hello, everybody on new year's eve. i'm david gura at msnbc headquarters in new york. deadly chaos inside iran. political protesters clashing with police in multiple cities. the clear message about reform from the islamic republic's president and what president trump says he is watching for. killed in the line of duty. a gunman takes aim at multiple

sheriff's deputies. we'll bring you the latest reporting on what happened in colorado this morning. and ringing in 2018. a live look at times square as half the country is set to celebrate in frigid weather tonight. a look at what revelers won't see that's keeping them safe. well, deadly violence is breaking out anew in iran with demonstrations and counterprotests flaring up across the country. as arrests mount, there are reports that at least two people have died. what the cause is, is in dispute, the government blaming foreign agents. rohuhani addressed the nation bt now they are blocking. ayman mohyeldin, thank you so much for being here. let me ask you what we know at this point. it started to percolate on thursday. >> as you can imagine, any time you're dealing with what is coming out of iran, it's a little bit difficult. on one hand, you're dealing with news agencies or news activists

or international media with reporters on the ground. we get a sense that this protest, as you mentioned, started thursday, mostly with economic grievances in a small town in the eastern part of the country, dealing with inflation, economic issues, so to speak. and over the course of the past several days, we've seen these protests begin to spread into other parts of the country, and ultimately reaching in small scale to tehran earlier in the past 24 hours or so. as you mentioned, there are reports of fatalities among these protesters. and again, because we don't have the exact confirmation independently, protesters are saying it was the result of police firing on those protesters. the government saying something different, saying it was the result of agitators among those crowds. so, any time you're dealing with a situation there, it's hard to get the exact facts, but what we can say with a certain degree of confidence is protesters in iran continuing for a fourth day, gaining in momentum. not yet clear how long this is going to be sustained for, and now we are starting to hear from the top leadership of that

country, including the president. >> there's a tendency here to look back at 2009, the last time we saw large-scale protests in iran. what lessons can you draw from that? and as you watch this unfold, as we get more information, what specifically are you looking for, particularly when it comes to how the government's responding? >> there are a few things that are slightly different. obviously, the scale of 2009 is very different than what we're seeing now. that's not to say this won't get to that momentum, but certainly, it's not there yet. interestingly enough, in 2009, the protests very localized, centralized in tehran, not as much in the periphery of the country. it seems that the protesters this time started outside of tehran, and are slowly gaining and building momentum in. that is somewhat different. also the political climate in 2009 and what we're seeing now is different. the current president of iran considered a moderate, considered a reformer. you get a sense a little bit of that from his message tonight, that he's willing to give the protesters a chance to heard. he says they do have legitimate grievances to be discussed but can be done so peacefully, in

and out with the destruction of property, looting or damage. and that's a little bit different than the political climate in 2009, still being ruled by hardliners. so it would be interesting to see how the government responds this time around as opposed to in 2009 and whether or not we'll see the deployment of the more elite and stronger, lethal forces of the government in there to try to get the situation under control. so, the stamina of the protest is one thing we're watching for to see how long it's going to be sustained. and secondly, the response from the government, both the administration of president rouhani as well as the nonelected officials, including the supreme leader and the iran revolutionary guard corps. >> you mentioned economic grievances as a core opponent of what at least began the protests in iran. and you're hearing from people particularly in the right in the u.s., saying this has to do directly with the iran nuclear deal a few years back. to what extent is that a valid complaint? you look at a country that's been under sanctions, the promise some would be lifted as a result of that deal. can you draw the line between the two?

