that's going to wrap up this hour for me on a busy news day. i'll turn now to steve kornacki. >> kate, thanks for that. good afternoon, everybody. i'm steve kornacki live here in new york. topping our agenda, a mistrial. >> members of the justice, i've received a notice that says, we as the jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all members, we were unable to come to a unanimous decision in the case of the state versus michael slager. is that correct, mr. foreman?

>> yes, sir. >> well, the court therefore must declare a mistrial in this case, and i so declare that this case is mistried. >> breaking news here in just the last few minutes, that jury officially deadlocking in the case of officer michael slager. he shot and killed an unarmed black man more than a year ago in north charleston. what does this deadlock mean for the officer and the friends and the family of the victim, walter scott? we are going to break all of that down for you. again, breaking news here in just the last few minutes. also on our agenda, strange bedfellows. >> i found it an extremely interesting conversation and to be continued. >> that's al gore, the former vice president. just a few weeks ago, he was pleading with americans not to make donald trump president. today, though, he is sitting down with him. did they buriry the hatchet?

we're going to bring you all the details from that extended and surprising meeting earlier today. and now what the clinton campaign is saying one month later. >> when you talk about connecting with people over america, hillary clinton had 2.5 million more americans vote for her than donald trump. >> clinton supporters are still dealing with the shock of her loss last month. now her campaign is speaking out about what they think went wrong. clinton's top strategist joel benenson is going to join us live. we begin, though, with that breaking news out of south carolina. this just in the last few minutes. the judge declaring a mistrial in the case against former police officer michael slager. slager was charged with killing black motorist walter scott in april of 2015 after scott ran away from his car during a traffic stop. the jury telling the judge that it was deadlocked after four days of deliberations. gabe gutierrez joining us now

from charleston. gabe, we've been getting all sorts of signals, some formal, maybe some informal from this jury about what was going on behind closed doors. after four days, is it any surprise the judge decided to declare this mistrial? >> reporter: hi there, steve. good afternoon. we had expected this declaration on friday evening, and then we heard that the jury wanted to go home for the weekend and sleep on it and come back today. if we thought this was going to be quick this morning, it wasn't the case. the jury came back with several questions for the judge this morning, including a few questions like, for example, is self-defense -- the idea of self-defense considered the same for a police officer as it is for an ordinary citizen? and also asking why the option of voluntary manslaughter was given to the jury in addition to the option of a murder conviction. well, they debated it for several more hours. as you mentioned, steve, over four days, more than 23 hours at this point. and within the last few minutes,

the judge here declaring a mistrial. now, we're expecting both sides, perhaps the scott family first, to come out and speak at any moment. for the scott family, this is devastating. for the michael slager family, as he said on the witness stand, he had maintained that he shot walter scott in self-defense, that he felt in total fear for his life. and as we heard on friday, at least one lone juror felt in good conscience that he could not convict michael slager. of course there will be many questions to be asked about the motivations for that one juror, why he felt so strongly that he could not convict michael slager. but then also today we heard several more jurors, a majority of jurors were undecided. we hope to learn more of what went on in that jury room. but again, the breaking news in the last few minutes, the judge declaring a mistrial in the michael slager murder trial. steve. >> i think everybody very curious to hear from many of those jurors who might be

willing to speak out. gabe, thanks for that. joining me now for more, ari melber. ari, what's your read on the situation going forward? is it likely -- i guess the prosecutors could have another trial right now. they could try officer slager again. is it likely that they will? >> we've spoken to several prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys in south carolina. all said that if the mistrial occurred, which looked likely as of friday given those jury notes that we've reported on, that they would expect at least one attempt at a retrial, especially if, as the foreperson suggested, the majority of the jurors, at least at a certain point in time, were looking to convict. the holdout juror's notes said he didn't think he could convict in, quote, unquote, good conscience. once that was written down and released to the judge, it was hard to imagine that individual reversing. so prosecutors legally can start with a clean slate and retry. the officer, any defendant, is presumed innocent as we all know, but they can start fresh because this is not a not guilty

verdict. quite to the contrary, as i've been explaining on our air here today, steve, because it was close to potentially a conviction on murder or manslaughter, michael slager's attorneys were already seeking a mistrial before the jury even said it was deadlocked completely and officially, which shows they thought this was the best outcome they could get. so while there's always a lot of posturing in the courtroom just like in politics, that showed their hand, that their hand was somewhat weak, that they were worried about losing votes. that's where you go in the future. the other larger point here is this video captivated the country. i mean this was, if possible, the most clear-cut, aggressive policing shooting we've seen simply because the defendant pulled his firearm here and shot as walter scott was retreating, running away, shot in the back. here is the dash cam footage people may have scene. walter scott was in that car, and he fled. you're not allowed to flee, but also police are not allowed to shoot you simply for fleeing.

