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The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 11/9/2016

Guests: Cecile Richards

Show: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW Date: November 9, 2016 Guest: Cecile Richards

CHRIS HAYES, "ALL IN" HOST: THE RACHEL MADDOW show starts right now.

Good evening, Rachel.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend.

HAYES: You bet.

MADDOW: And thanks to you at home for being with us this hour.

On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave a freaking, terrifying speech to the country. It was in prime time TV. It lasted 17 minutes. And in that speech to the country, he basically warned the people of the United States that maybe we`re about to have a nuclear war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Our policy has been one of patience and restraint as befits a peaceful and powerful nation which leads a worldwide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere arrogance and fanatics. But now, further action is required and it is under way and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the course of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth. But neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: President John F. Kennedy addressing the nation at the apex of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. He says we are not prematurely or unnecessarily going to have a nuclear war, but we might have to have a nuclear war. We won`t shrink from that if it must be faced.

Russia put missiles in Cuba. The U.S. threatened a nuclear war to get those missiles out of there. The Russians did ultimately get them out of there without a nuclear war. But we were on the brink, October 22nd, 1962.

Exactly, exactly 25 years after that, on the 25th anniversary of the closest we have ever been to global nuclear war, the United States Air Force made an announcement. They announced that something had happened in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that was a little unusual.

This is an American nuclear missile silo. See that thing on the ground there that kind of looks like a squished "Star Wars" fighter or something, kind of that odd-shaped angular thing there? That`s a blast door. It weighs 90 tons. The silo holding the nuclear missile is underground and the blast door sits on the ground on top of the opening of the silo, so if for some reason the missile blows up underground, there is that handy 90- ton blast door tamping down the explosion and basically holding the whole thing in.

Twenty-five years exactly after the Cuban missile crisis, the United States Air Force announce quietly to the local press in Wyoming that there had been a bit of trouble, a little bit of trouble with one of these, with one of these nuclear missiles and with the silo and one of these nuclear missile silos and with the missile inside it.

The missile inside it was a Minuteman III, which is an intercontinental ballistic missile topped with three nuclear warheads, and it malfunctioned. Unprompted without any instruction from anyone that missile started giving all the indications that it was going through its launch sequence, that it was going to go off.

The way it was described in the press, it was as if the president had given the command to launch that nuclear weapon. The missile went through all its different light changes, indicating that it was in the middle of launch. They freaking thought it was going to go off. They called a maintenance team to troubleshoot what was going on, to try to determine a full-on sprint if this nuclear missile was about to launch itself which is what it says it was going to do.

And while they were trying to figure that out to try to stop it from launching itself, they came up with one last ditch last hope off the books concocted idea for how they were going to try to stop this devastating, world changing thing from accidentally happening. They parked a car on top of the missile silo. That big 90-ton blast door, somebody at the Air Force base found the keys to the heaviest vehicle they had on hand, turned out to be an armored vehicle, a peacekeeper armored vehicle like this one, and they drove that puppy over to the missile silo and parked it on top, just parked it right on top of the blast door just in case.

That was their plan. But it wasn`t even the most amazing part of their plan. Here`s how they thought it might work. This is a quote from the "Associated Press" when this happened.

Quote, "According to a spokesman for the Strategic Air Command, there`s a certain amount of guesswork involved in the procedure of blocking a firing nuclear missile with a car. The huge door that sits atop a Minuteman is thrown horizontally off the silo by explosive charges during the launch. The theory, according to the spokesman, is that the cover is blown aside so rapidly that a vehicle parked on top of it with the brakes off will be left basically hanging in thin air like yanking a tablecloth out from under dishes, and then the vehicle will drop straight down in the hopes of keeping the launching missile from going anywhere."

"The A.P." concludes, "This procedure has never been tested, the spokesman added." Yeah, you think?

That was their plan. That was the procedure they invented on the spot. Malfunctioning nuclear armed missile that is starting to launch itself, that would include the blast door shooting off sideways with an explosive charge, with the armored car sitting on top of it with its brakes off and like a tablecloth being ripped off a table, the armored car would hover there in the air for a second and then fall on to the nose of the missile while it was in the process of shooting out of the silo. And maybe that would stop it. Maybe.

I mean, at that point it`s like worth a shot, right? If all else fails, why not try that?

