Four months. Punting on the single Biggest Issue of his presidency. Well, i dont know if its a blind trust if ivanka, don and eric run it. Is that a blind trust . I dont know. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. 38 days, donald trump will become the president of the United States and tonight hell be appearing in wisconsin with Christmas Trees or as i like to call them, holiday trees. Just kidding, i call them Christmas Trees. For the first time in a public e event, president elect is making an appearance with House Speaker paul ryan openly critical of trump during the campaign but now sees an opportunity to press some of the agenda items on his wish list like cutting Social Security, privatizing medicare or scaling back aid to poor kids. We were just in wisconsin last night talking to voters. None of the Trump Supporters we spoke to said anything about curving programs like medicare, Social Security. Instead, they backed those programs enthusiastically. We traveled to kenosha, wisconsin, with senator Bernie Sanders trying to answer the question that, frankly, all of us are still grappling with as the obama era comes to a close, how did a country that elected barack obama twice then go ahead and elect his polar opposite . A man who repudiates just about everything obama stands for, effectively launched his political career pushing a racist Conspiracy Theory to subvert the current president s legitimacy. Not just the country, how did certain states, certain counties, even certain individuals, lots of them, vote for both barack obama and donald trump . Wisconsin is one such state in this election, enosha county turned red for the First Time Since 1972 and we talked to an obama voter feeling good about that outcome. Im optimistic. Youre optimistic. Im usually not optimistic. This time i am. You voted for barack obama. Yes. You feel disappointed. Yes. With youre hopeful about the future . Yes. A tough contradiction to make sense of. President obamas current Approval Rating right now is the highest its been in years. Hes now at 56 according to gallup compared to 41 disapproval. Net positive of 15 points. Compare that to Donald Trumps favorability rating which according to the most recent poll is eight points underwater and thats actually close to trumps best performance. This high water mark. Making him the least popular president elect in modern history. We learned from the people we talked to in wisconsin, Trump Supporters and trump skeptics and opponents. Hateful rhetoric about refugees, mexicanamericans, you name it, a lot of them put their faith in norms and institutions. They approach trump as a journalist suggested a couple months ago in the atlantic taking him seriously but not literally. He knows as well as anybody in this room you cant go after a group of people because of religious beliefs. Its never i knew that right off the bat. But he was still upfront and he talked to the public. I would never want to see anybody thrown out just because of their beliefs or their i mean, thats awful. He can propose all he wants, its got to go through our congress first. Thats another buffer zone we have. I think that a lot of what he says is just unimplementable rhetoric, just to gain attention. Joined by wisconsin radio talk show host, charlie sykes, at the town hall yesterday who i saw out of the corner of my eye grimaing quite a bit. And joan walsh. Charlie, ill start with you. I thought that moment was so revealing and also as we watch now has happening in the transition in terms of what the president elect says about policy priorities or who hes appointing, this sense that he says so many things and is on so many sides of every issue, that youre just sort of guessing but that his supporters somehow know what the real trump is. No, i was struck by that, how they project on him what they want him to think. And i think that that individual was quite sincere and quite articulate. Yeah, its a blank slate. He cant possibly mean that. He must have said it for these reasons. You know, i was really struck, you know, watching that event, you know, that im not sure that Bernie Sanders or the democrats have really figured out how to come to grips with this populist, nationalist, personality has created. What you got there, they werent voting for him for any specific, it was this global sense he was going to turn things around, glows economy, you know, and im just not sure that they have grasped how they are going to campaign against that particularly if he delivers on some of the things he talks about, grows the economy and lowers unemployment rate. Charlie makes an important point, senator sanders approach to this, i find it admirable, some find it frustrating or limiting, is to kind of proceed as if you assume the person has a substantive objection that maybe you can come to similar grounds with. Right. I think is a mode of political organizing, thats probably a pretty effective mode. Yeah. My job is to analyze whats in front of e. Charlies point to the degree of theres a cult of personality, unique figure whos going to break everything, when he says bad things, we forgive him that. That is is a huge central part of what is happening here. How do you get around it without your own cult of personality which the democrats dont have . Right. I mean, two things happened. First of all, paul ryan is in the same boat as the four trump voters last night because he chose to