Angus King is independent-minded

>>> president obama calling for unity and bipartisanship in his speech last night and so did our next guest. on the phone with me former maine governor and now senator-elect, true independent potentially, angus king . first of all, congratulations on your victory, a majority in a three-way race not just a plurality there.

>> actually it was a six-way race.

>> fair enough. yes, that's true. everybody gets on the ballot in maine. i've noticed that over the years. senator, let me ask you the question that a lot of people in washington want to know. are you going to be raising your hand at least for that first day of school with the democrats or with the republicans?

>> well, i haven't decide that had yet because i have to talk to them. next day is an orientation session i'm going to be going down probably this weekend to washington and talking to the leadership, i suspect, of both parties and my goal is to be as independent as i possibly can but i want to be effective. we're going to see where it all comes out. i'll be making that decision, i suspect, later next week.

>> so you're asking both mitch mcconnell and harry reid to woo you?

>> i think that's a little strong. i just want to see what their understanding is of what the caucus decision means, how much independence i can continue to have and there are lots of considerations on something like this. so that's why i'm not making a decision until i've had those dug discussions.

>> do you have to pick a side?

>> i've looked carefully at the senate rules , and although there is a rule that says every senator is entitled to be on two major committees, then there's another rule that says essentially the caucuses make those committee assignments. so it looks like some kind of alignment at least for the purposes of organizing the senate will probably be necessary in order to get a committee assignment or a good committee assignment. this is a bit of uncharted territory, chuck. and, again, i want to call them as i see them and also -- but i'm not going down there with hostility towards these folks. i'm going down there in the hopes of being able to help nudge the place to more functionality.

>> have you heard from harry reid and mitch mcconnell ?

>> i heard from -- the first person i heard from last night was olympia snowe , which was kind of nice. i'm going to try to get together with her before going down to washington next week. i did get a call, just a nice, very pleasant courtesy call from harry reid , not anything substantive. i've not heard from mitch mcconnell but i'm sure we'll have discussions with everybody down there.

>> any washington republican reached out to you that was not named olympia snowe ?

>> yes, susan collins , our other republican senator had a good discussion with her last night. she's now the senior senator and i offered to get her coffee each morning, you know, as the junior senator .

>> when you get to washington we'll see where you're heading.

>> we'll be in touch, chuck. thank you very much.

>> congratulations again.