Show: THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL Date: December 7, 2016 Guest: Chuck Jones, Ana Marie Cox, David Corn, Leo Gerard, Rick Wilson, Felix Salmon, Lesley Stahl, Sarah Slamen
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: And that does it for us tonight, we will see you again tomorrow, now it`s time for THE LAST WORD with Lawrence O`Donnell, good evening, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL,MSNBC HOST: Oh, Rachel, sorry, I was on here trying to buy a share of Exxon on e-trade.
(LAUGHTER)
MADDOW: Yes --
O`DONNELL: But I don`t have e-trade on here, and I don`t know how to buy a share of Exxon, so --
MADDOW: Well, yes -- well, if the Secretary of State still got them when he gets sworn in, well, I can`t tell you what`s going to happen to those shares.
O`DONNELL: Only in Trump world.
MADDOW: Thank you, Lawrence --
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Rachel. So, Donald Trump, the champion of American workers is now tonight attacking American workers.
He is blaming the workers at the Carrier plant in Indiana for Carrier`s decision to move their jobs to Mexico.
And tonight Donald Trump attacked those workers union leader Chuck Jones. Chuck Jones will be our first guest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The person of the year is a tremendous honor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the decision is not made as an honor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The person of the year is the one who has had the most influence over events of the year for better or worse.
TRUMP: Divided States of America., I didn`t divide them, they`re divided now.
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I`m counting on President- elect Trump to tamp down on this bitterness.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can we agree President-elect Trump, that at this stage it would be better for you to simply stop watching "SNL"?
TRUMP: I like Alec, but his imitation of me is really mean-spirit and it`s not very good.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: He is a very forgiving, very magnanimous kind of a guy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he a bona fide Republican?
RYAN: Yes, we`re just different people --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he a --
RYAN: Oh --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican if he`s got to --
RYAN: Yes --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vote? --
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: You see that through tweets now he can affect industry. He affected the stock market yesterday frankly, and he did it twice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he is tweeting about Boeing, when he is tweeting about good companies, he is actually trying to say who is in charge right now.
TRUMP: I think I am very restrained.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are looking and acting as if you are mean and petty, thin-skinned and vindictive. Stop this!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Donald Trump, who last week presented himself as the hero of the workers at a Carrier plant in Indiana is now attacking those very same workers and blaming them for Carrier moving their jobs to Mexico.
Donald Trump has congratulated himself repeatedly for saving over a thousand jobs at Carrier from moving to Mexico.
He praised Carrier for not moving those jobs to Mexico, even though Carrier told Donald Trump they still intend to move 1,300 jobs at least to Mexico.
So, in that Trump deal, more jobs would be sent to Mexico than kept in Indiana.
Yesterday, Chuck Jones, the president of the United Steelworkers Local that represents the Carrier workers said that Donald Trump "lied his ass off about the number of jobs saved."
Here is Donald Trump lying his ass off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: United Technologies and Carrier stepped it up. And now they`re keeping -- actually the number is over 1,100 people, which is so great.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Chuck Jones says that Carrier has informed them that the actual number of jobs that will remain is 730 jobs.
Chuck Jones made that point on "Cnn" earlier tonight, and minutes after he said it, Donald Trump tweeted this: "Chuck Jones, who is president of the United Steelworkers 1999 has done a terrible job representing workers.
No wonder companies flee country." Joining us now is Chuck Jones; president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999 Union.
Chuck Jones, what`s your reaction to Donald Trump`s tweet about your comments tonight?
CHUCK JONES, PRESIDENT, UNITED STEELWORKERS LOCAL 1999 UNION: Well, you know, coming from a man that has fought real hard and steals(ph) millions of dollars to try to keep people from organizing unions in his hotels and casinos.
I guess I would take it as a -- you know, thank you or you know, indicated as we must be doing a pretty good job representing our people to provide them with good wages and good benefits.
So, you know, short of that, you know, I don`t put a lot of credence to what he said. The only thing I was trying to do was correct him on some of the statements he made.
And what he said was saving 1,100 jobs, that was a falsehood. And a lot of our people when President-elect Trump said that earlier in the week and before we knew what the exact numbers was last week had got their hopes up that they were going to keep a job.
When in all reality, and we found out last Thursday from -- at noon that there was going to be 730 avenue jobs to remain.
Another 70 supervisory clerical-type works remain. But he was wanting to count in the 350 research and development jobs that the company when they made the announcement in February were staying here in the city anyway.
So, our people got false hopes because they wouldn`t -- the company wouldn`t come out with the numbers of who was staying and who was going. So, a lot of our people that thought they had lost their job thought they were going to have a job.
In all reality said -- you know, like I said, 730 staying, and here in Indianapolis 550 are losing their livelihood.
