now has 33% more high-quality protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals your body needs. all with guaranteed great taste. the upside- i'm just getting started. boost® high protein be up for life look for savings on boost® in your sunday paper. as the 2018 hard ball awards. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. tonight we're celebrating the good, the bad and the infamous of the past year with the hard ball awards. over the next hour we will celebrate the people, the moments and of course the tweets that defined 2018. including the award for the most inglorious exit from trump world this year. the best concession speech, the trumpiest thing said by someone not named trump and the big award of the night, the oddest

moment of the year in trump world. well, a panel of experts that's the hard ball producers picked the winners and the results were tabulated by the accounting firm of urbanski, zellinger and clancy. i want to bring in my panel, sam stein, politics editor of the daily beast, jennifer ruben, opinion writer with the "washington post," jason johnson, politics editor for the root.com and dana mill bank also with the "washington post." let's get right to the first award of the night, the category is best diversion in regards to the mueller investigation. when news broke about the russian investigation these nominees did their best to change topics. the first nominee is the president himself, who when it comes to the original crime of hacking doesn't even believe it happened. >> all i can do is ask the question, my people came to me, dan coats came to me and others

and said they think it's russia. i have president putin, he just said it's not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason why it would be. >> the next nominee is president trump's lawyer, rudy giuliani who made this mind-bending comment about the nature of truth. >> when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't worry, well, that's so silly because it's somebody's version of the truth, no the truth. he didn't have a conversation -- >> truth is truth. i don't mean to go like -- >> no, it isn't. truth isn't truth. the president of the united states says i didn't -- >> truth isn't truth. mr. mayor, do you realize what -- >> no. no. >> this is going to become a bad meme. >> the third nominee is donald trump again. trump claimed that he didn't know the guy he hired for attorney general even though he hired him after seeing his audition on fox news. >> i don't know matt whitaker. matt whitaker works for jeff

sessions but i didn't know matt whitaker. in all fairness to matt whitaker, who, again, i didn't know, matt whitaker is a highly respected man, but i didn't know matt whitaker. >> the topic is diversion. how easily do you bounce off the topic du jour or start talking about something. >> news isn't news, truth isn't truth. that is the best diversion of all. it's the classic r & beeline are you going to believe your own eyes or your own lying eyes or what i tell you. if you can convince people what they see in front of them is not true, that's the best diversion of all. >> dana. >> i want to give high points to trump for level of difficulty, that remark was made in helsinki when the whole world knew he wasn't telling the truth there. just in terms of the study of epistomology we have to respect the scholarly former mayor. >> just start rambling off and

knowing that they've got to put you on anyway, no matter what it says, they are still going to play the tape. >> i'm hesitant to answer that being on tv, but i would say that television is fleeting and there's always tomorrow, right? >> jennifer? >> you know, i think rudy wins it just because of the effect it had on poor -- our colleague, chuck todd, it reduced him to absolute collapse. >> it showed he was listening. >> yes, it did. >> he heard him in realtime. >> it's the kind of answer you can only dream of getting on a talk show. >> and the award based upon the secret decisions of our producers. >> i'm so nervous. >> the best diversion on mueller, rudy giuliani. >> yes. >> there we go. >> and chuck reacted brilliantly to it first. rudy giuliani, truth isn't true. our next honor is the trump award for bravery, at least as defined by donald trump and with so many investigations president trump likes to share an encouraging word of support for

those willing to stand up against the rule of law. the first nomination is this tweet from president trump about roger stone currently under scrutiny by mueller for his ties to wikileaks. trump wrote, i will never testify against trump. the statement was recently made by roger stone. essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about president trump. nice to know that some people still have guts. the second nomination is this tweet from president trump again after paul manafort was found guilty of financial crimes, i feel very badly for paul manafort and his wonderful family. justice took a 12-year-old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and unlike michael cohen he refused to break. make up stories in order to get a deal. such respect for a brave man. and finally there was this bite from president trump who remind yourself, fired general michael flynn because of his lies. let's watch him. >> i feel badly for general

flynn. he's lost his house, he's lost his life and some people say he lied and some people say he didn't lie. i mean, really it turned out maybe he didn't lie. >> maybe he didn't lie. that's his endorsement. dana, these guys if you stand up for this guy you are a great man. >> that's tough, honorable mention is don mcgahn was praised for not being a rat. i just love the michael flynn one. some people say he lied, michael flynn said he lied, the white house said he lied, his plea agreement says he lied. >> but he was open-minded. he was agnostic on this, jason. he gives -- the champ remains the champ. >> right. at the end of the day it's like, you know, i ma support you when it's convenient for me. i give it to paul manafort because he went to jail, right? if you go to jail in defense and then continue to lie and sneak information to trump after he went to jail and lied to mueller, that is a brave man. that is a loyal man. that's some g. gordon liddy level respect for this administration.

