security measures. a lot of them have been talking about title 42 type measures, essentially sending people back to a third-party country after they've applied for asylum instead of waiting in the united states. democrats don't want to see that, at least more progressive members. that is really what we're seeing from these chc members who are frustrated that they're not at the negotiating table. >> we may have another moment early next year of america broadcasting its dysfunction to the world, not able to get a border deal, potentially the government closing, and not able to send desperately needed funds to both israel and ukraine. "politico's" daniella diaz, thank you so much for joining us this morning. and thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. your initial allegations, you still believe them to be true? >> yeah, of course they'll sue me again for it when i say that. but, yeah, i do. they want me to lie. they basically are suing me in order to lie to them. i'm sorry. i can't do it.

and the most important thing is, it doesn't have to be absolutely true, it has to be supportable. they have to prove that i was deliberately lying, which i wasn't. >> you know, it's so fascinating about what he just did there. >> yeah, it's good stuff. good stuff. >> it is as if he read david french's column yesterday in "the new york times" talking about maga man. >> mm-hmm. >> and what it takes to be a maga man. he mentioned rudy giuliani as the prime example but listed mark meadows, kari lake, listed a number of other people who may have all done different things in the past, may have all had different backgrounds, different political ideologies, but the key was once they became infected by trump, there were two things you had to do. >> yeah. >> again, david french wrote

this before rudy went on and lied again last night. he said, number one, you have to lie. the key is, if you're going to follow donald trump, if you're going to be a part of donald trump's team, you've got to be a liar. you've got -- you've got to bend reality to whatever donald trump says it's going to be. then the second thing is, and he did it there, which is so funny. he just walks right into it. he does it there. just like donald trump, just like the rest of 'em, you have to be loud and angry and defiant. it's not enough to just lie. >> delusionally defiant. >> not delusional. >> well -- >> not delusional. >> they delude people. >> not delusional. >> mm-hmm. >> because that suggests -- >> oh, right. >> -- sort of a sense of confusion. as david french said yesterday in "the new york times" in his op-ed, he knows exactly what he's doing. rudy giuliani knows exactly what he is doing. donald trump knows exactly what he is doing. mark meadows knows exactly what

he is doing. kari lake knows exactly what she's doing. they all know exactly what they're doing. >> mm-hmm. >> they had past lives, a lot of them supported barack obama. a lot of them like to paint themselves as it shall. >> supported abortion rights. >> yeah, supported abortion rights. what they do, and what rudy giuliani just did there was, first, as david french said, you've got to lie. you have to twist reality. in this case, it was the biggest lie of all. oh, my gosh, i forgot, the guy in congress. all you need to do is look at the bible, and that's what i do. jesus' man in congress, the speaker of the house. what did he have to do to get to power? liz cheney told us, but liz didn't have to tell us because we already knew. he embraced this guy that uses jesus as a political shield and claims that he may be the aaron or the moses. what does he do? he embraces the big lie.

when he's called on it, remember the first press conference, the anger, the rage, people shouting down the press for even bringing up the fact that this speaker, this guy who claims jesus as this, like, political badge of honor, the biggest liar of all, embracing the biggest lie of all in politics. so you've got the lie. >> mm-hmm. >> then you've got to be very indignant about the lie. >> absolutely. >> that's what rudy giuliani did yesterday. >> yes. >> it's exactly what david french said. so democrats need something. oh, my gosh, how can they say it? they're delusional. they're not delusional. read david french's column. you have to lie if you're following donald trump, and you have to be indignant while you lie. >> yes, but they act utterly

delusional because the lo lies stick be are obviously lies. it's hard not to laugh out loud. but in this case, you know, it's defamation. just like e. jean carroll learned she can do to donald trump, what the two women who rudy giuliani defamed are learning, is that they're going to have to work harder to shut him up. >> go back. >> stop his lying. >> keep after it. >> go back to court. take him back to court. he will not have a penny left to his name, and he will be shut up. >> yeah. >> he will not be able to say a word ultimately when they're tone with him. >> well -- >> my god, it is unbelievable how far these maga republicans will go to hold up their lies and to sort of bring people along with them and create danger. >> of course, rudy will be able to continue to lie, and as long as he supports donald trump, he'll have to lie because you have to embrace the big lie. >> with us, we have the host of "way too early," "politico's"

jonathan lemire. richard haass. and former nato ally and four-star navy admiral james stavridis. our legal experts are coming in to talk about the developments with rudy giuliani, mark meadows, and others. first, israeli leaders say they are considering the next phase of the war in gaza as the u.s. pushes the country to shift away from a high intensity military operation. u.s. secretary of defense, lloyd austin, met with leaders in tel-aviv yesterday and called on israel to protect civilians, saying it is their moral duty. israeli officials said they will soon start working to bring back the local population. adding, this will likely happen in northern gaza first. but officials stopped short of saying what changes will be made to the military campaign. austin also explained the u.s.

is not putting a timeline on when the next phase needs to begin, saying, this is, quote, israel's operation. >> you know, we have richard haass here. we have a semantics game going on. you know, joe biden said israel needed to stop its indiscriminate bombing. you have u.s. officials quietly behind the scenes, as you know, applying great pressure to israel to stop the bombing. you, of course, have the british and the french foreign ministers coming out yesterday saying it had to stop. talk about the relationship here and how much -- how much longer is netanyahu going to be able to act indiscriminately in a way that most of his own country don't even support? >> morning, joe. the discouraging answer to your question is probably for quite a

bit longer. what secretary austin was saying to him was not just that it was a moral imperative but it was a strategic imperative that israel refine its military operations. give up, if you will, the wholesale approach and do something much more retail, based upon small units and intelligence. israelis have essentially pretty much rebuffed that now for what, ten weeks? my guess is they'll continue to rebuff it for the most part. what the americans are saying, essentially, is friendly advice, and the israelis don't accept it. i think the prime minister wants to do this not simply as a military operation, but he is looking at it as a political operation. he wants to base it on -- >> richard, when you say that, if there is somebody watching and getting upset with that, that's what israelis think. you get israeli -- you talk to israelis, they think he is doing what he is doing to just stay in power. how does he respond to three

israeli hostages coming out, waving white flags -- >> shirtless. >> shirtless to show they have no bombs. how does he respond to them getting gunned down? >> look -- >> he starts talking about -- hold on -- he talks about how he's proud that he's gotten in the way of a two-state solution. that's his response. he hardly even responds to this tragedy. >> look, you're right. on what happened with the three hostages, that's a real breakdown of discipline on the part of the israeli defense forces. quite stunning, i thought. you know, there's going to be investigations. not simply about october 7th. there's got to be an investigation into that. how in the world did this professional army get to that point? i think, you know, that's there. look, bibi netanyahu is essentially recasting himself.

he's trying to almost repackage himself, rebrand himself. not as the leader who failed on october 7th but on the leader who is going to prevent the emergence of a palestinian state, what he calls hamastan, which he said would inevitably be anti-israeli. and the one thing he has going for him, not simply that he is there and he has a very conservative coalition, but there's a really interesting piece in "the new york times" today, essentially, there's no doves left in israel. what october 7th did was transform the political and psychological basis of israel. you're right, joe, there is zero love for bibi netanyahu. as the chinese would say, he's lost the mandate of heaven. he's not trusted. but the israeli populous has swerved to the right, and that's part of the challenge facing president biden, quite honestly. the israelis aren't in the mood to hear about two-state solutions, peace, or anything else, or partnering with

palestinians. that's what the president is trying to figure out. how do they get the israelis to refine their military tactics, introduce the necessary political dimension at a time most israelis aren't interested in a political dimension? >> of course, right now, admiral, the israelis, rightly, want hamas destroyed. i think we all understand that. >> yeah. >> we also understand that benjamin netanyahu wants to do whatever he can do to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. that's not going to happen next week. it's not going to happen next year. but what's happening next week, what's happening next year will determine where we are five years from now, ten years from now, and whether this cycle of violence continues. i find it remarkable that you've got a guy talking about being the great defender of israel against hamastan, when he was the guy who knew about the billions of dollars flowing to hamas and said, let's do nothing about it. he's the one who sent his people just a month before the attacks, before october the 7th, he sent

them to doha and qatar. you know, qatar has been blamed, a u.s. ally has been blamed for funding hamas. we find out now that it was bibi netanyahu who was telling them to fund hamas. and a month before the attacks, netanyahu's people go to doha, and the qataris say, "do you want us to keep funding hamas?" netanyahu, "yeah, yeah, sure. yeah, keep funding hamas." now, he's playing great protector while doing extraordinary damage to israel's reputation, not region, not only across the world, but, importantly, across the united states, admiral. what does the biden administration need to do? >> well, you saw one manifestation of it, which is they are flooding the zone with

interlocutors, people like lloyd austin, who we think of correctly as secretary of defense civilian. he's also general lloyd austin, a contemporary of mine. he's a seriously imposing figure who has also commanded all of our forces in the middle east, joe. he knows all the players intimately. sending him at this moment to make the point that it's not only morally the right thing to do but pragmatically. part of war is information control, the narrative. you've got to get a grip on that. i think that message is even louder behind closed doors. now you're seeing it bleed into the open. oh, by the way, team biden has also got another superb figure, and that's ambassador bill burns, director of the cia, former ambassador to syria, fluent arabic speaker, he's in warsaw today working with the

israelis and the qataris to try and breathe some life into this hostage situation. tony blinken has been there. jake sullivan has been there. all of us are talking about it. the drum beat is growing. >> yeah. >> it's got to be answered by a much more precision, surgical approach. i think you are going to see that happen in the next -- >> admiral, tell us why you believe that is a strategic necessity by israel, just for those at home who may not understand. >> absolutely. because, point one, every time you kill a gazan indiscriminately, kill a woman or child there, the military-aged males in that family flick over to "i'll be part of hamas. bill a foot soldier on the front lines." you create many more terrorists than the civilians you kill.

point two, you gather growing condemnation of israel against all the actors in the region. look at what's happening at sea, joe. tankers being seized. missiles fired at ships all over the red sea. by the way, 15%, 20% of the world's shipping passes through there. that's happening because of the israeli indiscriminate campaign against civilians. houthi rebels, all creatures of iran. it puts air speed behind them. third and finally, and you're seeing it in washington, d.c., israel will lose capacity, resources, and support from not only the united states but other allies around the world. >> yeah. >> it's a losing proposition for israel at every level, but particularly strategically. >> admiral, really quickly, before we go, is it strange at this point that we don't know what caused israel's delayed response to october 7th, or is

this still a reasonable amount of time past the attack to not know, sort of basic answers? >> it is no longer reasonable to at least have a quick wash-up, a quick assessment of what happened, not only to satisfy global and, above all, israeli, and above all the families of those killed, they deserve to know what we know now, but, secondly, in order to be careful about a resurgence of this, to draw the lessons learned. mika, yes, it is very reasonable that we should have a briefing, a basic understanding of this massive operational failure that sits alongside the intelligence failure. >> u.s. officials that i speak to have also been baffled by the delays there from israel, and they do believe that that will be part of the pressure campaign that eventually moves netanyahu from office.

but they do think that's not going to happen anytime soon, despite wishful thinking in the west wing who think that israel will be better served by new leadership. joe and mika, to the present point, we have seen national security adviser jake sullivan, defense secretary lloyd austin, both in israel in recent days. the secretary of state made several trips there, as well. the biden administration is really trying to ramp up pressure on israel to try to slow down the attack, the pace of attacks, to be more selective, to be less indiscriminate, what they're doing. i'm told secretary austin received word from israel as a, "yes, yes, we will," but no firm promises, no kmim commitments tn and what exactly what would mean. so what i'm told is u.s. officials anticipate that the sort of international pressure on israel will only grow, and that the images from gaza are likely to get worse before they get better. >> retired four star navy admiral james stavridis, thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> really quickly, before we let you go, admiral, i have to ask

you about ukraine. this morning, or it was yesterday, actually, gerard baker, "wall street journal" editor emeritus, said, along with the u.s. economy, he said vladimir putin was one of the winners of the year. it said, you know, it was very painful for him to write that, especially considering what's happened with one of their reporters there. but mr. baker went through a list of things that have gone well for vladimir putin this year. his economy has withstood a lot of the outside pressures and the so-called spring offensive was a failure. now, he's got american support and eu support wavering. would you agree with that assessment? >> unfortunately, i would.

think back to the summer when yevgeny prigozhin mounted what appeared to be a credible coup attempt and was absolutely crushed in the aftermath of that. putin has used that to purge his inner circle, the senior people around him. he has had the successes that you describe. on top of all of that, he is watching like mordor, like soron from mortor in "the lord of the rings," the politics, the bleed of support for ukraine, and the potential return to the white house of someone that he believes is a very, very strong supporter of his. yeah, vladimir putin is having a pretty good christmas and new year's. let's hope his fortunes turn against him as we head into 2024. >> well, a big play for that, mika, will be if, actually, the

republicans in the house of representatives -- >> do what they usually do. >> -- decide they want to stop doing vladimir putin's bidding. that starts, again, with the speaker of the house. >> yeah. we're going to talk about that. richard haass stays with us. admiral, thank you very much. coming up in one minute, rudy giuliani already on the hook for a whopping $148 million in damages for defaming two georgia election workers is being sued by the duo again. we'll go over what they're seeking this time and why. plus, former trump chief of staff is denied an appeal to have his georgia election interference case moved to federal court. >> again? how many times is he going to do that? >> delay, delay, as long as he can delay. >> yeah. >> what it means for the other co-defendants trying to do the same. "morning joe" is back in 60 seconds. seconds. ve it. yup, i knew it. let's see. can't run. can't catch. too short. what else does it say? give the gift of family heritage with ancestry.

