LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel.
And I met Claire McCaskill I think right at the beginning of her Senate campaign, probably right before she formally announced it and what she wanted to talk to me about was how the Senate worked. She knew that I`d worked there for some years, and she didn`t want to talk about campaign stuff, she didn`t want to talk about poll, she didn`t want to talk about how you`re going to do it.
She was looking forward to when she got the job, what is the best way to do that job. And I have to say when I do meet politicians who are on the way to running or who are running and that`s what they want to talk about, that`s what impresses me the most.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST, "TRMS": Yes, exactly. That`s -- A, it`s rare, B, it`s impressive, and C, it tells you to like keep your eyes open because they`re going to get stuff done.
O`DONNELL: And she just proved which actually is most senators -- most senators do not think of running for president. It`s just that dozen on each side that we`re always keeping our eyes on. But most of them happily go through their lives without ever thinking about it.
MADDOW: Yes, this year, it`s three dozen.
(LAUGHTER)
O`DONNELL: All right, this year. All right. Thank you, Rachel.
Well, the thing that Republicans fear the most -- they fear it the most, that is catching up with Roger Stone tonight. Roger Stone appears to be in more legal trouble tonight because of democracy. Not all Republicans fear democracy but enough Republican Party officials and enough Republican Party elected officials around the country feared democracy enough that they have done everything they can to suppress the vote now that the Voting Rights Act has been disabled by the Republican appointed members of the United States Supreme Court.
Republican officials know there are only 28 percent of voters identified as Republican now. Republican officials know that the Republican Party is on the losing end of the demographics of this country, and that is only going to get worse. Republicans know that more people vote for Democratic senators than Republican senators. Republicans know that more people vote for Democratic House of Representatives than Republicans, and they know more people voted Democratic for president for the last three presidential elections.
And so, some Republican officials do everything they possibly can to subvert democracy, everything they can to deny the American people a clear expression of their will through voting. Republicans gerrymandered the House of Representatives beyond recognition. And no Republican Party officials have forward this week to express their outrage about the Senate Intelligence Committee`s reports about the Russian government`s attempts to discourage Democrats from voting in the last presidential election.
But the resistance to Donald Trump and Trumpism rose up on election day this year and show that it was so powerful that it could overcome every roadblock Republicans have put in its way in the congressional races in the House of Representatives. And tonight, democracy is beginning to undo the cover-up that Chairman Devin Nunes and other Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have been running for Donald Trump. It is a matter of public record that Devin Nunes who is supposed to be in charge of a committee investigating the president`s presidential campaign entanglements with Russia was, in fact, telling the White House everything he knew about that investigation, trying to make sure that investigation would do no harm to anyone in Trump world.
But democracy spoke on November 6th. And so, now, Devin Nunes has only days left in the chairmanship of that committee. Democrat Adam Schiff will become the chairman of that committee in January and that means the Devin Nunes` cover-up is over, it`s all over.
And that`s why "The Washington Post" is reporting tonight, quote: Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III asked the House Intelligence Committee on Friday for an official transcript of Trump advisor Roger Stone`s testimony according to people familiar with the request, a sign the prosecutors could be moving to charge him with a crime. It is the first time Mueller has formally asked the committee to turn over material the panel has gathered in its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, according to the people.
Securing an official transcript from the committee would be a necessary step before pursuing an indictment that Stone allegedly lied to lawmakers, legal experts said. Robert Mueller will have that transcript by the end of the first week of January at the latest, maybe sooner. The intelligence committee`s new chairman will make sure that that happens.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I believe that there is ample reason to be concerned about his truthfulness, and I do think that with respect to Mr. Stone and perhaps others, the special counsel is in better position to determine the truth or falsity of the testimony and that we ought to provide it to special counsel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: "The New York Times" reports that on orders from current chairman Devin Nunes, quote, almost all the transcripts have remains in the sole possession of the committee which has in other things kept them out of the hands of Mueller`s investigators. Schiff plans to publicly release the remaining transcripts when the new Congress convenes in January. Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, a member of the Intelligence Committee, told "The New York Times," I just wonder how many crimes are just sitting in the basement of the House Intelligence Committee that Mueller doesn`t know about because he hasn`t seen that they lied to us?
