barack obama being sworn in as president for the first time. we don't have a hard-and-fast crowd estimate for how many people were there but nobody disputes he beat the record, that he beat lbj's record. and a big part of that was the historic nature of his election as the first african-american president but another part of it was the momentum coming out of his victory in the 2008 election. he won election in 2008 by 10 million votes. the electoral college was 365-173. the democrats added 21 seats to what was already their majority in the house. they went all the way up to a super majority in the senate and, yeah, the 2008 election had been hard fought and they had called him every name in the book. by the time barack obama stood there on the dais to have chief justice john roberts screw up his oath of office he had a 67% approval rating. that was january 20, 2009. that became the most attended event ever in the history of washington, d.c. at the time democrats were on top of the world and the republicans were the exact opposite. i mean, the r

michelle obama's legacy, if i have to say her biggest legacy is she and barack obama have shown us that there were not only founding fathers, there were founding mothers. >> yes indeed. they have made huge strides to bring culture into that white house. we are all going to miss them so much. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> >>> welcome to our coverage of the farewell address of president barack obama. office, organizing.

but then very soon there after, february 2007, he came out for barack obama. he came out as an early and very high-profile supporter of this one-term illinois senator. right. and that was a really important endorsement for obama. obama was going to be running against hillary clinton and well-known democrats trying to win the democratic nomination in '08. to get somebody as well known as tom daschle to come out for him and early? that was a huge deal for obama. and it turns out the ties between these two politicians were more than just skin deep. by an accident of timing, tom daschle was getting unexpectedly turfed out of office at the exact same moment that barack obama was arriving at the united states senate. the young senator obama was able to hire some very, very experienced, very politically adapt staffers from the office of the outgoing democratic senate leader. he got tom daschle's top staff for the senator, for his senate office. and tom daschle's top staff in turn helped barack obama optimize his first term in the senate to try to give him the best ch

with the unusual name of barack hussein obama. it had the clothing of nonpartisan speech but he could have said i will defend my decisions on cuba and the facts. i will defend concerns about climate change. i will defend and oppose any muslim ban. >> huge applause when he said that. >> that is what was in our thinking. we don't want that in this country. the attorney general said that today. jeff sessions. he i thought it was in many ways a speech that had the sound and clothing of a nonpartisan speech. it was very much a statement that i'm going to be in this thing and calling this guy. i thought this was the best line -- actually i don't want to hog this but this i think got to the heart of his fight with trump. it is a fight. after all, if every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hard-working white middle class and undeserving minorities than workers of all shades will be left with scraps while the wealthy draw in to their private enclaves. that's a statement against trump. >> we should note it was an unusual endi

i think that's the person that barack obama is and the president that he became. i think his closing statement tonight really capsulized that better than any of us could have expected. >> al, as we have been talking, we have been watching the president continuing this sort of remarkable rope line he's doing. this is not typical president obama. we saw him have a long conversation with his former spokesman robert gibbs who we know from his line in this business. i wonder from your experience in talking with the president in the closing days, going to the closing party on friday night, watching him tonight, do you feel you have a clear image of what president obama will make of the next political chapter in his life? what he's going to do with his post presidency and how political it will be? >> i think he's going to be firm on broad policies, but he's going to apply it in a direct political way. i think you must remember at his core he believes in himself as an organizer. whether it is a political organizer or on the ground organizer. he's very committed to doing s

under barack obama it was handed over and destroyed. certified destroyed by international observers. under president obama, the u.s. government banned torture by u.s. personnel in all circumstances. under president obama a u.s. embassy opened in cuba. he started to normalize relations between our two countries after a half century of the frozen failed cold war standoff. president obama overturned the ban on scientific research using stem cells. president obama upped by billions of dollars the resources available for mental health care in the v.a. the obama administration was the first administration ever to voluntarily release the lists of people who visited the white house. first presidency to ever do that. on marriage equality, president obama did a miraculous thing among politicians, he changed his mind and under this president gay couples finally got all the same options as straight couples. you can date, you can get married. you can get divorced. you can live in sin. no more excuses, you guys. under this president, the fda started

after barack obama got elected, mitch mcconnell was in your position and he basically bucked political science. he did an experiment. take on a very popular president who has a very popular agenda, make every effort to block that agenda without any regard for the polls and just sit back and wait for the voters to punish the governing party and reward you for being obstructionist. it seemed crazy and almost outrageous at the time to people observing in the the moment but it worked like a charm for his party. you're not going to borrow from that play book? >> we are going to be tough. bernie and elizabeth agree with me on this. let's say he proposes -- as he said he would -- a trillion dollar infrastructure bill. we democrats always believed it. bernie campaigned on it but you have to look at the details. we're not going to just go for anything he pro poises. it's going to have to be our bill. so for instance they said we'll do it with tax breaks. you can't build roads and bridges with tax breaks unless you put huge tolls on them that no one can afford to pay back the bonds. let's say th

