowhere, a state senator basically is on the road to the white house, before he was even elected senator from illinois. >> he looks so young obviously in that speech. so much anticipation. >> you look exactly the same. >> thank you. >> he looks much younger. he jokes about his gray hair now. chris at that point inside political circles particularly democratic circles he was known as a rising star. he buzz just a state snaern

running to become the only african-american senator in the united states senate and there was this tension i remember think can go he pull it off. is he as good as everyone says he's going to b. there were other great speakers, including bill clinton. he just brought the house down. that was the first most of us had heard of his personal story, told by him, not his book, but told in his words. he talked about a faith in simple dreams. an insistence on small miracles. you did know at that moment there was somebody there who had something special. he had the charisma. he obviously had the rhetorical skills, but he also showed i think the depth and kind of world view that he had h i would argue to you, just a couple of days ago at his last press conference and when he gave his farewell speech in chicago. >> i think he knew what the noble america we want to be is. he said i am that.

it was amazing. he was a senator and convened a senate hearing on katrina reconstruction in new orleans. i wanted to meet this guy everybody was saying was going to run. the two things i remember from that trip, one, the obvious charisma. wherever our bigs or bus stopped with the senators on it and that, their home state senator was there, mary plan drew. very well known. everybody wanted to talk to obama. the other thing was the actual hearing, he just expertly grilled reconstruction officials who weren't doing their jobs or weren't doing them very well. he would have been a great da. he kind of laid it will very clever traps they walked into. it was an impressive performance. >> mike, sometimes we got to get away from a president for at least a decade before we can look back and see him whole.

what do you think of obama because we're going to go light through this the next 20 minutes. te me what you see now. >> i think you have to begin by saying that this was a terrific chief of state. this was someone who with that family and that stature and his persona represented this country well around the world. presided wonderfully over this country in that role. the other thing is that you know, we're so pressed right now to have sort of an instant read on obama's legacy, the way future generations will see him. it's going to depend on what follows. i know it's somewhat frustrating, but let's say donald trump turns out to be an effective president and the economy the looking good for the next years. if trump goes up, that's not going if be good for obama. you member when jimmy carter went back in 1980 and had to beg the delegates to give him a good

reception. a lot of this has to do with what era we're living there. >> threatened to derail the campaign. he responded. here is the big philadelphia speech we think about with his past. explaining relationship with jeremiah wright. >> i can no more disown him than i can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again, and, again, for me and woman ho loves me as much she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who pass her by on the street. and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. >> an amazing experience that he's been through growing up with a white mother and grandparents and yet an african-american by the definition that we use, one drop and all that's gone.

>> his first book was really about assembling his identity and the identity assembled was as a black man in america. that speech was around the time when i wrote in the column to be elected he would have to be seen adds the least aaggrieved black man in america. he was called on in that speech to explain black grievance and black anger that others might get. >> and he felt it. >> it was an amazing peempbs. you had to have his biography to deliver the speech. >> it's an extraordinary story. when hillary clinton questioned obamas thin resume in 3:00 a.m. phone call advertisement. obama told me judgment was more important than experience. the remark that foreshadowed things to come, he wouldn't hesitate to pursue al qaeda in sovereign countries and used the

example of pakistan. can this guy see the future. here he is. >> the most important thing that you need is somebody who is going to exercise good judgment. what i've said repeatedly is for example i won't hesitate to strike against al qaeda and high value targets if pakistan is not willing to act and we have our sights on somebody, we shoild go after them. i was sharply critical sized for that. >> three years later after saying that the president talked through on that tough talk ordering the raid that killed bin laden without telling the pakistani government as he foresaw. >> tonight i can report to the american people and to the world the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden the leader of al qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men and women and children.

>> during that correspondence dinner when he was cool as a cucumber, he knew all about this. there he is carrying out what he said he was going to do. he wasn't going to wait for the okay. he was going to get the bad guy. >> the other thing about him, i just spent the last couple of weeks talking to eight senior advisers and people who have been with him. the one thing is how he approaches a decision like that and the confidence he has when he comes to that decision. he's a guy who studies the. i was talking to jason the head of his counsel and he was saying when he first started giving him papers on the economy, it would be short of like you would write as a paper if you were in a md program and had all of these append sees and found out he read every word of it. when i get papers i don't go to the last pages and he was highlights them and making notes on them.

other people said when you go in a meeting with him, he knows the stuff you've already given him. don't have to repeat it for me. i've read it. where do we go from here. that was one of the most stunning example in that picture that pete souza took of everyone in the situation room is so iconic now. that was a really clear indication of how decisive he could be. security people are not reading apparently any papers being presented to them by the outgoing administration. >> so many ways in which there's such a shocking disconnect between the outgoing and incoming administration. >> well said, eugene robinson, stick with us for some really good stuff coming up now. special report the audacity of barack obama continues in a barack obama continues in a moment.

