♪♪ good evening and welcome to a special holiday edition of the last word. with every vote counted in the presidential election we now

know that once again donald trump did not win a majority of the vote. the political report tells us donald trump captured about 77.3 million votes. 49.8%. to kamala harris' 75 million votes, 48.3%. 1.5% winning margin for donald trump. another 1.7% of the vote went to other candidates with almost 3 million people voting for other candidates for president so once again, most american voters voted against donald trump. in the end, the 2024 election was decided by 229,766 votes across michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. joe biden's record high vote count in 2020 of 81 million votes for president remains the most votes ever won by a

presidential candidate in american history. of course, the number of voters constantly increases as the population increases over time so former presidents who actually won in huge landslides like ronald reagan, lyndon johnson and franklin delano roosevelt could not possibly have won as many votes as even losing candidates do now because of the voting population at that time. postelection shows show voters in conflict with themselves. 79% of voters said lowering prices of goods and services was their top priority. 52% of voters said they favored new tariffs on goods imported from other countries. 59% of voters said that new tariffs on goods from other countries would generally make the prices of the things they buy higher. the congressional budget office

agrees with those 59% of voters who said new tariffs will increase prices. the congressional budget office estimates the new tariffs proposed would cost american families and average $1560 per year but the inflation calculations did not include imported electronics, and virtually all of our electronics are important. that is the category that will face the highest price increase, as much as 60% had a price increase. republicans showed no consistent governing capacity during the first trump presidency with republican house members in open revolt against their own leadership. it is a habit that they just cannot break. in the new york times, jamaal bowie writes this about the incoming trump administration. compare trump's picks with virtually any other republican white house or cabinet and you will see a team with shockingly little governing experience, almost no connection to the institutional republican party outside of donations made to

affiliated political action committees. trump is not picking from within the broad universe of the republican party. he has no interest in most of the politicians, policy entrepreneurs and experienced bureaucrats who make up most republican administrations. he is interested, more or less, and people he sees on tv. trump is less concerned here with the health of the republican party, less concerned with building out the next generation of republican leaders than he is with serving his narrowest interest. the republican party could wither and die and donald trump would not care, provided it did not disrupt his ability to enrich himself and his family. leading off our discussion, columnist for the new york times and cohost of the podcast, and clear and present danger. also an opinion columnist for the post and professor of government at georgetown university.

jamaal, i want to begin with the point you make about here is theoretically the leader of the republican party, donald trump, who has absolutely no interest in building the republican party. >> yes. i think the immediate issue for the republican party at the very least as it puts them in a bad political position. there will very quickly, time when the immediate interests of donald trump are going to conflict with what is best for the republican party. in those situations, you want a president who cares about the health of his party. trump is very clearly willing to sacrifice the health of the republican party to whatever he wants to do and i think we will see that pretty soon. >> talk about what a difference this is from the past with both republican and democratic presidents and the way they approached party buildup. >> i think you have had

presidents who do more party building than others. barack obama won great victories but was not all that interested in building his party. lbj was clearly a party sort of guy but i think there is another fundamental here that underscores jamelle bouie's point which is donald trump is a lame-duck president. the constitution makes very clear that he cannot run for president again and i think you saw republicans realizing that right from the beginning when they rejected rick scott as their leader and elected john thune. it was secret ballot so they could get away with voting against at least elon musk's pick and what was seen as maga world's pick, voting for somebody who would protect them and not trumpet so i think you are going to see republicans with that in the back of their minds and you're also going to have republicans who are going

to want to run for president in 2028, and they are going to be thinking about their interest. in the short term, there is going to be a lot of worry that trump will primary them, that the maga constituency is right now a majority of the republican primary vote, but they know that trump has a sell date on him and i think that is going to reduce his power more than he realizes. >> and, donald trump's favorability has already dropped since the election. the latest shows him at 41% favorable. if you go back to 2016 at this point after he was elected, and before he took the oath of office, he was 10 points higher at 51%, so jamelle, that is sort of a lame-duck number he is starting with there. >> that is right. it is weakened position is a