>> there's so much of the james cagney 1930s talk about rat, you dirty rat. the latest word from giuliani is i'm not going to talk, the president, so why are you missing. >> there were three square quotes in the paul manafort tweet for absurd words like justice and deal, as if those are no, ma'am nous words. i have to give it to manafort, it's brave to survive three square quotes like that. >> if the panel doesn't agree with me you have a bad panel. >> the panel. >> i'm going to give it to flynn because the man almost wrecked, perhaps he has wrecked, a plea deal by taking exactly trump's position, which is maybe i lied, maybe i didn't lie, maybe i was entrapped and the judge came down on him like a ton of bricks. he gets extra points for actually trying to play the trump line in court when his own freedom was at issue. >> i think emmet sullivan and trump have different versions of bravery, but the award goes to, for bravery, trump's idea of it,

paul manafort. >> yes. >> there we go. >> everybody here seems to know these. up next, our next award is for the president's best late night tweet. the first nominated tweet came in the middle of the night of course in august when the president simply declared no collusion, rigged witch-hunt out of nowhere. the next nominee is the president's threat against iran, issued in all capital letters in july, quote, to iranian president rouhani, never ever threaten the united states again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. we are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words ever violence or death. be cautious. that sounds very middle eastern, doesn't it? the third nominated tweet came from the president last january, after michael wolff released his explosive book "fire and fury." president trump took aim at the author as well as his former top strategist saying michael wofrl is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell the really boring and untruthful

book. he used sloppy steve bannon who cried when he got fired and begged for his job, now sloppy steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. too bad. i mean, dana, i'm sorry, we talk mob talk here, listen -- >> i mean, i guess just in terms of capitalization the iran tweet takes the cake, but there is something about steve bannon being called names, the way he will call his own people names, tillerson became dumb as a rock and omarosa became a low life dog. >> he dried when i fired him. where did that come from? who made that up? that's a powerful image. >> i think in creativity he's neck and neck -- >> jason, i think he was talking to the iranians -- you can imagine the ayatollah saying he's talking our language. >> this is right from the iranian playbook. i heard braveheart music. there was a level of rage. you talk about demented people and war we have ever seen.

i was close between the iranian and rigged witch-hunt because i see the president waking up from a fevered dream, rigged witch-hunt and then going back to sleep. i think it goes to the iranian speech. >> do you think he remembers this tweet? >> i think he does because he's constantly watching "snl" and they show them. >> i go with the all caps because it has a ring of the bond villain. i will destroy you. i give it to him just on movie grading system. >> on your phone can you do all caps? >> yes, you can. >> do you have to do it each time? >> one of these days he will learn how to use emojis. >> the category is best late night tweet. i can't give that to something that could cause a geopolitical cl calamity. i have to go with the steve bannon one. >> i am going to go for it, i'm going to make it out, the covfefe award, it's not really a word, for the best late night

tweet or worst ever by trump, 11:32 p.m., january 5th, attacks michael wolf and steve bannon. >> excellent. >> he creates these things. he cried when he was fired just makes it up. the panel is sticking around, we have so much more to get to on the "hardball" awards show of 2018 including the most inglorious exit, the nastiest firing from trump world. will it be jeff sessions, scott pruitt who was facing at least a dozen investigations when he was candor the man reportedly fired while he was on the toilet? i think that was a general. no, that was a famous business guy. this is "hardball." guy. this is "hardball. how much horse power does this thing got? doing great dad! looking good babe! are you filming. at booking.com, we can't guarantee you'll be any good at that water jet thingy... but we can guarantee the best price on a hotel, like this one.