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we're back with the special report of the awe dasdy of president obama. also faced a number of set backs. interviewed him in 2013, asked him how his view of himself and his presidency has changed other the past five years in office. >> it makes you humbler as opposed to cockier about what you can do as an individual. you realize you're part of a sweep of history. your job is to push the boulder up a little bit before someone pushing it further and the task never stops in perfecting our union. beginning he was going to

be a transformational president. not a mid step guy. then around 2007 or 2008, he seemed to be more humble. then when i look back and look at his comments, i would say i was transformational. >> he was. starting with the health act. a lot of presidents for decades have tried to bring health care to all americans and he came close to doing it no matter what will happen under the trump administration and plus save this country from another great depression with this long economic expansion, but the thing that i think we will also look at is you're suggesting you get to losing congress in 2010, he faced an opposition in congress for the next six years that was very opposed to doing deals with him. very much unlike bill clinton in

1995 and '96 could go to bob dole and newt gingrich and get things like a balanced budget. obama would say if he were here tonight i did not have people like that on the other side. >> he also was able to save the auto industry. marriage qualify, pushing that. he and joe biden even. gun violence cast a dark shadow of the two terms. addressed the country 14 teams times in the immediate aftermath of a new mass shooting. this eulogy from south carolina ♪ amazing grace, how sweet the sound ♪ >> soulful.

anyway, president obama described the mass shooting at sandy hook as the worst day of his presidency. here he is again. >> from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. every time i think about those kids, it gets me mad. and by the way, it happens on the streets of chicago every day. that wasn't a political remark. that was a guy feeling passion for his country. kids killed by kids, police, bad guys. >> if you talk to president obama about the sandy hook shooting, you realize how deeply

that affected him. all the mass shootings. it was really frustrating to him he couldn't move the needle. not even a little bit. not even in the wake of just one of the most horrific things we've ever seen in this country. it was enormously frustrating. i don't know how else he could have approached that. i don't know what else he could have done. >> counter to that. i agree with everything you said. the emotion was a fan it's aic chief of state. represented our emotion as people. he seemed to be father right that moment. when he was crying about kids, he felt these were his kids. that's what you want from the chief of state. someone who represents our country personally. >> this is kind of an eve. not exactly christmas eve. it's an eve. >> michael, also maybe we're facing the green mile tomorrow morning, but we're facing something, michael. chris, great reporter. great to work with you. when we return, let me finish tonight with a cosmic shift

coming our way tomorrow at 12 noon. high noon. eastern standard time. you're watching hardball.

cosmic shift coming our way tomorrow. at 12:00noon, eastern standard time. first, there's nothing standard about this presidential inauguration, we're going through radically partisan changing of the guard before, think of thomas jefferson coming in after defeating john adams, andrew jackson beating adams' son, abraham lincoln arriving to take the oath and franklin roosevelt riding in the car with herbert hoover. general eisenhower replacing harry truman. jack kennedy replacing eisenhower. ronald reagan coming to power. but all these were a transfer of office from one party to the other, federalist to jeffersonian, the usual rotation of the two mainstream parties, one establishment to the other establishment, one group of usual suspects back-and-forthing with the other set of usual suspects. this event tomorrow is something completely different.

just as most of us did, i did, get in election wrong, there's little likelihood we'll get this arriving presidency right. this is our predicament and i think my job description is to keep a sharp eye on what president trump says and does. if he dials back the clock on action to counter climate change, if he tries to suppress voting, especially by minorities or moves to deport children brought here at a young age we need to lean on that first amendment horn of ours. the same goes for when and if he does beneficial things for the country. when he finds, for example, a way to save and create american jobs, the worst trend in modern american politics is for one party to understood cut the other party even when the other party is trying to do something good. it used to be one party spent its efforts keeping the other party from being corrupt. in contemporary times the main purpose has been to keep the party in power from doing something good so beginning tomorrow at noon i intend to keep asking the tough questions, keep burrowing in to get real answers trying my darndest to get some truth from power. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us.

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