believe thats right. That trump is not opposed to cutting Social Security and medicare. Even republican elected officials, charlie is somebody who stayed true to nevertrump, but there were lots of republican electeds who felt, i know hes talking against our agenda, but we believe that when he becom president , hes going to agree with us. Well, thats charlie, you know, hes on stage with paul ryan tonight. You got Reince Priebus described once by i think john weaver, john kasichs chiefperson as a kenosha ward healer i think he sort of dismissively called Reince Priebus. You know, i consider you, charlie, a Scott Walker Paul Ryan republican, and and that catechism frankly a month after election day looks a lot closer to being the reality than some kind of weird new trumpist version of, you know, american one perron, paul ryan seems to be queueing up the whole agenda of tax cuts and cuts to quote unquote entitlement programs. Do you feel confident youre going to basically get ryanism . No, i wish i was confident. At the town hall i was sitting next to a guy who beat Reince Priebus, telling the story of how he beat i dont think that anybody is confident because you dont know, so, you know, this was the line, you know, before the campaign, you know, dont worry about donald trump, you know, hes not going to g focused on policy, it will be mike pence and paul ryan setting the agenda. Maybe that will happen. What happens, though, the first time thats hes crossed . Right. What happens when the republicans in the senate step up and say this russian hacking thing is a real serious thing, appointing this crony capitalist to be secretary of state, the friend of Vladimir Putin. What happens the first time that he is crossed . How long does that honeymoon last . But youre right, whats happening right now on both sides of the political spectrum is people are hoping, you know, it is the triumph of hope over experience with donald trump that maybe he will do what we want him to do and he will make this pivot, but you can see this in wisconsin, the republicans in wisconsin are all in on donald trump tonight. Yeah, they are all in. I mean and they were in. And they were in. It was interesting to me to speak to some of the trump voters, this is i think one of the things about the election result people have to recognize is, ultimately people come around to the person nominated to run their party. I talked ta guy whos a manager in a manufacturing plant, a ted cruz guy in the primary. Not only did he vote for donald trump, he sounded identical in the room to other folks in the room who had been early trump adopters. He was in the same way, and thats true right now of, say, 40 to 45 of the country. Right. The question is when he doesnt deliver right. Will they notice . If he doesnt deliver, i believe when he doesnt deliver, will they notice this cabinet of plutocrats . At what point are they going to say, hey, hes not doing what he promised . The thing you see in kenosha, especially, lots of places like this where Hillary Clinton did not make a successful pitch, people dont just want jobs. Unemployment is low. People dont even necessarily just want higher wages. They want the whole economy back. And donald trump thats right. Went out and said i will wave the magic wand and bring it all back. Thats right. I was at his last reopen the mines. Were going to reopen the mines, miners are back, steelworkers are back. You mentioned Hillary Clinton. I want to play quickly this bite of Richard Bizer talking about why he didnt vote for Hillary Clinton. Take a listen. Youre generally a democratic voter. Yes, i am. This time you voted for trump. Why did you vote for donald trump . Basically because he wasnt hillary. People heard that a lot among people theyve talked to . Yes. Yep. One thing i think is in the reams of postelection analysis by democrats, center left folks, progressives, republicans, conservatives, why this happened. Hillary clinton really is for a millions reasons and you can say i think a lot of them have to do with gender is a singularly unpopular figure. Right. And that was true and continued to be true and you just hear it a lot. What was your reaction to that moment . You cant overstate that. You cannot overstate that as a factor. You understand that donald trump got fewer votes in wisconsin than mitt romney got four years ago. Right. What happened and in wisconsin dramatically underperformed. Charlie, he was actually asking me that question. Im going to answer it. Oh, im sorry. Its okay. I confess to being somebody who didnt take her baked in negatives to be as negative as they were, and also that people would see that the first woman president was going to be somebody who was very much an insider, but she was an insider in an outsider year. You saw the people saying, all we heard, our people were deciding between trump and sanders and that was it. Right. And that in wisconsin, that was the deal. In wisconsin, particularly. Theres just this sort of politically wall built around her that you could try to chisel at it, even into conversations and would only cut a few inches deep. Charlie sykes, joan walsh, thats live coverage of paul ryan and some Christmas Trees as we await the president elect. Thank you, both. Up next im going to talk to acclaimed author tanahazi coates, details obamas legacy and why he says without an obama legacy, there would be no donald trump. That interview after this