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All in with Chris Hayes, Transcript 1/6/2017

Guests: : Neera Tanden, Matthew Miller, Jason Candor, Wade Henderson, Randi Weingarten

JOY-ANN REID, MSNBC NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Tonight on ALL IN. DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Putin is a strong leader. REID: Ordered by Putin. TRUMP: No puppet, no puppet. REID: America`s intelligence chiefs meet face to face with Donald Trump and tell him "Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign" in the 2016 election and had a "Clear preference for President-elect Trump." TRUMP: I love WikiLeaks. REID: Tonight, the jaw-dropping and now public intelligence report detailing Russia`s efforts to elect Donald Trump, and why Trump still refuses to single out Russia for blame. Plus, today`s harrowing scene in Florida. We`ll have the latest on the mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. Then -- TRUMP: Who is going to pay for that wall? REID: Or maybe the American taxpayer. And how democrats are keeping the resistance going. MAXINE WATERS, UNITED STATES CONGRESSMAN OF CALIFORNIA: Is there one United States senator who will join me in this letter? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s no debate. REID: All In starts now. REID: Good evening from New York, I`m Joy Reid in for Chris Hayes. And there is a lot to get to tonight, including the latest on that terrible shooting at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. But we are now two weeks from Donald Trump taking the oath of office as president of the United States and for months he`s been defending the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin and is missing all the indications that Russia played a role in hacking democratic officials while simultaneously praising WikiLeaks for releasing damaging information about his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Today, Trump had his long-anticipated briefing on the matter with top U.S. Intelligence officials at Trump Tower and we now know what he was told. Shortly after the meeting, the intelligence community released a declassified version of its comprehensive report on Russia`s interference in the 2016 election and the findings are nothing short of explosive. In bold letters at the top of the report, this is the key finding, "We assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential Election. Russia`s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." The report finds not just that Russian Military Intelligence stole data from democratic operatives and institutions passing them on to WikiLeaks to be released but that Russia waged a comprehensive propaganda campaign using state-owned media and online trolls to push favorable messages about Trump and drive negative coverage of Clinton. Now, you`d think all that would make an impression on the President-elect himself. Today he received the top-secret version of that very report complete with highly classified sources and methods delivered to him in person by the director of National Intelligence and the heads of the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. But in a statement released after that meeting, Trump still refused to acknowledge or accept their conclusions about Russian`s direct role, saying, "Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the democrat national committee." Democrat. Instead, Trump seems more focused on the validity of his own victory than on Russia`s attempt to disrupt American democracy claiming, "There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines." The intelligence community never claimed that Russia`s interference had an impact on the election results. In fact, the report states right off the top that that was never their mission. "We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The U.S. Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities and actions of foreign actors, it does not analyze U.S. Political processes or U.S. Public opinion." So regardless of whether Russia succeeded at influencing the election results the report states unequivocally that they -- unequivocally that they sure tried. I`m joined by Senator Jeff Merkley, democrat from Oregon. And Senator Merkley, when you read this report and were briefed on this report, what was your reaction? JEFF MERKLEY, UNITED STATES SENATOR FOR OREGON: I was really shocked at how clear it is, this massive effort of Russian hacking, of course, hacking the DNC and officials like John Podesta associated with it. Also an extensive, extensive false news operation and then amplifying that false news with a team of trolls and bloggers operating out of Petersburg. And so it lays it out and it`s available for everyone in America to read and quite frankly when you see they worked so hard to amplify the themes of the Trump campaign and to denigrate Secretary Clinton in case after case after case attacking her health and her integrity, these false news stories, I want to emphasize that, these false news stories coming out of Russian, being amplified by them trying to pull down her campaign. REID: Yes. And there`s even a part in the report where they -- where they state when it appeared to Moscow Secretary Clinton was likely to win, they shifted their efforts toward undermining her expected presidency, meaning that they meant the damage to Clinton to radiate into her potential presidency, meaning probably your colleagues on the other side of the aisle would use this as far to keep investigating her. MERKLEY: Yes. They sure did. They had a whole campaign prepared to delegitimize her victory and then they took that down when they somewhat unexpectedly found out Trump had won and then they were popping campaign corks, they were celebrating. They felt they had a significant impact in affecting the U.S. Election. REID: And you talk about amplifying the messages that were -- the false news, the false reports being amplified. One of the people amplifying that stuff was Donald Trump and I`m wondering what you make of the fact without Trump himself amplifying that false news stuff on the stage, at his rallies, really even in a sense even inflating some of the things that were in the WikiLeaks which, you know, were pretty snarky benign e-mails, what do you make of the fact that this couldn`t have succeeded without help from him? MERKLEY: Well, I`ll tell you. It`s really hard to get your hands around how this worked in the sense that when Trump took on a theme, to some degree that theme was