Tonight, there are 17 investigations of Donald Trump the businessman, Donald Trump the presidential candidate and Donald Trump the president. How many more will there be when the Democrats take charge of the House Committees that are empowered to investigate the president? The Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee where impeachment proceedings begin, the Ways and Means Committee or the coming chairman, Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neil has the authority to obtain the tax returns of Donald Trump?
By Valentine`s Day, President Trump will be probably be looking back at this Christmas when he was only the subject of 17 investigations and missing those good old days.
Leading off our discussion now, John Heilemann, national affairs analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He`s co-host and executive producer of Showtime`s "The Circus". Ron Klain is with us. He`s a former adviser to Joe Biden and President Obama. And Kimberly Atkins, Washington bureau chief for "The Boston Herald" and MSNBC contributor.
And, Kimberly, is the White House aware, are they gearing up for what is to come when all of these new investigations start in the House of Representatives? Are they hiring more lawyers? Are they assigning a lawyer to each committee that`s going to be investigating this White House?
KIMBERLY ATKINS, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, BOSTON HERALD: Well, I think in a typical White House, you would see that being the exact response that you would see to this sort of ramp up of investigations over and above the Mueller investigation that`s already going on. But in this White House, the legal counsel`s office is actually understaffed.
And so, there is a real question as to whether this White House is ready to deal with as a legal matter the onslaught of investigations that could very well follow in January once Democrats take over the House of Representatives and all of the levers of power that come with that. I mean, there`s been a lot of talk about the subpoena power and the ability to subpoena that House lawmakers will have and whether or not they will try to rein that in and use that in a very strategic way with respect to this White House. But that`s just one aspect of the power of these committees.
There is document requests as you`ve already seen Representative Elijah Cummings of the Oversight Committee notifying the White House that they are going to have a number of document requests directed at this White House for a number of areas, areas that Democrats have been wanting to pursue for the last two years but have been stopped by the Republican leadership. There`s a lot more to the oversight. There`s holding hearings, calling people to testify.
There`s a lot more to this than subpoena power and that is going to take up a great deal of time and a lot of resources and this White House should be prepared for it.
O`DONNELL: Courtrooms as many people know require certified copies of every document that comes through a courtroom. And so, "The Washington Post" is reporting tonight, in general if prosecutors want to bring a charge of lying to investigators, they must obtain a certified clean copy from the transcriber or clerk who took the statement to present as an exhibit to a grand jury, legal experts said. Charges of lying to Congress are relatively rare, but last month, Cohen pleaded guilty to such as a charge as part of the special counsel probe.
And, John Heilemann, Devin Nunes was probably never going to give Robert Mueller a certified copy of that transcript.
JOHN HEILEMANN, MSNBC NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Devin Nunes would have done whatever was in his power and it turned that over the course of the last two years, you saw exactly how much power her had to try to obstruct all the inquiries into Donald Trump and his associates and their connections to Russia. So, you know, this is one of the most vivid examples of all the examples in places of where the chain of control from one chairman to another is going to be felt by Donald Trump in a painful way. This is maybe the most dramatic a change from Nunes to Congressman Schiff, Adam Schiff.
And, look, he`s -- this is an ominous moment. We`ve been waiting for the possible indictment of Roger Stone for some weeks now expecting it to come. It does seem now as though we`re right on the doorstep of it, and at the moment when Adam Schiff arrives in that chairmanship, he will be trying in every way to can to help with the law.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to how Adam Schiff described to Stephen Colbert how things have changed on the Intelligence Committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIFF: One of the most basic rule of doing an investigation is you follow the money. We were not allowed to follow the money. Now, we have seen the perils of not doing that in the revelations about the Trump business, efforts to build this Trump Tower in Moscow. But the question remains what about these allegations the Russians were laundering money through the Trump organization and the leverage they might have over the president of the United States that might explain his often inexplicable fondness for Putin and Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Ron Klain, it`s a whole new investigation in the House Intelligence Committee.
