that's our show. "hardball" with chris matthews starts now. just answer the questions. let's play "hardball." ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. this is the week when donald trump began to worry. he knows that the mueller probe on which all else rides is closing in. he said as much this afternoon, that the investigation is, quote, ending now. >> the witch hunt, as i call it, should never have taken place. it continues to go on. i imagine it's ending now. from what i hear it's ending, and i'm sure it will be just

fine. you know why it's going to be just fine? because there was no collusion. >> from what i hear, it's ending. trump also knows the democrats are coming and with greater strength with up to 40 new seats in the house of representatives, the body that impeaches presidents. it has been a sobering reckoning for donald trump as he seeps deeper into the most perilous time of his presidency. a rebuke of last week's midterms elections. he faced war with the media after a federal judge ordered hy him to restore a reporter's press pass and the existential threat the robert mueller mueller poses to he is presidency and the liberty of his family members. trump was asked about his twitter ramp against the special counsel and what may have

triggered it. >> yesterday you seemed agitated but the mueller -- >> i'm not agitated. the whole thing was a hoax. there was no collusion. i'm very happy. >> reporter: trump announced he'd completed the written answers to questions in the russia probe, insyiisting he ha done it "all by myself." >> my lawyers don't write answers, i write answers. i was asked a series of questions. i've answered them very easily, very easily. i'm sure they're tricked up because they like to catch people. you have to always be careful when you answer questions with people that probably have bad intentio intentions, but, no, the questions were very routinely answered by me. by me. >> i'm joined by the white house reporter for bloomberg news,

michael schmidt from the "new york times." david jolly former republican congressman, no longer affiliated. let me go to michael on this. michael, can you report now what is in the questions that trump says are so easy to answer but he hasn't done it yet. easy but i haven't done it. >> they have had the questions since february -- since march of this year. they know what the topics are. they knew in september that mueller would take written respons responses. they said the responses were going to go on wednesday. they still haven't gone. why haven't they gone? what is holding them up? mueller wanted to sit down with the president. he made the accommodation to allow him to give written answers. he has gone that far. why is it that the president can't hand it over? >> let's go to the possibility that there's a conflict between

the president and his attorneys because three days of arguing with them, he's come up with nothing. he doesn't want to release. somebody says i want a release and somebody says don't do it. do you think there's a part in this that says in the end you don't testify in you don't have to, the oldest rule for a defendant. >> there is zero chance any lawyer would allow him to answer the questions by himself and, b, ever get in front of a grand jury and talk to mueller. that is never going to happen. if he's subpoenaed and it goes to the supreme court and the supreme court rules that he has to testify in front of the grand jury, he's just going to take five. this president is never going to testify. >> what about this take-home exam he's been playing with? >> first of all, this business about i wrote them myself and all that excitement that he had today for us, that just didn't happen. that's just a lie. >> well, why would he lie? by saying i personally put these

words on this paper, doesn't that put him more in a perjury trap? >> absolutely. he's given away a defense because one defense was to say the lawyers made me write that. >> you can't have your lawyer go in and testify in the grand jury box. technically he has to be the one to answer the questions. >> i worked in the world of politics for years -- >> lawyers have been working on these questions for weeks but technically he has to be the one who says he answers them. >> if he signs it, cynthia, if he signs the statement, does that make him culpable for perjury, even if he didn't write them? >> yes, if he signs them. but can you see him saying to the american people and testifying and saying the lawyers told me to do that, the truth is i was very busy, i was negotiating treaties with north korea and trying to avoid nuclear war and i didn't pay much attention and therefore i had no intent. >> here's the thing, he wants

this to be over. he doesn't want this to drag on. whatever is stopping this is so powerful that it is continuing to allow it to drag on. they need to get some sort of answers from him before they close the investigation. that is what's delaying it. >> is this the last step in the process? you suggest it is. >> he thinks so. everyone thinks they know what mueller's going to do. we don't know. we think it's close. >> there's one thing that is likely holding this -- it could be a dispute over these questions. it could be his lawyers said in exchange for submitting these questions they want some assurances that this is it, that these are going to satisfy you, that you're not going to make him come in still for an in-person interview. if we give you these questions, that's it, you're done, you're not going to come back at us with a subpoena for something else. i think his attorneys want assurances. >> most of us on the journalist side, everybody are watching