twominute break. You wanna see something intense . Pantene expert gives you the most beautiful hair ever, with our strongest prov formula ever. Strong is beautiful. He wears his army hat, he gets awalks aroundliments. With his army shirt looking all nice. And then people just say, thank you for serving our country and im like, thats my dad. Male vo no one deserves a warmer welcome home. Thats why were hiring 10,000 members of the military community by the end of 2017. Im very proud of him. Male vo comcast. Have any of you seen down on streets that it seems as though we have become the silent minority and not the majority . What do you mean by that . How much have we been listened to really . Whos the we when you say this . Us people. Who people . The people who need the medicare, the people who need the Social Security, who needs the help with the education. We got a lot of reaction to our town hall in kenosha, wisconsin, last night, people got a chance to express and hear views that dont often get aired in public. Figuring out what it means the country that elected barack obama twice, just voted for donald trump to succeed him. Thats a question Tanehisi Coates tries to answer. My president was black history of the first africanamerican white house and what came next. Coates sat for several extended interviews with the president and in the piece he examines obamas legacy in light of the surprise outcome of the 2016 election. And considers how so many people in so many counties around the country could have voted for obama, many twice and turned around and voted for his polar opposite. Im joined now by Tanehisi Coates, for the atlantic author of the new cover story my president was black. You know, you and i talked about this piece when you were writing it. The piece was being written in one universe, right, it was, like right. In the runup to the election with this conception of it was going to be Hillary Clinton. Right, right. Then it got published into another universe and ultimately the piece wrestles with the difference between one and two. You saw last night in the town hall just talking to individual voters who voted for barack obama and donald trump, how do you understand that . Pretty easily. I mean, i think Barack Obamas an extraordinary politician. You know, i mean, people think actually not that convicted in that sense. No, its not. People think of, like, racism or i dont mean to describe individual racism but racism as a barrier as global, as, like, completely preventative. But usually, its throughout, it isnt just with the presidency. Its not a matter of it being completely preventative, the odds get raised or odds get lowered. Right. Its not that there couldnt be an africanamerican president. Its just that its tremendously harder and you need a particular individual and thats really the story the piece tries to tell. So thats interesting because i think, like, we look for such structural analyses of all this and sometimes its sort of, like, you come down to these individual factors, ultimately a lot of what this piece is about is just that, right, the way to understand the obama era is kind of understand this individual who turned out to be just really good at what he had to be good at. Right, right. Racism, you know, in many ways is about probability. You know, you can go to any, you know, to most messed up neighborhood in the country with, you know, the worst socioeconomic conditions and can find a resilient individual who grows up there and, you know, overachieves and becomes, you know, in many ways better than all his peers. That doesnt mean the situation is not messed up. Hes a unique politician, very, very different. The fact people flipped to trump, it evinces all trump had to do, a guy who had no political experience at all, was to just sort of show up. Theres two wayses to think of this, right, one is the u. S. Is going along and this remarkable thing happens of barack obama, a remarkable politician for a million Different Reasons which you discuss in the piece which i want to talk about. Then theres a question of, is the end of the obama era and trump this sort of bizarre resetting to normal, or is it a backlash to him . I dont know yet. I dont know yet. I dont think its a mistake that donald trump began his political life as a birther. I dont think thats a mistake. I dont think the political, you know, sort of rhetoric, the way it exploded into antimuslim, antiwoman, antiyou know, i dont think thats incidental. Its just very, very hard to believe that. You know, and so i think to some extent you do have to ascribe the fact hes actually president , i guess the way to answer this is could i imagine a donald trump without a barack obama as president . No, i cannot. No i, cannot. Lets make that real simple. Thats the way i feel. It is very hard to imagine history coming along and producing this man as president except for the end of this era. Yeah, yeah. So do you think, you know, when youre sort of thinking about Barack Obamas presidency, as a whole, right, how much do you view that legacy now contingent on what happens in the next four years . Contingent at all. Obviously what the policy is, right . Does the aca get repealed . Obviously, some of that is, but like with any other president , so, iflincoln, a bett example actually is grant, who does this great job during reconstruction and for the next 100 years everything is basically rolled back, right . As you say, reset. And his legacy is, too, in the school of the people that were the victors in that battle. But that was wrong. That was you know, that was completely wrong. Ill admit grant was actually a great president. He cant control necessarily the events that came after him. You can make the same case for barack obama. The thesis of your piece which i found so sort of novel and powerful is basically barack obama had a singular life and we all kind of know that because thats the thats the sort of shtick of his biography, like who else had this life, right . Right. And that the uniqueness of that life gave him it produced in him a genuine heartfelt disposition to see the best in white people. Thats right. And that when he became a politician, white people saw that in him and were like, i want to be right. What you see in me. Right, right. And that that was the very same thing that produced the blind spots to not see essentially the worst of white people coming at him. Right, right. I mean, you stated the case better than i did in the piece. You could have wrote the piece. Yeah, thats the, you know, basic argument and you have to im somebody whos, you know, been fairly critical, you know, of the president. You know, particularly in terms of how he addresses africanamericans, his deep belief in colorblind policy. You know, ive had more share of criticisms on that, but one of the things i had to come to terms with writing the piece, someone with my politics could never be president. That leaves you with a much more profound question of whether we should have had a black president , anyway. I mean, this is actually politically, like, very, very interesting because you believe, you know, you have a way of seeing the world is actually correct, that this would be the best way to go. The person thats going to get elected is not going to be that. So then is it actually worth it . Do you know what i mean . Does it does barack obama being president fundamentally and permanently alter the relationship of blackness to American Power . Yeah, i think so. Yeah. Even after hes gone. That was a section in this piece that i really wanted to write that i did not have the chops to write. It was actually trying to draw some sort of connection between the fact that you have a man with a bust of Martin Luther king in the oval office, you know, who really will be responsible for, you know, ramping up, you know, drone killings, who has, you know, and this is Kind National security, you know, state. Were enrolled in that now. I mean, we are. We meaning we meaning black people because we supported him. You know what i mean . Its not like, you know, when it was j. Edgar hoover, you know what i mean the enemy sort ofoutside of it, you know what, i mean, not completely outside of it anymore. You know . This is part of getting integrated into the house with all of its problems and all of its structural to me, the crazy question now politically, both the democratic party, for the future frankly of multiracial pluralistic democracy in america, right, is, like, how do you keep a progressive majority together that is multiracial, that is tolerant, that is committed to equality in a country that wants to fracture around those lines . I want you to react to something senator sanders said to me at the town hall. You and me were texting about this. People are wrestling with this. This is what he said to me about Political Correctness. Take a listen. What do you think about the Political Correctness . What does that mean to you . What it means is you have a set of talking points which have been poll tested and focus group tested and thats what you see rather than whats really going on, and often what you are not allowed to say are things which offend very, very powerful people. For years and years, we have been told by republicans and Many Democrats that our trade policy was a great idea. That it was working for america. Well, you know what, the American People dont believe it. When you hear Political Correctness, okay, do you think about trade policies . Raise your hands if thats what youre thinking about web when you hear Political Correctness . The way you are and are not allowed to talk about certain groups of american what did you think about the moment . I watched the whole town hall. I thought there were good moments from senator sanders. I thought that was not a good moment. I thought it its painful to say, i thought it alluded to some of the things that maybe some of us saw during the primary. Political correctness is not about trade. Even people who make arguments against, its just not what they say. I mean, and so it left me with the impression that it was one of two things, either he literally does not know, or this was the framework that he had for understanding everything. I just wonder whos around him. I hope there are people who are going to have a conversation about that with him afterwards. I want to end on this. You know, you and i talk a lot about reconstruction, something we share an interest in and i think theres some deep fear that, like, are we in an 1877 moment . Yeah. When progress just gets really rolled back and we dont see right. What are you feeling right now about where we are in the fork in the road . I think its too soon to tell. Well see. Who can tell, you know . Tanehisi coates. Thanks for having me, man. Coming up, a worrying theme emerging from Donald Trumps cabinet picks