Bad stuff happens. Even potential end of the world stuff. Sometimes it does happen. Sometimes it turns out to be your generation, your workplace, your country, where you live where it happens. What do you do when you`re confronted with that?

Well, if history`s any guide, what we do in this country is we improvise, America. We do what we can. Look around, make a quick inventory of the resources we`ve got at hand. Somebody figure a way to MacGyver this thing.

We`ve got to do what we can. We always have.

What makes our country our country, not like how are we created, what were the founding documents and the revolution back in the 1700s and all that -- I don`t mean where did we come from. I mean today. I mean, what today in our lifetimes, in the way we live now, what about our country today proves and shows what country we`re in, shows what America is, what`s the evidence in our daily lives today in our world today of our strength as a republic?

What do we have today in our lives that shows that we are in this particular country and not just some other western nation that has cable TV and bad airports and nice grocery stores, right? What makes America now, what makes us America? I posit that the things in our daily life that we recognize in our day-to-day normal walking through life world that make us who we are include the fact that we have a free press in this country.

We don`t have state media, right? We don`t have state censorship on any sort of broad scale. We have a free and independent press that does what it wants, says what it wants, asks whatever questions it wants.

We also in this country, we have an independent judiciary. We have courts that operate as a co-equal branch of government, courts that do not take direction from political leaders, courts that do have the power to correct the other branches of government and restrain the other branches of government when those other branches of government violate the Constitution.

We also have an excellent and professional military in this country, a military that is not used against our own people in this country, right? It`s a rigorously professional force. It`s not a political force.

And it`s not a competing force with our democracy. Our military leadership unwaveringly answers to the civilian leadership of this country. That ethos in our military is unbelievably strong.

We also have high expectations for our ability to participate as citizens in our civic life. This is one of the things that make us who we are.

One of the things about this country that makes us us is you see us showing up. We will wait in line. We will ask questions. We will run for office. We will expect to be answered.

We also have an advanced effective civil society. We have well-organized mature systems of advocacy in this country, of advocating for certain interests, of organizing to protect the weak, standing up for our rights, using our freedom of assembly to pursue every type of private and public pursuit imaginable.

I mean, this was just before our show went on the air tonight. This is out my window at my office. Huge loud protest against Donald Trump being elected president. This is out my window at my office just a few minutes ago.

Protesters are now in front of Trump Tower. This is part of how you know you`re in America, right? Freedom of assembly. Freedom of assembly. Freedom to peacefully protest an election outcome you don`t like, for example, or any number of other things.

We also accept immigrants from all over the world in this country. We also have no official religion in this country, to which you must belong or to which you must feign some kind of allegiance before you can be let into this country or made whole in terms of your ability to civically participate.

We have no official language in this country. Americans come from all over the world.

We also have no king. One of the things that makes us who we are is that there is a peaceful transition of power between leaders. I mean, we have evolved over time into a loosely organized two-party system. But our would-be leaders more importantly compete through the oldest, biggest, small D, democratic process on earth and at the end of that process, we as a country accept that result and power transfers peacefully.

For 240 years we have done that, minus one civil war. But for 240 years, otherwise, we have done that.

And, yes, it`s the declaration of independence and the Constitution and the revolution and the Emancipation Proclamation. I mean, those are the things that made us a free republic. But that is not ancient history. We live the legacy of that stuff every day.

Every day today, these things we sometimes take for granted, right, a free press, independent judiciary, freedom of religion, a professional military, our openness to immigrants, peaceful transition of power, all that in the way we live now, it`s stuff we only have because of who we are as a country. And it is stuff we must keep and protect if we are to stay who we are as a country.

And here`s the thing. The peaceful transition of power part, that part is right now today working the way it is supposed to. Hillary Clinton`s concession speech today and the gracious words from President Obama today wishing the best for the president-elect, that is -- that is really, really part of our heritage. That is foundational to us staying who we are. That is going the way it is supposed to.

But we also need all the other foundational things about our republic, too. And honestly, we never before have made the peaceful transition of power to someone who has such radical and, frankly, negative views of all of those other unromantic but crucial everyday foundational elements of our civic life, the things that make us who we are as a country, the things that make us a free republic -- judiciary, military, press, immigrants, civil life, all of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Now, this judge is of Mexican heritage. I`m building a wall. OK? I`m building a wall.