>> i think economists might be able to. and i think the question really is how systemic are these economic problems? and i think there is an argument to be made in iran for the past several decades has been the subject of very intense western sanctions, so its economy has never been fully realized, not because necessarily of the iranian people and what the iranian government is doing, but because of the kind of pressure that we've been seen leveled by subsequent american administration after another, including western countries in europe. i think there was an argument to be made, particularly inside of iran with this current president, president rouhani, that the iran nuclear deal was supposed to offer an opening to economic relief inside iran. that's not materialized, and again, that's not because of what iran is and not doing -- it's certainly involved in a lot of costly endeavors across the middle east, wars in syria and elsewhere, but also because of the sanctions that continue to be leveled and the lack, if you will, from an iranian perspective, that the united states has not kept up its end of the bargain, which is to

offer some kind of economic relief in those sanctions, and certainly with the trump administration, which is really ratcheting up the rhetoric and the heat and the sanctions on iran following, you know, him coming into office, president trump coming into office and saying he wanted to do away with the nuclear deal. >> thank you for the update. catch more at 5:00 and we'll be digging much more in that this. speech after speech, the president has came out against the iranian deal to slow tehran's nuclear program. nbc's garrett haake is traveling with the president on what the president calls a working vacation. garrett, what's the rhetoric been like from the president this morning and more broadly toward iran? >> reporter: well, we've not heard much from the president this morning. he's been at his golf club today. he was scheduled to eat lunch with the governor of florida. we haven't really seen or heard a lot from him today, but over the last 24 hours or so, since these protests bubbled up in iran and reached sort of

critical mass, we've heard consistenty from the president on his twitter feed that he wants the iranian regime to understand that the world, and specifically, the united states is watching what happens there. this president has taken a different tact, as ayman pointed out, from president obama in 2009, which is to try to keep sort of a hands-off approach and let the protests be entirely different by iranians themselves. this president seems pretty comfortable putting his finger on the scale, as he has really since september when he gave that big speech at the u.n., where you saw him sort of drive a wedge between the iranian leadership, the mullahs, and the iranian people. in that same speech, he also talked about the iranian nuclear deal, and i think that's important context for this, too. i want to play a quick bite from that speech and we can talk about it on the other side. >> leaders engaged in nation-building abroad, while they fail to build up and replenish our nation at home. they neglected a nuclear menace

in north korea, made a disastro disastrous, weak, and incomprehensible bad deal with iran. >> reporter: different speech, but same point. that was the president's national security speech a few weeks ago. but the general idea here is still the same -- he clearly looks at all of this in the middle east and in iran in particular in the broader context of that nuclear deal and what it has or has not accomplished. and over the last 24 hours, we've seen the white house trying to strike while the iron is hot here and continue to drive that wedge and make that point that the iranian people aren't necessarily our enemies, but the leadership there in the context of that deal, maybe this is an opportunity for them to learn a lesson of some kind. at least that's what the trump administration appears to be telegraphing. >> garrett, how fully informed is this administration's policy toward iran? we heard from the national security focus speech a few weeks bag, the president not shy about his grievances with that deal that was brokered by the u.s. and other nations in

europe. does he have a plan? does this administration have a concrete plan for what they'd like to see happen with the relationships to iran or with iran more generally? >> reporter: that's not entirely clear. what is clear is the president has formed pretty strong relationships with all of iran's traditional opponents, whether it's improving our relationship with israel, improving relationships with saudi arabia and the gulf states. so this white house has done an encirclement, almost, of iran, in strengthening iran's traditional antagonists. to what ends, to where you find the opportunity to take advantage of that and maybe reach out a hand down the line is not entirely clear, but what has been clear is the isolation of iran by surrounding it with strong allies now to the united states, particularly, think about that very first foreign trip to saudi arabia and to these middle eastern arab states, trying to firm up those alliances to stand against iran, potentially. >> garrett, great to speak with

you. thank you very much for the update. garrett haake in west palm beach, florida, traveling with the president on his holiday vacation. we want to update you with the latest out of colorado, one deputy dead, six more people injured. this is video of a procession for that deputy through douglas county, colorado, just south of denver, a short time ago. four other officers and two civilians were injured in the shooting that investigators say began as a domestic disturbance around 5:00 in the morning local time, mountain time out in colorado, and the douglas county sheriff described the firefight that ensued as an ambush on his men. and here's what sheriff tony spurlock had to say to reporters last hour. >> the officers that were injured, and i'll give you their status here real quickly -- deputy mike doyle, who is a 28-year-old deputy sheriff. he's in stable condition at a local hospital. deputy taylor davis, 30-year-old deputy sheriff, is in stable condition at a local hospital. deputy jeffrey pelley, 32-year-old officer, just got

