Grid systems. A foreign intrusion that could impact americas electedriesty and affect Public Safety would be obviously significant for any president. Add in the plots to impact americas democratic system and you would expect a new president to strike a posture of strength if not outright indignation against this adversary, which is what makes donald trump s responses so bizarre thus far. He continues to question whether u. S. Intelligence is correct about russiasuilt, and then hes publicly undercutting the current president s sanctions by welcoming russias response to them. Trump wrote, quote, great move on delay by v. Putin. I always knew he was very smart. That was after putin said that any diplomatic response to the sanctions would wait until Trump Takes Office. And this weekend trump reiterated that the. S. Intel could be wrong adding that he knows a lot about hacking and is privy to some special information here. Its a serious charge and i want them to be sure. If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster. They were wrong. I want them to be sure. I think its unfair if they dont know, and i know a lot about hacking, and hacking is a very hard thing to prove, so it could be somebody else. And i also know things that other people dont know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation. What do you know that other people dont know . Youll find out on tuesday or wednesday. Thats tomorrow or the next it day. Trumps spokesperson later clarifying trump wont be revealing anything privileged tomorrow or wednesday. And then spicer was deflecting on russias role by arguing that maybe election interference is more of an issue for Hillary Clinton than vladimir putin. Why arent we talking about the influence other influences on the election . Why arent we talking about Hillary Clinton getting debate questions ahead of time . Thats a valid attempt to influence an election. Spicer is citing an email there that showed a democratic operative on cnn appear to share debate questions in advance with clinton, an email revealed by the underlying russian hack. Now trumps aides would apparently prefer to take shots at Hillary Clinton than address the Foreign Policy dilemmas theyre facing right now. Its easy to see why. Its pretty easy to blame your competitor for everything. That is, of course, what 2016 was all about. But 2016 is over. This is 2017. Its not a test. Its about to get much more difficult for donald trump. Joining me now former cia Operations Officer and a 2016 independent president ial candidate, evan mcmullen. What do you think of what were seeing here and this bizarre inability to deal with what might be negative information about russia separate from what you do about it by the Trump Administration incoming . Well, i think we have to ask ourselves, the entire country, why is donald trump and his team working so hard to protect russia in the situation . Its clear russia worked to undermine our democracy, to influence our election. The Intel Community came out unanimously in october and said this is what russia is doing. But you dont need to be an Intelligence Officer to know that. Russia is doing the same thing here in our country its done in europe and is still doing in europe and germany, for example. That is funding groups like white supremacist groups, White Nationalist groups, using internet trolls that they employ in russia, supporting their Cable Network here in america. Doing all of these things to support donald trump and to undermine americas faith in democracy. You dont need to be an Intelligence Officer to know this. And then on top of all of that you have the hacks. So this is a playbook theyve deployed before. Were seeing it here in america. We have to climb the learning curve as americans on this real quick because as we see these efforts are not stopping. Russia continues to undermine our democracy. And so when you look at donald trump trying to thread the needle or basically do the typical Campaign Talk between blaming hillary or saying i have special info, a couple more days, the clock is running out on your ability to do this when youre actually going to be president. Absolutely it is. And we need better leadership, frankly. We need to see better leadership from donald trump. I dont think were going to see it but im forever hopeful well see a change. This claim that he has information, that he, quote, knows things others dont know, i find that highly im highly skeptical thats true. I think its not true. You have a nice way of saying hes full of bs. What do you think your former colleagues in the intelligence agencies are thinking when donald trump seems to use every time this issue arises to sort of get into their biggest embarrassment on iraq and sort of cast doubt about the entire integrity or the competence of the entire operation. Of course theyre unhappy about that, but i think that speaks to a much deeper source of tension between the Intelligence Community and donald trump. That is that donald trump wants to align our country, his administration, with the very country that is attacking our democracy, the Intelligence Community and the National Security community in general warned against him, warned against this policy approach during the election, and thats not going to change. Theres a very deep source of tension there. But donald trump continues to attack the media. He attacks the intelligence communy. He