with ari, a place to have the conversation. what do you think they should do? tell me and we'll reply. i'll be back at 6:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow. "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. >> the s-hole shutdown. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. president trump faced a barrage of anger from democrats today for his explosive comments about african countries with the threat of a government shutdown growing by the day. on thursday, last thursday, the president reportedly told several lawmakers the country should have more people coming from places like norway and he referred to countries in africa as s-holes. that's how he phrased it here. he brushed aside a question about his comment. here he is. >> mr. president, did you say

that you want more people to come in from norway? >> thank you very much. >> is that true, mr. president? >> thank you very much. i want them to come in from everywhere. everywhere. thank you very much, everybody. >> well, the president's secretary of hope land security defended him in testimony before the senate judiciary committee. years sten nielsen said she didn't hear trump call african-american countries s-holes but a new report from the "washington post" tells a different story "the meeting was short, tense and often dominated by loud cross talk and swearing including the president's use of the explastive to refer to african an countries." according to "the washington post," president trump began the day telling senator richard durbin at 10:00 a.m. he was pleased with the immigration compromise worked out by six senators including durbin and senator lindsey graham. he invited the two of them to meet in the oval office. when the senators arrived at noon just two hours later they were surprised to find the

president surrounded by hard line lawmakers and dismissive himself of the bipartisan compromise. what happened in those two hours? conservative white house staffers seemed to have intervened with the president. according to the "post," some white house officials including steven miller feared the graham and durbin would try to trick trump into signing a bill that would hurt him with his political base. chief of staff john kelly "talked to trump to tell him that the proposal would probably mot be good for his agenda." white house officials said. well, senator graham today was deeply critical of the white house interference. here he is. >> i will say, i don't think the president was well served by his staff. i think the president's -- president that we sauteuce that that donald trump exists. and somehow by 12:00 on thursday, something happened, and i don't think he was well served by his staff, but he's

responsible for the way he conducts himself and so am i. >> i think somebody on his staff gave him really bad advice between 10:00 to 12:00 on thursday. >> joining me now is one of the authors of the "washington post" article robert costa. two points, one was the word s-hole used in na meeting? >> "post" stands by its reporting that that kind of language was used, that specific word was used. there's been spin out of the white house it was a different variation of that vulgarity. but the bigger point is the headline in today's "post" might as well as have been blindsided. durbin and graham felt they had a deal on tuesday and wednesday and it all fell apart on thursday. >> last tuesday, the president was there is for a grand minute 15-spray where the reporters were allowed to watch him engage in negotiation. he was talking and listening. looked like they wanted to cop together on a deal to keep the government going and allow for daca people to stay in this

country legally. then thursday, at 10:00 that morning it looked like they still had something going thanks to lindsey graham and dick durbin. two hours later they're basically bush whacked by a couple of right wing aides, one steve miller and the fact they brought in the senator from arkansas and the one from georgia that basically killed the deal. you know the house. you know trump. why was he ached so much by the hard liners having made it look like he was willing to deal? >> every side was playing on the different impulses of the president. the moderates, democrats knew the president wanted a big victory. durbin and graham, those senators thought they could bring the president along. but the right wing of the republican party was watching all of this closely. they kept telling him privately, senator perdue, senator cotton, white house chief of staff john kelly, steven miller telling him your base may desert you if you cut this kind of immigration deal. so the president had warring sides inside of the oval office

telling him to go in a different direction. so far he has sided with them. >> the dark side won this fight. thank you. great reporting as always. that same "washington post" article in that article, donald trump is quoted dismissing concerns by the congressional black caucus. when is senator durbin told trump the caucus would be more likely to go along with the deal if certain countries were included he was kurt and dismissive saying he was not catering to the black caucus and did not particularly care about that block's depend according to people briefed on the meeting. i'm joined by james clyburn of south carolina, a member of the congressional black caucus. what do you make of the per remtory rejection of the cause confident black caucus by this president? >> thank you so much for having me, chris. well, we're not surprised at that. the fact of the matter is the members of the congressional black caucus have been observing this president for decades.