O`DONNELL: Another tweet he tweeted a little bit later tonight was directed towards you.
He said "if United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.
Spend more time working, less time talking, reduce dues." Now, there he is in that tweet, very clearly blaming you, blaming the workers, the unionized workers for Carrier sending these jobs to Mexico.
Now when he was campaigning for president, he blamed Carrier completely. He never said that he blamed the union, he never said that he blamed the workers.
If he had said in Indiana that he blamed the workers at Carrier for those jobs being sent to Mexico, would he have gotten support and votes from workers at Carrier and members of your union?
JONES: Man, I`m going to assume that some of them would have thought twice before they would have voted for Mr. Trump.
And probably would have voted for him. The whole thing is ridiculous where he takes exception to being corrected.
And on my numbers, I`m correct and he is wrong. On the promises that he made to -- oh, well, always on the campaign circuit to American people about Carrier, he is saying that he didn`t say it.
So, he is wrong on that. He stood up here last Thursday and told falsehoods, and that`s what I was calling him out on.
Now I appreciate him very much for getting involved and saving 800 jobs that`s going to remain here, countless the salary people, without his input that probably wouldn`t have got done.
So, I appreciate it, and I made it perfectly clear on every interview I`ve done that I appreciate that.
Now he wants to turn around and he wants to slam me. So, you know, I`m not bothered by it by no means.
And I`m not backing up on my position when I know that he is wrong, I`m right and we`ll move on.
And you know, if he wants to keep on tweeting, I`ll keep on responding.
O`DONNELL: Well, you know, and then he`s not just blaming you. He is blaming the workers and all --
JONES: Yes --
O`DONNELL: Unionized workers there. He is saying if those workers, if the United Steelworkers were any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.
Now the way you would have kept those jobs in Indiana would be to cut the wages. Wouldn`t --
JONES: Yes --
O`DONNELL: When Donald Trump was trying to keep those jobs in Indiana, did he ever call up the Steelworkers Union and say please cut your wages.
Please give back money to the company. Stop taking such high wages from this company so that your jobs can stay there.
Or did he just negotiate with the company and didn`t negotiate with the workers at all?
JONES: He just negotiated with the company. And in fact, what we did when we sit down with the company, when the announcement was made to try to save these jobs, $23 million a year in concessions was offered up to the company.
That was -- they cost everything, said $23 million. They said you can`t come close to the $65 million they were saving.
So, it was a nice effort, but you can`t do it. Now in order to achieve the $65 million, all your people would have to work for $5 an hour, which is below minimum wage, so, that`s against the law and they`d have no benefits.
They`d have no insurance, no healthcare for vacations, no nothing. So, we`re moving to Monterrey, Mexico.
So, it wasn`t the fact that we didn`t spend a lot of time and effort to see what we could do to save this place.
And you know, I don`t know if he realizes or I really don`t care if he does or not, but that`s the truth of the matter.
O`DONNELL: So, there is Donald Trump tonight blaming the workers because you wouldn`t take $5 an hour, which you couldn`t. Even if somebody decided they wanted to since it would be against the law --
JONES: Yes --
O`DONNELL: Below the minimum wage. What -- now, there have been some news reports tonight that since you went public on this, you have received threats from Trump --
JONES: Oh, yes --
O`DONNELL: Supporters. What can you tell us about that?
JONES: Nothing, it says they`re going to kill me. But you know, you better keep an eye on your kids.
We know what type of car you drive, you know, things along those lines. But I`ve been doing this job for 30 years.
And you know, I`ve not heard a little bit of everything from people wanting to burn my house down or shoot me and everything else.
So, you know, they can with a grain of salt, you know, I don`t put a lot of faith in that.
And you know, I`m not concerned about it and I`m not getting anybody involved -- authorities, nothing I can deal with people that, you know, make stupid statements and I`ll move on.
O`DONNELL: I just want to go back to that moment when Donald Trump is out there at the plant in Indiana at Carrier.
And we think of all the things that he said, we all -- we all watched what he had to say out there.
And I`m just wondering, if in somewhere in the middle of everything he had to say, he had said if the United Steelworkers was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.
If he had said that, would he have gotten applause from that audience he was speaking to?
JONES: Man, I don`t think as much. You know, and, you know, to go back to his statements.
When he was giving those statements, the people sitting in that room did not know.
Because we had just heard some hours before from the company what the breakdown of who was keeping their jobs.
And he got up there and said numerous times that we have kept over 1,100 jobs here at Carrier.
Well, you know, I would think the average person in the room that didn`t know the breakdown thought that they were talking about manufacturing jobs.
They were talking about their jobs. And you know -- and they didn`t mention -- well, we are moving 550 jobs to Monterrey, Mexico.
Now also here in Indiana, we`re losing -- and it`s not one of our units IDW, 700 UTC jobs up hundreds in Indiana.