also taken up by the Russian operation, amplifying and that`s often how a third-party campaign works in the United States when your -- you have a wall between the campaign and the thirty party and the third party said, we`ll see what the campaign does and it help amplify it. I can`t -- I can`t say clearly, no one can at this point, how much influence the Russian propaganda operation had as compared to the statements that Trump himself made but in both cases they were often completely 100 percent off-track and wrong and that`s what`s really disturbing here is the generation of false stories -- the hacking, all directed at influencing the outcome of the presidential election, it cast quite a shadow over the incoming presidency. REID: And really quickly, it could potentially cast a shadow over the senate. The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has shown no interest in having a special, you know, standing committee the way they had for Benghazi and some other things. You do have John McCain attempting to do an investigation. Do you foresee the senate doing anything about the information in this report? MERKLEY: John McCain really recognizes what a serious assault this is on the foundation of our democratic republic and I applaud him for it, we should be hearing that from every leader in this country. This is -- John McCain called it an act of war. It is certainly a major assault on the United States system of democracy. REID: Indeed. MERKLEY: And it should be thoroughly analyze, extensively analyzed by a bipartisan committee in the public, not in the secret halls of just the intelligence committee working -- majority get trapped and never let out -- a public bipartisan commission.You`re welcome, thank you. REID: Well, Senator Jeff Merkley, thank -- and joining me now is Neera Tanden, President of Center for American Progress, Matthew Miller, former spokesperson for the justice department. And I`ll start with you, I`ll ask each of you. First of all, Neera, do you have any confidence that anything will be done about this? Do you have confidence in the senate? You just heard Senator Jeff Merkley say that he has confidence in John McCain. Do you have confidence in the senate? NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT OF CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: Oh, I sure has confidence in John McCain but John McCain`s committee is not enough. As you can see in this report there`s really breath-taking details, one of which is that Russia has a history of exploiting -- I think the term really is exploiting western leaders with business contacts with Russia because Donald Trump has never released his taxes, we don`t know what his business contacts would be. Seems like they are -- that`s an -- that`s an avenue of investigation and I think that`s one of the really critical reasons we need bipartisan, bicameral investigation into this which is independent, has a special prosecutor or has, you know, real power in the minority and the majority to subpoena, to ask questions, to really get to the bottom of this. I don`t have confidence in that happening now, but I hope, you know, truly true patriots in the congress will look at this report and actually act in the country`s interest. REID: Yes. Absolutely. And of course, you were working with the Hillary Clinton campaign. Have you talked to one of your fellow members of the campaign to get their reaction to this report? TANDEN: Just a few and it is really breath taking. I mean, the level of detail, the clarity. I mean, you -- I hope every American reads this report, reads it for themselves to see our intelligence community speaking in one very clear voice about the fact that Russia intended to help elect Donald Trump and, frankly, his reactions make it clear that he knows it. I mean, obviously why wouldn`t you just say in your statement today that Russia did hack, that they were out to help him. Instead, his actions are making it seem really -- like he`s guilty and understands that they helped him. REID: And Matt miller, you know, to go beyond, you know, we`re focused a lot on what Russian Intelligence did in this report but it also does talk a lot about WikiLeaks, which is still out there, which still has the ability to obtain documents. We don`t know all of what they have and they could use it at any time. Are we not focusing enough on the potential damage that WikiLeaks could do whenever they feel like it depending on what they have or who they perceive to be their enemies in the moment, including being essentially enforcers for Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin or both. MATHEW MILLER, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: Yes. I think that`s right. I think we`re just at the beginning of asking important questions here. We now know about the Russian government`s involvement. We know some of WikiLeaks` involvement but the question you raise is an appropriate one. There`s another question. You know, there are many, many ties that were documented during the campaign between Trump advisers and Russia and in some cases the Russian government or the forces in Ukraine who were backed by Putin and we really need to have an independent look at whether there were people, you know, connected to the Trump campaign or American citizens or others who were helping this undermining of the -- of American democracy by the Russian government. That`s something that, you know, this report didn`t get into but in the days to come, congress has to look at it, the -- I think there needs to be an independent commission that looks at it and potentially the justice department, maybe a special prosecutor. REID: And, you know, Matt Miller, in this report it also talked about this being the new normal. That this wasn`t a discrete activity that we cannot expect to be repeated. You still have the RRT which is the propaganda arm for the Kremlin that`s still out there with even American, you know, American hosts appearing on it. You still got WikiLeaks out there. Do you -- do you -- are you concerned about the part of the report that said that it was also intended to undermine what they thought would be the next president of the United States? Meaning this was an operation that would have continued had Hillary Clinton been elected. MILLER: Yes. And they`re not going to -- and they`re not going to stand it down just because she lost. I mean, you have to think -- if you look at what WikiLeaks was doing today, WikiLeaks was tweeting basically the same things that Trump was