MADDOW-SHO-01
between Donald Trump and the president of Taiwan. A provision is added to
a congressional budget bill that would make an exception to a rule that
would prevent General James Mattis from being appointed secretary of
defense by Donald Trump. Ryan Knutson, reporter for "The Wall Street
Journal", talked with Rachel Maddow about what Donald Trump`s announcement
of a $50 billion investment in the U.S. by a Japanese/Saudi fund is about.
Bradley Olson, national energy correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal",
talked with Rachel Maddow about the close relationship Rex Tillerson,
ExxonMobil CEO and candidate for Trump secretary of state, has with
Vladimir Putin.>
Softbank; Business; Rex Tillerson; ExxonMobil; Energy; Politics>
KNUTSON: Pre-election.
MADDOW: This $50 billion that they are talking about, is it -- do we know how much of this, the $50 billion that they`re talking about today, would be Saudi and how much of it would be Softbank?
KNUTSON: No, there`s no clear breakdown. There`s an involvement of Foxconn, which is the manufacturing company that makes most of the iPhones.
MADDOW: Lots of controversy around them in terms of their labor practice.
KNUTSON: Right. They`re on a slide. There`s a number that`s next to their company`s name also. It`s not clear if that`s an addition or how this sort of breakdown of this fee is.
I mean, Masa has -- his nickname is Masa -- he has big visions about what the future is. He`s very passionate about artificial intelligence. He wants to have a lot of his money going towards companies that are going to create what he actually calls the next phase in human evolution.
So, he`s talking about big picture stuff. There are some people think it`s not very realistic. But, you know, he wants to make big investments. He wants to be buying companies that are in the $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion range.
MADDOW: So being part of an excellent PR stunt that otherwise makes no sense with the new president of the United States might put you in a good position at least to make some noise.
Ryan Knutson, reporter for "The Wall Street Journal" -- it`s really nice of you to come in and help us.
KNUTSON: Thanks.
MADDOW: Thanks a lot.
All right. Lots more to come tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: So, they got trouble on the taking off, they`ve also got trouble on the landing. Russia only has one aircraft carrier. It`s fairly ancient. It`s called the Admiral Kuznetsov.
It`s currently -- see how it kind of belches black smoke there? They say that`s a feature not a bug, but it`s hard to -- yes. It is currently taking part in Russia`s military campaign in Syria.
The Kuznetsov does belch black smoke. It has a tendency to break down a lot. In particular, it likes to catch fire.
But you see how it`s kind of bucktooth in the front? That`s because it uses a low-tech baby ski jump to get its planes into the air.
American aircraft carriers, modern aircraft carriers they basically slingshot jets off the flight deck, but on the Russian carrier they don`t have any way to do that, so they just use that little ski ramp so the takeoff is a little hinky.
It turns out so are the landings. Yesterday, the Russian defense ministry announced that a second jet fighter crashed while trying to land on this hoopty old aircraft carrier. The second time it happened in the last few weeks. I mean, they don`t have a slingshot, as I said, to launch planes off the deck, but they do have an arresting wire to stop jets when they try to land on the flight deck.
In both the instances where these two jets have crashed, apparently, the arresting wire snapped. And yesterday, that sent this jet skidding off the flight deck and into the ocean. Luckily, in both of these crashes, the pilots in the planes were able to eject and they were both able to survive.
But if you`re keeping track, since joining the fight in Syria, the Kuznetsov has now lost two of its 15 jets, which has to be little nerve- racking for the pilots of the remaining 13.
There`s more ahead tonight from Russia with something other than love. The person who is said to know Russian President Vladimir Putin better than any other living American is really apparently being considered for a very, very high profile role, the last remaining super high profile role in the new administration. That`s ahead.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Russia is gigantic. It shares a border with 14 countries. Its total land border runs over 12,000 miles. It`s the biggest country on earth.
But if you go all the way across that massive country to the eastern coast of Russia, you will see the Kamchatka Peninsula. And off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula on August 4th, 2005, this 45-foot mini submarine, Russian submarine, it got stuck in some fishing nets on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. It could not free itself.
That little mini submarine had seven Russian sailors on board. They were stuck 620 feet below the surface with no way to come up. And their oxygen supplies were running out. That seven-man crew needed to be rescued. Time was absolutely of the essence.
U.S. Air Force Major Patrick Kuhn (ph) was based in Japan at the time. He and his crew got the call about the trapped Russian sub. In a hot minute, he was on a plane heading to the Kamchatka Peninsula to head up the rescue effort.
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Steve Smith also got the urgent call. In a hot minute he made his way to the needing to be rescued sub from his naval base in California.
Both U.S. servicemen and their units joined in this frantic rescue effort and that little Russian sub was raised to the surface with apparently just a few hours of oxygen left to spare.
