trump supporter and contributor to "the hill" kayleigh mcenany. matt lewis, steen your contributor at the "daily caller." "washington post" assistant editor david swerdlick. matt, in effect, president obama picking two fights here, one with hillary clinton, at least throwing a jab that way, but at donald trump saying, listen, if i'd gone up against you, i would have taken you down. >> yeah. >> i would have been able to keep that -- >> what a good political athlete should believe. >> yeah. >> whether it's true or not. >> is it true? >> one of the counterfactuals, would joe lewis beat muhammad ali? they're both heavy weights. barack obama is a much more charismatic, more talented politician than hillary clinton so my copout answer i think, though, is this. if it's 2012, i think barack obama would have been re-elected and would have beat donald trump. by the time you get around to 2016 as donald trump's tweet said, you have things like isis, look at the brexit vote, i think things were trending in donald trump's direction. i'm not so sure barack obam

back with me, kayleigh mcenany, nayyera haq, jamie gangel. very senior members of the former bush administration. what have they been telling you? >> so i have to tell you they were not so concerned that this call took place. they say it's okay to ba little l unpredictable. he's president-elect, not president yet. that said, despite all this reporting that this was all planned out, they were not under the impression it was planned out and what they're concerned about is winging it. if there's a genuine strategy behind doing something like this, then that's one thing, but they were concerned that, you know, not just taiwan, when he spoke to the british prime minister, he said if you're ever in washington, come and see me. pakistan, you're fantastic. >> extraordinary. >> that's what they don't like. this needs to be a thoughtful process. >> so kayleigh, how close is trump toward what could be the most crucial decision here that we are awaiting, right? we understand he's very close to making a decision but he has greatly enjoyed the public parad

kayleigh mcenany, and bakari sellers.ayleigh, smug to be here. >> smug to be here, always. >> inside joke. >> yes. >> you have to watch snl. donald trump has delivered. does he deserve credit? >> i think you have to give him some credit. i think you would be somewhat rude and dismissive of the 850 families that now get to keep their jobs here in the united states. those people who have bills to pay. you have to recognize that. and you know, we can get down in the weeds and look at this from a microlevel and look at the fact that but for mike pence being the governor of indiana it doesn't happen. you can look at corporate welfare. it lacked any transparency, but i want to look at it from the macro level so we understand how big this job of president is. donald trump literally has to create 5,000 jobs a day for 30 days to equal the number of jobs created by barack obama last month. donald trump literally has to create 1,000 jobs a week for the next 30 years to total the amount of jobs that barack obama saved during the auto

let kayleigh respond. >> it is the facts.is what we're dealing with here. >> no, i know we like to -- >> let kayleigh respond. >> all right. >> let kayleigh respond. >> this is the tactic of the left. you, every time, tvs got two trump's a racist, now bannon is a racist. >> i didn't say trump's a racist. >> that's always the first go-to argument. jeff sessions is not a racist. he's a sitting senator who's -- >> i'm using facts, kayleigh. i'm using facts. >> and the choice for secretary of education just because he's for school choice doesn't mean she's against public education. >> i think both position are clear. >> look, here's the problem, right? so there going to be philosophical differences, right? democrats are going say that betsy devos, the secretary of education, does admit is going to dislike public schools and hate public education which is not true. i mean, betsy devos cares a lot about kids in public schools. she happens to be think there's a way of diversifying, creating competition in the public school system. o

kayleigh mcenany and bakari sellers.ela rye, former executive director of the congressional black caucus. bakari bill o'reilly launched quite a firestorm. let's listen to him describe what he says is the hidden reason behind calls to abolish the electoral college. >> the left sees white privilege in america as an oppressive force that must be done away with. therefore, white working class voters must be marginalized and what better way to do that than center the voting power in the cities? very few commentators will tell you that the heart of liberalism in america today is based on race. it permeates almost every issue. that white men have set up a system of oppression. that system must be destroyed. bernie sanders pedaled that. some extent, hillary clinton did. and the liberal media tries to sell that all day long. 7 left wants power taken away from the white establishment, they want a profound change in the way america is run. taking voting power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that. >> so he me

let me bring in kayleigh mcthenny and angela rye. kayleigh, let me get to you. we have trump's response to that putin letter. he writes "a very nice letter from vladimir putin, his thoughts are so correct. i hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts and we don't have to travel an alternate path. that. >> that was fascinating. it was like an add monosnigs mog it would be great if we can work things out but if you decide to go an alternate path we will have to take one and what does that mean? it would probably come in the form of sanctions. we know the united states economy is 13 times the size of russia's. we know donald trump has appointed rex tillerson as secretary of state. he's obviously an expert of oil and gas being the head of exxonmobil and we know russia thrives on oil and gas so he has the perfect secretary of state where if russia goes off course and tries any funny business under the trump administration he has the secretary of state who knows how to make it hurt for russia. we hope he can make russia to some partner but if history is an