out of surgery, and i was told he's in stable condition as well. and then crpd officer tom o'donnell, 41-year-old. he was in stable condition as well. the officer who was killed in the line of duty is zachary parrish, a 29-year-old deputy. he had worked for us for about seven months. he had worked at the castle rock police department for a little more than two years. he was survived by his wife and two children. i spent some time with his wife. i can't tell you how difficult it is for a leader to sit down with the spouse of an officer who was killed in the line of duty. they have many hopes and dreams, and he was doing his job. he was doing his job well. and his life was taken from us this morning. >> that was douglas county sheriff tony spurlock there

speaking to reporters just a short tiblg tooim ago. zachary parish was the father of two young children. jeffrey pelley, who you just heard about, is the son of boulder, colorado, sheriff. and president trump tweeted his condolences to the victims of the attack. officials believe that there was one gunman, and he is believed to be dead. they said the person had contact with them a number of times but the person had no criminal history. much more on the russia investigation, including how a tip from an australian diplomat may have triggered the whole thing and the laserlike focus on one trump campaign adviser. and later, we look back on the top political feuds of 2017 and the effect they're going to have on 2018. before we go to break here, here's a live look at dubai, where the city is ringing in 2018 with celebrations near the world's tallest building. instead of fireworks, dubai has opted for a laser show. s. essential for vinyl, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr.

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welcome back. i'm david gura. with 2018 hours away, president trump is going into the new year dogged by the russian investigation, after "the new york times" reported yesterday that former trump campaign foreign policy adviser george papadopoulos revealed to a diplomat in 2016 that russia "had political dirt on hillary clinton." according to that "the new york times" report, australian officials then shared this information with their american

counterparts, this according to four current and former american officials with direct knowledge of that australian's role. the white house has issued a statement in response to the "times" report, saying, "out of respect for the special counsel and his process, we are not commenting on matters such as this. we are continuing to fully cooperate with the special counsel in order to help complete their inquiry expeditiously." in contradiction to the "times" reporting, some members of the trump campaign have previously downplayed the role of george papadopoulos, one case referring to him as a coffee boy. former chair of the south carolina gop is canadien dawson, david goodfriend, and danny cevallos. danny, what stood out to you as you look at the contours of the investigation as we move into 2018? what changed as a result of the reporting in the "times" yesterday. >> what stood out to me frankly wasn't even a legal issue, it was the notion that somebody in the campaign felt comfortable enough while drinking to tell a highly sensitive story to

somebody without completely and 100% trusting that individual. because what happened is he went and reported him to the rest of the australian government immediately afterward. it does raise questions about who hired the guy, papadopoulos, and who had him on their team. but legally speaking, it totally changes everything that we previously believed, which was that the dossier led to the investigation and that, in fact, there may have been other reasons, new reasons that we never knew about, that raised the spector warranting an investigation. and i think it is a good lesson, a teachable moment, that whatever we think we know at this point, several months in, maybe we don't know as much as we think. >> katon dawson, let me ask you about the way the campaign operated. i mentioned the coffee boy comment that was made about george papadopoulos. what members of that campaign had said, that he wasn't a paid member of the campaign, he was working in an advisory capacity. but what have you learned here? what does this say about the way this campaign was put together?

>> you know, it was certainly a different campaign, david, one that we haven't seen and one we probably won't see ever again, where it was driven by media. there were some professionals involved. some of my really good friends were involved. this individual we're talking about was a vorks a nonpaid volunteer. he did get to the big table one time, good picture there, but not somebody of real substance. and when you see campaigns like that that are organic built behind that huge personality that is donald trump, against 15 republicans running against the republican establishment infrastructure, it sometimes will bleed with mistakes. again, manafort came on later on, and certainly, he's culpable, and there are a lot of things around there. but what i do see from the article and what i am hearing, this doesn't rise to the level of a watergate, in my opinion, nor is the base ever going to be real concerned about russia and donald trump. i get that there's a phenomenon

