Thousands poured into the streets to disown the next american president and a polarizing election that fueled racial tension and reports of minorities being harassed. Mr. Trump downplaying these demonstrations. I think in some cases you have professional protesters and we had it, if you look at wikileaks, we you think those people down there were professional . I think some of them will be professional. Today, mr. Trump has only fueled racial concerns with the hiring of his campaign ceo, steve bannon has close ties to the altright fringe, including White Nationalists. His rise to bring the right hand man to the presidency is stirring deep concerns in washington and beyond. We have a lot to cover. Lets begin in washington with phil mattingly. Good morning. Reporter if you were surprised steve bannon is on his way to the white house you probably havent been paying close attention the last six weeks to Donald Trumps campaign. Bannon was the Campaign Chairman and also an extremely close adviser. Extremely close adviser in a small group of very close advisers. People around the trump orbit always said and always thought bannon would eventually head into the white house and continue some kind of role there. That said, the blowback also very predictable when you look across the board at what steve bannon has done over the course of his career, it has been fierce, it has been fast and it has come not just from democrats, not just from certain civil Rights Groups but kind of across the board. Republicans included. One thing we have seen, groups immediately firing back. Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center said quote, trump should rescind this hire. In his victory speech, trump said he intended to be president for quote, all maenamericans. The Antidefamation League saying quote, it is a sad day when a man who presided over the website of the altright, a looseknit group of White Nationalists and racists is slated to be a senior staff member in the peoples house. Carol, thats just a small sampling of what we have heard. You can also hear it talking to people in former administrations, both democratic and republican, scratching their head by this move and outing raged by this move. Its interesting in the wake of Donald Trumps interview on 60 minutes where he said this about some of his supporters harassing minorities. Im very surprised to hear that. I hate to hear that. I hate to hear that. You do hear it. I dont hear it. You are not seeing this . I think its a very small amount. Do you want to say anything to those people . I would say dont do it. Thats terrible. Im going to bring this country together. They are harassing latinos, muslims i am so saddened to hear that. I say stop it. If it helps. I will say it right to the camera. Stop it. Reporter if theres been one consistent theme to Donald Trumps public remarks since his shocking election, its been about bringing the country together. I think thats what you have heard from both republicans and democrats wondering why this hire would be made, particularly his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, rnc chairman, also named yesterday. Thats the kind of hire people are citing as a really good example of somebody who wants to figure out how to make things work in washington. Bannon, less so. As i noted, its important to note as we watch hires come out over the next couple days, donald trump was very close to his internal campaign apparatus. The expectation is most if not all of those folks will make their way into the white house, steve bannon leading the way. Phil mattingly live from washington. President obama will hold a News Conference today and will open it up to reporters questions. Kind of unusual, right . Lets head to washington to the white house and cnns athena jones. Good morning. Reporter good morning. This is the president s first chance to really respond in a long and more thoughtful way to the results of last tuesday. We did hear from him in the rose garden the day after the election. We heard from him briefly after that meeting on thursday with president elect donald trump but this is the first chance to answer questions about many of the things hes feeling about the results of the election and also the impact it could have on his legacy, on many of his policy achievements over the course of these eight years. As you mentioned, hes having this press conference right before he departs on his last Major International trip. Hes traveling to greece, germany and peru, where he will talk to World Leaders. What will be his message to World Leaders about the future under a donald Trump Presidency . There are many, many issues that could come up. Everything from how he feels about how the election went down, what went wrong, whether he feels personally insulted that for instance, that black voters didnt come out the same level for Hillary Clinton as they did for him. He may also be asked about Donald Trumps plans to dismantle many parts of his legacy and also of course, about Foreign Policy and some of the changes that could be in store under donald trump. There are a lot of topics to discuss this afternoon at that press conference. Should be fascinating. Thanks so much. Perhaps president obama will find a way to help mr. Trump unite