appointing people to lead agencies they are openly hostile to. More on that after this quick break. Let no one be mistaken, Donald Trumps candidacy is a cancer on conservatism and it must be clearly diagnosed, exsized and discarded. Yeah, cut that cancer right out. During the gop president ial primary thenpresident ial candidate rick perry unloaded on donald trump for his, quote, toxic mix of demagoguery and mean spiritedness and nonsense. That was a pretty good line. Trump in turn pretty much flatout called the former Texas Governor stupid. I see rick perry the other day and hes so, you know, hes doing very poorly in the polls. He put glasses on so people will think hes smart. And it just doesnt work. You know, people can see through the glasses. Despite calling perry dumb, sources tell nbc news trump has now tapped him for a cabinet position. Secretary of energy, charged with the Nations Nuclear arsenal, which would put perry in charge of the stockpiled nuclear weapons. Its a move that seems at first like a compliment but may instead be a weird, very trumpian sort of revenge because the choice ensures absolutely that news outlets like this one will replay the most humiliating moment of perrys public life when during his first run for president , perry forgot the very agency he has now been tapped to lead. And i will tell you, its three agencies of government when i get there that are gone. Commerce, education, and the whats the third one there . Lets see. You cant name the third one . The third agency of government i would do away with, the education, the commerce. Commerce. And lets see. Oh, my. I cant. The third one, i cant. Sorry. Oops. That was five years ago and its still impossible to watch. The third agency that perry wanted to do away with was the department of energy and now thanks to trump, he may run it. Perrys not the first trump cabinet pick whos openly hostile to the agency he soon could lead. Theres Climate Change skeptic scott pruitt to lead the epa, who is currently suing the epa over its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Fast food ceo Andrew Puzder tapped to lead the department of labor, the same agency that found widespread wage violations at his restaurants. Ben carson for secretary of housing and urban development who complained the sorts of program hud oversees foster, i quote here, dependency. Secretary of education, betsy devos championed the use of Public School funds for private school vouchers. Today trump made two new cabinet picks with their own controversies. Department of the interior, montana republican ryan zinke who in 2014 said Climate Change is not, quote, proven science. To lead the state department, rex tillerson, close ties to Vladimir Putin has even republicans worried. We have all of that next. Donald trumps most highprofile cabinet pick may also be the hardest to get confirmed. Trump today tapping wealthy texas native rex tillerson, the chairman and ceo of exxonmobil, to be his secretary of state. Hes a worldclass player. Hes in charge of, i guess, the Largest Company in the world. Hes in charge of an oil company thats pretty much double the size of his next nearest competitor. Its been a company thats been unbelievably managed, and, to me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players. And he knows them well. The players that tillerson knows especially well is russian president Vladimir Putin. In 2011, exxonmobil negotiated a 500 billion, i said that right, with a b, arctic oil contract with Russian Oil Firm in the kremlin. Two years later putin order tillerson the russian order of friendship. The wall street journal reports few u. S. Citizens are closer to mr. Putin than mr. Tillerson. And amid bipartisan concerns about trumps friendliness with putin and growing calls for investigations into russias use of cyber warfare to boost trumps president ial bid, senator john mccain and some other republicans are signaling they may challenge tillersons confirmation. Frankly, i would never accept an award from Vladimir Putin because then you kind of give some credence and credibility to this butcher, this kgb agent, which is what he is. Tillerson has opposed u. S. Sanctions against russia, put in place after the invasion of ukraine that reportedly cost exxonmobil over 1 billion. Tillerson, himself, owns more than 200 million in a company stock, Company Pension plan worth another 70 million. Steve caul who wrote a book on exxonmobil wrote in the new Yorker Tillerson worked his whole life running a parallel quasi state, fashioning relationships with foreign leaders that may or may not conform to the interests of the United States government. Now donald trump wants him to be americas top diplomat. Joining me now longtime oil trader, author of the book shale boom shale bust. Youre my favorite person to talk to about anything oil related. Theres a line about whats good for General Motors is good for america, and i guess the first question is, is it true thats whats good for exxon is good for america if were going to put this guy in charge of negotiating american interests . Whats good for exxon at this point is much better for russia than america because the russian economy actually depends upon revenues from oil and gas in order to stay alive, and you can see that in a lot of ways in the russian economy based on the way that their currency has gone into the toilet over the kpors course of the last two, three