Widening as i speak, with new names added on like a traffic lineup in manhattan. Theres still no indication that donald trump is anywhere near to making one of the key decisions of his presidency, who will serve as his chief diplomat. Vice President Elect mike pence ran through some of the top contenders yesterday. I think everyone that hes talked to and has been talked about, whether it be a Rudy Giuliani or mitt romney or General Petraeus or senator corker or john bolten, and others, bring extraordinary background and qualities to this. Nbc news reports that several new names have been added to that list, even if they remain outside contenders. The associated press, meanwhile, is reporting that prospects of Rudy Giuliani and mitt romney, they say, are fading. The new names include jon huntsman, who was critical of trump during the campaign, but who wasnt also reportedly in the mix, ceo of exxonmobil, rex the bulk of the time was with the President Elect, donald trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation. And to be continued. And im just going to leave it at that. For the latest on the transition, im joined by nbcs kristen welker. I dont know Whats Going On. All i know, kristen, the list gets longer. The ones that came to the vineyard earlier arent getting much good time out of this. It must be very frustrating for Rudy Giuliani, for mitt romney, and the rest. Your thoughts . What do you know . Reporter you can only imagine. Of course, you had mitt romney dining with malPresident Elect trump last week. Look, heres how to think about where things stand right now in terms of this race for the Secretary Of State. You have Rudy Giuliani and mitt romney who were really the two top contenders. But chris, as weve been reporting, trump world was so deeply divided over these two top contenders, a lot of people saw Rudy Giuliani as a lightning rod, too much of a loyalist and an insider. Too many people thought that mitt romney has been too sharply critical of donald trump during the campaign. So thats why youre starting to see those two contenders start to fall out of favor and the reason why President Elect donald trump is exploring new options, including jon huntsman. Someone who was also critical of him, but of course, hes the former ambassador to china. Interesting given that you have trump making that controversial phone call with taiwan. My sources telling me that huntsman didnt advise him prior to that call. But at the same time, huntsmans been supportive of the fact that he made it, saying that it could be a smart Foreign Policy decision, a warning to china, making it very clear that hes going to be tough with them. Of course, a lot of critics on that front as well. And rex tillerson, the ceo of exxonmobil. Hes going to be here tomorrow. But at this point in time, chris, huntsman and tillerson havent met with trump, so theyre not serious contenders yet. I think the names to really be focused on, petraeus, we know that donald trump felt very good about that meeting and as you
federal agencies. Armstrong williams said, dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, hes never run a federal agency. This is honesty. The last thing he would want to do is take a position that would cripple the presidency. You dont get honesty like that very often. When asked what made him qualify for the job at hud, dr. Carson said this. I grew up in the inner city and have spent a lot of time there and have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. Well, during the 2016 republican primaries, carsons background in some of his past statements about his childhood came under fire from, guess who, donald trump. Lets watch. He said that hes pathological and that hes got, basically, pathological disease. I dont want a person thats got pathological disease. I dont want it. At a fairly young age, 14, 15 years old. I didnt. I didnt. He took a knife and he went after a friend and he lunged, he lunged that knife into the stomach of his friend. But lo and behold, it hit the belt it hit the belt and the knife broke. Give me a break. If you try and hit the mother over the head with a hammer, your poll numbers go up. I never saw anything like it. This is the only election in history where youre better off if you stab somebody. What are we coming to. Showmanship matters. Joining me right now, a Washington Post callum, msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. I read your columns. And former senior strategist to Rick Santorums president ial campaign, john brabender. Lets talk about this, first of all, Secretary Of State really matters. Lets talk about that. It does. I sometimes think hes auditioning for looks, appearances, whos going to look
right as my guy. Bring mitt romney in, he seems very president ial, and he didnt really like him, apparently. And Kellyanne Conway seems to have some power. She apparently does. She spouts off and things either happen or dont happen. Look, lets, for a change, lets take a slightly more charitable view. I hope he takes his time, actually. This is a man whos starting from zero on Foreign Policy. Got no Foreign Policy experience, doesnt know anything about diplomat. The history of our relations with any country. He just dont know whats happening. You mean pakistan has a rivalry with india . You mean taiwan is an issue with china . Yeah, exactly. So, when these people who do have some experience, im putting Rudy Giuliani aside, but mitt romney and General Petraeus and others come in, jon huntsman, when he does come in, and they say, you know, this is my view, i hope he listens. I hope hes listening and