out there among the press and some of the voters, and there's something there, and it's real, and we'll find out what it is, but at this time, in my opinion, which i do politics for a living, i don't see any damage yet. >> david goodfriend, let me turn you. the point being made by katon dawson is he was a volunteer, wasn't getting a paycheck, but they needed somebody to endorse their foreign policy platform. how much does that matter, whether or not the campaign was cutting a check for him? >> very little. with all due respect to my friend from south carolina, this is a major bombshell, and here's why. president trump and his cheerleading squad on the right and the republicans in congress have this pattern. when they're in trouble and feeling the heat, they lash out and attack and try to discredit everybody. in this case, they're trying to discredit bob mueller, and in fact, the fbi, and probably the entire american law enforcement system because they're sweating. the top dog here, flynn, has turned snitch and is state's witness. they're feeling the heat. and what they've been doing systematically is trying to

attack a firm, a small opo research firm called fusion gps, as though they are the culprits here, as though they and this dossier are somehow corrupt. and what this story in "the new york times" did completely and thoroughly and undeniably is blow up that theory in its entirety. in other words, you can't just say anymore that this is some sort of weird dossier put together by some private group. no, no. the investigation was prompted, was started, was ist grenstigat something completely outside what the trump world is attacking right now, what my republican friend in south carolina here clearly doesn't tell us is that the theory the entire republican party's been using for the last several weeks is gone. there's no way you can now say this is just some bob mueller exercise in a dossier put together by an opo research firm. no. we now have major american allies, like australia, that are

saying we were telling the american cia, fbi, law enforcement and international apparatus that there is a problem with the russians and the trump campaign. this has completely destroyed the trump world's best defense, and they're going to be sweating more in 2018. >> dennis, let me ask you about the timetable here. as david goodfriend pointing out there, australia pound out about this, took it to other diplomats. it didn't come to the attention of u.s. law enforcement for two months' time. how much does that timetable matter as you piece together what happened? >> the drinking and talking moment is important insofar as it happened in relation to any alleged hacking, any alleged criminal activities, knowledge before any criminal activity is a little closer to actually participating, but you still need that participation. knowledge afterward, after-the-fact knowledge does not necessarily make one an accessory, but the timeline is critical here. and there's another thing. all this talk about coffee boy

and low level really isn't as important as people are making it out to be, because even a low-level person can get access to information, can observe, can act as an agent and learn things. so, even if he may have been low level, he might have had access to this information. and remember, government doesn't corroborate witnesses unless they give them something interesting, and this witness, like all other cooperating witnesses, has tremendous motive, because later on down the line, at sentencing, the government will decide whether or not he really performed and gave them a good story, one that gave the government what they ultimately wanted, and that's why the trump team should be concerned, even if they truly believe they did nothing wrong. >> we'll leave it there. danny, thank you. katon, david, thanks to you as well. celebrating 2018 after deadly attacks in las vegas and new york on halloween, new york's former police commissioner, bill bratton, will tell us what it takes to keep everybody safe on new year's eve in new york.

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welcome back. i'm david segura. much of the country on high alert today as large crowds gather to ring in 2018. the president briefed a short time ago on the impressive measures taken to ensure a safe celebration across the country. in new york city tonight, more than a million people are

expected in times square, and officials are ramping up security, including monitoring area hotels. anne thompson joins me now from times square. anne, what does the security presence look like? what's the scene there in times square, a few blocks out from here? >> reporter: well, david, for the people who are in these pens behind me, in order to get in here, they are wanded, their bags are inspected, and it is 16 degrees here. it feels like 3 with the windchill. and believe it or not, police are so serious, they're making people unzip their coats and doing body searches before they allow them in these pens. so they are taking security very, very seriously tonight. but even more than security, the weather may be the ultimate story. the temperature is expected to be somewhere between 8 and 11 degrees when the ball comes down, and we're going to have a subzero windchill, because the winds are going to pick up, and it is going to be brutal. so, how do you survive this? tim tompkins of the times square alliance has some ideas. >> we just say to people, bundle