tweeting today, attacking the conclusions of this report before it came out, attacking the people that support it. So, you know, it looks like WikiLeaks is going to be an ongoing force backing up the Trump administration. They talked today, said something today about assembling reports on people -- about people who will are tweeting so, you know, there is a real concern that you will have a foreign government in cahoots with a shadowy online organization, you know, looking to undermine political opponents of the -- of the Trump administration. And I know that sounds conspiratorial, but we just went through an election where they did exactly that. So it`s -- there is real reason to be concerned. REID: And same question to you, Neera, because obviously had Hillary Clinton been elected and this operation was not successful, part of it would have still been able to ripple into her presidency theoretically. Do you think that republicans are taking this seriously enough because Donald Trump is their friend now but, you know, your friends today can be your enemies tomorrow. TANDEN: I mean, I`m frankly more concerned -- the report lays out the Russians hacked into the republicans but chose not to release the data. I think people should be deeply concerned. What is there? Could they release it at any time? Does that mean Russia has information today that could be deeply embarrassing to republicans and that`s something they can hold over them? I mean, again, it sounds conspiratorial but the reality is, it is laid out in this report. And what I would say to Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan, you both held dozens upon dozens of hearings on Benghazi, you have our entire intelligence apparatus of the United States saying the Russians tried to help elect Donald Trump and that they have the power that this could be the new normal. That they could use this information to affect Americans and American political leaders. What do you have to hide by not holding hearings? There`s not a single hearing in the house. How is that possible? How is it possible that they don`t care enough in the House of Representatives to get to the bottom of these questions? I think Americans -- republicans, democrats and independents should be asking their leaders in the house and senate to have a bipartisan investigation. REID: Absolutely. You`d think all Americans would agree at least on that. We shall see how it goes moving forward. Matthew Miller, thank you for joining us. Neera is going to stick around with us. And up next, the President-elect`s Twitter beef over the intelligence report and just who he`s picking a fight with now -- who he`s picking a fight with now. That story in two minutes. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) REID: It may take lawmakers weeks or maybe months to fully digest the bombshell report on Russia`s attack on the U.S. Election but Donald Trump seems to have his own fixations. Last night, NBC news revealed details on the report and this morning Trump tweeted that he`s, "Asking the chairs of the house and senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it." He wants a congressional investigation into the leak. But an aide for the senate intelligence committee told NBC News they`ve not received a formal request for an investigation from Trump or his team. And a spokesperson for the house intelligence committee said it had not received an official request. Whether or not they do, however, or rather chilling message has been sent, including to the intelligence community. Trump may not be interested in punishing Russia for hacking the U.S., but he`s real interested in punishing government officials for doing things that displease him. Neera Tanden is still with us and joining the discussion, Missouri Secretary of State, Jason Candor, former candidate for U.S. Senate. And Jason, I`ll start with you on this because we`ve never had a president like Donald Trump. He`s been compared to Richard Nixon, you know, and he has some Nixonian qualities but you`re talking about a particularly vengeful spirit. Somebody who Omarosa who worked with him on "The Apprentice" said he wants to see everyone who ever hurt bow down. And now you`re giving that a guy a mince power. And let`s look at what he`s done before he`s gotten in. He wakes up this morning and rather than thinking about national security he`s criticizing Celebrity Apprentice, putting down Arnold Schwarzenegger. He goes in lobbies against the Ohio Republican Party Chairman to oust him for daring to not be for him during the campaign, and then he did something that doesn`t seem like it hurts him but it hurts us, pulling all the ambassadors in a precedent-breaking move denies every single U.S. Envoy, every ambassador, an extension past inauguration day. What do we make of this? JASON CANDOR, MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE: You know, every time we talk about his tweets, which are basically the only way he makes public pronouncements anymore. I think we should talk about them as what they are, they`re policy positions of the United States. And that`s really the problem with the president who`s constantly putting his own insecurity on display. It`s no longer the case that there`s a kind of whacky guy running for president who tweets a bunch of stuff. These are policy positions of the United States, never minding the fact that it`s completely ridiculous that the United States now has a position on how Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing on Celebrity Apprentice, but how about the fact that the policy position of the United States in a couple weeks when he becomes president seems to be that the intelligence community in order to prove something that we all pretty well knew was the case, like the Russian hack, had to divulge all sorts of evidence that they usually would haven`t to divulge publicly, which has a real consequence because now if you`re an adversary of the United States seeking to do harm to us through cyber-attack, well, now you know how other people got caught because they`ve been forced to show their math. And that`s because he`s limiting his policy positions to 140 characters and those are now the policy positions of our country. REID: And Neera, not only that, I mean, this is a guy who did threaten to lock up Hillary Clinton who`s campaign you work forward to lock up his political opponent, something we don`t usually do in the United States. But now he is calling for an investigation asking congress -- the republicans in congress to