INTERVIEWER: You`ve already said that you know more about ISIS than those generals.

TRUMP: They`d probably be different generals to be honest with you.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think there`s too much protection allowed on the First Amendment?

TRUMP: Well, in England, they have a system where you can actually sue if somebody says something wrong. Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and they get away with it.

We take in anybody. Come on in, anybody. Just come on in.

Not anymore. You know, folks, it`s called a two-way street. It is a two- way street, right? We need a system that serves our needs, not the needs of others.

Remember, under a Trump administration it`s called America first.

I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this, they`d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

MADDOW: Let me be the 4,000th person in your personal life to tell you that this is a landmark moment in political history that we`re in right now. We are having a peaceful transition of power, but we are having a peaceful transition of power to someone who has said that what he wants to do with that power is destroy a lot of the other foundational civic things that make us who we are as a country.

And so what do we do? We MacGyver it, right? We do what we can. We improvise.

We act to protect the other aspects, aspects of our life as a nation that we maybe used to take for granted but now, really, overtly, and presently and acutely require protection, require us as civilians and citizens to protect it.

I mean, our republic is not just our system of democracy. It`s all these other things that we need, too. So, if you are worried or mad or scared about what this election did last night, there`s no use raging against the election for long. Honestly, as a citizen we all have a to-do list, right?

I`m not trying to be inspiring. I`m not trying to be comforting. I`m not even trying to be polemic here. I mean this in a really practical way.

If you`re a citizen who believes this president-elect will do what he says he will do, then you do have a to-do list to make as a citizen. What are you going to do? What are you gong to do in your life to try to protect what makes us us?

What are you going to join? What are you going to volunteer for? What are you going to give your money to? What are you going to show up for and participate in that you haven`t done before that will help your country?

We faced crises before as a country, sometimes they`re malfunctions, sometimes it`s the brink of nuclear war, most times, it`s somewhere in between. But we rise to the occasion. We always do. We improvise. We do what we can. We step up.

There are protests in the streets tonight, big ones. There`s controversy already over how the president-elect is treating the press on his trip to the White House tomorrow. There are doomsday plans going into action all over this country right now in terms of civil rights.

We`ve got all that ahead tonight. It`s a big to-do list. Stay with us, seriously.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: OK. Day one, here we go.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of people are in the streets tonight pretty spontaneously and organically protesting the election of Donald Trump. So few people expected the election of Donald Trump, I can`t say there`s any evidence that large scale protests were planned in advance. But now that he`s been elected, this is what has organically sprung up all over the country. We`re seeing protests at this hour in Seattle, in Portland, Oregon, in Chicago, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Tempe, Arizona, interestingly. There have been considerable protests today in Nashville, Tennessee, in San Jose, California.

Most of the protests today and into tonight have been peaceful. There are some exceptions to that. In New York City, which is the site of the largest protest, protesters have just been pouring up the avenues in New York City on what apparently appear to be unpermitted marches just thundering through the avenues in Midtown Manhattan.

Look at the size of that. Traffic just making do around them. People just came in waves through New York today chanting "not my president". Where they`re going here is on the way to Trump Tower, which is where this shot is.

This is a delicate moment for the country. I mean, this is day one. We do not yet know how these protests will play out even tonight. We don`t know how long the protest part goes on, whether the outrage over the results of this election might morph into some other kind of activism.

We do know this was an election and it`s over. We know how it ended in the predawn hours. Tonight, we`re seeing how the citizen reaction begins. As I say, it`s a delicate moment.

Joining us now from just outside Trump Tower is Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News.

Vaughn, can you just describe? People who are just turning in right now may not have a sense of the character of this protest, or its size or its goals? What can you tell us about the basis?

VAUGHN HILLYARD, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Sure. First, about an hour and a half ago is when I actually came across the protests Midtown Manhattan, to give you an idea down Broadway, heading into Times Square from Columbus Circle which is up closer to Central Park, there was about 1,000 at the time. They came down Broadway into Times Square, they took a turn and Fifth Avenue and actually went to the Midtown Hilton where Trump had his victory party.