trump looking like he's caught right now. he doesn't look happy. despite the tanning parlor he goes to or whatever, he doesn't look healthy, doesn't look happy, looks agitated and then we got word he fought with his attorneys for three days and then went out to this smiling number he did today but nobody believes it. why? what's wrong? >> at this point i think donald trump should plead the fifth. here's why. the answers he submits will be a sworn statement from the president of the united states. even if the lawyers think they've nuanced it so it not committing perjury or revealing culpability to criminal responsibility, reform will not agree to no follow-up. donald trump doesn't know which corner he's in because he doesn't know what other information bob mueller has gotten from corroborating witness. this isn't donald trump and

verifying am i telling the truth on what i said a year ago, it's am i telling the truth based on what bob mueller has from others, which is the reason for the panic and i think the reason donald trump should plead the fifth. >> cynthia? >> i definitely agree. i think bob mueller would never make the deal that the lawyers may be pressuring, which is they don't ever have to have follow-ups. these questions do not reportedly cover anything about the obstruction. there's no way bob mueller would agree he's not going to ask the president questions. >> that could be the holdup, that they still want answers to obstruction questions and the president's lawyers want a guarantee that if we answer these questions on collusion, you'll leave us alone on the investigation. >> asked who might replace whitaker as a permanent attorney

general, a question that did not mention the mueller probe at all, trump digressed into a rant about the mule are pro-- muelle probe. michael, he knows why he put whitaker there. it was to protect him from the russia probe. he's saying keep those people down. >> he's trying to keep distance from himself and whitaker as the press for whitaker has gotten worse and worse. there's questions about why he's truly there and the president keeps moving closer and closer to the side. >> that's usually what he does to people right before he dumps them. >> right before the tweet comes out. >> sergeant schultz, i don't know nothing. >> there seems to be no idea who the next attorney general is going to be. he's had two years to think

about it basically. i can't get any sort of clear answer out of anyone. >> cynthia, maybe you're the one, does anybody think that whitaker is not going to be the line on which trump is going to fight and stick with whitaker all the way? >> here's the interesting point that john, you made the other day of all people. that is if rosenstein said to mueller, no, you can't do something, that would have been over because rosenstein had so much credibility. if whitaker says, no, you can't subpoena that witness and whitaker has to tell congress under the rules, whitaker doesn't have the same credibility. they might say you're not properly assigned. >> if you're trump, you antwant guy that's going to back you up and take the heat. >> i know but because whitaker doesn't have credibility, it weakens his investigation. >> everybody said around here three weeks ago it has to be

rosenstein, it's all in the rules. it's all part of our judicial culture, all these little rules and ethics rules and trump says, look, i've been shooting the moon all my life, i'm not going to play by your rules. i'm going to pick my guy and dare you to get rid of him and i'm going to keep him there. i know i'm going to keep him there because if mueller gets free reign, i'm dead. >> if you're donald trump and you're trying to pick out a fall guy, it is matt whitaker. matt whitaker could do all the dirty work over the next six to eight weeks and then trump could nominate somebody and make whitaker the fall guy. this is why we're seeing the anxiety is we've been living for two years where there is no oversight in the united states congress for any of this, no subpoena for testimony from any

of these administration officials. that all is about to change. that is why i think we're going to see donald trump start to play by different rules, rules that even further confront some of the constitutional norms we've seen over the past several years. >> is this his avenue, michael, these months before january 3rd when the new house comes in? >> i guess so because whatever he does will get scrutiny then. where are the places that he can go? if he does something in this period of time that the democrats don't like, they'll bring it up in the beginning of january. it doesn't really matter. >> you don't think he's like hudihud i -- houdini. >> he might be politically houdini. >> he's got 90% republican party. >> if he makes the democrats look like fools for impeaching him and be like clinton and have his approvals go up after an