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you had a certain someone behind the desk, the beautiful resolute desk at the oval office. what was his name? it was trump. happened to be trump. but it was all of you, actually, in a certain sense, you were all sitting behind that desk. >> so, in a certain sense, you're all in a lot of trouble for what you did. behind that desk. 91 charges, what were you thinking? taking those classified documents. don't get me started on your family life. you never remembered eric's birthday. in a certain sense, you're the terrible dad, not me. >> just three days after a jury ordered rudy giuliani to pay $148 million in a defamation suit, two former georgia election workers have filed a new lawsuit against the former trump lawyer. the new complaint by ruby freeman and shaye moss focuses on comments giuliani made about them both during and after the

civil trial. listen as giuliani doubles down and continues to push lies, false election theories from outside the courtroom just last week. >> whatever happened to them, which is unfortunate if other people overreacted, but everything i said about them is true. >> do you regret what you did to -- >> of course i don't regret it. i told the truth. they were engaged in changing votes. >> there's no proof of that. >> damn right there is. stay tuned. >> oh, my god. >> his g is trying desperately -- >> trying so hard. >> -- to get him away from the microphone. >> and stop lying. >> stop blowing himself up. >> but he did. in the latest complaint, attorneys for freeman and moss write, when they asked giuliani to stop lying, he refused to do so. quote, defendant giuliani's statements, coupled with his

a refusal to stop making such statements, make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign for defamation and harassment. it must stop. the new lawsuit doesn't specifically ask for money. lawyers are looking for a targeted injunction that would bar giuliani from repeating his damaging, debunked claims about the poll workers. a spokesman for giuliani didn't immediate respond to a request for comment. joe, we know how hard it is to get lies to stop rolling around on the internet or on twitter in situations that you've had yourself with trump and myself, as well. >> right. >> imagine, these two women, their lives were turned upside down. they were getting threats. they couldn't walk into a bakery without getting yelled at by people because of donald trump and rudy giuliani, and he doesn't give a damn. he continues. >> yeah. >> even after losing and it being proven that he was lying about them, he continues to hurt

people. he continues to hurt these specific two innocent women who are public servants, who are working to help with local elections. he wants to hurt them. he wants them to have pain, these two women. like, who would support a president and his, quote, attorney, a former president running for office, who wants to just indiscriminately hurt people for fun? >> well, the thing is, it destroyed their lives. >> correct. >> you talk about -- i mean, we certainly understand the consequences. we're in a good position. we're in a better position to take care of ourselves. >> we have chosen this position. >> these two women who didn't choose to be in this position. >> they did not choose this. >> and don't have the support that others may have, those two women were not even able to stay in their own homes. again, i have people that sent

me, after rudy giuliani spread those lies in -- i guess it was early 2000, whatever it was, i guess late 2000, were all sending me questions, what about those women that stole stoles? >> they were standing up for the truth. ruby freeman and shaye moss, i have so much respect for you. i'm so grateful for you. because the truth is part of what's at stake here in this election, and they are standing up for it. i'm sorry, they are not people who chose to be in the public eye, who chose to take on something as big as this, and they are doing it. >> right. and rudy giuliani, whatever he thinks he's proving, he is hurting himself, first of all, every time he steps behind that microphone and lies. but to mika's bigger point, every time he does that, he makes their life more dangerous,

and he doesn't give a damn. the question is, who are these people? how were they raised to be so absolutely vacant and void of any compassion for these women that, when they spread these lies just for the hell of it, and act indignant, stupid people across america, stupid people that will look at tiktok or look at a feed on instagram or will look at twitter, stupid people. >> some tv channels. >> stupid people that will look at stupid people on other tv channels lying to them about the big lie and about this, like, they will spread this lie and it'll be these women whose lives will continue to be in danger. let's bring in msnbc legal analyst andrew weissmann. he's the co-host of the msnbc

podcast "prosecuting donald trump." also with us, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. she is, of course, the co-host of "the sisters-in-law" podcast. barb, let's start with you. mika asked since this verdict came down, is this going to stop him? is he going to stop rudy giuliani from lying? >> and others. >> what are the consequences? right now, there don't appear to be any consequences because rudy just keeps on lying. >> yeah, that's why i think this particular lawsuit is really clever. they've already got $148 million as a judgment, so they're not looking for more money. what they really want is for rudy to shut the hell up. by seeking a court order, an injunction to stop spreading these lies, one of the things that the parties could do if he continues to do it is to seek a contempt order. once they've got that injunction demanding that he stop, ordering

him to stop, if he fails to do so, he could be held in contempt of court and, of course, with contempt, a judge has the ability to jail someone until they comply for up to 18 months. that may be what they're seeking here, is the ability to hold that over his head, and maybe that'll provide some disincentive to finally cause him to stop spreading these lies. >> andrew, he's sure not stopping his lies just yet. let's talk about the $148 million, though, that he's already been ordered to pay. how is that going to work? rudy giuliani does not have $148 million to his name. we certainly all believe. explain to the viewers here, how much should they actually expect to receive? what are the mechanics of the payout for the former mayor of new york city? >> great question. well, it is worth remembering the reason that rudy giuliani is in this situation he is in in terms of liability and damages. he refused to participate in

court-ordered discovery. he did not give to the plaintiffs, although the plaintiffs gave to him, all of the documentation that needs to be given in a civil case. that included any information about his financial condition. so finding his assets is going to be a challenge. as barb said, at this point, what is going to happen is the plaintiffs are going to be tenacious about getting information from rudy giuliani about the whereabouts of all of his assets. as we know, he has an apartment he's trying to sell for millions of dollars in new york city. that's one of the assets. if rudy giuliani, though, continues to violate court orders to turn over that information, barb has it exactly right, the one tool that judge howell has not yet used is

jailing rudy giuliani, which can happen if he goes into contempt. that could happen either for violating an injunction, which is now being sought by the plaintiffs, or for failing to turn over the location of his assets, which the plaintiffs are entitled to. so stay tuned here for more action happening in this case. >> as barb and andrew both said, he could end up in jail if he insists on continuing to lie against court orders, if that injunction is put in place. i have to say, you have a lot of things going on in georgia, of course. he also faces significant jail time in georgia, as does mark meadows, who continues to try to delay, delay, delay this trial. >> look, i think women like e. jean carroll and these two women at the center of the rudy giuliani defamation, now second

suit, are heros. because you can look at the big lie and all the big ramifications of a second trump term or what trump has done to our democracy, but it starts with fixing one lie. with taking one, small step. these women are holding on to their truth. they may not meet anything to people across the country, but you should take a look at them. what they're doing -- >> it's not their truth. >> -- is standing up for -- >> let's be clear. it's not their truth. it's the truth. >> correct. >> rudy giuliani lied about -- >> you mentioned -- >> -- them, so that's the truth. talked about mark meadows. we'll talk to the expert panel about mark meadows and whether he is going to be able to continue delaying, i guess to avoid the trial and avoid jail time. we'll talk more about that when we get back. ack. ated. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. he hits his mark —center stage—and is crushed by a baby grand piano. you're replacing me?

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the second attempt by former chief of staff mark meadows to move his fulton county election interference case to federal court was rejected. a federal appeals court yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that meadows did not prove the actions that led to his charges were related to his official white house duties. a move to a federal court would have likely given meadows a more conservative jury pool. he, along with 17 others, was indicted this summer on felony charges related to the attempted -- alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in georgia. the fulton county district attorney's office declined nbc news' request for comment. an attorney for meadows did not respond. >> barb, he can appeal this and keep appealing this as long as he wants. he's going to keep losing, right? i mean -- >> maybe that's the point. >> -- it seems whether it's meadows, other co-defendants, whether it's trump, in so many

of these instances, the federal courts seem to have very little patience for their procedural tactics. >> yes. you know, the 11th circuit court of appeals has rejected this, but it was a three-judge panel. mark meadows has a couple more cards to play if he wants to. he could seek a review by the full court or even a review by the supreme court. i don't think in the end the decision is going to be any different. you know, legally sound decision supported by the district court and now the court of appeals. in fact, the judge who wrote this opinion, william pryor, is an appointee of george w. bush. there is no political allegation here. this is simply activity well beyond the scope of his duties as chief of staff and, as the court said here, applies only to current and not former federal officials. so he can delay maybe a bit more, but, ultimately, he is going to have to face the consequences. then his question is, does he go to trial or cooperate? >> that's exactly where i wanted

to go with you, andrew. if he'd gotten a federal jury pool, it could have been more conservative and advantageous to meadows. not getting that now. do you think this increases the likelihood that he will, in turn, cooperate? if so, what could give up? >> well, let me answer the last part, what could he give up? he has the keys to the kingdom. there is nobody closer to the former president than the chief of staff, given his position. he was there for almost all important meetings and conversations. he certainly has enormous interest for state and federal prosecutors. second, i think this does put more pressure on him. he obviously wanted to be in federal court. that simply isn't going to happen. chief judge pryor is an enormously respected judge. he wrote this decision. he is in line with a recent d.c. circuit judge. now, there are two circuits that have ruled in very similar ways.

it is also terrible news for donald trump in terms of his effort to claim presidential immunity because of the language that chief judge pryor used. so mark meadows going to be in state court. what's important to remember with respect to that is, regardless of whether donald trump wins the presidency or not, mark meadows is going to face criminal charges in state court. there is no federal pardon power. even if donald trump manages to wiggle out of this, mark meadows does not. so, for him and his counsel, he is going to have some tough decisions to make because he will be facing those charges. >> right. andrew weissmann and barbara mcquade, we'll be watching this together with you. thank you, both, very much for coming on the show this morning. >> greatly appreciate it. richard haass, let's go back to russia, the ukraine war, and let's look, headlined right now

in today's "new york times," talks about how putin turned a western boycott into a war chest bonanza, talking about how he further enriched himself, further enriched his allies when western companies departed russia. turned that into a scheme to make everybody around him richer. talk about where putin stands today compared to a year ago and the challenges facing zelenskyy in ukraine, as support, again, seems to waver, not only in europe but also in the u.s. >> look, domestically, putin seems pretty strong. he controls the political narrative in russia. economically, he's figured out how to essentially live with sanctions, joe. you're right, he's gotten some fire sales of western companies leaving, so he's gotten assets on the cheap. he's been able to distribute them to his cronies around russia.

i think domestically, he's pretty strong. ukraine, this political infighting we're seeing, jonathan and others talked about what's going on on the hill here. that said, i think the pessimism is a little bit overdone. ukraine is still controlling 80% of its territory. they didn't lose anything in the last year, quite remarkable. they essentially fought russia to a draw. i think they're going to get considerable aid here from the u.s. congress probably in january. at dinner last night with a visiting french official, they're all very committed to supporting. indeed, one of the things you're going to see are the europeans are probably going to draw up contingency plans, how to make sure ukraine gets essential help if the united states starts to falter, particularly after november. it's one of the reasons people like me are arguing that ukraine needs to change over its strategy. move to a more, let's consolidate, let's keep what we hold. it is a less resource-intensive,

less demanding strategy, almost to hedge against the uncertainty in the west. two years ago, vladimir putin sought to extinguish ukraine as a country. >> right. >> now, ukraine has begun the talks with the eu. there's a possibility of ultimately talks with nato. what i think we need to do is ease up a little bit on the pessimism and basically say, how do we take what we have, make this a long-term base for ukraine, and then over perhaps, you know, literally years or decades, you can try to build up. i don't think ukraine is in an impossible situation now by any means. >> yeah, well, jonathan, one of the things that obviously people on the hill especially, you have chairman of important committees for republicans, whether it is armed services or foreign affairs, one thing they understand is that intel report from last week. putin started with 360,000 troops. 320,000 of them have been taken off the battlefield.

one-third of his tanks destroyed. one-third of his armored vehicles destroyed. this war has, without cost of a single american troop's life, this war has set putin's military back a generation. so while, yes, putin is the winner of the year for surviving according to gerard baker, i think it is a very inciteful piece, that's all he's done. he survived. his military and his economy have both just had a crippling, crippling impact in this ukrainian war. >> yeah, you detailed the losses the russian military has suffered. talk about a return on investment in terms of american aid being sent to the ukrainian military. to demolish so much of russia's force there. yes, there is a sense that, right now, putin does have a little momentum because the ukrainian counteroffensive stalled and the two sides seem

pretty dug in for the winter. putin is watching the events here. but i'm told lawmakers believe a deal will get done. it is probably going to get pushed into january. that's going to make things dicey, to be sure. the government funding deadlines loom, as well. it'll be a smaller number, i suspect, than the biden administration wants, but some funding will be pried free from the hill to head to kyiv to continue their defenses. then, of course, the big decision will be what happens when american voters decide in november of 2024? what's why putin is waiting. even as this invasion has been a catastrophic failure, no way around it, a failure for putin, he thinks things could return to his favor if donald trump returns to the white house. >> richard is right, both sides are dug in, mika. it is important for the ukrainians to look at what they've been doing and see that the counteroffensive is not working. they need to dig in, as richard

says. get defensive positions in place. prepare for the worst. >> yeah. >> expect the best. coming up, we'll explain how trump administration immigration policies are playing a large role in the current negotiations over foreign aid. and we'll have an update on the nbc news investigation into the use of child labor in slaughter houses across the country. one of the key investigative reporters on this story, julia ainsley, joins us next on "morning joe." emergen-c crystals.

