at least next year, no more meetings and no more legitimate government ways to get your voter data. a commission born from insecurity about losing the popular vote, and now completely on ice. that does it for our show. you can always find the beat at 6:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. hardball with chris matthews starts now. sex, lies and videotape, let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. we've got big guests tonight on hardball, elizabeth warren and bernie frank will both be joining us. roy moore hit a low road this week, "the washington post" reporting the post peddling a fake story. according to the post in a series of interviews over two weeks the woman shared a

dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15 years old. during the interview she repeatedly pressed post reporters to give their opinions on the effects her claims could have on the moore candidacy if she went public. the post never reported the unsubstantiated story. instead they researched the woman trying to push the story. they found a website with someone with the same name, jamie phillips, for her to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceit of liberal mainstream media. closed quote. according to "washington post," they followed her to her home and saw her going to the new york office of project seritas. it sets up sting operations, such as acorn. the trump foundation donated $10,000 to the group in 2015. last wednesday phillips met with a post reporter at a restaurant in alexandria, virginia. phillips had arrived early and

was waiting. her purse resting on the table. when mccrumben put her purse next to phillips purse to block a possible camera shot, phillips moved hers. mccrumben confronted her about her story, let's watch. >> do you still have an interest in, as this says, combatting the lies and deceit of the liberal msm? do you still have an interest in working in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceit of the liberal msm? is that -- is that still your interest? >> no, not really. >> yeah. >> not at this point. >> mumble, mumble. the post also confronted project veritas founder james o'keeffe. let's watch that. >> does jamie phillips work for project veritas. did you guys send her to pose ta

victim of roy moore to the post. >> i'm 15 minutes late. i've got to run. >> jamie phillips, does she work for project veritas? >> he was quiet, wasn't he. he told hem to come back later. he was waiting from a confrontation of his own. >> does jamie phillips work for project veritas? are you going to answer that question? >> i'm going to have a few things to say here. we're going to talk for a while. >> second question. >> yeah. >> are you working with roy moore? >> okay. so -- >> are you working with steve bannon? >> i'm going to ask -- >> are you working with the republican party? >> no -- >> are you working with the republican party of alabama. >> i'm joined by usa today, national political reporter for axios, and the political editor at the root. one thing i love about this story, besides people getting caught with sneaky business on trying to put a punk job on the

"washington post," on selling a salacious story, a punking operation. it shows that real newspapers with real editors and to be honest with you, grown ups have been around a few times on the ride here who spot and smell deceit. they saw this as a setup. >> you know the musical schoolhouse rock, how a story gets into print with real journalism. this was paeople acting just lie you want them to act. show it in journalism schools. listen to an unsolicited comment from somebody. you don't take it at face value. check it out and confront them if you find it's false and phony. good for them. >> i can see this story running if the post had fallen for the trap, big splash, 15-year-old claims she had an abortion after being impregnated by roy moore, the next day, the breitbart sort of organization, veritas, a bad

name for them, truth in latin, comes out and says it's all a joke, we fooled them. that proves all the women who went out against roy moore are dishonest, we got you, roy moore wins big. he may still win. >> it's not just veritas doing this. steve bannon sent people with an express mission to discredit the female accusers. this is a strategy of a lot of groups. >> to ruin their reputations? >> no, to try and prove they were lying. they've failed to do that, but there have been a number of stories to raise doubts about the stories, the women, the character, varying levels of sourcing. this has been a campaign. the latest in a series of stories that -- >> jason tells me they can't win on defense anymore. they can't deny the charges. they're going on wicked, dirty,

nasty offense. if we can destroy "the washington post," then all the people in alabama, just shows you can't trust those northern reporters. they're out to get us. >> that's the thing. there were two parts of this video that struck me. everyone in my department was teaching this today. it wasn't the matter of how degrading and despicable it is to have a woman pretend to be a victim of abuse. >> and she had an abortion because of it, all lies. >> how many times do you get the reporters to say this would harm roy moore. even if they got them on tape say, yes, this would damage them. they want to prove bias if they can't prove the reporters -- >> they report a pocketbook, a purse if you will, on the table, apparently every time the legitimate "washington post" reporter would walk in for two of the meetings there happened to be a big purse sitting on the table and she puts her purse, this is like black spy, white