impeachment. >> the only republicans that come out against trump are those heading out the door. that would be corker, good-bye, flake, good-bye, charlie dent. nobody who sticks around for the national election challenges trump. nobody. >> you have to have somebody. >> name the howard baker, the one republican who would stand up. >> i can't. >> it's a different republican party. you have to assume the evidence is going to matter. >> david jolly is gone. it seems like the only people willing to stand up against trump are those who don't have to stand against trump with the voters. >> chris, i was a sitting member of congress in december of '17 who called on trump to drop out of the race. there are several reasons i probably lost my last race. one was redistricting and that was the other one.

you confront this president you lose. that's a greater test of leadership. instead republicans have become more trump-like, they've fallen in line on the hill. they're not howard baker. we know that. >> thank you. coming up, the justice department is preparing to criminally charge wikileaks leader julian assange. could this help prove the conspiracy to get trump elected in 2016? i think so. and in california, the wildfires continue to devastate the state. the president blamed the fires on gross mism managmanagement a threatened to withhold money. what message will he have for them tomorrow? >> plus, she's in it to win it. let me finnish tonight with trup

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welcome back to "hardball." since the outset of the mueller probe itself, investigators have been establishing the broad scope of the russian conspiracy intended to help elect donald trump in 2016. a key piece of that puzzle is the role of the wikileaks leader, who made it his mission to leak state secrets. kremlin operatives gave wikileaks the democratic e-mail that had been hacked to heighten their impact on the 2016 u.s. presidential election. the russians gave their stuff to wikileaks to put out. now nbc news reports in a court document filed by mistake revealed that the justice department is preparing to criminally charge assange himself. the clue was found in a motion filed last august in a completely unrelated case, a

case brought by the same federal prosecutor who is also v investigating wikileaks in the eastern district of virginia. it stated the complaint would need to remain sealed until assange is arrested in connection with the charges and can therefore no longer avoid or evade arrest. assange has been living in the ecuador i ecuadorial estate in london. i'm joined by senator richard blumenth blumenthal, a senator from connecticut. glen, take a minute. how does this all connect? >> well, chris, we've seen with some of the indictments that bob mueller has returned for hacking into and trying to impact our

elections. we are about to see, we all believe, the american side of that. as soon as bob mueller shows his cards, whether by returning indictments, authoring a report to congress or both. now we've got julian assange and wikileaks right smack in the middle of it. and obviously what i find most intriguing about this is the president was benefiting from the fact that wikileaks had these illegal e-mails, they were disclosing them for obviously political reasons, and we've seen that montage of the president saying wikileaks about 1,200 times, wikileaks, wikileaks, wikileaks. i'll tell you, that's the president exploiting stolen information for his own purposes. and that is yet another potential crime, receipt of stolen property, exploiting it for your own benefit. so i actually think the assange piece is right smack in the middle of the russian piece and

the trump campaign piece, and it's going to be really interesting to see what happens if we get our hands on assange. >> as glen just mentioned, wikileaks played a major part in trump's closing arguments again hillary clinton back in the 2016 lebs. he -- election. here's candidate trump repeatedly praising wikileaks doing the president's bidding. >> this wikileaks is like a treasure trove. >> this wikileaks is unbelievable. what we've learned about her and her people. >> oh, we love wikileaks. wikileaks. they have revealed a lot. >> boy, that wikileaks has done a job on her, hasn't it? >> i'll tell you, this wikileaks stuff is unbelievable. it tells you the inner heart. you got to read it. >> now this just came out. this just came out. wikileaks. i love wikileaks. >> senator, i think they call that soft intel in the spy game.