RON KLAIN, FORMER CHIEF COUNSEL, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: It is, Lawrence, and not just the House Intelligence Committee. As you said earlier, the House Oversight Committee, the House Judiciary Committee. You`re going to see a number of these Democratic chairmen pursue these issues.
And let`s be cheer, this is not a witch hunt. This is the pursuit of the most corrupt government we`ve seen like since Caligula`s Rome. I mean, it`s corruption virtually in every single federal agency.
You`ve got a bunch of Trump cronies down at Mar-a-Lago who essentially run the Veterans Administration. You`ve got people at almost every agency giving contracts to their friends and all kinds of corruption like that.
So, I think you`re going to see a real hard look at everything. We`ve focused mostly for the past few years on the Russia scandal, understandably. It is the most important one. It goes to the core of our democracy.
But in the meantime, a bunch of Trump cronies of these agencies have been robbing the government blind and we`re going to start to get to the bottom of that, too.
O`DONNELL: Donald Trump tweeted about Roger Stone, something that clearly was witness tampering, the tweet itself would be an article of impeachment in any sane version of our Washington life.
He said, this is December 3rd, Donald Trump tweeted, I will never testify against Trump. This statement was recently made by Roger Stone essentially stating he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about President Trump. Nice to know that some people still have guts.
And, Kimberly, it will be interesting to see what happens if Roger Stone does indeed end up testifying, what the Trump tweets will say then.
ATKINS: It will. I mean, President Trump has been trying to use his Twitter feed to act as his own attorney and try to message to the people who were under investigation or clearly in the crosshairs of Robert Mueller`s team, to try to influence their testimony. You know, whether or not his tweets lead to obstruction of justice or witness tampering as some people have suggested, we just don`t know because we`ve never seen a president do this before.
Quite frankly, there`s no precedent for it, but it`s not good and it`s not generally what happens. But when it comes to Roger Stone, it`s been pretty clear. Although Robert Mueller has been quiet and not really leaked where he is going and we`ve been surprised from one turn to another about where this investigation is going.
It`s been crystal clear that Roger Stone is a critical component of this particularly when it comes to what relationship the Trump campaign had with WikiLeaks before the election, the fact they`re seeking these transcripts now, it seems that part is moving forward and the fact he hasn`t been questioned yet makes it pretty clear he`s a likely target of this investigation. So, President Trump has to be worried about that.
O`DONNELL: John Heilemann, you know Roger Stone, you`ve dealt with Roger Stone. How much prison time is Roger Stone capable of dealing with Trump?
HEILEMANN: That`s a good question, Lawrence. As you know, there are a handful of people in the Watergate scandal who in the end willing to take the sentence and not fold under pressure. Roger Stone fancies himself both as sort of a dandy, a fashionista. He loves his clothing, he loves his fineries.
He also fashions himself as a tough guy. He`s been the guy with the Nixon tattoo on his back famously and infamously. And he has been most defiant in the face of all of the scandal, all the controversy, all the accusations that have swirled around him. So, I think he will be defiant I think up until the moment he stops being defiant.
And I think one of the questions really will be how much prison time is he looking at? It`s hard to judge exactly what that is right now, not knowing what the indictments are going to look like, how many counts the indictment is going to consistent of, but I do think he`s a guy who will try to hold out is as long as possible, try to keep up the notion in his mind that Trump will pardon him eventually. But I do think there will be a limit to that and when that limit is reached you will see him like many others have and many others will, fold like a cheap chair at a two bit poker game.
O`DONNELL: G. Gordon Libby was the big holdout in the Watergate investigation, didn`t cooperate, did years in prison and was rewarded in the right wing Republican world, became a right wing media figure as a result.
And, Ron Klain, with someone like Roger Stone, if it`s not a serious prison time, if it`s a two weeks Papadopoulos sentence or something less than a year even, that could be a career boost for Roger Stone. So if the prosecutors, if they`re thinking ability this, have to be careful with what kind of prison sentence he may be facing, if it ever gets to that.