the nation, but two more demonstrations are planned today in tucson and in los angeles. On sunday, the protests spread to the football field. Tampa bay buccaneers wide receiver mike evans took a knee during the National Anthem telling reporters its his way of protesting the president elect. I dont want to, you know, disrespect the veterans or anything. The men and women that served this country, im forever indebted to them. But the things thats been going on in america lately, im not going to stand for that. When Ashton Kutcher comes out and said we have been punkd i will stand again. Its not about the republican or Democrat Party or anything like that. Its just who he is. Its welldocumented what hes done and im not going to stand for something i dont believe in. Lets talk about this and more. Joining me, Patricia Murphy from the daily beast and roll call, matt biser, Deputy Bureau chief of the boston globe, andre bower, and democratic strategist maria cardona. Welcome to all of you. Andre, there are more protests being planned, especially out west. You heard what that tampa bay buccaneer said. Your thoughts . If Hillary Clinton had been elect elected, im a continued optimist no matter what. I would look for the good things in Hillary Clinton and look forward to at least giving her an opportunity to show. I think if you have seen anything from donald trump, hes shown unbelievable humility after winning this election. Hes actually even looked at compromise, hes looked at softening on obamacare, meeting with the president. I think hes tremendously shown leadership and the country should come together. Anybody that is holding hostility or wants to go out and protest now are welcome to do that, but im not sure what i havent seen a goal towards accomplishing anything. I havent seen where they had a directive or something they would like him to respond to. Its just we are opposed to it, we dont like it and this doesnt really change our move our country forward in any way. I do want to ask that question. What are the protesters exactly wanting . Well, i think the president elect would do himself a big favor if he actually tries to maybe bring some of these leaders of these communities who are so scared and so concerned because you know, i will agree with andre on one thing. Donald trump has said the right things. His speech on Election Night was magnanimous, what he said on 60 minutes that he wants to be the president for everybody. But five minutes of nice words is not going to make up for 15 months of what has been insults and language based on bigotry and racism and mysogeny. He should bring people together, have leaders come to the white house of all of these communities of color who are scared, concerned about what a Trump Presidency would mean. He should make a national speech. He should put policies and i think substance behind what he says in terms of wanting to be the president for all americans and not just the president for the supporters that brought him in. So in light of that, president carol wait a second. I want to ask this of patricia. President obama is going to hold a News Conference later today. Reporters will ask him questions and im sure there will be questions about the protests. What response what responsibility does obama have to sort of quiet things down out there . I think that we will, if hes asked about it, i certainly think we will hear the president address the protests but i think he will also stand firmly behind peoples right to protest. This was such an emotional election. The emotions dont turn off, they dont go away after an election, especially when the election is such a surprise to those protesters. They didnt think this day would come. I think the president will acknowledge their right to do that but certainly, he will say theres no place for violence, theres certainly no place to be irresponsibly protesting. If hes asked about it he will certainly address that but he wont take away these peoples right to feel the way they feel and to respond the way they feel like they need to respond as long as theres nothing illegal about it. I do think donald trump, the Biggest Surprise to me last night was when he looked straight into the camera and told people who are harassing minorities to stop it. Thats not anything any of us heard him say during the campaign and so i think he gets credit for that. I think it will be interesting to see how he deals with this. Matt, he has softened his rhetoric even when it comes to building this big, beautiful wall, right . If you look on his website he says he will build this big inpenetrable wall and have mexico pay for it. Thats not what he said last night. Are you really going to build a wall . Yes. They are talking about a fence in the republican congress. Would you accept a fence . For certain areas, i would. But certain areas, the wall is more appropriate. Im very good at this. This is called construction. The fence there could be some fencing. Could be some fencing. Then of course, he reiterated that he wanted to get the undocumented immigrants who committed crimes out of the country, maybe two or three million of them. Is that a softening of the language . Yeah. I mean, you have a sense right now, everybodys getting used to this new reality. I dont