that is well established law. you see it there. as he flees, as he runs, the officer shoots him in the back. later the video also showed the officer dropping an object near the dead body. prosecutors said that showed an attempt to plant evidence, which was a further incriminating thing against the officer. and what we know is that a majority of the jury, according to the notes, did view it negatively, was at least going to convict on something. but with a holdout juror, you've got to get to 12. >> quick follow-up. if there is a second trial, prosecutors get this fresh slate you're talking about, are there any obvious lessons that they've learned from this first crack at it that, you know, getting a second chance, something they might do differently, a different charge they might bring, anything like that they might do differently to get a better chance of a conviction next time around? >> one thing jumps out to me, steve. the jury kept asking about manslaughter. they asked about why it was included as a lesser offense when they were first advised to assess a potential murder conviction.

and then they had questions about what each conviction, what each charge might mean. so obviously you have some concern there that either they were confused, or they were simply negotiating, which sometimes happens and that they may have been asking questions, trying to bring the holdout over, maybe trying to bring him out to the lower charge of manslaughter. it raises the question for prosecutors of whether they are dealing with juries that clearly have members who are likely to give cops the benefit of the doubt, who think officers have a hard job to do, and who aren't as comfortable with a murder charge. do you somehow go with a lower charge as a strategic matter? the flip side to that and the reason why that is itself a dangerous move is because of negotiation. we don't like to think about it this way because we ask juries to find facts and we hope that's all they do. but sometimes they have to move from something more serious to less. and if you start out too low, like in any other negotiation, you have nowhere else to go but a not guilty verdict. so it's hard to know, and it's always hard to second guess after the fact whether manslaughter as a lower charge that would impute less malice,

less evil intention to the officer, might have brought over more jurors if that had been the focus of prosecutors' arguments, steve. >> thanks for joining us. we're going to keep our eyes on this developing situation. again, just in the last few minutes, officially that jury in charleston deadlocking. we'll bring you the latest and of course all the reaction as it comes in. meantime we're going to turn to politics where a former trump foe today paying a surprise visit of sorts to trump tower. al gore, the former vice president, he campaigned with hillary clinton down the stretch in this presidential campaign. he sat down with president-elect trump for what he called a productive session in a sincere search for common ground. >> the bulk of the time was with the president-elect, donald trump. i found it an extremely conversation and to be continued. and i'm just going to leave it at that. >> gore, of course, has made combating climate change one his biggest missions since that 2000

presidential race that he lost. donald trump has made his opposition to many of the reforms gore and other climate change activists are proposing a big part of his message this year. in fact, it was just seven weeks ago we mentioned this a second ago. gore was at a rally with hillary clinton, and he called trump a threat to the environment. >> when it comes to the most urgent issue facing our country and the world, the choice in this election is extremely clear. hillary clinton will make solving the climate crisis a top national priority. [ applause ] very important. her opponent, based on the ideas that he has presented, would take us toward a climate catastrophe. >> for more now, we want to bring in anne thompson, she's

set outside trump tower where that meeting took place earlier. anne, this is something we've been getting indications of as donald trump takes these meetings there, travels elsewhere for others. he sits down sometimes with people who have been his opponents in the past and they emerge leaving all sorts of indications there's more common ground than expected. is that what happened with al gore and donald trump? >> reporter: well, i think yes, steve. wouldn't you have wanted to be a fly on the wall in that meeting? but i also think there's a danger in reading too much into this meeting. first of all, the former vice president, was slated to meet with ivanka trump, who reportedly has decided that she wants to make climate change one of her signature issues over the next four years. secondly, for the president-elect to have ignored a former vice president who was there to meet with his daughter would have been a tremendous breach of protocol. what i do think is interesting is that vice president gore said he spent the bulk of his time

