Those of us in frigid clims dont feel like were with you. It is 22 in new york city right now. Its 78 where you are. If you give me 26 of your degrees, youd be at 52. Then id be at 52 and wed be at the same temperature. Ali, throw on some hawaiian music, turn the lights on in your office and put on a jacket. Itll feel the same way. Hallie, you have a fantastic balmy, warm, rest of your morning. Hallie jackson for us in west palm beach. Good morning, everyone. Stephanies off today. Its wednesday, december 27th. Lets get started. He tweeted a great year for companies and jobs as he talks taxes on his working holiday in south florida. Back on twitter with a new year prediction. All signs are that businesses are looking good for next year. Only to be helped further by our tax cut bill. Will be a great year for companies and jobs. Stock market is poised for another year of success. The president , of course, maintaining hes conducting a lot of business while hes down at maralago. The president has arrived to, we believe, to play golf at his resort here in palm beach. Hes done so every other day this vacation. Recreational pot becomes legal on new years day. Lining up to get a piece of the pot if you will. Those companies will eventually collect taxes and hand them back to california. Experts estimated there will be 7 billion in annual sales in california. Under federal law, marijuana is illegal and regulations prohibit banks from knowingly depositing what they still consider drug money. At the minimum, marijuana businesses will have mandatory microbiological screenings, foreign matter inspections, residual solvent tests, and pesticide, metal, and chemical screenings. They have a lot to do before you can pop your top and get your weed. The highly anticipated interview between prince harry and former president obama. The former most eligible bachelor in the world asked the former leader of the free world for a chat. The dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases. All the problems we face are solvable despite all the terrible news that you see. The sense that there was a completion and that we had done the work in a way that preserved our integrity. Im not sure i believed in new years resolutions. Typically people break them. I believe in making sure that each day you try to do a little bit better than you did before. All right. President trump is at his Trump International golf club in west palm beach, tloflorida, where i 78 degrees. We havent seen sight of him today. The stock market is back up again after taking a slight dip at the end of trading yesterday. Okay. Now, the dow is on pace for its first ninemonth winning streak since 1959. While the s p 500 which i like a little bit better because its broader. Doesnt have a fancy board like the dow. The s p could see the first ninemonth winning streak in more than 30 years. President trump is again predicting big things to come in 2018 tweeting in part, all signs that business is looking really good next year only to be helped further by our tax cut bill. Will be a great year for companies and jobs. Stock market is poised for another year of success. President trump loves to take credit for the markets having a great year. And listen, in fairness, the markets had a great year. As i say, i like the s p 500. It has gained 18 in the first 11 months of Donald Trumps time in office. Almost a Straight Line all the way up. Now, this is the moment in which i remind you that the stock market under donald trump has performed well. It is continuing this is the trump part. It is continuing an upward trend that started on march 9th of 2009. Either way, trump has presided over a fantastic market. But other Global Markets are doing just as well. And they dont have a President Trump leading their countries. Lets take a look. This is the s p 500 here in the united states. Heres the nikkei 225 in japan. Its actually up more than the s p 500 is. Hong kong, the hang seng is up even more. This is the dax in germany. Its up 12 . Still almost double what youd get in an average year. No donald trump at the helm. Theres upheaval in germany. I dont know. Trump also likes to claim that as president , no other president has seen as big an upswing as he has in their first year. Again, simply not true. In president obamas first 11 months in office, the s p 500 grew by 38 . Now, in fairness, this was coming off of a very deep recession and a bad market. You would have hoped for some growth, but still more than double Donald Trumps growth. George w. Bush had a 20 gain in his first 11 months. So donald trump ranked third. He will tell you that he ranks first. Joining me now is john harwood. John, i will give donald trump this. He talks the stock market up better, i think, than any president in recent history. And because the stock market is half math and science and half emotion and sentiment, thats got to be helpful. Well, he certainly is doing whatever he can to inspire confidence among investors. And certainly the tax bill gives investors some reason to celebrate. Youre going to have stock buybacks. Youre going to have big dividends. Youre going to have better corporate profits. But you tend to have in these situations a reversion to the mean. And so an extraordinary year like 2017 you have to think is likely to average out and have less extraordinary gains in 2018 in the same way if you average your temperature in new york and hallies in florida, you average 52 degrees. Well, we would expect the market to slow down a bit. Theres also the question, ali, of by the expectations sell the reality. And so theres been a lot of anticipation