we're all -- we were all caught up in what happened to the -- to those kids up in new york that he insisted upon debilitate penalty for that he refused to even capitulate when it was shown by dna evidence that they were not guilty. this guy we have been watching for a long time. and that's why so many of us were very, very concerned about his campaign and his election. now that he's in office, we don't expect much more from him, and so what we would hope, because many of us have relatives and close friends who are republicans, my parents were republicans, i would hope that the republican party will do what is best for the country

irrespective of what mr. trump's attitudes are. we don't expect any more from him. we're not surprised at any of this. i am a bit surprised at some of the republicans who seem to fall into that category that we were warned about by dr. king when he said to us that the people of ill will in society seem to be making a much better use of their time than the people of good will. and mr. trump is using his time very good and the good people in the republican party seem not to be willing to be -- make good use of their time. >> what do you make of the president -- i didn't know you were going to say this. we all know he said he wanted those kids executed in that wilding incident where it turned out they weren't the guilty parties. they did not rape that young woman jogging that day. it was clear and chemically proven they were not guilty. why do you think he would want to execute people who were

proven to be actually innocent? why would he want to execute, end the lives of young people proven in this case to be innocent? actually innocent why would he want to do that? >> you know, chris, i think there's a little thing we talk about a lot and it's already been mentioned on the show. it's one thing to have a base of support. it's something else to have base supporters. those are totally two different things. i beg to differ with those who say that this president is doing things to appeal to his base of support. no, he's doing things to appeal to his base voters. those people who are ignoble in their pursuit of stuff. and i would ask any of your listeners to look it up and you see a base voter is totally different from a base of voters. and that is what's going on

here. and so every time i hear them saying his base supporters, i think of the real meaning of a base supporter and the word, the best word i can think of is ignoble voters. >> okay. thank you. u.s. congressman james clyburn of south carolina. great to have you on. as i mentioned, the secretary of homeland security was in that oval office meeting where that word was used said she never heard the president use that word. let's watch her in action. >> what did the president say about immigrants from norway? >> i heard him repeating what he had learned in a meeting before that they are industrious, a hard working country, they don't have much crime there. they don't have much debt. i think in general, i just heard him giving compliments to norway. >> you said on fox news that the president used strong language. what was that strong language? >> let's see. strong language, there was --

apologies. i don't remember specific word. what i was struck with as i'm sure you were, as well was just the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone. >> did you hear me use profanity. >> no, sir, neitherdy. >> did you hear senator graham use profanity? >> i did hear tough language, easiest. >> do you recall the strong language he used repeated exactly what the president had said prior to that? >> i remember specific cuss words being used by a variety of members. >> well, that was dodgy. senator cory booker of new jersey criticized secretary nielsen, the person just speaking there, for what he called convenient amnesia. he delivered a strong message to the president himself. let's watch cory booker. >> our greatest heroes in this country spoke about people who have convenient amnesia or who are bystanders. king said a man dies when he refuses to stand up for what is right and justice.

a man dies when he refuses to take a stand. i'm sure constitution remember the six words from our president, the six words that he said after charleston, virginia, when he said there are very fine people on both sides. when the commander in chief speaks or refuses to speak, those words just don't dissipate like mist in the air. they fester. they become poison. they give license to bigotry and hate in our country. >> we just heard the democratic keynote address for 2020. for more, i'm joined by washington bureau chief susan page and brett stevens. first of all, susan, what seems to be happening is a collision coming that really is going to be the worst possible collision because of the word the president used. using that word s-hole, we have to keep saying it that way, we chose to, the president can say it his way.

we have to say it the nice way, he seems to have poisoned deal making. the chance of a democrat sitting down saying let's sign the bill together is almost remote now. they don't want to be in the same room with this guy now. whatever challenges there were prior to getting the government going seems to be gone. the best we'll do is a week or two delay and keep the government vaguely open. it's a disaster for the greatest country in the world to keep operating like there. >> we may get a short-term extension. it's not clear to me they'll get a deal on anything. >> they turn the lights out at the zoo, the smithsonian. >> i don't think it's clear. before the meeting where the word was said, we thought they're going to do a deal so they can make arrangements for a long-term deal. did he look like somebody eager to make a deal, durbin in the consequences of the president's use of this offensive word go beyond that. we have senator cotton and perdue accusing senator durbin