attacks any other source of information because thats what authoritarians do. As ive said for the last several months, donald trump is somebody who has authoritarian tendencies. I want to pause in the point youre making. You think this is bigger than the russia debate which is one piece of it. You think that unlike basically most other incoming president s he doesnt want to give any informational deference to the Intelligence Community because their ability to call it as they see it is a threat in his mind to his own power . Absolutely it is. This is how authoritarians operate this is why they attack the media, this is why they attack other sources of power. This is why they try to undermine democratic norms and democratic systems. This is part of the playbook. So this is what happens. Donald trump gets painted into a corner because the media, because the Intelligence Community and so many others can see that russia is attacking our democracy. And he refuses to acknowledge it. And so he denies it, says we should move on. And ultimately he says because theres no other way ive got information that you dont have. But im not going to tell you for a few days. So what happens . Then we in the media talk about it for a few days, repeating his claim to know things that no one else does, half of america believes it. Half of us dont. But to his audience, they believe it. And weve carried that message in the media. So he has won, a on playing us by doing this. We have to call him out when he knows what other people dont know allegedly, we have to ask where did that information come from. You said half of america, we have to fact check that, i believe 46 . Evan mcmullin, thank you for joining us. Up next former u. S. Ambassador to russia. First, mr. Ambassador, your response to what i was just discussing with evan and your view of where intelligence and diplomacy meet here. Well, intelligence is a major part of diplomacy, a major part of our developing a Foreign Policy. In a few weeks President Trump is going to be working with these very people that hes saying very distrustful things about. I want to remind your viewers that the vast majority of the people that work in the Intelligence Community are not political appointees. Theyre professionals that will be there january 20th working for President Trump. Mr. Ambassador, when we look at the sanctions that are currently being deployed against russia, when trump comes in, do they just continue automatically . What does it take for him to change them . Yes, they do continue. It will be incumbent on him to be proactive to change them. If he chooses to do so. And in doing so i think hell have to explain to the American People and to his own administration i want to keep emphasizing that these people will be working for him come january 20th, why he is reversing it. Maybe there will be an argument. I look forward to the new intelligence he allegedly has. Maybe theres some reason for it but right now i think that would be a very difficult thing for him to do without explaining his actions. You mentioned the intelligence he claims to have. What would he have . Either he has something that is from the Intelligence Community and we spend about 17 billion a year trying to get the best possible, or he has it from some other nonpublic source, would that be a russian source, or what other source would there be for special intel that is not within the cache of what they already have within our 17 agencies . You know, to be honest, i have no idea. I hear that. It disappoints me. I wish he would spend a little more time learning about our intelligence and learning do a deep dive in counter espionage and maybe understand these things better. Maybe he has some source from somebody who provided wikileaks with the data. Thats a conspiracy floating out there on twitter and facebook, but i guess well just have to wait until tuesday to find out. What do you think about his wider habit here of saying we dont know, quote unquote, things we as a government or a country do know . Why is that so important to him and does it remind you of anything youve seen abroad in the way some leaders sometimes seem to prefer the conspiracy theories of the street to whats actually knowable . Well, hes denying it because he worries it affects the legitimacy of his election. Of course if more people believed that the russians influenced our election, that would delegitimate his electoral victory. Hes been elected. The Electoral College has spoken. Everybody is preparing for him to be sworn in. I think it actually would help him to put this behind us if he acknowledged the facts. I think we need a bipartisan independent commission so we get all the facts and all the facts, by the way, of how the Obama Administration handled this intelligence challenge during the election. And so that it could be wrapped up. Everybody knows the facts. And then we get on with doing the things we need to do to prepare for the next election cycle. The russians have tremendous capability. It will be better in 2020. Other actors will have capabilities in 2020. Not pretending we werent attacked. Right. The other big Nuclear Story here is north korea as an aspirational power. Here is what donald trump wrote on twitter. North korea just stated its in the final stages of developing a Nuclear Weapon capable of reaching parts of the u. S. It wont happen end quote. How does that declare tiff