up, you know, big time, and be prepared. and i think people that are out here are prepared. and the reason people come here is because it's this amazing ritual that we all need, especially after a 2017. we need a reboot to say, hey, let's put behind us what we don't like about last year and let's start with a new beginning. >> reporter: so, they're expecting somewhere between a million and 2 million people to come down here tonight. i asked him, does he think the weather's going to hold that number down? he said he's not really sure. this is something people want to be at. they like to celebrate. they want to be on tv. there's a great big concert. so, we'll see how much the weather affects what happens here. dave, back to you. >> bundled up, staying warm in times square. anne thompson, thank you, happy new year. bill bratton is former commissioner with the new york city police department and a contributor to msnbc news. great to have you here once again. let me ask you about how much the screening process has changed, describing being wanded, going through screenings, emptying bags, et cetera. this is a process that takes a long while. >> a long while, and it's

multifaceted. the wanding, the physical searching that anne just described, actually having people open their coats, particularly bulky clothes. also, the addition of many more dogs that we started purchasing a few years ago. these are the dogs that literally can walk down a line of people and pick up a scent, a scent of explosive material. unlike the old bomb detection dogs, where you had to point the dog at have object and he would go over and sniff it, this dogs are happy go lucky labrador retrievers that everybody likes to look at, walking around with their tails wagging, they're a big factor in what's going down there. >> the vapor weight dogs, won't call those technology, but when you look at what's around now and the ability we have to do a better job of screening places like times square. what do you look to as the biggest achievements we've got here, the things that have changed most that have made that

job a little bit easier? >> well, camera systems, for example. there's over 1,000-some-odd cameras in the times square area. the sophistication of those c cameras is constantly changing and improving. facial recognition capabilities, color recognition. you're looking for somebody in a red coat among 1,000 people. the ability to basically have that pop up on the screen and identify it very quickly among those 1,000 people who's got a red coat on. i think in years ahead, the capabilities of both the explosive detection capability as people are walking up towards to shoot as well as facial recognition, very much what you see at airport security lines in terms of the sophistication. i think we'll start seeing that in times square in the years ahead. >> let me ask you just sort of what's changed here since the attacks of the last few months do you think here? we've got the attack in the subway station, the failed attempt there at a bombing, the incident on the west side highway in which somebody drove a vehicle into pedestrians walking down the sidewalk there. what do you make of those attacks and what that signals to you about the threat that the

city faces? >> well, what has changed is that the certainty of attack is now there. in other words, there have been three successful attacks in 15 months in new york city after 20-some-odd thwarted attacks. that has raised the concern. while there's no specific threat has been made to the event tonight, it's the general threat that's always out there, al qaeda. and as a result of the three more recent successful events, the department, certainly in an abundance of caution, has really ramped up security down there to make sure that that lone wolf, who is the principal concern, that the intelligence capacity is usually able to very frequently pick up a directed type of attack of a cell of people, but it's that lone wolf, and the three most recent events in new york have all been undetected lone wolves, and that is the principal concern this evening. >> bill bratton, let me ask you, born in boston, worked there,

worked in los angeles, worked in new york. two ten yours as commissioner of the nypd. how long did it take you to get the significance of this event? i understand in some respect it's a massive headache for the gentleman who's running the police department. >> well, in terms of having been involved in it now for boston, they had first night back, of course, when i joined the boston pd, new york, 1993 with police, '94 i was commissioner, l.a. in 2009 and back to new york in 2014. it's been a fascinating evolution from a time when there was no concern about terrorism, it was all about crowd control, to where the big concern is certainly crowd management, crowd control, but the big concern now in the 21st century is terrorism, is the lone wolf, is, in fact, also added to this year the las vegas incident where you had a deranged gunman whose motive is still unknown, took all those lives. houston just had a situation where they've arrested a man down in a hotel down there, hotel that was going to have a

major new year's celebration tonight, a number of weapons in his room, ammunition. so, god knows at this point in time what he was up to, but here's an individual who wasn't on the radar at all, that fortunately, they were able to pick him up and deter whatever he might have been planning. >> happy new year to you. thank you for your time. >> happy new year. >> bill bratton on msnbc. let's bring in bonnie schneider now for an historically cold night in many parts of the country. >> especially here. we have 2 million people in times square. it's going to feel like it's negative 5 degrees when the ball drops, really cold. the actual temperature right around 10. currently, new york city is 15, so it's not much warmer, and it's hard to find any warm spots on the map unless you head south towards florida or to the southwest. in fact, 160 million americans impacted in some way by dangerous windchill for today. the problem is, is that this isn't going anywhere. this cold air is here to stay. the mornings ahead for new year's day are going to be bitterly cold in the upper midwest, down through areas of the southern plains.