you used a phrase, kayleigh, blind trust, which we throw around a lot. a trust is only blind if the beneficiary has no idea of its contents. that's why we call it blind. there's lots of trusts that are not blind but if you say mr. kushner, i think president-elect trump, is required to have by ethics, by honesty, by morality, by the public interest to have a blind trust, that means they must liquidate. i know that -- >> said he would. >> good for him. that's the standard i'm looking for. then you read treasury -- hank paulson did this, he had a half a billion dollar stake in goldman sachs. he was president bush's treasury secretary. there's a provision, by the way, which is extraordinarily generous task breaks if you have to do that for public service. some liberals have complained about that the. i think it's great. they will get huge tax break s giant, beautiful, extraordinary, tax breaks, classiest tax breaks in the world but they have to liquidate. >> that's unfair of you to ask donald trump to do that. he would be the -- he would be depriving his chi

to talk about this joining me tonight is trump supporter kayleigh mack nicenany. starting with what donald trump said about his business empire. one, it is very routine. he says it is not complicated that you, meaning the media are making it complicated. he also made this point that when i ran people knew i had a big business, as if to say, to justify keeping that. but he did go on to say that he would have an early january press conference. in your view, you are a presidential historian. is it route on the have a president with multiple business holdings around the world while he's serving as president? >> no. we've never had somebody like donald trump, a billionaire with so many different vested interests scattered around the worl. it is hard to track it for "new york times" or washington post all of his business deals. but i think he surrounds himself with greet great lawyers and they are going to find a way to help. i thought he just said is what he's been saying. we're working on it and we'll have to wait and see once he's swosh as president. >> just by the d

and i would just dispute one thing that kayleigh said there.t is not anonymous sources telling my colleagues and me at cnn this. the dhs, the director of national intelligence who put out the statement a month before the election that russia was behind the hack. tough white house, you have the president talking about it on russia being behind it. i do agree with you, and this is based in part on the fact that this is classified information. it is unnamed officials and sources who are talking about the different assessments of what the motive and. is establishing motive is hard for any investigation. did they just want to disrupt the election or help donald trump. there is disagreement there. but to be fair kayleigh, there is very public accounting and no disagreement from our sources within the intelligence community about who was behind this attack and that is the thing that donald trump is questioning. >> you are absolutely right about that and that is why i said the anonymous sources were leaking the motive. my frustration and i think congre

kayleigh mcenany. and robert rieeicreich. we heard president elect go off prompter on the first stop. more orderly in the second. what do you expect tonight? >> i -- >> some version of these two things. either hooee's going to go off prompter to some extent or. we're seeing him act every bit as donald trump the candidate did. we frequently talked about the planned pivot or the potential pivot where he was going o change his behavior. none of that has happened and that includes his tweets. his twitter behavior has been pretty familiar to what we have seen before. he's not interested in modulating or reigning in his own behavior and he clearly has something he wants to say. we may see some change once he gets into the white house and doesn't have access to his cell phone in some way. i which some anticipate will happen. but for now you are going to see somebody with a certain vision who doesn't see a problem at president elect singling out specific individuals by name. this is obviously very different doing that. pretty unusual

and kayleigh mcenany. president obama said in pretty stark language that vladimir putin hacked the u.s. election or knew about it. ordered the hack. the cia and the fbi now say they are in agreement that this happened and that the intent was at least partially, probably to help donald trump. this is a significant moment. >> there -- in a year of many significant moments this is a very significant one. i don't know how much lit do to quell the concerns from people including democrats as to why the president didn't address this more forcefully before the election and the white house answered and said they didn't want to look like they were meddling. it also sets up a point of conflict between obama and trump with whom he's gotten along pretty well. i think he was asked when they had last spoken he said not for a couple of days. there's been an enormous hunkering down within his orbit about this not saying anything different. he genuinely believes based on everyone spoken to him that this is an effort to dele