spy, you know, come ic book. she put her purse in front of it, the bogus one, she moves her pocketbook, her purse. so it gets a better shot directly at him. tell me about this. is this going to be -- jason said this is going to be already in the journalism classes. >> because, of course, this is exactly what journalists are supposed to do. it's great that people who like the nuews media and those who ae suspicious see how this works. >> much -- i really liked a takeout piece, that i got my editors and even the top editor, who was your source on that? tell me about that person. can you get another one? can you get terry lendsner, constantly pushing you to have the best source you can. last night in his first campaign appearance in ten days,

roy moore said the allegations to him were completely false and malicious, let's watch. >> why are they doing this? well, i'm going to tell you why they're doing this. they're trying to hide the true issues, which faked the people in this country and state that they want resolved. it's no different than when the "washington post" brought out the russian investigation at a time when president trump is trying to get his agenda passed. everybody knows i have not one -- run one negative ad. but i'm going to take off some gloves and show the truth in this campaign. >> well, somebody's put some gas in this guy's tank. he looks like he might win now. >> i always thought he was going to win, chris. >> really? >> at the core issue here you have a lot of conservative republican voters who view the democratic party as inherently immoral. if you've got groups of people, not a criticism, just a fact, if you've got groups of people who think that two consenting men

having sex is a greater sin, that is a greater sin than what they think roy moore might have possibly done. i always thought he was going to win the election. if it ever looks like he's not winning, those are undecided voters. >> these are various questions that surmount any act of personalvilleny at all. >> exactly. >> i don't think we know that yet. roy moore -- >> what do you think of this third guy coming in, lee buzz by, he's a write-in candidate, lee busby, he usually votes republican. let's watch how that affects life. take a listen to him. >> were you a supporter of roy moore before the allegations of child molestation? what chienanged your mind that couldn't voit for roy moore? >> it was not the swirl going on. not that at all. i've got no interest in it. i hope they get it sorted out

but it's not my interest. i don't know roy moore. i've never met him. through there's a sense of self-tryiself- rig right -- >> jason, he looks attractive, i hate to make judgments, he seemed like raw material there for a candidate. got the right accent. seems rough and ready. i don't know what to make of him. >> it's sort of wes clark of alabama, tough and macho. i think at the end of the day, though, i don't think this ends up making that much of a difference. if you're someone who's offended by roy moore, and the republicans, like i cannot vote for this guy, then you write for the write-in candidate. there are enough people, look, we need those votes in the senate. i don't think the first party candidate -- >> who wins because this third guy entering the race, he's pro life like roy moore, if you're

pro life and you can't vote -- you're against gay rights too, whatever, maybe he's the safe way to vote against roy moore without voting for the enemy. >> it is, but i still think he votes for roy moore. >> it helps the democrat, but it's irrelevant to the outcome, i would guess. >> i agree. >> how can it be irrelevant if you still think roy moore might loud? >> we don't know. turnout's going to be low. >> if the -- jason, you made a great point, repeat it about when people said they hadn't made up their mind. they had made up their mind. they were for moore. >> that's basically 101 in political science. we saw those numbers occur during the worst week of these allegations and suddenly you have 8% saying undecided. they're not undecided. busby may end making a difference if it's a close race. it's a five or six-point win.

>> chris, do you want to vote for the accused pedophile? this is like -- if we're going to test the gap between what you said in the surveyor and reality. >> i don't know about that. i'd like to know the fact feature, susan page, you're holding your powder try, jonathan swan and jason, i think you know where you're going on this one. coming up, the russia investigation, connecting the dots of collusion we know right now. we're going to talk to luke harding, and author of the new book "collusion." you know what that's about. he's got the story, that's ahead. when trump called senator elizabeth warren pocahontas, she was -- was he propping her up for a presidential run in 2020? it looked like he was building her up. senator warren is here tonight to talk about that. and donald trump campaign, like a -- he's looking out for the donors, look at the trump tower tax cut.

a total giveaway, the top 1%, it would hurt people who voted for trump, yet trump and the republicans may yet get it passed. trump watch, you won't like this one, this is hardball, where the action is.