with the president-elect. and as he said, the two of them were searching for common ground. now, i can tell you from having spoken to al gore earlier this year that he then was very reluctant to criticize donald trump although donald trump had said some pretty outrageous things about climate change, claiming that it was a chinese hoax and threatening to take the united states out of the paris agreement. that is the global agreement to reduce carbon die objectioxide and greenhouse gases. instead, al gore was very recei reticent to criticize donald trump. he even back in may was trying to find where they would have common ground, and he looked at climate change from a business perspective, that is, mr. gore, saying it creates jobs. it's good for the environment. it's good for international standing, and i can bet those are points that the former vice president made today when he met with the president-elect. >> all right. anne thompson outside trump

tower. again, donald trump, al gore, sitting down together today. not everybody knew that was coming when the day starts. other news from the trump transition to kell you about. ben carson, he was donald trump's opponent for a while in the primaries, then he endorsed him. now carson officially being nominated to the trump cabinet for the role of secretary of housing and urban development. now, carson has finally accepted an offer that he has been mulling since at least thanksgiving. remember, he was once in the mix to be secretary of health and human services, but he turned that job down. his spokesman saying that carson didn't think he had the experience to run a federal bureaucracy. trump's cabinet with this carson news now really starting to take shape although there certainly is still one big exception. a quick look at what we know. here are the names that have been put out there so far. tom price from the house of representatives, for instance. he's going to be the hhs secretary. at least he'll be nominated. all of these are going to require senate confirmation.

betsy devos, elaine chao, nikki haley as the u.n. ambassador. these, all the announced nominations to donald trump's cabinet. so it is starting to take shape. a couple that we don't know yet. a couple we're still waiting on we can show you. no word yet on the secretary of agriculture. a couple of names in the mix there. rick perry, the former texas governor. how about secretary of veterans affairs, sarah palin's name has been mentioned in some reporting. scott brown picked up an endorsement for this v.a. position from elizabeth warren, the democrat who he ran again for senate in massachusetts. warren has certainly been in a war of words with donald trump all year. not sure how much that endorsement will matter. and of course we say one big exception here. everybody waiting to see what donald trump does for secretary of state. here's the thing. a couple days ago, before the weekend, the trump team was putting out the word they were down to four finalists for this position. since then, it's expanded. now look at this. there's at least eight names in public circulation for this, including john huntsman.

actually, i'm going to cut in here. we're keeping an eye down in charleston. this is the family of walter scott. let's listen to what they have to say. >> missed opportunity to heal a lot of wounds in this country. missed opportunity to remind the good officers that put on that badge that they aren't michael slager. but if you thought we were going to come out here crying or weeping or weak, you don't know the scott family, who have become my family. you don't understand that the fight isn't over. that was round one. we've got two more rounds to go. the solicitor is trying this case again as soon as she can. the doj is trying this case as soon as they can. he may have delayed justice, but he did not escape it. we all saw what he did. we all saw what happened. but that's the justice system.

one person or two people can disagree. we don't know the details of what the jury makeup was or what the decision was. we'll find that out to forestall any comments or questions about that. but it doesn't matter because our faith is unwavering. our knowledge of what happened is unwavering. and michael slager will face justice in this. we aren't worried. we don't need to scream or shout because we know that it's coming. it's just been delayed. so think what you want, that the fight is over. but it's not. it's simply been delayed. anthony scott would like to give some remarks, and miss judy scott, his mother. >> let her go first. >> i would like to say good evening to all of you, and today

i'm not sad. and i want you to know why i'm not sad. because jesus is on the inside, and i know that justice will be served because the god that i serve, he's able. he told me to wait on the lord and be of good courage, and god -- he is strengthening my heart. god is my strength, and i know without a doubt that he is a just god, and injustice will not prevail. the god i serve, i know he's able. we are surrounded by a cloud of witne witnesses from days past and

gone. and what god did for them back then, he'll do the same for me. i trust god. i believe god. i am encouraged because i know god is able. he will get his just reward, and we have the federal trial and another trial to go. i'm just waiting on the lord. i'm just going to rest in the lord. i'm going to rest in the lord because you see the reason why i can speak like i am, because the joy of the lord is my strength. and i have been born again. i've been washed in the blood of the lamb. and it's something about jesus when he's on the inside, i fear not. i don't care what men say.

