. >>> let's discuss all of it with jackie kucinich and senior editor of "the atlantic" ron brownsteinks for being with me. jackie, let me begin with you. this shouldn't surprise many people that in the span of three or four hours trump tweeted that the transition is not going smoothly and then told the reporter, what do you mean? of course it is going smoothly. we're great. he tweeted that reince priebus and rnc was terrible and then made reince priebus his chief of staff. that happened. >> that was the example we were going to use. we saw a lot of this during the primary because he thought the rnc was out to get him and then reince priebus would call him and they would talk and it would be fine. a part of this is frankly theater. donald trump feels like he needs to save face. he doesn't like that obama has been sort of poking him. the comment president obama made the other day that he could have defeated trump or he basically said that. i think really bothered donald trump. and, so, he feels there is kind of this push and this pull going on with him that, you know, while he wants to

. >> that is sherman-esque, ron brownstein. for other politicians who dance around questions whether they may run, that's how you say no. no, i'm not running for office. no, it's not going to happen. not, no, i have no intention, no, i have no plans right out in. she says no. >> look, in this campaign, the first lady proved to be an extremely effective messenger for a political message. and whether she runs for office or not and she is saying not, my guess is we're going to hear more from her in the years ahead. i mean, moving beyond the role she had played through most of the presidency into something with much more edge and bite, she was perhaps the democrat's single most effective surrogate. her speech at the convention and her speech in new hampshire about donald trump after the access hollywood tape were two of the memorable moments of the year. i'm guessing we have not heard the last of michelle obama. >> she said no, by the way. i don't often get bonus time with ron brownstein so let me take advantage of this and ask you

we'll be right back with our panel. ,,,,,,,, >> dickerson: and we're back with susan page and ron brownstein. susan, i want to start with you. russia, election, donald trump. kellyanne conway still seems to be defending the position donald trump doesn't believe russia was involved at all. what do you make of this story? >> i think the president-elect seems to be taking the attitude it's an assault on his legitimacy on his election and pushing back hard. i don't think there's any question he'll win the electoral college tomorrow and be inaugurated january 20 but that's the only reason i can think of for his stance on the conclusions of the intelligence community that russian hacked with the idea of affecting the election. maybe not every official endorses the idea it elect donald trump but there's an emerging consensus that's the case. >> the other reason is he want to reset relations with russia and acknowledging this which is more difficult to acknowledge and they insinuated the president engineered the hack which is not true. i think it makes it more difficult to move policy in the directi

so let's talk about this with ron brownstein. i want to show you what the new york attorney general said in a statement. "the trump foundation is still under investigation by this office and cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete. how big of a challenge does it present for trump as he's trying to move forward, do what people have been calling for him to do which is disentangle himself from potential conflicts of interest. >> this is the secondary front in the much bigger debate that is going to go on over the potential conflicts of interests surrounding donald trump. the foundations of charitable operations were limited at best as the excellent reporting by "the washington post" has indicated. and the attorney general has made clear that this is going to go on, their investigation is going to continue. i look at this decision by donald trump as just kind of one small step in the larger question of what kind of barriers and bright lines he's going to try to draw with his business, which is still a fluid and o

right joining me now cnn presidential historian douglas brinkley and cnn senior political analyst ron brownsteinwith you. let's sift the comments about computers aside for a moment. what he says we need to get on with our lives as it relates to russia, donald trump has been litigating the election for more than 40 days now. in that case he's not getting on with it. >> -- contrast and the point is that the argument he makes about computers we can't really know what's going on is certainly contradicted by the intelligence community which believes we know exactly what's going on. there's clear evidence kind of fingerprints in effect, digital fingerprints of russian entities involved in this hack. donald trump still seems to be processing this intervention, this russian intervention, concern about it, really, processing it mostly as in effect a kind of undermining of his victory. rather than as a national security challenge, and a precedent that has been set here that could also reverberate into elections coming in france, and germany, nr 2017 if russia does not believe there is a price for this sor