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49 past the hour. over the last year, nbc news has been conducting a groundbreaking investigation that has led to the discovery of children as young as 14 years old working in slaughterhouses across the country. communities have called the practice an open secret. in a new documentary, "slaughterhouse children," our

journalists tell the story of these kids, beginning with 16-year-old davon perez. take a look. >> reporter: perez was working the night shift in july when he was killed after getting sucked into equipment that accidentally turned on. he was 16 years old. his uncle told us he was a happy teenager. >> reporter: he worked overnight at the slaughterhouse. by day, attended middle school here, a few grades behind other kids his age. he wasn't the first person to get caught in a machine and die at the plant. >> joining us now, one of the key reporters behind the new nbc news documentary.

it is staggering. homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. julia, what more have you discovered about this story? and, my god, i mean, it just -- it is so, so unbelievably stunning to hear that this would happen in this country. >> yeah, mika, i've been covering immigration, as you know, for almost ten years. i think at every turn of this story, there was something that shocked us all, my team of reporters, as well. particularly, when you look at someone like perez, one of the reasons he came here was for a better life. most of these children, in fact, all of the children that we found out about were all from guatemala. one of the reasons why this is happening is because it was a perfect storm. during covid, when the trump administration only allowed in unaccompanied children, many children decided to take the fate of the family in their hands and come to the united states to work. they tried to get jobjobs, maki

enough money to send it back to the families who were desperate in guatemala, many facing famine. then you have the labor market shortage and places desperate to hire. those things came together, and we've seen an 88% spike in child labor in this country. i talked to labor department investigators who said they were walking through these plants where the companies said they had no idea there were children working there. they were able to point and say, that's a kid. there is no way anyone could think they were actually over the age of 18. another surprising thing is that a lot of these children and a lot of these workers were scared to talk to us. some of these interviews we did are in shadow. a lot of times we were able to go back and piece together the details after an iincident. everyone in this town will scatter after a raid where they go after children. for a lot of these people, even though the work is so hard, there are children falling asleep in class with burns on their hands from the chemicals, they're desperate to hold onto these jobs because they're trying not only to feed their families back home, they're trying to pay off their smugglers who brought them here,

and, in some cases, pay rent to the adults who are supposed to be caring for them. it's a really troubling story, and it's a system that continues. even while we were reporting this, there was a raid in ohio at an amish chicken plant that found over 50 children working there. again, from guatemala. >> julia, truly important and tragic reporting. thank you for doing it. do we see any changes coming in the wake of tragedy like this? either new regulations put in place by federal or state governments or companies themselves trying to limit these sort of behaviors? is there any glimmer of good news we can take from this? >> states actually are going the ore way, jonathan. there have been a lottrying to r for children to work, but not in jobs this dangerous, i will say. congress, on the other hand, there are glimmers of hope there where they're trying to make the penalties steeper. right now, if a company is found

to have hired a child, they're only fined a little over $15,000 per child, which is nothing when you look at the vast profits a lot of these companies are producing every year. congress is working to increase those fines. we also know there are federal investigations by the justice department, by the department of homeland securit and labor to try to see if there is anything criminal here. they've been looking at whether or not there's human trafficking conspiracies to bring the children from guatemala to work in these plants. we don't know if any of this will result in anyone going to jail. >> you can watch the new documentary, "slaughterhouse children," right now on nbcnews.com. nbc's julia ainsley, thank you and your team so much for your reporting on this. we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," the destruction of the nord stream pipeline was one of the most consequential acts of sabotage in modern times, but

who was behind it? writer mark bowden will join us on what his investigation uncovered. plus, michigan congresswoman elissa slotkin will be a guest, as she calls on president biden to secure an immediate shift in israel's approach. as we go to break, you're looking at live pictures out of southwestern iceland where a volcanic eruption is under way right now. you cela va fountains reaching 330 feet in the air. the town nearby was evacuated last month after seismic activity damaged homes and raised fears of an imminent eruption. officials say it currently poses no risk to residents but caution people not to get too close. "morning joe" will be right back.

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the busy holiday schedule is catching up with biden. he seemed to miss a few lines.

>> bidencare, whatever you call it, it's still a thing. the other side tried to repeal it, but we'll keep fighting to protect it. [ laughter ] >> did i see something? >> i think it's great. welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 19th. jonathan lemire and richard haass are still with us. joining the conversation, we have former u.s. senator, now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill. and special correspondent at "vanity fair" and host of "the fast politics" podcast, molly jong-fast, who has a great piece we're going to talk about this morning. first, polling from monmouth university shows president joe biden's approval rating at the lowest point of his presidency. in the survey, just 34% of

adults say they approve of his job performance, down 4% from september. 61% disapprove. biden also receives overwhelmingly negative marks for his handling of key policy issues. 52% disapprove of how he's handled infrastructure. um -- >> that really makes sense because he passed a historic bipartisan infrastructure bill. >> and was sure to say to republicans, "i'll see ya at the groundbreaking." >> yeah. >> 53% on jobs. >> which, again, jobs at historic lows. >> i have to laugh. >> keep going. >> 54% on climate change. >> they passed the most momentous climate change legislation. >> 68% on inflation. >> gone down. >> yeah. >> about 3%. >> 69% on immigration. >> yeah, that's bad. >> and he is working on striking a deal right now on that. >>ounger voters appear to be bailing on president biden, and

they're citing several key issues for their disappointment. voters 18 to 24 who voted for bidenn 2020 now say he is not earned their vote in next year's election. they cited a number of policy areas that frustrate them, including insufficient action to address climate change or biden's inability to cancel student loan debt or codify abortion rights. >> oh, my god. >> of course, it's president biden's response to the israel-hamas war that may be having the biggest impact on the relationship with younger voters. 70% of younger voters disapprove. 20% approve. claire, the polls are bad everywhere for joe biden. front page of "the new york times," most disapprove of biden on gaza. 57% disapprove. only 33% approve. and who do you trust to do a better job on the israel-palestinian conflict?

38% biden. 46% trump. you can see that everywhere you go. i do wonder, though, especially when you dig into the numbers with young voters, this nbc story shows young voters are angry at him for not codifying roe, are angry at him for not fully cancelling student debt, say they may vote for donald trump because of that. when, of course, again, just a little bit of information would show them that biden's the only choice here time and time again. of course, he's been fighting republicans and republican-appointed judges on all of these issues. how does the white house do a better job? how does the campaign do a better job getting the word out? >> contrast, contrast, contrast. i mean, they need to start behaving as if this campaign is in the last 90 days.

they can no longer afford to let a day go by where they don't contrast. the key here is what did he do around women's reproductive freedom versus what trump did. what did he do on climate change versus what trump did and continues to say? what has he done on all these issues? now, i will agree, immigration is something that if the democrats don't wake up and realize, i mean, there is always an effort on the part of republicans to sensationalize what's going on in terms of illegal immigrants in the united states of america. but what has happened over the last three years, the numbers tell a very dramatic story of surging at the southern border. so i think the democrats need to wake up here and do some shifting of policy, acknowledge that they've got a problem, acknowledge that they need to work harder, and i think biden is trying right now. he's dragging the senate with

him, to try to do something on immigration. i think that really is a place where there's trouble. i think they've got to pay attention to that. but the rest of it is just contrast. make sure that you know the contrast. quit thinking you're selling yourself, and make sure every time you talk, it's about a choice. >> claire, you're so right on the border. washington democrats in the senate are clueless. they need to talk about democratic governors, democratic mayors, you know, democratic local office holders across the country on illegal immigration. that's an issue that they need to get right. on all of these other issues, though, you are so right. biden does have it right. biden is -- his policies are very popular with the american people. but attached to him, it doesn't work. i'm curious what your thought is. i agree with you, it's so funny

and you see it every day. i was frustrated yesterday thinking about the poll numbers continuing to drop. again, it's the politician in me. i know you felt the same way i did. there's less than a year left. when i was running a little congressional race, when i had less than a year for my little congressional race, i would freak out. i would be telling people that worked for me, would be telling my campaign staff, "every day counts. every hour counts. we're out of time. we're running out of time." they'd say, "there's a year left." i'd say, "we don't have enough time to do all the things we need to do. let's get to it." but you listen to the biden white house, you listen to the campaign, you listen to spokespeople, and it's this, "don't worry, be happy"

attitude. oh, we have time, plenty of time. american democracy may be on the line but we have time. no, that's what they tell jonathan lemire, "everything is going according to plan." as the emperor said before the death star was blown up. everything is not going according to plan, claire. these numbers keep dropping. >> yeah, and they're caught between two worlds, joe. what happens is, within the oval office and within the white house, they are tasked with running a very huge government enterprise and making sure the trains run on time, making sure that problems that bubble up are taken care of. then there's the campaign. the problem is, if you just do paid advertising, even if it is highly targeted advertising on social media, it is advertising. the president himself begins to need to draw a contrast. he's not comfortable doing that. he wants to be president. he doesn't want to be a candidate. he wants to, you know, rise to

the level of a statesman every day, "i am taking care of the things you care about." he's got to start being a street brawler. he has got to start, every time he talks about health care, he needs to say, "you know, donald trump wants to do away with it." every time he talks about climate change, "you know, donald trump thinks windmills kill birds." you know, he needs to do all of these things that draw the contrast between normal and off the rails, getting things done and never got anything done. drawing the west together in terms of national security, in terms of democracy, sticking together for human rights, versus a guy who thinks putin is better than sliced bread. he needs to do that every day. he's going to have to do it. >> the biden campaign certainly is confident in their approach. they'll point to, they won in 2020. democrats did well in 2022. they think they're danger the -- doing the right thing. aides tell me that all the time.

there has been antsiness among others in the party about their approach. there have been two definite missteps. one was spending the summer talking about bidenomics, trying to sell the economy, when that hasn't worked. polls suggest americans feel worse than the economy than before, though the biden team hopes that next year, especially if we see interest rates, that could change. secondly, they thought the republican primary field would take shots at trump this year and do work for them, and that hasn't happened. outside of chris christie, few republicans ever cross trump, and trump is emering from the field even stronger. molly, they'll ramp up the contrasts. aides say we'll see the president much more on the road after the first of the year. he'll go on the attack. we also know over the weekend, it is a rare thing to compare your political opponent's rhetoric to hitler, but when your opponent cites hitler, they do it. i have new reporting today about the calculus behind that. the biden team not shy about calling it out.

if you're using phrases associated with mussolini or hitler, we'll say so. that is not a political third rail. is that going to be the right, aggressive approach for this team? >> oh, yeah. i mean, look, i need to say one thing about polls here because i've written extensively. polls are pseudo events. they're not natural, organic events. this poll is 1,000 people on the phone. all right. again, yes, look, biden world has to panic because what is on the line? democracy, right? this is the, do you want to have elections anymore election. i'd like to have elections. i think that's worrying. i do think, look, the other side floods the zone, right? they want to flood the information vacuum, and biden world needs to do the same. >> they really do. i mean, you know, molly, what i hear all the time, and i agree, is you have low-information voters, younger voters, that are

getting their news from tiktok, from instagram. >> a lot more. >> all the time. i see it. we all see it. i know you see it. everybody that's got children sees it. at the same time, are democrats going to just complain about that while democracy goes away, or are they going to figure out how to aggressively confront that on tiktok? >> yeah. >> on instagram reels, on other social media platforms. if they are, we're not seeing it yet. again, excuse me for being concerned, but american democracy is on the line. >> right. >> when people tell me, "trust me," i don't trust 'em if american democracy is on the line. we all need to see action. one of the problems is they need to get people that ran the campaign last time out of the white house and back on the cam campaign. >> that's true. we don't have a mainstream media

the way we did historically. there's fewer local news. there's much less to count on. you really need people talking about things that are fact-checked and true on these social media platforms because they've sort of taken over for a lot of local news. that is really quite scary. the stakes, again, as you were saying, are incredibly high. >> richard, i'm not compaing anybody to anybody here. i do always remember, though, i think one of my favorite presidents, also a guy that was exceptionally gracious, george h.w. bush. i remember in the leadup to '92, when people tried to tell him that he was in trouble, the famous quote was, "well, if you're so gd smart, why aren't you president?" and that was always a warning. if that could come from somebody as gracious as george h.w. bush, then that shows just how a

president can be, making the mistake, they were wrong about me before, so they're wrong about me this time. i guess the only thing i'm saying is, the complacency is the danger here. there has to be a fear every single day, and the biden white house, the biden campaign, biden himself need to be driven by that fear every day, that democracy is on the line. >> exactly. you know, i was there with george h.w. bush during that period, and it was frustrating. the lesson i took from that, joe, is it's never enough for presidents to do the right thing. they've got to, every day, be explaining what they're doing and why, almost turning the oval office into a classroom. funny enough, the model in some ways is fdr with the fireside chats. i'd almost say what we want joe biden and company to do is

fireside tweets or, as you said, get on tiktok and so forth. but there's too much complacency that they're handling things well. we're doing a pretty good job in the middle east. we're doing the economic numbers which are good. sooner or later, people will recognize it. doesn't work that way. bush did a lot of good things, and he lost in '92. that's the lesson i take. every day, you've got to be on message, explaining, communicating. if bad things happen, people blame you. bad things are happening in the middle east. the president gets blamed for it. it's not his fault, but he is getting blamed for it. >> right. >> he's got to be much more on the offensive in shaping the narrative. >> here's what's so frustrating, even when good things happen, he doesn't get the credit for it. we talked about gerard baker's piece. one of the winners for gerard baker, and he said, "i know this will upset a lot of conservative readers, but the u.s. economy is

a winner." the u.s. economy, you'd never know this by looking at the garbage that is spewed across social media and across some cable channels, but as gerard baker said, the u.s. economy has been the envy of the world this year. just the opposite of china's economy, which was the loser this year. now, we know that is the case. we know that joe biden passed more bipartisan legislation than any president since lbj. we know all of his legislative successes, all of his political successes, all of his foreign policy successes. we know about the expansion of nato and how freedom is on the march in europe. whether you look at poland or whether you look at the expansion of nato.

we know this. richard, what a brilliant insight. what a brilliant insight. i hate to say that about a new york giants fan. >> i know. >> but what a brilliant insight, that doing good is not enough. >> no. >> if voters don't know what you're doing because of the spewing of lies out there, do something about it. >> the spewing of lies is worse than ever. i mean -- >> do something about it. >> -- it's all over tiktok. it's all over legitimate cable networks. there are people who will blame roe on joe biden. i mean, they have the information backwards. they'll twist it. they'll turn it upside down. >> what do you do? >> you fight back. >> you fight back. you do something about it. >> it is a very difficult landscape, and you have an administration -- not making excuses -- but they're dealing with two wars and working on all of these things. yes, they also need to fight back just as hard.

on the issue of abortion, molly, your piece i entitled "overturning roe has been a horror show." you would think that democrats could run just on this issue. you write in part, quote, everything we worried about, every worst-case scenario, is happening right before our eyes. but perhaps the worst part of this post-roe political landscape is that the anti-abortion right hasn't been satiated and appears emboldened, despite a string of electoral defeats in 2022 and 2023, including in red states. republicans long argued that abortion should be left to the states. but since the conservative majority struck down roe, effectively doing just that, you have republicans not only looking to prevent states from voting on abortion rights, but also calling for a federal abortion ban. even scarier, republicans are even trying to ban abortion pills using the comstock act, a