of lying about that word and whether he heard it in the meeting. what's going to happen the next time they need to be involved in a conversation about coming to some kind of agreement which requires some level of trust? >> let's talk about the republican side. brett, it seems to me that he's put republicans in a position, either you defend me or you tell the truth. that's not a nice position to be in. certainly poisons this atmosphere completely. you have to lie to be loyal. >> that's exactly it. i mean, it's one of the many reasons why i remain a never trumper even though i have agreed with some of the president's policies which is that he has a talent for turning anyone who might be on his side into a toadie. it's sad to see that happen with cotton and purdue. it's particularly sad the way lindsey graham has twisted himself into a pretzel to stay on the preds's good side and maintain radio silence as to

what exactly the president said. more than that, it is trashing i think the republican brand among anyone, certainly under the age of 30, i think it's trashing the republican brand among minority voters that the party, the long-term desperate lit has to attract if it's going to remain a viable party, this is a short-term gain for a long-term disaster for conservatism in america, at least the one i recognize from growing up under the reagan administration. >> there's a free choice involved here. donald trump had to choose between apologizing for unfortunate word. all people make mistakes. he could have said i meant poor countries in great economic difficulty. he could have said anything except that word because he made fun of the people of those countries. or by denying it, he's taken away the chance to apologize for it. he's stuck with it. this word is now attached to the republican party. i'm going to ask brett about that. if i were a moderate

african-american voter who occasionally votes republican, i would feel embarrassed by this guy. >> what could happen to the republican party is what happened to the california republican party after 1994 when pete wilson signed on to an initiative that offended minority voters in a fundamental way. >> hispanic voters mainly. >> now in california, there's not a single statewide elected republican. they may not even be fielding candidates after tprimary. >> they might not come in second. so as brett was saying there are long-term consequences for political parties from incidents like this. >> he was calling around the other day, the president. how is it playing? is it playing bad, good, my s-hole comment. he seemed to be trying it on for size. in other words, will this help me with the base to make up for any possible fallout in the media. to me, that was a decision he

was making slowly. i'm going to stick with the s-hole. i can live with that. it seems to be his decision. >> it's a tacit admission he used that word. it's clear he was attempting to replay the tactic that he used with the football players which i think he's convinced went well pore him. and it goes to the sort of nature of modern republican politics which has been to sort of sharpen divisions rather than broaden the party's base. one of the demographic groups that ought to be mentioned of course, here, are immigrants. there are millions of american immigrants. one of them is my mother. my mother came to the united states as a displaced person, a refugee from wartime europe. you can rest assured she is not thrilled with this president. she's someone who used to consider herself a conservative. millions of immigrants are looking at this and saying, this is the country that we came to? this is the president that we

want representing us? and i think those are permanently alienated constituencies. whatever the republicans think they're gaining in the short term, they are losing for a generation. >> i get the feeling trump's satisfied with the idea of people voting along tribal or racial or ethnic lines. that seems to be his deduction. it is tribal voting and haunts other countries in the world where everybody votes their tribe. democracy is a joke if that's all we do. susan and brett, thank you for coming on. coming up, the russian investigation. steve bannon has been subpoenaed by special council robert mueller. today he testified before the house intelligence committee. we'll find out what investigators hope to get from trump's former strategist. he knows a lot. next, plus, trump's vulgar talk about immigration is an attempt to shore up the base. he wants people to vote tribally

and there's already talk inside the white house about the kind of democrat the trump crowd is most scared to face in a presidential campaign. i think it's biden. how how democracies die. trump is taking us dangerously to the edge of that dying democratically. we'll talk to two experts who found out what can we do to save our democracy. we need to know that. we finish with trump watch. he won't like this. this is "hardball" where the action is. ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected. that's the power of and. this is frank. sup! this is frank's favorite record.