They came down 57th Street, which is where we are now. And if you`re on Fifth Avenue, the intersection is now officially shut down. Police have put up barricades. And we`re actually going to show you, this is Trump Tower right here. You can see, there`s been people that are climbing the intersection light poles, waving flags, chanting, yelling that not my president, having various chants throughout the evening. This is the site.

Trump Tower, this is where Trump actually lives here in Midtown Manhattan. The 13th Floor is where the Trump campaign headquarters were. Now, there are transition meetings are, and I know as we speak, actually, there`s still meetings that were going on, transition meeting with aides that were going on tonight.

But, really, again, this took on from 1,000 to just shutting down the road. We try to take a look at here, this is -- as we`re getting words tonight, this is not the only one. You got Chicago, you got Philadelphia, it sounds like Tempe, Arizona, Portland. This has just turned into something.

Remember, this is Fifth Avenue in Midtown, New York City. I was talking to a couple who actually took the Amtrak in from Connecticut tonight. They`re about in their 50s. They skipped their show at Carnegie Hall in order to join. We have people from NYU and Kings College that have come and walk.

It is sort of different points, sort of organically, word of mouth. There`s been different organizations involved. Union Square, which is down 14th, down the south side of Manhattan, up Columbus which is where Central Park is, they`ve kind of conjoined into one. Trump Tower has suddenly -- which we saw yesterday. You`ve got trucks with salt in which the Secret Service present -- because remember this is where the President-elect Donald Trump actually lives and the intersections around him are surrounded.

(CROSSTALK)

MADDOW: Vaughn, can I ask you one question?

HILLYARD: Yes, yes.

MADDOW: I don`t know if there`s been any counter-protesters or anything like that, have there been any counter-protesters or confrontations between protesters and police? Has everything been peaceful?

HILLYARD: Everything has been peaceful. This started seemingly pretty organically. One thousand people which is not that much for a street of Manhattan. But there`s been no other, yes, pushback presence again. This is Manhattan.

But it has been peaceful. People have been -- actually when they stopped, I think we had some of the video earlier where they stopped at the intersections and the cars were stopped but nobody has done anything to the actual vehicles. It`s been relatively -- sure, there are expletives that are involved in this and the emotions are high including saying this is our tower. Chants you can see, there`s the various signs that are around. But it`s remained peaceful considering.

MADDOW: All right. NBC`s Vaughn Hillyard, in front of Trump Tower in New York. Vaughn, do -- I mean, keep your eyes open. Let us know as things change in the street. We`ll go back to you over the course of this hour as needed. Appreciate it, Vaughn. Thank you.

HILLYARD: Sure thing. Thanks, Rachel.

MADDOW: All right. Much more ahead tonight as we`re keeping an eye on those protests in New York. That`s a good aerial shot there, but we`re also watching protests both under way and now still forming at this hour in a number of cities, including San Francisco and Seattle on the West Coast now.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: There`s been a lot of talk today at every level about what kind of President Donald Trump might conceivably be. We`ve never elected somebody as old as him to be president. We`ve never elected somebody with no public service record at all to be president.

We`ve never elected someone in the modern era where we know nothing about his financial conflicts of interest and/or foreign business entanglements. We really don`t know. We also have elected him after a primary process and a general election process in which he didn`t get very specific at all in terms of what he really believes.

That said, it`s impossible not to speculate what he is going to do as president. We do have some factual basis for making that speculation, though. I do think there`s a case to be made that we don`t know what Trump believes on a lot of issues, particularly ones on which he took contrary stances over the course of the campaign.

When he said he`s going to do A, and then said he`s going to do not A, it`s hard to know which ones of those things he believes. But you can take the record, the on record record of what Donald Trump said he would do as president during the course of his campaign, you can look at that. You can build your understanding based on that. At this point, there`s really no reason not the take him at his word. We have nothing better to go on, frankly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

TRUMP: On day one, we will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall.

We are going to have the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan.

Immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare.

A constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress.

I will be appointing pro-life judges. I am putting pro life justices on the court.

I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The hiring freeze on all federal employees.

I`m going to tell our NAFTA partners that I intend to immediately renegotiate the terms of that agreement. We`re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.

Planned Parenthood does very good work but I would defund.

INTERVIEWER: Are you saying that if you become president, you might try to appoint justices to overrule the decision on same-sex marriage?

TRUMP: I would strongly consider that, yes.