KLAIN: I think that`s right, Lawrence. I think this is not something they`re going to take on lightly and not for light sentence. Look, we don`t really know who was the link between Trump and WikiLeaks, which was essentially an agent of the Russian government in 2016. But it seems like it was Roger Stone.
And the idea these were coordinated is a really critical part of the story we keep walking past. WikiLeaks put out their first set of materials on the eve of the Democratic convention, forcing out the chairman of the Democratic Party. And just a few hours after the "Access Hollywood" tape came out, they started to put out the rest of the stuff. There was close coordination between someone looking over Donald Trump`s shoulder and the folks at WikiLeaks.
And that coordinator could well have been Roger Stone. And if so, I don`t think this is going to be a George Papadopoulos two week slap on the wrist. I think it`s going to put him at the center of the conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
O`DONNELL: Ron Klain, Kimberly Atkins, John Heilemann, thank you all for starting us off tonight.
And when we come back two big mysteries today in the investigations of Donald Trump, one involves the Michael Cohen case and a secret document that was placed in a vault in district court in Manhattan. We`ll have more on that next.
And just minutes ago, the Senate actually passed a funding bill to keep the government open, and it did not include one penny for Donald Trump`s wall. How Nancy Pelosi defeated Donald Trump is coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: And now, there`s the mystery of the vault. There are two new mysteries of the investigations of President Trump and his associates today.
The first is what is in the vault? A sealed filing was made today in the case brought against Michael Cohen by federal prosecutors in New York City. We don`t know who made it or what it was about. The only thing we know comes from the court docket which says the filing was locked in a vault at district court in Manhattan.
The second mystery is who is fighting a subpoena apparently from Robert Mueller in federal court? Reporters have been trying to figure out when answer to that for months but the case has been kept so secret that when arguments were heard last week officials at the courthouse in Washington took extraordinary measure of shutting down to the public the entire floor where the hearing was taking place.
But last night, we got a partial answer. A three judge panel of the appeals court issued a ruling in favor of the prosecutors, in favor of Robert Mueller that revealed that the mystery subpoena target is not a person, it is a corporation, which they did not name owned by a foreign country, which they also did not name. The ruling said the subpoena involved, quote, an act outside the territory of the United States and that the act caused a direct effect in the United States.
Joining us now, Daniel Goldman, former assistant U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York and an MSNBC legal analyst. Also joining us Jed Shugerman, professor of law at Fordham University.
Daniel, first to you. The vault -- how many times as a federal prosecutor did you put things in the vault? What did you put in the vault? What`s the vault for?
What`s in there? Come on, what is it? What it`s got to be?
DANIEL GOLDMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: I wish I had a really sexy answer for you, but it is far more common that you might think. Any sealed document filed with the court should go in a vault. So, it`s not as if there are sealed documents that the court holds onto and then sealed documents that go to a vault.
I don`t know that every single time a document is filed under seal that it actually does go into a vault, but in Michael Cohen`s case, they`re certainly going to do everything by the book. There are two things that jump out of me that this might be. I think the most likely thing is that it is the presentence investigation report, which is something that remains under seal, prepared by the probation office that outlines all of his conduct, all of his personal history, the guideline range, his criminal history, et cetera.
That remains under seal, and it could just be it`s being officially filed in the docket as it`s required to be. That`s the most likely scenario.
The other option that I can think of is there is an outstanding pending motion by news organizations to unseal the search warrant materials that led to the searches on April 9th of this year of Michael Cohen`s office and home. That is pending, and obviously those search warrant materials are sealed. It`s possible it somehow relates to that.
I doubt it would be the judge`s order because he has to notify the parties as to what he`s deciding, but it could be something in connection to that, which continues to remain sealed.
O`DONNELL: All right, what about the elephant in the room, by which I mean the elephant indictment of all-time, an indictment of individual one, the co-conspirator identified in the Michael Cohen case?
Before you answer that, let`s listen to Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor in the bill Clinton case who helped establish what he believes is the legal principle that the president of the United States can be indicted. Let`s listen to what he said to Ari Melber tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST, "THE BEAT": So you think that if there is the right evidence, bob Mueller or another prosecutor could indict a sitting president, Donald Trump?
