Tonight, my exclusive interview with the former Vice President on his talks with donald trump and calls to ditch the Electoral College. Then, senator Sherrod Brown on why hes troubled by the ben carson pick for h. U. D. The massive victory for activists against the dakota pipeline when all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. 46 days until hes sworn in as president of the United States, donald trump is back to one of his signature moves from the campaign trail, engaging in a public feud. During the campaign, trump feuded with everyone from an exbeauty queen to a judge to the elder statesman of his own party. Feuds have been part of his reality persona going back years. Think about his longtime beef with rosie odonnell. Never back down, never surrender. In this case, however, this is not a private individual or political opponent. Its the nation of china. Nuclear armed power with a population of almost 1. 4 billion, the worlds second largest economy after the u. S. And our number one trading partner and largest owner of u. S. Debt. In fighting this battle, trump may be rewriting delicate Foreign Policy on china whether he means to or not. President elect had taken a congratulatory phone call from the president of the taiwan. No american president or president elect has had contact with taiwans leader since 1979 when the u. S. Formally established diplomatic relations with the peoples republic of china, adopting what is known as the one china policy. The United States of america recognizes the government of the peoples republic of china as the sole government of china. China views taiwan as a threat and could destabilize an already fraught relationship. Trump had a choice, downplay the call or declare hes taking u. S. china relations in a different direction and he seemed to indicate the former. The president of taiwan called me today to wish me congratulations on winning the presidency. Thank you. So this was an intentional sort of challenge to the Foreign Policy establishment, to the u. S. chinese diplomatic establishment . No, chuck. This was a Courtesy Call. They called to congratulate the president elect. So Courtesy Call, not a change in policy . Exactly. The Chinese Government took a similar approach. Its foreign minister saying, this is only a little trick put up by taiwan. I dont think the u. S. Government will change the one china policy. But negative coverage of the call seems to have gotten under trumps skin as it so often seems to and yesterday he followed up with a couple of tweets striking a very different tone. Did china ask us if it was okay to devalue their currency, heavily tax our products going into their country . The u. S. Doesnt tax them. I dont think so. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that trumps taiwan call wasnt just a courtesy. It was a result of longterm planning by his advisers, part of a new strategy for engagement with taiwan. This is not the first evidence weve seen of such strategy. Two of trumps advisers called for a more confrontational stance towards the peoples republic of china and more support for the democratically elected government. Those are bedrock neoconservative principles by some of the same people who insisted toppling Saddam Hussein would bring peace to the middle east and slammed george bush and advisers and claiming falsely that he had opposed the war from the start. One of those was john bolton and met with the president elect at the trump tower on friday. The following day, he shared his thoughts in an interview on fox news. My view has been for some time that we should be upgrading our relations with taiwan. I know thats going to cause heartburn in beijing, but its a reality. This is a nation of over 20 million people. They have a democratic government, a free press, a free market. Honestly, i think we should shake this relationship up. Today, Chinas Communist Party government advised its response publishing a front page in the peoples daily calling it nothing but a despicable and petty move and warned, im quoting again, trump and his Transition Team should realize that making trouble for china u. S. Ties is making trouble for themselves. Im joined by a member of the president ial Transition Team executive committee. Anthony, it seems to be two ways to interpret this. One is that it wasnt a big deal, it was a Courtesy Call, the president elect took it. Others say its a marker for a different direction, a new tact towards this very difficult fraught relationship. It cant be both. So which is it . Well, listen, its the former and i think whats very necessary to say right now is that theres no deviation in the United States policy as it relates to china. However, okay, we are a free country and when you have a democratically elected leader in taiwan calling in to the president elect and he accepts the call and they have a gracious conversation, we really shouldnt read much more into it than that. He took 50 calls like that while hes traveling around the country saving jobs at carrier and doing other things, chris. So for me, i think were sort of all blowing it out of proportion in the media. Hes kbas basically saying into his tweets since 1979 we have sort of followed suit and followed protocol, yet the chinese sort of havent. They went out into the south china sea, saw the name china, they think its their sea and they are Building Military facilities out there. So the president elect is just letting people know that hes paying attention to this sort of stuff and there should be symmetry and peace and prosperity in this relationship but both sides have to recognize that, not just the United States. And i think thats the message of the president elects tweets. Let me ask you