i don't care how it looks. it's not over. y'all hear me, it's not over till god say it's over. [ applause ] hallelujah. >> justin bamberg of bamberg legal. you know, you just heard some very, very strong and powerful words from miss judy scott, and i think that that sums up how the entire family feels about this moment. you know, yeah, we wish the outcome may have been different. but at the end of the day, this is just another step in the process, and we all know that at the end of the day, justice will

be had. you know, one thing that we've learned throughout this entire process is it doesn't really matter how many times you get knocked down. just make sure you land on your back because if you can look up, you can get up. and this is an example that moving forward, we'll continue looking up, and we'll continue to take things day by day. and we know that at the end of the day, justice will be had because oftentimes what's done in the dark comes to the light. we've seen the light and there's no way at the end of the day that former officer michael slager can escape what's coming to him. and that is a conviction, and that is prison time. >> after what you heard on friday, this lone juror saying that he could not morally convict the officer, is this

something -- this announcement today, is this something you had prepared for? how had you prepared for this? >> you know, i mean i think that's the catch 22 is he said he didn't want to say the killer of walter scott is innocent, which would mean he's guilty. so his moral conscience, i guess, didn't let him put michael slager behind bars. but that's fine. that happens in jury trials. but it tells you a lot. >> were you surprised to learn today that a majority of the jurors were still undecided? >> no. when you get all of the information and you know you can ask questions that maybe you wanted to ask, now people are figuring out more answers to different things they hadn't thought of. but we'll know all of those facts once y'all talk to the juror. of course, you know, they can talk to y'all now. i'm sure they're probably talking to somebody right now. >> the makeup of the jury, as you know, six white men, five white women, one african-american man. does the makeup of the jury, now

that in retrospect you look at the fact there was a mistrial, does that bother you? >> it shouldn't bother anybody. >> that is the scene outside the courthouse in charleston, south carolina. again, just within the last hour, the judge officially declaring the jury deadlocked, this in the trial of officer michael slager. he was charged in the killing of an unarmed black man, walter scott, last year. the jury had been deliberating for four days. that was chris stewart you were just listening to at the end there. he is an attorney for the scott family. you also heard from walter scott's mother. you also heard from another attorney for the scott family. stewart saying there, of officer slager, he may have delayed justice, but he did not escape justice. he said the fight is not over yet. of course, prosecutors do have the option of retrying the officer. i believe we're joined now by ari melber. ari, i want to run this by you. i was just listening to chris stewart, the lawyer there. he made reference to a federal case, and he made reference to

the solicitor is going to have another case. he was making reference to two more trials. is this news here? has he officially been told, do we know, that there's going to be another trial or two? >> two more trials are possible. here is why. this trial ends in a hung jury, a mistrial. so that is neither a finding of not guilty, which would release officer slager of these charges, nor obviously a finding of guilty, which is why the family members and other advocates are registering their concern. so there is an expectation, we don't know yet, that there could be a retrial of this case. that does often happen in significant cases that end in a hung jury because it is such a lack of resolution. but it is certainly too fast at this early hour to hear that kind of formal announcement from prosecutors. in a sense, they will be doing what the community and what journalists are going to be doing in the coming hours and days, steve, which is try to reach the jurors, learn about if the jurors have the right to

speak or not speak. during the trial, they have to only participate confidentially. what the prosecutors learn from those jurors could affect their decision. we, as i mentioned, have spoken in our reporting to lawyers in the state who said they would expect a retrial effort by the prosecutors. the second case is totally separate. it's a federal case brought by federal prosecutors in the obama administration justice department, and that is pending as this case works its way out and now, of course, can be a second trial. so it is possible there would be one or two more trials here. ultimately, all around that same underlying incident captured on that video of the shooting of walter scott in the back. >> all right. ari melber, thanks for sticking around. again, that was the scott family, lawyers for the scott family talking to reporters outside the courthouse in charleston. we'll keep an eye on that situation, bring you any more as we learn it. coming up after a quick break, the latest at standing rock. protesters celebrating the army's decision to halt construction of the dakota access pipeline.

but their fight may not be over. plus the deadly warehouse fire in oakland, california. as the number of people killed continues to rise, we're learning more about the victims including one identified as the son of a first responder. up next, we're going to go live to the scene where the cause remains under investigation. ugh. heartburn.