KEN STARR, FORMER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Yes. President Clinton said in the civil setting, not criminal, I should be immune from a civil lawsuit during the course of my tenure as president and the Supreme Court unanimously said, no, Mr. President, the public interest in the enforcement of the criminal laws I believe is even higher.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: OK, so could the elephant in the vault be the indictment of individual one?
GOLDMAN: I think it is highly, highly unlikely. What Ken Starr said after he had that comment is that his belief is contrary to DOJ policy right now. And while many people might think that the president should be able to be indicted, just not tried because of the issues in terms of taking up too much time.
I don`t think that Ken Starr`s opinion does not control. It`s a good opinion. DOJ policy does control --
O`DONNELL: But if what Rosenstein authorized or even Whitaker authorized is you can indict him now and you`ll hold it until after his presidency, is the vault where they would put that indictment?
GOLDMAN: Yes.
O`DONNELL: OK, there we go. Moving on to mystery number two. I knew we would get the indictment into the vault somehow, somehow.
Jed Shugerman, what is going on with the proceedings in Washington which we now know involves a foreign country and company owned by the government of that country?
JED SHUGERMAN, LAW PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: Right. I mean, this I think there`s a small universe of possibilities, right? So, there`s three Russian possibilities, three Gulf possibilities and a wild card.
The three Russian possibilities are two banks. There`s VEB Bank and VTB Bank, both described as Putin slush funds. VE Bank was the bank involved with some of the discussions about a secret line when Kushner and Flynn were setting up a secret line to the Kremlin, suddenly Kushner met with the head of VE Bank, and that may be connected to the purchase of Rosneft, the sale of Rosneft on the market at that same exact moment in December. And so, Rosneft is a third possibility.
So, there`s two Russian banks and Rosneft is the largest oil company in the world or maybe the second largest, and that`s Russian owned. And so, those are three Russian possibilities.
Then there are possibilities from Gulf states. Could be Qatar`s sovereign fund, QIA, could be the United Arab Emirates sovereign fund, Abu Dhabi is a possibility, maybe it`s Saudis. So, those are -- and they`re all connected -- they could be connected with that Rosneft sale that is described as the linchpin in the Steele dossier as the potential way to generate money.
The wild card is the Trump Organization is a wholly alone subsidiary of Russia is Trump Organization, the foreign state owned company. That`s less likely, but --
O`DONNELL: From your analysis, what is the most likely fitting that we would think this to be based on what we know?
SHUGERMAN: You probably think they would start with the Russian assets, the Russian entities. There`s a reason to suggest it might be any of these, but in all likelihood, it`s probably going to start earlier in the chain that involves that nexus of Cohen, Flynn and Trump. So, it`s more likely --
O`DONNELL: And this could be subpoenaing bank records from these entities, records basically?
SHUGERMAN: Subpoenaing records, it`s more likely to be something institutional like records than a human live witness because of the way the subpoena and the litigation is going.
And so, some people suggest that it`s less sophisticated set of lawyers because of the nature of some of these arguments, but that could be any of these.
GOLDMAN: But keep in mind it has to be a company that has some sort of nexus to the United States. Grand jury subpoenas cannot reach out to purely international companies.
O`DONNELL: Yes. Jed Shugerman, Daniel Goldman, our mystery solvers, thank you for joining us tonight. These mysteries continue.
And when we come back, we have breaking news. The Senate just passed a spending bill that keeps the government open into February and Nancy Pelosi has won again because it does not provide one penny for Donald Trump`s wall. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Breaking news. The Senate has just passed a short-term funding bill to keep the government open through February. The House could vote on the bill as soon as tomorrow. Today, Republican Congressman Jim Jordan complained that Donald Trump, the Republican leadership in Congress have once again surrendered on the Trump border wall.
Congressional leadership introduces a continuing resolution until February 8 without $5 billion for the wall. Let me get this straight, our chances of getting the wall will be better in February when Nancy Pelosi is speaker than now when we have the majority? Give me a break.