considering and trying to figure out what kind of Foreign Policysuch bizarre directions. Hes got john bolton, a neocon, all the way, a hawk, and goes all the way over to Somebody Else who seems like they dont have a Foreign Policy. How do you bring a neo conn does he know the difference between the two of them . I think he probably knows the difference, maybe not in detail, but you listen to these people. We were talking about mitt romn romney. Mitt romney was so critical of a muslim ban. Someone told me he would never take the job as long as there was a muslim ban in the works, because he morally opposed it. Exactly. Even if you call it something else, if its really a muslim ban, i dont see how if you look what hes doing, hes not hiring by any logic, hes doing it by skill set. They have different skill sets. I think thats what he sees. The one thing all these people have in common, theyre not somebody whos going to say, yes, sir. Why would he consider a guy like huntsman, who was named ambassador to china by president obama, and then took the job. Makes a good case. Like you, ive known ben carson. I didnt know his political views. A brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon, One Of The Best of his times. I think he has insane political views. And i would really worry about what he would try to implement as secretary of any department. We will see. Over the weekend, a little light heartedness, Saturday Night Live did it again, they targeted trumps transition effort. Lets watch them. Next im going to do what i promised my whole campaign and im going to build that swamp. Dont you mean drain the swamp and build the wall . No, thats too many things. Just smoosh them together. Smoosh smoosh well, once again, trump didnt like it. He tweeted an aggressive reaction to the show. Just tried watching Saturday Night Live, unwatchable
totally bias not funny. And the baldwin impersonation just cant get any worse. Sad. Today trump tweeted in defense of his twitter habit. He wrote, if the press would cover me accurately and honorably, i would have far less reason to tweet. Sadly, i dont know if that will happen. John brabender, we are in for a tweeting president. I think thats wrong. Of all the things hes done recently, to tweet about china makes no sense whatsoever. I think his picks are great, i think hes doing a lot of things great with transition. I wish someone would take that thing away from him. You would have to sleep with him to do it. He does it at 5 00 in the morning. Im just saying, it doesnt help. Lets talk about a real thing. Ronald reagan succeed eed as a president because he made a choice to pick a really serious Chief Of Staff, who was willing to say, mr. President , thats not a smart thing to do this week. Focus on the economy, on job, on cutting taxes and stay away from
politics. Whether youre a big progressive or not, you dont want a president of the United States starting wars on his watch. I think we can all agree. He has to be careful, because other countries are paying attention. Theyll take it seriously. They dont know him like we do. Anyway, please, when you hear our president talk, dont take it literally. Well, see, thats a problem. Can you translate into portuguese. Might be brilliance in there. There is a problem. Coming up, trumps call with a leader of taiwan wasnt the spur of the moment congratulations call he made it out to be. Turns out it was long planned. This is a serious problem. Could be an opening gambit in a major shift in strategy over how we deal with china, probably the most important relationship weve got in the world right now. Plus, joe biden moments ago said hell run for president in 2020. Well get the latest on that in just a moment. Well see what that means. This is hardball, the place for politics. World ugly and messy. They are the natural born enemy of the way things are. Yes, ideas are scary, and messy and fragile. But under the proper care, they become something beautiful. [ Rock Music Playing ] have fun with your replaced windows. Run away [ grunts ] leave him leave him [ music continues ] brick and mortar, what . [ music continues ] [ Tires Screech ] [ laughs ] [ Doorbell Rings ] when you bundle home and Auto Insurance with progressive, you get more than a big discount. Thats what you get for bundling home and auto jamie you get sneakygood coverage. Thanks. Were gonna live forever
just moments ago, Vice President joe biden was up on capitol hill and said he will run for president in 2020. Nbcs Kelly Odonnell was with the Vice President and joins us now. Okay, kelly, for real, for fun, for what . Reporter thats what were trying to figure out. The Vice President was here presiding over the senate while a bill that has now been named in the honor of his son, beau, who died of cancer, a cancerrelated treatment bill, so he was here and it was sort of an emotional setting. He came off the senate floor, a small group of us were talking to him, asking him about what did this mean and so forth. I said, you know, these are the final days of your time in office, did that add to the emotion . And he began talking about what it means for him in the senate. And he said, im going to run again, and we actually laughed, assuming he was teasing, thinking that his career in public life had come to an end. Ill read exactly what he said. He said, i love this place. There was a question, are you going to run again . He said, yeah, i am going to run, in 2020. For what, the question. He said, for president. What the hell, man. And i said, mr. Vice president , were going to run with that if you drop something with