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welcome back to "hardball." the next category is the best inglorious exit from trump world. president trump a man famous for firing people on television is notorious for firing his west wing staff from the comfort of a tweet. the first nominee former attorney general jeff sessions. the day after the november midterm elections trump was asked about sessions' fate. let's watch him. >> and can you give us clarity, sir, on your thinking currently, now after the midterms, about your attorney general and your deputy attorney general, do they have long-term job security? >> i'd rather answer that at a little bit different time. we are looking at a lot of different things, including kavanaugh. >> apparently a little different time was two hours later in a tweet naming his successor matt whitaker with trump writing, we thank attorney general jeff sessions for his service and

wish him well. the second nominee former secretary of state rex tillerson, tillerson got a similar firing with trump announcing his replacement in a morning tweet. the daily beast reported that chief of staff john kelly said he gave tillerson a heads up on the news while tillerson was on the toilet. and last but certainly not least, former epa administrator scott pruitt. after months of increasingly bad headlines and questions over how he still had a job trump wrote, i have accepted the resignation of scott pruitt. as the administrator of the environmental protection agency. within the agency scott has done an outstanding job. we're back with our panel, sam steen, inevery ruben, jason johnson and dana. what's the word, on the throne? >> should we even bother talking about it, this is undebatable. it's not just because the daily beast reported it. that you were fired while on the can is the most inglorious,

dehumanizing of a way -- >> are you sitting down? >> this man was running exxonmobil two years ago and then to end in this fashion, unreal. >> it's not like they had footage of it. >> we have a mental image that will never go away. >> john kelly should get honorable mention because they had this nice agreement that he would be on a friday that he would be fired on a monday and trump goes out and fires him on saturday. he had the disgrace, too. i think overall if not the final moment for jeff sessions, the long bit like trump -- tweet after tweet, cut off his leg and then his arm and everything else. it was the extended year long disgrace sort of punctuated by him just going like this. >> and he was being rewarded for being the first goo i to rally to trump in the beginning of the whole campaign. that was how he was being rewarded, jeff sessions. >> look, i always -- i respected jeff sessions for basically going through the monte python thing and losing an arm and leg.

he stayed because he was committed to whatever things he wanted to do with the law. getting fired on the toilet, taking it through the heart when you are on the commode, that is the worst way to go. i never thought trump could do better than locking omarosa out of the white house or kicking reince priebus out of the motorcade but that was the worst. >> they gave us a mental image for the ages. i don't know how it could be any worse. >> unfortunately his family knows all about that. okay. i'm going to give the award right now, it's been given to -- you guys are really thinking -- best inglorious exit from the trump world, rex tillerson, fired on the toilet. >> this is rigged. this is rigged. >> that's probably going to be in his obituary. any way, this year also gave trump a chance to use at which time for fight with celebrities. here are the nominees for best trump celebrity beef of 2018. first up, when tonight show host jimmy fallon expressed regret about his lighthearted interview

with trump during the campaign trump wrote jimmy fallon whimpering to all where he did the hair show with me and that he would have done it differently because it is said to have humanized me. he's taking heat. he called and said monster ratings. be a man, jimmy. the second nominee is lebron james, in an interview the nba star lebron james accused president trump of using sports to defy the country. he wrote lebron james was interviewed by the dumbest man on television, don lemon. he made lebron look smart. which is tough to do. oprah, trump wrote just watch the very insecure -- i have never seen her insecure -- oprah winfrey who at one point i knew well. interviewed a panel of people on "60 minutes." hope oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all the others. everybody likes oprah. she's always secure. and lebron james is really a

heroic figure. >> right. you know, i have to go with the lebron james because he insulted not just one, but two african-americans in the same tweet. >> with his usual meme which is low iq. >> or they're stupid. >> white women, by the way, are not good looking. >> not pretty, exactly. to get two people who are by all accounts very articulate, intelligent people, very articulate as joe biden would say, that was a skill in getting two people in one tweet. >> i think the economy of words, he was able to do it so quickly and as i recall he was right about to take a campaign swing to ohio which made it all the more foolish. it worked out very badly for him. >> taking on jim. he sfal lojimmy fallon who least political guy. >> he always picks the wrong people to start fights with because you look like a jerk beating up on jimmy fallon. i'd have to say it's lebron james.