it's open right there in the public. i mean, right in public you see candidate trump benefiting and wanting more benefit from the russians through wikileaks. he knew what he was doing. it looks to me like this would be part of any kind of report from mueller when it comes. perhaps soon. >> it should be part of any report that bob mueller produces and, in fact, i am going to be introducing legislation that requires a report along with full disclosure of any findings and evidence in the event that he is fired or he's forced to resign. and the key word here is the one you used, chris, conspiracy. roger stone, who may well have had advanced knowledge, a close friend of the president and a confidante, others who may have disclose to donald trump about what was going to appear in

wikileaks, all of it amounts to a potential conspiracy and that's exactly what the collusion charge may involve. >> there are at least three trump associates who have reported ties to wikileaks, jer own corsi, roger stone and donald trump jr. there's hot one, all who have been subject of recent speculation of coming indictments. there's a suggestion that corsi had advanced knowledge. and we know that roger stone who clammed to have a back channel to wikileaks discussed the release of those e-mails in a text message conversation just before they were leaked. and "atlantic" said donald trump jr. exchanged correspondent with wikileaks telling others wikileaks had made contact. let's start with this. glen, everybody on this program

working with me fort the last 2 years knows everyone has been pushing trump to run for president for 20 years. roger is always close at hand. he's always been pushing trump to run. he can't disown him now, can he? or will he? >> that's what makes roger stone one of the potentially big ticket cooperators. if they can crack open roger stone -- >> he doesn't want to go to prison. >> he doesn't want to die in prison. he doesn't look like he would thrive in prison. if they can crack him open and get all the information that trump may have had or he may have provided against trump, that's going to be -- looking forward, chris, let's pay attention to if the u.s. gets its hands on assange and can extradite him from the ecuadorean embassy. he's a big fish but mueller will look to -- >> why don't we pull one of those israeli numbers and just

go grab him. >> they will step to anybody as a potential cooperating witness, except the biggest fish, the president. everybody below him, including assange, is in play. >> senator, what do you know about how close this report is coming? we had people on tonight, smart people. cynthia and michael of "the new york times," they know what's going on. they all seem to be suggesting that the last element in this whole report by -- i'm losing the names -- by mueller, that it's all coming to an end once they get the written answers from trump. is that your understanding that we're getting close to the end here? >> my hunch, and it's not much more than an educated guess, is that the special counsel still has a good deal of work to do. remember that the written answers to these questions pertain only to the pre-election

period. so far donald trump has refused to answer any questions involving the transition or postinaugural period, which has to be unacceptable to the sp special prosecutor. the special prosecutor may well seek oral answers to these questions, as he probably should. i think we still have a ways to go. you said earlier that donald trump is looking like he is caught. i think the walls seem to be closing in. and as manafort and rick gates and michael cohen continue to cooperate, remember they were all active just this past week and talking to the prosecutors, there is still more information to be gleaned here. robert mueller is nothing if not methodical, by the book. >> i think the reckoning is a really serious one. i don't think trump is going into that room and answering

questions in a live situation. i just don't think he's capable of it. i think he'll be told he's not capable of selling something like the truth. thank you, you're a great guest. >> up next, dozens killed and hundreds are unaccounted for. after threatening to withhold federal fund because of what he calls gross mismanagement of the forest, what will trump's message be when he visits the state tomorrow? he's got to say something nice. this is "hardball," where the action is. ce this is "hardball," where the action is. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. and no surgery. results and patient experience may vary. some common side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort, and swelling. ask your doctor if

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welcome back to "hardball." at least 66 people have now died and more than 600 remain missing as wildfires continue to ravage california. three are major wildfires burning north of sacramento and west of los angeles. and last friday the camp fire in northern california engulfed the town of paradise, leaving an apocalyptic landscape in its wake. there it is. the camp fire is now california's deadliest and most destructive fire in the state's history. look at this. this is like world war ii there. president trump had this to say in an interview with fox. >> california, purpose of your trip tomorrow. >> just to see the firefighters. nobody's ever seen what's going

on over there. now they're saying there could be as many as 600. this just came out before we met. could be as many as 600 killed, up by 400. it's incredible what's going on. and burned beyond recognition. they can't even see the bodies. it's incredible. >> for the latest i'm joined by mayor sean morgan. mr. mayor, what are we dealing with here? >> you said it, it's catastrophic. no one has seen anything like it before. i don't know how to describe it. you said it looks like the aftermath of world war ii. i was talking to the bbc and i'd seen pictures of when london was bombed after world war ii with st. paul's cathedral standing up, that's what it looks like. >> what's it like when it strikes? we hear about people getting killed. most of us are used to fires that move -- well, not at a human pace.