1873 federal law. the next republican president, axios notes, could stop most abortions without congress. meanwhile, the supreme court is taking up an abortion pills case, setting up, according to "the times," a high-stakes fight over the drug that could sharply curtail access to the medication, even in states where abortion remains legal. for years, i was told i was being a cassandra about the danger to women of a post-roe america, but if anything, the israelite is even bleaker than i imagined. right now, molly, right now, there are women in states with six-week abortion bans, in florida, across the country, who have pregnancies that they can't get the abortion health care they need, and they are being -- it's like the dark ages. they're being forced to have stillborn babies. they're being forced to be

sterilized. this is happening today. >> yeah, they're being asked to bleed out in the parking lot, to wait, you know? these are doctors who are terrified of treating. they're worried about losing their medical licenses. they're saying to these women, "i can't take the chance." even in texas with the kate cox case, which was such an important case, because you really saw republicans, texas a.g. ken paxton said, "it's up to the doctors," right? they're doing that in the hopes of getting these doctors so scared that they can't treat. so worried about losing their medical licenses. you have these women, it's not even that they want abortions. it's that they have, you know, lost pregnancies or have these unviable pregnancies and can't get any medical treatment whatsoever because the doctors are scared. what we're seeing again and again is the truth, which is, abortion is health care. >> yeah. >> claire, what molly said and

what she wrote is so telling. it's worse than she ever imagined. >> yeah. >> it's worse than anybody ever imagined. you look at -- for instance, let's look at even swing states. wisconsin, an 1849, like, abortion ban. 1849, that was the key issue in a supreme court race up there. in arizona, i think it's like an 1862/1863 near total ban. we're now talking about the comstock act from the 1870s. republicans embracing abortion bans from the 1800s that are risking the lives of our wives, our daughters, our friends, our neighbors. it's shocking. >> yeah, and i want to tee off a point that molly made. i think it is really important to remember this. what did paxton do after the

lower court said kate cox certainly should have the medical care her doctor was recommending? in a heartbreaking, horribly painful situation for that woman and her family, what did paxton do? he immediately wrote the hospital and doctors and threatened them with prison. threatened them with prison. >> so sick. >> then, what does the supreme court of texas say? well, a doctor could give her the abortion today if he or she said it was needed. they are trying to have this both ways. when doctors are afraid to treat, when they're being threatened with prison, women are put in an untenable position in terms of their survival. i'm not talking about whether or not they get to keep having children, which this woman desperately wanted to do. i'm talking about whether or not they die. doctors are so afraid in these states that have done this.

this is not a winning political position for the republican party. i got news for them. what's happening is, the women who are getting health care are the ones who are getting help getting to states that will provide it. they are fleeing states like missouri and texas and arkansas, and they are going to states like illinois or kansas or other states who are still providing basic health care to women. but this is where we are in america right now. this should be the defining issue of 2024 for everyone who is running for office. >> correct. >> because if it's not, then you deserve to lose. because this is one that america agrees with us on. >> and, claire, we've been talking about the presidential race. it is so important that donald trump is held to account. that his words are used against

him every day when he bragged about terminating roe v. wade. his words, he bragged about getting rid of a woman's right to choose. >> and she should be punished if she gets an abortion, which is happening. >> right. and donald trump saying that women should be punished if they get an abortion. now, i read in "the new york times," the front page of "the new york times," that donald trump is now saying, "oh, overturning roe v. wade was a mistake." claire, they can't let him have it both ways. >> no, they cannot. they cannot. and this guy is trying to back the truck up. i mean to tell ya, there needs to be a full-on assault. by the way, let's not leave out some others that overturned roe v. wade. ted cruz, he overturned roe v. wade. he was right in line with getting these judges rushing into the bench. amy coney barrett, rushing her to the bench in a way that is so hypocritical after what they did to merrick garland. what about senator scott in florida? he overturned roe v. wade.

these are two senators that are not -- i mean, ted cruz, has he stood up to ken paxton and said, "quit threatening hospitals when they're giving life-threatening health care to women?" no, he's hiding under his desk, wishing they'd quit talking about it. really, there are senators that are vulnerable on this because they were part of this effort to deny a president a seat on the supreme court when he nominated someone, and then rushing another through after people started voting for president. >> absolutely. "vanity fair's" molly jong-fast, thank you for coming on this morning. great piece. thank you conversation. >> thank you, molly. ahead on "morning joe," democratic lawmakers who served in the military and the cia sent a letter to president biden urging him to pressure israel to change course in gaza. congresswoman elissa slotkin, who worked as a cia analyst and

signed that letter will join the conversation. later, a live report from capitol hill where negotiations are under way to work out an immigration and border policy deal in exchange for additional aid to ukraine and israel. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. [dog barks] no it's just a bunny! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ in the u.s. we see millions of cyber threats each year. only pay for what you need. that rate is increasing as more and more businesses move to the cloud. - so, the question is... - cyber attack! as cyber criminals expand their toolkit, we must expand as well. we need to rethink... next level moments, need the next level network. [speaker continues in the background] the network with 24/7 built-in security. chip? at&t business.

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tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. put uc in check and keep it there with rinvoq. ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq and learn how abbvie can help you save. look at that city. amazing city. anything can happen in this city. it's just a great, great -- >> yeah. >> it's new york city. >> yeah. welcome back. it is 29 past the hour. beautiful morning sunrise in new york. >> broadway, right? >> yeah. >> it's got broadway, sports events. >> yeah. >> it's the crossroads of the world. >> yeah. so new york city mayor eric adams gave a local news interview on sunday, and one of his answers has turned a lot of heads. take a look. >> we've come to the end of what was an eventful 2023, right?

when you look at the totality of the year, if you had to describe it, and it is tough to do, in one word, what would the word be, and tell me why? >> new york. this is the place where, every day, you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center to a person who is celebrating a new business that's opened. this is a very, very complicated city, and that's why it's the greatest city on the globe. >> jonathan lemire, that was a very complicated answer. explain for us, if you will. >> what happened? >> jonathan lemire, your best defense of the mayor. go. >> what? >> single shot on jonathan. single shot on jonathan, please. >> this is -- that is the most softball question any local official could get, and he invokes the city's darkest day. not only that, but pivots to, well, 9/11 could happen here, or

you could open a small business. i mean, this is a mayor who has already raised a lot of eyebrows with his conduct. richard haass, that was in recent months, shall we say. i don't know there is a parallel to another local official describing, trying to sell his city by saying, "yes, anytime, the worst terror attack in our nation's history could happen here." >> i assume that was not the opening of his re-election campaign. >> let's hope so, for his sake. >> that was hard. i'm trying to understand that. all right. moving on. a group of democratic lawmakers who served in the military or cia are urging the biden administration to pressure israel into changing its approach in gaza. in a lette to the president, they write that they are deeply concerned with prime minister netanyahu's current milit strategy. quote, the mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not line with american interests,

nor dohey advance the cause o security for our ally, israel. we also believe it jeopardizes efforts to destroy the terrorist organization hamas and secure the release of all joining us now, one of the lawmaker who signed onto the letter, democratic congresswoman elissa slotkin of michigan. she's also candidate for u.s. senate. thank you so much for coming on this morning. >> sure. >> i think -- >> thanks for having me. >> -- there's a lot of questions about benjamin netanyahu and whether or not the united states can truly trust its ally with benjamin netanyahu in power. what are the questions that you have, and do you think this letter will make a difference? >> well, look, i mean, i think the group of us that wrote the letter did it from our own experience of serving in the u.s. global war on terror, serving in places like iraq and

afghanistan, caring about what happens to the long-term security of israel. it comes from a place of caring about that and wanting them to learn the lessons that we learned the hard way in our wars, right? i served in places like ramadi, and i think a couple of things. number one, you can't bomb your way out of an ideology. we tried to do it with al qaeda in western iraq. we may have had a ton of tactical victories, and then we left. two years later, a group called isis grew up out of the ashes of al qaeda and took over an area the size of texas. people have to have hope. they have to have a plan. now, israel has the right to go after the perpetrators of this grievous attack on october 7th. we're not saying just hands off the whole thing. we're saying, the way you prosecute going after those terrorists will affect your long-term security. please, think about that, mr. netanyahu, as you design the next phase of the strategy.

>> but i guess my question is, do you question netanyahu's intentionality? this is a leader who was working hard to stay in power. some would say he put people around him to help him stay in power and avoid indictments that were coming his way. and there are serious questions about october 7th itself. the response time, there is no explanation. not one logical explanation as to why it took seven, eight tortured, raped, and kidnapped g delaware, massachusetts. there's not one logical reason being given for that. they saw them coming. there are cameras. there were people being killed. there is communication. there was no response for hours. put that aside. then we get the word on the funding to hamas, that netanyahu

was supporting and pushing through. how do you look at benjamin netanyahu's intentionality in securing israel when you have facts like these that are either unanswered or horrific in the grand scheme of things? >> well, look, i mean, we all watched on our tvs six months before october 7th, you had a fifth of the israeli population out protesting bibi netanyahu. it doesn't matter what we think. i mean, israeli citizens were doing things that, frankly, we never saw in the united states vis-a-vis donald trump. i mean, real, societal protests. he was already on the rocks with his own population. then this horrible, traumatizing attack happened. we know they had a massive intelligence and military failure. they will have to do a thorough sort of review of what happened, but i think what was interesting is before i signed onto the letter, i spent the weekend calling former colleagues in israel, people i worked with when i was at the pentagon, former mossad officers, former

ministry of defense officers. i said, "what is your view on this situation?" they all raised concerns, as they've been raising in public, with bibi netanyahu's intention behind the attacks or the strikes because his security, his safety, his sort of legal situation is so tied to him staying in office. you know, we feel for the people of israel because they've been traumatized by this, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't, as a good ally, push them to do something that supports longer term security. >> congressman, it's richard haass. okay, the united states has pushed israel for two and a half months. with all due respect, there's virtually no evidence it's making any difference in israeli tactics in gaza. what are you and your colleagues prepared to do? if friendly advice is rebuffed, as it has been, will likely continue to be exactly for the reasons you say, are you

prepared to urge this administration to change its behavior in the u.n.? should we stop vetoing resolutions? do you think we should start introducing our own that are critical? or do you think we should condition certain types of arms going to israel on a change of behavior? or do you think the united states should diplomatically launch a peace initiative right now? what is it you think, basically to add teeth? you wrote a letter. i agree with it. it doesn't have teeth. if and when the israelis basically say, "thank you but no thanks," what are you prepared to recommend? >> yeah, you know how this works. we had these conversations privately behind closed doors. that's how you hope to engage with an ally, right? the goal with any ally, the israelis, the brits, the australians, is that you have your disagreements privately, not in front of the world. i think them bubbling up into public is because we haven't gotten the traction we wanted. i do think the biden administration has secured some of the only bright spots, the opening of a second crossing into gaza, some of the humanitarian cease-fires that went on for these hostage

exchanges. i think it was a big part of the u.s. facilitation. we have bill burns in warsaw right now negotiating, hopefully, another exchange of hostages, another temporary pause so that these people can be returned. but for me, i think the conversation coming in public, i hope, sends a very strong signal to the israelis. we don't like doing this in this public. please, for your own long-term security, let's have a real conversation. the secretary of defense obviously is having important conversations in israel right now. we're already having conversations about when the aid package is going to happen, what's going to be contained in it and a much broader package. those conversations are already happening. i think the hope is that we don't want -- we don't want this to do beyond this. we want the israelis to think through the lessons we learned the hard way and not have to take additional steps. that's the goal with an ally. >> democratic congresswoman elissa slotkin of michigan,

thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. >> you bet. thank you. >> thank you. all right. last september, after nearly 30 years of planning and construction, three explosions at the nord stream pipeline briefly sent the european economy into a tailspin. while there was initially speculation that the blasts were an accident, it quickly became clear the explosions were an unprecedented act of sabotage. joining us now, contributing writer at "the atlantic," mark bowden. mark, your latest piece is entitled, "the most consequential act of sotage in modern times." in it, you look into who maye responsible for the pipeline explosio writing in part, quote, the accumulation of information pointed circumstancely to ukraine,r at least a group of ukrainia. ukraine has denied involvement repeatedly. i am president, and i give orders accordingly, volodymyr zelenskyy said in june. but ukraine had a clear motive.

the attack delivered a punishing and enduring economic blow to russia, which daily rains shells and missiles on ukrainian cities. time passes, and memories are short. whatever the official findings, there is a goodhance in the end that no one is eve likely to be brought toccount for the attack. this is no small thing. a $20 billion engineering feat built over decades by thousands of skilled workers, a wonder of the modern world, might well rest forever, inert and flooded, at the bottom of the sea. mark, why might we never find out who did this? >> we may find out, you know, and i think it's fairly strong evidence at this point that a group of ukrainians did this. whether it was at president zelenskyy's behest or operating on their own.

i think the real question is whether anyone will ever be charged or prosecuted or, you know, brought to justice for doing this. it's because there are political ramifications for ukraine, for the united states, for germany, for the eu as a whole, depending on who is ultimately found responsible. >> mark, talk to us about what the americans' response to this was. we know the united states, the white house, sort of cautioned kyiv against taking too much direct action against russia. do you think any sort of marker has been set as to whether something like this could happen again in the future? >> well, i do think that, you know, the global infrastructure which provides us with energy, with telecommunications, sends satellites into space, has traditionally been kind of off limits in regional conflicts.

because it benefits everyone. so this was really a striking departure from normal practice. i mean, this was a pipeline that was capable of providing 65% of all of the gas needs of europe. and it's gone. you know, this is, in some ways, a crime against all of us. but i think because of the circumstances, it's doubtful that anyone will ever be brought to justice for it. >> well, you can read more about this with mark's piece in "the atlantic." contributing writer at "the atlantic," mark bowden, thank you very much. richard haass, what to you make of this? especially given the war right now and the united states support for the war, as information comes out about who is responsible, what do you make of it? what does it mean? >> look, it's pretty clear that ukraine was behind it. as mark said, the only thing we don't know is the chain of

decision making. what you seem to have is what we used to call in the intelligence world plausible denial here. a way to protect the ukrainian political leadership. look, this is just an extension of the battlefield. i think, you know, jonathan's question to me gets at it, what other steps might be in the works? this was quote, unquote, a success. how might russia retaliate to these things? but this, to me, is to be expected, particularly because the energy pipelines were important for the russian economy, but, two, were so tied to what happened before the war, mika. if you remember, the entire logic of europe's position, if we create energy connections with russia, they will have such a stake in keeping these pipelines open, they'll never do anything bad. guess what? they did do something bad. they invaded ukraine. it shows the economic lineages were not a bulwark against aggression. i think this sort of -- you

know, further attacks on the russian economy or on russian -- not that there is anything like this left anymore -- but on russia's links to the outside world economically, i think, you know, could be part of ukraine's war plan. coming up, "the atlantic's" anne applebaum has a solution to help ukraine get the funding it desperately needs. give russia frozen assets -- russia's frozen assets to the war-torn country. give them russia's money. she joins the conversation just ahead. plus, we'll go through the new reporting on china's aggressive efforts to undermine key races in the 2022 midterms. "morning joe" will be right back.

