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conversations from the past month. we begin this morning with a discussion about the potential dangers of a second trump presidency. editor in chief of "the atlantic," jeffrey goldberg, recently joined us to discuss the publication's special issue, which features 24 writers each outlining the threats they say a second trump term would pose to the united states and the world. >> we have a lot of writer at "the atlantic" who spent many years covering different aspects of trump and trumpism, and i wanted just to pull them all together in one, easy to read package. one copy of the print magazine, obviously it's online right now at theatlantic.com. >> mm-hmm. >> i wanted our writers to describe, as best as they could, what would happen in their areas of expertise if trump became

president again. the next trump presidency will be worse. the restraints will be off. there won't be any quote, unquote, adults in the world. mckay coppins has a piece, who will get jobs in the next trump administration, as an example. we have a multiple of pieces. david fromm who has been talking about autocracy, what this would look like. tom nichols. many of the "atlantic" stars of the "morning joe" cinematic universe are in this issue. tom wrote about what would happen to the military should trump be president again. caitlin dickerson on immigration, and on and on and on. i wanted a package. an easy to understand package, like, look, which is what is going to happen. it's not just pure speculation. as you point out, all you have to do is listen to donald trump and the loyalists around donald

trump. he's telling you what's going to happen. he's going to use the power of the justice department to persecute, not prosecute, persecute his enemies. we know what's going to happen to the civil service. we know what's going to happen on immigration. we know that the generals that we count on to be apolitical when they run the military, we know they're in danger and they're going to be replaced by -- i think the technical term would be nutjobs. this is all apparent, and so i wanted to put it one place early. with any luck, you know, at christmas, maybe people could read it and bring it to their relatives who are on the fence and say, "look, here's what's going to happen. do you want this, or do you not want this?" it's very simple. again, let me just say, because this is really important, this is not partisan, right? this is not about republican ideas, conservative ideas versus liberal or democratic ideas. this is about standing up for democracy.

this is not about republican ideology. this is about trump's predisposition toward autocracy. >> well, and it is thing is, you look at anne applebaum, a conservative. tom nichols, a conservative. you go down the list, mckay coppins. there are so many of these people whether probably voted republican in the majority of their elections throughout their lives. elise jordan, i would guess you'd be one of those, as well, like me. when you look at a potential republican nominee talking about terminating the constitution, arrest political opponents using the justice department, assassinate generals that weren't sufficiently politically loyal to him. saying he was going to take the fcc and bring it into the white house, and he'd decide what

networks were on and what networks were not on. talking, continually talking about trying the leaders of comcast for treason. shutting down this network because, i don't know, doesn't like joy reid. i don't know. maybe it is lawrence o'donnell that irks him. yeah, his answer is, as next president of the united states, i'm going to try them for treason. this is -- again, for me, it is just staggering that people i know, people that i grew up with could still even consider voting for this autocrat. >> joe, i'm glad you went through the litany of authoritarian intentions that donald trump has for a second term because any one of those items just as a standalone is jaw-dropping, unacceptable, and illiberal. put together as a whole, it's so disturbing. it is why this "atlantic" essay

collection is so important. what you see of trump big picture, though, all of these ideas that he's pushing, it's the reasonable outcome of the move into political extremism and how donald trump is trying to radicalize his followers to the extent that he can do pretty much whatever he wants to. so far, he has been pretty successful, in that, you know, there's some polling that suggests that one in five americans, that they are radicalized to the state of an extremist, by the same indicators we would have used when we polled post 9/11, extremism and terrorism in the middle east. it's incredibly scary that so much of the country is being divided in this way for political expediency and for power. that's why it is important for those who do care about democratic institutions to keep speaking out. >> we have learned over the years to take trump at his word and that some of his followers

will do what he says. over the weekend in iowa, he asked for his followers to go into deep blue big cities, philadelphia and the like, and watch the polls, to protect the vote, which sure sounds like voter intimidation to me, jeffrey. so talk to us, if you will, though, there's so many of the guardrails, not just within an administration but within our democracy, within our society, that have fallen away since 2016. trump has plowed through a number of them. yes, the courts in 2020 held, barely, but talk to us about the real threats. if he wins again and assumes power again, what is left to really stop him from being what could be a borderline dictatorship? >> right. in the first term, there were a lot of people in government who held on, right? held on in their jobs. the justice department, the state department, defense department, and so on, right? but in a plausible second term, i think that what you'll see is, a, a direct attack very early on

on the civil service, on the idea of apolitical government service, right? and, b, a lot of people who would gum up efforts by trump and trump's people to subvert democracy will just simply quit in disgust or horror or whatever you want to call it, from places like the justice department and so on. so once -- look, as president of the united states, you are the de facto chief law enforcement officer of the united states, right? you appoint the attorney general. the idea of donald trump under 91 felony counts right now, facing 91 counts at this moment, returning to the role of chief law enforcement officer is absurd, obviously. but here we are. so the number one goal, the first goal before immigration, before everything else, the first goal is to make sure the mechanisms of government can't be used to prosecute trump or his allies, right?