they don't usually catch up to people if they get a jump on it. tell us what happens to people when they get caught up in this inferno. >> well, you end up seeing what your clip what the president just said. you end up with a lot of dead people. the fire was moving at a rate of almost 800 yards a minute. the inferno wasn't that fast but it was jumping that quickly. so there were people that didn't get out. what's extraordinary is 50,000 people evacuated, 63 dead so far. i'm surprised the number's not higher. they did an amazing job getting people out of that town. >> let's talk about the people who escaped and are in your city of chico. how do you handle, what is it, 50,000 people who just come? >> we don't know how many exactly are here. we have a small humanitarian crisis here. we're a very compassionate community. there are people in homes, people in sanctioned shelters,

unsanctioned shelters, people in parking lots. we've got the noro virus breaking out in some of the shelters and fema and oes is just starting to get handle on that when we get people into proper shelters. >> what are you going to ask the president if you get to meet him tomorrow? >> i don't know what i'd ask him. i'm going to give him a paradise football ball cap and ask if he'd wear it in honor of the football team. i'm going to say thanks for coming. we don't get national politicians in northern california in the rural valley. the governors don't come up here, presidents don't come up here. the fact that people are paying attention and we're getting the full cooperation of the federal government is huge for the citizens of paradise. >> what do you want to ask for the american people to do right now. i want to give you a chance to make a pitch for help. >> what a great question.

thank you so much. i got two things. number one, i'm going to ask for continued prayer because that's what we need. and number two, the town of paradise needs hope and it needs money to rebuild. the best two places to do that are the north valley community foundation, nvcf.org and golden valley bank. you can find it on. all that money will go to the victims of the fire. it not going anywhere else. it's not going to adminu dladmi. we're happy to have them but we're also anxious to get them back where they are want to be. >> give me the address. >> north valley community foundation, nvcf.org. local live r locally run, very, very well run. the other is our local community bank, golden valley bank in

chico, california.com. they've got a donate button right on the front page. and they are -- they've been here for years. we will make sure -- they will make sure all those donations go the right places and don't get sucked up into admin and other things. >> i've learned "hardball" viewers, a lot of them respond to these pleas. looks like you need some. thanksmorgan, mayor of chico. >> thank you for what you're doing. >> coming up, nancy pelosi ramps up her campaign to get the speaker gavel back. 17 democrats are saying they will not vote for her. she says she ready to call their bluff. is that the right phrase? you're watching "hardball." wat. but i ain't no butler. viggo mortensen and mahershala ali are the perfect pair to spend your holidays with. [ yells ] it's one of the best films of the year.

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back to "hardball." house minority leader nancy pelosi is working overtime these hours to win the support of her party.

and with it the gavel of the speaker of the house. in a sign that she's in it to win it, pelosi has begun making concessions on a couple issues. in a meeting with the congressional black caucus, "the washington post" reports that pelosi, quote, pledged to give committee chairs a free hand to move legislation through their panels, a major issue for the c cbc, which counts five incoming chairs in its count. and the cpc state "with the talent of the incoming class of new members, we agreed there should be opportunities not only for seasoned members but also for our brand new members." will this be enough to corral the party behind her for speaker? tiffany cross is managing editor of thebeat.dc.