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49 past the the office of the director of national intelligence yesterday released its declassified assessment of foreign threats to the 2022 midterm elections. it reveals china, russia, iran, and other countries all tried to influence the midterms. the report says china approved efforts to influence a handful 2022 races involving both parties, boosting candidates deemed to be pro-china or countering those thought to be anti-china. the intelligence says russia sought to affect the overall election to undermine the democratic party and election to undermine the democratic party. iran's activities focused on trying to, quote, exploit perceived social divisions and undermine confidence in u.s. democratic institutions. the report says there were no signs any of the countries tried

to hack into election infrastructure. richard haass, what does it mean for the presidential election ahead of us? i would think that these countries would double down on these efforts. what do we know about exactly how they're executing this? >> 100%, mika, they will double down and triple down and quadruple down given the stakes. look, normally presidential elections, the similarities between the candidates outweigh the differences. that's most likely not going to be the case in november, given the differences are so great, given the implications if mr. trump were to be the candidate and when. so i would assume, particularly for the russians, they will do enormous amount of efforts. china less so, because in china when i was just there there's a curious debate between those who think a trump victory is good or bad for them. they realize it would weaken our alliances, but the unpredictability is not something a lot of chinese are comfortable with. russia, shall we say, is very

comfortable with a change in u.s. policy on ukraine. i think it shows how social media has changed our politics, that we're much more vulnerable, the conspiracy theories, you know, all of the changes that have made american politics so different. what it also shows is this is an unregulated space. it is unregulated internationally, it is unregulated domestically. there's no rules on this. there's no reason for these countries to be restrained. they're not paying an enormous price for it. any sanctions we introduce essentially would be at the margins. in some ways it is hard for us to retaliate in kind because they're not democracies and we don't want to encourage this. i think they feel it is a bit of a free pass, it is worth the investment, and if they get something out, which they could in a close election. one last point though. all of that said, i'm much more worried about what we do to ourselves, mika. i don't like what the russians or chinese or anybody else do. i really don't like what we're doing to ourselves.

i think we need to focus on this. at the end of the day i think the problems in the coming election are much more about us than they are about foreign interference. >> yeah, the problems at home are certainly evident. claire, sometimes when someone tells you something we just need to believe them. vladimir putin famously in helsinki said, yes, he hoped donald trump would beat hillary clinton. just this weekend vladimir putin was asked again about american leadership, and he said, yes, we prefer a different american government, a different president in charge, which, again, means donald trump. so we know he's got the motive. how worried are you that he can be successful here? >> first, let's say this slowly and clearly. the kyron says it all. u.s. intelligence says that iran, china and russia tried to influence the 2022 elections. what it doesn't say is they tried to help the republicans. now, who is u.s. intelligence? american voters need to

understand u.s. intelligence is primarily military veterans, highly trained, patriotic, honest, non-partisan people who try to protect our country. they are telling america that these three countries want the republicans. what does it tell you about who you should vote for? if you think you want to be on team iran and team putin and team china, then go for it. be republican and vote for the republicans next year and put donald trump back in the white house. if you want to be on team democracy and human rights and with our allies across the world, then think about this. this is a big deal. it is a much bigger deal than we are even making it, and people need to be reminded of this. this is simple. if the bad guys want the republicans, then good guys should want democrats. it is not hard. >> claire mccaskill, thank you

very much for speaking it all out. still ahead, speaking of damage to the u.s. elections being done domestically that richard just mentioned, two georgia election workers had to sue rudy giuliani again to get him to stop spreading lies about them. he's obsessed. we'll explain the lawsuit ahead. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪ free-falling ♪ with just on. choose acid prevention. choose nexium.

there is a lot of information out there. hamas oppresses the people of gaza, uses civilians as human shields, and steals their basic supplies to use them in a war of terror. even when given the chance at peace, hamas broke the truce. our community needs to stand against hamas and stand with palestinians and israelis for basic human rights.

focus on the truth.

doesn't have to be absolutely true, it has to be supportable. they have to prove that i was deliberately lying, which i wasn't. >> you know, what's so

fascinating about what he just did there. >> yeah, that's good stuff. >> it is as if -- >> it is good stuff. >> as if he read david french's column yesterday in "the new york times" talking about maga man and what it takes to be a maga man. he mentioned rudy giuliani as the prime example, but listed mark meadows, kari lake, listed a number of other people who may have all done different things in the past, may have all had different background, different political ideologies, but said the key was once they became infected by trump there were two things you had to do. again, david french wrote this before rudy went on and lied again last night. he said, number one, you have to lie. the key is if you are going to follow donald trump, if you are going to be a part of donald trump's team you have got to be a liar.

you have got -- you've got to bend reality to whatever donald trump says it is going to be. and then the second thing is, and he did it there. >> yes. >> which is so funny, he just walks right into it. he does it there, just like donald trump, just like the rest of them. you have to be loud and angry and defiant. it is not enough to just lie. >> delusionally defiant. >> no, not delusional. >> well, they delude people. >> not delusional, because that suggests -- >> oh, right, that they're -- >> -- a sort of sense of confusion. as david french said yesterday in "the new york times" in his op-ed, he knows exactly what he's doing. rudy giuliani knows exactly what he's doing. donald trump knows exactly what he's doing. mark meadows knows exactly what he is doing. kari lake knows exactly what she is doing. they all know exactly what they're doing. they had past lives, a lot of them supported barack obama, a lot of them like to paint

themselves -- >> supported abortion rights. >> yeah, supported abortion rights, were very -- but what they do here and what rudy giuliani just did there was, first, as david french said, you got to lie. you've got to -- you've got to twist reality. in this case it was the biggest lie of all. oh, my gosh, i forgot jesus's man in congress. guy said, all you need to do is look at the bible and that's what i do. >> oh >> the speaker of the house, right, what did he have to do to get the power? liz cheney told us. liz didn't have to tell us because we already knew. he embraced this guy that uses jesus as a political shield and claims that he may be the aaron or the moses. what does he do? he embraces the big lie, and then when he is called on it -- remember that first press conference, the anger, the rage, people shouting down the press for even bringing up the fact

that this speaker, this guy who claims jesus as a political -- like this political badge of honor, the biggest liar of all embracing the biggest lie of all in politics. so you've got the lie. >> uh-huh. >> then you've got to be very indignant about the lie. >> absolutely. >> and that's what rudy giuliani did yesterday. >> yes. he's a victim. >> it is exactly what david french said. so democrats need something, oh, my god, how can they say -- they're delusional. no, they're not delusional. read david french's column. you got to lie if you are following donald trump and you have got to be indignant while you lie. >> yes, but they act utterly delusional because the lies that they stick by are literally so obviously lies that it is hard to watch. it is hard not to laugh out loud, but in this case, you know, it is defamation, and just like e. jean carroll learned she can do to donald trump what the

two women who rudy giuliani defamed are learning is that they're going to have to work harder to shut him up. >> go back. >> just stop his lying. >> keep after it. >> go back to court. take him back to court. i mean he will not have a penny left to his name and he will be shut up. >> yeah. >> and he will not be able to say a word ultimately when they're done with him, but, my god, it is unbelievable how far these maga republicans will go to hold up their lies and to sort of bring people along with them and create danger. >> well, of course, rudy will be able to continue to lie and he will continue to lie so long as he supports donald trump because if you support donald trump you have to embrace the big lie. >> right. so with us we have the host of "way too early" white house bureau chief at "politico" jonathan lemire. president emeritus of the council on relations, richard haass. four-star retired navy admiral jim stavridis, chief

international analyst for nbc news. we have a lot to get to this morning including our legal experts are coming in to talk about the developments with rudy giuliani and mark meadows and others. first, israeli leaders say they are considering the next phase of the war in gaza as the u.s. pushes the country to shift away from a high-intensity military operation. u.s. secretary of state defense lloyd austin met with leaders in tel aviv yesterday and called on israel to protect civilians, saying it is their moral duty. israeli officials said they will soon start working to bring back the local population, adding this will likely happen in northern gaza first. but officials stopped short of saying what changes will be made to the military campaign. austin also explained the u.s. is not putting a timeline on when the next phase needs to begin, saying this is, quote, israel's operation. >> well, you know, we have richard haass here.

we have a semantics game going on because, you know, joe biden said that israel needed to stop its indiscriminate bombing. you have u.s. officials quietly behind the scenes, as you know, applying great pressure to israel to stop the bombing. you, of course, have the british and the french foreign ministers coming out yesterday saying it had to stop. talk about the relationship here and how much longer is netanyahu going to be able to act indiscriminately in a way that most of his own country don't even support? >> good morning, joe. the discouraging answer to your question is probably for quite a bit longer. what general austin was saying to him was not just a moral sbartive, i thought the most interesting phrase was a strategic imperative, that

israel give up the whole-sale approaches, do something much more retail based upon small units and intelligence. the israelis have essentially pretty much rebuffed that now for, what, ten weeks. my guess is they'll continue to rebuff it for the most part. what the americans are saying is essentially friendly advice. the israelis don't accept it. i think the prime minister wants to do this not simply as a military operation but he is looking at it as a political operation. he want to basically -- >> richard, when you say that, if somebody is there watching and getting upset about that, that's what israelis think. you talk to israelis, they think he is doing what he is doing to just stay in power. how does he respond to three israeli hostages coming out waving white flags. >> shirtless. >> with their shirts off to show that they don't have any bombs, speaking -- how does he respond

to them getting gunned down. >> oh, my god. >> he starts talking about -- hold on. he talks about how he's proud that he's got in the way of a two-state solution. that's his response. he hardly even responds to this tragedy. >> look, you're right. on what happened with the three hostages, that's a real breakdown of discipline on the part of the israeli defense forces, quite stunning i thought. you know, there's going to be investigations, not simply about october 7th, there's got to be an investigation into that. how in the world one of the -- did this professional army get to that point. i think that's there. look, bebe netanyahu is essentially trying to repackage himself, rebrand himself not as the leader who failed on october 7th but on the leader who will prevent the emergence of a

palestinian state that he said would inevitably be anti-israeli. the one thing he has going for him, not simply that he is there and he has a very conservative coalition, but there's an interesting piece in "the new york times," essentially there's no doves left in israel. what october 7th did was transform the political and psychological basis of israel. you're right, joe, there's zero love for bibi netanyahu. he has lost the mandate of heaven, he is not trusted. but the israeli populous has really swerved to the right and it is part of the challenge facing president biden quite honestly. the israelis aren't in the mood to hear stuff about two-state solutions or peace or anything else or partnering with palestinians. so that's what the president is trying to figure out, how do they get the israelis to refine their military tactics, introduce the necessary political dimension at a time most israelis aren't very interested in a political

dimension. >> well, of course, right now, admiral, the israelis rightly want hamas destroyed. i think we all understand that. we also understand that benjamin netanyahu wants to do whatever he can do to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. it is not going to happen next week. it is not going to happen next year. but what is happening next week, what is happening next year will determine where we are five years from now, ten years from now, and whether this cycle of violence -- a guy talking about being the great defender of israel against hamasistan when he was the guy that knew about the billions of dollars flowing to hamas and said let's do nothing about it. he is the one who sent his people just a month before the attacks, before october the 7th, he sent them to doha and qatar who, yeah, qatar has been blamed -- a u.s. ally has been blamed for funding hamas.

we find out now that it was bibi netanyahu who was telling them to fund hamas. a month before the attacks netanyahu's people go and they go to doha and the qataris say, do you want us to keep funding, do you want us to keep funding hamas? netanyahu, yeah, yeah, sure. yeah, keep funding hamas. now he's playing great protector while doing extraordinary damage to israel's reputation, not only across the region, not only across the world, but really importantly across the united states, admiral. what does the biden administration need to do? >> well, you saw one manifestation of it, which is they're flooding the zone with interlocutors, people like lloyd austin who we think of correctly as secretary of defense-civilian. he is also general lloyd austin, a contemporary of mine. he is a seriously imposing

figure who has also commanded all of our forces in the middle east, joe. he knows all the players intimately. sending him at this moment to make the point that it is not only morally the right thing to do but pragmatically part of war is information control, the narrative. you have got to get a grip on that. i think that message is even louder behind closed doors. now you are seeing it bleed into the open and, oh, by the way, team biden has also got another superb figure and that's ambassador bill burns, director of the cia, former ambassador to syria, fluent arabic speaker. he's in warsaw working with the israelis and the qataris trying to breathe some life into this hostage situation. tony blinken has been there. jake sullivan has been there. all of us are talking about it.