Now the taxpayers of Indiana anted up $7 million over ten years. Now, I`m not the best maybe math major by no means.
But the company was saving $65 million a year by moving all the jobs except our R&D people to Monterrey, Mexico.
They have got $5 billion with a B in military contracts. Nobody is going to maybe admit to it.
If I were Mr. Trump, I would have felt like I had some pretty good leverage on UTC.
But they portrayed it that a lot of the company had talked to the company and they reconsidered in the state of Indiana, offered up $7 million over ten years.
That`s a drop in the bucket. But it`s still taxpayers money here in the state of Indiana that went to a very profitable company. And we`re hearing a lot of feedback on that.
O`DONNELL: Chuck Jones, thank you very much for joining us tonight, I really appreciate it.
JONES: Lawrence, thank you very much for having me.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. We`re joined now by David Corn; Washington Bureau Chief for "Mother Jones" and an Msnbc political analyst.
And Ana Marie Cox; senior political correspondent for "MTV News".
And Ana Marie, it`s just these tweets tonight, I`m just imagining Donald Trump saying these very same things when he was in the factory with those workers at Carrier.
It`s all your fault, workers, that`s why these jobs are being moved to Mexico.
ANA MARIE COX, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, MTV NEWS: Well, you know, I am really stuck on something that Chuck said about what he did say in that room, which is that he lied to the workers faces.
He did more than insult to them. He said he gave them the impression that their jobs are being saved, and they weren`t.
You know, there are people who will -- who thought in that moment, applauded for Trump in that moment because they thought he had saved their jobs, and he didn`t.
And that is, you know, a monstrous lie. I -- you know -- this comes a little bit too late, right?
I mean, there are those of us who knew he was a liar before this. I feel - - I wonder about what those workers feel today.
I wonder if they`re the first round of people that we`re going to see regretting their votes for Trump.
I do think that you know, this is something that I know we`ve talked about, which is that, that you know, middle class and lower middle class white voters that voted for Trump, they are going to be some of the people hurt the most by his policies.
I mean, there are a lot of vulnerable groups that are going to be hurt, but these people -- these are some of the people that are going to be hurt the most when he finally gets in office.
He managed to hurt them before he got into office, too, lied about that.
O`DONNELL: David Corn, Donald Trump ran as we`d never seen a Republican run before as the champion of the working American.
And he is going to save the jobs, and against all the trade policies that Republicans have been in favor of.
And it only took -- it only took a fact correction by Chuck Jones. It only took one fact correction by a union leader for Donald Trump to become pure Republican. And now jobs moving to Mexico are entirely the fault of the workers themselves.
DAVID CORN, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, MOTHER JONES: Can you imagine what would have happened tonight if Alec Baldwin had tweeted out that Donald Trump had lied about the Carrier deal?
I mean, I don`t know if we could go on after that. I don`t know if Donald Trump could go on after that. I loved it when Chuck Jones said, you know, if he keeps on tweeting, I`ll keep on responding.
Now that`s the modern day union spirit. You know, fight, organize. But here you have a guy, Donald Trump, who lives literally in a gold-plated apartment now blaming the people that he claimed to be a champion of while pushing through corporate socialism which Republicans always said they were against.
You know, Carrier is getting $7 million in these tax credits from Indiana while it`s already saving $65 million or it will be less now on moving these jobs overseas.
And it`s been used, a lot of those money, those savings to automate its factories here in the United States.
And I`m betting ten years down the road when it`s still getting those tax credits, those jobs, even if they stay here will no longer exist.
So, this is really not about helping workers in the long run. It`s not about having a coherent economic policy that will help anyone else other than these workers.
And on top of it, Donald Trump is lying. It`s like a trifecta of Trumpianism.
O`DONNELL: We`re joined now by phone by Leo Gerard; he is the International President of the United Steelworkers Union.
He is also the Vice President of the AFL-CIO. And Leo Gerard, I`m just going to read for you these two Donald Trump tweets.
Because I know you`ve been traveling and you`ve just grabbed the phone for us as soon as you could.
He tweeted tonight after Chuck Jones made some public comments about the correct number of jobs that were being kept at Carrier.
He said "Chuck Jones who is president of the United Steelworkers 1999 has done a terrible job representing workers.
No wonder companies flee the country." And then his second tweet was "if United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.
Spend more time working, less time talking, reduce dues." So, Leo Gerard, there he is saying, look at what these workers are doing, no wonder companies flee the country.
That`s a complete blaming of the worker for this situation.
LEO GERARD, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, UNITED STEELWORKERS UNION & VICE PRESIDENT, AFL-CIO: Well, thanks, Lawrence, for getting me a chance to at least be on the phone.