that. Okay, go ahead. Circled back around again, mr. Vice president , were you kidding . His answer was this. First of all, he paused for four long seconds as he thought about what he was going to say. Im not committing to not running. Im not committing to anything p p. I learned a long time ago that fate has a strange way of intervening. Chris, as you understand in the senate, there are places where no cameras were committed. So i recorded the audio on my iphone and i believe we have a clip of that so you can hear it and see what you think based on his voice. Im going to run in 2020. So for what . For president. [ laughter ] so, what the hell, man. Anyway. Were going to run with that, sir, you know, if you drop that. Thats okay. Thats okay. Just to be clear, were you kidding about running for president in 2020 . Im just, im not committing not to run. Im not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening. Fate has a strange way of intervening. Hes not going to claim hes not going to run. Its open to possibility. He seems like he wants us to think he might run. That was clearly my impression. His body language, i was looking him right in the eye. He understood, when i said, mr. Vice president , were going to run with that, meaning, if youre messing around having fun, this is going to be a headline, so please think about that. And my sense is that he wants to keep that door open. Now, hes 74 years old now. Now the facts of the election have played out, its not even a month since the election. There is, i think, in a world if Hillary Clinton had been president , certainly he would not have challenged her for reelection, but now with donald
trump a republican, about to take office, might he reconsider it . So, it is tantalizing delicious for those of us who like politics and have watched bidens long time in public life and how passionate he is about it. We also saw that he really struggled mightily about the decision not to run in the primary against Hillary Clinton and bernie sanders, and it had a great deal to do with the loss of his son and the healing his family needed. He was tearyeyed talking about beau with us just a short time ago. So my takeaway is that he wasnt kidding. Its not that commitment to run, but he wanted us to know, he has not closed that door. That was my sense of it, standing right next to him. You know what would be great, kelly, if they would take a poll in the next couple of weeks, some big pollster, gallup or Somebody Else, and asked people who might run, who should run, i bet you he leads the pack and that would be a nice present for joe biden. I want to see where it plays on the front page tomorrow. Top of the fold or bottom of the
fold. Well see. Well be right back after this. Then she came to louisiana as a slave. I became curious where in africa she was from. So i took the ancestry dna test to find out more about my african roots. The Ancestry Dna Results were really specific. They told me all of these places in west africa. I feel really proud of my lineage, and i feel really proud of my ancestry. Ancestry has many paths to discovering your story, get started for free at ancestry. Com [burke] hot dog. Seen it. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum
this was a Courtesy Call. The democratically elected president of taiwan called to congratulate the President Elect. So nothing new should be read into it . Well, i dont think so. I think i would just say to our counterparts in china that this was, this was a moment of courtesy, the President Elect talked to president tsai two weeks ago in the same manner. Welcome back to hardball. That was Vice President elect mike pence yesterday on meet the press. He was downplaying, of course, a Telephone Conversation were all talking about now between President Elect donald trump and the president of taiwan, in what is being described as a breach of diplomatic protocol. Its always dangerous with the chinese. Its not about matters, its about war. The Washington Post reported that the call was an intentionally provocative move and was the product of months of new strategy with taiwan. Chinese considers taiwan to be part of china. Trump is now the first u. S. President to have spoken with the taiwanese leaders ever since way back when in the 70s. China responded 79, it was by calling the conversation a petty move. But trump defended himself and the phone call in a flurry of tweets over the weekend, saying the president of taiwan called me today to wish me congratulations on winning the presidency. Thank you. And then he goes, interesting how the United States sells taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment, but i should not accept a congratulatory call. Did china ask us if it was okay to devalue their currency, making it hard for their companies to compete, heavily tax their products going into our country. The u. S. Doesnt tax them, or to build a massive Military Complex in the middle of the south china
sea. I dont think so. Thats trump. Rising the whole thing up. Andy kard was white house Chief Of Staff around j. Bush and andrea, thank you. Weve avoided fighting with russia since the cold war start going. And weve also voided being too menacing towards china, because its a big country with a lot of people. And we saw what happened in the korean war, where we just couldnt match their numbers. That theyre willing to throw into combat. So weve tried to avoid that. Are we avoiding trouble with china right now or looking for it . I think were looking a bigger deal out of this than we should. And i dont think it was wrong for President Elect trump t