let me start with you, tiffany. is pelosi going to make it? >> i think she will. i remember when she first ran for speaker against thomas ford, he made kind of sexist comments, called her sweet and endearing and when paul ryan passed her in the hall and she just said "two-thirds." they are necessary steps for an increasingly diverse. it makes sense for her to create room for rising stars in the party like hakeem jeffries, who is such a superstar. so i think she's going to be totally fine in the speakership. i know she's being challenged -- >> how do you get past the people they promised their voters they're going to vote against pelosi and they go on the floor and they say "present." that doesn't sound like voting

against pelosi. >> i'm not a vote counter. >> how about 218. >> i think she will ultimately get there and she should get there. >> you're not answering my question. how do you say to your voters for months i'm going to vote against pelosi in an ad campaign and then get a picture on c-span of you voting present? >> i think she's going to make concessions. clearly there needs to be new blood in the party. in the end she may have to make the concession she'll just serve these two years. we're about to embark on an epic fight for the next two years. we don't have the luxury of having a speaker who needs on-the-job training. >> that's a normative argument, a political argument. your democratic freshman, the first vote you cast betrays your promise. how do you do it? >> you say i can't vote for the other guy. if the wave is blue, nancy pelosi will be speaker. >> you can vote for john lewis, you can vote for anybody you want on the floor.

>> but they're not ready. >> it's going to be binary, like clinton against trump. she just won the best democrat being gain since watergate. why wouldn't they pick her? >> one thing that politicians that people don't like, bill clinton runs around in arkansas saying give me one more term, i won't run for president. he runs for president. they're used to this stuff. teddy roosevelt once said i didn't run because i promised not to. i didn't want to be a politician like everybody else. the first step is you say i'm mr. politician. >> but i'm not a democrat. as i get older, i'm a little tired of the argument that we need young people. i don't want young people in there. i want experienced people in there. so if i look at my party, i want experienced people running who have experience with their job. look at the president of the united states, he's not young but he has no experience with the job. >> here you go again. the president loves this guy

mike pence. he's very religious. is he going to keep him? >> of course. he punks them. he likes to let everybody know in the pecking order he's in charge. he's doing this with kyrsten nielsen. >> the president has been asking the question is mike pence loyal? the advisers say those kind of questions usually indicate that he has grown irritated with someone. just last week trump was asked whether pence would be joining him on the 2020 ticket. >> well, i haven't asked him but i hope so. where are you? mike, will you be my running mate? huh? stand up, mike, please. raise why ayour right hand. no, i'm only kidding.

will you? okay, thank you. good. the answer is yes. >> chris, what do you think? there's always idle speculation like this. >> he's the one doing the speculation. >> that's the important part, the recognition in the white house that perhaps they're not big enough to make a winning coalition. can any vice presidential candidate expand trump's base -- >> how about female? >> possibly but that person's not going to do it. >> listen, i don't think it matters who is on the ticket. the republicans thought they won in 2016 opini. no, donald trump won. >> if he picks nikki haley, she looks like somebody who wants to be president and she'll get there. >> she'll outshine him, though. he doesn't like to be outshined. >> you never looked at the v.p.?

my first vote i cast i voted for humphrey and muskie. i did it because of muskie. >> you're the only one. it was a very close election, sir. >> no, wreck, you' rk, rick, yo enough. >> vice presidents don't really make a difference. >> why does monica lewinsky 20 years later after the relationship with the president, she's coming back for a three-part docu-series on it. >> i don't want to speculate on it. but in my opinion, this is ancient history. >> not for her. >> hillary clinton is not going to be a presidential candidate. >> you didn't read mark's piece the other day. >> in fact i did read it and she will not be a candidate.

for those who don't realize what happens with impeachment. everyone needs to remember when bill clinton finished impeachment, his popularity percentage was 73%. >> this weekend monica lune sew is telling her side of the affair. here's a bit of it. >> it's not as if he didn't register with me that he was the president. obviously it did. but i think in one way the moment we were actually in the back office for the first time, the truth is is that i think it meant more to me that someone who other people desired decipherdesired me. however wrong it was, however misguided, for who i was in that very moment at 22 years old, that was how it felt. >> what do you think? >> listen, we are close in age. i remember i was in college when all this happened and i know