if you are going to insult people the goal is to not have them end up looking better when you're done. so laura ingraham gets famous because she says shut up and dribble. lebron takes shut and dribble and turns it into his own documentary series and don lemon looked brilliant. everyone who got involved in that tweet ended up being better >> does ohio matter electorally anymore? >> you would think. >> i'm going to say my choice -- >> he paid his dues. >> my choice is oprah because there are a few tweets that have as much projection as trump accusing someone else of being very insecure. that tweet reeked insecurity. >> why does he want to go back to the hair again? >> his greatest crime was trying to humanize him? >> fallon made a mistake of being nice to trump. >> exactly. >> dumb guy. we're going to go with the

winner, best trump celebrity beef as our producers have decided, lebron james. >> up next, who gave the best concession speech of the year and who ins with the award for biggest suck up to president trump. there is an interesting category. this is "hardball." g category this is "hardball.

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welcome back to "hardball." our next award goes to the best concession speech of 2018. the politicians who lost their races but still delivered

powerful closing messages. the first nominee is arizona congresswoman martha mcsally following a very combative senate race mcsally struck a congenial tone sitting alongside her dog, boomer. >> everybody, i just called kyrsten sinema and congratulated her on becoming arizona's first female senator. i wish her all success as she represents arizona in the senate. i also want to say thank you to everybody who supported me in this campaign, my staff and volunteers and everybody who voted for me. i'm so grateful for you as my wing man and wing women in this journey. >> i think that dog wanted a shorter peach. next up is texas congressman beto o'rourke. o'rourke fell short of unseating senator ted cruz but built a highly energetic base of supporters. here he is watching their enthusiasm while using some choice words. >> i want to thank this amazing campaign of people, not a dime from a single pact, all people,

all the time, in every single part of texas. all of you showing the country how you do this. i'm so [ bleep ] proud of you guys. >> there's another word there. any way, utah congresswoman mia love. even before her loss was official president trump criticized her for not having sufficiently embraced him. >> the president's behavior towards me made me wonder what did he have to gain by saying such a thing about a fellow republican? it was not really about asking him to do more, was it? or was it something else? well, mr. president, we will have to chat about that. >> sam, jennifer, jason, and dana are all back. to me that's the real feeling in politics comes in the concession speech because you put everything out there, the people looked at you and said we really

know you now and don't want you. >> they are the most honest. even looking back on the past you don't want someone who is like, hey, i'm going to disney world, you want someone who says i respect the work that you've done. i have to say it's martha mcsally. mia love you come to this realization that you work for a terrible guy only after you lose. i love beto o'rourke but it's easy to go blue. but martha mcsally was congenial, honest and it ended up getting her the job any way. >> she gets appointed to the other seat. >> exactly. >> i think that's true. she did get a very significant consolation prize and that's only because they could not give it to boomer. >> that's true. >> clearly eager for the position. i disagree on mia love, i think it was powerful, there was much more to it than that, she's talking about how republicans didn't reach out into minority communities and she said of president trump it's all transactional, no relationships. i don't think there's ever been

a better distillation of the criticism. >> but i don't like concession speeches where you sort of take a 180 from how you campaigned. with mcsally she had accused her opponent of treason literally days before. with mia love she never raised those considerations or concerns about trump prior to the election. for me it has to be beto o'rourke who said we need to build off of this, make it national and it your honor's it out he may go national. >> was the f bomb a play to the millennials? >> i think it was just the internal passion. >> it was both. >> i have two favorites in history, with one of them is add lay stevenson, everybody's liberal hero, he lost to general eisenhower and he said -- i think he was quoting lincoln he said, you know, he said i'm too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh. and the other one was ed brook, the former senator from massachusetts and he got beaten after all kinds of problems in his life and he got beaten, he said, i did not cry on the

mountain, i will not cry in the valley. >> poetry. >> great stuff. >> i always think of al gore as the class act going out with all the flags. >> richard goodwin wrote it. that's a start. >> and john mccain, arizona is the only place where mothers don't tell their children they can grow up to be president. >> boomer, you know, you're not supposed to work with dogs or children. in this case boomer really helped and i think the fact that he was no longer paying attention to her and we were no longer paying attention to her but paying attention to boomer really kind of sealed the deal. gave her human qualities. >> dogs humanize. >> so it's fdr, checkers with nixon and boomer with mcsally. the best concession speech in a fast track field here, beto o'rourke with the "f" bomb. our next award goes to the best suck up to president trump and our first nominee is new florida governor ron desantis, during his campaign for governor it