is this how foreign policy will be conducted, ron brownstein? >> no, it's a really good question. there was the original tweet earlier about china and i found myself thinking when i was reading it, okay, that went through what process before he, you know, put it out with unprecedented spelled wrong along the way. you wonder how many other people were involved? first of all, there is one president at a time and this is where this transition gets kind of strange. donald trump, you know, continuing to act like a candidate in this case kind of weighing in with opinions on the way about, you know, diplomatic matters, but i think the larger question is what is the process by which those -- you know, is there a process or is it simply him kind of reaching for his device. was rex tillerson consulted or michael flynn? i don't know the answer but i think, you know, if it's going to be this improvisational as president, there will be a lot of heartburn in the foreign policy world both here and abroad. >> eugene, quickly, ten seconds. i want to get your thoughts? >> yeah, i'm very much concer

ron brownstein and jackie cucinich. let's talk about the president in honolulu.as that a swipe at donald trump when he said we have to not turn to anger? >> it sure sounded like it. it sounded like the way we're going to hear from president obama after the election. it's hard to believe that the personal detente can survive after the inaugural. so much what -- there is a collision. but i think that inevitable. and i think that president obama's language yesterday may give you the preview or today will give you the language you might hear raising it to a higher level and talking about fundamental american valus and not only personally criticizing the president, but affirming the values that he saw in contradictions. >> it started out well. they were kornlguacordial. the president said we'll do whatever it takes to help with the transition. >> but a lot of policy disagreement coming. >> jackie, even on the policy that perhaps trump and those who support him hate the most, obama care. trump came out of that meeting and seemed oepen to keeping some facets of obama ca

let's bring in ron brownstein and douglas brinkley, good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> happy holidays. >> ron, i want to start with you and what we heard from the deputy national security advisor in response to questions about if this is the white house showing that they do not have israel's back? let's watch. >> it's just not backed up by the record. we just concluded a $38 billion ten year mou for security assistance to israel. we've had unprecedented security cooperation under this administration. the fact of the matter is -- you know from this covering the issue -- we have expressed grave concern about continued israeli settlement construction. and the fact is this settlement construction pushes far outside the boundary of even the security barrier the israelis built for themselves. it's deep. >> we know that that isn't resonating with netanyahu. how is that explanation, that characterization resonating here domestically. >> it reflects the divide. the security relationship is strong. there is a fundamental disagreement between the obama administration and the netan

joining me, ron brownstein, editor for the atlantic. betsy, and the former cia counterterrorisma counterterrori counterterrorism analyst. bipartisanship, not something we see much, especially these days on capitol hill. you have it in this statement that ryan reported on. do you expect the president-elect to be supportive, fully supportive of a bipartisan investigation? >> look, we have a tconfrontatin that may escalate to a crisis. you have an extraordinary circumstance. you've had the intelligence community make two separate conclusions. the first, broadly aaccepted, was it was russia that was behind the hacks that royaled the 2016 election. the second, most recent conclusion was from the cia that russia did that to benefit donald trump. donald trump hasn't accepted neither of the steps. he rejected again today the first, that the evidence points toward russia being involved at all. so you have this incredible separation of the incoming president not only from the intelligence community, but as john mccain said facts were stubborn thi

ron brownstein and michael o han lan, thank you very much.y new year to you both. >> happy new year. >>> we want to expand on that conversation there. phil black is live for us in london in a couple minutes as we talk more about the israeli/palestinian conflict and what it is doing to the relationship between america and britain. stay close. ck knocked over a cak onto the shag carpeting... ...and his pants ignited into flames, causing him to stop, drop and roll. luckily jack recently had geico help him with renters insurance. because all his belongings went up in flames. jack got full replacement and now has new pants he ordered from banana republic. visit geico.com and see how affordable renters insurance can be. what the prime minister's office has taken exception to were secretary kerry's comments, firstly describing the israeli government as the most extreme in the country's history, one driven by an most right wing driven by an extreme agenda. and also accusing the u.s. administration essentially of going in too hard on this issue of isr

