Obama Planning First Post-presidency Event; Clinton, Pelosi, Sanders Urge Fight Against Trump; GOP Unleashes Attack Ads for a GA House Runoff; Pelosi Confident Dems Can Take House in 2018
KING: Welcome back. President Obama on Monday ends his post-election hibernation or you might say his post-election series of really excellent vacations. The 44th leader of the free world makes his first public appearance since leaving office. It will be at the University of Chicago wherein his previous life he was a law professor. The event is being built as a conversation on community organizing and civic engagement. We will see the president on Monday. In his absence, Democrats have, to put it modestly, struggled to find a person who can lead the party out of the wilderness. Yes, it's early, 2018, not sure quite yet, 2020, still a long way off. But, what's old is not new again.</s>HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I know the election hit a lot of us hard. But I can tell you this. Even when it feels tempting to pull the covers over your head, please keep going.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: A great Texan, Ann Richards, used to say, "You can put lipstick on a sow and call her Monique, and she's still a pig." That's what this bill is. It's the same terrible bill.</s>CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ANCHOR: Do you consider yourself a Democrat?</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: No. I'm an independent and I think if the Democratic Party is going to succeed and I want to see it succeed. It's going to have to open its doors to independents.</s>OFF-MIC) KING: Yes. We spent a lot of time earlier in the program on the, you know, on the Republicans having a hard time getting the governing act together. The Democrats had their own set of dysfunction and disarray. And I don't mean to beat up on the public service of Secretary Clinton nor leader Pelosi or Bernie Sanders being an independent while he's out on tour trying to help the Democratic Party rebuild (inaudible). But if you look at the leadership of the party, who is the State Senator Barack Obama? Who is the new face?</s>BACON: To be fair, in 2005, I don't think I knew Barack Obama will be president four years later so I think it is hard (inaudible) to know who the leader is. They're doing well right now in part of the Democrats because they're opposing things. They're good at blocking Obama -- of the new ObamaCare bill there. It's (inaudible), they're having these marches and you know, anti-Trump is a great organizer function.</s>KING: What about the Republican little tea party.</s>BACON: Yes. Exactly. So the main work -- but at some point there will have to be a voice of the Democrats. You still have to win those who voted for Trump to sort of moderate the more swing Trump as we still not sure if they're going to vote for the Democratic candidate in 2018 (inaudible) particularly in 2020. I think you still have to find those the positive vision of the Democratic Party still.</s>KUCINICH: But their auditions are open. And you are seeing some of these folks particularly in the senate, Elizabeth Warren, (inaudible) for example, Kirsten Gillibrand. They are auditioning, there are books coming out. They are promoting the books and but they don't -- no one writes books for their health.</s>BACON: But little right (inaudible) --</s>BALL: But I do think -- where at this point the leader of the Democratic Party is Donald Trump because it is the anger at him that is really energizing there their base. The question is that anger going to stay at its current fever pitch. And you know, the results out of Georgia in the special election this week were very much sort of tea leaves for that and the result was I think sort of middling You know it was very to tell because, you know, he didn't win out right which would have been an enormous signal in favor of the Democrats as anti-Trump party. But he also did better than you probably would have expected for someone in that district.</s>KING: You mentioned that race, the Georgia's special election. Now, it's in a two month runoff to see what happens and the Republicans are happy, they got a runoff. They think they can hold the seat now but they did get a scare. In part of their way to go against Jon Ossoff, who was the Democratic candidate, now he will be the Democratic candidate to run where he's trying to get a 50 percent. We just showed Nancy Pelosi, Leader Pelosi, she is now the boggy woman if you will for Republicans. A, trying to raise money, and B, when they're trying to take down a candidate. Look at these ads.</s>UNIDINTIFIED MALE: Ossoff lived and worked with the liberals in Washington. That's why Nancy Pelosi and her allies are pouring millions into his campaign. The truth is Nancy Pelosi's friends are bank rolling Ossoff's campaign because Ossoff will (inaudible) for liberal agenda.</s>BALL: And this is not a new strategy. Republicans have been doing this since 2010 making Nancy Pelosi the villain. But they wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't work and it really does get their base out.</s>LEE: That's right. And he's trying -- and the candidate is trying not to get sucked into that. He's talking very much about compromise and you know.</s>KING: Local issues and the like. And that race was as you mentioned, had the Democrats won, it would have given them some confidence heading into 2018 even though we often over read the results (inaudible) special election or not. But if you want to take -- Nancy Pelosi wants to be speaker again. She wants to be speaker again. Can she get there? Does the math work? She thinks maybe.</s>EVAN SMITH, TEXAS TRIBUNE CEO: Are there enough winnable races in 2018 around the country to take back the House?</s>PELOSI: Yes indeed. If it were today I feel very confident. It's not today.</s>SMITH: Not today.</s>BALL: This is also not a new talking point for Nancy Pelosi who said the Democrats were going to win the House in 2012 and 2014 and 2016.</s>KUCINICH: Hopes spring eternal.</s>BALL: -- all of which -- but in every instance it was almost impossible for that to happen. So, I wouldn't necessarily take that as a statement.</s>BACON: The president with a 40 percent approval rating, he's easy to runs against. She stands at a 40 percent (inaudible).</s>KING: But in any other organization with that track record, you would have a new leader. But they have their own dysfunction in the top and plus she's the one who can raise money. She's the only who can raise money on the scale that she does.</s>BALL: And that's why they keep her. But there are a fair number of Democrats in the House to -- and she got quite a lot of votes against her in fact to be leader remarkably this time. And there are a fair number of Democrats in the House who do wish she would move on and allow a new generation just to start taking it.</s>KUCINICH: But a lot of the new generation has taken to the exits. Look at Chris Van Hollen, he's in the Senate now, Xavier Becerra is now back home in California. So there is a little bit of brain drain going on in the Democratic caucus.</s>KING: That looks for other opportunities not in the House at the moment. We'll watch this one. Everybody sit tight again, please. Coming up, he loves them, he loves them not. President Trump loved WikiLeaks on the campaign trail but his White House says Julian Assange maybe should go to jail.