critical one. it is not just that he is a lame-duck and has basically 18 months before the pressures of the election cycle really bear down on the entire political landscape, but he also has this big, ambitious agenda. narrow majorities in the house, fragile, narrow majority in the house, a narrow majority in the senate with republican senators who may not be on board with every little thing he wants to do. even a skilled and competent and experienced president would have a hard time under these conditions, and the president we have is donald trump. >> such a good point. ej, i want to go back to your point about john thune is the next senate leader because it was such an interesting early test of elon musk coming out is

saying here is who i want for republican leader of the senate and republican senators basically said, we don't care. your guy is going to come in last an hour election among senate republicans, and going forward, john thune is very much that party-building kind of guy. he is the kind of senator who is very interested in maintaining a republican majority in the senate and finding the right candidates who are winner candidates, not french crazy candidates like the kind donald trump supports. >> i think one of the reasons i'm glad you showed those numbers at the beginning of the show is republican politicians can count votes, and when donald trump claims, on the basis of a victory that was actually smaller than the hillary clinton's victory in the popular vote when trump won the electoral college in 2016, they know trump is speaking nonsense. donald trump either wait, mid- december, said he had the biggest mandate in 129 years.

that was a really strange number for him to pick because it does not even go back to an election year. it is 1895 and there were almost no elections them. a guy called frederick greene held she got elected in massachusetts. obviously it is nonsense and i think soon and thom tillis, who is up next year and a lot of republican senators up in 2026 are aware there is no mandate here and they are going to go along with trump because his success will partly benefit them. they will go along with him if they think it will help them, but as you say, thune is interested in a republican majority not only in 2026 but beyond. >> one thing your description of the trump cabinet that is

coming in, one thing donald trump seems to have tried to guarantee is that no one in his cabinet would possibly agree to invoke the 25th amendment to remove him, which is an option open to the cabinet, and they did discuss it after january 6 last time, some of them did. donald trump is making sure there is not a person there who would even think about it. >> that's right. he is selecting primarily for loyalty, which, i mean for someone who is worried about that kind of backstabbing, that makes sense, but it is important to recognize the most loyal people are not necessarily the ones with the greatest handle on running these agencies. agencies like the department of defense, the department of justice -- these are real jobs with real responsibilities and it takes time to learn how to do those jobs well. i'm going to repeat this, but

experienced bureaucrats, experienced political operators have taken these jobs and run into trouble because it is hard to work the presidents well through the federal bureaucracy and so one of the things i think trump has to watch out for is that he may have these loyal people but they may not necessarily be able to work as well in the way that he wants them to, and they may have to resort to lawlessness to do the things he wants, which opens up another set of political problems as well is just practical ones for the administration. >> thank you very much for joining us on this special holiday edition of the last word. >> happy holidays. >> thank you. coming up, president biden takes his place as one of the most successful builders in the history of the presidency, having passed the biggest infrastructure bill of our lifetimes, and created important programs that are leading to factory openings all over the country.

my discussion with secretary of transportation pete buttigieg about the president who has created more jobs in four years than any president in history is next. in history is next. now i have skyrizi. ♪ i've got places to go and i'm feeling free. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me.♪ and now i'm back in the picture. feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi helped visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. and with skyrizi, many were in remission at 12 weeks, at 1 year, and even at 2 years. don't use if allergic. serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur. before treatment, get checked for infections and tb. tell your doctor about any flu-like symptoms or vaccines. liver problems leading to hospitalization may occur when treated for crohn's. now's the time to take control of your crohn's.

♪ control is everything to me. ♪ ask your doctor about skyrizi, the #1 prescribed biologic in crohn's disease.

with dexcom g7, managing your diabetes just got easier. so, what's your glucose number right now? good thing you don't need to fingerstick. how's all that food affect your glucose? oh, the answers on your phone. what if you're heading low at night? [phone beeps] wow, it can alert you?! and you can even track your goals. manage your diabetes with confidence with dexcom g7. the most accurate cgm. ♪♪ learn more at dexcom.com

where can nfl fans get a great deal that turns christmas day ♪♪ into game day? x marks the spot. the nfl is streaming christmas day games exclusively on netflix, and you don't want to miss a moment. gather round the game because nothing says holidays like family and football. now xfinity customers can add streamsaver including netflix, peacock, and apple tv+ for just $15 a month. stuff your stockings with tons of entertainment and tons of savings. bring on the good stuff. xfinity.