this is frank's dog. and this is frank's record shop. frank knowns northern soul, but how to set up a limited liability company... what's that mean? not so much. so he turned to his friends at legalzoom. yup! they hooked me up. we helped with his llc, contracts, and some other stuff that's part of running a business. so frank can focus on the beat. you hear that? this is frank's record shop. and this is where life meets legal. rear admiral ronny jackson, white house physician who conducted president trump's recent physical exam brief the reporters this afternoon. he said while the president is overweight, he remains in excellent health. he also said that trump asked for a cognitive screening and the results were normal. let's listen. >> the reason that we did the cognitive assessment is plain and simple because the president asked me to do it. he came to me and said is there

a test or some type of screen we can do to assess my cognitive ability. we picked one that was a little bit more involved. it was longer. it was the more difficult one of all of them. it took longer to complete but the president did exceedingly well on it. so that was not driven at all by any clinical concerns i have. it was driven by the president's wishes and he did well on it. >> we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." embattled former trump strategist steve bannon emerged as a witness in both the congressional and federal russia investigations. he was on capitol hill testifying before the hughes intelligence committee today when "the new york times" broke the news he was also subpoenaed last week by the special council robert mueller to testify before a grand jury. as the story notes, the move marked the first time mr. mueller used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of mr. trump's

inner circle. and this comes weeks after the president disowned his former confidante for the quotes he gave to michael wolff. bannon said in that book that mueller's probe of potential money laundering would ultimately lead to the president himself. "this is all about money laundering, their path to expletive trump goes right through paul manafort it, don junior and jared kushner." politico is reporting bannon did not cooperate with the house intelligence committee today. "bannon refused to answer questions about his time in the white house prompting panel members to subpoena him on the spot." he's got two subpoenas coming for him now. the committee is expected to question corey lewandowski and hope hicks in the next several days. i'm joined by congresswoman jackie speier who sits on the house intelligence committee. thank you so much. i have 50 questions to ask you. the first is, i want to get to the heart of this.

i think steve bannon has it out for trump now. he went and talked to michael wolff. he seems to think the route for removing it president trump from office potentially are the business dealings engaged in by his son and namesake don junior by jared kushner and paul manafort. money laundering is the root to the demise of donald trump's presidency. what do you smell here? >> well, i would basically agree with you that money laundering is a component of what the problem is with the trump organization and the trump presidency. i will say though that steve bannon today wanted to cooperate more fully than he was able to. and i think that he will be called back again. his attorney did not make available any production of documents, which was very regrettable. and again, i think we're going to have to depend that, as well. you can't do a legitimate

investigation if you don't get the documents in which you can compare them to other documents you've received and ask the kinds of questions that will give us the answers we need. >> you said bannon was trying to tell you the truth. what stopped him? >> well, i think there's a question that is being discussed right now as to whether or not there will be an assertion of executive privilege. and i think that that will be determined in the near term. i will say though to you, chris, that whenever a president has asserted executive privilege, more often than not when it goes to court, they fail in that. so i don't anticipate that the president's going to be successful. you could only assert executive privilege if it's national security or the privacy is important to protect the public interest. and that's just the reverse of what we're trying to make available to the public right now. >> i got a sense that whatever you think of bannon's politics

and weirdness politically, he's smart. he has a good memory. i sense he has a good memory. don't you? he overheard a lot in that white house when he was a confidante of the president about all kinds of things he heard. he heard telephone conversations. he heard scuttlebutt, political strategizing. he also probably heard the president's fears. his fears of prosecution and what the president's worried about. so he shows up to your committee today, his hair combed. he didn't have the military jacket -- he looked like a gentleman. >> he was shaved. >> he obviously wanted to make a good impression on you folks. was he there to tell the truth? >> i think everyone who comes before this committee has to swear under oath. so he would be perch jurring himself if he wasn't going to be telling the truth. i hope that that was not the case. but again there were many questions he was unable to answer at the request of his

attorney. >> well, if he knows about money laundering, knows the president's involvement in it, the sons involvement, jared's involvement, manafort's involvement, will your subpoena get that information from him? >> we'll have to wait and see. what we will attempt to get certainly are the documents and then the invocation, if that's what is in the offing from the white house of an executive privilege, i think would fail miserably in a court. >> okay. thank you so much. u.s. congresswom jackie speier california. the president has talked one democratic president is striking fear in trump world. i think it's biden. this is h"hardball" where the action is. always late. oh! my wallet! un momento.