what it like to have the seduction of power of an older man go after a 22-year-old. she was taken advantage of and she was the casualty of the republican effort to target bill clinton. i'm so happy she is telling her story in her terms, in her own voice. i think she deserves that. >> i've been reading this, in her words, that she felt she was betrayed by clinton when he denied the relationship. >> she was betrayed by clinton, by linda tripp and by the investigators. everybody's gotten to move on and live their lives except this girl. if was judged by the decisions i made at 22, i would not be sitting on this panel tonight. >> tiffany is right. i love politics and history. i think we should go through this again, see it through a new length lens of history. i think it's a great redemption story and people should watch it. >> this was not a bright moment for either of the two parties.

i think a lot of people would rather put this behind them. i agree with tiffany. it's a sense to see how the country has come in terms of the me too movement. >> jackson is doing this new movie on gary hart. shakes come in pairs. the roundtable is sticking with us. you're watching "hardball." us you're watching "hardball. -[ slurping ] ♪ -act your age. get your own insurance. [ child babbling ] -aah! -oh! -act your age. get your own insurance. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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tell me something i don't know. >> 80% of venture capitalist firms do not have -- >> why is that the case? >> people are trying to change it. the pipeline for diversity isn't easy. it's not risky. the blame line is we don't know where to find the people. there's a group to change that. >> what's the name of the group? >> i don't remember, i'll tweet it out. >> all of the talk was hispanic turnout. 77% for democratic candidates in nevada and virginia, and in orange county where they make up 20% of the population. it's a clean sweep for democrats. >> what is the group, vietnamese? >> chinese-americans, indian americans, 77% voted democrat. >> why do you think? >> i think it's a lot of cultural issues, i think it's immigration, the rhetoric. but republicans are making a play for them on affirmative action. >> i would say without

denigrating any group, asian-americans would seem to be the most entrepreneurial, the most interested in having free opportunities economically in this country than being a social welfare state. >> a lot of it is the rhetoric. >> the cultural trashing of people. >> democrats should run, 2020, someone who can beat florida in swing state, georgia, arizona, north carolina. >> oh, you're the new breed. i know you. >> listen to me, democrats, or they have to win michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania, some combination of those, or two of those states and one other swing state, you're in, you're done. >> the new breed guys are pushing this arizona, georgia. i'm pushing the same old, same old, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. thank you to my panel. when we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. you're watching "hardball."

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trump watch friday, november 16th, 2018. i began this week speaking about robert kennedy with the 92nd street y up in new york. next friday, the day after thanksgiving i'll be signing books at mitchell's bookstore in nantucket. i'm convinced in the deepening interest in bobby kennedy is the necessary reaction to what we're getting from our political leadership in the white house. i cannot remember or ever imagine the president attacking

minorities so nastily and personally as this one has so recently. donald trump seems to save his worst vitriol for african-american women, whether he's calling congresswoman maxine waters a low iq person, or insulting my friends and colleagues and april ryan for their "racist and stupid questions." he reserves a nastier tone for people below the border, criminals and rapistes. the hero in my book could not have been more different. he would campaign in an open car in gary indiana. he wanted to unite, not divide people. bobby was the first mainstream american politician to take up the cause of the latino farm workers in california, joining in a religious bond with the great caesar chavez. he never broke faith with the white working class families that came out to mourn him. i'm asking you to go with me on this weekend and get this story

out i've written about this man in paperback, it's what i believe america can and should be, can remind us about ourselves as opposed to the tribal bitterness donald trump has shown his ability to resurrect. thanks for being with us. "all in" starts with chris hayes right now. tonight on "all in". >> i write the answers, my lawyers don't write answers, i write answers. >> all eyes on the mueller probe as the president claims to have answered the special counsel's questions. >> i was asked a series of questions, i've answered them very easily, very easily. >> tonight the signs that something is happening behind the scenes as the world waits on possible indictments. >> i imagine it's ending now from what i hear it's ending. then, the inadvertent revelation of undisclosed criminal charges against julian assange. >> this just came out, ak