years because of sanctions. Exxon has an enormous commitment to russian oil and gas development. You talked about the arctic. That is a half a trillion dollar plan they have in place there that has been squashed so far by obamas sanctions. If i was making a bet about what would happen in the first hundred days of a trump presidency, it could not be them build a wall on the u. S. mexican border, it would be those sanctions coming off. First of all, you dont get to say half a million that much, generally, talking about stuff. I think theres this theres this incredible New York Times tick tock, clear evidence it was, indeed, russian statebacked hackers, in the dnc, podesta. Explain to me, i mean, russia has gone through a period where it is hurting economically for two reasons. Its got sanctions, its got oil prices, really low. Thats exactly right. What situation does it find itself in and what needs to happen . Both are being attacked right now. See it on lts sidelines. For example, there was a new opec deal for a production lowering, down to 33. 5 Million Barrels a day. This is going down a Million Barrels a day from where they were. What has happened is not that this has been the first time opec has brought down production. This is the first time in history that russia over the last weekend has come onboard to that production decline. Russia is saying, opec, weve had this glut and low prices for a really long time and were all bleeding. Right. Lets stop the bleeding together. Were going to cut production, you guys cut production, lets get the oil price back up. Exactly. What you have in this new trump administration, you have really the connective tissue of all of this seems to be oil. You have, for example, wilbur ross, supposedly the commerce secretary, hes a major shareholder in xco. You have harold hamm who was being named as the Energy Secretary before rick perry was named, hes the ceo of continental. You have rick perry whos clearly a, you know, a Texas Governor. Right. An oil state. You have pruitt who is going into the epa. Hes from oklahoma. Thats an oil state. Right. In many ways you look at this and you have a number of oil guys who are going to be running the government in trumps cabinet. You have a number of bankers, you got three guys from Goldman Sachs who are coming in. Right. And youve got three or four generals. To me thats a tremendous you have generals, bankers and oil. When we talk about oil, its important i think folks when they think about tillerson and tillersons role, i mean, this is a guy whos negotiated deals all over the world. If you want to talk about is this someone qualified for this job in a technical sense, sure, right . Exactly. Hes done deals. Trump is right, hes a player, hes sat down at the table with just about everybody. Keep in mind, like whats in the interest of opec, of venezuela, of russia right now, which are higher oil prices. Exactly. And is also in the interest of exxon which wants to see those prices come up, right . Because they make more money. Tillerson, himself, makes a lot of money as you mentioned. Hes got imagine American Foreign policy bizarrely dedicated to achieving that policy aim with a guy who spent his whole life trying to bring that about with his partner, the russians, who need that to happen. One of the things thats most scary for me is watching what i think is going to be really a corpratocy put into place where oil becomes the importance and the resources, the Natural Resources everywhere become the moving factor and the prices of those Natural Resources and the economy that you can drive, according to those resources. Weve seen copper, for example, take a tremendous move up since the trump since trump was elected. Now were seeing oil take a tremendous move up. Its moved from the mid 40s to the mid 50s and i think it will see over 60 by the end of the year on its way back to what well see as tripledigit numbers by the end of 2017. Wait, so weve had this crazy situation, oil had been very low for a long time, right . Right. And, again, russia is desperately in need of it to go up. A huge percentage of government sort of puts sort of gives you a reasoning somehow, a sideways, but a reasoning for all this maneuvering that the russians did. All of the hacking of emails and so forth. Which the intelligence agencies havent completely agreed upon, but the working theory is they did this and youre saying a possible motive for that one motive for that, during the campaign, you heard trump about taking the oil, keeping the oil in iraq, a nonbush idea. Somehow he mentioned it a couple times. Theres going to be a resurgence, for example, of the keystone pipeline, coal, clean coal sequestration, restart of keystone, rollback of all sorts of regulations on fracking. It was very clear to the russians, at least, in terms of an Energy Policy that would be more beneficial for them and beneficial for price that trump was the guy to support. Dan dicer, thank you. That was one of the best exchanges on this strange confounding nomination ive hear. Appreciate it. Donald trump, abruptly canceling a press conference meant to address what he will do with business while in office. Well talk about that ahead. And a major update from the Benghazi Committee. Why you probably didnt hear about it. Its tonights thing one, thing two next. Xe thing one tonight, just a month ago one of the most pressing issues for Congressional Republicans was