ron brownstein, let me start with you.apparently his aides are suggesting it's a lot more complicated to hand over the business, it's a huge business, to his adult sons, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. the lawyers are still working on it. ath the end of november, he said it would be announced december 15th. >> look, this is why you had that bipartisan group of former ethics officials from the bush administration, the obama administration, the conservative author of the clinton cashbook which excoriated hillary clinton, all arguing last week that the only true solution here for donald trump is to do what donald trump has done, sell off his assets and create a true blind trust. it is going to be very difficult in practice to create separation between a trump company that is still, you know, in essence in the family, and the -- and the desire of outside parties to curry favor with the new administration. that's just a fundamental problem. then you add to what happened yesterday where donald trump said on fo

also, ron brownstein with us as well. gentleman, thank you so much. ron, i want to get your take on what elise was just saying. what do you think this is aiming at? is this specifically the election? did you get the sense that trump feels that they're trying to delegitimatize his election? >> well, look, i think the intelligence community has reached two conclusions in succession. the first one was during the fall when they said it was russian intelligence that was behind the hacks of the democratic national committee and john podesta, and all of the information provide ed by wikileaks that proved so destabilizing in the election. and more importantly, according to "the new york times" and "washington post," the cia has concluded, the intelligence agency has concluded, that that intervention in the election was designed specifically to help donald trump win the election. now, they're not saying, as elise noted, that they actually tampered with the voting machines, but they are saying they engineered a systemic series of leaks to affect public opinion a

ron brownstein. what do you make of that?ire interview. >> good morning. merry christmas, happy hanukkah. look, it's an extraordinary moment. but a continuation, i think, of a pattern we have seen. i mean the relationship between the netanyahu government, and the obama administration has been difficult and rocky and extraordinary from the start. by the way, as it was under bill clinton. for netanyahu. and i think, you know, this is kind of the book-end, i think, to when the israeli prime minister made the extraordinary intervention to come to the u.s. essentially at the invitation of the republican party to oppose president obama's iran deal. and now you have the israeli government saying that the u.s., in essence, signaled to the world that it would be willing to allow this resolution to go through. and it is just a statement of how alienated and antagonistic these two governments are. >> of course when he made that trip to the united states, addressed the joint session of congress, he did not have a meeting, or was not invi

with me, again, ron brownstein, senior editor for the atlantic and jason johnson, politics editor for root.com and political science professor at morgan state university, barbara starr also joins me, cnn pentagon correspondent. welcome back and welcome to you, barbara. i will start with you, barbara. is this unprecedented to have so many generals possibly serve in an administration? >> it appears to be so in recent times. let's start with mike flynn as national security adviser. we certainly have had that in the past where military people have served in that position, even retired. so that's one thing. to be defense secretary and be recently retired from the military, of course, this all dates back to james forrestall in the 1950s. secretary of homeland security, that department hasn't been around long enough. one of the big challenges may be the unique personalities involved. mike flynn will be the traffic manager, if you will, for national security affairs moving in and out of the white house chain. he will be the traffic manager for reports, for analysis, for decision making, for m

ron brownstein, he clearly enjoys the showmanship aspect of all of this, donald trump.was so evident in that speech in cincinnati last night. >> yeah, absolutely. as i said, it's not unusual for presidents to rally their supporters, but they're doing so with a teleprompter, a carefully prepared remarks. donald trump was still basically winging it. as the author of the phrase of "the blue wall," i was glad to hear him talking about it being shattered in pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin. but you wonder once he gets into the white house itself, will a communications team be able to establish more kind of structure around what he does on the stump? because the words oh of a president, as you've been talking about with taiwan today, matter enormously. that is the real difference here. i think the degree of kind of free flowing, extemporaneous, ad hoc continuation of the campaign. we'll see if that can continue into office itself. >> let's talk about what jeffrey toobin reported, the positive jobs numbers that came out today. 4.6% unemployment, the lowest in nine years.