this, i want to be clear on this. If you say, look, this was a Courtesy Call and he accepted, thats one thing. There is reporting that said there was staff around the president elect that arranged the call and they have a longstanding believe that the trajectory of american policy towards taiwan and china should be altered. Are those reports incorrect . Okay. So listen, i dont know who those people from the Washington Post are talking to but the people i talked to today would say that that stuff is incorrect. Was a call incoming and then was the president elect prepared for that call in that intermediate few minutes . Absolutely. I dont think it was planned out like the Washington Post has suggested. Again, let me just finish. To me, i think that you guys are trying to focus on something by saying hes thinskinned and all of this sort of stuff by going back to the campaign. Lets focus on what the president elect is doing for the American People over the last three or four weeks. Hes have a wonderfully dignified process of interviewing some of the best people in the United States and most talented people in the United States for all of these different jobs he has to fill. But calls are coming in. Hes a pretty polite, very gracious, charming guy and he took the call. And so what Vice President pence was saying over the weekend and what im saying live right now on your show is that is the sign of a diplomat and someone thats very gracious. Its not a deviation in china policy. But lets theres symmetry to this policy. Thats what were seeing from the Transition Team. Heres my point. Youre saying were trying to gin up that this is a fit of peak and im happy to be told thats not the case. Im actually honestly trying to get my head around what is happening here, right, because theres a few different ways. What you just said when you were interpreting president elects tweets was more diplomatic than the tweets themselves. He could have said, look, this is an important relationship that has gotten out of balance and needs to be restored to some symmetry. He didnt say that. He went on a broad side against china. But chris, thats first of all, thats not the president elects personality or his style. At the likes tweeting for dramat dramatic effect and i also think he likes to set some peoples hair on fire like you by tweeting. Dont let your hair go on fire. Theres no deviation in china policy from president elect trump nor from the Incoming Administration. Respectfully, though, thats part of my point. So my hair is not on fire now. Im fine. I guess the worry or the concern at least is that he does clearly sort of enjoy kind of violating taboos that he thinks are not worthwhile, right, and the kind of gasp that can elicit from folks and hes probably right, those taboos shouldnt be there. I guess the worry is, thats read differently by, say, Nuclear Armed china with 1. 4 billion people and there is some real diplomatic fallout that might come from it. Weve had meetings from china also Sovereign Wealth Fund people. Were going to have a great relationship with china. Okay. All the president elect is saying is weve got to create fairness in that relationship and i said something recently to one of the sovereign well fund people that came in. At the end of the day, the last hope for globalism is we fix the problem in the middle class and working class of the United States. Yep. And you and i have talked about that. We fix that problem and we create a redo on that burgeoning market of consumption, thats going to be phenomenal for china and for the rest of the world. And so we want to have a great relationship with china as we do with all of the other nations but what we dont want to do is blow something out of proportion which was a congratulatory phone call that the incoming president who is a very gracious guy took from the president of taiwan. All right. Anthony scaramucci, come back any time. Appreciate it. Joining me now is john harwood, correspondent for msnbc. Mr. Scaramucci is quite diplomatic and trying to say the pence byline. By the way, i have some water for your hair if you need it. Well, again, it is true i was talking to a friend of mine who worked at the state department. They were saying just imagining the freakout that is happening at foggy bottom. They tend to be quite rulebound and quite bureaucratic and theres probably a lot of dos and donts that maybe should be reassessed. But this has real big implications, right . I think so and it seems to me that anthony was describing it in a way that doesnt seem to fit the emerging reality of the situation. It does appear to be purposeful and republicans with a lot more experience dealing with Foreign Policy than you, me or anthony have characterized it as a purposeful call. I talked to ari fleischer, for example, george w. Bushs press secretary. He said, i welcome this so long as its on purpose because the status quo needs to be changed in the u. S. china relationship. I dont wlebelieve that this wan accident. I dont believe that the president of taiwan was cold calling the president and then, oh, i just happened to pick up the phone. No. I think it was on purpose. The only question is if it is seen in retrospect as a fast ball or is this something that actually triggers a brawl with consequences. Well, heres steven moore. Tom cotton immediately supporting it. Jon huntsman, not viewed as a china hawk. I think he was ambassador to china saying i think thats okay. Just like bolton did. And steve moore on the economic team, heres what he had to say. Taiwan is our ally, john. That is a country that we have backed because they believe in freedom. And we ought to back our ally and if china doesnt like it, screw them. So if china doesnt