I guess my first response is really one of sadness. Now I`ll say more, but we`ve got someone who is just about to become the President of the United States, most important job on the planet.
And he is busy tweeting about a local union president who is in fact a hero. Chuck Jones is someone who was standing up, fighting for his members, refused to accept that Carrier was going to just get to walk away.
He and his membership and our district director made this a national issue. Every time a politician wanted to talk about the economy, Chuck Jones and his local talked about what about Carrier moving to Mexico for $6 an hour.
And telling us to our face in a warehouse, nothing personal, we`re going because we can make more money.
And Chuck and his people stood up to that. And now we have because we have a local president who clarified the facts.
The president of the United States decided that he should call them names. I am -- I am terribly disappointed, I am also angry.
Look, the fact of the matter is that our union offered Carrier, what would it take to keep you here?
And they said there`s nothing you can do that would keep us here unless you want to work for under $5 an hour.
But Chuck wouldn`t accept that, and his members wouldn`t accept that, and they kept making an issue of it.
And I want to say that we wrote a letter to the president-elect not long after the election, telling him that we are prepared to work with him to repeal and replace NAFTA.
To repeal and replace PNTR, to negotiate a fair trade standard, to help them with infrastructure, to help them grow jobs and raise wages.
We haven`t had a response to that letter yet. So, I am -- I am really one of the people that think Chuck Jones is a hero.
He stood up for his members, and for the president-elect to get so upset because Chuck was simply terrifying.
And let me say this, I know from my dialogue with our membership and with Chuck`s local in particular that when people heard the 1,100 jobs were going to be saved, they were enthusiastic that, that could be their job.
Only to find out later that the fact wasn`t the 1,100 jobs, it was 730. So, they went on a high thinking they have a future.
Then they got slammed back down. And it was in Chuck`s class, a man with tremendous class to his membership, he said hang on, I`m going to clarify it.
And he went to get additional information and he found out there was only 730 jobs.
So, I think Chuck Jones is a hero and one who has fought for his members very well.
O`DONNELL: It seems that Donald Trump has a lot to learn about the way unions work, especially in this second tweet.
And it`s always -- it`s always interesting to take apart Donald Trump`s words because frequently they have no meaning or they`re completely confused or filled with ignorance.
And in this tweet where he says if the union was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana, clearly blaming the union and the workers.
And then he tells the workers and the union to do this. He said spend more time working.
He wants people to spend more time working at that plant. Apparently, he thinks they`re not working, not working enough.
And then he says reduce dues. Now explain to Donald Trump what dues, union dues have to do with whether Carrier keeps jobs in Indiana.
GERARD: They have nothing to do with whether Carrier keeps jobs in Indiana. In fact, our union dues are a little over not quite 1.5 percent.
And so they`re minimal in fact to Carrier`s operation and to the work we do. And then again, I want to go back to what Carrier said at the time when they made the initial announcement.
They said that it had nothing to do with the quality of their work. And that this was a high quality, efficient, well-run facility.
What it had to do with is they were going to Mexico because they could do it for $6 an hour.
There is no worker in America who could work for $6 an hour. It`s in fact lower than the minimum wage even if you didn`t do it in pesos, but you did it in dollars.
So that to make that comment is really an insult to the workers who are making a quality product.
One of the things that amazed me for a long time about this was that the president-elect and others on the Republican Party were talking about Carrier Air Conditioners.
In that factory, they don`t make air conditioners. They make furnaces, and Mexicans don`t need furnaces.
What those furnaces were going to do, they were going to be made in Mexico and shipped back to America.
And so the president hopefully will stand by his word and say that any company who is going to export work to another country and then try to import them back to this country after firing workers is going to get nailed with a 35 percent tariff.
I support the president doing that, so will our union.
O`DONNELL: Well, he seems to have changed his theory about what`s going on with these jobs.
Now that he is blaming the worker for the jobs being sent to Mexico and blaming the union for the jobs being moved to Mexico.
Why wouldn`t we expect in the future when there is an announcement of jobs being moved to Mexico, why wouldn`t we then expect Donald Trump to then negotiate with the workers and try to get the workers to cut their pay down to whatever it has to be cut to in order to --
GERARD: Lawrence --
O`DONNELL: Compete with the Mexican worker?
GERARD: Let me tell you. The majority of places that our jobs are being exported to, and we`ve been fighting -- the Steelworkers Union has been fighting this business of outsourcing jobs to other developing countries for more than 35 years.
We`ve been on this because we knew what the agenda was, and we knew where it would take us.
We`ve lost more than six million jobs. Here is the thing. We could not work low enough in wages and benefits to maintain the jobs against Mexican workers, against Chinese workers, against Bangladeshi workers, against Vietnamese workers.
And the fact of the matter is that if we`re doing that, we would be betraying our membership.