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mornings are for coffee and contemplation. that was a really profound observation. you got a mean case of the detox blues. don't start a war you know you're going to lose. finally you can now find all of netflix in the same place as all your other entertainment. on xfinity x1. welcome back. time now for a check of the headlines at the half hour. we begin with breaking news from south carolina. the judge declaring a mistrial in the case against michael slager. this after jurors said they were deadlocked after four days of deliberations. now, slager was charged with killg black motorist walter scott back in april of 2015 after scott ran from his vehicle during a traffic stop in north charleston. scott's family saying the fight is far from over. >> i trust god. i believe god. i am encouraged because i know

god is able. he will get his just reward, and we have the federal trial and another trial to go. meanwhile, president-elect donald trump today tapping ben carson to be secretary of housing and urban development. republicans praising the retired neurosurgeon's appointment. some democrats, though, saying he's unqualified. president-elect holding more transition meetings at trump tower as well today. former vice president al gore stopping by to meet with trump and his daughter, ivanka. this as new york city asks the government for $35 million to cover its cost for protecting the president-elect. green party presidential candidate jill stein filing a lawsuit today asking a federal judge to order a recount of the presidential vote in pennsylvania. this as a recount gets under way in michigan and as wisconsin

election officials continue to recount ballots there. and in north carolina. republican governor pat mcrory conceding today to his challenger, roy cooper. this nearly four weeks after election day. the latest count in that state has cooper ahead of mcrory by more than 10,000 votes. a north carolina man charged with firing a rifle inside a washington, d.c. pizzeria yesterday expected to appear in court this afternoon. police say edgar welch told them he was investigating a fake news story that hillary clinton was running a child sex ring from the restaurant. no one was hurt in that incident yesterday. a georgia father convicted of leaving his young son to die in a hot car more than two years ago will spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole. jurors saying they found justin ross harris guilty of murder and other charges as they believe they intentionally left the child in the car. the japanese prime minister says that he and president obama will visit pearl harbor together

later this month to pay tribute to the lives lost 75 years ago in the japanese attack on that u.s. naval station in hawaii. the prime minister of japan's visit will come months after president obama visited hiroshima where the first atomic bomb was dropped back in 1945. crews are resuming their search of the oakland, california, warehouse where at least 36 people were killed in friday night's fire. power is now shut off in the area around the site so a crane could be brought in to help with the search for more victims. authorities say the death toll will likely climb even higher. there are still so many unanswered questions about what happened, including what sparked that inferno in the first place. steve patterson joins us now live from oakland with the latest. steve, how about that question? we know about the devastation by this point. are the authorities any closer to figuring out how this happened in the first place? >> reporter: the answer, broadly, is no although there have been some developments as of today.

namely, first of all, they think they've identified the location where the fire may have started. they've isolated an area towards the back of the warehouse near the back wall. they believe it is possible that fire started on the first floor near that back wall, spread up to the second floor, then to the roof. of course the roof collapse, a major element of what happened that night when 36 people so far have been confirmed dead. 11, meanwhile, have been identified. next of kin notifications are ongoing as the process of recovery continues. it is an arduous, slow process. we thought maybe there would be many more developments today, but because of that nine-hour work stoppage, crews are a little bit behind schedule as far as getting the work done of taking out the debris and realizing that it's bucket by bucket. they are, by hand, going in there and removing that debris out to the adjacent lot outside of that warehouse. traes really, really tough work. the next step is notifying

friends and family. the next step is proceeding with that investigation not only as far as finding out how that fire started, but maybe looking into the possibility of a criminal investigation. all that work is being done simultaneously. steve. >> all right. steve patterson out there in oakland. steve, thanks for that. now over to north dakota. both sides there in the fight over the dakota access pipeline now plotting their next steps. this after the obama administration denied a permit to allow that pipeline to cross under the missouri river. the chairman of the standing rock sioux tribe, which has been leading the protest against that pipeline, saying the demonstrators should leave a camp set up along the pipeline route. the officiissue not officially d as the trump administration could reverse the situation. the company building the pipeline saying the decision was politically motivated. they say they expect to finish the job. cal perry is at the protest camp near cannon ball, north dakota. cal, it is obviously getting

cold out there. tell us what the latest is on the ground. >> reporter: part of the big story here now is becoming the weather. i mean this is becoming a very dangerous situation for a lot of the people in the camp who are not prepared for this weather. the temperature has dropped about 20 degrees in just the past hour. this wind is picking up. now, as you mentioned, yesterday was really a day of jubilation for the people in the camp. they thought it was over. they thought the pipeline was going to be stopped in its tracks, that this wouldn't cross the missouri river. late last night we heard from the energy company, and they said they were going to continue on, that it was not going to stop them. they really thumbed their nose at the administration, saying the administration was an anti-energy administration. so it's unclear what's going to happen next although, again, in the next two or three days, we're looking at sub zero temperatures, a wind chill of minus 20, maybe 30 degrees. so the story starting to shift a little bit into really a safety concern for the thousands of people who remain in this camp, steve. >> cal perry out there. thanks for that. meanwhile, tensions still raw in the clinton world nearly