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russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.

i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. >> welcome back to hardball. that was donald trump making his famous overture to russia during the campaign. as we know now russia was already trying to help trump win the election. in his new book collusion, how russia helped donald trump win, luke harding, the former moscow bureau chief of the guardian connects the dots. writing about the book in the "new york times," michelle goldberg says it's difficult to see the big picture with so many new revelations emerging so regularly. one uncanny aspect of the investigation, there's too much evidence. incidents that would be major scandals in a normal administration become minor subplots in this one. harding's book brings the bigger picture into focus. i'm joined by luke harding and

our friend paul butler. luke, let me ask you about this. what do you have that ties together trump with russia that say "the new york times" hasn't been able to get? >> well, chris, i think to understand the story of donald trump and collusion you have to go back to the cold war and to donald trump's first trip to soviet moscow in 1987. and one thing i discovered when i was investigating was the soviet government, the communist government wooed donald trump, paid for his trip. brought him over. his travel was arranged by a soviet travel agency, the kgb. i think it's pretty clear this was a cultivation attempt, which fizzled out, but then kind of was renewed in the last four or five years before donald trump became u.s. president. >> you know, i've long heard that russians like to have -- before of after the soviet union liked to have an american, their

american, and use him for everything. they always feel comfortable that way. is this that kind of case, they picked out who they wanted to deal through? >> yeah, if you look at the kind of secret kgb memos from this period, extremely instructive, looking to recruit people from all over the place, particularly americans, certain personality traits, narcissistic, corruptible, not very good analysts, not faithful in their marriages. and really you look at all these categories and then you get to donald trump being, as i said, brought over. and then i think a process of reengagement with him about four or five years ago which led to the extraordinary events of last year. >> luke, you write down a guilty plea of former campaign adviser george pop dop list that's -- now there's evidence of collusion. it was impossible to read the legal documents with their cold

empirical facts in any other way. do you think the case has been tied up neatly enough for you to show a quid pro quo relationship between trump and the russians? >> chris, i think we're across the line. i think there have been a series of secret meetings. the white house for a very long period said there have been no encounters with russia whatsoever. we land the famous meeting of donald trump junior in trump tower in the summer of last year. we get three indictments from robert mueller, the sign of the direction he's traveling. and we landed this foreign policy aide that most people haven't paid much attention to, george papadopoulos meeting. i think there's more to come, the steel dossier, a former british spy is broadly correct, that's certainly what he's told friends. he thinks it's about between 70

and 90% accurate. it's very damning indeed and it explains why we get vekted tweets from the president who dismisses this as fake news. unfortunately for him it's not fake news. >> paul, when you look at all this evidence, it's scattered, but it's all over the place and there's a lot of it. do you see a criminal enterprise charge here, something like a reko, if you put it together, somebody must mast ter minding, so much money potentially involved in all these dealings? >> well, that's what special counsel mueller has 16 of the country's best prosecutors and even more fbi agents looking. so the concern is that collusion is not a crime, not even a crime for the president to be more loyal to the russians than to the american process of democracy. it's the political part that's supposed to prevent that, not the criminal law. conspiracy is illegal. and so if there's evidence of

conspiracy to hack hillary's e-mails, or to solicit foreign campaign contributions, then somebody's going down. and, again, that's the subject of the special counsel investigation. >> luke harding, one of the earliest leads you followed was trump's history of dealing with russia as a business guy, something he's adamantly denied ever since the campaign. let's watch. >> i own nothing in russia. i have no loans in russia. i don't have any deals in russia. i have no relationship to russia whatsoever. i have nothing to do with russia. i have no investments in russia. none whatsoever. i don't have property in russia. i have no dealings with russia. i have no deals in russia. i have no deals that could happen in russia because we've stayed away. >> luke, if he were to say that under oath, all that under oath, would he be a perjurier?

>> ultimately that's for a kind of lawyer to decide. in my view yes, i think he would be on several 4re68 levels we know when he went in 1987 it was to discuss building a trump hotel in the center of moscow. from my perspective this was a dangle, held out as bait to donald trump. 30 years later he's still discussing the same project. we know from revelations in the "new york times" that michael cohen, trump's lawyer, was sending an e-mail as late as early 2016 to vladimir putin's press guy saying help us build this tower. meanwhile, trump is on the campaign saying, wouldn't it be good if we had better relations with russia and with vladimir. the flow is from moscow to trump than from trump to moscow. >> thank you so much. up next, senator elizabeth warren plays hardball. get her thoughts on how democrats should fight the

republican tax plan this week and whether she thinks donald trump is setting her up by attacking her as pocahontas and that nonsense to run for president in 2020. this is hard bag where the action is. (avo) if you're burdened by belly pain and constipation, and you've tried any number of laxatives, probiotics, and fiber, it could be wearing on you. tell your doctor what you've tried and how long you've been at it. linzess works differently from laxatives. linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. it can help relieve your belly pain and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements

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no one who chose interdependence ever found despair. ♪ because what the world taught as weakness, is in fact our greatest virtue. ♪ a federal judge declined a request to force out mick full va knee. a jury convicted hatala of terrorism related charges, but acquitted him of murder in connection with to the benghazi attacks. pope francis is being criticized by human rights groups after failing to use a term rohingya. the country is accused of waging an ethnic clends cleansing

campaign. back to hardball. welcome to hardball. since president trump was elected last november, opponents of his policies have not shied away from protests, not our president, the day after the election. to the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets for the women's march back in january and the disabled protesters who swarmed capitol hill to combat senate republicans attempt to repeal obamacare. as republicans continue full speed ahead in the effort to ram through a major tax overhaul with a vote expected later this week the streets and hallways of the capitol have been largely empty. only a few protesters gathered outside. president trump was on capitol hill with republican holdouts. with congress facing a december

8th deadline to avoid government shutdown, chuck schumer and nan nancy pelosi pulled out of a meeting. the president wrote, quote, meeting with chuck and nancy about keeping government open and working. the problem is they want illegal immigrant immigranted frood flooding our country and want to substantially raise taxes. that's no deal. on the senate floor schumer called the plan session a show meeting. >> unfortunately this morning, instead of leading, the president tweeted a blatantly inaccurate statement and then concluded i don't see a deal. the president said i don't see a deal. three hours before our meeting, before he heard anything we had to say. given that the president doesn't see a deal between democrats and the white house, leader pelosi and i believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our republican

counterparts in congress instead. senator schumer also called the republican tax plan a gift to the wealthy. let's listen. >> if the president and the republican congress set out to pass a middle class tax cut as they claim, this bill completely misses the mark. >> i'm joined by democratic senator elizabeth warren from massachusetts. you're a fire brand. you know how to make a case. are you impressed by the democratic opposition to this tax bill? >> this tax bill is terrible -- >> r-- are you impressed by the leadership. >> we need to be strong against it. right now, about two out of every three people in america think it is a bad tax bill. and yet the republicans just keep jamming it forward. you know, we talked about today, the fact that what the republicans are trying to do here is they want to give away about a trillion 1/2 dollars to giant corporations, and then

they want to have higher taxes on people making less than $75,000 a year. and they want to raise taxes on students. people have to borrow money in order to go to school. this is a terrible plan. and the real question has to be, with two out of three americans opposed to this plan, why do the republicans keep pushing it? i'll tell you why. they keep pushing it because it's a payoff to their big donors. that's what the republicans are here for. in fact, some of them have admitted it, quite openly, that they're here to help their big donors. if they don't their big donors may pull money from the next election, and not help them get reelected. >> is one of the reasons why the democrats are so anemic and fighting, they have the same rich donors? i'm tired. i saw a lot of activity, last january, a lot of resistance in the street. i don't see it now, senator. i don't see the action out there against this bill. where is it visually? it doesn't seem to be obvious.

>> but if you ask people around the country they get what this tax bill is about, chris. they understand that this is a tax bill to help the rich. they see it, they taste it, they feel it. and if the republicans ram this thing through, they're going to explode the debt, they're going to raise taxes on hard-working families. and by the way, even today, we had the nominee in to be the chair of the federal reserve bank. and he admitted that when you raise taxes on people making less than $75,000 a year, what you do to the economy is you pull demand out of the economy. that's going to be hard on the economy overall. when you explode the debt, that's something america's going to have to pay for down the line. it is fiscally irresponsible, democratically irresponsible. >> do you have a sense that -- i looked at the bill like you're the expert on the bill. i looked at the bill and i noticed one thing that states like new york, connecticut,