laying the groundwork for Hillary Clinton investigations. House oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz saying even before we get to day one, we have two years of worth of material already lined up. Another, trey gowdy, chair of the longest running congressional investigation of alltime, the select committee on benghazi which had inadvertently morphed into the issue of Hillary Clintons private i mail server. The sunday before the election when fbi director james comey said a review of additional emails warranted nothing new and did not change conclusions about a lack of criminality on the part of clinton, gowdy wasnt satisfied. Clearly this closes the book on the question of criminality insofar as the fesds are concerned and her email. Does it not . Oh, i dont think so, megyn. I think it closes the book based on what they know now. The investigations are never over unless a statute of limitations expired or unless jeopardy is attached so this investigation is over based on what they know, but they dont know what they dont know. Investigations are never over. Congressman gowdy was not ready to close the book. Despite the fact the committee he chaired established its finding in june, no wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, poised for more work and there is indeed a Huge Development for the Benghazi Committee and that is thing two in 60 seconds. So as i was saying the select committee on ben becausesy, 28 month, longest running Congressional Committee in history, costing nearly 7 million, the committee that questioned Hillary Clinton for 11 hour, lingering, poised to carry out after the election, that committee has now quietly closed up shop. Releasing its final report five months after releasing its findings. Timing of that curiously coincides with the postelection universe in which Hillary Clinton is not president elect. Final report was add to the official house record without fanfare on december 7th. The report is 322,000 words long. Not including democrats dissent and can be summed up by what chairman gowdy said nearly 14 months ago when asked what he believes they learned from questioning Hillary Clinton for 11 hours. We knew about the emails. In terms of her testimony, i dont know that she testified that much differently today than she has previous times shes testified. So id have to go back and look at the transcript. Thursday, donald trump was going to give his First Press Conference since july 27th and first ever as president elect to, discuss the fact i will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country. As things sit right now, trump will be entering the white house with business ties that provide an unprecedented opportunity for conflicts of interest. According to analysis by bloomberg, trump has about 3. 6 billion of assets and 630 million of debt held in more than 500 companies. Because trump refuses to release his tax returns and those companies arent public, we have no idea, none, what the full scope of his business ties are. We also have no idea whether when he called foreign leaders or theyre calling him up to talk geopolitics with the Incoming Administration or trying to curry favor with the trump business empire, or to use leverage to pressure trump to their own ends. All which brings us back to this thursday, the day president elect trump was supposed to share his plan for avoiding these potential conflicts of interest. Turns out thats not going to happen. Trump has now canceled his muchanticipated, by me, anyway, planned december 15th press conference. He said hes rescheduled for january, vaguely, and tweetsed that, no new deals will be done during my terms in office. He went on to say some stuff about his kids. So with 38 days left until inauguration, were right back where we started, with a president elect who could have conflicts of interest that border on constitutional crisis level when he takes the oath. Much more on that next. I would put it in a blind trust. Well, i dont know if its a blind trust if ivanka, don and eric run it. Is that a blind trust . I dont know. I would probably have my children run it with my executives and i wouldnt ever be involved because i wouldnt care about anything but this country. Just this country, thavs not a blind trust. So far, president elect trumps sole plan to deal with conflicts of interest from Financial Holdings is leave it in the hands of his children. America is on a precipice, unpressed threat joining me, sam cedar, msnbc contributor, catherine, columnist at the washington post. I basically dont, like, he tweeted this thing is going to be the sons and no new deals, but i mean, thats meaningless, like, i think its really important that no one run with that as news. Like obviously. Yes. Obviously just emphasize that and tell me that im not crazy. I saw lower thirds today, i saw headlines floating around being like, oh, no new deals. No new deals Means Nothing obviously. He obviously already has assets that he could continue to swell. Through his policies. We dont know what those assets are, dont know what his sources of income are and far be it for me to compare the nobility of trumpls work to, you know, the garbage that journalists produce but we could take a lesson from journalism, what matters is the appearance of conflicts of interest and by merely not divest and not being transparent about what he oe owns and could be lining his own pockets, that is equally