the most important thing to know when you look at a ballot is what you are voting for and that is not easy to do because your only choice on the ballot

is who you are voting for. many voters mistakenly thought when they voted for donald trump that they were voting for someone who would get things done in their community. that is because most of us, and that very much includes me, don't always know who to credit for the good things or the bad things that government has done. who did that? who built that new bridge? who rebuilt our airport to make it a state-of-the-art airport? why did that new chips factory located in that town? who did that? the answers to those questions are critical to informed voter participation in a democracy. people will automatically get refunds from airlines next year when their flights are canceled, and they won't know that joe biden did that. people will be driving over bridges with the kids in the back seat not knowing that the bridge was rebuilt and made safer by joe biden. it would take much more than

the full hour of this program to describe what joe biden did as president of the united states, but for most of the presidents, it would take less than an hour to describe what they did in the presidency. donald trump in four years did tax cuts in tariffs that raised prices and he built a little bit of wall at the southern border. not 2300 miles of border wall, just a tiny fraction of that. you have probably heard many times on this program that what joe biden built as president compares only to what franklin delano roosevelt did in 12 years in the presidency before there were term limits for president. roosevelt's resident -- revolutionary program that changed the way we do things in america was called the new deal. the most poverty-stricken group of americans where the elderly. roosevelt provided social security for people over 65.

that never existed before. president roosevelt enacted the first minimum wage. massive infrastructure spending all over the country that provided jobs and improved communities all over, everywhere we live in this country. donald trump kept promising and infrastructure bill when he was president. he kept having infrastructure weeks and did nothing. the trump administration did not write one sentence of an infrastructure bill. nevermind have a vote on it. there should be a name for what joe biden did. franklin roosevelt came up with the name, the new deal, when he was running for president the first time in 1932, the middle of the worst depression of the 20th century. he promised america what it called a new deal for the american people. the phrase caught on right away and reporters began referring to the new deal in the first year of the resident will --

roosevelt's presidency and we still talk about it today as the most important turning point in the definition of what was possible in the american government. what joe biden did should have a name like that. everyone knew what you meant when you are talking about the new deal. our next guest has a name for what joe biden did. >> president biden understands that policy is about everyday life. it's about people. he doesn't just see a road or a bridge. he sees somebody's commute home back to their family. he does not just the ships in ports and supply chains. he sees ways for us to get the things we count on at the grocery store. that is what all of this is actually about. taken together, a belief and how to use government to solve problems, recognition of what we were up against and ambition,

i think all of that is what has added up into the enormous progress we have made in recent years, something collectively i like to think of as the big deal. >> leading off our discussion tonight is transportation secretary pete buttigieg. the big deal. let's get started right now. let's see if it can catch on. >> i hope it does. first of all, i think it is a biden-esque turn of phrase but also the only way to really capture the transformative investments that have been made, certainly in transportation infrastructure, the part about the honor and privilege of working on, but also the removal of lead pipes that have been poisoning children for decades in this country, the extension of broadband internet access to millions of households, the improvements to the energy grid. unlike some of the other moments in our infrastructure history that had a single piece of instruction that was changed. think of the interstate highway program under eisenhower. the

transcontinental railroad under lincoln but this is harder to characterize because it touches so many things that the only thing all of those different kinds of investments really have in common is the scale, the scope, the imagination, and that recognition that confronted with the crisis, in some ways as fdr was confronted with a crisis, president biden responded with a level of ambition saying let's take the tools of government, use them to solve both short-term and long-term problems, and that is what this decade of infrastructure is all about. >> how do we get voters to understand who did that? this fundamental thing, all they get in the voting booth is a name, and they don't know, why are things running so much better in my town or my state because of things that people in government did. might be a governor. might be your mayor. you've been trying to get credit

