and a good wednesday morning. we begin with president-elect donald trump s formal introduction of his choice for defense secretary. talking about general james mad dog mattis joining trump in north carolina. the second stop of his thank you tour and now mr. touched on several of his themes. it came after trump set off a firestorm after new air force one planes. for the details karen travers in washington. karen, good morning. reporter: good morning. it seemed a bit surprising that out of nowhere donald trump went after one of america s biggest companies, but after some digging yesterday, that tweet and his public comments about aircraft giant boeing seemed to be a response to the company s ceo. joining donald trump on his victory lap, his choice to lead the pentagon, retired marine general james mattis. the american people are fortunate a man of this character and integrity will now be the civilian leader atop the department of defense. reporter: earlier tuesday tru
good evening and welcome to mtp daily, i m chuck todd on a very rainy and cold washington. president obama just wrapped up what is being billed as his last major national security speech of his presidency. the closing argument for the obama foreign policy doctrine and a rebuttal of critics who argue for a course change come january. he also provided a strong defense of what he calls america values on the national security values, a not so veiled attack on some of the rhetoric president-elect trump ran on. donald trump himself is set to speak in north carolina, alongside retired general james mattis, his pick for secretary of defense. speaking at mcdill air force base in tampa, president obama listed off some of his accomplishments in the eight years he spent as commander in chief. today by any measure, core al qaeda, the organization that hit us on 9/11, is a shadow of its former self. plots directed from within afghanistan and pakistan have been consistently disrupted.
reporter: good morning, carol. like you said, first came that controversial phone call with taiwan. then came that series of tweets from donald trump over the weekend where he slammed china, accusing of manipulating currency, a claim he made repeatedly throughout his campaign, and also criticizing china s military action in the south china sea. first, chinese officials were left scrambling trying to get some sort of clarification as to that phone call that happened on friday. then they were left to react to donald trump s tweets over the weekend. a spokesman for the foreign ministry of china does say that china refuses to speculate about donald trump s actions and then going on to say that they believe the policies between the u.s. and china that have lasted for nearly four decades need to be continued, in particular referring to the one china policy. but as it pertains to vp-elect mike pence, he s defending that phone call, that ten-minute phone call between donald trump a
sunlen, good evening to you. trump was joined by his choice for defense secretary onstage. what did he say? reporter: this is something donald trump casually dropped at his rally last week. certainly tonight it was a little bit of showmanship on the part of the president-elect, formally making the announcement. certainly donald trump likes to drop his nickname as he did many times tonight from the podium, mad dog mattis. certainly the crowd responded to that. at one point mattis did come out onstage and spoke from the podium. here is what he had to say. thank you, president-elect, for the confidence that you have shown in me. thank you for the opportunity. i m grateful for the opportunity to return to our troops, their families, the civilians at the department of defense, because i know how committed they are and devoted they are to the defense of our country, the defense of our constitution, and with our allies strengthened, with our country strengthened, i look forwar
good morning to you, i m ali velshi alongside louis burgdorf and kasie hunt. president-elect donald trump went to fayetteville, north carolina, last night. he talked about the anniversary of pearl harbor and he laid out his vision for the military s mission under his administration. in every generation, a new threat to freedom arises. and just as we defeated these threats, we faced generations in the past, and you understand that, so, too, will we defeat the forces of terrorism. it s unseen in many cases, but we re going to defeat that force, and we re going to defeat it strongly and quickly. from now on it s going to be america first, america first. we will stop racing to topple foreign and you understand this. foreign regimes that we know nothing about. that we shouldn t be invol with. instead, our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying isis. we re going to have such a strong, powerful military. it s not going to be depleted any longer. i mentioned equipmen