into the d.c. establishment, he wants someone who s a weathered washington handle to be there to perhaps balance out his inexperience. we see choices like this on the hill when a new member comes in. he or she will often pick an experienced hand to be chief of staff. that said, trump will get some pushback in large part because the theme of his last presidential campaign was drain the swamp. folks are going to say how can you when you have someone like reince priebus running your staff. we ll see how it goes. sara, is this a result of potentially a mike pence leading the transition process here? an establishment republican saying donald trump, you need to go with reince priebus here, you need to bring along the party, you need to bring along the energy, the money, the people that will drive your administration forward? well, i do think that putting mike pence in charge of transition was, again, a very smart move, a good nod to conservatives about the direction that this administrat
get a better insight as potentially some of our sources for that. thank you so much. hallie jackson, i know off busy night ahead. got to run for nightly news. thanks, hallie. thanks, rism archard. reince priebus announced as the next chief of staff for president-elect donald trump. i want to bring back our panel who has been patiently with us bringing out this breaking news. thanks for being here. sara, reince priebus, you know him well. the question is he s chief of staff. i was going to talk with hallie about this. chief of staff really the gatekeeper. who does the president talk to? what are the topics the pieces of paper that will be sit in fromt of the president to consider each and every day
testimony what sort of c.o.o. is reince priebus, sara? the rnc, we saw quite a bit of that. he is someone who thinks forward, thinks long term. that s why we saw the investment in the ground game and the data and digital efforts. and sticks around. he was the longest serving republican chairman which shows he likes to see the job through. i think that with a unified republican government holding the senate, holding the house and now the white house, it s very important to have someone like reince who can see the whole board. so when you re looking at moving forward legislation, that s going involve a lot of different players and that s something that reince really has excelled at at the rnc. it s why the republicans have had such a sturdy bench over the last four years until particular something that democrats did not have. so it s a great move. i think reince will be very good at the management side of this in particular, and i think it s a great nod to conservatives
seems so far away at the moment, this is potentially also a head nod to those states which brought donald trump to the presidency. well, i think as betsy and sara have intimated, as a democrat i don t know him at all, but it seems the pick is not only that aspect, richard, but just i think the recognition that in addition to winning he has to govern that. as he starts to govern donald trump, betsy, the question, as he s grown in the rnc and you probably remember his how he was dealing with press early on versus the way he deals with press today, the way he was managing the rnc earlier versus the way he does today, he has certainly grown in the role and now this next big role as chief of staff, according to nbc sources in case you re just joining us, our viewers here, reince priebus, the chairman of the rnc chosen as chief of staff.
certainly not establishment. bannon isn t even just not establishment. he tried to help paul ryan s primary challenger to defeat him. he brought paul nilan on many times in that time period. he said paul ryan was grown in a petrie dish at the heritage foundation. he s been completely unvarnished in his distaste and opposition to paul ryan. so, yeah, if he s the guy running the white house staff, that s going to make for some interesting conversations between the white house and the house of representatives. kellyanne conway saying that is imminent that announcement of who the chief of staff would be. sara, when you look at the idea of reince priebus potentially being that choice, what would that tell you about the trump administration? that s that key first role. i ve worked for reince priebus. he s an incredibly hardworking,