like it, screw them, its tough talk. We should also say, theres a longstanding ideological vain here between neoconservatives in the Republican Party who feel confrontation with china is needed that weve been too soft on them for a long time and its sort of amazing to see that ideological string, which is a real developed thing, gain a foothold this early. Well, sure. And it gained a foot hold in michael flynn. You know, the attitude is, yeah, were going to break some eggs and they should be broken. And again, i havent sensed from democratic Foreign Policy experts any conviction that this is harmful in and of itself. Right. And does china then go about flexing its muscles militarily around taiwan and is there a provocation and do we respond to the provocation. If its signaling a new day, may not be that big of a deal. John harwood, thank you. Al gores surprise visit to trump tower. Ill ask him about his meeting with donald trump and why hes still optimistic about his opinion that the Electoral College has to go. Plus, trump pick as man that he once accused of having a pathological disease to join his incoming cabinet. Dr. Ben carsons new appointment after this twominute break. See ya next year. This season, start a new tradition. Experience the power of infiniti now, with leases starting at 319 a month. Infiniti. Empower the drive. Donald trump today made a long anticipated announcement of his newest cabinet pick tapping dr. Ben carson to head housing and urban development. First, he has no real working experience to do the job. Second, carsons own adviser essentially said he isnt up to it. Just a few weeks ago, carsons confidant Armstrong Williams told nbc news that carson wouldnt be qualified to run a government agency. He told the hill specifically, dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, hes never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency. That same day, carson himself gave an interview saying hed only consider a cabinet position in trump absolutely needed him. Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water, quite frankly. He had an amazing accomplishment in the career of medicine, he has zero experience in housing and urban development and could be leading an agency of 8400 employees. Some democrats were quick to condemn the appointment, including senator Sherrod Brown. Senator, you put out a pretty critical to skeptical statement about dr. Carson. Whats your concern . Well, my concern starts with the boss. Donald trumps first interaction with the federal government is when the Nixon AdministrationJustice Department found him guilty and came to an agreement, a settlement on housing discrimination so donald trump has been, you know, the birther, the one we know the most about how he said barack obama wasnt born here but he actually many, many years ago was found guilty and with housing discrimination and not renting to africanamericans and his new h. U. D. Appointee seems to share that philosophy. Second, i want to see i dont know how qualified he will be and how much he knows but ive never heard him talk about how we provide more housing to particularly moderate income people. The neighborhood my wife and i live in in cleveland 44105 had more foreclosures than any zip code in the United States in 2007. There are a whole lot of renters and the price has gone up. They spend 50 of their disposable income in rent. Weve got to find a way to provide a moderate price to affordable housing. Im hopeful that mr. Dr. Carson will come forward with some ideas. I havent seen them yet. I want to clarify what you said in the first part of that answer when you talked about the finding of the u. S. Government, that trump was in violation of federal civil rights, not renting to africanamericans. You said his appointee agrees with that. You dont mean not renting to africanamericans. You mean you dont see him as a strong voice for enforcement . Yeah. Ive seen him show no interest in enforcement and no real interest in housing. But im the Ranking Member of the banking committee. Hell come in front of my committee. Im openminded about what hes going to say and do but i think it does start at the top and theres nothing out of this campaign that says we need to provide more affordable housing. We have to find ways to help people avoid for closure who have been paying their rent and maybe lose their jobs for a period of time. And if you dont the economy never comes back Strong Enough if you dont provide if housing doesnt contribute to it and its not contributed the way it needs to. You had this vote about Democratic Senators posture towards appointments. You said, theyve been awarded for stealing a Supreme Court justice. Were going to help them confirm their nominees, many of whom are disqualified . Its not obstruction or partisan. Its just a duty to find out what they do in these jobs. Whats your approach here . Well, my approach is take potential secretary carson. I want to know what hes going to do on housing, on housing discrimination, what hes going to do on section 8, whats he going to do with the old hand program and provide moderate Income Housing to lowincome people with the potential sector of health and Human Services who built his own career on raising the eligibility age for medicare and privatization of medicare. We in no way should just confirm these nominees without any questions. I mean, they have been out of the mainstream in this country on medicare, on housing discrimination, on civil rights, on voting rights. His nominees have simply not be part of what 70, 80, 90 of americans believe. Ill be damned if we should just step up and say, okay, well cooperate. We dont have time to ask him questions. Let them get to work. That