that was two days after the 2008 election, two days after barack obama beat john mccain. you can tell barney is not happy about some new family with some new dog moving in on his turf. turns out that reaction, not just republican dogs. sunny obama reportedly bit a white house visitor on the face last week when she went in to pet him. thankfully, she was not hurt too badly. she did get a nasty nip. take it from presidential dogs, change is hard. but sunny and bo and the rest of the executive branch are making plans to get out of d.c. after the inauguration and the president is not biting anyone on his way out. some of the important details about what's going to happen with the first family and where president obama is going after the inauguration, some of those details are still a little wooly in an intriguing way. we've got more on that in just a second. >>> on friday, after the inauguration, vice president joe biden will ride the amtrak train home to delaware one last time. mr. biden commuted on the train to delaware every day in his 36 years that he was senator biden. h

obama. this is from military.com. published that on thursday, the last full day of the obama administration. but it turns out that b-2 stealth bomber run around the world and into libya, that might not have been the last combat mission ordered by president obama because those b-2s flew on wednesday. the next day on thursday, u.s. planes were flying a major series of strikes in syria. again, targeting isis. in this case targeting al qaeda. in this case they used a b-52 bomber and drones and the u.s. says it struck a long-standing militant training camp west of aleppo near the turkish border. so right up until the moment he left office on wednesday with those b-2 strikes, on thursday in syria with the b-52, president obama up until the moment he left office he was ordering aggressive u.s. military strikes ainst al qaeda and isis targets in countries like libya and syria. and there are american pilots who are carrying out these strikes, but there are also ground forces, u.s. ground forces in al

embassy in berlin instructed foreign service personnel stationed there to not attend senator barack obama's public rally today" which the state department labeled a partisan political activity prohibited under its regulations for those serving overseas. state department official at the center of that decision was this man, patrick kennedy. mr. kennedy got a lot of pushback against that decision at the time, especially by members of the foreign service who wanted to go to the speech. his rationale was "no u.s. government foreign service person serve everything overseas should be seen as advocating for one side or the other." that kind of non-partisan ethos speaks to what the state department is all about. i mean, take patrick kennedy, for example, he was appointed as an undersecretary of state during the bush presidency in 2007. when president obama took over the white house, he was asked to stay on in the state department in the same role. if you look at his job description in the state department web site, you can see why they might have a tough tim ginning up an easy replacement for him.

they definitely think he had more people at his inauguration than barack obama did in his. naturally they are absolutely convinced that the trump inauguration had a larger turnout in washington, d.c. than that dumb women's march did the following day. they also believe -- i kid you not -- they also believe that most of the women who protested this weekend at those giant marches -- trump supporters believe that most of the women who marched were paid to do so by george soros. really? most of them. thaty complicated payment scheme. that is what trump voters believe. soros paid them all. of course none of that is true. none of that is true. but the fact that trump voters believe all that untrue stuff, that is starting to be of renewed political importance because this is not the campaign anymore. it's not that people are supporting their chosen candidate because of stuff they believe about the world that isn't true. there are people now who are looking at the world who still believe things that are wildly and provably untrue, who are the base of support for this president now

what should barack obama do? >> we must not be silent. >> congressman john lewis speaking today with chuck todd in remarks that have gone off like a proverbial political bomb not long after that interview was taped, not long after those remarks were first reported we started to get the first reports on capitol hill that something related to the story had gone wrong. something had gone a little haywire on capitol hill and we've got that story next, including some very remarkable, very emotional tape from another member of congress. we've also got breaking news about what else has gone wrong in our country about this story. it's a developing story that continues into this evening. we've got that latest next. with the xfinity tv app, anything with a screen is a tv. stream 130 live channels, plus 40,000 on demand tv shows and movies, all on the go. you can even download from your x1 dvr and watch it offline. only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. download the xfinity tv app today. >>> yesterday the head

what should barack obama do? >> we must not be silent. >> congressman john lewis speaking today with chuck todd in remarks that have gone off like a proverbial political bomb not long after that interview was taped, not long after those remarks were first reported we started to get the first reports on capitol hill that something related to the story had gone wrong. something had gone a little haywire on capitol hill and we've got that story next, including some very remarkable, very emotional tape from another member of congress. we've also got breaking news about what else has gone wrong in our country about this story. it's a developing story that continues into this evening. we've got that latest next. start by taking care of families for 70 years. earn the trust of 32 nfl teams. be there for america's toughest and help, when help is needed america's #1 isn't a status earned overnight. it's earned in every wash, and re-earned every day. tide, america's #1 detergent with not food, become food? thankfully at pa

was president obama's inauguration in 2005. 1.8 million people to see barack obama sworn in as president for the first time. 1.8 million people. at this week's inauguration, homeland security officials say they expect the crowd to be maybe 800,000 or 900,000 people. that's impressive -- that's a ton of people. unless you have publicly called for your movement fans to set the all time record for crowd size at an inauguration then getting less than half the size the crowd of your predecessor it probably doesn't feel awesome. last week, the incoming president said his inauguration day this week is turning out to be "even bigger than expected." then today there was this "people are pouring in to washington in record numbers, bikers for trump are on their way." bikers for trump are on their way. that is not just short hand for anybody with a harley and a red baseball hat tucked underneath their helmet. bikers for trump is an actual group with that actual name, bikers for trump. now that is not to be confused with bikers 4 trump who bikers for trump say is actually a scam group. while we're ke