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

When we win, we will suspend the Syrian refugee program.

Cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.

I would do stop and frisk. I think you have to.

We would have to go and we have to maybe check respectfully the mosques and we have to check other places. ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, right?

I would just bomb those suckers. That`s right. I`d blow up the pipes. I`d blow up the -- I`d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: We do not know how President Donald Trump will govern. Those are some of the things he`s said declaratively that he would do if he were given the opportunity to govern. He has now been given that opportunity.

Joining us now is the great Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, who stuck with us until the wee hours of this morning.

Michael, it`s nice to have you here in person.

MICHAEL BESHCLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Thank you. Good to see you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Let me ask you, first. I think when you put up that live shot again that we had before. We`ve been keeping an eye on the protests in the streets. Obviously, elections are sometimes met with outrage, anger and surprise.

What do you make of the magnitude and the seemingly sort of organic unorganized eruption of these protests all over the country tonight?

BESCHLOSS: Well, I think it`s actually the sign of the strength of a democracy. What you would worry about is if there was an election of a controversial president in a close balloting in which you did not see expression from people who felt really strongly.

MADDOW: One of the things that has been -- we`ve been sort of absorbing and trying to contextualize and trying to understand the importance of is what appears to be the bottom line of this election, which is that Donald Trump clearly won the Electoral College but Hillary Clinton appears to be winning the popular vote.

BESCHLOSS: Right.

MADDOW: That also happened in 2000 with George W. Bush and Al Gore. It ended up getting sort of subsume to the larger story of that being resolved in Florida.

Do you think that ends up being -- there have been four or five times in history where the popular vote has not been won by the person who took office. Is that potentially a continuing source of controversy or sort of grist in the mill?

BESCHLOSS: Well, he`s president whether he won the popular vote or not. That`s our system, as you well know.

But at the same time if you`re talking about an opposition, people are aware of, you know, was the president elected by an overwhelming landslide like Roosevelt in `36, or Johnson in `64, or was this someone who had a much narrower margin especially the electoral vote as George W. Bush did in 2000.

MADDOW: One of the things that we also sort of need to focus on now in the immediate sense and I think that so few people were prepared for Trump to be the president-elect, we haven`t thought about it in terms that specifically apply to him.

But do we have strong mores, strong standards, strong traditions for how the president-elect behaves? How the outgoing president behaving in the lame duck toward the incoming president?

BESCHLOSS: Yes, I think that`s absolutely right, you know, that you can begin to see how an incoming president, what respect he has for the system and the way it`s been done before. For instance in 1968 when Richard Nixon was elected. Just before the election, we talked about this, Nixon had privately told the South Vietnamese, don`t go to peace talks with the North because that might help Johnson get Humphrey elected, Johnson knew this and was furious and Johnson was looking very carefully at Nixon after he was elected, when Nixon came to the White House, is this someone that will behave like a president or is he going to start doing this kind of stuff again?

MADDOW: He essentially suspected Nixon of almost treason there.

BESCHLOSS: He said treason privately and he almost revealed it to the public before the election, which probably would have elected Humphrey.

So, anyway, Nixon comes to the White House just as President-elect Trump is doing tomorrow with President Obama, and Johnson was really watching him carefully, you know, during this transition is Nixon going to keep trying to meddle with my peace talks and trying to make him look good. As it turns out, Nixon was so terrified that Johnson would reveal this treason that Nixon had committed before the election that he was saying I`ll do anything. I`ll even fly to Saigon to tell the South Vietnamese to go to the peace table.

MADDOW: One last thing to ask you about briefly, Michael, there is a little bit of a controversy already about whether or not there will be press pool coverage of President Obama and President-elect Trump meeting tomorrow. There was an awkward statement put out by members of the press poll, the coverage poll, saying if you`ve been told by the Trump side that there won`t be pool coverage, that is inaccurate. This is the White House. We will be covering this event.

Is that -- is something like that likely to be just a glitch? At times like this do logistics get difficult, mistakes get made? Because if they are putting their hand in the face of the press literally on day one after the election, that could be a worrisome sign.

BESCHLOSS: Well, they are. If the strength of the democracy and the press on day one is saying this is the way it`s done, this is the way the other presidents have done it. If you try to narrow our reach or restrict us in a certain way, that`s not going to make you look very good at all.