. >> ron brownstein, "time" magazine, person of the year, not a huge surprise, donald trump. he was elected president of the united states. clearly the president-elect very pleased about this. but the sort of sub-headline on the cover of "time" magazine said "the divided states of america." not the united states of america, the divided states of america. you have been looking closely at the division that currently exists in the united states. do you -- do americans believe that this new incoming president will be able to unify the country? >> i think the headline, the sub-head was pretty accurate. in the election. 60% of us live in counties decided by a landslide one way or another. we have a new poll out today, and we asked two questions. do you think donald trump will be able to unify the country or do you think we'll remain divided and we also asked do you think he'll try to govern as the president of all americans or be biased against certain groups of people? 80% of clinton voters said he would continue to be a divider and 90% of trump voters said he would continue to be

. >> jackie kucinich and solina zito and ron brownstein. jackie, let's talk more about rex tillerson since there are, you know, obviously, conflicting impressions and opinions of him. donald trump supporters, i think, and he, feel isn't it better to have someone who has dealt with vladimir putin, who knows vladimir putin rather than a novelist who doesn't know how to approach this guy? they have a point about that. >> that's what you'll hear ecoed throughout the campaign and people who do like rex tillerson. this is bigger than him. this is about russia. a pick like rex tillerson, someone who has a friendly relationship with vladimir putin sends to the united states allies. that's what he's going to be struggling against these confirmation hearings no indication it will not be contentious and probably excellent television. >> solina, trump is putting tillerson in a box, russia was involved with the hacking. that's what seems clear from the response of him and his team. but that's putting tillerson in a box because now it's making his russia

cnn's senior political analyst, ron brownstein. innocent civilians were murdered in the treat.other islamic terrorists slaughter christians in their communities and places of worships. he is blaming islamic terrorism. >> it has the hallmarks of what we've seen before. and circumstantial evidence as islamic terror. it is jumping the gun. it is one thing the to that as a candidate, another as a president. it's like when people have things spelled incorrectly. what is the process that the president elect is going through as he puts this out to the world. who is reading it? is it him acting instantly? that is going to be different as president than as candidate. >> everything that has happened from turkey to germany, it presents a very complicated, complex world. it would be a lot for a president elect coming in. >> a degree of conflict that we have not seen. some of the leaks that have come out, you much discomfort the media can make for a president. his secretary of state, with no experience. a national security adviser who has been at odds with most of the intelligence. the defe

a phrase that ron brownstein coined. >>> federal reserve chief janet yellen hiking interest rates yesterday and offering this message to the soon-to-be boss, donald trump. >> i will not offer the incomingmeincoming president advice about policy. i'm a strong believer in the independence of the fed. >> yellen said the if i hfed ha in touch with the transition team and she intends to serve out her four-year term ending in february of 2018. trump was critical of yellen during the campaign. >> this janet yellen of the fed, the fed is doing political. the fed is more political and secretary clinton. >> janet yellen should have raised the rates. she is not doing it because the obama administration and the president doesn't want her to. >> i think she is very political. to a certain extent, she should be ashamed of herself. >> congress gives the fed the power to act independently. it does not need approval from in government to move the rates. there is some skepticism that the move could be inspired in the political world. >>> a new truce. a cease-fire declared in syria. will it last long enough t

all right let's bring in senior political analyst ron brownstein and contributing editor for time magazineade newton small. good to see both of you. ron, mattis is the latest general picked by trump. in the case of mattis there will need to be a congressional waiver. there needs to be a seven years separation, it's only been three years. >> i think he's going to get the waiver. he's respected on both sides of the aisle. there is hesitation among some in congress on both sides about breaking the precedent of a seven year waiting period which only george marshall the administrator of the victory over hitler in world war ii has made this jump. i don't think it's going to be a problem. look, i think in the mattis appointment you see the larger pattern. with a few very notable exceptions like jeff sessions, most of this cabinet is a cabinet you might have seen from almost any republican who was elected. it is more reflecting the general balance of power in the gop that might have been expected. the edgiest picks have been bannon and flynn. >> where is the anti-establishment? >> some of these pi