statement compare to the actual bipartisan process over two administrations to have some kind of constraint of their ambition . I work here at stanford with george schultz, the former secretary of state for Ronald Reagan, and he always talks about never make a threat unless youre ready to deliver on it. And what troubles me about that tweet is hes now made a declaratory statement about policy. I dont know if hes done the homework to know he could implement the threat hes just put out. Wow. Well put and thank you for your time, ambassador michael mcfaul. As always, appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Still ahead, donald trump it continuing to conduct business as usual. His private resort selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in tickets this weekend. That was for the new Years Eve Party with the president elect. Well explain whats wrong with that after the break. These photos . Because my teeth are yellow. Why dont you use a whitening toothpaste . Im afraid its bad for my teeth. Try crest 3d white. Crest 3d White Diamond strong toothpaste and rinse. Gently whiten. And fortify weak spots. Use together for 2 times stronger enamel. Crest 3d white. Throughout the bush years Vice President dick cheney was repeatedly accused of conflicts of interest over Halliburton Oil which got lucrative contracts in iraq. Imagine if cheney had not stepped down from his job as hal burton ceo before taking office. It would have been technically legal. They are not formally required to commit a day job. That has many people literally longing for dick cheneys method. Donald trump is not even stepping back from Business Activities that would literally be really easy to skip. Take a look at this weekend, for example, when trump headlined the new Years Eve Party at his maralago resort. This is not just his raycation home. This is a business. It charges 100,000 for annual membership fees excuse me, a onetime membership and another 14,000 in annual dues. Hard to keep track of because its so expensive. Some of the value comes from selling tickets to the big events like new years eve festivities. Tickets for the maralago Party Started at 500. A spokesman told reporters the event was sold out, 800 attendees. Those tickets alone would land somewhere north of 400,000 in revenue for maralago. There is something abnormal here many people want to normalize. That 400,000 trump banked in one night is the amount the president earns in a year. Its not chump change. Its real money. As trump tweets and tries to distract his way through this transition, its the money hes making in this basic situation, mixing his roles as president elect and as head of a private company, at the very least he risks the appearance of mixing government work meant to be in the Public Interest with his family business. Now according to reports attendees at the new Years Eve Party included quincy jones, actor sylvester stallone, and fabio. Who needs no introduction. Did any Foreign Government officials buy their way into the party or any lobbyists . We just dont know because this was a private event on private property. The most secret event the president can even attend. If the money were going to the rnc instead of the trump organization, every attendees name would be public under federal law. If this were even a white house reception it would be public under federal law. We do know trumps Business Partner from dubai attended the party. Cell phone video showed trump giving him a sout during his speech and a spokesman for the transition said they had no foal meetings or professional discussions. Their interactions were social. That may be true. There may have been only one Business Partner in attendance. Or it may not be true. As long as donald trump keeps spending time generating revenue for his companies, he will continue raising questions and conflicts that could cast a cloud over his presidency and, more importantly, over the independence of his administration. For more, im joined by the chief Investigative Reporter for politico who has been on the story, ken vogel. Ken, the money here. Why does it matter if the president elect is at this event generating this revenue . Well, it certainly creates the appearance, ari, that what he is doing is essentially selling access to himself. Sure, this club maralago has had these types of events before at major holidays, on new years, on christmas, on thanksgiving. What it hasnt had is a featured guest who, by the way, is the president elect of the United States of america. So the way that they explain this is just business as usual. This is the way maralago conducts business. And forget about the money that trump receives from this. And would have received whether he was president elect or not. The specter he is essentially allowing anyone who has the money to either buy a member ship or the access to someone who has a membership who can pay for a ticket to Something Like this creates the appearance of forget about the possible Business Partners who were in there or the celebrities. Its the people who want to get access to trump. Its an amazing deal for any potential business person. Or a person who wants to do business with the United States government, special interests, lobbyists. You could just imagine going down the line for those this would be an amazing deal. Look at the contrast here. He ran a campaign saying because he has money and