a month after the election. hillary clinton's former top advisers emerging in recent days to recount what went wrong for their candidate. a couple days ago, you might have seen this. a harvard-sponsored post-mortem for both campaigns. the animosity between them was hard to miss. take a look. >> if providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant technician, i'm glad to have lost. give me a minute, david. when i am more proud of hillary clinton's all right speech than any other moment on the campaign because she had the courage to stand up, i would rather lose than win the way you guys did. >> no, you wouldn't. no, you wouldn't. >> absolutely. >> yes. >> that's very clear today. no you wouldn't, respectfully. do you think i ran a campaign where white supremacists -- you going to look me in the face and tell me that. >> it did. >> you think you could have had a decent message for the white working class voters? >> okay. that was the scene at harvard a couple days ago.

joel benenson was chief strategist for hillary clinton's campaign joins me now. it's been a month. everybody is in sort of assessment mode right now. look, in an election this close, you look at those three states it came down to. i think it's about 78,000 votes that separated the three candidates. you could probably point to a million factors. but let me ask it from this angle. when you look at the trump campaign, winning those three states, getting past 270, winning the electoral college, what did they do right that you didn't see coming? >> well, look, i think it's hard to say at the end because as you say, it's about 78,000 votes across three states. you said there are a million factors, and the truth is you could pick any one of them, and you'd probably be right, steve. the point is now we're a month out of the election, it doesn't do a lot of good to go back over these things too much. you turn them over in your head for sure. but i've said this before. there's nothing more gratifying in politics than winning a close election that people don't think you're going to win, and nothing that makes you do more soul searching than a close one that

up thought you were going to win and then you came up short. so at the end, we had a hill that was probably too big to climb up, and we came up short in a couple of states. bearing in mind the fact -- and i think this is what people forget -- is that 2.5 million more americans voted for hillary clinton than donald trump. now, that doesn't provide any solace. the currency of a presidential race is the electoral college. but everybody should take a deep breath here because this has happened before. president george w. bush didn't have a majority of the votes. president bill clinton in '92, and both of those went to work with the other side in recognition that they didn't have a majority of americans voting for them when they won. >> let's pick up on that point. >> sure. >> that clip we just played, man, we're talking three weeks after the election. you guys are getting together with the trump folks. did that not bode well how that session broke down the other -- >> i think there's a lot being made out of that. there were a couple of heated moments there. we were there talking for two

and a half hours. it was obvious that was going to be the news because there were about ten minutes out of two hours where there was some sharp exchanges. but the bulk of the conversation, which is there to kind of lay a groundwork for the history that's going to be written, was pretty cordial. there were campaigns talking about each side about what they were doing and what they were thinking at various stages. that's what goes on at harvard. >> it seemed, though, that clip we played -- and i know there was other stuff discussed. jim palmieri's point was that you guys didn't run an honorable campaign. is that how you feel about the trump campaign? >> look, i think there are th k things about that campaign that jan and i have both said in terms of whether or not it was being supported by the platform for the alt-right, which is what steve bannon called it, and we raised that issue. i think it's a fair issue to raise, and i think there were signals sent out, things that were said that activated those people in a way that has not been done. it is unprecedented in a

presidential campaign. so that was part of the discussion. >> i want to ask you, though, along those lines because when that issue of the alt-right was coming up, hillary clinton about a month or so before the election, she had that line. i think it haunted her the rest of the way where she talked about the basket of deplorables. half of trump's supporters, in her words, belonged in the basket of deplorables. a woman named diane hessen, she worked informally with your campaign. she said she was contacting undecided voters. she said she's talking to them every week. sometimes they're for clinton. sometimes they're for trump. when that happened, she said, the conversation shifted the most after she said you could put the trump supporters into the basket of deplorables. all hell broke loose. she said they stopped considering hillary clinton then. >> look, there's a lot of evidence to the contrary there. we saw very clearly hillary clinton was in the lead. there were third-period candidates who were polling very strongly all the way through as i said. we get 11 days out, and the fbi director takes an unprecedented