wasn't too clean, desantis aired this campaign ad. >> everyone knows my husband, ron desantis is endorsed by president trump but he's also an amazing dad. ron loves playing with the kids. >> build the ball. >> he reads stories. >> then mr. trump said you're fired. i love that part. >> he's teaching madison to talk. >> make america great again. >> our second nominee goes to the 18 republican members of congress who nominated donald trump for a nobel peace rise for his efforts to denuclearization the korean peninsula. north korea still has a full control of all their nuclear weapons. our final nominee is sean hannity. hannity joined trump on stage during the president's final rally ahead of this year's midterm elections.

>> by the way, all those people in the back are fake news. mr. president, i did an opening monologue today and i had no idea you were going to invite me up here and the one thing that has made and defined your presidency more than anything else, promises made, promises kept. >> this is difficult. this is a gut punch to all the people on the panel here, i don't even have to talk about this, dana, you know how to do it. sean hannity joining the guy he's covering and supporting him. >> the desantis moment by itself is special because you think of the therapy bills the child is going to have later in life. just the shear damage he did in that one moment, but i think you've got to look at hannity and it has a lifetime achievement element to this, this award, i think, it should, because it wasn't just that

night. >> it's every night. >> also desantis was doing it for a purpose and he is a politician. those lawmakers are politicians, they want to advance that i ever cause. sean hannity threw his profession under the bus as soon as he not up on stage. >> he took attack on the guys in the back row. >> he said those fake news people in the back. you are a member of the news. >> maybe he is not. >> you're employed by the in us. >> i can't go with desantis, that's child abuse, that really is. that is a step too far. i'm i'm not in favor of bringing children in any of those things. >> does the end justify the means? he got elected. >> and besides he was teaching the child to read incorrectly. he was saying trump when he was telling him how to read. so that was like really -- >> i would say that was a base election strategy. >> it's like you get them when they're young. look, sean hannity has given up any semblance of integrity? i will defend sean to this extent he says he is not a journalist. >> he is a commentary person.

>> you can be a commentary journalist. >> that's fine. >> there were fox news employees in the back of the auditorium. >> it's all fake news. >> i say it's desantis, i say it's the corruption of a minor, i say it's having that child build this wall because i don't just see it as being a part of that campaign. those videos stay on youtube forever. that child will one day in junior high or high school. >> people have criticized fairly that president obama was given the nobel peace prize prematurely before he became president. how about the a team that wanted to give it to trump for what he did in north korea before he did anything in north korea. >> and what a shining success north korea has turned out to be. >> yes. >> it was a very bold gesture, but it would have to be shared 18 ways and if most hannity's would have to be shared with laura and tucker >> a lottery ticket. all the guys at the gas station bet on this. so i think sucking up is probably not ended, do you think? >> no.

let me go with this one, best suck up, okay, ron desantis. >> there we go. >> i think the wall. >> yeah. >> i mean, suppose he grows up liking hispanics. >> they are going to be in a high school one day with other children. >> there is a great line in south pacific, kids have to be taught to hate. up next, we share our culture, you and me. >> absolutely. >> the biggest flip-flop of the 2020 presidential race and the trumpiest thing said by someone not trump. you're watching "hardball." p. you're watching "hardball.

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welcome back to "hardball." our next award goes to the best flip-flop in 2020. a testament to the ongoing will they or won't they of the democratic nomination fight for 2020. our first contender is texas congressman beto o'rourke who definitively said he was not running for president before the

midterms started. >> i will not be a candidate for president in 2020. >> amy and i made a decision not to rule anything out. >> that was fast. next is new york senator kyrsten gillibrand who promised she would finish a six-year term in the senate. let's watch. >> can you tell new yorkers who plan to vote for you on november 6th that you will, if reelected, serve out your six-year senate term. >> i will. >> midterms are over, what are you concentrating on now? is there another election that you might be concentrating on? >> i will promise you i will give it a long, hard thought of consideration. >> and our final nominee is ohio senator sherrod brown who originally said running for president didn't interest him. >> i don't like the idea of running for president. i don't -- i don't really have any real interest in that. >> we're seriously thinking about it, we're seriously talking about it. >> sam stein, jennifer ruben, jason johnson, dana milbank, the