a business he wont be beholden to these interests. That was a big selling point for him. A lot of people believed it, naively or not. He will fundraise less. And theres a truth to that. But that truth seems to be dwarfed by what was on display this weekend which is the business actually makes him more beholden than Campaign Money and, as weve been saying, is less traceable, less transparent. And its also much trickier for him to extricate himself or there to be transparency around. Lets say given the benefit of the doubt and saying he goes to the extreme end of divestiture, hes still going to vacation at maralago, even if he has maralago in a blind trust or he doesnt really know whether his businesses or portfolio includes maralago he knows someone is paying money to this entity that is so closely associated with him that may or may not be in his portfolio, that may or may not be in the blind trust that his kids may or may not oversee and here they are sitting on the couch or the patio with the president of the United States. Its a complicated situation. Cant easily extricate himself from it. Lets stipulate thats what people who care about good governance, ethics reformers, journalists and people who think about these issues, thats what theyre concerned about. Lets put that to the side then and then look at the actual trump teams response. What are we learning about where theyre at . This is a guy who said he was going to hold a big announcement to clean this up. Things were going to change. The kids would be in charge. Said all this stuff. When you looked at his actions, not the announcements, the announcements he never game, hey, whats the matter . This is just business as usual. Does that tell you theres something wrong if they think business as usual is okay when hes the president elect . I mean, its a little bit of a sign of where their head is at as they try to grapple with this incredibly complicated situation where they try to put to rest these concerns about conflicts of interest and try to find a sustainable system Going Forward for separating himself from his business. In a way i cannot for the life of me figure out how it can be done in a way that will satisfy sort of the Good Government concerns that i think are validly being raised in this and other situations. And complexity has become a little bit of a dodge for them. The are parts that are complex, in other words you cant just legally force someone into having a fire sale, right, and potentially costing them a lot of money. Thats not typically how a disillusion would work. That is actually complex. Whats not complex is making the decision to not sell yourself for 500 access and tickets. Thats not complex. Thats simple. If you wanted to skip the party, you could skip the party. If you wanted to donate the funds that new years to charity you could donate the funds. Theres a million mple ways to do that. They chose none of those and counterattacked and told people, hey, dont be mad. Its business as usual. Thats my final thought. Ken vogel, i appreciate you giving us yours. Its not just the excuse that this is the way its always been done. They went further in our story where we reveal the tickets were sold for members. Ken, thank you very much for your time and happy to hear your last thought while we look at the eagle. No better image. Coming up, we showed you the clip, and maybe you noticed guy holding the agle statue. If youre wondering what its about we have the answer. Regulations are going off, were going to get rid of obamacare. That footage of president elect Donald Trumps new Years Eve Party at maralago, who was the enthusiastic person to his right and what is the deal with that eagle statue being held by another gentleman to trump s left and dont they have something they could put this thing on so that poor guy doesnt have to just cradle it the whole time . When someone is giving a stump speech, you dont know how long. Courtesy after Facebook Post from Hospitality Sciences is, the man at the right is joseph, the president of the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences and the eagle is bronze, a bronze eagle awarded by the academy. And there is more. Trump has been honored before by this same academy and its president. He was the Presumptive Republican nominee and the Hospitality Academy gave an award to trumps scottish golf course as the best golf course worldwide. Which prompted this yahoo news headline. Quote, how a convicted felon nicknamed joey no socks covered him in stars. The article explained trump has received many similar awards from that same man including five and sixstar ratings from trump properties. The organization is run by joseph cinque, a long time trump aquantance who goes by the nickname joey no socks and has a conviction for stolen property. Perhaps this eagle was far more cooperative than this eagle, you may remember, from that Time Magazine shoot in 2015. Its a live eagle. What do you expect . Look at him go. America. Up next, David Kay Johnson is here on the president elect and his evolving relationship with corporate welfare. No way. Just for men gives you a natural grayfree look. Just lather in. In just five minutes. Greatlooking hair, made easy. Just for men. Its realizing beauty doesnt stop at my chin. Roc®s formula adapts to delicate skin areas. My fine lines here . Visibly reduced in 4 weeks. Chest, neck, and face cream from roc®. Methods, not