massachusetts, new jersey, california, blue states are being penalized. do you believe the president sat down with his people and besides getting their piece of the port they wanted, they wanted benefits for the wealthy and their donor class, i agree with all that, that they targeted the states that voted for secretary clinton? they seem to have done that. is this a penalty box situation for the people who voted for the opposition? >> they have targeted the states that actually are responsible, the states that say, you know, we're going to tax ourselves a little bit more so that we can provide better education for our kids, so that we can invest more in infrastructure, so that we can put some dollars on the table for research, so that we can build a stronger future. and now what the republicans want to do is they want to say we want you to pay a penalty for that. we want you to be double taxed on that. >> all right. >> we don't want you who are out there trying to build an economy

that works not just for a thin slice at the top, but an economy that works for all of us. we want to try to get in the way of that. we want to stick a stick in the spokes. you know, in massachusetts, we work hard, and we do. we tax ourselves so we can make investments in building a future for all of our kids. and what the republicans don't like is we show in massachusetts how we can make government work for all of us. that's something the republicans don't want to hear. >> so have you excluded the possibility it's a political penalty as well for voting for his opponent? >> you know, look, i don't know the motives. i can't look into the motives of these guys. but what i sure can do is see what they're actually doing. >> okay. >> they're taking states like massachusetts, that are doing a great job, and they're saying we're going to raise your costs, we're going to double tax you here, because we don't like you building a future for your kids. >> okay. let me ask you about this -- i'm a student of modern political

histories. you know, i watched you lynn don johnson promoted rirchd richard nixon by calling him out. he elevated nixon. nixon got the time to respond to him. it seems in a weird ironic way, the one state that didn't like nixon, massachusetts, it seems like he's promoting with this pocahontas nonsense. he can't get off of you. is he afraid of you and ironically is he helping promote people wanting you to be his opponent next time? >> what happened yesterday, i don't think this is about politics. this is really appalling. that was supposed to be a ceremony yesterday to honor native americans who have fought for this country during world war ii, who had put it all on the line and saved countless lives, americans and our allies. incredible men who are now in

their 90s, to honor them, to honor their families. and he just couldn't make it through without a racial slur. >> yeah. >> you know, i think that donald trump thinks that by doing that he's going to shut me up. but he's not. i'm still going to get out there and i'm going to talk about this terrible tax bill. i'm going to get out there and i'm going to talk about the consumer agency and why we need a consumer agency that fights for families instead of one that's just another big wet kiss for wall street. >> pocahontas is going to be your bugle call. every time he does this you're going to come back fighting? >> it's wrong for him to do this. it's wrong. it's not just ridiculous, it's wrong. >> senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts, thank you for the fire brand performance tonight. up next, republicans pushing ahead with the trump tower tax

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welcome back to hardball. as we mentioned earlier, republicans are intent on passing a tax overhaul in order to pass the first legislative accomplishment this year. for months president trump promised this legislation would deliver on his promise to help the forgotten man and woman. that was his phrase. let's watch. >> this is a middle income tax reduction, and it's a very big one. it will be the biggest tax reduction in the history of our country. it will bring jobs, bring a lot of income coming into the country, buying product, et cetera. >> it will lead to tremendous prosperity for american families. communities and also for our job producing businesses.

at the center of our plan are tax cuts for the working americans. according to estimates this bill will do anything but what he just said. independent organizations like the kopgsal budget office and the joint committee on -- the legislation will provide $1 trillion in tax cuts for corporations as well as changes to the tax code that will benefit the very wealthy. lower income americans would be forced to pay higher taxes. a quinnipiac university poll says the majority of americans believe. a real majority disprove of the bill. i'm joined by barney frank of massachusetts. congressman frank, what's the worst part of this bill if you had to put it in order? >> well, the overall distribution, the fact that it mostly goes to the wealthier people. i have a specific objection in someone who believes in government has a responsibility, that we have a responsibility for the government to respond, that they are not only trying to

disable the federal government from coming together to meet our needs, they want to penalize the states that have stepped up. if a state is willing to enact taxes in its political process so it's better able to deal with problems, that state gets penalized in the way they take away certain tax deductions. it's clearly intended not to simply reduce the amount of money allowed by the federal level to do major programs -- we have the president talking about the opioid crisis and providing no money for it. we go on and on and there's better -- no money for it. but what he's doing is penalizing those states that have been willing the people of the states to tax themselves by increasing the taxes that they're going to have to pay. so along with the overall, that is the final point aimed at