step, overruling advice within the fbi to not violate protocols and reinject an issue back into the campaign 11 days out. we saw very clearly that people who are leaning are way but who were voting third party stopped coming back to us. and as we went down to the wire, we just saw our defectors not come back and his defectors did come back, galvanized by jim comey and the action he took. >> we had the headline there a second ago. jill stein is filing suit. she wants that recount in pennsylvania. is that something you want? >> look, i think our campaign has said we will participate if there are court proceedings, but we don't expect anything to change in terms of the change in popular votes change the results in they of those states. >> finally, hillary clinton we saw her speak at the children's defense fund a week after the election. we've seen these periodic shots emerge. she's in the woods near her house enjoying nature. we've seen a few pictures. how is she dealing with this? >> i personally haven't spoken to her. i think that, you know, she's

been out. i think she's talked and spoken for herself at some of these events. i think anybody when you go through these things, you're kind of -- you know, you turn things over in your head a lot, but you also have to keep going forward because there's a lot we have to do in this country, and there's a lot on the agenda that donald trump is advocates that democrats are going to have to be united about taking on as we go forward, particularly policies that are antithetical to the campaign he ran. you played a clip with kellyanne conway talking about him connecting with working people. well, we're going to make sure they all know going forward when he tries to give these massive tax cuts to corporations that they're not going to be the beneficiaries of that. >> and finally you've been a through of these before. would you want to go through another presidential campaign after this one? >> probably not. i think i could say that. this was my fourth one, and i've won the other three. and they're longer. they get harder to do. they're pretty consuming. i think there are other people who can step in and do them going forward.

>> all right. joel benenson, thanks for joining us. up next, we were just talking about this. she did win the popular vote, so how popular was hillary clinton? i'm going to break that down with our most important number of the day. that's next. ♪ music playing

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this was going to be close no matter what. it didn't matter who the republican nominee is. these races are always very close. you know, again, this is an electoral college contest, but we talk about hillary having a very high margin, actually the second highest ever in the popular vote. that's still only 2 million vote these things are always very close. >> we were just talking about that in the last segment. there's robby mook. he was the campaign manager for hillary clinton. he's making the same point. he says hillary clinton, second highest popular vote total in history. check this out. it's our most important number of the day today. 65.4, as in 65.4 million. now, they are still counting the votes, but you round it up.

that's where hillary clinton sits right now. when you add up all the popular votes. nationally she did two points better. and, again, counting. there are still ballots being counted. they're largely from california. that number is probably going to grow a little bit. robby mook is correct. if you put that in perspective here, it is one of the biggest popular vote tallies in history. the only person to get more votes in an election, barack obama the first time around in 2008. he got 69 million, got almost 66 million four years ago. then you got hillary clinton. however, that could be a little bit misleading as our buddy eric oster mire from spart politics points out. he says the population is always growing in this country. so if you're comparing the raw popular vote total of a candidate in 2016, of course it's going to be higher than any other total in history. the country is always bigger than it ever was before. one thing to think about is the percentage of the vote she actually got. and that sitting down there, again 48.15. there are a bunch of losing candidates in the past who have

gotten a higher percentage of the vote. of course they are still counting them up. she could climb in this list a little bit. but she did get more popular votes than any loser before, more popular votes than a lot of candidates who have won. but when you look at the percentage, there are some candidates who have lost races who have done better than hillary clinton did. a little bit of perspective. a little bit of context as that popular vote total continues to come in. that's our most important number of the day today. ahead, did a fake news story lead to an almost deadly shooting in washington, d.c.? a man with tan assault weapon opened fire inside a popular pizza spot there. he claims it was because of a story that made the rounds during the presidential campaign. i'm going to talk that over with our political panel next. what about the people i care about? ...including this little girl. and what if this happened again? i was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me? so i asked my doctor. and he recommended eliquis. eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots

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there's been a longstanding policy in place. the chinese government in beijing places an enormous priority on this situation, and it's a sensitive matter. >> that's white house press secretary josh earnest responding to donald trump making contact with taiwan's leader last week. "the washington post" reporting last night that trump planned the phone call to be intentionally provocative. i want to bring in now columnist for "the new york daily news" and betsy woodruff, political reporter at "the daily beast." mike, do you buy this, that this is three dimensional chess that trump is playing here?