MADDOW: Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, thank you, my friend. You`ve been a real rock for us on this show, during this whole period.

BESCHLOSS: Thank you so much. Thank you, Rachel.

MADDOW: All right. We`ve got lots more to come tonight, including more coverage of those ongoing and seemingly protests in many cities across the country tonight. This first night of Donald Trump as president-0elect of the United States.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Right now, we are looking at live images of protests that are emerging, breaking out, in some cases growing significantly around the country. You don`t need to show me. Just show that full screen footage, if you can. That`s Oakland, California. That`s very near whether I grew up in the east bay of the San Francisco Bay Area -- a very large crowd in the streets in Oakland.

Again, as I was saying earlier, not that many people expecting that Donald Trump would be elected president. There were, as far as we know, not plans in place to stage major urban protests around the country tonight in response to Donald Trump being elected, just because people didn`t expect him to be elected. So, these protests are pretty organic as they are coming together, planned if at all on very short notice.

That was -- this is Seattle, Washington. We have shots of the protests coming together in Seattle. You see bike cops there on the upper left side of your screen escorting a small group of protesters. We`ve seen larger groups of protesters convening at intersections as they make their way through Seattle.

We`ve also had an eye over the course of this night what turned into a large protest in New York City, Midtown Manhattan. People just thundered up the avenues. We got an eyewitness view of that right outside my office on Sixth Avenue, watching thousands of people come up the avenue.

It`s one of those things where you could see people in the street, then you could see people on the sidewalk recognizing what it was and deciding in that moment to get off the sidewalk and get into the street. This weird angle with that kind of art on the corner there, that`s a retail store.

This is outside Trump Tower. This protest is big probably still growing at this point. We`ll keep an eye out throughout the course of this evening here on CNBC. That`s Chicago. They`re all over.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Started this past march, the governor`s office in one particular state starting fielding strange phone messages from female constituents of that state. I`m going to quote here.

Quote, "I need to get a message to the governor that I`m on day three of my period. My flow seems abnormally heavy but my cramps are much better."

Or this one, quote, "Hi, yes, I just got hired on permanently full time from a contract position." And then the operator says, "Great, is there something I can do for you?" And the response is, quote, "I just want the governor to know that my uterus decided to celebrate by immediately shedding itself and bleeding out. I thought he would appreciate the update on how politics is going."

Before Mike Pence became governor of Indiana, he spent years in Congress trying to pass amendments defunding Planned Parenthood at the federal level. He was unsuccessful in doing so. In fact, he never passed any legislation of any kind for the 12 years he was in Congress.

But by the time he made it to the executive branch in his state, he was finally able to follow through on the long-nursed ambitions. In 2014, then-Governor Mike Pence cut state funding for Planned Parenthood. Cut it by half. That cost the number of clinics in his state to close.

Then this year, he signed into law a bill banning abortions in Indiana based on your motivation for wanting to have one. The bill also included TRAP laws to block some doctors from performing abortions. The bill also took the unprecedented step of requiring the remains of the fetus to be buried or cremated.

You may reluctantly be allowed to still have an abortion in some circumstances in Indiana if you can find a way to do it, but the state government will require you to have a funeral for the remains.

In response to that bizarre new mandate from Mike Pence, women in Indiana, seeing that their governor took such an interest, started updating him regularly on the status of their menstrual cycles. That`s why he started getting those phone calls.

This Indiana law that Pence signed, it has since been blocked from taking effect, thanks to a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood. But that`s Mike Pence. That`s Mike Pence`s political career, that`s what he is known for. That`s been his priority issue his entire time in public life.

And on day one of him being vice president-elect, to a president-elect that we don`t understand very well at all, we`ve already started to see the effect that Mike Pence`s governing philosophy, women today encouraged each other to get the IUD pronto before obtaining birth control, particularly an IUD might be more difficult if Republicans like Mike Pence follow through on their promise to gut Obamacare or to ban certain forms of birth control or to pass new laws restricting abortion at the federal level.

We`re also seeing today, some of the largest women`s health advocacy organizations in the country, including NARAL and Parenthood, really bracing for the worst, but insisting that their doors will stay open. The president of Planned Parenthood put out a statement today in response specifically to Donald Trump winning the presidency, quote, "We will never back down or stop fighting for the people that come from communities that need our continued support in this new reality. Every day, our staff wake up and open their doors. They`ll do so today, they`ll do so tomorrow and every day as they have for a hundred years."