reducing the money the federal government has to do things. other programs, they know too popular to do it on their own, two-step, first create a larger deficit by overall tax reduction, and say they can't afford the programs. >> let me ask you, do you think this is pay back for the states? if you enumerate them, massachusetts, your state, new york, connecticut, new jersey, pennsylvania, certainly california their states that -- not pennsylvania, all those other states, the east and west voted against him for president. is this the penalty box, is this getting even? >> that's part of it, but for them it's a two fer. it carries out the ideological view, that you disable government. look, we've seen this playing out in the consumer bureau panel. they've got a court decision today. the purpose of having mcmuick

mulvaney there was to shut it down. they don't want to interfere. and by the way, you're right, obviously to point out he said this was for the working guy. people should understand the way he plans to do this. his view is that by cutting the corporate tax out of the good goodness of their hearts, the corporations have more and more money available will voluntarily raise wages. that is, of course, something for which we have no evidence whatsoever. he is justifying -- and by the way, there was reason to cut the corporate tax some. the argument that cutting the corporate tax will primarily benefit or substantially benefit wage earners because of those corporations that have now become much more profitable will decide to increase the wages, there's no evidence of that whatsoever. >> thank you, u.s. congressman barney frank, thank you for coming on here. we're bringing in the round table here. anna palmer, a very powerful person, senior washington

correspondent for playbook, and kimberly atkins. i'm starting with you, i get the peeling, kimberly, i think the democratic opposition has been weak, it's been almost anemic. i don't hear -- this tax bill gets rid of basically doubles the exemption for the estate tax, give up to $22 million to your kids, lowers the top income rate, a lot of money, gets rid of corporate all together, and it disables, basically, obamacare. it's horrible from a progressive point of view or even a moderate point of view. yet it's still in the works and probably will pass. why haven't the democrats been able to bdestroy this thing. >> they've followed the same way, let the republicans' horrible plan, the fact that they are being forced to take a risky vote, this vote, it depends on what you mean about -- >> whether it passes, only a couple steps down from the

president. >> overall people want tax cuts. but americans hate this bill. i think the democrats have done a fairly good job of messaging that this is really for the wealthier americans, that it's really bad for the lower and middle class people. >> is it going to win the argument? i'm sorry, kimberly they're likely to receive -- they want the other side to score the touchdown so they can complain about it in the next election. >> the democrats can't stop the republicans from passing a bad bill. >> i think they want something to run against. anna? >> i think they have not done what they did with health care, they were able to personalize it and bring up people who said i'm going to lose my health care. my grandma's not going to be able to have her chemo, long-term health care issues that were personal, story telling ability, tax cuts is not something they've been able to message on. i think it's a strategy. i think this is a lot more about the senate and chuck schumer being able to keep moderates, get her to not vote for this is a big deal. >> how about they would like the

six endangered republicans to run for it. if those people break with the republican majority, if they break with them and vote the right way, they won't have a hammer to hit them with, the democrats. >> you would think the democrats would be working back room magic on that front. they haven't. the democrats have been lowballing this, taking this approach that maybe the republicans will continue to fail on the messaging effectively, which they have. >> who's going to win friday night? are we going to be sitting here friday and say the republicans won? >> i think so. >> it looks better than it did earlier today. >> if the republicans want to beat the bill they have failed. are you sure they wanted to beat it? >> i don't think they have any ability to do that. >> let's take a look. a group of more than a dozen democratic senators, criticized the bill and suggest that without major changes it's unlikely they would get any democratic support. listen. >> rather than rush this thing through, rather than trying to find a pathway forward and

people are looking for different gimmicks, if you will, use us as the gimmick. >> this is good faith, an effort to say let's do this as a nation, as the american team. i want everybody to know we're ready to go. >> we are all hopeful that this misguided attempt that is anything but regular order fails so that we can then come together and work as bill nelson said, in a bipartisan way. >> i don't know if they're all moderates. i spotted progressives in that group, ron wyden, in other words. what do you think, kimberly, do you think that six is going to shake the six republicans loos.? >> i don't know if they'll shake the republicans loose. it was a missed opportunity by mitch mcconnell to bring them on board. >> was he allowed? >> i don't know if he was allowed. he made a decision early that this was a republican-only project and that the democrats would not be part of negotiating