it'll be a direct frontal assault on the independence of the justice department and, by extension, the independence of the judicial process. >> yeah. >> you know, there's not a lot to do when you have somebody who is autocratically minded. again, remember, this is the key difference, this is not going to be a situation where, as in the first round, he brought in people like jim mattis, rex tillerson, john kelly, and so on, the adults. no more adults, right? they're starting with stephen miller, could wind up being the chief of staff of the white house. we don't know. so the point is, they have been working for years to plot their revenge. that's what david fromm's piece in this issue, it's about the revenge presidency. that's what this is. up next, staff writer for

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♪ run, run, rudorph ♪ staff writer for "the atlantic," anne applebaum. her piece, outlining the dangers of a potential second term for donald trump is titled "trump will abandon nato." thanks so much for being with us. "the new york times" lead written by charlie savage,

jonathan swan, and maggie haberman, it is much like a piece that "the washington post" has recently written, and also what's happening with "the atlantic" this month. you, jeffrey goldberg, so many others, writing about the dangers of a second trump term. again, this is all lifted straight from, i believe it was your book in 2017. it appears your warnings are taking shape in the form of donald trump's plans for a second term. >> i think people are suddenly realizing trump is likely to be the republican candidate, and they're also realizing just about now that he is running on an explicitly anti-constitutional platform. he's running as someone who would overthrow the constitution, who would undermine it, who would, you

know, undermine the american civil service, maybe the military. i think that's why you're suddenly seeing so many people writing about it. in fact, you know, your previous item, we're already having a taste of what a trump second term could look like. really, in this irresponsible battle for funding over ukraine. here is an ally we have been supporting bravely for the last, you know, 19 months. they are fighting on the ground. they're undermining the army of one of our important geopolitical rivals, russia. we're, you know, arguing in washington about whether or not to keep helping them? i mean, that's outrageous, but it's a taste of what could happen if trump were to win. in which case, he is very likely to say, "i don't care about europe. i don't care about nato. i'm leaving." >> so, anne, as you studied in your book, as you studied what orban did on the path to power,

as you studied what law and justice party did on the path to power, i don't remember it even being as explicit. >> right. >> their threats against democracy in hungary and poland, even being as explicit as having a presidential candidate promising to terminate the constitution, execute generals that are insufficiently loyal, and ban television news networks that he doesn't like. again, in the campaign phase, this seems far more explicit, far more extreme than even what we saw in orban's rise and the law and justice's rise in poland. >> no, you're absolutely right. i mean, it's true that, in both of those cases, it was the second term. it was the second time of being in power when those political parties and leaders, you know, began to push back against the media, you know, change the constitution, change the courts.

so in that sense, this is a parallel. you're right, this kind of language about, you know, attacking my enemies and describing them as vermin, you know, which is the kind of language that nazis used to describe their enemies and describe jews, you know, this isn't something you heard in central europe. it sounds much more like what you'd hear in russia or in one of the really severe autocracies around the world. it's not even -- it's not even the language of declining democracy elsewhere. >> anne, let's be specific on your piece about donald trump getting out of nato. first of all, how that would work. what does it look like for the united states to get out of nato? and the implications of that, given what we're living through in ukraine, given president biden's efforts to strengthen nato, that's added members, on the cusp of adding another still, getting 800 miles of new border up along russia with its latest member. what would it mean for the united states to withdraw from nato?

what would it mean to the world? >> first of all, it is important to understand what nato is. you know, nato is an alliance based on a pretty open-ended treaty. you know, article 5, famous article 5 of the nato treaty, just says, "an attack on one member will be treated as an attack on all." it doesn't say what you have to do. there's no obligation to do anything. but it has created a psychological effect. the idea is that there is something like collective defense. the united states plus its european allies plus canada would come to one another's aid if attacked. it did happen once after 9/11. there was a declaration of article 5, and nato members came to u.s. aid in afghanistan. also what that means is that if trump were to be president, and if he were simply to say, "i don't believe in collective

defense anymore. i don't care about europe," which he has said, by the way. he said, "i don't give a [ bleep ] about nato" to john bolton. he tried to leave the nato alliance when he were president before. if he were to say that and be backed up by his cabinet members, that's it. the problem of collective defense is gone. there would, of course, be a reaction. you know, the senate would fight back. former military chiefs, there might be political resistance to it. really, all he has to do is say it. if people don't believe he'd go to war for them anymore, why wouldn't russia say, "okay, if that's how it is, then, you know, why should we defend poland" -- sorry, the u.s. isn't going to defend poland if we attack the airports being used to bring in ukrainian aid. it'd simply create the impression that collective defense is gone. by the way, that'd have an impact in taiwan and south