we're going to be seeing very cold temperatures stretching all the way into the end of the week, so it's not exactly warming up as you look towards chicago. the morning temperature on thursday will feel like it's negative 6, and that's from a temperature on tuesday of 4, so the numbers are going down for many, even into this first week of 2018. we are also watching for a little bit of snow and some overcast conditions, but at least the lake-effect snow machine for erie has shut off, which is good news. if you're traveling, there's some wet weather across parts of the panhandle of florida. that will work its way into most of florida, i'd say, for tomorrow, some additional showers. but overall, at least rain isn't an issue. if you're looking for a warm place to experience new year's, the rose parade in pasadena. 64 degrees and sunny, a far cry from what the rest of the country is experiencing. >> see if i can get there in time. bonnie, thank you very much. appreciate that update on the weather across the country. up next, calling for a moral revival in 2018. one faith leader will tell us why concerns about the president's judicial appointments could play a part in healing america's social

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welcome back. i'm david gura. the racially divisive politics that donald trump embraced as a candidate and now as president appear to be having an impact on his polling. in the first year of his presidency, the president has enflamed racial tensions on several occasions, including his travel ban targeting muslims, his tweets about nfl players taking a knee during the national anthem, and his comments about white nationalists at the demonstrations in charlottesville, virginia. now, a poll out this month finds

that most americans blame trump for deepening the racial divide in this country. according to pew research, a 60% majority believe that trump's election has led to worse race relations in the united states. joining me is bishop william barber, president and senior lecturer at parish of the great. nice to have you here. >> thanks, dave. >> let me ask you about the depth of the divide. how deep has it gotten and how hard will it be to get out of that? >> i don't know if i agree totally that trump has exacerbated it. i think what we've seen, for a long period of time, we've seen an extremist group that has hijacked the republican party and has been engaging in a lot of racialized policies. you know, we have to not just talk about racism in terms of personal relationships. you're talking about we've seen the worst form of voter suppression since 2010. when you look at the attack on health care, the disparity way that hurts african-americans. you look at how immigrants are

being attacked. that's racist. you look at standing rock, an attack on our native american community. what is happening is not just him. that's what we have to keep saying. he has been enabled by extremists, senators and congressperson who have chosen greed and lies and racism and xenophobia as their foreplay, as their forte, as opposed to our deepest religious values of love and justice and mercy and grace or our constitutional values of establishment of justice, domestic tranquility. that's what has gone on. and what's happened is trump has just gone, you know, viral, if you will, with it. but if you notice, most of the congresspeople, they don't disagree with his agenda, they disagree with his antics. and so, when people say some someone a racist and they say, well, i'm against charlottesville most of them are against charlottesville, but where did they stand on voting rights? mcconnell and ryan have held up

fixing the voting rights act for over four years, over four years. we have less voting rights today than august of 1965 when the voting rights act was passed. that's systemic racism, the refusal to pass living wages is systemic racism, but it also hurts large numbers of whites. in fact, in raw numbers, the policies of trump and extremists hurt more white people in raw numbers than black people, but they frame their issues, they get elected through racialized voter suppression. that is the challenge of how we have to begin to talk in this country and help people understand that racism is not just against black people, it's against democracy. >> reverend barber, a lot of people got to know you through a speech at the democratic national convention last year. i know of you from growing up in north carolina, but at the end of that speech, you point to the revivalist again. where is that revival as we sit here looking ahead to 2018?