. >> "outfront" now ron brownstein. senior editor of the atlantic. and --. and josh rogan.hington post columnist. aaron, you have written speeches like this we heard today. did asecretary kerry break new ground? >> basically on one issue i think. and i've tried to research to see if we'd made comment on it. and that is the jerusalem issue the new articulation in public of a long-standing obama administration in negotiations. by and large this was a --. a defense of what the obama administration considers to be a strong relationship with israel and a very harsh attack it seems to me on the settlement enterprise which took up a large portion of the speech. >> even before kerry spoke netanyahu reached out very obviously thanking donald trump for his tweet and for his warm friendship and clear cut support for israel. how different do you think -- or what are you hearing -- how different will be the u.s./sbreel relationship be come january 20th? >> i think we're going to sea a sudden and immediate shift. they will be as close as lips and teeth. they will be perfectly aligned. an

ron brownstein. >> he left us hanging there.y is don king there and why is trump appearing with him is the big question for me. >> one of many questions. something, you know, already kind of routine about donald trump sending us mixed messages. i was looking last night at the crawl on one of the shows and donald trump sends mixed messages on and you can save that part and just the part after the colon. obama in tranition or some kind of other issue. there's an issue here in twitter and his first impulse is to lash out on twitter. when he gets more time to reflect, he tries to be more diplomatic. a sense in which they see a certain value in kind of being unpredictable in this way. but the point of all these mixed signals may be that we're sitting here talking about mixed signals. >> the question is. you can sort of laugh it off a bit in this instance saying, tweeting that the transition is not going smooth and telling a reporter, what are you talking about? of course it's going smoothly. what if you're dealing with foreign leader

. >> ron brownstein, it's a remarkable statement. evelyn knows her stuff. she served in the defense department. she's seen the intelligence on russia. what happens in that situation? we talked a lot about, well, mattis is a reliable guy, tillerson has these ties but he has a lot of experience. you talk about people around donald trump, he made some good hires there, but at the end of the day, trump is the decisionmaker. are american checks and balances enough to balance decisions that could endanger the country? >> well, you know, potentially we will find out. i don't know if we're at the point of ep dangering the country yet, but there's no question as jeffrey said that donald trump has told us over and over again -- and this is such a provocative moment to do this after the obama administration has taken probably the sternest steps even if they were not as strong as some would have liked that we've seen in response to cyber intrusions to immediately praise putin is provocative. look at the populist, nativist movements that are emerging in europe and many

i'm joined by assistant editor for the atlantic, ron brownstein and washington correspondent for the new yorker, ryan lizza. so ron, is this a good deal for the american worker or has donald trump embarked on this slippery slope that every company will expect to get huge tax incentives to stay in the united states? >> yes. >> that's a yes? >> yes. for the carrier workers, this is a very good day. it's a good day for the trump administration. but it is a question whether this is a sustainable model. really, there is a much larger debate encapsulated in this which is, it is unlikely that individual interventions in the decisions of individual companies is going to make a big dent in the long-term trajectory of a more automated and globalized manufacturing supply chain that has reduced the amount of manufacturing jobs in the u.s. for decades even as our output has increased. that's a big structural change that's not going to be reversed. but what you really see here i think is the big question is that donald trump has a whole series of policies that corporate leaders have long sought. he