song was "what the difference a day made" by dana washington. these people flip-flop so mechanically, it's such a joke. bill clinton did this years ago. >> i'm shocked that politicians are flip-flopping but i think there's really only one answer to this question, i mean, the beto thing was in the context of him running for, you know -- expecting if he won the senate would he not run for president. the sherrod brown thing is kind of equivocal but kyrsten gillibrand, she said one thing then she said exactly the other after she was elected, as if the democratic party right now is clamoring for a pro wall street democrat. so i just think that takes the cake. >> aren't you tough. >> i believe it's beto for this reason, the kind of gal and confidence and arrogance that it takes to go from i don't think i'm running and then you lose and then say i'm going for a bigger prize, you need that kind of arrogance to run for president. that is a flip of tremendous proportions. >> i gave it actually to sherrod brown because he was so clever. he said -- he said he didn't

have an interest in it. now he has developed an interest so he's running. >> he didn't like the idea of running not that he didn't want to be president. >> exactly. >> his interests changed. >> when you are older, you get into different things. >> new hobbies. >> exactly. >> i disagree, not to be too lawyerly, but he may still not be interested in it, he could be compelled to do it for things other than personal interest. i have to give it to kyrsten gillibrand because she was in a race that basically was meaningless, she didn't have to make that promise to woo voters. she did it and then flip-flopped. >> maybe as an interviewer we get to do it, how do you lock the person in and put them in the handcuffs, how do you have them say do you wear to god? >> you bring out a notary, have them stamp it. >> you show them all the previous videos, all the other things where they have made it abundantly clear. i had this experience watching elizabeth warren, you are not

running for president, but making plans to go to south carolina, but you are not running. you have to give all of the evidence beforehand, then get them to deny it. >> she's going to a historically black college. >> i was at morgan last week. >> you would do that in south carolina, wouldn't you? >> yes, you would. >> i think it would be great to say something, okay, right here i want you to sign this document. >> right. >> we're going to see who flip-flopped the worst or the best. >> i'm so nervous. >> what was yours? >> i think sam is ahead of the rest of us on these. >> a tie. >> what? >> how boring. up next, best flip-flop of 2020, we have a tie, beto o'rourke and sherrod brown. >> there we go. >> do you think that's all right? >> i think that's fine. it's my former senate who i always thought was going to run so i never believed him and beto is basically unemployed so he has nothing else to do. >> it could be there is a dynamic here. when he got elected by a huge number, you were mentioning, mike, they need somebody from that industrial area that will appear to those, excuse me,

white working guys that can flip back to the democrats. >> maybe the judges were thinking best flip-flop in the sense of who did it the most deftly. >> that's how i took the question. >> gillibrand was the worst flip-flop. >> what would be a deft way of preparing yourself so you wouldn't be flipping. >> sherrod brown. >> who likes the idea of running for president? it's terrible. >> he em plo id a level of linguistic gymnast particulars. we have our award for the trumpest thing said by somebody not named trump. first is former vice president joe biden who told a crowd in montana that, quote, i think i'm the most qualified person in the country to be president. i think he believes that and may be right. next there's georgia governor elect brian kemp doing his best trump impression in a campaign ad earlier this year. >> i've got a big truck, just in case i need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself. >> and finally we have democratic congresswoman maxine

waters who attempted to give the president who called her low iq his own nickname, let's watch. >> this is a dishonorable human being. he is a con man. he came to this job as a con man. i really call him, you know, don con man. >> i think she was into a buildup that didn't quite hit the heart there. i think this -- this guy kemp, you know, i don't know, the truck -- and first of all, the most offense thing he could have said, we can argue about immigration and illegal immigration, but calling people illegals reduces them to not even beings, they are just illegals. he used that term because he knew it was nasty. >> and i saw that in georgia. this is on top of remember him also doing a commercial where he had a potentially loaded gun in front of a 16-year-old talking about whether or not that kid can ask his wife to date. i'm going to act like trump but like any semblance of the charisma that made this man

capable of being proets. >> lester maddox. >> i don't think of that as trumpian. >> the doughnut version. >> the doughnut version. >> i don't think it was trump because i don't foresee or could never see trump getting into a pickup truck. >> he loves trucks, he loves big trucks. >> scott brown up in massachusetts got elected. >> but that's not a trumpian thing. trump would get into his helicopter. >> i would give maxine waters an a for effort. she needs to practice more and maybe next year she will be able to get that, but i think kemp probably gets it because that's sort of the emblem of what the republicans have come. they are all doing it, but he did that just right with the pickup and the accent. >> trump is not used to rough terrain. >> doesn't want to get his nails dirty. >> i'm glad he went to arlington the other day the cemetery to respect our fallen soldiers, but it seemed like he had to have special shoes to go over there.