the drum beat is growing and it has got to be answered by a much more precision, surgical approach. i think you are going to see that -- >> admiral, tell us why -- >> -- in the next month -- >> tell us why you believe that's a strategic necessity by israel just for those at home who may not understand. >> absolutely. because, point one, every time you kill a gazan indiscriminately and kill a woman or a child there, the military age males in that family click over to, i'll be part of hamas, i will be a foot soldier on the front lines. you create many more terrorists than the civilians you kill. point two, you gather growing condemnation of israel against all the actors in the region. look at what is happening at sea, joe. tankers being seized, missiles

fired at ships all over the red sea. by the way, 15, 20% of the world's shipping passes through there. that's happening because of the israeli indiscriminate campaign against civilians. houthi rebels, all creatures of iran, it puts air speed behind them. third and finally, and you are seeing it in washington, d.c., israel will lose capacity, resources and support from not only the united states but other allies around the world. so it is a losing proposition for israel at every level, but particularly strategically. >> admiral, really quickly before we go, is it strange at this point we don't know what caused israel's delayed response to october 7th or is this still a reasonable amount of time past the attack to not know sort of basic answers? >> it is no longer reasonable to at least have a quick wash-up, a

quick assessment of what happened, not only to satisfy global and, above all, israeli and, above all, the families of those killed, they deserve to know what we know now. >> yeah. >> but, secondly, in order to be careful about a resurgence of this, to draw the lessons learned. so, mika, yes, it is very reasonable that we should have a briefing, a basic understanding of this massive operational failure that sits alongside the intelligence failure. >> and u.s. officials that i speak to have also been baffled by the delays there from israel, and they do believe it will be part of the pressure campaign that eventually moves netanyahu from office. but they do think it is not going to happen any time soon despite some wishful thinking in the west wing who think israel would be better served by new leadership. joe, mika, to the president's point we have now seen national security adviser jake sullivan,

defense secretary lloyd austin in israel in recent day. obviously the secretary of state has made trips there as well. the biden administration is trying to ramp up pressure on israel to try to slow down the attack, the pace of attacks, to be more selective, to be less indiscriminate in what they're doing. i'm told secretary austin received word from israel sort of, yes, yes, we will, but no firm promises, no reassurance, no commitments as to when and what exactly that would mean. so what i'm told is u.s. officials anticipate that the sort of international pressure on israel will only grow and that the images from gaza are likely to get worse before they get better. >> god. retired four star navy admiral james stavridis, thank you for joining us this morning. >> really quickly before we let you go, admiral, i got to ask you about ukraine. this morning -- or it was yesterday actually, girard baker, the "wall street journal"

editor emeritus, said along with the u.s. economy, he said vladimir putin was one of the winners of the year. it said, you know, it was very painful for him to write that, especially considering what's happened with one of their reporters there. but mr. baker went through a list of things that have gone well for vladimir putin this year. his economy has withstood a lot of the outside pressures and the so-called spring offensive was a failure, and now he's got american support and eu support wavering. would you agree with that assessment? >> unfortunately, i would. and think back to the summer when yef eugenie prigozhin

mounted a coup attempt and putin has used that to purge the inner circle, the people around him. he has had the successes that you described, and on top of all of that he is watching like mordor, like soron from mordor in "lord of the rings," watching, watching u.s. politics and the bleed of support to ukraine and the potential return to the white house of someone he believes is a very, very strong supporter of his. so, yeah, vladimir putin is having a pretty good christmas and new year's. let's hope his fortunes turn against him as we head into 2024. coming up, it is not just israeli troops looking to hold hamas accountable for the october 7th terror attack. it is also federal prosecutors in new york. we will break down some new reporting on how u.s. attorneys are targeting the group's financial network. that is straight ahead on

"morning joe." in the u.s. we see millions of cyber threats each year. that rate is increasing as more and more businesses move to the cloud. - so, the question is... - cyber attack! as cyber criminals expand their toolkit, we must expand as well. we need to rethink... next level moments, need the next level network. [speaker continues in the background] the network with 24/7 built-in security. chip? at&t business. there is a lot of information out there. hamas oppresses the people of gaza, uses civilians as human shields, and steals their basic supplies to use them in a war of terror.

even when given the chance at peace, hamas broke the truce. our community needs to stand against hamas and stand with palestinians and israelis for basic human rights. focus on the truth. are you still struggling with your bra? it's time for you to try knix. makers of the world's comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com

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behind the desk, that beautiful resolute desk in the oval office. what was his name? his name was trump, happened to be trump. but it was all of you actually. in a certain sense you were all sitting behind that desk. >> so in a certain sense you are all in a lot of trouble for what you did. behind that desk. 91 charges.

whew! what were you thinking. taking those classified documents. don't get me started on your family life. you never remembered eric's birthday, so in a certain sense you're the terrible dad, not me. >> just three days after a jury ordered rudy giuliani to pay $148 million in a defamation suit, two former georgia election workers have filed a new lawsuit against the former trump lawyer. the new complaint filed by ruby freeman and shea moss focuses on comments giuliani made about them both during and after the civil trial. listen as giuliani doubles down and continues to push lies, false election theories from outside the courtroom just last week. >> whatever happened to them, which is -- it is unfortunate for other people overreacting, but everything i said about them is true. >> do you regret what you did to ruby -- >> of course i don't regret. i told the truth. they were engaged in changing

votes. >> there's no proof of that. >> oh, you're -- right there is. stay tuned. >> oh, my god. >> oh, yeah, his guy is trying desperately --. >> trying so hard to get him -- >> desperately toet him away from the microphone. >> to move along and stop lying. >> and stop blowing himself up. >> bu he did. in the latest complaint the attorney writes when they asked giuliani to stop lying he continued to do so. quote, coupled with miss refusal to agree to refrain from continuing to make such statements made clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment. it must stop. the new lawsuit doesn't specifically ask for money. lawyers are looking for a targeted injunction that would bar giuliani from repeating his damaging, debunked claims about the poll workers. a spokesperson for giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment and, joe, we

know how hard it is to get lies to stop rolling around on the internet or on twitter and in situations that you have had yourself with trump. >> right. >> and myself as well. imagine, these two women, their lives were turned upside down. they were getting threats. they couldn't walk into a bakery without getting yelled at by people. >> right. >> because of donald trump and rudy giuliani, and he doesn't give a --. he continues. even after losing and it being proven he was lying about them, he continues to hurt people. he continues to hurt these specific two innocent women who were public servants who were working to help with local elections. he wants to hurt them. he wants them to have pain. these two women, like who would support a president and his, quote, attorney, a former president running for office, who wants to just indiscriminately hurt people for fun? >> well, the thing is it

destroyed their lives. >> correct. >> you talk about -- i mean we certainly understand the consequences. we're in a good position. we're in a better position to take care of ourselves. >> we have chosen this position. >> these two women who didn't choose. >> they did not choose this. >> to be in this position and don't have the support that others may have, those two women were not even able to stay in their own homes. again, i have people that sent me after rudy giuliani spread those lies in 2000 -- what was it, early 2000, whenever it was, i guess late 2000, were all sending me questions, what about those women that stole votes? >> they are standing up for the truth. ruby freeman, shea moss, i have so much respect for you. i'm so grateful for you because the truth is part of what's at stake here in this election, and

they are standing up for it. i'm sorry, they are not people who chose to be in the public eye, who chose to take on something as big as this. >> right. >> and they are doing it. >> and rudy giuliani, whatever he thinks he's proving -- he's hurting himself first of all every time he steps behind the microphone and lies, but to mika's bigger point, every time he does that he makes their life more dangerous and he doesn't give a damn. the question is who are these people? how were they raised to be so absolutely vacant and void of any compassion for these women, that when they spread these lies just for the hell of it and act indignant, stupid people across america, stupid people that will look at tiktok or look at a feed

on instagram or will look at twitter -- >> some tv channels. >> -- stupid people and stupid people that will look at stupid people on other tv channels lying to them about the big lie and about this. they will spread this lie and it will be these women whose lives will continue to be in danger. let's bring in msnbc legal analyst andrew weissmann, co-host of the msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump." also with us former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. she is, of course, the co-host of "the sisters in law" podcast. let's start with you. mika has asked since this verdict came down, is this going to stop rudy giuliani from lying? >> and others. >> what are the consequences? right now there don't appear to be any consequences because rudy

just keeps on lying. >> yeah, that's why i think this particular lawsuit is really clever. they've already got $148 million as a judgment so they're not looking for more money. what they really want is for rudy just to shut the hell up. so by seeking a court order, an injunction to stop spreading these lies, one of the things that the party's could do if he continues to do it is to seek a contempt order. so once they've got that injunction demanding that he stop, ordering him to stop, if he fails to do so he could be held in contempt of court. of course, with contempt a judge has the ability to jail someone until they comply for up to 18 months. so that may be what they're seeking here, is the ability to hold that over his head, and maybe that will provide some disincentive to finally cause him to stop spreading these lies. >> andrew, he's sure not stopping his lies just yet. let's talk about that $148

million though that he's already been ordered to pay. how is that going to work? rudy giuliani does not have $148 million to his name, we certainly all believe. explain to the viewers here, how much should they actually expect to receive? what are the mechanics of this payout from the former mayor of new york city? >> absolutely great question. well, it is worth remembering the reason that rudy giuliani is in this situation he's in in terms of liability and damages is that he refused to participate in court-ordered discovery. so he did not give to the plaintiffs, although the plaintiffs gave to him all of the documentation that needs to be given in a civil case. that included any information about his financial condition. so finding his assets is going to be a challenge, but as barb said, at this point what is going to happen is the

plaintiffs are going to be tenacious about getting information from rudy giuliani about the whereabouts of all of his assets. as we know, he has an apartment he is trying to sell for millions of dollars in new york city. that's one of the assets. if rudy giuliani though continues to violate court orders to turn over that information, barb has it exactly right, the one tool that judge howell has not yet used is jailing rudy giuliani, which can happen if he goes into contempt. that could happen either from violating an injunction, which is now being sought by the plaintiffs, or for failing to turn over the location of his assets which the plaintiffs are entitled to. so stay tuned here for more action happening in this case. >> mika and andrew and barb

said, he could end up in jail if he insists on continuing to lie against court order if that injunction is put in place. i have to say you have a it love things going on in georgia. he also faces significant jail time in georgia as does mark meadows who continues to try to delay, delay, delay this trial. >> look, i think women like e. jean carroll and these two women at the center of the rudy giuliani defamation, now second suit, are heroes because you can look at the big lie and all of the big ramifications of the second trump term or what trump has done to our democracy, but it starts with fixing one lie, with taking one small step. these women are holding on to their truth. they might not mean anything to people across the country, but you should take a look at them because what they're doing is standing -- >> it is not their truth. >> -- up for -- >> let's be clear. it is not their truth. it is the truth. >> correct. >> rudy giuliani --

>> so you mentioned. >> -- lied about them, that's their truth. yeah, we talked about mark meadows. we are going to talk to our expert panel about mark meadows and whether he is going to be able to continue delaying, i guess to avoid the trial and avoid jail time. we will talk more about that when we get back.

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indicted this summer on felony charges related to the alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in georgia. the fulton county district attorney's office declined nbc news's request for a comment and an attorney for meadows did not respond. >> so, barb, he can appeal this and keep appealing this as long as -- he is going to keep losing, right? >> maybe that's the point. >> it seems whether you are talking -- whether it is meadows, other co-defendants, whether it is trump in so many of these instances, the federal courts seem to have very little patience for their procedural tactics. >> yes. you know, the 11th circuit court of appeals rejected this but gas a three-judge panel. he has a couple more cards to play if he wants to. he could seek a review by the full court. he could even seek a review by the supreme court, but i don't think in the end the decision is going to be any different. you know, this legally is a sound decision supported by the

district court and now the court of appeals. in fact, the judge who wrote this opinion, william pryor, is an appointee of george w. bush. so there's no political allegation here. this is simply activities well beyond the scope of his duties as chief of staff and as the court said here, applies only to current and not former federal officials. so he can delay maybe a bit more, but ultimately he is going to have to face the consequences. and then the question will be does he go to trial or does he cooperate. >> andrew, that's exactly where he wanted to go with you. if he got a federal jury pool it would be more advantageous to meadows. he is not getting that now. do you think it increases the likelihood he will cooperate and, if so, what could he give up? >> let me answer the last part, what could he give up. he has the keys to the kingdom. there is nobody closer to the former president than the chief of staff given his position. he was there for almost all

important meetings and conversations, so he certainly has enormous interest for state and federal prosecutors. second, this i think does put more pressure him. he obviously wanted to be in federal court. that simply isn't going to happen. chief judge pryor is an enormously respected judge. he wrote this decision. it is in line with a recent dc circuit judge. there are now two circuits that ruled in very similar ways. it is also terrible news for donald trump in terms of his effort to claim presidential immunity because of the language that chief judge pryor used. so mark meadows is going to be in state court. what is important to remember with respect to that is regardless of whether donald trump wins the presidency or not, mark meadows is going to face criminal charges in state court. there is no federal pardon

power. even if donald trump manages to wriggle out of this, mark meadows does not. so for him and his counsel he is going to have some tough decisions to make because he will be facing those charges. >> right. andrew weissmann and barbara mcquade, we'll be watching this together with you. thank you both very much for coming on the show this morning. >> greatly appreciate it. richard haass, let's go back to russia, the ukraine war, and let's look, headlined right now in today's "new york times" talks about how putin turned a western boycott into a war chest bonanza, talking about how he further enriched himself, further enriched allies when western companies departed russia, turned it into a scheme to make everybody around him richer. talk about where putin stands today compared to a year ago and the challenges facing zelenskyy

in ukraine as support again seems to waver not only in europe but also in the u.s.. >> look, domestically putin seems pretty strong. he controls the political narrative in russia. economically he has figured out how to essentially live with sanctions, joe. you're right, he has gotten some fire sales of western companies leaving, so he has gotten assets on the cheap and he has been able to distribute them to his cronies around russia. so i think domestically he's pretty strong. ukraine, this political infighting we are seeing, obviously jonathan and others have talked about what is going on the hill here. that said, i think the pessimism is a little bit overdone. ukraine is still controlling 80% of its territory. they didn't lose anything in the last year, quite remorningable. quite remarkable. they're going to get considerable aid from the u.s.

congress probably in january. i had dinner last night with a visiting french official. they're all very committed to supporting ukraine. indeed, i think one of the things you are going to see is the europeans are probably going to draw up some contingency plans, how to make sure ukraine gets essential help if the united states begins to falter, particularly after november. it is one of the reasons people like me are arguing ukraine needs to change over its strategy. move to a more let's consolidate, let's keep what we hold, it is less resource intensive, less demanding strategy, almost a hedge against the uncertainty in the west. two years ago vladimir putin sought to extinguish ukraine as a country. >> right. >> now ukraine has begun talks with the eu. there's a possibility of ultimately talks with nato. i think what we need to do is ease up a little bit on the pessimism and basically say, how do we take what we have, make this a long-term base for ukraine, and then over perhaps literally years or even decades you can try to build up. but i don't think ukraine is in

an impossible situation now by any means. coming up, three israeli hostages survived hamas captivity only to be killed by their own country's troops. we will go live to tel aviv for the latest on that story and what is happening to fre the scores of other captives still being held in the gaza strip. "morning joe" is coming right back. right now across the u.s., people are trying to ban books from public schools and public libraries. yes, libraries. we all have a first amendment right to read and learn different viewpoints. that's why every book belongs on the shelf. yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i've ever seen. it's people in power who want to control everything.

well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression. if you do too, please join us in supporting the american civil liberties union today. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for your rights and mine. including the right to read all manner of books. so please call or go online to myaclu.org. for just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. you can become a guardian of liberty and help protect all the rights promised to us by the u.s. constitution. make no mistake, this move to ban books is a coordinated attack on students right to learn. this is a clear violation of free speech. that's why the aclu is working to fight against censorship in all its forms. it is so important now more than ever. so please call or go to myaclu.org

and become an aclu guardian of liberty, for just $19 a month. use your credit card and you'll get this special we the people t-shirt and more to show you're helping to protect the rights of all people. the aclu is in all 50 states, d.c. and puerto rico defending our first amendment right of free speech and all of your constitutional rights. because we the people, means all of us. so please, call or, go online to myaclu.org today. vo: illegal immigrants rush our border in record numbers. more get away than are detained. so please, call or, go online to leaders of “sanctuary cities” spend billions on migrants - creating a magnet for more illegal immigration and fueling the crisis. all while americans struggle to pay for food and housing. and what is the biden administration doing? closing more immigration detention facilities. tell your member of congress:

biden's closing of immigration facilities makes this crisis even worse.