investigate the intelligence community for leaking to NBC news. What kind of a precedent is that setting? TANDEN: Let`s be crystal clear about this, what`s happening. OK. Donald Trump does not care, has exhibited almost zero interest in who leaked to WikiLeaks, right? He -- you know, someone targeted American -- you know, his opponents in order to at least undermine democracy, now we know it`s to help his campaign, hasn`t expressed any interest in that source of leaks. But one leak to NBC to explain what actually happened here, that`s who he`s going to go against. And I think I have to say it`s just frankly chilling that someone who is going to control the FBI is going to oversee the FBI, who`s going to oversee intelligence itself, who`s going to oversee the IRS, has essentially a vendetta via Twitter and I hope it`s just -- I hope, I hope it just maintains itself to Twitter but I think people can have real concerns about a president who`s so interested in exacting revenge against people who disagree with him. I mean, it`s just ridiculous to me that he care -- it seems to me he cares a little bit more about the ratings of the Celebrity Apprentice than Russian hacking into our election. REID: Yes. And he`s the executive producer of The Apprentice. If it didn`t do well, he shouldn`t be flagging the show, it`s his show. Jason, you know, I mean, but I think that`s the serious point, right? Is that you`re giving somebody who`s showed he`s incredibly thin-skinned, who can`t stop talking about the election, he was tweeting again this morning re-describing his election victory and insisting that two weeks before the Clinton campaign knew he was going to win and they cancel (INAUDIBLE) -- I mean, he`s so obsessed with this but he`s also a vengeful person, you know that through his entire public life. Does it concern you that somebody that vengeful will have control of the FBI, the NSA, the CIA? I mean, you think of the possibilities. CANDOR: It`s frightening. I mean, if you live in the United States of America, you have to be concerned about this. If your inferiority complex cannot be in any way assuaged by becoming President of the United States, then it`s pretty bad. And when you run for office, one of the things that happens is people say this interesting compliment to you sometimes, they say, "You know, you really seem comfortable in your own skin." Which is kind of a compliment reserved only for politicians. No one ever says, "You know what I love about my accountant is he`s comfortable in his own skin." So the threshold is low. But the reason people care about that is because it`s a very public position in which you have a high degree of power. And that`s anywhere in elected office. But we`re talking about the most powerful position that you can occupy in the entire world. And so as a result, yes, I think it`s absolutely a huge concern that now we have, for instance, an app that exists that -- the entire point of the app is to alert you immediately if the President-elect of the United States tweets about a publicly held company, presumably so you can get rid of the stock if you want to - we`re talking about American companies that the President-elect of the United States would take a position against. REID: Yes. Can impact their stock immediately and we`ve seen it happen already. Neera Tanden and Jason Kander, thank you -- thank you both, have a great weekend. And still ahead, Donald Trump`s backtrack on one of his most famous campaign promises. TRUMP: Who`s going to pay for the wall? Who`s going to pay for the wall? Who`s going to pay for the wall? Who`s going to pay for that wall? You better believe it, and they`ll do it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) REID: Five people are dead, eight more wounded after a gunman opened fire in a baggage area at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. The suspected gunman is in custody and tonight we`re learning more about exactly who he is and what happened today. Joining me now with the latest from the scene is NBC`s Kerry Sanders. Kerry, what can you tell us about this gunman and about the wounded? KERRY SANDERS, NBC CORRESPONDENT: We don`t have an answer, Joy, as to why the gunman did what he did. He`s been identified as 26-year-old Esteban Santiago. We believe he travelled from Anchorage to Minneapolis and from Minneapolis here to Fort Lauderdale where when he got down to baggage claim in terminal two, he retrieved his luggage. We`re told he checked his weapon in the luggage, the rules are you can, indeed, check weapons in luggage, notifying the airline. The weapons have to be separated from the bullets. Witnesses say he then went into the bathroom, loaded his pistol came out and started shooting. Now, we don`t know why. We do know he has reportedly had some mental issues that the FBI says in Alaska that he recently walked into the office there saying that the CIA was trying to force him to fight for ISIS, so it`s a very convoluted, disturbed individual here based on that story. The authorities right now have him in custody. Apparently after he fired his gun multiple times, we believe he may have changed out the clip in his hand-held pistol, a 9-millimeter three times, he then according to witnesses lay on the ground -- and lay on the ground as the authorities arrived. I`ve spoken to some of those who were in the downstairs area near baggage claim in terminal two who say getting out of here they feel lucky to be alive, it was hell. Joy? REID: All right. NBC`s Kerry Sanders telling us that the alleged gunman said voices in his head apparently he was hearing in that horrific shooting. All right. President Obama has -- President Obama has briefed -- has been briefed on the shooting in Fort Lauderdale while President-elect Trump tweeted out this afternoon, "Monitoring the terrible situation in Florida, just spoke to Governor Scott, thoughts and prayers for all, stay safe." Florida Governor Rick Scott arrived on the scene a short time later and here`s what he had to say about his conversation today, including who he spoke with. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RICK SCOTT, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I have reached out to President-elect Trump and spoken with -- to him and Vice President Pence multiple times to keep them informed and they told me whatever resources that we need from the federal government they would do everything in their power to make that happen. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you talk to president Obama? SCOTT: I have not talked to President Obama. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has he reached out to you? SCOTT: No, President Obama has not reached out to me but I talked to -- I talked to Vice President Pence and President-elect -- President-elect Trump and Vice president-Elect Pence quite a few times. Just to keep them informed. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you reach out to the Obama? SCOTT: I have not. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did President-elect Trump contact you or did you reach out to him? SCOTT: I reached out to President-elect Trump and Vice President-Elect Pence. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you didn`t call the president? You called the President-elect? You didn`t call -- SCOTT: Absolutely. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would it be appropriate to call the president for resources? SCOTT: I have -- I have a personal relationship with Vice President Pence and President-elect Trump and I reached out. (END VIDEO CLIP) REID: Then, late tonight, Governor Scott`s schedule was amended and he did speak with the current President of the United States. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SCOTT: The president called me probably now 30 minutes ago. He, of course, you know, said his prayers are with everybody that was impacted, said that anything we need to make sure I gave him a call, so appreciate it when something like this happens, you know, that you have the support of the federal government. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF UNITED STATES: We are going to build the wall 100 percent and Mexico is going to pay for the wall. Mexico will pay for the wall, OK? Believe me. We`ll build a wall. Don`t worry. We will build. I promise, we`re building the wall and Mexico will pay for the wall. (END VIDEO CLIP) JOY REID, MSNBC ANCHOR: Donald Trump has promised since the very first day of his campaign to build a wall of the U.S./Mexico border and that the Mexican government would foot the bill. Yeah. Not so much. Today, the President-elect got slightly more detailed about who will actually pay for the wall and, surprise, it`s you. The Trump transition team and House Republicans have a plan, reports Politico, to fund the wall with your taxpayer dollars. You`re welcome. In an interview today with the "New York Times" Trump explained that the idea is to speed up the process by obtaining funding now through Congress and getting Mexico to pay us back later. "We`re going to get reimbursed but I don`t want to wait that long" says Trump, "But you start and then you get reimbursed." Trump added in a tweet, "The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall, for sake of speed, will be paid back by Mexico later." It will make a point (ph). Right. They`ll spend $10 billion of American taxpayers` money to build your -- the Great Wall and then demand that a foreign country repay us for a project they oppose and that they`ve already said they have no intention of paying for. That should make sense. Perfect. If you recall, Trump has already had the chance to deliver the bill when he met face to face with Mexican President Enrique Pe¤a Nieto last August. But he apparently didn`t have the guts to make the ask. Not only is Trump seemingly about to break a campaign promise with his new plan, he`s also breaking with the conservative financial ideas that Republicans claimed to care so much about. And joining me now is MSNBC contributor and senior for Business Insider, Josh Barro. So Josh, do your fiscally responsible sensibilities have any problem with just, you know, we`re going to use $10 billion of our money now and then we`ll totally going to get paid back by Mexico who doesn`t want to build the wall later? JOSH BARRO, SENIOR EDITOR, BUSINESS INSIDER: Oh totally. I mean -- so it`s funny. Because he said this -- and it always -- it felt like stick, like how could anybody really believe that this was going to happen? REID: Yeah. BARRO: The "Washington Post" actually did a polled back in September and asked people, do you think, Trump, if elected, will get the Mexicans to pay for the wall? And 21 percent of people said that they thought -- that he would do that. REID: Yeah. BARRO: So, on one hand, that`s a lot of people. On the other hand, that`s like less than half of the people who actually voted for him. So I think a lot of the people are voting for Trump, they realize that, you know, this was just a thing he was saying. It was not actually going to happen. REID: Yeah. BARRO: So -- and the other thing is, you know, he says, you know, $8 billion to $10 billion, probably actually going to cost substantially more than that if you really want a wall along the length of the border. REID: Right. BARRO: Trump has said well it could maybe be a fence in some places. So, you know, it starts adding up to real money, a billion here, a billion there. It`s something that ends up being a non-trivial item in the federal budget if we`re actually going to foot the bill for it. REID: Well, you know, Donald Trump can probably get away with anything. You know, he said he could shoot one on Fifth Avenue, right, at one point during the campaign and he could probably get away with taking back and your take backs is on the wall. But members of Congress can`t and you can see in their reactions, that Politico story is fascinating. Because you can see they know they can`t go back to their districts and say there`s no wall. So now you have Steve King, one of these Republicans. This is -- Dave Weigel reporting in the "Washington Post," and he tweeted "Just talked -- Dave Weigel just talked to Steve King and says -- who says if Trump can get funding for the wall from Congress, "I`m not going to say let`s wait for the pesos", aside from the fact of the, you know, where do you dispense there (ph). The Republicans in Congress feel like they have to appropriate money for a wall. BARRO: Well -- and they`re in a tough place, right, because this is an idea that`s popular with Republicans but it`s not an idea that`s popular broadly with the electorate. You sort of get about 2 to 1 against the idea of building a wall on the border with Mexico. So, I think they have to be worried in both directions. If they try to not appropriate the money to build the wall, then they could be attacked in primary. But if they do go along with spending what ends up being $20 billion or whatever on this wall, then that`s something they can be attacked for in the general election. So I