And so, the following year, in 2006, Russia awarded those two American military officers the highest honor that they give to non-Russian citizens. They earned the Russian Order of Friendship. You can see it right there on Major Patrick Kuhn and Steve Smith. It`s a star with a wreath and a globe. Has a stripy ribbon.
That`s one way, that`s a really hard way to get the highest honor that the nation of Russia affords to non-Russian citizens. You can rescue seven Russian sailors stuck under water with no way out other than by your help while their oxygen supplies are running out. That`s one way to do it.
Here`s another way. This is Russian President Vladimir Putin on the right standing next to a man who is the CEO of ExxonMobil. This was taken August 30th, 2011. On that day, a giant Russian oil company called Rosneft, they signed a huge contract with Exxon, that would allow the two companies to drill the Arctic together as well as the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, Rosneft, that`s a big political deal because the biggest stockholder is the Russian government. The government owns 70 percent of Rosneft. So, this is the Russian government going into a partnership with Exxon.
And it was personal to Putin as well. When that huge deal was signed, you see from the byline there they signed it in the city of Sochi, where the Olympics were held in Russia. See the byline on the article?
But it wasn`t just in Sochi. They signed that deal at Putin`s house, at Vladimir Putin`s Black Sea vacation house. That`s literally with the CEO of ExxonMobil went to sign this ginormous deal, Putin`s vacation deal.
Two years later in 2013, Rosneft acquired a big stake in 20 of Exxon`s deep water exploration blocks here in the Gulf of Mexico. Those 20 blocks gave Russia state-owned Rosneft, gives them access to 100,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico. And then after that part of the deal was secured, it was time to say thank you.
And so, the CEO of ExxonMobil took a trip to St. Petersburg and, again, his friend, Vladimir Putin, personally awarded him the Order of Friendship medal, that same medal that the officers got for Exxon`s, quote, "big contribution to developing cooperation in the energy sector." So, you can see the same medal, right, on his suit lapel, the highest honor that Russia awards non-Russian citizens.
And that CEO, that is who Donald Trump is considering for secretary of state. His name is Rex Tillerson. He`s the CEO of ExxonMobil. And today, he made his way to Trump Tower to go meet with President-elect Trump.
He has been working closely on oil deals in Russia since Boris Yeltsin was president in the 1990s. He`s made more than $200 billion in profit at Exxon since he became CEO in 2006. He himself personally owns more than $150 million worth of Exxon shares.
I should tell you, Mr. Tillerson has not been able to drill the Arctic with his buddy, with Vladimir Putin. That plan was screwed up when the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014.
Who is to say a policy like that couldn`t change, though, right? You get the right people in the right jobs, get the right person as secretary of state.
Joining us now is Bradley Olson. He`s our second "Wall Street Journal" reporter of this evening. He covers energy for "The Journal". He`s reporting on Mr. Tillerson`s ties today.
Mr. Olson, it`s really nice to have you with us tonight. Thanks for being here.
BRADLEY OLSON, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
MADDOW: So, obviously, international oil companies especially one as big as ExxonMobil, they`re seen as entities that are almost big enough to have their own foreign policy. But Tillerson in particular is seen as being maybe the American, the living American who is closer to Vladimir Putin than any other American alive today. Is that a fair reputation? Are they that close?
OLSON: I think it`s fair to say that he has had dealings with Russia for almost two decades. And, you know, the deal that you mention before would have been a transformative deal for Exxon. He has done deals there before. He has also part of the big project that Exxon did, one of the most complex in the world at the time in a place called Sakhalin, where they drilled and reached an oil reservoir seven miles away from where they drilled the initial well.
And he did those negotiations there well. So, as he pointed out. He has close ties to Putin and he has negotiated with him and with people in Russia for many, many years. One of the people that we spoke with actually compared his relations or his dealings with Putin to those of Henry Kissinger.
MADDOW: In terms the way that he has dealt with Putin, having a familiarity with world leaders or with one world leader in particular, obviously isn`t a bad thing for being secretary of state. But in these negotiations that he has helmed between Russia and Exxon, between Exxon and Putin, have they been characterized by him driving a hard bargain, by having him being willing to have Exxon take a hit when Exxon`s interests confront interests of the United States government, for example? Is there anything of that in that history?
OLSON: Sure, there`s a couple things that I would point out. One of the things that was pretty interesting, that project that I described earlier, the Sakhalin project, ha was done that was done in the last decade. Exxon had a lot of negotiations before that went through.
And Tillerson, believe it or not, before he stopped giving extensive interviews when he became CEO, he talked at length about those negotiations and said he approached them with a soft touch and he was really mindful of not wanting to seem like, hey, we`re the big Americans, and we`ve won the Cold War and we`re kind of here to take over your resources. And so, he said he was particularly concerned about kind of giving off that sort of impression to any of the people that he was negotiating with.