i'm joined by cnn senior political analyst, ron brownstein. cnn political commentator and washington correspondent for the new yorker, ryan lizza and cnn political analyst and "the washington post" columnist josh rogen. all-star panel ahead of christmas. thank you for being here. what i find fascinating is trump saying this morning on the telephone, let it be an arms race, we will outmatch them at every path and outlast them all. this is the first real aggressive posture we have seen from the president-elect towards putin or towards russia at all. why now, why about nuclear weapons? >> right. there's a lot on the other side of the ledger. you know, as boris said, his comments about nuclear weapons go back into the campaign. the question i find myself wondering is there's no doubt that many voters, for many voters who supported donald trump, his principal asset was that he was a disruptor, he would bring change to the political system. but when you kind of look across the board at now the nuclear arms posture, at our relations with china and th

the realities, joining us now cnn senior political analyst and senior editor of the atlantic ron brownsteinn business correspondent and early start anchor our friend christine romans. not that you're not, ron. but let me say to you let's start with what's going on in berlin. donald trump says i was right. it's islamic terror. no surprise there. and he says, that's why i'm 100% right about what to do about it. we talk to kellyanne conway. they're backing away from the idea of targeting muslims. i asked her directly several times, of course, will muslims be something that is on your checklist? she said no. >> oh. >> speechless. >> no, that was the place where he ended in the campaign. first of all, it was -- it was -- it was enjoyable to watch you and kellyanne exchange your holiday pleasantries this morning. but look, i mean, donald trump did move during the campaign. and i think although his words yesterday were -- or the other day were characteristically okay it suggested he is going forward in the same place where he had ended. where he had moved from the complete and total ban as he put

cnn senior political analyst and senior editor for the atlantic, ron brownstein. cnn political analyst and "usa today" columnist joseph powers, and senior law enforcement analyst and fbi assistant director tom fuentes. great to have all of you. ron let's talk about this rift that has emerged between the obama administration and the trump transition over russia. you heard mr. trump going after josh earnest. what does all this mean? >> first of all, i don't think we have seen anything quite like it. the pattern of kind of biting your lip no matter how unhappy you are about the election result, and being civil toward the incoming and outgoing administrations, being civil toward each other, really is the rule in american politics. we are seeing, i think, a kind of rift or a scene unfold that we haven't seen before. how many times have we said that in the last year? i think it does increase the incentive for the obama administration to be as aggressive as they can in both investigating what happened and making public their view of what happened. because i think what you

i'm joined by cnn political analyst and senior editor at the atlantic, ron brownstein and politics editor at the root.com, and political science and communications professor, jason johnson. welcome to both of you. jason, it appears that donald trump is also going to use executive actions. so is paul ryan putting his eggs in a basket too soon? >> i mean, look, everyone has a problem with a president using their executive power when it's not what you want. you know, there are lessons that we could make a video about paul ryan as well that it's congress' job to implement a budget, to actually do something about when a president puts someone for the supreme court. this is just spiking the football, the republicans want to be snide because they won the presidency but donald trump is going to use executive orders just like barack obama did because when you don't think congress is acting fast enough that's what you do. >> yeah. >> the cat's out of the bag. it's been happening not just with president obama but with presidents past, too. >> the long-term trend is clearly toward presidents pushing

cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein and "washington examiner" reporter selena zito. >> put downhe tweeter machine. >> it works. look how much time all of us in the media spend responding. now potentially as president is has proved to be a real weapon for him. a lot of headaches and spends a lot of time on something he wants us to spend time on. >> if i was news executive, i would cover his tweets. i said i would be more judicious about it. but, really, i think that, do you think we should be more judicious -- because i'm sure some things that people tweet and donald trump tweets. >> look, historically, everything the president of the united states says is news. and i think this is a new way of saying it. but, being aware that what he is doing is often is try to drive a dialogue in a certain direction, that is a reality. i think you can't ignore it. but maybe he needs to be kept in better perspective. >> let's talk about some of the tweets not from the president-elect, but with his team here with new york city. mayor de blasio asked to cover the cost to protect the president-elec