the trumpiest thing -- how about biden? >> no. >> biden actually is qualified. >> he does say what he thinks. >> yeah. >> that's how he gets -- >> it's sort of endearing, compared to this guy. >> uncle joe. the trumpiest thing said by someone not trump, brian kemp. >> there we go. up next, the oddest moment in trump world this year, there were a lot of -- to choose from, of course, these odd moments. how many times have you said to yourself, is this real? you're watching "hardball." you're watching "hardball.

welcome back to "hardball." we have one more award tonight and it's a big one, the oddest moment in trump world this year. there's some big contenders, of course, we start with musician kanye west's support of trump and his bizarre visit to the white house in october. let's watch that. >> you know, my dad and my mom

separated so i didn't have a lot of male energy in my home and also i'm married to a family that, you know, not a lot of male energy going on. it was something about when mal energy going on. when i put this hat on i felt like superman. if he don't look good we don't look good. this is our president. he has to be the freshest, the brightest, the best factories and we have to make our core be empowered. >> next it was that time trump tried to talk to the mexican president on the phone in front of cameras but repeatedly couldn't get the phone to work. let's watch that one. >> and i believe the president is on the phone. enrique? hello.

you want to put it on this phone? hello. be helpful. >> seems like "saturday night live" so often. then president trump's infamous walk up the steps of air force one with toilet paper stuck to his shoe. if he had only known. with natural image in your head we're back with our panel. i don't know. will somebody give me a cultural back story on kanye west. does anybody know this guy? what's his politic? >> he has no politics. when i tell you there was no greater single unifying moment in the black movement this year was to draft kanye west. he was disinvited from all

cookouts forever more. >> do people lose their heads when they go in the oval office? >> no. he's a narcissist. kanye's bizarre rants. >> that was years ago. plus given the feelings people have about nfl jim brown is not the best representative either. . west, it was bizarre, it was insane. my mother called and said who is this kanye west person? it hit all the cultural levels. there's no greater trumpian moment in. 2018. >> the phone thing was like an old bob newhart record. enrique. >> there's so many. who forget the paper towels in the middle of the hurricane.

who could forget him standing next to vladimir putin taking his side. >> how about standing next to governor brown who is coming off very sophisticated these days. you have to do more raking. as if he ever had a rake in his hand. >> that's the comic genius of the trump administration. these things happen every day. think recently in the oval office, nancy pelosi and schumer, poor mike pence wishing he could eject. it is very hard. >> one of the best things about the phone episode is he's talking on speaker phone but he has the phone up to his ear. highly unnecessary. i think it has to be kanye west if only in that moment we saw something exceptionally rare. even trump was freaked out. it was too much for trump. >> have i overdone it.

>> you have a feeling at the end of every single trump speech you felt you could freeze it and play "curb your enthusiasm." this is trump related. to see kavanaugh to say i like beer in tears. if it's not trump himself it's leading to other people. >> a couple of days ago we saw a previous president visiting children's hospital and looking as the most natural thing and nicest thing we've seen in years. a president comfortable playing santa claus with kids that are thrilled. the joy and the naturalness. it wasn't odd. it was just nice. now -- there we go. >> in fairness we would not treat trump well if he put on santa. >> kanye west ran away with it,

with support from jim brown. thank you. i'm glad we only do this once a year but we got enough for every night. up next, a thank you to all the people who worked tirelessly to bring you "hardball" every day. you're watching "hardball".

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i would like to end this show by thanking all the people that bring "hardball" to you night after night. you don't see them. i do. i know how valuable they are.

that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. merry christmas and happy new year.

this morning the shutdown ste stalemate continues. neither side is budging on the president's border wall. >> before he heads for the exit, john kelly is getting candid about his time in the trump administration. he says his tenure may be best measured by what the president did not do. and it's new year's eve. about 1 million people will be in times square tonight for iconic ball drop. security in the area will be tight. you know