of these tax cuts. Once theyre actually real and theres no more anticipation, what does that do to the animal spirits of the stock market . If i knew, i wouldnt be working. But i think everybody ought to be ready. People ask me all the time what the stock market is going to do. I said if i knew that, id be calling this thing in from my yacht. I advise people to know the password to their 401 k . There have been some bullish and bearish calls. Usa today gathered some of them for 2018. The bullish call is the s p 500 will grow 16 for those of you who care about the numbers on it to 3100. The bearish call is that it will be 2 to 3 higher than it is right now. So the good news is that lots of people think its going to be higher than it is from now. But no one thinks its going to be higher than it is now. Meaning no one thinks the growth is going to be higher than it was in 2017. Right. Heres another thing to think about. You look at the political environment. Its not good for republicans. The tax bill is popular with investors in the market, not popular with the public. Donald trumps ratings are very low. Democrats have a big advantage in the early polling for 2018. How does it affect the market if the expectation grows that democrats have a shot at taking over the congress and putting the brakes on some of the probusiness policies that President Trump and republicans in congress are advocating . Thats something that everybody ought to take into consideration. Consumer spending, Consumer Confidence slipped a bit in september but it was hitting record highs in november. You look at the Holiday Spending numbers, retail has been in a slump all year. Now we see some recovery in the retail stocks. The fact is whether or not you and i discussed many times this was sold dishonestly, the fact is because of low unemployment and marginally increasing wages, americans are feeling better than they were a year ago about the economy. Thats right. And maybe americans will feel a little bit better when they look at their withholding and see for a significant number of people a change in the amount of money they take home in their paycheck. Pollsters will tell you theres not much evidence that people actually feel that, belief that when they look at their paycheck and say oh im better off because i got a tax cut. Thats going to take some time to sink in. But if in reality this tax bill generates a surge of Economic Growth in the shortterm, that certainly would sustain that Consumer Confidence. And that would help republicans in the midterm elections. Thats right. Its not real evidence of benefit of the tax cut, but its that sentimental emotional sense things are happening. Thinking economy is going forward, maybe i should give these guys a continued chance. Right. And that could mitigate some of the other negative Political Trends for republicans. One other wild card, of course, is that people are going to see very soon a rising federal deficit. And the Bipartisan Policy Center has said we could be back in fiscal year 2019 to trilliondollar deficits. How does that effect the psychology . Thats going to be hard because ultimately, john, theres no way we started hearing conversations about entitlement cuts. But ultimately when you look at medicaid, the largest one, you cant get there from here. You cannot offset the potential damage thats going to be done to the deficit with cuts to those who need it in the country. Paul ryan to his credit or claim, he wants a more of a run at entitlement reform. He posed in the past to converting medicare to a system of premium support where people would get a voucher to buy private insurance. Hes talked the next step would be dealing with entitlements. On the other hand, Mitch Mcconnell is not too keen on that. And we dont see that on the agenda. Mitch mcconnell is trying or speaking the language of trying to establish some bipartisanship in 2018. He knows thats a nonstarter. Great to see you as always. John harwood. President obama warning about the dangers of social media since leaving office. Prince harry snagged a sitdown with the former president. It was recorded in september in toronto at the inn vic tvictus. He asked the president from everything from his last day in office to pop culture. Can i take you back to the 20th of january 2017. You sat in marine one, the president ial helicopter flying over washington. Youve sat through the inauguration with your game face on, not giving much emotion away, as we all saw. Whats going through your mind . You know, the first thing that went through my mind was, sitting across from michelle, how thankful i was that she had been my partner through that whole process. Overall, there was a ser renty there more than i would have expected. Was there a sense of relief . Was there a sense of job done as best as you could . Was there Unfinished Business . Relief probably isnt the right phrase because relief indicates some sense that i cant wait until this thing is finished. Oh, sure. But the pressure. But i think there was a sense that we had run a good race. Whats different about your mornings . I wake up later. And, you know, its wonderful to be able to control your day in a way that you cant as president. The job entailed a wide range of responsibilities and a constantly full inbox. And now when i wake up, i can make my own decisions about how do i want to spend my time, what do i need to do to move forward the things i care deeply about. Thats obviously hugely liberating. Issues of trolling, extremism, fake news, and Cyber Bullying are major social issues. Is there more you could have done as president to