Jim Jordan will not come on this program because he`s afraid that I will ask him about the accusations made by members of the Ohio State Wrestling team who say that when he was a coach of that team, he did nothing to protect them from sexual assault. So I have to communicate with Jim Jordan on Twitter so I replied to his tweet this way, "You are correct, sir, Nancy Pelosi beat you and Trump. And no, you will not get a break. It gets worse from here, much worse."
There is exactly zero surprise in Washington that Nancy Pelosi is a tougher negotiator than Donald Trump. In fact, everyone in Washington who is not a Republican is tougher than Donald Trump. It is only Republicans who are afraid to stand up to Donald Trump, and so Republicans in Washington have fallen in line behind the leadership of the weakest president Washington has ever seen. Donald Trump threatened to shut down the government in order to get taxpayer funding for the wall that he said Mexico was going to pay for, and not one person in Washington believed a shutdown was going to happen. No one believed the threat.
Everyone paid more attention to Mitch McConnell, immediately saying that a shutdown would not happen. And today, Mitch McConnell surrendered completely to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and all of the Democrats in Washington and offered a spending bill that would keep the government open without providing one penny for Donald Trump`s wall.
And the Democrats don`t even have the majority in the House of Representatives yet. They`re still in the minority in the Senate and the House and they`re still beating Donald Trump. Even "Fox & Friends" is calling Donald Trump a loser on this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE DOOCY, CO-HOST, FOX & FRIENDS: If he agrees to the CR, which we continue funding the government at the current levels, he won`t get one point, anything for the wall, he loses and Democrats will win everything they want.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, CO-HOST, FOX & FRIENDS: So some are wondering is this a win for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer?
DOOCY: Yes. A lot of people who heard him last week who drew that line in the sand and said this is where shutting down and if there`s not a shutdown, he`s going to look like a loser.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Steve Doocy is right once again. You`ve never heard me say that before. The loser versus Nancy Pelosi is going to be what the next two years in Washington is all about.
After our break, our political panel will consider what the next two years of Pelosi versus Trump will look like.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER: There are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall no matter where you --
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Exactly right, you don`t have --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I needed the votes for the wall in the house, I would have them in one session, it would be done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Donald Trump couldn`t do it. He couldn`t get the votes for his wall even with Republican majorities in the House and the Senate. And so tonight, he has officially surrendered to Nancy Pelosi. The first of many surrenders to Nancy Pelosi to come in the next two years.
Kimberly Atkins, Ron Klain, and John Heilemann are back with us. And John Heilemann, there wasn`t a person in Washington when Donald Trump threatened to shut down who actually thought there was going to be a shutdown. He is the cowardly lion of the White House.
HEILEMANN: Right. I mean Lawrence, I was on TV with you that night, and I will say this. The moment that Donald Trump said that he would shut the government down and that he would own the shutdown proudly, that was the moment when he guaranteed that the shutdown would never happen. Because although Donald Trump is stupid enough and a bad enough negotiator to get baited in that position, he`s not stupid enough to actually go through with it. And if you want to know what the next two years are going to look like, they`re going to look like that over and over again.
O`DONNELL: And Kimberly, Mitch McConnell immediately said that day that there won`t be a shutdown and it`s very clear which one -- you know if you have a choice listening to McConnell or listening to Trump about what`s going to happen, it`s very clear which one to pick.
ATKINS: Absolutely. Look, Mitch McConnell knows that there`s no appetite among the American public ever for a government shutdown, certainly not days before Christmas and right before the House switches parties, switches control. So that was a losing battle from the start. But it just showed a preview of what Trump versus Pelosi is going to be like.
Donald Trump has had Republicans who were willing to bend to his will for two years. Next year is going to look dramatically different.
O`DONNELL: And Ron Klain, the Democrats have accomplished something that I think is very important having worked in a legislative body, having worked in the Senate for a while. And that is they`ve demonstrated their ability to stop something. They didn`t achieve anything new. They didn`t achieve anything positive. They simply stopped Donald Trump from getting what he wanted on the wall. And that is the most powerful power that Nancy Pelosi is going to have in the next two years.