know that donald trump himself even thought a couple hours before the Election Results that he would definitely win. I think he himself, you see it from his twitter feed, how he responds to the protesters, even that is shifting. I think that he and his policies were going to find out whether he talked about on the campaign trail is sort of opening a bid on a bargaining table, or whether those were hard and fast. I think as much as we know about donald trump, he is a deal maker and he wants to make deals. So you can see his rhetorics beginning to shift now on the wall and on immigration. Carol we all heard you on these softening of the stances he has that worries minorities. Then on the other hand, steve bannon, his chief strategist. Exactly. White nationalists embrace this man. He runs breitbart that has headlines like, let me just pull one up, it featured headlines like bill kristol, republican spoiler, renegade jew. I think that when minority groups look at steve bannon as trumps chief strategist and look at the softening of the rhetoric, they are really confused. A couple points here. Number one, when obama got elected i didnt feel the best and he told me elections had consequences. He was a little more stern than our president elect. But when i endorsed donald trump back in february, i thought he could win. You said you didnt think he could win. I dont think he took all this time off from work to go run to be second place. Hes not a second place guy. For the last 40 years hes brought people together as a businessman. Black, white, minority we are talking about steve bannon. He made things work. As a businessman he will make the presidency work and he will go down as one of the greatest president s in this country. How does steve bannon make a presidency work when we are in the midst of this great divide in america, and we are, and you can see that minority groups are afraid . How does that unite the country . Steve bannon has a business. He has a certain demographic customer. He works with that customer. So all of us can find ways to pick apart anybody. You can find ways to pick me apart, you can beat me down but all of us are great qualities, too. Steve bannon has some great qualities. I think hes part of the reason donald trump got elected. He got on message i dont mean to keep interrupting but im trying to understand. So an africanamerican person might say you know what, steve bannon has embraced White Nationalists. That kind of cancels out all the good stuff thats out there about steve bannon. Do they have a point . Again, we can all find things we disagree with people on. But i think you have seen this administration, i dont see anything you can criticize the last week about donald trump. He has done everything to come together to start the healing, to move forward and i think its very progressive and people ought to be excited about that he hasnt taken a hard tone. Hes softened his tone. He met with obama. They spoke kindly of each other. It looks like the transition will be fluid. This is an exciting time for all america whether or not you supported donald trump. I think the problem is you can point to, that cancels out a lot of that, is the hiring of steve bannon. As much as you want to give him sort of an equivalency with anybody else, everybody, youre right, everybody has faults and great points, steve bannon is known as a leader of the altright. Thats not a criticism coming from other people. Thats something he has said himself. So that scares africanamericans, that scares latinos, that scares a lot of that scares a lot of minorities who have been insulted not just by steve bannon but from the president elect himself. So the president elect himself is going to have to do a hell of a lot better than just the nice words that he has put forward, especially when he has hired steve bannon to be his whisperer in the white house. I just want to get this last point in before i go. I want to address this to you, patricia. The people who voted for donald trump say this country has become overly politically correct and its time to right the table. Sometimes it takes extreme measures to do that. Maybe thats why they would accept steve bannon. True . False . Well, you know, we cant lump all of Donald Trumps supporters into one bucket but certainly the White Nationalists who support donald trump want steve bannon in there. I think that this is going to be the constant tension of a President Trump is the head versus the heart, the need to govern versus the desire to please people who are on the fringe of the right. I think that there are members of congress hopeful but worried about the direction this could go in. There are republicans hopeful but worried and there are democrats who are just scared. I think donald trump has a lot of leadership and a lot of managing to do and having Reince Priebus and steve bannon be coequal whisperers in his ear sets up a really difficult situation for any manager but ultimately donald trump is the leader and hes going to decide who he listens to and what direction he takes us. All right. Thanks to all of you. More on the cabinet backlash, trumps top strategist and right wing firebrand with ties to the White Nationalist movement. 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