you have this longstanding rule with china, sort of informal rule about how you talk about taiwan or not talk about it. trump's going to break it right away to try to sort of put them on their heels. do you buy that? >> a couple things. first of all, i've never regarded china as being like england during world war ii with winston churchill. i'm not terrified that you could torque them off, okay? i think he is going to be a provocateur. none of what has happened over the last month has surprised me. i don't think it surprised anybody. he's going to not just be king of the united states, which is the way i think he views this role, he's going to be the king of drama. there's going to be drama. steve, the thing is if he goes a couple of news cycles where he's not leading everything, he'll do something. >> betsy, i guess that's why this was such big news, i think. there were people who said, you know, look, there's a problem with talking to taiwan right now. there are other people saying, hey, maybe that's justifiable

actually. but i think the bigger concern that was raised was this is just a preview of the unpredictability of the next four years. >> it's only going to get crazier. we're sort of in the post-surprise world, right? nothing is weird anymore. one thing that stood out to me was there was a chinese government spokesman saying the chinese government will not be responding to trump's personality, only to his policies, which seems like the line that will be cribbed pretty soon. i think a lot of folks are sort of parcelling through how seriously do we take these tweets? what does it mean when trump says something versus when obama said something? if this changes how foreign diplomats think about what the united states means on foreign policy issues. >> steve, if you were on social media over the weekend, you thought that the next great drama in trump's cabinet was going to be who is secretary of "saturday night live" because he gets as worked up about that. but this is the way it's going

to be. the rule book was thrown out long ago, or he wouldn't have gotten elected president of the united states. >> the tweets considered on saturday night. let me ask you about this as well. the big suspense now, secretary of state. we've been talking about this for a while. they said -- the trump team said four finalists a couple days ago. now it looks like there's eight. do we have a sense here who really has the -- i mean you have john huntsman name suddenly coming into the mix. there's all sorts of tension and history between huntsman and romney. is this trump trying to traek romney? >> if it's trump trying to tweak romney, he's doing it in a weird way because huntsman called for trump to drop out of the race when t when. who knows, it's certainly plazaible. that said, huntsman has an incredible level of experience when it comes to dealing with china. a lot of his they'res on how the u.s. can improve its relationship with china kind of line up with trump's.

so huntsman is certainly plausible, but at this point it seems like trump is getting farther away every day from finding someone to be secretary of state. >> it occurred to me when it went from four to eight, it's like people trying to grow the college football play from 14 to 18. steve, i was watching this play out, and i'm thinking trump figured things out as he went along. i mean the one hopeful thing in the country is if he can figure out how to get elected president, he can figure out how to be president. i don't think he thought secretary of state was going to generate quite this much interest. but once it did, i think he decided to say, okay, let's let this play out for a while. >> remember, trump's thing is always being part of every news cycle. that's why if you go through his twitter feed, literally every major news story basically ever, he's tweeted on. he used to tweet about robert pattinson's breakup with kristen stewart. >> this is the second straight

time i've hosted this show and robert pattinson's name -- what's the movie? >> twilight. >> he's tweeting about tiger woods this week. he's like, oh, yeah, i'm paying attention. >> here we are, sitting in the middle of the transition, and there are still people, myself included sometimes, who are looking for signs of that transition to the presidential donald trump. i think four years from now, we'll still be looking for it at the end of maybe the presidency, maybe just the first term. >> you are such an optimist because all the times we've talked, you still think there's going to be a pivot, don't you? >> you know what, i hate to sound like -- you know it's the definition of insanity, right. you say the same thing and expect a different result. still only december 2016. mike, betsy, thanks both for joining us. we'll squeeze a quick break in, be right back.

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all right. that does it for this hour. i'm steve kornacki. quick note for you. al gore going to join chris hayes tonight to talk one-on-one about that meeting he had with donald trump today. you are definitely going to want to see that. all in tonight, 8:00 eastern. and "mtp daily" starts right now. if it's monday, is president-elect trump being careless or calculated? tonight, controversy calling. how president-elect trump's phone conversations with foreign leaders are rattling multiple regions. >> i don't expect he's going to pay much attention to protocol. >> plus when fake news becomes really dangerous. the scary combination of an assault rifle, a pizza parlor, and a clinton conspiracy theory. >> i was thinking this is the product of all that fake news, and there are lots of crazy people out there with guns.