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welcome back to "hardball." well, president trump is looking ahead to what promises to be a difficult i'd say midterm election this november. according to gallup poll, he's capping off a year in office with the lowest average approval rating of any president during their first term he ever. he often turns to his base for comfort. the "post" trump wasn't initiallyup set with coverage of his language last week and told the comments wots help with the base. at least some thought that. here's what is senator mazie hirona of hawaii had to say

about the president's choice of words. >> the president's immigration policies which he made clear that day that he met with dick durbin and lindsey graham he wants basically white people to come to our country. >> so that is your interpretation. you believe -- >> it's hard not to have a that interpretation. it's not just my interpretation. >> that was a pretty good comeback. lashing out against criticism he's a racist, the president spent the morning today indulging in executive time tweeted his approval ratings with black americans had doubled. that's not true. there's new reporting the kind of democrat the white house is most afraid of facing in 2020, who that is, we'll get to that. ken vogel political reporter for the "new york times," sabrina sidique from the guardian and a white house reporter for bloomberg. let's talk about this thing. trump seems to be happy, not that that's the right word. content, satisfied with everybody thinking he said that

word, the s-hole word about black countries. it doesn't seem he's ready to apologize for. it's there and he seems to be happy with that. >> as pa "post" reporting and other reporting suggested, immediately afterwards as the story broke out, he fet out the people around him and kind of boasted agreefully about this comments and how it would play. there is some suggestion looking at the polls that his hard-core base of support likes the hard line on immigration. >> that's never been his problem. sabrina, his problem is enlarging his 30 something base to something like 40 something to eventually get 5-0 and win an election. >> certainly that would be the wisdom. one thing we saw -- in the 2016 election yes, there is an evidence to support trump did especially well among working class workers and also higher median household income. you saw republicans rally around

him at close to 90% including suburban voters who hillary clinton thought she could convert because he made so many disqualifying comments by then calling mex cans rapists and killers. that was not deemed disqualifying in the end by the majority of republican voters who turned up in the election. i don't think he necessarily sees any reason to shy away from making the same comments he's made in the past. >> i think your country of heritage is probably on his list of bad news countries. nigeria. >> according to "the new york times," the president said the fact that 40,000 people had come from ni jeerlia to the u.s. means they'll never go back to their, quote, huts. obviously the president has views about various countries that is reprehensible to a number of people who have friends and family from these various countries and he doesn't seem to be upset by the fact that there's this large swathe of the country who as we saw from senator booker is really

emotionally affected by the words coming out of the oval office. he seems to be focused on his base, the people who put him in office and he believes ethough that's a very small number of people when you take the broader electorate, he believes that catering to those people will keep him politically popular and give him an opportunity to win re-election. it seems like he's getting a lot of information that really sort of feeds his ego and not hard numbers, low approval rating and the fact the midterms are looking really bad for republicans, those types of numbers would probably cause him to change his mind. it doesn't seem like. >> he. >> he judged people by the value of their real estate huts s-holes. this should be a gleaming gold tower. fellow republicans have been forced to answer tough questions about the president's behavior. take a look at this recent town hall exchange with iowa senator jody earns.

this is a lot of fun in a dark way. >> he is standing up for a lot of the countries where we have seen. >> name a few. could you name a few? >> you bet. norway is one of them well, okay. how many of you think -- you know you laugh. but folks, who borders norway? russia. >> what do you make of that? he's standing up for -- it sounded like sarah palin. i can see russia from here. he's standing up for more way. i didn't know that was a big threat there. >> republicans have been in this position time and again where they're forced to come up with a defense for comments that are ultimately indefensible. that highlights why this is not just about the politics. this is revealing about trump's attitude toward immigrants and how he views the system. >> noneuropean immigrants. >> he wants to slash legal immigration by half. his administration moved to revoke temporary protective status from haitians as well as people from el salvador

affecting roughly 200,000 people from el salvador. there's more context why we should be accepting is people from certain countries. he has proposed policies that seek to discriminate against immigrants brown or black and support white immigrants in his policies. >> trump is barely through his first year in office. he's already handicapping the 2020 election. according to politico, his team is most worried where vice president biden who they feel appeals to trump's base. the concern according to one official is that trump's policies will continue to be popular all the way through his re-election campaign but his approval rating will never crack 45% creating an opening for someone like biden to recapture the vote of white rust belt democrats. that's fairly understandable. that makes sense. how does bide be get through the primaries? that's my question. >> that's the smart bit of political analysis. someone who could eat into that