These are meant to be, of course, comforting words on a day when women across the country are concerned and rightly so. My question though, is for the people who work in this field of civil rights, for the people who work on reproductive rights and all the pressures they`ve been under all these years, is there a doomsday plan for a time like this? For Mike Pence as vice president, the Republicans in control of the House, the Republicans in control of the Senate and a conservative majority, potentially a big one on the Supreme Court?

Joining us now is Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.

Ms. Richards, thank you for being here.

CECILE RICHARDS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Good to see you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Am I -- am I right to ask about a doomsday plan? Do you see this as a doomsday scenario for reproductive rights?

RICHARDS: Look, I -- we`ve -- Planned Parenthood has been around for a hundred years, as you said. We`ve been fighting for the right to reproductive health care for that long. And as we said today, our doors stay open and they will. And it`s kind of extraordinary, as you said, we have supporters, thousands of supporters from around the country, took to social media last night immediately, folks have been dropping off baked goods at our health centers.

But also, one of the most interesting things has been the number of women who have called and made appointments for birth control, IUDs, things that are covered by the Affordable Care Act at no cost because they`re concerned that Donald Trump will follow through on his pledge to overturn the Affordable Care Act. So, we`re seeing lots of new patients come into our health centers.

MADDOW: Do you think that Roe versus Wade is at risk?

RICHARDS: Absolutely. I mean, I think Roe versus Wade was on the ballot in this election. Now, I know that Mr. Trump has said that in his acceptance speech that he said he would govern for all Americans not just those who voted for him. I hope that includes women, because women overwhelmingly did not vote for him, particularly women of color.

And if he is going to represent all Americans, this is the right to safe and legal abortion is a right women have had in this country for more than 40 years. And it is supported by people of all parties. So, it is important and we`ll be fighting for a justice of the Supreme Court who supports this right for women.

MADDOW: I don`t think you will get a justice of the Supreme Court who will support this right for women.

RICHARDS: Well, that`s what we fight for.

MADDOW: Yes.

RICHARDS: That`s what we fight for every single day.

MADDOW: In terms of battles -- winnable battles and what basically how you`re asking people to absorb this information. I said something at the top of the show sort of understanding what the sources of civic strength are in our country that we have a democracy and that`s really important but we also have other things that are important, independent judiciary, efficient military and a civil society and all of these things. For people who want to recommit themselves to the things in this country that they control that they think are good for the country, people who care a lot about what you`re saying about reproductive rights, what can people do?

RICHARDS: I think people have to join organizations and join movements that represent their point of view and their values. Look, I will say, I`m incredibly heartened even in this very difficult year we`ve had, even leading to his election for Planned Parenthood. We`ve gained 600,000 new supporters. We`re now more than 9 million supporters in the U.S., which is doing the math, 1/2 times the membership of the NRA.

So, that is -- putting that movement in action is something we do every day. We`ll certainly do it for the presidency to fight for folks` rights. But we do need a robust civil in this country.

And I believe you will see that. I think we`re seeing, obviously, as you`re seeing on the streets tonight, one of the most encouraging things that come out of this election is that young people are overwhelmingly progressive in this country and I think they are and they are taking action. And, to me, that`s where we`re investing in Planned Parenthood is a whole new generation of folks who believe in LGBT rights, they believe in women`s rights and civil rights and voting rights and criminal justice and immigrant rights. This is a time when people have to get off the sideline, if they are, and join a movement.

MADDOW: Yes, this is a time to, I think in particularly, to do something you haven`t done before.

RICHARDS: Absolutely, and that`s what we`re finding. That`s what we`re finding, yes.

MADDOW: Cecile Richards is president of Planned Parenthood -- Cecile, thank you.

RICHARDS: Good to see you, Rachel. Always. OK.

MADDOW: All right. Lots more ahead tonight. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Can we put up that four-way box we were just looking at on the break there? Thank you very much, control room.

All right. Here is what we`re keeping an eye on. We`re going to go from the upper left, around clockwise. Upper left, that`s New York. That`s outside Trump Tower. That has been sort of coming and going over the course tonight after huge thousands strong crowds ran through Midtown Manhattan tonight protesting.