where's that revival coming from? >> well, i can tell you that people all over the country, i have been asked to join the poor people's campaign, the national call for moral revival with my co-chair. we've gone to 15 states in the last few months. we've seen thousands of people ready to sign up for a sustained period of civil disobedience, direct action, public education and voter registration. i'm talking black, i'm talking white, i'm talking young, i'm talking old, i'm talking gay, i'm talking straight, jews, muslims, christians. people are saying this must be a season of resistance, not just to an individual. we're talking about moving in 25 states and the district of columbia. we're talking about being in the congress and in statehouses and challenging the issue of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, and this distorted moral narrative that is promoted by christian nationalism that says so little about racism and injustice and so much about personal issues like where people's sexuality is, which are

the things that the scriptures and our deepest moral religious values talk the least about. so i feel people are coming together, and it's not new, david. what people have said, this is not new. woodrow wilson did some of the same things that trump is doing. warren, the next candidate after him, william harding, some of the same things, ronald reagan, nixon. what has had to happen, though, in every age is people have had to be willing to stand up and resist. that is why with this court situation now, we're exposing what's happening with farr. it's not just trump. the senators have approved him to be nominated, a man who is a racist, a man who has ties to an organization that was committed to nazi-type views. how does that happen? that's not just trump. that's the senators. and what we're trying to show people is this man is against voting rights, he's pro voter

suppression, and when people can get elected through voter suppression, we don't have the voting rights act, so the courts is our only recourse, and the courts are undermined. >> on that note, i was looking at the news in "the observer" this week and there was an astonishing piece from a professor at the university of north carolina at chapel hill writing about the voing landscape in north carolina. "if it were a nation state, north carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table, a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that's only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world." he continues, "north carolina is not only the worst state in the usa for unfair distracting, but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the electoral integrity project." districting, rather than distracting. let me ask you, your prescription is, they're in north carolina, where you live, how you plan to target that with the systemic problem in north carolina, the way these districts are made.

>> remember, the naacp in north carolina, we beat these laws, number one. we just won. it took us six years to overturn racialized redistricting. so next year we'll have new districts that have been drawn by a special monitor. we also overturned the voting rights voter suppression law, monster voter suppression law. it took us four years, but we won. the supreme court called it surgical racism. but here's the thing, if the voting rights act had been in place and we had had free clearance, the law would have never gone on the book. it went on the book because tom tillerson and others passed it after the voting rights act had been gutted, so we had to go to the courts. it took years to fight through the courts. we fought tom farr for six years and beat him. we should have never had to go to the courts. now that we have new districts, we can begin to change the state, but this is happening all over the country. that's what is so ugly about these appointments that trumpism is trying to put in place. they're trying to hijack the judiciary. here's the last thing i would

say on that. americans need to know that when you allow people to get elected by racialized voter suppression, guess what, it's not just about black people. the people who get elected by racialized voter suppression are also anti labor rights, antiworkers' rights, antiworking wages, antipoverty programs, anticivil rights and women's rights, immigration reform, anti-health care. and the ugly irony is more white people, particularly in the south, get hurt by those who get elected because of racialized voter suppression. at the very time that if 30% of african-americans that are unregistered get registered and we connect with progressive whites and connect with brown people in the south, we can have more alabamas. remember, that's what extremists were scared of during the obama era. it was not so much obama, it was that his candidacy brought a victory in florida, virginia and north carolina, southern states. we changed the south. we changed the country. we're going to build a poor people's campaign, a national

call for moral revival to begin to do just that. >> reviewed, great to speak with you. reverend barber from raleigh, north carolina. the nfl and kim jong-un, the president's feuds were publicized, bhaut other political squabbles made the top ten? [hawaiian music playing]

well, there are plenty of political battles during president trump's first year in office and many were waged on his facial social network, that being twitter. a new piece in "the hill" takes

a look at the ten most bitter feuds in american politics in 2017. joining me now to look at this, sarah westwood, washington correspondent for "the washington examiner," charlie savage with "the new york times," mark stern with "slate," and gabe, i'll start with you. perhaps front and center for a while was president trump versus robert mueller, who's leading this investigation into russia's involvement in the election. and we certainly saw this come to light recently in the interview conducted by "the new york times" with the president this week, the president saying "it doesn't bother me because i hope he's going to be fair. i think that he's going to be fair." this has not always been the tone the president has struck over 2017 toward robert mueller. >> not at all. not only the president, but lots of republicans across washington have tried hard to move towards discrediting mueller in the investigation. they're not necessarily thrilled with the turns the investigation has taken, wrapping up top members of the trump campaign, and a lot of people have been trying to essentially poison the well and say, you know, no matter what he comes up with, once this investigation is all