KLAIN: I mean no question about it, Lawrence. We`ve seen in the past two years Trump moving very few things affirmatively forward, but being able to do a lot of horrible things to the administrative process, the rulemaking through the power of the presidency, and the ability of the Democrats to stop that is key.
And look, Nancy Pelosi is a very, very skilled player. But let`s give credit to where credit is due, she is playing poker against the guy who turns all his of cards face up and then tries to bluff. And as John said, let`s sit and announce in the oval office or I`m going to own the shutdown, well, that really -- that was the worst bluff in the history of poker playing.
And so that`s the fundament problem that President Trump has. He is a bad negotiator. He doesn`t understand the government. He doesn`t understand policy. And he is going to find it really hard to go toe to toe with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer the next two years.
O`DONNELL: John Heilemann, I have a tweet here from July of Donald Trump threatening a shutdown for the wall. Shutdown is his only threat. It`s the only bargaining chip he knows and he`s afraid to use it. And if he does use it, it will destroy him.
HEILEMANN: Well, yes, he`s right to be afraid to use it because it would have been cataclysmically bad for him in this instance. It would have been bad for him in the previous instance. Those -- both these thing go exactly to Ron`s point. I will just embroider it slightly.
He`s not a bad negotiator, he`s the worst negotiator. He`s the worst negotiator in the history of American politics. And the fact that he`s the worst has everything to do with the fact that he is the president who understands the government and politics least. You can`t be a good negotiator if you don`t understand the thing you`re negotiating over and you have no idea what the actual rules of the game are because you don`t even know what the game is.
So game, set, match. Pelosi and Schumer will be able to run rings around him for the next two years because they actually understand what happens on Capitol Hill, in Washington, in politics and policy, and he does not.
O`DONNELL: And Kimberly, Donald Trump told his voters that he would be able to get everything done because he`s such a great negotiator. So that argument is collapsing here. I have a feeling that the White House staff is going to at least be advising the president to have as few Nancy and Chuck meetings as possible on the schedule next year because he`s not going to win those.
ATKINS: Well, that`s assuming that members of the White House staff are able to advise him on anything and he`ll actually listen to it. I think President Trump still believes that he can negotiate, if you call that, by essentially bullying people and forcing them to accede to his will. That`s how he dealt with Republican leadership in Congress for two years. Nancy Pelosi is not going to back down or accede to his will. So he`s going to have to figure something else out. What that is, we don`t know yet.
O`DONNELL: Ron Klain, you`ve worked in the White House, you`ve worked in the Senate, you know that meetings like that that we saw with the speaker, the incoming speaker and the Democratic leader of the Senate are very serious meetings and they are not called that often. But when they`re called, both sides are very serious about having those meetings.
When I think about this in the future, if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer request a meeting with the president, as sometimes happens, the White House will have every reason to suspect they`re coming up there to try to humiliate this president because it`s so easy to do.
KLAIN: Well, yes. But let`s also again give credit where credit is due. It`s Trump`s choice to televise these meetings live on national television. I mean I sat through meetings both as a Senate staffer and as a White House aide. Usually, there`s a pool spray at the top, a brief statement by the leaders, and then the serious negotiation goes on behind closed doors without the TV cameras in the room.
Trump is not only a horrible, or as John says, worst negotiator, he`s decided to make it a nationally televised event. And that`s the part of this that really defies any understanding.
O`DONNELL: And the truth about those oval office meetings is the more serious they are, the less opportunities for cameras there are. I was on that oval office a couple of times with President Clinton and meetings were no cameras were allowed anywhere near it because the legislative pressure was so tough at that time. We didn`t want people to know what was going on.
John Heilemann, Ron Klain, Kimberly Atkins, thank you all for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
And up next, tonight`s good news, a once in a lifetime opportunity and how it changes lives.
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O`DONNELL: Monday night my dear friend Joy Reid who sometimes hosts this show tweeted, "Just did our family`s annual K.I.N.D. fund donation which was especially meaningful this year having been not terribly far from Malawi just a week ago. Kudos to Lawrence for placing the issue of education for the children of Malawi front and center."