Upper right-hand corner, it`s Oakland, California, which has spread out a little bit, since we have been watching it. It was a dense crowd before. Now it`s stretching out down long blocks.

Lower right hand corner, you`re seeing some police action with protesters in Seattle out in the streets. The lower left hand corner, that is Chicago.

Again, these protests are very fluid and organic. Thee were not long planned in advance. These seem to have come together on no notice today. And they`re very fluid situations in all of these cities.

Again, big crowd you`re seeing there in Oakland in the upper right. We`re keeping an eye on it. We`ll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Hey, do you remember how psyched Democrats were about Nevada during the whole early voting period this year? How Democrats were like look at the turnout! Look at the Latino turnout. Look at the Democratic ground game totally swamping all the Republicans.

Do you remember how psyched Democrats were about Nevada this year? They were right to be that psyched. In Nevada last night, Democrats won the presidential race, obviously. Clinton won Nevada 48-46. And in the open Senate seat being vacated by Harry Reid, Democrats won that seat as well, putting the first Latina U.S. senator into office, Catherine Cortez Masto.

And Democrats also picked up two House seats in the state of Nevada. Now, three of the four House seats in Nevada are blue. Oh, and by the way, the Democrats also won control of both houses of the state legislature in Nevada last night, including picking up 10 seats in the state assembly.

So, whatever formula Democrats thought they had for 2016, it did work, specifically in Nevada, which if nothing else is a really nice retirement present for Harry Reid, maybe.

There is still actually quite a bit of unfinished business from last night. We have some of that news straight ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Three states in which we don`t have a call in the presidential race so far. We do not have a presidential call in Arizona or in Michigan or in New Hampshire. No call for president in any of those yet. In the state of North Carolina, Trump appears to have won in North Carolina by about four points. And the Republican senator there, Richard Burr, was able to keep his seat. But the governor`s race there seems to have gone blue.

Incumbent Republican Governor Pat McCrory hasn`t conceded. NBC News is calling it too close to call. But the Democrat in the North Carolina governor`s race is claiming victory tonight.

Up in New Hampshire, that`s a state where there is still no call on the presidential race. We got an important result late today in the Senate. Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan appears to have unseated Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte. NBC News is calling Hassan the apparent winner of that seat, and Ayotte has now conceded.

This is an interesting one from the House. Familiar face. The Republican who made the most of trying to create a sense of scandal around the Obama administration, California Republican Darrell Issa tonight is sweating out his race. It`s so close there are enough outstanding mail-in ballots and provisional ballots to determine the results. So, it`s not been called.

Democrats did manage to turf out New Jersey Republican Scott Garrett. You might remember him making waves when he said he stopped giving money to the Republican Party because the party had gone too soft on gays. Scott Garrett will now be free to try to find a gay-free corner of New Jersey to retire to because he is going to be replaced in Congress by a Democrat named Joshua Gottheimer.

In Florida, forever Congressman John Mica lost his seat to Stephanie Murphy. She`s the first Vietnamese American ever elected to Congress.

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, he`s going to be headed to Congress as a Democrat. He beat Republican David Jolly who was going to run for Marco Rubio`s Senate seat had Marco Rubio not come back from the dead to take it back himself.

In Arizona, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio finally given the boot after 23 years of national showboating on being super anti-immigrant. He is also the sheriff who said he sent a cold case posse to Hawaii to investigate President Obama`s birth certificate. He is gone.

Voters in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Maine legalized the recreational use of marijuana yesterday. Green, that`s nice, you guys. Arizona, interestingly, voted it down which is interesting.

New safety laws on guns passed in Nevada and Washington state and California. California is where they passed the background checks for ammunition bill. Maine also had a gun safety on the ballot but Maine, they rejected background checks.

One thing that always wins everywhere, and pretty much by a lot is raising the minimum wage. Voters said yes to that yesterday in Washington, Arizona, Colorado and Maine. Went four for four on the minimum wage.

And I got one last one for you. Out of a possible 25 seats in the Hawaii state Senate, it is now totally and completely Democratic. There are 25 seats in the Hawaii Senate. There are 25 Democrats in those 25 seats. Hawaii!

That does it for us tonight. We will see you again tomorrow. I swear.

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