get ahead of some of these issues, do you think . One of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases. Boxers or briefs . Sorry, we dont answer those questions. Lebron james or Michael Jordan . Jordan. Although i love lebron, but im a chicago guy. Aretha franklin or tina turner . Aretha is the best. Kim or khloe . This one i have to defer on. Okay. Harry or william . William right now. The interview did not include any mention of the princes upcoming wedding to Meghan Markle since it was conducted before the engagement. But one of the bbc hosts asked if the obamas would make the guest list, he only said we havent put the invites or the guest list together yet adding we wouldnt want to ruin that surprise. There is some talk about the tensions between President Trump and Prime Minister may and inviting the obamas might exacerbate that thing. All right. Sexual harassment within the department of justice from mishandling complaints to rewarding the perpetrators. A look at a report showing systemic problems across the country. President trump has been critical of the organization as they investigate his ties to russia. But now in response, the Fbi Agents Association has received more than 140,000 in donations so far this month. More than 2,000 individual donations. The Association Says itll use the money to help the children of fallen fbi agents. Stay with us. Youre watching velshi ruhle on msnbc. David. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. Its part of our commitment to being americas best first job. Your insurance on time. Tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. What good is having insurance if you get punished for using it . News flash nobodys perfect. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch and you could save 782 on home and auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™ Liberty Mutual insurance. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. Right now the u. S. Justice department is now dealing with its own Sexual Harassment scandal. The Inspector General called attention to the issue as far back as may noting the Justice Department has systemic problems in how it handles Sexual Harassment complaints with some perpetrators given little discipline or even later being rewarded. Many of the cases including senior justice officials including a u. S. Attorney who had a sexual relationship with a subordinate and sent harassing texts and emails when it ended, a Civil Division lawyer who groped the breasts and buttocks of attorneys. And another that hacked into a personal email account and creating a fictitious online profile to entice her. Julia, what have we got . So this is a june report which i think is sort of the first thing that surprised me. Was that there were a lot of details in here that have been swept under the rug. And partly it was because there werent many names and it was a little bit vague. But some of these things do, you know, obviously raise a lot of questions. In fact, theres one example here about a man at the fbi who was in the supervisory management and Program Analyst role. He had subordinates who were subjected to three years of Sexual Harassment. This individual was counseled four times and even signed a pledge to refrain from such behavior and there was no effect. The Washington Post had more details because they did a freedom of information act request. They found some of the most damaging details. A Deputy Marshal who had sex with nine women in his office over multiple times. So of course this is all sort of coming out since june. We put more emphasis on these things. Even a white paper like the one originally put out in june that doesnt name anyone is getting more attention than it would have just a few months ago. It shows us where weve come. Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein was alerted to this by the Inspector General in may and hes convened a working group on the issues. But it seems like the one development out of this so far is you had reported that some of these people were getting awards or performance bonuses after these complaints. Apparently thats on hold. Right. So when there was a pending investigation into an allegation, there were people who were continuing to be given performance awards. That is something that the Justice Department has wanted to put on hold. And they have convened a working group. The working group is convened in august. We just heard today they will soon be responding to the Inspector Generals report with more recommendation for action. It sort of gives a wide kind of general approach. And i think a lot of people want their perpetrators to be held accountable and to perhaps be taken out of the Justice Department. Reassigned, not given bonuses. Really be taken out so they cant harm anyone else. The Inspector General also found a number of unreported things. Like unprofessional behavior, demeaning comments over email for several years, inappropriate relationships. The concept theyre underreported i guess speaks to the idea that the solution is not robust. Whats supposed to happen is you raise it to your manager and it goes to the level of Inspector General. I know thats the way its supposed to work there. But this could be a place where theyre underreported where the Inspector General is interviewing people and finding out there are a lot of things that never rose to their level that should have. And perhaps its a culture. I mean, that seems to be the one factor that spreads through all of these stories that weve heard. A lot of them that youve covered. That people thought they were in a culture they couldnt come