for yourself i'm sure, as mayors, sometimes. >> we have been out there working with governor and mayors because one of my favorite rules of mathematics is that if two parties share credit for something like this each party walks away with two thirds of the credit and it can be a beautiful thing. of course we've also seen people trying to take credit for projects they opposed. again and again, often it has been republican members of the house telling their constituents i delivered this project. >> you have transportation, a huge piece of the infrastructure bill. i was also chief of staff of the environment and public works committee in the senate which has a lot to do with public works and expects of the infrastructure bill so i know when you pass around these laws, the transportation secretary gets calls, gets letters from members of congress say in, can you please make sure this project in my

district in my town gets funded. have you been getting those requests as secretary from republicans who voted against us? >> all the time. absolutely. >> why don't you just run out to a microphone every day? >> it is so tempting but you know, president biden made it clear to this administration that we are not going to punish americans' constituents for the behavior of their representatives. we are certainly going to call them out, and we have. i think it is important to remind everybody that this infrastructure package did not just happen. we talk about it now like it could've been any other way. it was three years ago this week that president biden signed it but you know, three years and two months ago everybody in this town was writing political obituaries for that legislation again and again. >> including me and the reason i was and i've said this to the president, is that when i

worked in the senate, what you guys did was impossible. it could not have been done. we would've said sorry, we don't have the votes, we can get there. it's a 50-50 senate. we used to have 57 democrats and struggled to get things done. in a much more cooperative environment. and so, i did not know what played a run to get these done, but joe biden did and once i saw that happen i just sat back not knowing what you are capable of next and you kept doing it. >> it turns out that his decades in the senate and in public service really came in handy. i am somebody who is a big believer in what a new generation can bring in terms of leadership but i've got to say i know there were times when i thought i guess it's not

going to happen, and he kept coming back. people said it's foolish for you to come back after one version collapsed he brought people back for another version. i sat there in the oval office watching him with republican and democratic members of the house and the senate not giving up and sure enough this happened. what is really striking is in the same way we had legislators try to take credit for projects they voted against in the last few years, for the next four years, we are going to see an entire administration's version of that because of course president-elect trump did not deliver an infrastructure package and he opposed the one president biden delivered. but, for the next four years, there are going to be more and more projects that we started. the nature of these projects is that they very rarely get done in one year or even three years. many of them get done in five or even seven years that will be creating jobs and improving lives not just during the next four years but beyond that and so it will continue to be important to communicate what we found that the new

president. >> there are projects in here 10 years away from completion. bridges across the cape cod canal for example, which got funded and people have been trying to do something about for years, unless it is named the biden bridge i don't think people are going to get it. i have tried to describe the new deal in two minutes and i've come up with versions of it from time to time and there have been so many books written about it and we all have a handle on it. we can talk about how it includes all source of extensions of humanity that we did not have before like child labor laws. everything from child labor laws to giant infrastructure projects. is there a way of describing the big deal that you could get across to people in a clear way? lbj, he brought electricity to rural texas. one thing when he was in congress, i brought electricity to rural texas. that was easy to remember and every time you turned on your like you knew it was lbj. this is 68,000 projects around the country. how do you explain it?

>> there is no way to characterize it one project at a time. i did the math and if i were to visit three projects a day for the rest of my life i still would not live long enough to see all of them so i think a better way to think of it is what they all have in common, not just these projects but the other steps that are taken place under the president's leadership, things in our department -like aviation consumer protection, making it easier to be an airline passenger, things that take place outside my department that made everything easier from getting hearing aids over- the-counter to the ftc rule that if you sign up for a subscription it ought to be easy to cancel. what do all these things have in common? one, recognizing the scale of the problems that face the country. two, recognizing that government, not always big government, but the right kind of government can be a solution if used in the right way and then three, not being afraid to

bring those tools to bear in a big way and that is certainly what happened in the infrastructure space. when we got here, the president was confronted with some of the most enormous and multiplied problems ever to hit our transportation system. it is almost easy to forget how dramatic it was. right now we are focused on getting airlines to treat passages better. back then it was making sure the airline sector did not completely go out of business in this country, so it was recognizing that set of problems. using government tools in this case, making sure there was a rescue to keep those airlines and business then turning around as we faced a new set of problems like delays, cancellations, customer service headaches and using tools is a department to confront those so there are so many things that went on that i think volumes will be written for the rest of my lifetime about their impact but they have that pattern in common. a colossal problem, a belief in the potential of good government to make a difference and a willingness to go big.