over with, don't pay attention to that it's not a fair investigation. trump obviously threw a little bit of a curveball there over the weekend. >> charlie savagsavage, the pret versus his attorney general jeff sessions. he was brought up in that interview with the "the new york times," in the context of loyalty, an attorney general's loyalty to a president. how has this relationship been in what's this feud been like between the president and the head of the justice department? >> well, so, jeff sessions, of course, was one of the main republicans who signed on for the trump campaign early on when his campaign still looked like a novelty, and trump rewarded him, as we know, making him attorney general. but when he recused himself from the russia investigation, from anything that had to do with the 2016 campaigns because of his role in those campaigns, he removed himself as a firewall between the trump white house and the russia investigation, which became the bob mueller investigation. so his deputy attorney general is the one overseeing mueller, who can decide whether or not to fire mueller. and we know that trump was

really upset about that. he really thought that sessions betrayed him by not acting as a firewall between them, and he talked for a while. it was clear he was trying to push sessions out, shame him into quitting so he could replace him with a new attorney general who was not recused, who could then fire mueller. one of the ironies of that is that sessions has been one of the most effective cabinet members for trump in pushing trump-style agendas into the bureaucracy, whether it's cracking down on immigration or curtailing civil rights enforcement. nevertheless, as the mueller investigation continues to heat up, we'll see whether that feud returns. >> sarah westwood, we've seen the president take on lots of social stances, get into feuds on those issues as well. one front and center has been with the national football league. he has not been shy about saying he thinks the owners of the football teams should be requiring their players to stand during the national anthem. how much has this resonated, this stance he's taken during the course of 2017? >> i actually think president trump's feud with the nfl is one of the few fights that he picked and won, at least symbolically.

most people actually agreed with his opposition to kneeling during national anthems at nfl games, though most people didn't necessarily agree with the approach he took, calling for the players to be fired. but public opinion was on his side. nfl ratings did decline this year, albeit to a lot of factors, but the protests were certainly one of the reasons. and the nfl commissioner was forced to give a really conciliatory press conference in october in which he did call on owners to have their players stand. so, this is one feud that president trump picked and actually emerged victorious. >> mark stern, last one has to do with puerto rico and here at the end of 2017, looking at a part of the united states that is still largely without power, still rebuilding from the hurricane that hit it a few months ago. now there was this feud with the mayor of san juan. she called him a hater in chief, more than a commander in chief. i wonder what you make of where things will go from here in light of a rather acrimonious leadership between these two leaders during the course of 2017. >> i think that this feud began as a kind of strategic one on

cruise's part. she wanted to draw attention to the suffering in puerto rico and was very successful in that and i think she accomplished her initial strategy. since then, she's continued to try to i think draw out the antagonism between her and the president while drawing attention to the island's plight. i think she's been pretty effective at that as well. moving forward, you know, we're seeing now this astonishing reporting that there are actually many more deaths in puerto rico than we previously thought, 1,000 uncounted deaths, and that could be the beginning of what we're seeing. so this is going to be a continued crusade on her part to try to draw the news back to puerto rico as people sort of lose attention. >> mark stern, charlie savage, sara westwood, gabe here with me, thank you all very much and happy new year's.

that's from me. have a safe and happy new year. the news continues now with ayman mohyeldin. >> i'm sure you'll be heading off it a fun new year's eve party tonight, right? >> just in time for the 6:00 party tomorrow. we're hours away from 2018 and security will be tight for this year's new year's eve celebrations, especially here in times square where police have been out in full force making sure the celebrations go on without a hitch. and this new year's eve is shaping up to be one of the coldest on records with windchills below zero. we'll have a live report on that. and a turning point was a drinking at a london bar, the catalyst into the investigation