destructive in my view. Did i forget to mention im shorting exxon stock by 1200,000 . Did i forget to do that in the segment i did . Thats exactly the problem. That segment i did on exxon, if it turned out i was financially you would view the segment differently. Thats the case for every single decision he makes foreign and do domestic. It has to do with the way he structures thing, the way that people interrogate that there is a quid quo pro type of relationship. Without saying anything. For instance, the other day the ceo of time warner was at some symposium and was asked do you have a problem with trumps 1st amendment attacks . I think were all quite familiar with. He said, well, no, i thnk thats nothing. I think the real problem is the democrats and them wanting to attack the 1st amendment through citizens united. Now, look, that to me signals hes got the message, a big merger time warner, at t is going to before a Trump Department of justice. People like jeff bezos, after trump wins, make sure you get that tweet in there. It creates a structure where i think people presume this is the way you get ahead here. Heres the nittygritty also which i think is a sort of again, we dont know what this all looks like and its sort of a bunch of shells, right, like, these legal entities. Its possible he cant really divest, right . No. Like, all of the stuff is so liquid that you cant just pull out of it, even if you do, its like, okay, theres a Trump Building with your name on. Yes, theres a Trump Building with his name on it. Most of that is done through licensing deals. Basically since he had his very scary brush with personal bankruptcy a couple decades ago, he has generally preferred licensing deals as opposed to outright ownership and he could easily, you know divest other deals. He could sell off the licensing company, you know, he could basically sell off those rights. He could entrust them to a third party. Its not really that difficult. He does have some illiquid assets. Trump tower. Thats not impossible to divest from either. You think this idea this big, yeah, this idea he has this big, complicated, sprawling set of companies, yes, he has, like, Shell Companies nested in Shell Companies but its a fiction to say he couldnt divest from them. Also theres no transparency. I mean, now you start to understand why people make a big issue about releasing the taxes. No transparency whatsoever. The reason why they punted on this press conference, you knows, i think theres probably some measure of concern that could lose a half a dozen electors, could lose a dozen electors. They want to have this after that 19th vote because i think they were afraid of just the story having some legs. They feel blind sided by this. Trump said so himself. Basically everyone knew this was my m. O. Then he got elected and everyone woke up to the fact that, like, oh my lord, this is a huge possibly constitutional problem with the emoluments clause, people pressuring the electors and now you can tell this is in front of mind for them because they were going to be a big announcement december 15th, were going to learn the details and now to just say on twitter, kick the can down the road and something about that says to me yeah, many in ways there are parallels with the as yet undisclosed tax returns. Theres a continuous audit, ill release it when the continuous audit is done although continuous means it will never be done. Its kicking the can down the road here. You know whos enabling this, too, paul ryan. Of course. And mitch mcconnell. Actively. Theyre literally on the record saying we dont think this is worth investigating. I think, you know, to a certain extent, pressure, you know, from various quarters needs to be exerted on them. Both of those guys throughout the campaign enabled donald trump by not i think, like, its at one point you need to have democrats hold paul ryan and the, you know, leaders of the party responsible for this. And to me, with this issue, again, i even have a hard time sort of getting my head around because its so opaque, its not concrete until it is, right . Its not concrete until youre going along and youre sort of playing this highstakes game if youre trump, politically, that no ones going to care about this until something happens. Some international incident, whether its an allegation of a direct quid pro quo, people discover, oh, you have an interest in this thing and were now in this international situation, all of a sudden you have a real political problems on your hands. Sam seder, catherine rumpel. That is all in. The Rachel Maddow show starts now. Thanks, my friend. You bet. Thanks to you at home for staying with us the next hour. We have got attorney general Loretta Lynch joining us this hour tonight for the interview. Im very, very excited about that. Did you hear . Lor reetta lynch. Attorney general of the United States right here. In a few minutes. All right. You ready . The nation of chad is landlocked. Its right smack dab inafrica. If you are in chad and you want to go to the ocean, it is a very, very long way. And honestly, thats the least of chads problems. Chad is with one of the poorest countries on earth. Its considered to be one of the most corrupt countries on earth in terms of its government. Its been run by the same dictator for more than 25 years. And the rest of the world, sadly, has never much cared no matter how bad things were, no matter how b