So, that we need to sit down and have a fair trade policy. And we`ve said we`re prepared to work with this president to get -- to repeal NAFTA, repeal PNTR, repeal the deal with South Korea and negotiate a fair trade deal.
We`re ready to work with them.
O`DONNELL: Leo Gerard -- Leo Gerard, thank you very much for joining us tonight, I really appreciate you joining us on this breaking news.
GERARD: Thank you very much.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. David Corn, Ana Marie Cox back with us. And David, I`m really struck by this turn by Donald Trump.
Because this is back to the classic Republican position of the loss of these jobs is the fault of the worker, the fault of the union for demanding too high a wage.
And you need to both break the union and reduce wages in order to hold on to these kinds of jobs.
And that just puts Donald Trump squarely where the rest of the Republican Party has been on this for a very long time.
CORN: Well, I`m not surprised by anything Donald Trump does anymore. I don`t think there`s a core set of principles. I don`t think there`s even a paragraph of principles or policy guidance that he adheres to.
It`s whatever works for the moment. And we do know though the one way to get his attention is to criticize him and he was lashing out.
Union guy criticizes him, so, he, you know, automatically goes to the Republican anti-union playbook to strike back. I mean, it`s childish, it`s certainly not presidential and it`s actually quite dangerous.
So, any time a company or a union leader or a citizen or maybe Ana Marie Cox does something that Trump doesn`t like, he`ll be tweeting and trying to, you know, affect your life in a negative way.
He can get stuck. I mean, Kellyanne Conway was bragging that he got the stock for Boeing to go down after Boeing criticized his trade policy.
I mean, this is a step towards authoritarianism. I don`t like to be hyperbolic or you know, mongering any fear. But this is really not the way the president of all America as he claims to be should behave.
O`DONNELL: Tonight, Donald Trump tweeting "no wonder the companies flee the country because of what workers demand to be paid." He said if the union had done its job, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.
And Ana, it just makes me wonder, the next time this comes up and Donald Trump tries to make a phone call to a company that`s thinking about moving jobs to Mexico, that company just says back to Donald Trump.
Here is the phone number for the union representing our workers, call them, get them to cut their labor -- cut their labor costs, cut their wages, and then we might be able to keep those jobs.
There is no reason for the company not to use Donald Trump`s labor logic and labor cost logic against Donald Trump`s argument.
COX: No, I mean, because Trump himself has used that logic for his own businesses, right?
O`DONNELL: Yes --
COX: I mean, Trump`s own businesses are no friend to labor. I mean, you want to know what Trump really believes, you want to know what his core set of principles are?
Look at the way he runs his businesses. He did not like using union labor himself.
So, why would he ever think that other businesses should use it too? And here`s also -- you`re very right.
He doesn`t seem to understand the point of a union. The point of the union is not just to keep jobs, right?
It`s not jobs over anything else. It is to have jobs that are worth keeping. It is to have jobs that pay a decent wage, that come with the kind of benefits that, you know, we have in the modern era.
That come with the kind of benefits that people can have a life as well as a job.
And I`m also struck by the way in this exchange tonight, who was behaving more presidential?
Was it Donald Trump or was it Chuck Jones? I actually have my money on Chuck Jones.
O`DONNELL: It was the guy --
COX: I think he`s the one who was acting with dignity today --
O`DONNELL: It was the guy who already has the title of president, Chuck Jones. Ana --
COX: That`s right --
O`DONNELL: Marie Cox, David Corn, thank you both for joining us tonight, really appreciate it.
CORN: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Coming up, Kellyanne Conway warned businesses that Donald Trump just might tweet about them if he disapproves of anything they have to say about him.
He might just attack their stock, try to drive down their stock prices because he now has the power to do that. Rick Wilson and Felix Salmon will join us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Kellyanne Conway is now bragging, actually bragging about Donald Trump`s ability to help or hurt businesses was his tweets in public comments. She is especially proud of his attempts yesterday to help a Japanese company and to harm a very important American company because, you know, that`s what the President of the United States is supposed to do. Help Japan and hurt America.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIRO ADVISER: President--Elect Trump sees that he has this massive online platform through tweets now, he can affect industry. He affected the stock market yesterday, frankly. And he did it twice. He did it in two different ways, first by telling Boeing to cancel the project or maybe put it on hold that he thinks it`s too expensive and it goes against his entire platform of cutting waste and abuse in the system. And then their stocks went down wasn`t 1.5 percent yesterday. And then secondly he went down to the lobby in Trump Tower where the media are and announced a $50 billion, that`s with a B investment by SoftBank and their stocks went up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: And another entry in the file of stupidest things Kellyanne Conway has ever said. Joining us now Felix Salmon, Senior Editor at Fusion, and Rick Wilson, Republican Strategist who is a contributor to the Daily Beast. Rick, this is a new one. You attack American companies, try to drive their stock price down because of course you`re president of the United States. And you do everything you can to help those Japanese companies in any way you can.