and kayleigh mcenany. alex burns and alice stewart. peter, it is difficult obviously a position for the democrats to be in and for senator warren. now the democrats trying to figure out are they now just the party of opposition? do they try to find common ground with donald trump and the republicans? because there are some issues where they theoretically could? >> i don't think there are going to be a lot frankly. even if you look at the trump infrastructure, given what we know of the trump plan. basically a give away of tax incentives to wealthy developers rather than government money, i don't think there is going to be a lot of overlap but i do think that elizabeth warren has an opportunity because she's an authentic populist. for her entire career has been in genuine opposition to the powers that be in the american financial corporate system. donald trump is a sham populous. a bogus populist. a guy who made all kind of claims how much he hates goldman sachs in his campaign and lo and behold, he's got a treasury secretary from goldma

especially my friend kayleigh who went to law school and know this is. not just violation of the letter of the law. it is violation of the spirit of the law for varied kushner to serve in any capacity in the white house -- >> [ inaudible ]. >> that's totally different. the it is first lady. >>[chatter]. >> it specifically says -- >> -- no business interests. >> one at a time. one at a time. >> my point is simple. if he is in the white house, working for white house. and he is his son-in-law, which he is, unless he divorces ivanka. it runs afoul of the anti-nepotism law. >> we doubt that congress intended to include the white house or the executive office of the president in the anti-nepotism law. >> let's not go too far into the weeds on this one particular law. >> it's important. >> i too have had -- but i recovery. and you use ads phrase blind trust. which we throw around a lot. a trust is only blind if the beneficiary has no idea of its contents. if you say mr. kushner or president elect trump is required by ethics, by honesty to have the blind trust

kayleigh, this confusion speaks to the issue we've been having since the presidential election.he idea that there is no, as of yet, clearly defined firewall between donald trump and his sons and the businesses. >> well, this event isn't happening. to me, this is a lot of nothing to see here. because you have the event holders who are saying one thing and the campaign saying they had nothing to do with this fund-raiser. they are not involved with at all. it is the organizers who conceived of this idea. and i think what we're seeing on the part of the left, there's a desperate effort to try to make donald trump into hillary clinton, the person with ethical issues when it comes to charitable foundations is not donald trump, it is in fact, hillary clinton, and there's a effort to make him into that. >> you're absolutely right. the trump transition team denies that the sons knew anything about it. but david fahrenthold points out, what that means though, if they have nothing to do with it, they had friends who thought they could raise some money for this charity using access to the t

>> kayleigh mcenany, yes, nice woman. >> what was it like six, eight, nine on one every night?> look, think there's a lot of good people over there. i think what the difference is, sean, they fundamentally believe that hillary clinton would have been a better president than donald trump. i don't believe that. i have never believed that. that's why i worked for donald trump. that's why i stood up for donald trump every chance i could on cnn, because there's a fundamental difference. washington is broken, and until now we have not had a leader beholden to special interest that is willing to go and change it. donald trump is a change agent. the american people see it. >> well said. >> now the networks are seeing it and they're going to have a great year moving forward because trump is going to change washington for the better. >> it is kind of nice to hear your comments without david axelrod and van jones getting in your grill. corey, good to see you. congratulations. >> thank you, sean. merry christmas. >> merry crist, sir. donald trump back on his thank you tour tonight. he's in

. >> no, kayleigh this is a bizarre red herring. what we're talking about, what don was asking about, the guy that's going to be national security adviser, you're right, it's a different allegation of hillary clinton involved with pedophilia, but the question is, especially when you have a candidate like donald trump who shoots from the hip like this. >> do you really -- >> no, no, let me finish. do you want a national security adviser who's sending out news links accusing the democratic candidate of being linked with pedophilia. a charge in which is totally absurd. >> peter, every time you're confronted with a difficult question, you call it a bizarre red herring. >> it was -- >> i have no -- >> never in my life. >> as a main street leftist, you have to confront the extremist on your side and your party, those are 9/11 truthers, michael moore. if you want to have me talk about the extremists in my party. >> michael moore is not a senior adviser or going to be part of any campaign or administration. go ahead, mark. >> he's a promine

and by the way, the views of the american people. >> kayleigh, what do you think? >> look, if you look at polling, it actually shows, depends which poll you look at, that people do have a good outlook for what is to come. it was only something like 30% are scared of -- >> polling aside, what do you make of michelle obama? >> i think she needs to give the president a chance. i have been encouraged that president obama at least up until yesterday when we saw josh earnest come out, has given president-elect trump a chance. i don't agree with michelle obama about not having hope. i think that's a very dire way to look at the future. i think when you look at the cabinet donald trump has put together, you see captains of industry. it looks a lot like president ronald reagan's cabinet. president reagan's cabinet had on average 6.8 years government experience, ten years less than president obama's. donald trump's is about on par with that. these are people from the private sector, people who are going to bring new ideas, new life and i think that to not have hope, i think