think, you know, they have some time to figure this out. The weird situation now is the law authorizes the President to go ahead and build the wall. REID: Yeah. BARRO: He just doesn`t have the money. REID: Right. BARRO: He can move some money around in accounts. He can go do his photo-op in front of a piece of wall they built with some money they find. REID: Right. BARRO: And then we`ll see what the state of relations is come April between the President and Republicans in Congress. There`s a lot of stuff, including Obamacare that I think they are going to find is much more difficult to reach agreement on than they thought it would be. So I don`t know whether Congress in the spring will be in a mood to give Donald Trump the money to build this wall. REID: Yeah. So he could build a wall, not the wall. BARRO: Right. REID: Maybe it`s a little tiny wall. BARRO: Right. REID: Like a little six-foot wall. BARRO: Yeah. REID: But still, the other issue, of course, is the Mexico paying for it. That`s the other part of it. And he said I`ll get them to give it to me later. You had former Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada who`s become an E-Trump troll and expert Trump troll. And he says, Trump, when will you understand that I`m going to pay for that f-ing wall. Be clear with U.S. tax papers. They will pay for it. And the serious side of that is you cannot compel a foreign country to do what you say. Now Trump is making noises about renegotiating NAFTA and trying to make them pay that way. Isn`t there a possibility that you could just see bilateral agreements between Canada and Mexico that cut us out? I mean, there are ways that they could get around being bullied by the American president to give them 10 -- to give us $10 billion. BARRO: Well, two things about that. One is, during the campaign, he actually had a plan about how he was going to get Mexico to pay for it. And that wasn`t a good plan. REID: Remittances. BARRO: Yeah. He was going to impound the billion of dollars in remittences they get sent from U.S. to Mexico over year and say I`m going to do the impoundment unless you give me money to build the wall. And the idea was that Mexico would have no choice because their economy depends on that. NAFTA is another point of leverage that he has, he wants to re-negotiate it. He could pull out. So I think the Mexicans aren`t going to take kindly to that kind of brinksmanship. On the other hand, the Trump election has already been a disaster for the Mexican economy. REID: Yes. BARRO: And to the extent that Trump makes good on separating the U.S. from Mexico economically through immigration, through trade, through all sorts of things. REID: Yeah. BARRO: I think that can cause a huge economic mess there. Now, that said -- REID: Yeah. BARRO: -- that makes it all the more emotionally unappealing for the people of Mexico to pony up to pay for this wall after they`re being bullied by the U.S. President. REID: Yeah. BARRO: So I think, no he won`t get them to pay for it but he can do a lot of damage. REID: Do a lot of damage to their economy which, of course, then would increase up northward migration. So there you go. Josh Barro, thank you very much. And still ahead, the planned resistance to Trump`s cabinet picks as they head to confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. But first, we`ll check into hotel Trump for Thing 1 and Thing 2 next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) REID: Thing 1 tonight. When Donald Trump opened his D.C. Hotel this past fall, he said there was a key theme from the project that he wanted to replicate for America. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: My theme today is five words, under budget and ahead of schedule. That`s what we did. Under budget and ahead of schedule. This is what I want to do for our country. And this is what we`re working so hard to do. (END VIDEO CLIP) REID: That`s six words. But anyway, as we`ve reported before on this show, the D.C. Hotel was not ahead of schedule. Multiple press releases about the renovation of the hotel -- which are still available on the Trump organization website, set the anticipated grand opening at the end of 2015, something he was even asked about in a legal deposition related to the hotel this past summer. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This construction scheduled to begin in spring 2014 with an expected completion in late 2015. TRUMP: OK. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Was that accurate at the time? TRUMP: Perhaps. Yeah. We were very much ahead of schedule. We`re ahead of -- we`re actually ahead of schedule and we also went higher end than we even thought in terms of finishes and materials. (END VIDEO CLIP) REID: Again, they planned to open in 2015, they actually opened in 2016. Not ahead of schedule. What about the second part of Trump`s theme that it was under budget? We have an important update tonight and that`s Thing 2 in 60 seconds. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) REID: Donald Trump has a long history of stiffing contractors for work on his properties, and now we have an important update on his new D.C. Hotel. So far, three contracting companies who helped build that hotel say that they`re short more than $5 million and they filed liens against the property with the District of Columbia. For instance, an executive from AES electrical says, "We had people there well over 12 hours a day for weeks because they had a hard opening of September 12. But around the time they open, the Trump organization and its construction manager Lend Lease stopped paying AES which claims it`s still owed over $2 million." Another company, the family owned local plumbing firm Joseph Magnolia filed a lien for nearly $3 million. The Trump organization told the "Washington Post" in part, "In developments of this scale and complexity, the filing of normal liens at the conclusion of construction is not uncommon as part of the closeout process." So, of the purported $212 million budget for the hotel, Trump is facing legal action for over $5 million in allegedly unpaid bills.  I guess that`s one way to claim that you`re under budget.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CARRIE MEEK, (D) FLORIDA:  Mr. President, it is in writing and signed by myself on behalf of many of the diverse constituents in our country, especially those in the ninth congressional district and all American voters who recognize that the Supreme Court not the people of the United States decide this election.