Joy Reid traveled to South Africa to cover Nelson Mandela`s hundredth birthday and saw some of the challenges there that we see in schools in Malawi. Since Monday night when Joy Reid made her donation, you have contributed another $198,158 to the K.I.N.D. fund. That brings the total you have contributed this holiday season so far to $1,754,298. And that brings the total we have raised since we started the K.I.N.D. fund on this program to over $19 million.
But we still have a very long way to go. Most of that money has gone to building desks at factories in Malawi that have been able to provide jobs to workers to build the hundreds of thousands of desks that you have contributed to schools that have never had desks.
So the first beneficiaries of the K.I.N.D. fund, they`re actually those workers at those factories who have jobs now making those desks, jobs that allow them to provide for their families. And the second beneficiaries are the kids who receive those desks.
Over a million children in Malawi are sitting at desks in schools now where they never expected to have a desk. About a fourth of the money that you`ve contributed has gone to scholarships for over 5,000 girls to attend high school in Malawi where like many African countries, public high school is not free.
It is especially difficult for girls to stay in school in Malawi. Families who can afford to pay for one child to go to high school will usually pay for one of the boys in the family, not one of the girls. The girls` graduation rate is much lower than boys, and so girls need much more support to stay in high school.
Leah Stevens is a 16-year-old senior in high school who is in school today, thanks to your generosity. Last month, she told me that if she didn`t have a K.I.N.D. fund scholarship, she would just be stuck at home. And when I asked her what she would do if she was stuck at home, she told me she would probably be forced to get married.
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O`DONNELL: And what would you do at home?
LEAH STEVENS, K.I.N.D. FUND SCHOLAR: I would just stay or even getting married. As for now here in Malawi, most of the girls who didn`t go to school are now getting pregnant or are forced into marriage.
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O`DONNELL: Forced into marriage. There is so much at stake in being able to keep a girl in high school in Malawi. You can help at lastworddesks.msnbc.com. Any amount you can contribute is very helpful.
Rose Makata is in her third year of high school. She wants to be a lawyer. Here she is at home with her mother and her little sister. Rose`s mother had to drop out of high school when her father died. Before Rose got a K.I.N.D. fund scholarship, she had to drop out of high school too and she felt that her future would be doomed.
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ROSE MAKATA, K.I.N.D. FUND SCHOLAR: It was painful. I live -- I`m being rejected because it`s like you cannot learn just because of money. You cannot -- you are not allowed to learn just because of money. And I say that why am I even in this world? Because there`s not anything to do out here. No education, that means my future will be doomed.
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O`DONNELL: When Rose graduates from high school, she will be the first one in her family to do that.
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MAKATA: I just have to stand up and be the first one to go for my education because I don`t want to be like my mom. I don`t want to be out there struggling. Life is no good.
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O`DONNELL: When I asked Rose how her mother feels about Rose`s education, Rose had to fight back tears.
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O`DONNELL: And how does your mother feel now about you going to school?
MAKATA: She`s happy for me because she keeps on telling me, "My daughter, work hard in classes. Be strong enough. Don`t look back. Just go and look what you want to be." Yes, that`s it.
O`DONNELL: Your mother must be very proud that you`re in school.
MAKATA: Yes. She`s very excited and very proud of me.
O`DONNELL: Because you now get to fulfill her dream.
MAKATA: Yes.
O`DONNELL: She wanted to go to school but now you can.
MAKATA: Yes. I can go to school now. And she`s always encouraging me that don`t let go of this opportunity because it comes once in a life. Yes. That`s it.
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O`DONNELL: It comes once in a life. The scholarship that you provided for Rose has changed her life. With your continued support, we hope to continue to help provide that opportunity that comes once in a life.
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O`DONNELL: In tonight`s very special last word, a very special visit from Santa at Children`s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. today.
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CROWD: And a Happy New Year. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want to say thank you to all of you guys. I had a chance to talk to some of the wonderful kids and their families. And at a time that obviously is tough for folks, and as the dad of two girls, I can only imagine, in that situation, you know, to have nurses and staff and doctors and people who are caring for them and looking after them and listening to them and just there for them and holding their hand, that`s the most important thing there is.
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