"slaughterhouse children," our journalists tell the stories of these kids beginning with 16-year-old devon perez. take a look.

>> devon perez was working the night shift in july when he was killed after getting sucked into equipment that accidentally turned on. he was 16 years old. his uncle told us he was a happy teenager. [ speaking global language ] . >> reporter: devon worked overnight at the slaughterhouse and by day attended middle school here, a few grades behind other kids his age. he wasn't the first person to get caught reporters behind the news documentary. it is staggering. julia ainsley. what have you discovered about this story? my god, it is so, so

unbelievably stunning to hear this would happen in this country. >> i've been covering immigration, as you know, for almost ten years. at every turn of this story, there was something that shocked us all, my team of reporters as well. when you look at someone like devon perez, one of the reasons he came here was for a better life. most of the children we found out about were all from guatemala. one of the reasons this is happening is because there was a perfect storm during covid when the trump administration only allowed in unaccompanied children, many children decided to take the fate of the family in their hands and come to the united states to work. they tried to make enough to send money back to their families in guatemala. then you have the labor market desperate to hire. we've seen an 88% spike in child

labor in this country. i talked to investigators walking through these plants where the company said they had no idea there were children working there. they were able to point and say "that's a kid, that's a kid." there was no way they couldn't say these kids were under 18. a lot of times they were able to piece the details after an incident, because everyone in this town will scatter after a raid where they go after children, because for a lot of these people, even though the work is so hard, there are children falling asleep in class, they're desperate to hold onto these jobs because they're trying to feed their families back home and pay off their smugglers who brought them here and in some cases pay rent to the adults who are supposed to be caring for them. it's a really troubling story and it's a system that continues. there was a raid in ohio at an

amish chicken plant that found over 50 children working there, again, from guatemala. >> truly tragic reporting. thank you for doing it. do we see any changes coming in the wake of tragedy like this, either new regulations put in place by federal or state governments or companies themselves, trying to limit these sort of behaviors? is there any glimmer of good news we can take from this? ? . >> states are actually going the other way. congress, on the other hand, there are some glimmers of hope there where they're trying to make these penalties steeper. right now, if a company is found to have hired a child, they're only fined a little over $15,000 per child, which is nothing when you look at the vast profits these companies are producing

per year. congress is working to increase these fines. there are investigations by the justice department and department of homeland security and labor to see if there's anything criminal here. they're looking at whether or not there are human trafficking conspiracies to bring these children from guatemala to work in these plants. we know these investigations are ongoing, but we don't yet know whether any of these investigations will result in anyone going to jail. >> watch "slaughterhouse children" on nbc news.com. coming up, we are covering the funeral services today for former supreme court justice sandra day o'connor, who died this month at the age of 93. a live report from the national cathedral in washington when "morning joe" comes right back. cathedral in washington when "morning joeco" mes right back

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weekend in new hampshire former president trump delivered and hour and a half long speech where he bashed immigrants, defended january 6th rioters and called kim jong-un very nice. so he's justplaying the hits. i'm not going to waste any time with the new stuff. here's some classics. the surprise song tonight is "wall." that's right. trump does the same material so much, people start yelling requests. do "inject bleach." welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have a lot to get to this hour. it appears democrats are taking lessons from dealing with the trump administration getting them to the negotiating table as talks continue over foreign aid funding. we'll get a live report from capitol hill just ahead. but there could be another way for america and its european allies to send billions of

dollars in funding to ukraine. "the atlantic's" ann applebaum joins us with that solution. we start with the slaums israel/hamas war. the u.s. continues to push israel away from a high-intensity military option to protect lives. they have said they're considering a new phase of the war, stopping short of describing what that would look like. this comes as france, the u.k. and germany are all calling for a ceasefire. but prime minister netanyahu is vowing to fight to the end. let's bring in hallie jackson, live in tel aviv for us. what's the latest there? >> reporter: good morning, mika and joe. you've got defense secretary lloyd austin in the region today. he is underlining u.s. support for israel in this war and emphasizing that a top priority for the biden administration is

working to get those hostages home. now, we know that talks have begun to restart, have begun to pick up with the head of the cia meeting with his israeli and qatari counterparts. they are saying nothing appears imminent right now, as the defense secretary is cautioning israel to do what they can to protect civilians. this morning, the u.s. again encouraging israel to work to prevent harm in gaza with defense secretary lloyd austin in tel aviv. >> protecting palestinian civilians in gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative. >> reporter: pressure now growing for another deal to release more hostages held captive in gaza as the israeli military pledges to bring home three elderly men, seen in new propaganda video released by hamas recorded under duress. it comes as the humanitarian crisis in gaza is getting worse, with nearly 20,000 people killed

there. the israelis say hamas is using civilians there as human shields. inside israel, anger building after the death of three israeli hostages killed by their own military even after holding up a white flag. one says he recognized his son's handwriting on the sign the hostages hung calling for help. what is your message to the government? >> you let hamas take my son on october 7th, and you killed my son on december 14th. they are not our leaders. they are thinking only of themselves. >> reporter: one hostage's mother greets visitors, including an israeli politician. we can only ask for your forgiveness, he says.

quietly, angily she speaks, telling him "i will not forgive anyone," because these words came late, she says. you can hear and feel the pain and anger and grief for these families. she says she keeps replaying her son's final moments in her head, the white flag, the signs, the call for help. she can't get it out of her mind at this point. both she and the other family member we spoke to say they want to do everything they can to get the rest of the hostages held captive in gaza out, even though they know their sons will not be among them. mika. >> crushing. hallie jackson, thank you so much for that report. >> you have to look at what happened. first, they did everything they were supposed to do. >> yeah. >> we assume they escaped. they took their shirts off to show that they didn't have any

weapons or bombs on them. they waved a white flag. and they were gunned down. >> the hope they must have had in their hearts that they were coming across the idf, maybe it was their moment to finally be safe. >> their father was exactly right. they were not only let down horribly by their government and killed by israeli forces on december 14th, but this government let them down on october 7th. they let down all of israel. first of all, being asleep at the switch, secondly, telling qatar to funnel billions of dollars -- the netanyahu government told qatar to funnel billions of dollars to hamas and to keep that money coming just a

month before the attacks. in 2018, they knew, they uncovered where hamas was getting billions of dollars. they found the hamas money machine years ago. they didn't want to turn it off. they wanted it to continue. then when the attacks began, in some cases it took them seven, eight, ten, 12, 14 hours. in a school shooting in america, cops are there in two minutes. >> what happened? >> nobody can answer it. >> what happened in those hours? >> we asked admiral stavridis what happened, and he said, we still don't know why they didn't respond. of course they knew it was happening. >> what do you make of hours of no response? >> what they will tell you is, you will hear stories of some

people responding and even being shot and killed. and yet, there was no government response big enough -- are we to believe that netanyahu had weakened the military and the police force so much that they could not stop a drugged-out terrorist on mopeds and paragliders? is that what netanyahu wants us to believe, that he so weakened israel that the idf could not even stop hopped-up, drugged-out terrorists on mopeds and paragliders? that's what they want us to believe. but that's not what happened. you know they're lying to you. i know they're lying. it's like admiral stavridis said

earlier, they can no longer say, oh, let's wait until this war is over, and then we'll give you answers on why we let down the hostages, why we let down the women who were raped and brutalized, killed, dragged around gaza while crowds cheered. no, the netanyahu government can't push this off. they need to explain why they let israel down as much as they did and why more jews were slaughtered on this day than since the holocaust. it's outrageous. the father of this hostage shot has every reason to ask these questions. it is really, really disgusting how much israelis and how much jews have been let down by the netanyahu government. >> our ally. >> and still, no answers. no answers.

>> we're going to keep asking. we move now to washington, where senate democrats negotiating an immigration and border policy agreement in exchange for aid for ukraine and israel are reportedly seeking to restrain any new immigration powers for the executive branch as part of a deal. let's bring in nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali, who has more on that part of the story. >> reporter: it's important that you're asking those questions. here in congress, they're dealing with the aid and money piece of it. frankly, none of it is going my where fast. i think many of us were under the assumption that after the october 7th attack, congress would move quite quickly to send aid to israel. now we're watching that aid package be held up and intertwined with other issues, including continued aid to ukraine, but also now border provisions. that's something house republicans said was essential to be included and was the only

thing that could possibly get them on board for more foreign aid. now we're watching the senate creep into a week where, frankly, they weren't even supposed to be here in washington. now we're watching bipartisan negotiators continue to huddle and try to come to some consensus, democrats entertaining ideas on immigration they had never previously be entertaining with republicans, things like restricting asylum numbers and other provisions that democrats are upset about. we're also seeing them now try to make sure if trump, specifically, were to be put back in the white house, he could not use these kinds of rules to add more restrictions and be more harsh at the southern border. think about these negotiates as not just being thorny on the issue of immigration, but also now democrats trying to effectively trump-proof them. that being said, even as they're trying to add these stipulations, it's not clear they have critical mass to

actually move forward to putting this stuff on paper in a way it can be circulated among their colleagues. almost 40 senators didn't show up to vote yesterday. that's a pretty good tell of how confident, or rather not, they are in these negotiations yielding something they could actually vote on. >> not much momentum of a deal getting done this week. republican senators not even showing up to vote. let's say this slides into the new year. we know there's the government funding deadline looming as well. just how tight of a window is this going to be for what is clearly a very heavy lift? >> reporter: extremely. just before they left town, republicans and democrats alike made an agreement that any government shutdown would now come in a two-step process as opposed to that one big looming deadline. that means as soon as lawmakers get back in january, they're

only going to have just over a week to figure out what their government funding packages are going to look like. otherwise, parts of the government are going to lapse in mid january. the other parts are going to lapse in february. that's something that the newly minted speaker mike johnson set up. there's consternation of whether or not they can get the top-line number on 12 appropriations bills. that's a huge sticking point. that means even more work for them in january. johnson is talking about doing something called a continuing resolution, which you and i know is a bad word here for house republicans. many are wondering could that lead to his ouster? that's exactly what put kevin mccarthy in that situation. all of that is a pretty swirling pot of mess here for congress to come back into in january. that's nothing say of this

end-of-year supplemental package. it's why we're watching them scramble so hard. they know january is already a mess. they don't want to bring this extra to it. meanwhile, aid for ukraine is also being stalled on the other side of the atlantic as well. hungary's prime minister victor orban has blocked the european union's plan for a $52 billion lifeline to bolster ukraine's defenses. however, there is something that both american and european governments can do to provide much-needed aid to ukraine. as our next guest proposes in her latest piece entitled "give russia's frozen assets to ukraine now," there is more than $300 billion in russian funds that could be transferred to ukraine immediately. joining us now, staff writer for the atlantic, ann applebaum.

>> thank you for being with us. we want to talk about that option as well as the question as to how much longer the eu is going to put up with orban. first, i want to show you an article from the "new york times" today that talks about how vladimir putin is actually using boycotts to enrich himself and his allies. also the "wall street journal" editorial page talks about vladimir putin being one of the winners of the year. he write this is, it gives me no joy to declare vladimir putin geopolitical winner of the year. the war on ukraine continues to inflict massive damage on russia even as it slaughters blameless ukrainians. kyiv's much-wanted counteroffensive is stalled.

mr. putin's economy has withstood western sanctions. american support is fracturing. he took an innocent "wall street journal" reporter prisoner. he has shown the cruel advantage of strategic patience that autocratic rule confers. i'm curious your response to mr. baker and his opinion and also if vladimir putin is in a much stronger position now than he was a year ago? >> first of all, he's in a strong position until he's not. you know, we know there's enormous amount of discontent in russia. we saw it last summer. we know the russian elite is not happy. i could go on and on. dictators are always powerful until the moment when they're not. i do think the point about patience is correct. it is true that putin has decided he can't win the war

outright. he can't conquer ukraine the way he thought he would. so what he's going to do is try to keep the war going and hope that the western alliance breaks up. i think he's probably wrong in one sense, in that in your introduction you pointed out there is this conflict inside europe about aid for ukraine. it's really coming from one country. the leaders of france, germany, britain, spain, poland and the rest of central europe are all in favor of continuing aid to ukraine. they're being blocked by one country, which is hungary, and they're looking right now for a way around that. i actually expect them to find that, if not this week, then very soon. of course, in congress, they're being also blocked by a small group of republicans. remember that the majority of congress would vote for aid for

ukraine, but the bill has been held up by house republicans who have impressed upon their colleagues in the senate that they need to include a very complicated border deal. we're at a strange moment where actually the majorities were ukraine are still there. the desire to wait out putin is still there. it's still the policy of most major governments, but you have these blocking groups inside our societies. the question is whether we can overcome those. >> of course, it's always important to remember chairman mccaul, a republican in the house, the chairman of the armed services committee and other important republicans still supporting ukraine. it is just a tiny faction, from of whom worship orban for some ungodly reason that i still haven't figured out. how much longer is the eu going

to allow this anti-democratic, illiberal authoritarian to basically exercise a veto over the eu's efforts to help ukraine? >> i mean, you're right, it is extraordinary. he's somebody who has destroyed the media in his country, destroyed the judicial system, effectively gerrymandered his elections so it's almost impossible for him to lose. i do think there is some reckoning coming. there is talk about finding ways of suspending hungary's voting rights to find a way around his block on aid to ukraine. you're right, he's evidence of what a very determined, anti-democratic, pro-russian figure can do and how he can do it inside the eu. we have the equivalence in the

u.s., including admirers of orban in the u.s. i'm afraid the reason they admire him is because he has effectively created a one-party state inside his country, he can't lose an election. there are people in the republican party who would like to create that system in the united states. >> donald trump, of course, just praised victor orban again the other day. let's talk about the money involved with the ukraine conflict. we know ukraine aid is tied up in congress. you have a new piece suggesting russia's frozen assets could be a real key to finance ukraine's war effort and rebuilding. explain that and whether you think there's a real chance of it happening. >> at the beginning of the war, a series of western financial

institutions froze all the russian assets. that comes to about $300 billion. that's money russia can't use or collect interest. it's effectively frozen. legal scholars have begun to argue it's time to take those assets and use them as advanced reparations for ukraine. there's a sort of intuitive justice about that. russia has destroyed ukraine. russia shows no appreciation for ukrainian sovereignty or property rights. therefore, russia loses its own sovereignty and property rights over these assets. it is a complicated issue. there were some countries pushing back against it on the grounds it sets a bad precedent. i would argue that the risks are now very high in the other

direction. if we don't find a way to get more funding and more aid to ukraine, ukraine would lose the war. that would then cost us even more and there would be even more risk down the line. there's a kind of growing momentum in favor of doing this. >> let me ask you before we let you go, we've been talking about what's at stake in america over the next year. we saw poland with an extraordinary result, despite the fact that he had just about every disadvantage you could have and still won there. we now turn to america.

