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
deportations except for felons, give people work permits. if they want to become a citizen, they ve got to get in line behind people from poland and everyone else who wants to come here. that s my chris matthews theory. let s talk about infrastructure. we have an almost $20 trillion gdp. we re getting close to that range. what would we needle in terms of a real make america great infrastructure campaign? what would it take? i think you ll have to have a bipartisan buy-in on this. this is why it s so important to say, republicans, we took the chamber out here, we have the presidency now, we can t just focus on running only our agenda through. we re going to have to reach radio across the aisle. because on infrastructure, we can all agree that, you know, look, it s in the constitution that it s the role of the federal government to provide post offices and post roads, which is obviously infrastructure. the problem is, how do we pay for it? and i think there s really ways to get this do
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, we re 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. i m not committing to not running. i m 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. i m going to run in 2020. so for what? for president. [ laughter ] so, what the hell, man. anyway.
too many people thought that mitt romney has been too sharply critical of donald trump during the campaign. so that s why you re 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, he s the former ambassador to china. interesting given that you have trump making that controversial phone call with taiwan. my sources telling me that huntsman didn t advise him prior to that call. but at the same time, huntsman s 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 he s going to be tough with them. of course, a lot of critics on that front as well. and rex tillerson, the ceo of exxonmobil. he s going to be here tomorrow. but at this point in time, chris, huntsman and tillerson haven t met with trump, so they re not serious contenders ye
the bulk of the time was with the president-elect, donald trump. i found it an extremely interesting conversation. and to be continued. and i m just going to leave it at that. for the latest on the transition, i m joined by nbc s kristen welker. i don t know what s going on. all i know, kristen, the list gets longer. the ones that came to the vineyard earlier aren t 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, here s 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 we ve 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