>> i think we should give donald trump the same respect mitch mcconnell afforded barack obama. that's my feeling. >> which is not much. >> which is not much of anything and you know why. if donald trump wants to give people a fair minimum wage, heck, i'd be fordonald trump. if donald trump is going to keep his promise and make sure that everybody who's working hard and playing by the rules can have access to the american dream, i'd be all for that. but you look at the actions of his first four days and it's been a series of broken promises. i'm going to lift your wages and help your standard of living and day one he makes it harder for first time homeowners to buy a home by rescinding an obama-era rule. he's nominated as my replacement a person who's a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging our efforts to lift overtime wages for people who work extra. who believes that $7.25 minimum wage is fine. he said he was going to lift wages and help communities out and we've seen betrayal from day one and that's why i think we need someone at the head of the dnc who's going to take the fig

attorney by president barack obama and we'll all be learning more about dana boente in the days ahead. this is a dramatic move. we just spoke with historian michael beschloss about it and eric from "the new york times" about the shock wave this is sending across washington. i want to bring into the conversation now, lawrence tribe, harvard law school, he's argued before the u.s. supreme court dozens of times. he's one of a few litigators who is also a household name because of his job. professor tribe, but for joining us. >> thanks for calling, rachel. >> how big of a deal is it for the president to fire an acting attorney general s? >> i think it's historic. i agree with michael beschloss. it reminded me of the saturday night massacre. the only difference is how quickly this has happened in the trump presidency. history is being collapsed into a black hole and everything that's happening faster than the speed of light. and it seems to me that because the sessions nomination is already controversial, it challenges who we are as americans and violates important parts of the constitutio

obama had put on the books. >> in terms of what's going to happen next year, obviously this was a very contentious hearing today, you and your fellow democrats came out guns blazing, proverbially speaking on this nomination. do you have the sense he's going to get any democratic votes? is it likely to be a party-line vote on this nomination? >> well, i don't know. it's pretty clear that the republican party is no longer the party of teddy roosevelt. it's no longer even the party of richard nixon who actually signed the law creating the environmental protection agency. we're in a brand new era where republicans question climate science, where they are committed to undermining the increase in the fuel economy standards of the vehicles which we drive, the pollution that comes outover smokestacks, they ridicule the international agreement that was reached in paris where every single national academy of sciences in the world agreed that the planet is dangerously warming and something had to be done in order to deal with it and so as a party, the republicans during that whole presidential ru

this was in 2008 when barack obama won the presidential election that year by a mile. but the map's really red, right? obama won by a lot, he's in blue, but the map still looks very red. that's even more true when you make the map county by county instead of state by state. this is an election that the democrats won. this kind of things drives democrats nuts. but it's just -- it's an accident of the way we make maps and the way we show electoral votes, right? people who live in rural areas tent to vote republican, that shows up on the map as big swathes of the country looking red on the map even if those swathes of the country death to have very many people in them. and it happens every election, it happens in a national election like that. this is california from this year. california this year, hillary clinton absolutely destroyed donald trump. she beat trump in california by a 30-point margin. but look at the map. still looks wicked red. even in a little state like new jersey, she won new jersey by a mile. she won new jersey by 14 points. but still even in a little

barack obama came in and he promised he was going to close guantanamo bay and find orders along those lines in his first week. and you saw president bush find executive orders to undo steps that had been taken by bill clinton. so that's not unusual. the only thing here that would have justified moving quickly is if there was an eminent threat from the seven nations. since we know that there's been little to no terrorism in the united states from immigrants to these nations and the trump place who said himself the press briefing today there's been no immediate threat they were acting on, if that would have been the only thing that would have justified taking an immediate step. so here, i think they just rushed. and like most things in life, if you rush it, you're going to make mistakes. particularly if you have never served in government and never gone through these e procedures and suddenly discovered it's a little more complicated than on the campaign trail. >> david sang r, chief washington correspondent for "the new york times," i appreciate your time tonight helping us with this.

obama. ironies abound. >> andrea, we've seen evolving explanations from the president-elect and his team in terms of why they don't buy it. it was initially they sa that the intelligence agencies weren't on the same page. it's clear they are now on the same page. then they said they'd release -- they had released no evidence to prove their case, they have obviously over the holidays and with this new report are releasing tons of evidence to prove their case. we got word from the president-elect, strangely, over the weekend, that he had secret information that nobody else had that would be revealed on tuesday or wednesday and that that was why he didn't believe that russia was behind the hacking. since then we've had him take shots at the intelligence community, going so far as to put the word "intelligence" in scare quotes as if it's not real intelligence and in the "wall street journal" we've had a report they're planning on not just continuing to disparage the intelligence community but ta