RICK WILSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, yesterday was another example of Donald Trump trying to engage what I call gangster capitalism by going out enraged tweeting about Boeing. And you know of course it wasn`t true. Of course it was completely made up out of Trump`s bizarre mental landscape. But the fact of the matter is this is a guy, and now Kellyanne is out bragging about it, who really wants to wage economic warfare against our own companies, our own folks. You know Boeing is the kind of company that is a $96 billion a year company. They export billions of dollars a year of products overseas. They employ tens of thousands of people at very high wages. And Donald Trump just decided just out spite he wants to attack them because he read an article where the CEO of Being expressed some minor reservations about Donald Trump`s insane trade war policy. This is a guy who is out of control and this gangster capitalism, you know, Soprano--style governance is not going to work over the long haul.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what he said to Matt Lauer today about his threat to Boeing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT LAUER, NBC HOST: you went on the say this, I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. Now I read that as you saying you think Boeing is perhaps taking advantage of the American taxpayer. Do you have any proof of that?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: well, I think their planes are too expensive. I spoke to a very good man yesterday, the head of Boeing, a terrific guy. And we`re going to work it out. But, you know, that`s what I`m here for. I`m going to negotiate prices.
And the planes are too expensive. And we`re going to get the prices down. And if we don`t get the prices down, we`re not going to order them. We`re going to stay with what we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Felix, the planes are too expensive. There is no price for the planes. They don`t exist. There is no price. It hasn`t even been determined what the price could possibly be. He says if we don`t work out a lower price, we`re going stay with what we have.
What that means is after he is President, the President of the United States will be flying around in a 35--year--old Air Force One, which is already 25 years old. And they are having trouble keeping it maintained because Boeing is not keeping the parts supply flowing for those old planes. You can go on and on about how crazy this particular thing is. But here is somebody who is now very proud and Kellyanne Conway very proud that they managed to drive down temporarily the stock price of Boeing.
FELIX SALMON, FUSION: Because what Rick just said is absolutely right. This is gangster capitalism. I like to think of this as Russia style capitalism where what he really meant is how close you are to the President and who he knows and how much of a friend he is with you. And Donald Trump has friends all over the world. And if his friend Mr. Son is in Japan, that`s great. And he does Mr. Son if he`s, you know, if reads something bad about Boeing, or more to the point if the head of Boeing says anything rude about him, then he`ll they can out on that company. He will do diplomacy by Tweet. It`s a chaos monkey in the Whitehouse and this cannot end well.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to Paul Ryan explaining that there will be no Donald Trump 35 percent tariffs on anything.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": What if President Trump says Speaker Ryan, I want you to do this for me. I want a bill on my desk putting a 35 percent tariff on some of these goods coming back in. What would you tell him? But what would you tell him?
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We believe we can ---- I`ll tell him what I`ve been saying all along --
TAPPER: You`re not going to do it?
RYAN: We can get it what`s he`s trying to get at better through a comprehensive tax.
TAPPER: Through a carrot, not a stick? Through a carrot.
RYAN: To a carrot and to a better tax reform.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Rick Wilson, Joe Kernan got it right. You`re not going to do it. That`s what Paul Ryan`s answer is going to be when the crazy 35 percent tariff comes along.
WILSON: You know the House and the Senate right now are going out of their way to accommodate Donald Trump`s lunacy, and Donald Trump`s intemperate nature. But there will come a point where adults in the room say we`re not going to give this child what he wants, especially if it`s a 35 percent tariff which would be like a nuclear weapon going on in the wallets of middle class Americans. It would raise the prices of consumer gods in a radical way. It would crash out our economy. A trade war is a doomed artifact of the Trump promise, you know, the architecture of the Trump promises. But it`s one that Paul Ryan and those guys, they recognize what actually happens if you go to engage in a trade war with Asia. It`s like a land war in Asia. It never works out well.
O`DONNELL: And Felix, tonight Donald Trump is blaming the workers for these jobs moving to Mexico. And so this theory that he had about -- that`s why I`m going to put a 35 percent tariff on those companies that move to Mexico, that -- that whole theory of that tariff is out the window now that he is blaming the workers.
SALMON: Well, he is blaming the Unions. This is him trying to carry out his Republican base who love anyone bashing unions. And let`s be honest about this. He is not going to even want 35 percent tariffs. The 35 percent tariff is something he talked about on the campaign trail, and has not talked about once since he became elected. So yes, he is not a friend of the worker. He is not a friend of the unions. He is not a friend of labor. He is a friend of a certain group of rich capitalists that will suck up to him.