>> we did a big infrastructure deal in the 1990s, the acronym for the last big one was iced tea that i worked on but you always leave stuff on the table that did not get done and you guys came along and it took decades, but picked up stuff that had been left on the table for over 20 years and got it through. we have to squeeze in a brate right here. we will be right back with secretary pete buttigieg. th secretary pete buttigieg. i'm k. i'm reducing my risk. wegovy® is the only weight-management medicine proven to reduce risk of major cardiovascular events such as death, heart attack, or stroke in adults with known heart disease and obesity. don't use wegovy® with semaglutide or glp-1 medicines, or in children under 12. don't take if you or your family had mtc, men 2, or if allergic to it. tell your provider if you plan to have surgery or a procedure, are breastfeeding, pregnant, or plan to be. stop taking and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or any of these allergic reactions.

serious side effects may include pancreas inflammation and gallbladder problems. call your prescriber if you have any of these symptoms. wegovy® may cause low blood sugar in people with diabetes, especially if you take medicines to treat diabetes. call your prescriber about vision changes, if you feel your heart racing while at rest, or if you have mental changes. depression or thoughts of suicide may occur. common side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain, flu, or upset, headache, feeling tired, dizzy, or bloated, gas, and heartburn. some side effects lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems. with wegovy®, i'm losing weight, i'm keeping it off, and i'm lowering my cv risk. ask your prescriber about wegovy®.

should be called the biden tunnel. it is the most complex infrastructure project funded by

joe biden. it will provide a third tunnel across the hudson river between new york city and new jersey, one of the most important intrastate links in the country. as vehicular traffic has increased over the hudson river over the last 50 years, there has not been one additional lane added to the crossing. new york senator daniel patrick moynihan for 24 years in the senate was a champion of a channel that never got built. so were some new york governors and mayors. no one could get it done. then came joe biden. construction began this year. on the new tunnel. for the next hundred years, people will be driving through that tunnel and they will have no idea who did that. they should call it the biden tunnel. secretary pete buttigieg is back with us and you know

donald trump is going to take credit for that tunnel. >> absolutely. we have created a pipeline of good projects that are going to play out over the next few years. what i call projects like the hudson river tunnel cathedrals of our infrastructure i did not say that because of the poetic word for something big. i said it burn in mind that the thing about the world's great cathedrals is that the hands that laid the cornerstones of those great cathedrals were not even around 100 years later when other hand played the keystone and when other projects were funded like a key state project to make infrastructure safer and be done in one or two years. others working at warp speed or the work of a decade or more but president biden deserves the credit for making these things happen because so many others before him promised and failed to get it done. one of the few times i was fooled by donald trump was when i was a mayor and he said he was going to do a big infrastructure package. i thought why not. it's good politics.

both parties would like to see it happen. why wouldn't he do that plus it seems to be something he talks about all the time. of course, they didn't but joe biden did and it was an amazing thing to watch, especially because of the bipartisan nature of that deal. it specifically vindicated his model of how to get things done in this town at a time when people said that's just not how it works anymore and the result is even more things that people said were impossible have happened. of course, they said it was politically impossible to do this but another thing they told me was impossible was for union and manufacturing jobs to come back to the industrial midwest. they told us that was all done. >> we did not even think that was governmental action. we just that private enterprise does a factor here or they don't or they move a factory. the idea that government could get in here and influence what private industry is doing with something that people were not even really thinking about before this presidency in any serious way. >> you are not allowed to use

terms like industrial strategy and yet, the results of the industrial strategy is that factories are rising out of the prayer in places like northern indiana where i grew up in michigan where i live now and kentucky and kansas where i visited facilities that would not be happening if it were not for things like the inflation reduction act on the chips and science act in the infrastructure. >> can i just stop you on that point for a moment because of the politics of it? when you say rising out of the prairie, somewhere, and i've been reading about this, it indicated somewhere like 80% of the benefit of that kind of activity are happening out there in the republican prairie where by the way, there is plenty of room to throw up a new factory. it's not easy to put up in a factory in los angeles county. there's not a lot of room but out there, there is plenty and that is where it's happening and you're not going to get any political credit for that. >> right now, people in some of