AL GORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  Is the objection signed by a senator?

MEEK:  Unfortunately, Mr. President, it is not signed by one single senator.

REP. PATSY MINK, (D) HAWAII:  Unfortunately, I have no authority over the United States Senate and no senator has signed.

MEEK:  Mr. President, it is in writing and signed by myself and several of my constituents in Florida.  A senator is needed but missing.

GORE:  Is the objection in writing and signed by a member of the House and a senator?

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA:  The objection is in writing and I don`t care that it is not signed by a member of the Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID:  That was the scene on the floor of the House of Representatives 16 years ago as portrayed in Michael Moore`s classic documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11."  When Vice President Al Gore had to oversee the certification of the electoral votes in one of history`s most contested elections.  Members of Congress stood up one by one to contest the election results and Gore, the man on whose behalf they were protesting, had to shoot them down because they didn`t have the co-signature of a senator.  Since then, the certification of electoral votes has been a more dry, mundane procedural routine.  That was until today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BARBARA LEE, (D) CALIFORNIA:  Mr. President, I object on behalf of the millions of Americans, including members of the intelligence community --

JOE BIDEN, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  There is no debate.  Debate is prohibited.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON, (D) TEXAS:  Mr. President, I object to the votes from the state of Wisconsin which were not -- should not be legally certified?

BIDEN:  No debate.

JACKSON:  Is there one United States senator who will join me in this letter?

BIDEN:  There is no debate.  There is no debate.

JACKSON:  Just one.

BIDEN:  The gentlewoman will suspend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID:  In the end today, Donald Trump`s Electoral College victory was certified by the Congress.  Those protests today on the House floor as Congress is probably the last time that we`ll get to see Congressional Democrats symbolically oppose the election results before Trump gets sworn in.

But next week the real substantive opposition to Trump`s presidency begins.  What to expect for that fight after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REID:  We are just a few days away from the first confirmation hearings for Donald Trump`s cabinet nominees, including six different hearings scheduled on the same day next week.  It will be the first time Democrats have a chance to show what a substantive opposition to the Trump agenda will look like.

Joining me now, Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Human Rights, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.  Thank you for being here.

WADE HENDERSON, PRES., THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS:  Thank you.

REID:  Thank you.  And Wade, I`ll going to start with you.  Let`s get right to it.  Jeff Sessions.

HENDERSON:  Yeah.

REID:  . there will only going to be four witnesses, that`s going to be very limited amount of time two days, what one question do you want to hear asked of Jeff Sessions?