. >> kayleigh mcenany. i've asked of many trump supporters. i asked of mccain and graham earlier today and chris collins, a trump supporter earlier. why? and i can't get a answer to the question. why is donald trump fighting back so much against the judgment of the u.s. intelligence agencies and senators graham and mccain republican senators said a hundred members of the senate many have been briefed on the intelligence. why is he fighting them on this assessment that russia is behind the hacking? >> well i think it is important that we give this some context. there were some unusual happenings in the intelligence community. namely the fact that you had certain members of the intelligence community convertly leaking parts of this investigation to the "new york times," leaking the motive of what russia was after saying russia was after electing donald trump. it ended up being that that was the conclusion of the entirety of the intelligence community. on december 16th the fbi came out and said we agree. now there is complete coalescence of the i

this is 10-year-old kayleigh rogers. she also had adhd. keep that in mind. this is her performance. it's gone viral. ♪ many miles and journeys longed for you ♪ ♪ and as a place ♪ they gave and cried out oh hallelujah ♪ ♪ hallelujah hallelujah ♪ hallelujah hallelujah >> beautiful. if it's not beautiful enough. she's very shy. >> thank you, sal. >> when she started school, she wouldn't even read out loud in class. so she stood there in front of that entire audience and that chorus and sang. >> you know what, we all know this too, hoda, whether you're making the music for people or in the audience receiving the music, there's healing properties in music. >> no kidding. >> some music. not today on i-hoda but, you know. >> wait and see. all right. you turn on your pandora and ask for kathie lee music, baby, you're going to get -- >> when you say -- you have kathie lee station on pandora which i do have, you get barbra streisand comes up. this is who comes up. they do -- it's barbra -- >> ce li ne. >> yeah, people like that. >> cher. >> people like that. >> you're going to like this one.

this isn't about whether as the -- >> do you know what kayleigh, then don't say he was because you don't know. a. >> -- >> but that is not the same thing as the briefing he received today. and the thought that he was so busy as president elect he couldn't find time to have an informational briefing from outside of his own advisor astounds me. and i'd rather not be worried at this moment and feel more confident. >> i think the reality is even though it understandably concerns you is people are going to give him wide latitude. they know president elect trump won in a different way. campaigned in a different way. policiwise he's doing the reverse kissinger. getting close to russia and pushing china away. so people are going to give him broad hathd. i think one of the the interesting things about where president elect trump is, like him or not he's had a relate live good transition. he's announced a number of people at this point. poll numbers seem to be in his favor. the dow is up, maybe in record territory soon. and christine, i this i the reality is, even if he think the reality is the wa

kayleigh mac nain mcananecanane. he could be missing key details? obviously not yet the president. it would be a different ball game. we'll see what happens once he becomes presidents. but if you look at what happened yesterday he very much quickly took to twitter and made some statements that were blaming radical islamic terrorists. it is not clear if that was based on information he had received or if that was his assumption or where that came from in the moment he was tweeting it and sending out these press releases and it raises the question. if he's not getting the information, then where is he getting it from? and is he passing along things that are inaccurate? i think that is the more pressing con sirn. once he's president the real concern is he gets caught somewhere he doesn't have advisors handy and has to make a decision on limited data. >> he's got 30 days to study up. there is a lot going on in the world right now. there are these attacks. it just seems to me this would be the exact moment when you want to get as much information as poss

and kayleigh mcenany. jeffrey what do you think happened with mayor giuliani? clearly he's someone who had been very very loyal to donald trump. donald trump prizes loyalty. we had been told early on he was a favorite among a lot of the staff. because of that loyalty. >> i have no idea. but i will say this. i thought he was the next attorney general to the united states. i think jeff sessions is terrific. >> but i really did think that was the most obvious spot for him rather than the state department. apparently he was interested in that and this went so far and is now off the table. at some point presidents like to have outside advisors. the kitchen cabinet," as the phrase came to be in the jackson administration. and i think he'll probably approximate part of that. >> do you buy that there wasn't one cabinet position he was interested? >> reportedly he wasn't interested in ag. he set sights on the state department. and i suppose how loyal you were and how early you got in and he probably thought he had a very strong hand. and that he may have overplayed his