lieberman in jerusalem, cnn's foreign affairs correspondent elise abbott and cnn political analyst ron brownsteinelise, a lot of this comes back, when we look at the resolution that passed, we heard over and over again, i heard it from david key, the spokesman for netanyahu, last night, they have ironclad proof that the obama administration was behind this, that they orchestrated this, they cole luluded to get this resolution introduced and through. you have new information about what proof that is is even though they're not talking about it. >> the israelis are not being explicit about how they know this but i spoke to a senior israeli official a short time ago and they're sharpening the accusations against the united states. saying the obama administration led by his secretary and staff pushed the approval of the u.n. resolution and also basically saying they're hearing this from arab sources, that secretary kerry was what they're calling a covert partner in every detail of the resolution, right, so it's from its drafting to its conception to pushing it through some of these other members and p

. >>> it's not just that subject but let's bring in tom lovianco and ron brownstein. good morning to you both. let's talk about the cabinet now that still has to be finished off, as it were, and the prime position of secretary of state. we're down to, i guess, the final four, and, ron, let me start off. who do you think it's going to be? >> i don't think we know. it has become kind of the symbolic flashpoint of this cabinet selection process by donald trump, which has mixed appointments that no one else would have made, particularly in the white house with general mike flynn as national security advisor and steve bannon as a senior advisor. hard to imagine any other republican making those choices with a number of other choices. you can imagine nikki haley in other republican cabinets. here you have that kind of tension really being brought on the one hand rudy giuliani who was as loyal and as active of a supporter as donald trump would have. he would face a lot of questioning and a series of other choices. mitt romney, general petraeus, bob corker perhaps in the sena

ron brownstein is here, cnn senior political analyst and senior editor for the atlantic. guys, thanks for being here. jim, the call between donald trump and the taiwanese president, what is your take on the real impact now, especially as we saw in "the washington post" reporting this morning that this call was in the works for weeks, maybe months. >> that's right. that fights the initial spin, which was this was just one of many congratulatory phone calls that donald trump received as opposed to arranged. here's the thing. i spent a lot of time covering china and in china. china is extremely sensitive to the most minor shifts in rhetoric, diplomatic signals, policy shifts, et cetera. to have the president-elect tweet out, we know the way donald trump uses twitter, this is expressions of his policy positions, to have a president-elect tweet out two very, i don't know if antagonistic is the right word, but very firm statement, shall we say, on major policy issues between the u.s. and china, economic policy, foreign policy with the south china sea, that signal a substantive

cnn political director david chalian and cnn political analyst ron brownstein.t do you make of what giuliani said? >> it's a little different than what we heard. kellyanne conway the trump adviser say when she called it a mutual decision, when it was announced giuliani will not be getting a job. rudy giuliani made it clear he wanted to be secretary of state, and after looking at the possibility of that, donald trump came to the conclusion that's not who he wanted for secretary of state. we know that there were talks about homeland security, other agencies, but giuliani really sort of was like state or bust. and you heard him. i think what really honestly he said there was it had to do with his personal life, his personal business dealings. he would have had a really tough vetting process to get through even though he likely would have been confirmed to any position. but i think a lot of the things we saw about private speeches, working for foreign governments we saw during the campaign with hillary clinton, rudy giuliani would have had very similar circumstances

. >> dickerson: susan page, ron brow brownstein. thank you.back. [000:56:09;00] yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ knowing where you stand. it's never been easier. except when it comes to your retirement plan. but at fidelity, we're making retirement planning clearer. and it all starts with getting your fidelity retirement score. in 60 seconds, you'll know where you stand. and together, we'll help you make decisions for your plan... to keep you on track. ♪ time to think of your future it's your retirement. know where you stand. >> dickerson: that's it for us today. thanks for watching. next week we'll be here with stephen co stephen