i think about your book "twilight of democracy" and think we got past it, and now we're staring it down again. i'm curious. you talked about the seductive allure of authoritarianism. is that what is gripping the republican party right now? is that what's gripping independents who are preferring trump to biden? >> i think it's really important that you're connecting all of these issues, the role of victor orban in europe, the role of russia in the world, the attraction to donald trump, who admires both of those figures in the united states. it's a useful reminder that this is a long-term struggle. it's not like, okay, we got rid of donald trump once, now we can all go back to whatever we do. this is now a part of what

everybody has to think about. it's going to impede on all of our lives. making sure that the united states doesn't become a one-party state or a sloppily, messy dictatorship like hungary. hungary is one of the poorest countries in the eu. it's not an advertisement for autocracy. it's just an advertisement for people who want to have that kind of power. we need to be aware of these issues and how important they are. >> thank you very much. we appreciate it. coming up on "morning joe," as israel defense forces hunt down hamas targets in gaza, prosecutors here in the u.s. are also going after the terrorist group. we'll have the new reporting on the case being built in the southern district of new york. plus, attacks by iranian-backed rebels on ships in the red sea are disrupting

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a federal jury ordered rudy giuliani to pay two georgia election workers $148 million for defaming them after the 2020 election. 148 million. rudy already had money problems. now he's going to get creative to earn cash. for instance, he can sell his sideburn flop sweat. next up, rudy can also play ebenezer scrooge. finally, rudy can mow lawns for four seasons total landscaping. oil and natural gas prizes rose sharply yesterday after bp said it would pause all shipments through the red sea

following a series of attacks on vessels by iranian-backed houthi rebels passing through the suez canal. experts warn this could shock global supply chains. >> it could be supply chain issues. it could be just costs going higher, because those shipping costs make up a decent-sized chunk of the goods you buy. a lot of those costs consumers have been used to are predicated on shipping that uses global shortcuts like the suez canal. attacks in that red sea region have led to multiple companies to reroute their shipping. the latest is maersk.

you mentioned bp. so far they have said the red sea travel is on pause, but they declined to comment about whether there was going to be a potential travel rerouting around the south of africa, like other firms have done, which adds a lot of travel costs. having to take that longer cape of good hope route reduces a trip's effective capacity by roughly 25%. yes, we could be seeing more real serious impacts on shipping. the biggest stock in the market is, of course, apple, surprising many on wall street and main street yesterday when it decided to pause sales of its latest apple watch models right before the christmas holiday. this is in response to an

intellectual property disagreement it's having with a medical technology firm which involves the blood oxygen tracking feature in those watches. apple will halt online sales of the series 9 and ultra 2 models on thursday and halt in-store sales after sunday. so there might be a bit of a rush to get some of those models. speaking of holiday shopping, some consumers are getting a welcome reprieve from shipping woes as of late, taking active steps to try to improve delivery times. we have companies like amazon, walmart, target, all working on making distribution adjustments to streamline processes, doing things like upgrading warehouse facilities and fulfillment centers. it's a big improvement over the last couple of years when those supply chain issues and shipping constraints frustrated a lot of shoppers around the holiday

season. then you kind of have to circle back to our first story. will we start to see some of those gains in shipping start to dissipate if we continue to see shipping woes because of the middle east? it's all interconnected at this point, guys. >> cnbc's dom chu, thank you very much. prosecutors in the southern district of new york are preparing a case targeting hamas, with their sights set on investigating the terrorist group's financial network. news outlet cites two people familiar with the case who are not directly involved in it. join us with more is the editor in chief ben smith. >> the southern district of new york sometimes calls its the sovereign district of new york and has for a long time

prosecuted these complicated international cases. it's really part of the biden administration's full court press on hamas, even as biden navigates the relationship with netanyahu all across the administration. the "new york times" has reported that the israeli government and the u.s. government have a lot of detail on hamas' finances that they haven't acted on in the past. >> what can prosecutors actually do to reach this money overseas? >> first of all, obviously hamas has bigger problems right now. the israelis are devastating gaza and promising to assassinate leadership.

the foreign bank accounts have hundreds of millions of dollars in them. analysts who found this money uploaded a lot of the information to facebook on their own. i think a lot of this is out there. i think the idea in the medium to long-term is to make it hard for hamas to reconstitute itself and function the way it had before the war. >> israel has sanctioned some of these payments to hamas. >> i don't think we're talking specifically about the money israel was sending to qatar and to hamas. they included a turkish real estate company and legitimate enterprises all over the world. >> ben smith, thank you so much for coming on. ben's latest book, entitled "traffic, genius, rivalry and delusion in the billion dollar

race to go viral" is available now. the american flag above the white house is at half staff this morning in honor of the late supreme court justice sandra day o'connor, who will be laid to rest today with funeral services at washington's national cathedral. washington's national cathedral

this combination of humility and fearlessness was heard to a t. she never let self-doubt stop her from making a decision or taking charge and doing something, and our country was better for it. i knew sandra would serve as an inspiration to girls across the country. later on, she would often say that it was good to be the first, but don't want to be the last. >> that was supreme court justice sonia sotomayor

delivering remarks about the late justice sandra day o'connor, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 93. the funeral will be held later today with president biden and chief justice john roberts delivering eulogies. joining us from washington is monica alba with more. >> reporter: it's really a remarkable morning here and a very somber occasion and one with which to look at the history and the incredible life of sandra day o'connor. to two men who are going to be eulogizing her later this morning have an incredible moment where they both first met her in 1981 when she was

nominated on the supreme court. john roberts was working in the reagan administration in the white house, and he had to help prepare her for her hearings. then, of course, senator biden was the top democrat on that judiciary committee, which became such an important part of his service in the senate. the two of them through these very different lenses had a very important moment with sandra day o'connor before, of course, she had the historic honor of being the first won to serve on the bench. then-senator biden had quite a remarkable moment and exchange with sandra day o'connor back then where he pushed her to use the fact that she would be this first woman as an asset, as something she could go out and try to push the equal rights amendment. she at the time said she wasn't sure whether that would be appropriate, whether that would be okay under judicial ethics.

then-senator biden said this is something for decades to come that will be so important and you should use it and be this trail blazer for other women to follow. when she passed now-president biden put out in his statement that it was remarkable at the time that she was confirmed 99-0, which he says is an example of what the country can do when it wants to come together and move forward. certainly, he will be speaking to her legacy. he will maybe allude to the fact that he didn't always agree with her opinions, but he found her to be fairly moderate and a key swing vote, of course, deciding to uphold roe v wade on several occasions while she was serving on the bench. she will be remembered here today as a woman who broke incredible barriers and somebody who gave many years of their

life to service on the supreme court. >> monica alba, thank you so much. msnbc will have special live coverage of the funeral service at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. turning now to a volcano that erupted in southwest iceland late last night after weeks of increased seismic activity in the region. molly hunter has more. >> reporter: this morning, stunning aerial images from southwestern iceland, capturing a late-night eruption after weeks of anticipation and earth-shaking seismic activity. icelandic officials say the eruptions brought on by a swarm of earthquakes in grindavik. the entire area was evacuated as

a precaution. it's the fourth volcanic eruption in two years and the largest so far, with the coast guard surveying the area overnight in an effort to confirm the eruption's exact size and location. passengers at one of iceland's main airports just 16 miles away reacting. authorities have raised the country's aviation alert level because volcanic ash can pose a risk to engines on passenger planes, something that happened when another volcano erupted in iceland back in 2010, creating an ash cloud that grounded air travel in europe for more than a week.

now, officials are stressing vigilance and caution as the region waits on mother nature to run its course. >> nbc's molly hunter with that report. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> he is a professor, researcher and thoracic surgeon. >> the work i do could change the world. >> it's all smoke and mirrors. >> i need to know the truth. >> what did you do, paolo? >> that is the trailer from season two of the hit show "dr. death." the lead actor of the series, edgar ramirez joins us next on "morning joe." edgar ramirez join "morning joe." move to the cloud. - so, the question is... - cyber attack! as cyber criminals expand their toolkit,

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>> do you trust me? ♪♪ >> why are you not holding him accountable? >> the issues are completely unrelated to my procedure. >> r maybe you should trust him. >> i need you to look into someone for me. >> that was part of the trailer from the second season of "dr. death," which premiers this thursday on peacock. the show is based on the true story of how journalist benita alexander fell in love with an italian doctor while reporting on his supposedly groundbreaking medical procedure to replace tracheas. the doctor's, work, however,

turned out to be largely fraudulent as he experiments on patients with unproven methods. he was sentenced in sweden to 2 1/2 years in prison. joining us now, one of the costars of "dr. death" edgar ram measure, who plays the controversial doctor at the center of it all. edgar, it's so good to have you on the show. >> thank you very much. >> tell us about this role. given that this is a real-life story, what went into your researching it and discovering how to really play this criminal, if i may? >> the show is and discovering how to really play this criminal, if i may. >> yeah, the show is based on a podcast by wondery, by the same name, "dr. death." so the podcast was very compelling and encompassing all

the elements that both mandy moore, who plays benita alexander and i would need to start our research. i'm a journalist myself. that's what i did before i became an actor. so i normally try to use my former professional skills to research my characters, but in the case of this particular character, i try to keep my research very tight, not to expand it too far, letting my only personal judgments filter down into my performance. i have played -- i've played dark characters in the past. but this is a different kind of darkness. based on the trust and the hope that patients put on doctors, and me, you know, through family experiences, having such a close

relationship to doctors, it was very -- i had the feeling i needed to keep my research very tight, very -- i had to be very disciplined and not knowing too much about the real macchiarini, so that i could play my character -- i could perform my character in the most honest way. >> and tell us about season two. what questions are viewers challenged with in this season? >> well, things that -- i don't want to give out too much. >> right. >> but it is definitely based on true -- on true events and it is called "dr. death," so there is something looming, something doomed about the whole story. but what i think makes the show so special is that it is a true crime story with a lot -- with a love story, with a romance at the center of the piece. and that not only makes it very

interesting. it also increases attention in my -- in my opinion, because it is almost like having two trains that are approaching each other and they're going to crash, and you know, and i think that's going to be very interesting for viewers. >> it is such a complex character. >> yeah. >> and a challenging one to portray, to sort of draw the audience in. how did you think about that as you are doing someone who many would say did monstrous things, but yet we find compelling? >> normally monsters don't see themselves as monsters. so i think that what constituted a web of lies around everything he did, both in his professional and also personal life, for him, those were not lies. for him, they were fantasies. there is a difference between lies and fantasizing. within the context of his fantasy, all the elements might

have been fictional, might have been falsehoods, but for him, those were true. so, in a way the character that i play never -- there is no introspection, i never sees himself as someone who is doing anything wrong and he never admits to anything -- doing anything wrong. and that, i think, makes it so scary and more terrifying. >> season two of "dr. death" premieres this thursday on peacock. edgar ramirez, thank you very much for coming on the show today. >> thank you. >> all right. take care. up next, a look at some of the stories making front page headlines across the country. we'll be right back. front page headlines across the country we'll be right back. -ahh, -here, i'll take that. woo hoo! ensure max protein 30 grams protein, one gram sugar, 25 vitamins and minerals, and nutrients for immune health. (♪♪) michael strahan: support st. jude, and you're helping kids with cancer grow up and be whatever they want to be, like mary browder. man, i need lessons from her.

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time now for a look at the morning papers. in connecticut, "the stanford advocate" reports the cdc is warning of low vaccination rates. and is asking healthcare providers to encourage their

patients to get vaccinated before the end of the holiday season, according to cdc data. just over a third of adults between 18 and 64 have gotten a flu shot. and even fewer have gotten a covid booster. in georgia "the atlanta journal constitution" is highlighting the recent drop in gas prices. according to data from aaa, georgia is one of 29 states where gas prices have fallen below $3 a gallon for the first time since 2021. and in alaska, "the anchorage daily news" is reporting on the explosion of a.i.-generated fake news content on the internet. according to an investigation from news guard, the number of websites hosting false articles created by artificial intelligence has jumped 1,000% in the past seven months. the study notes that a.i. makes it easier and cheaper for just about anyone to create content that appears to be legitimate by

utilizing chatbots, imagemakers and even voice cloners. we'll be following that story. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in just 30 seconds. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in just 30 seconds. hi, i'm ben and i've lost 60 pounds on golo. (guitar music) with other programs i've tried in the past they were unsustainable, just too restrictive. with golo i can enjoy my food and the fear and guilt of eating is gone. right now on "ana cabrera reports," pressure mount f