these communities are telling me they've had the biggest year they've ever had just building these factories but they are not even online yet. actually, most of these major factories and facilities are slated to come online in 2026, seven 2025. many in 2027 so we are going to have a responsibility and whatever i might be doing by way of a day job, i will be reminding everybody who will listen and quite a few people who maybe want, that these things are happening because joe biden made sure -- >> you will have a seat here anytime you want to remind people of this. you said something monday at your alma mater. a version of which, i have been saying to people and i think this is one of the fun things people experience listening to you in public forms. you say things that are already in people's minds in certain ways but much more eloquently and sharply and to the point, and this is an example. you said, in moments like this,

our salvation will come from the local and state level. what did you mean by that? >> well, i think there is a lot of frustration, even despondency about where washington is headed. to put it mildly. but, there are a lot of good people in washington who will be stepping up, many of whom are about to be on this program. i saw them on the way in, in the house and the senate. but also, there is a lot more to the political and policy life of this country than washington. the people that i see doing the work on the ground in our cities, and our communities, and are states where and look, sometimes this has been an irritant for the centerleft, how much power in this country is not national ry healthy thing because we are going to see community stepping forward looking after people, demonstrating both the

substance and the style of politics that has more decency and more focus, or discipline and better results than what i fear we are soon going to see from the executive branch here in washington and i think that is going to light the way forward. >> mr. secretary, please, whenever you can, come back and help us understand who did that. i do think it is going to be one of those issues we are going to have to carry over the next four years. thank you very much for joining us. there is nothing quite like seeing a dream come true, and you keep making dreams come true. that is next. true. that is next.

♪ believe it or not baby... at university of phoenix... you... you... you... you could earn your... master's... for under than 11 thousand! 11... yes! 11! master's degree for under 11k in less than a year. some things are too obvious to be a coincidence. earn your competency-based master's at university of phoenix. is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start talking to a specialized urologist. because it could be peyronie's disease, or pd. it's a medical condition where there is a curve in the erection, caused by a formation of scar tissue. and an estimated 1 in 10 men may have it. but pd can be treated even without surgery. say goodbye to searching online. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today.

if you're living with dry amd, you may be at risk for developing geographic atrophy, or ga. ga can be unpredictable—and progress rapidly—leading to irreversible vision loss. now there's something you can do to... ♪ ( slow. it. down.) ♪ ♪ ( get it goin' slower.)♪ ask your doctor about izervay. ♪ (i. zer. vay.) ♪ ♪ ( gets ga goin' slower.) ♪ izervay is an eye injection. don't take it if you have an infection or active swelling in or around your eye. izervay can cause eye infection, retinal detachment, or increased risk of wet amd. izervay may temporarily increase eye pressure. do not drive or use machinery until vision has recovered after an eye injection or exam. izervay is proven to slow ga progression,

which may help preserve vision longer. ♪ ( i. zer. vay.) ♪ ♪ (gets ga goin' slower.) ♪ so shift gears and get going. don't delay. ask your doctor about izervay. jordan's sore nose let out a fiery sneeze, so dad grabbed puffs plus lotion to soothe her with ease. puffs plus lotion is gentle on sensitive skin and locks in moisture to provide soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue. (sneeze) (hooves approaching) not again. your cold is coming! your cold is coming! thanks...revere. we really need to keep zicam in the house. only if you want to shorten your cold! when you feel a cold coming,

shorten it with zicam (revere: hyah) there is nothing quite like a dream coming true and you are a girl in malawi, dreaming of going to high school is a very big dream. >> this is my dream school. i used to see girls go to the district and visit and just playing at ball sometimes, do different activities, but i would see them in a car from the school. i really fell in love with their uniforms so i felt like that could be me one day and luckily, i got selected to the school. >> she got to where the school uniform that she fell in love

with when she was just dreaming about being able to go to high school in malawi where public high school is not free and the girls' graduation rate from high school is less than half the boys' graduation rate. she knew the biggest thing standing between her and her dream was the tuition fees to attend high school. she knew her family cannot possibly afford to send her to high school or even buy her a school uniform. >> i was part of the girls who benefited from the scholarships that the church offered in the school and luckily, i got selected to the school. at that time when i came to school here, the school was maybe a few years old and they did not have many scholarships. there were missionaries that