miracles. ™ look, everything that he does right now he gets he speaks with the head of sprint, gets 5,000 jobs moved from abroad and those jobs were already announced. They werent. These jobs are coming from abroad to america. Instead of trying to mock him or undermine him, its time people give him credit for getting things done. Getting things done. President elect Donald Trumps incoming press Secretary Sean Spicer there insisting those 5,000 jobs donald trump said sprint was bringing back to the u. S. Are new. They are not. They are part of a holistic deal announced by soft bank. American corporations are now facing pressure to go along with Donald Trumps jobs claims. The New York Times slamming it in an editorial, why corporations are helping donald trump lie about jobs. The piece explains why its so messy for the government through president elect trump in this manner. Quote, its easy to see were soft bank and sprint might want to help mr. Trump take credit for creating jobs. Soft banks chief executive wants the department of justices antitrust and the federal Communications Commission to allow a merger between sprint and tmobile. Mr. Son see as deal between himself and trump with people who sided with Large Communications companies and regulatory debates and argued against tough antitrust enforcement. The times explains why this should be croney capitalism with devastaing consequences. Pulitzer prize winning journal i have had david cay johnson. Id like to start by just walking through how this works. It appears that donald trump will have some private communication with a company and then he will take the lead and the announcement separately, whether thats to the public or to shareholders would be some formal business announcement. Explain how it works. This is a con job. Plain and simple, ari, this is a con job and the numbers were talking about are inconsequential. In the terms of sprint, the wealthiest man in japan has had a plan in place for some time and he is going to want something from donald trump. He tried to merge sprint with tmobile and the Justice Department said no for antitrust reasons. You can agree or disagree with that but he wants to do that and other actions in the future. Hes buttering up donald trump. Another variation were seeing with people manipulating trump as weve seen with vladimir putin. If youre the ceo of a big company youre going to do everything you can to let donald trump take credit because you dont want him to use his enormous powers. You essentially have a duty to kiss the president s ring. When you say fiduciary duty you are referring to the legal obligation these Corporate Executives have to maximize profits to shareholders. Their legal duty is to the company but to the shareholders. Theyre not going to do anything to put in jeopardy their position, the companys position, and donald trump is in a position to extract from these people things that may or may not be good judgment. Ari, im old enough to remember when republicans thought business should make its own governments. Wait a minute, that was six months ago. You used the word extraction. At a certain point the outlines of what youre describing sound like a shakedown but instead of getting something very valuable for the country its pr valuable for donald trump. Absolutely. These are in Donald Trumpian terms small potatoes. Were about to get the announcement on jobs. It will probably show 82 consecutive months of jobs growth, the old record was 52. Were close to 16 million private sector jobs under this administration. Very few americans know that but everybody has heard about the 730 jobs that trump inflated to 1,1000 ohio and very few people know that was a deal that violated trumps own position in the campaign when he said corporate welfare, interestfree loans and other tax favors didnt create jobs, now hes the champion of them. Donald is an absolute corporate chameleon and whatever makes trump look good no matter what it costs companies, Companies Better line up and pay attention. Corporate camillians. Say that ten times fast. David cay johnston, thank you for joining us. Who are they targeting coming up. And tonights thing 1 and thing 2 starts right after this break. Thing 1 tonight. 36 years ago in tempe, arizona, Bruce Springsteen made what are believed to be his first publicly recorded comments about politics. Now it was november 5th, 1980. In other words, one day after Ronald Reagan was elected president. I dont know what you think about happened last night, but i think its pretty frightening. There will be a lot of people depending on you coming up. Now decades later springsteen would become an advocate for president obama campaigning both in 2008 and 2012, and he campaigned for Hillary Clinton this year. But if he was frightened by reagans election all the way back in 1980, how is the boss feeling about Donald Trumps victory . Those brandnew comments thing 2 in 60 seconds. Lets all do our part so we can look back on 2016 and say we stood with Hillary Clinton on the right side of history. Thats why im standing here with you tonight for the dream of a better america. That was Bruce Springsteen campaigning for Hillary Clinton on the eve of the election. In a new interview for the wtf podcast with comedian mark marin out today springsteen spoke candidly about why trump and this new era scares him. Are you scared now . Yeah. Yeah. Of course. How