He even said in an interview that as a Russian individual that they were negotiating with kind of banged his fist on the table, that he had visions of Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table in 1960, which was kind of a famous scene of Khrushchev`s. So, there was that example. I think it`s just pretty well known that that was sort of his approach and the way he looked at doing it.
MADDOW: Bradley Olson, national energy correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal" --thanks for helping us with this story tonight. It`s good to have you here.
OLSON: Sure. Thanks for your time.
MADDOW: All right. We`ll be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: You may have heard the team "faithless electors", which sounds like a `80s band, but it`s a real thing. It`s a term to describe members of the Electoral College who don`t vote for the candidate they`re pledged to vote for because of how their state voted. It is rare to be a faithless electors, but they`re faithless electors, it does happen.
And this year, there`s more than the usual amount of chatter, about how many faithless electors there will be, about how many defections there will be when the 538 electors get together on December 19th to actually pick the new president.
One Texas elector came out and said he will not vote for Donald Trump, and I`m here to tell you right now that that very intriguing person is going to be the special guest next hour, live, with Lawrence O`Donnell, which means you should stick around and watch it.
Much more ahead tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: If you live in Bismarck, North Dakota, lucky you, and you subscribe to your local paper because you`re a good citizen, you might have sill awakened to empty mailboxes this morning because this is North Dakota today. Big portions of that state had been under a blizzard warning and been suffering blizzard conditions all day. Roads blocked by drifting snow, visibility basically zero. Wind chill in some places down do negative 15.
And I know it`s North Dakota and it`s December. But the weather is so bad that even for North Dakota right now that "The Bismarck Tribune" pulled its delivery trucks off the road. They said they couldn`t get the paper out, at least in terms of home delivery today. Today`s newspaper will be sent out with tomorrow`s delivery. Even if the weather`s bad enough to stop the newspapers, though, it doesn`t stop the news.
Just an hour south of Bismarck, in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, pipeline protesters were out standing their ground at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation today. They are continuing their protests of the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline. Blizzard or not, a lot of them are not budging.
Now, you`ve heard that the protesters celebrated this weekend when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that they were denying the pipeline company a permit for that route. This is a huge victory for the protesters, even if it might be a temporary one. Once the new president is sworn in next month, fears are that he will be able to unilaterally reverse the Army Corps`s decision.
The inauguration is still weeks away, though, and the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux told protesters basically this weekend to go home. That this decision has been made by the Army Corps, but also, it`s too dangerous to protest through the North Dakota winter.
A lot of those protesters so far are saying no to that. A lot of them are staying put, saying they will stay there until the end. Hundreds have taken shelter from the storm in a nearby casino and in a local community center and gym.
For now, their strategy is not to move until a final decision is reached. But that strategy is quickly turning into a real safety concern as long as this extreme weather keeps up. The find word, of course, on this could be months away, and at least for the time being, it`s only going to get colder.
Watch this space.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: This past weekend, Republicans sent the vice president-elect down to Louisiana to campaign for the last Senate race in the country. The runoff to decide the country`s last senator and the balance of power in the U.S. Senate between the Democrats and the Republicans, that runoff will be this Saturday in Louisiana.
And even though the Republicans are putting a bunch of national pressure on that race, they are marshaling national resources, trying to do everything they can to try to win that seat for the Republican Party, the Democrats do not seem to feel the same urgency about that race or that seat. And now, the Republicans are upping the ante even further, because now, tonight, they have announced that the president-elect himself will also go to Louisiana this week to campaign in that Senate race.
The election is on Saturday. The president-elect will be there the day before on Friday.
Honestly, high-level Democrats are nowhere to be seen on this Senate race. Grassroots Democrats are phone banking and trying to raise money and doing stuff online, but high-level, national profile Democrats, where are you?
I mean, the Republicans are all in. The Republicans are all in to the point where it`s put the Democrat in that Senate race in this awkward position of trying to leverage the Republicans` interest in his race to his own favor, even though he`s a Democrat.
The Democrat in the race put out this statement tonight, quote, "I`m glad the president-elect is bringing attention to Louisiana and bringing attention to things he agrees with me on, things like term limits and rebuilding roads, bridges and ports." That`s the Democrat in the Senate race trying to leverage the fact that the Republicans are campaigning so hard to win -- try to win that Senate race, even though Democrats don`t seem to be lifting a finger to help him.
Never give up, though, right? Even now, with Pence just there and Trump on the way, even now, Democrat Foster Campbell is trying his best to win that Senate seat for the Democrats, he may be trying alone, but he`s trying.
That does it for us tonight. We will see you again tomorrow.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END
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