back with our panel, margaret hoover, kerstin powers, kayleigh mcenany and jean pierre. it is interesting. we saw on the second stop of this so-called thank you tour. donald trump continues to raise the bar in terms of expectations. we've seen candidates often who, you know, say one thing on the campaign trail, then as they start to take on the mantle of president, start to try to tamp down expectations. donald trump is saying, you know, people are going to get off welfare, they're going to like their jobs, they're going to love to work, they're going to want to work, they're going to be incentivized. you know, the military is going to have the best equipment. it's going to be clean, it's going to be brand-new. >> made by americans in america to sound so much like, if you like your health care, you can keep it. be very careful what you promise. these are very big promises and very hard things to implement. very difficult things. you can't just change u.s. trade policy quickly in four years. you have a congress, you have deals, you have -- so it does -- that's exactly wha

kayleigh raises a third priority, which is manage expectations. we saw it about barack obama, we saw it about bill clinton, outsiders come in running on change. about this time is they ease off on the after burners, whoa, this is going to take a long time. he did not. is still on over drive. if i were a trump adviser i would still worry we are going to overpromise and under deliver. democrats are recording every minute on videotape, and if everything he says doesn't come through it will look like a betrayal. >> i was thinking back to state of the union where presidents have a laundry list of pie in the sky idea goes. there was some of that, but it was more than that. >> i think it was a preview of the first speech he's going to give, not a state of the union but a joint address to congress in february or so. he said it straight out when he caught himself saying, starting to talk about poll numbers. he said we're not talking about the numbers now, we're bringing the country together. clearly it was an instruction in his mind and an out loud reminde

trump supporter kayleigh mcenany is here. democratic strategist jonathan tasini. trump supporter alice stewart joins us along with radio host and democrat, bill press. this announcement, donald trump tweeting out he's going to announce secretary of state tomorrow. we've seen such a cavalcade of potential nominees. seems like the exxonmobil ceo rex tillerson is the leading candidate at this point, also raises the questions about what was that stuff about mitt romney, that was for real, was that something else? >> i suspect that was for real. there may have been some aspect of it to extract a certain amount of graveling from romney. i think he was going about this in a pretty rigorous way thinking about how he wanted to be represented around the word, who he wanted around him. rex tillerson is a very unconventional, but interesting choice. an excellent businessman, somebody with a lot of experience and -- >> global experience. >> global experience with a lot of foreign leaders who's traveling the world, who knows vladimir putin well. and in fact, that good relations

and kayleigh mcenany. dana, you just heard jim acosta. they are chanting "lock her up". you her phil mattingly. they want to rub it in the face. that is what the people of the crowd want. but donald trump is going to be broadcast live around the country. what is at stake tonight? >> tune in. we looked at the report when they were screaming lock her up. which is the campaign rhetoric at every single rally and as you said very well that the president elect has said very clearly he's not going to pursue now. it is going to make a lot of people there who loved to chant that unhappy. having said that, you know, i think that this is going to be a fascinating to watch. because i was told that he's hoping to do a lot of these rallies. throughout his presidency because first of all it keeps him in touch with voters, which should be applauded and americans. but also it is because it is his oxygen. it is who he is. he's a performer and feeds off the crowds and to take that away from him specially when he's in the ultimate bubble which is the oval office. that would be very difficul

kayleigh mcenany and maria cardona.is really happening and it's been happening for two weeks now. donald trump talking about how much he likes barack obama. he means it. now it is not just that he likes him h. he's asking him for advice on cabinet picks. this is truly happening. >> right. they are besties now. go back six months or seven months and barack obama potentially was even a citizen in the united states or qualified to hold the office. going back over that time i truly don't believe donald trump ever thought barack obama wasn't born in the united states but did it because it helped him politically and it drew a lot of attention. but, you know, i do think both men get credit because donald trump is reaching out to somebody that understanding what the situation is right now. has just gone through eight years and barack obama is embracing it. that is a small club of people who have actually served in that office. david has been with four of them. so we should embrace the fact. the next move is when will he call bi

also this morning, authorities have confirmed that 20-year-old ma kayleigh gregory was among the deadudent at san francisco state university. she was studying child development. she had gone to the electronic music show on friday night with her boyfriend, alex investigate a. vega has not been heard of since the fire. there are only nine victim that's have been tentatively identified at this point. their families have not been notified. there is one victim still at this point that investigators say they are having difficulty trying to identify. we are learning their names and learning some about the lives that they were leading. >> you mentioned, alex vega. in the hours after the fire, his mother got on his facebook and said this is alex's mom, if anyone has seen or heard -- the desperation, it was such a short message but meant so much. for them not to have any closure either way all these days out. >> you can't imagine going this long and not knowing and -- and thinking, believing if you haven't heard from them at this point, then he must have been inside that warehouse. it must be a