were here and i was part of the girls who benefited from the scholarships that the church offered this school. when i talk about scholarships, i know exactly what it means. i know exactly how it was a bridge to turn my dreams into reality so when i looked at the girls, it felt like whatever dreams they said they have, i believed they would achieve them because i was also a beneficiary of some scholarship money and it made my dreams come true. >> scholarships do make dreams come true. i think we all know that. her old high school now has 60 girls in attendance there, thanks entirely to your generosity to the k.i.n.d.

fund. it provides desks like these and scholarships to girls to attend school in malawi. something happened in her first year of high school in malawi which suddenly sent her in pursuit of another dream. >> when i came here, i did not know what i wanted to become, but there were visitors that interviewed us on a youth program on radio one and on that day i said i want to be a journalist, and i went to university to pursue journalism so here i am. i am a photojournalist and come back to photograph some classes that i said and when i just

dreamt of being a journalist and doing that work in the school of the same places means so much for me. i hope the same for the girls, that they will be able to come back here in the capacity as whatever they want to be to be able to put their school back on the map. >> you can help more girls pursue their dreams by going to last word desk.msnbc.com. you can make a contribution in any amount. you can specify that your contribution is for desks or for girls scholarships and make a donation in the name of anyone on your holiday gift list and unicef will send them an acknowledgment of your gift. >> it was very emotional for me to come back here because it is a school that made my dreams come true. >> unicef hired her as the official photographer for our recent tour of malawi schools. we are scheduled to visit the high school she graduated from before becoming part of our team. it was just a lucky coincidence. we asked a few of the 60 girls

who are receiving k.i.n.d. fund scholarships at the school to tell us about their career dreams, and the first girl you will hear said she wants to be a journalist. >> i like school because i want my dreams to be fulfilled. >> might dreams are to become a journalist. >> when i finish school, i want to be a politician. >> i like school so that i can stand on my own and future and i want to be a surgeon doctor. >> journalist, politician, nurse, doctor. they have already achieved one big dream by attending high school and are aiming for even bigger dreams now. no one knows better how much your support of girls in malawi

means to them. >> scholarships change lives. it changed mine so i hope more people donate to this fund so that more girls' dreams can come to reality and there is just hope for every other girl. i come from this district in the village and they made it out here to the city and from the city to come back to my village to work and not just work, to work on education religion program so i am so excited and happy and hopeful for the future. >> you have heard me say many times here that scholarships change lives. i think that is something we all know, but there is nothing quite like seeing a life changed by a scholarship. >> i just want to say thank you.

. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after trying a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq works differently. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling as fast as 2 weeks for some. and even at the 3-year mark, many people felt this relief. rinvoq can stop joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. rinvoq can lower ability to fight infections. before treatment, test for tb and do bloodwork. serious infections, blood clots, some fatal; ...cancers, including lymphoma and skin; serious allergic reactions; gi tears; death; heart attack; and stroke occurred. cv event risk increases in age 50 plus with a heart disease risk factor. tell your doctor if you've had these events, infection, hep b or c, smoked, are pregnant or planning. don't take if allergic or have an infection. done settling? ask your rheumatologist for rinvoq. and take back what's yours. (♪♪)

what if your mobile network wasn't and tak just built toyours. work out here... ...but was designed differently to also give you blazing fast wifi where you are most of the time? reliable 5g, plus wifi speeds up to a gig where you need it most. xfinity mobile. xfinity internet customers, ask how to get a free 5g phone and a second unlimited line free for a year.

>> is in need of desk, a partnership i created with msnbc and unicef for kids to go to school in malawi. >> thank you for bringing us the school. >> she was already a great student and now she will be an even better student. i can never thank you enough. >> see how you can help at last word desk that msnbc.com. >> tonight's last words are thank you. thank you to you, the viewers of this program, and thank you to the last word team, the producers, the stage work, the producers and artists who get this work on television every night. happy holidays and good night.

♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ good evening. once again, i am stephanie ruhle