O`DONNELL: We`re going have to leave it there. Rick Wilson, Felix Salmon, thank you both very much for joining us. Coming up Ohio passes one of the countries most restrictive abortion laws. Now it`s headed to Governor Kasich signature. But is it constitutional?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: This is what Donald Trump had to say about abortion rights in his first interview after the election.
LESLEY STAHL, CBS HOST: During the campaign, you said that you would appoint justices who were against abortion rights. Will you appoint, are you looking to appoint a justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?
TRUMP: So here`s what is going to happen. I`m willing to ---- I`m pro-- life. The judges will be pro--life. But having to do with abortion, what if -- if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states. So it would go back to the states.
STAHL: Then some women won`t be able to get an abortion.
TRUMP: No, it will go back to is the states.
STAHL: By state. Now some --
TRUMP: Well they`ll perhaps have to go -- they have to go another state.
(END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: The Republican--controlled state legislature in Ohio just passed the strictest abortion law in the nation that would ban abortions once a fetal heart beat can be detected, which would be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. The Ohio Senate President said this when asked why move on that bill now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEITH FABER, OHIO SENATE PRESIDENT: One, a New president, New Supreme Court Justice appointees change the dynamic and that there was a consensus in our caucus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think this will survive a constitutional challenge now?
FABER: I think it has a better chance than it did before. I think the issue is still one that it`s about tactics and strategy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, TELEVISION HOST: One of the things I went through, you`re still solid on Supreme Court justices.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT--ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.
HANNITY: Originalists?
TRUMP: Yes. Another one to appoint very soon. We`re going to have to come up with a name. I`m looking. I`m down to probably three or four.
HANNITY: Are these from your list?
TRUMP: From the list. They are terrific people, highly respected, brilliant people. And we`ll be announcing that pretty soon too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: The Supreme Court might have to rule on Ohio`s new law in cases banning abortion in cases where a fetal heart beat can be detected. Joining us now Sarah Slamen, a reproductive rights advocate in Texas. Sarah received national attention in 2013 when she was removed from the Texas legislature while advocating for abortion rights. She appeared on The Last Word at that time to talk about this issue. Sarah, the fetal heart beat can be detected as early as six weeks.
Many women do not know yet they`re pregnant at six weeks. This bill is clearly in violation of Roe versus Wade. And so in the current regimen, it would seem that federal appeals court would knock this out.
SARAH SLAMEN, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ADVOCATE: Hi Lawrence. Yes, it appears that all of the rights that we`ve found in the constitution, whether it`s privacy or the right to, you know, not provide an undue burden, all those constitutional protections should be upheld. And I want to deliver a direct message to governor John Kasich right now. Sir, Mary Fallon of Oklahoma has done the hard work for you.
She refused to sign in a very similar bill to law this year that would criminalize and penalize abortion doctors with a felony. Sir, you have the power to veto this law. And send it back and make these people work on issues that affect Ohio working families. Please don`t do this. Please just veto this law.
O`DONNELL: And John Kasich is ---- calls himself a pro--life republican. But he has not issued an opinion yet as to whether he would sign or veto this, which is in itself possibly surprising.
SLAMEN: Well, the way HB--493 came into being, this bill, this child abuse bill, the sponsor of this bill did something really sneaky. Just like in Texas where they snuck it into special sessions, they never want to have these debates about reproductive health care and abortion health care in front of people. They want to sneak it in. So, what they did was they tacked on this heart beat work on to a child abuse prevention bill when the stipulations in the abortion part don`t even have exemptions for people who have been raped or abused.
It`s a mockery of that legislative branch and how bills should be brought to the floor. I understand that the senate democrats there in Ohio have already brought challenges, and that it didn`t meet the appropriate process. But going back what you said earlier, it`s just scientifically a joke of a bill. Most women I know don`t even know they`re pregnant until nine or ten weeks in. It`s just another opportunity for certain right wingers in the state of Ohio to beat up on pregnant people instead of working for Ohio`s families and getting to real solutions, like the suburbs that plunged into poverty this year.
They had the greatest increase in poverty around Columbus suburbs this year. What are people ignoring when they`re writing these silly, unscientific and unconstitutional bills? John Kasich, do not sign this bill. Send it back and make these legislators work.
O`DONNELL: And as John Kasich knows, Roe versus Wade protects the right to abortion up to about 24 weeks. This would cut that down to as little as six. It`s clearly in violation of Roe versus Wade and so for Kasich to sign it is to sign a bill into a process where in the current regime it would never take effect.
SLAMEN: In the current regime, it would not take effect. And like I said, there`s already a precedent, Governor Fallon of Oklahoma saw this coming from a mile away. I don`t know how she felt about that bill, but she was willing to, you know, put an end to the madness.
O`DONNELL: Sarah Slamen, thanks very much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
SLAMEN: Thanks, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: We`ll be right back.
(COMMECIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Coming up, you will hear something very nice. Very kind from a man who hates my politics, hates my politics. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: So a guy who hates my politics did a very kind thing last week. Last week Phil tweeted this. Lawrence, I hate your politics. A lot. But i saw your closing last night and just donated $55 to Kind. Good work. Thanks and Merry Christmas. The segment Phil saw was about the Kind Fund, kids in need of desks in African schools that don`t have any desks. And Phil`s $55 will provide one desk that will be made in Malawi by factory workers in Malawi, and then delivered to a school in Malawi, where at least two, maybe three kids will slide on to that bench for that desk. And for the first time in their lives, they will not be sitting on the floor in their classroom. This is what the typical classroom in Malawi looks like. Kids sitting on the floor in the classroom all day, trying to write by holding the paper on their legs, or sometimes holding the paper on a friend`s back.
It`s an impossibly difficult academic environment for students and for teachers. And when you ask teachers in Malawi what they need, the most common thing you hear is chairs. They just want chairs to get the children off the floor. The K.I.N.D Fund is a unique partnership of MSNBC and UNICEF. And it provides desks for kids in need of desks. K.I.N.D. During Thanksgiving week, I went to Malawi on another desk delivery trip. And on my first day in Malawi, something very important to the K.I.N.D Fund happened back here in the United States. In New Jersey, in Metuchen where the K.I.N.D fund was presented a check for $4,030 all raised by students in the Metuchen school district. Mary Jo Paulman, president of the Metuchen Paraprofessionals association got the idea to raise money for K.I.N.D. And when she showed the students in Metuchen the videos of my reports on the K.I.N.D fund, the kids wanted to help.
And so they raised money in a walkathon. Here is Mary Jo Paulman presenting that check to UNICEF along with some of the students on the Monday before thanksgiving. Their contribution will provide more than three classrooms of desks. Hundreds of students will use those desks. Classrooms in Malawi are about the physical size of our classrooms, but they`re terribly overcrowded. Some have more than 100 students.
Most classrooms have about 90 students. So, three classrooms of desks will lift close to 300 students off the floor. Two days after the kids in Metuchen delivered that check, we delivered 300 desks to a school in Malawi where the kids had never seen desks and never expected to see desks. We`ll show you the transformation of that school on another night. Bill Etheridge tweeted, Lawrence, if a guy who hates your politics could donate a desk, so can I, and I love your politics.
I am just so glad that every year people who can disagree on politics can agree on a cause like kids in need of desks. Heather tweeted last night I donated $10 to the K.I.N.D Fund. That`s really appreciated because any amount is helpful. Ryan tweeted saw the K.I.N.D piece with my seven year-- old daughter Addison. She asked to give a desk instead of receiving Hanukkah gift. Done.
Anna tweeted I just made the world better for kids. And Anna is exactly right. That`s exactly what these contributions do. And they make the world better for the kids of the factory workers in Malawi who have the jobs making these desks. These are workers who would be unemployed without your contributions to the K.I.N.D fund. Their children never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from as long as their mom or dad is employed in one of our three desk factories in malawi. Praise continues to pour in for 14--year--old Joyce Chisale on twitter.
She is the girl in her second year of high school who recited her poem for us on the show last week. She is one of the girls the K.I.N.D fund supports with a scholarship to get her through high school. When you make a donation to the K.I.N.D fund, you can specify whether you want your contribution to go to desk or to scholarships for girls. Plain Jane tweeted little by little poem has been running through my head since I heard it, beautiful girl, beautiful poem.
Teresa tweeted before bedtime, I play something calming. Joyce Chisale reciting her poem little by little brings peace to my soul. Ken Beasley tweeted my heart was touched and moved by Joyce`s story and the movement. Thanks for opportunity to give. Pay it forward. Jean Wingate tweeted Joyce`s powerful poem touched my heart. Thanks, Lawrence, for showing these students who value education. I donated a desk and scholarship.
Ken Tabs tweeted, the poem little by little and the smile on the faces of those beautiful children brought tears to my eyes. You can contribute at lastworddesk.msnbc.com. You can give a desk or scholarship in the name of anyone on your gift list and UNICEF will send them an email notifying them of your gift. On the same day the kids in Metuchen, New Jersey were handing their check to the K.I.N.D fund, one of the girls in our scholarship program in Malawi handed me this note. It was folded like this. I opened it to find a thank you note. I`ll read you this thank you note on another night.
I just wish that each of you could hold one of these notes in your hands because every one of you have made this -- the K.I.N.D fund possible. This girl in this high school thanks every one of you and every one of you deserves one of these notes. But the best I can do is simply say thank you.
MSNBC`s live coverage continues into "THE 11TH HOUR" with Brian Williams. That`s next.
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