could you not be. Right. Have you felt this fear before . No. Right. Ive felt disgust before. Right. But never the kind of fear that you feel now. Right. Its as sim am as the fear of is someone xe it tent enough to do this particular job. Right. Forget about where they are ideologically. Right. Do they have the pure competence to be put in a position of such responsibility. And whats your biggest fear of it as we enter it . I suppose would be that a lot of the worst things and the worst aspects of what he appealed to comes to fruition. When you let that genie out of the bottle bigotry, racism when you let those things out of the bottle intolerance. Intolerance. They dont go back in the bottle that easily, if they go back in at all. Right. Whether its a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have license to speak and behave in ways that previously were considered unamerican and are unamerican. Thats what hes appealing to. Its no secret donald trump didnt get along that well with paul ryan or Mitch Mcconnell back during the election. A new report from the New York Post has some fresh ideas into just how deep that divide could remain. The post reporting president elect trump told Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer he actually likes him, a democrat, more than mcconnell and ryan because the two republican leaders, quote, wanted him to lose. The post cites a source close to them for the quote. Democrats dont dispute the quote. Schumer and trump are both born and raised new yorkers. Trumps even donated to schumers campaign in the past. Thats about as far as it goes. The Washington Post report says that Senate Democrats led by schumer are planning to contest at least eight of trumps nominees and want to stretch their confirmation hearings all the way into march. Those eight targed nominees include exxon cex tillerson for secretary of state as well as senator Jeff Sessions, trump s controversial pick for attorney general. Those two battles in early skirmishes already under way. Reportedly saying theyre outraged tillerson will not release his full tax returns from the last three years as many cabinet nominees do though not always the secretary of state nominee. Now democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee as well as progressive groups are accusing senator sessions of omitting decades worth of his career from the information he did provide pursuant to the confirmation hearings. Given the fact republicans control the senate, how much can Senate Democrats really do to stifle the nominations to the trump cabinet and what does the opposition look like in both houses of congress once Trump Takes Office . I will ask some very special guests about that. Welcome back. Earlier in the broadcast we stated that music producer quincy jones attended trumps new Years Eve Party at maralago. While Donald Trumps spokesman, sean spicer, said jones would attend, we want to correct the record. Jones spent new years in los angeles. Back in capitol hill, a fight brewing over a Trump Nominee who has been in this position before. Mr. Sessions is a throwback to a shameful era which i know both black and white americans thought was in our past. Its inconceivable to me that a person of this attitude is qualified to be a u. S. Attorney let alone a United States federal judge. He is i believe a disgrace to the Justice Department and he should withdraw his nomination and resign his position. That was the late senator ted kennedy speaking during the 1986 hearing for Jeff Sessions, this one a nominee for federal judgeship. Sessions was ultimately denied that position by the Senate Judiciary committee, a 108 vote. Senate democrats are now looking to block up to eight of Donald Trumps nominees, senator sessions widely considered one of the most controversial. Joining me tonight is sarah florez, a spokesperson for jeff session, howard dean, former chair of the dnc, and christina greer, associate professor of Political Science at fordham. Welcome, everyone. Christina, the sessions nomination is controversial. It also as a matter of the historical record is unusual because he is the only nominee who has been previously basically passed on by the senate for a different position. Your thoughts on him this time . Keep in mind, his own colleagues and his own members of his party deemed him to be too racist in reagans 1980s. And so when you have someone like the late senator ted kennedy essentially saying hes not only an embarrassment to the professional and he should not be elevated to attorney general or to even a judge, the writings of senator sessions are so deplorable, its not just about black americans in this country. Its about how he feels about the history but also the future of this country. So the fact that donald trump, in the 21st century, in 2016, chose this particular individual to me and to many others, black and white and other, sends a very distinct message about the dog bark, not even a dog whistle, but a dog bark hes trying to send about his racial platform. Senator sessions is a horrible choice for this particular position, especially as an attorney general who is supposed to uphold some of the most important ideals of the constitution. Sarah, what is your response and how does the senator address that history from the first confirmation hearing . Well, i mean, i think its pretty clear that the leftist playbook at this point is smear. I didnt hear a lot of facts. 