HENDERSON:  Well, it`s outrageous Joy, that Senator Sessions nomination is going forward and his hearing is being held.  And in spite of the fact that he has failed to provide essential information that the judiciary committee requires up every nominee who comes before that to be evaluated.

What`s really shocking in this instance, and really not shocking, but nonetheless embarrassing, is that the Senate has chosen to use its friendship towards Senator Sessions to cover its responsibility of providing advice and consent for the nominee.  In other words, collegiality is trumping, if you will, the advice and consent responsibility of the constitution.

REID:  Yeah.

HENDERSON:  What I`d like to see Senator Sessions asked are his views about the voting rights act, about wrongful prosecutions, yes, those that occurred 30 years ago but, more importantly, about problems with voter I.D. today.  About problems with efforts to move polling places in states like Alabama, his very own state.  I`d like to see him asked about whether he can enforce statutes over which he has a hostility long established.

So, for example, he opposed the violence against women act.  He has opposed the passage of the Matthew Shepard, James Byrd, Hate Crime Prevention Act.  He has opposed other statutes that he is responsible now for enforcing.  We`d like to see questions asked about that.  We`d also like to see questions asked about his hostility to immigrants, his support for a Muslim ban or arguing that a Muslim ban is certainly worthy of discussion.  These kinds of issues are frightening to the American people.

And I think the American people expect two things.  One, they expect a procedurally fair hearing, but they also expect a substantively complete hearing.  And neither of those will take place next week because the senator has not provided the essential information of a senate questionnaire that is required of every nominee before the committee.

REID:  And Randi Weingarten, I have also the same question to you about Betsy DeVos who is -- DeVos-- who is being put forward as the secretary of education.  What do you want to see her asked?

RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS:  Well, we know a lot about her record in Michigan.  And her record in Michigan is -- makes it clear that this is the most anti-public education nominee since the position of secretary of education was established.  And we know whether people were Trump voters or Hillary voters, they want a secretary of education that actually strengthens and improves public education where 90 percent of the children of our country go, of schools that are the anchor of democracy, the propeller of our economy, and, instead, what she has done in Michigan for the last 20 years is to destabilize, defund, and siphon off funds.

And, frankly, even for our colleagues and our friends who actually believe that there should be some alternatives, what she has done is actually made schooling worse in Michigan.  So we want to make sure that people see the facts.  What has happened is that 75 percent of public schools do better than charters, these for-profit Wild, Wild West charters in Michigan.

And in Detroit we see that 80 percent of the schools, the charter schools in Detroit, are failing.  So at the end of the day, we don`t want to replicate that in the United States of America and we want to make sure that her record is clearly out there.  We need a secretary of education who`s going to lift up public education, who`s going to help all kids succeed, not one who has a hostility to civil rights, as my colleague Wade has just said about Senator Sessions, or someone who has an antipathy towards anything that is public, in terms of public education.  You can`t be about profit.  You have to be about children.  And we have seen no evidence that she is about children in public education.

REID:  Well, very quickly I want to ask each of you.  Do you anticipate there being something on the order of civil disobedience try to push Democrats to be tough on these nominees?  And if so, is there a particular nominee that civil rights groups for you, Wade Henderson, are focused on frequently (ph)?

HENDERSON:  Yeah, yeah.  Well, I can`t predict what the civil disobedience will be involved but I will say this.  It is very clear that opposition to the Sessions` nomination is building.  We have 1,200 law professors from around the country that have expressed their opposition.  We have former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in a letter to the judiciary committee stating his opposition and basing it on his prior service as an attorney for a defendant in a wrongful voting fraud case that Sessions brought.

REID:  Right.

HENDERSON:  That kind of effort is under way.  So, we don`t know about civil disobedience but opposition is building --

REID:  Right.

HENDERSON:  -- everyday.  And we anticipate seeing more next week.

REID:  And very quickly, Randi Weingarten, do you anticipate civil disobedience over these nominees?

WEINGARTEN:  Look, I anticipate a lot of opposition but you notice that Senator McConnell must be very concerned about all this because he`s having this vote-a-rama, he`s trying to flush (ph) things and push these things through.

REID:  Put them all together.

WEINGARTEN:  So -- exactly.  So -- but there`s opposition around the country --

REID:  Absolutely.

WEINGARTEN:  -- and we`re seeing all that.

REID:  Yup.  Well, we unfortunately are out of time.  Wade Henderson and Randi Weingarten, thank you both.  Thank you, have a great weekend.

That is All In for this evening.  I`m Joy Reid for Chris Hayes.  And he will be back on Monday, and I`ll be back right here on MSNBC tomorrow and Sunday at 10:00 a.m. for AM Joy.

The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now.  Good evening and happy Friday, Rachel.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END