base and erodes maybe a little bit around the ends would be the biggest threat because democrats are automatically going to win whoever the democratic nominee is going to win all those people who have been alienated. >> the east coast and the west coast. the problem is wisconsin, pennsylvania, wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan. those kind of states. the trouble is none of those primaries come early. the primaries the democrats contest in are iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, nevada and now california. they're never going to get to the rust belt states where a guy like biden would do well. >> ultimately, the point that i made earlier there's been so much focus on this idea of reclaiming white working class vote hes. in some ways that ignores this election was about a lot more than economic populism. it was very much about nationalism in the context of the changing demographics of america. >> how did he win? >> i think obama's campaign is one of the few that effectively showed how you can build a

coalition that includes people of color, that includes single women and millennials while also prevailing among working class white voters because of a message of optimism rooted more around framing around the middle class. >> up next, these three will give me headlines for tomorrow. we like them. headlines that last through the night. you're watching "hardball." thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping?

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of we're back with the "hardball" roundtable. ken tell me something i don't know. >> a lot of focus on oprah winfrey among the democrats and professional class. a number of operatives are trying to figure out who are the political people around her and they have found she has none. she's so distant from politics. >> a lot of celebrities have one political aide. >> she doesn't, as far as i can tell. >> which says she doesn't want to run. >> or she hasn't been active in politics before. >> the lure may come. sabrina. >> according to the u.s. citizenship and immigration services, nearly 15,000 daca

recipients have already lost their stat as you since september when trump moved to rescind the program averaging to roughly 122 dreamers a day losing protections. the number projected to rise from 15 thu to 22,000 by march. is the president trump a racist or not. the white house has a new strategy for responding to that. they say because the president had a television show for ten years, he can't be a racist. that's a specious argument. the president lost his show after he started attacking mexican immigrants during the beginning of his campaign. is he a racist? the answer he had a tv show so maybe not. >> amazing how these arguments work. thank you. up next, the president has attacked the press again, shown contempt for the judiciary and threatened to jail political rivals. it all rise raises the question can our democracy survive trump? we'll talk to two experts with a

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the new book "how democracies die," takes a look at the demise of democracies around the world and seeks to answer the question, does donald trump's presidency put our democracy in danger? the authorities write anti-democratic leaders are often identifiable before they come to power. trump even before his inauguration tested positive. on all four measures on our litmus test for autocrats. the authors go on to outline four key indicators as follows -- a weak commitment to the democratic rules of the game, the denial of the legitimacy of one's opponents, the to ration or encouragement of violence, a readiness to curtail the civil liberties of rivals and critics, they add with the exception of richard nixon no major party presidential candidate met even one of these four criteria over the last century. that is until donald trump. let's listen.

>> you remember when i said that some of the voting is rigged. okay, everybody knows. >> the fbi and the department of justice created a fraud in allowing hillary clinton to get away with her terrible, terrible crimes. >> i love the old days. you know what they used to do to guys like that in place like this? they would be carried out on a stretcher, folks. that's true. i'd like to punch him in the face, i'll tell you. >> if i win, i am going to instruct my attorney general who get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. >> well, for more i'm joined by the authors steven lovitsky and daniel ziblatt from harvest university. also, why don't you talk about

trump, it seems to me in the video we show seems to have met all the standards. one of them is this rigged elections. all my life i've been reading newspaper. some countries every time somebody loses they claim the election was stolen and when they win, they hang the loser. it's always corrupt and unfair and they always tell people don't believe anything that causes us total -- any loss of total rule. steve? >> right. that's the part of the world i study. i study latin america and regimes that either fail democracies or authortarian. as you said, very, very common in nondemocratic regimes or failing democratic regimes is that losers in elections claim that the election was rigged. and refuse to accept the results of elections. we were both shocked and we began really thinking about this book when we heard donald trump prior to the election claim that

he might not accept the results of the election. calling into question the integrity of the american electoral process. that was pretty unprecedented. >> as for the first amendment and free press, dabble, trump is notorious. everything is fake news. he makes fun of reporters personally. he makes fun of they opponent. just the other day, dickie durbin. everybody respects richard durbin. they disagree on the account of the meeting. he calls him dickey like little marco or pocahontas. what do you make of that in terms of the international experience with the declining democracies? >> so i think there's two points you just made. one is attacking media certainly is something that electoral authortarians have always done, a way of empowering themselves to weaken and silence critics. also the point about senator durbin, by ridiculing electoral rivals for power and often of course, trump did this with hillary clinton, as well,