this. >> what is mcconnell going to offer them that the conservatives who have been pushing this -- >> not for an offer, they want to destroy obamacare. >> the senate was the one putting the mandates in this bill to repeal the mandates. so i don't know what the -- what mcconnell or any republican senators are going to offer a mansion and others. >> i love personal politics. mccain doesn't like this president, flake doesn't like this president, corker doesn't like him. will those three guys go over to vote the tax bill to make themselves look good. would they keep the love affair with their contributors than their anger against the president? >> i think it will be tough mccain to vote for this, after standing up before and refusing. >> you're romantic. kimberly, you're a romantic. hatred is good. i'm kidding. go ahead. >> i think, look, bob corker voted for this in the budget committee. they're going to come together on the deficit.

i think it looks more likely tonight. >> your party's looking bad here. >> no, i think this whole thing is mishandled. i think they should have stopped the process a room and done it the regular order way. >> well said. but you've avoided the question. if they'd done it by the regular, ended up with the same bill, would you be for it? >> no. >> why are we arguing about the order? >> i think the pressures would have been different. now the pressures is to pass something, we don't care what it is. >> i think this is pigs at the trough. you're watching "hardball." use every possible resource. to fight cancer. and never lose sight of the patients we're fighting for. our cancer treatment specialists share the same vision. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. and these are the specialists we're proud to call our own. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com appointments available now.

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of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c? ask your hep c specialist about harvoni. we're back with the "hardball your recollection round table. michael, tell me something i don't know. >> given the pressures coming from north korea, this week hawaii is slated to -- >> the ballistic missile crisis pressures? >> correct, reinstituting their statewide nuclear siren this week in case just something crazy happens, they want everybody prepared. >> this is? >> hawaii. haven't done it since the cold war. >> they're under pressure. go ahead. >> we saw a lot of emotion -- >> they were hit once by -- >> right. so they know. >> we saw a lot of emotion from senate majority leader mitch mcconnell coming out of his meeting, a lot of happiness, he called doing the tax reform a 50 vote, kind of like the rubik's cube. i expect him to be pretty happy through the rest of this week.

>> mitch mcconnell's happy, we're not. go ahead, kimberly. >> so we've been talking about different sides of the political spectrum not coming together, not much bipartisanship here. tomorrow at the u.s. supreme court there is an issue nighting people from across the political spectrum, from the aclu to citizens united, a case about whether police need a warrant to get cell phone location data, all these groups think it's a bad idea for the government just to be able to grab that without a warrant. we'll see if the supreme court is persuaded by their argument. >> to find out where you? >> right. location data anywhere you go, everywhere you go. >> fascinating. dick tracy would have liked this stuff. michael steele, anna palmer, kimberly atkins. >> >> when we return, let me finish tonight with "trump watch." ♪ one is the only number ♪ that you'll ever need ♪ staying ahead isn't about waiting for a chance. ♪ because one is... it's about the one bold choice you make that moves you forward.

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"trump watch" tuesday, november 28th, 2017. this has been a loser of a day

for donald trump allies, a big winner for country's free press. a group close to breitbart tried to pull a sting on "the washington post." it tried selling the newspaper a made-up story of how alabama senate candidate roy moore had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old that led to an abortion. they wanted the "post" to splash the story all over its front page, then come roaring in to show the whole account a sham. this would make "the washington post" look like it was so ready to slime moore that it went with a bogus story. it didn't work out that way. turns out "the washington post" was suspicious of the tip, checked it out, discovered the whole thing was a con job. good for "the washington post," bad for trump allies. good for the advantage of quality journalism which you can't be sure you're getting unless you've got serious editors who demand to know a reporter's sources. three cheers for "the washington post." three bronx cheers for the dirty tricksters who tried to make its

reporting look bad in order to make donald trump look not so bad. it shows when it comes to protecting roy moore, some of his friends have decided the only defense is a dirty offense. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> nobody knows the system better than me. which is why i alone can fix it. >> i'm not really that surprised. >> tonight why democrats pulled out of a white house meeting after a trump tweet. as a government completely controlled by republicans is now on the brink of a shutdown. >> let that happen, i will absolutely blame the democrats. the growing case for collusion. >> everybody said there's no collusion. >> new reporting on the secret trump world outreach to russia after the election. plus congressman luis gutierrez on his surprise retirement. and fallout from the va