30 years ago, the democrats practiced their playbook they would use against bork. We now have a verb for it, borking someone, that means smearing them without any basis. The person who was a witness for Jeff Sessions under oath later had to recant his testimony because the conversations he remembered were disprovable later. This idea that ted kennedy somehow in his statement should hold now, ted kennedy worked with Jeff Sessions, passed legislation with Jeff Sessions, so did dick durbin. Well have had senators, democrats and republicans, who have worked with Jeff Sessions, 20 years in the senate. Democrats are going to do what theyre going to do, say what theyre always going to say. It didnt work in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. Its not going to work now. Jeff sessions will uphold the rule of law, something our previous attorney generals under this administration have been sorely lacking. By the way, Jeff Sessions voted to confirm eric holder. Senator sessions in 30 years made a good choice in upholding eric holder, but this is straight out of the republican playbook. Donald trump is pulling out a bunch of hasbeens and neverwases. We know these people believe in segregationist tactics. Where are the facts . Excuse me, that is a lie. No facts. If we read, we know that this particular individual has gone out of his way, the majority of his career, to make sure that black americans specifically are disenfranchised. Thats not true. Sarah, you can respond, then governor dean is waiting for his turn. I dont know how to respond when theres no facts there. No, he hasnt. Governor dean . There are some facts there in terms of the quotes that you can actually get that Jeff Sessions has actually said. Im more interested in the process here. If manchin has said that hes going to support sessions, then you need four republican four excuse me, four republican votes against him. And this is theyve targeted eight, the democrats in the senate have targeted eight people. Theyre going to have to get at least three republican votes, in this case four. And the way to do that is to target the senators, the republican senators who have to run for reelection in 2018. And youre not going to get all of these eight. So i dont want to make any predictions about which ones you are going to get, but youre going to have to show to a significant number of these senators constituents theres going to be a penalty for voting for some of the people they want to target. I think they will get one or two but i dont think theyll get all eight of them. Senator, what do you think about Rex Tillerson who seems to be the one where there is so much controversy and questions about russia and he has some links there that the trump folks argue is positive, because hes been a businessman in the region, other folks question his impartiality. I know very little about Rex Tillerson so i dont have a particular comment about whether he should be the secretary of state or not. There will be an incredibly thorough vetting of these vocation, there always is, no matter which side is doing the vetting. The senate is badly divided, it didnt used to be a body like the house but it is now. I cant predict whats going to happen. Somebody is going to find something or they wont find something in Rex Tillersons resume that is going to be condemning. If he doesnt give documents like his full tax returns, thats going to be a problem. Again, the only way to stop the confirmations of any of these folks is to find a constituency in the state of some senator, some republican senator. Sarah, i have 20 seconds for each of you. Nobody watching the show right now thinks the democrats actually will stop these confirmations. This is about delay. This is about playing politics with this. And nobody believes that if Hillary Clinton had won this election, that the democrats would be trying to delay these confirmations until march. I dont know why, i dont think it will help them in 2018. I think republicans will win more seats. If Hillary Clinton had won, she would nominate people who were legitimate and didnt seek to dismantle the very offices theyre put in charge of. Every Single Person mr. Trump has nominated wants to roll back the clock, when we think about housing, education, the attorney general. Lively, informative, thank you all. Thats all this evening, the Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Thank you, ari, thank you for filling in last week, it was great. Happy new years. Thanks to you at home for staying with us the next hour. It was really nice to have a few days off. It is really, really nice to be back. I keep running into old friends and family members and people on the street and people like, you know, out on the dog walk and stuff. People want to talk to me about politics. They say with concern in your eyes, how are you feeling about 2017 . I found myself by the end of my vacation saying, im really excited for 2017. I am. My job is to explain stuff. And oh, my god, is that a good job to have this year already. Case in point. This story is amazing. And it starts with copper, the mineral copper. Theres copper in brass. Theres copper in bronze. The statue of liberty is sheathed in a layer of copper. Thats about the thickness of two pennies. Pennies themselves used to be copper, but now theyre just coppercovered zinc, which sort of seems sad. It makes financi