ridiculing hillary clinton not really accepting his rivals as legitimate contenders for power. that's also very dangerous. >> let's talk about the verbal thuggery of this guy. it is verbal thuggery. we showed the clip what he said what to do with protesters. everybody in politics gets used to hecklers. it's part of the business of public expression. he says beat them up. steve, he says beat up those people that are protesting me. that's pretty close to thuggery. >> again, it's an autocratic response. one of the key elements of leadership in a democracy as you well know is tolerance. you've got to get a lot of ugly stuff thrown at you and essentially turn the other cheek if you're a political leader in a democracy. you're not allowed to hit back at the president or at your critics. you have to take it. that's part of the responsibility of an elected leader in a democracy. trump's instincts are obviously other. luckily, so far, the press

hasn't backed down, it hasn't been intimidated. that's a good thing for our democracy into daniel, tell us about what good is going on now. you noticed resistance began the day after he was naug raised. we saw the huge expression of people pouring down from southern manhattan all the way up fifth avenue. it was amazing flow of human beings, mostly young women. and there was this reaction and the resistance seemed real. has it been buoyant enough, powerful enough to offset his negatives? >> yes, so as steve just said, trump, president trump has these au toretarian tendencies. our societal checks as well as institutional checks have worked quite effectively in not allowing him to implement things he threatened on the campaign trail. one of the main things has been society counsel resistance, civil society. when we look around the world, this plays a major role in

helping had democracies. this has been all to great benefit i think in the united states. there's other things more worrisome though. >> i think america reactions pretty well. they don't always take the initiative but react pretty well. when all else fails, we do the right thing. steven and daniel, the book once again is "how democracies die." that is stark. when we return, let me finish with trump watch. he won't like this. this is laura. and butch. and tank. and tiny. and this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace. laura can clean up a retriever that rolled in foxtails, but she's not much on "articles of organization." articles of what? so, she turned to legalzoom. they helped me out.

she means we helped with her llc, trademark, and a lot of other legal stuff that's a part of running a business. so laura can get back to the dogs. would you sit still? this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace and this is where life meets legal.

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trump watch tuesday, january 16th, 2018. president trump has decided it appears to let the word which we

on television can only intimate as s-hole stand in the record books as his personal attitude toward the black populated countries of this world. but why would he want that word, the s word to go down into the history books how he viewed men and women of children of color? why would he want to be seen as so, to use the best possible word for it, tribal? why? because this is one of the changes he is working in american politics all of which are tearing down what we have long prized as our american democracy. to have people voting along ethnic lines is what happens in many countries. you don't vote the candidate. you simply vote your tribe. so the largest tribe wins. is that what we call democracy in this is only part of the trump assault on a truly free society. a free press is another target from the moment he arises in the morning, he assaults news people as fake media. he thinks it's a punch line. what it really is at a punch at

a key element of a democratic society. if people are not free to criticize those people can we claim to live in a free democracy? same for the judicial system. trump dumped on our could yours claiming they can't be fair because of the ethnicity of a particular judge. trump has dumped on our elections claiming he won the most votes notice 2016 but had them overwhelmed by the votes of people here illegally. he mocks political rivals most recently calling the democratic senator from illinois dickey just as he's called from the senator from massachusetts pocahontas and as he called the senator from florida little marco ending civility and debasing your rivals is another way to denigrate democracy. on all these fronts, he acteded more like those leaders of lesser democracies where dictators denounce any threat to power, where newspapers and tv stations are intimidating to tow the government line where people are pushed to vote strictly along tribal lines, thereby

permitting the widest possible berth for corruption. this is what is happening assure as the turning of the earth. we're entering into trumpland and leaving the land of our founders. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> you said on fox news that the president used strong language. what was that strong language? >> apologies. i don't remember specific word. >> from s-holes to memory holes. >> your silence and amnesia is come police night tonight senator cory booker joins me exclusively on the new line from the are white house, the daca debate and a potential shutdown. >> thanks, everyone. >> plus, two subpoenas for steve bannon. >> here's what's going to get worse. >> my interview with adam schiff why steve bannon was compelled to testify before house intelligence today. and the president's physical fitness test. >> can you assess the pres