korea, as well. >> this is, again, as anne said, david ignatius, it's not the language of democracy in decline. this is language announcing the death of democracy when you talk about terminating the constitution, executing generals that are insufficiently loyal, banning news networks who you disagree with, and promising to jail political opponents. that's domestically. then internationally, donald trump -- >> this is the part he says out loud, by the way. >> he said this in the first term, giving the green light to vladimir putin, to xi, to kim jong-un. these are the three leaders he respects the most, praises the most. this is a complete reshaping of western style democracy, of

jefferson democracy, madisonian democracy, however you want to do it. again, he's telling us right now, if he is elected, that will come to an end. >> joe, reading the articles that you described, one significant article was robert kagan's in "the washington post" over the weekend. it basically said, "we are on the road to dictatorship." what i found myself asking, what i'd ask my colleague, anne, is what americans, and, in particular, u.s. public officials should do about it. these warnings increasingly are specific and, i think, have to be taken seriously. that was the point of kagan's article. this is coming at us. we either act or we'll live with the consequences. you've thought a lot about this. you're one of the best writers

on these issues of preserving democracy. what would be a list of things you think people should do now to prevent this disaster from happening? >> so there's a range of things depending on who you are. you know, if you're an ordinary person, you can join a civic organization. you can work on behalf of -- either on behalf of a republican candidate who would defeat trump or on behalf of the democratic party. you could involve yourself in local politics. you can -- you know, you can stop treating democracy as if it were sort of something you don't have to think about except once every four years. you can be involved in it every day. but think there are also some more specific things. the republican officials who understand trump, who worked with trump, his cabinet officers, you know, his national security advisors who know exactly how dangerous he is, should, you know, begin to campaign now. they should go around the

country. they should speak as a group. they should say, "here's what the stakes are. here's what this man does." you know, clearly, the republican opposition should unite around one candidate. probably at this point, nikki haley. if nikki haley were to lose, she should think of running as a third-party candidate to split the vote. people need to begin to think seriously, how do we stop this? how do we prevent him from winning? how do we communicate the danger to the american people? >> right. >> of course, jonathan lemire, the problem now for those who want to push back against donald trump, in the republican primary, a split field. nikki haley, who is on the rise, but you have chris christie facing increasing pressure to get out of the race, to try to stop donald trump. of course, ron desantis, whose campaign has been seen lagging badly, also not facing as much pressure, but a one-on-one

between nikki haley and donald trump is actually something that donald trump fears the most. i will say it, nikki haley nomination is something democrats fear the most. they do not want to run against nikki haley. so how does the white house sort through all of this? >> the timing of this conversation is such where the next republican debate is tomorrow night. just four republicans left on that stage. these debates have seemed irrelevant because of how far ahead trump is in the polls, but i think we should be watching christie and ramaswamy. they're in sort of a second tier. it's really about desantis and haley tomorrow night. can one really wound the other, where one, therefore, and right now haley would be the person with the momentum, would surge forward and become the clear trump alternative? maybe the field would begin to winnow. desantis is not going to get out before iowa and new hampshire, but it's been noted, the primary calendar for republicans, there's about a month between new hampshire and south carolina.

that might be the time where we see the field shrink to just trump and one other opponent. maybe it's haley. maybe that crystallizes the chance. that might be the republican party's best chance to move away from trump. right now, these are wish casting. he is a massive, massive lead, and it seems far more likely, to anne's point just now, that even if haley were to be defeated and trump were to be the nominee, she wouldn't challenge him as a third-party candidate. she'd get in line behind him and maybe try to become his vice president. >> right, exactly. that's the problem there. the only one who is criticizing him full on is chris christie. "the atlantic's" anne applebaum, thank you very much. her piece part of the magazine's special issue on a potential trump second term is online now. still ahead, we continue leafing through the special issue of "the atlantic." david fromm will explain why

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welcome back to "morning joe." with the 2024 election less than a year away, many are beginning to predict the consequences of a second trump administration. staff writer at "the atlantic" david frum joined us to discuss his recent piece which sounds the alarm on trump's blatant disregard for the rule of law. david's piece is entitled "the

danger ahead." in it, you write in part this, david. quote, "the he wins the election, trump will commit the first crime of his second term at noon on inauguration day: his oath to defend the constitution of the united states will be a perjury. the president would be an outlaw, or on his way to becoming an outlaw, for his own survival. he would have to destroy the rule of law. if trump is defeated, the united states can proceed in its familiar, imperfect way to deal with the many big problems of our time. stopping trump would not represent progress on any of those agenda items. but stopping trump would preserve the possibility of progress, by keeping alive the constitutional democratic structure of the united states. a second trump presidency, however, is the kind of shock that would overwhelm all other issues. it would mark the turn onto a

dark path. one of these rips between before and after that a society can never reverse. even if the harm is contained, it can never be fully undone. as the harm of january 6th, 2021, can never be undone. the long tradition of peaceful transitions of power was broken that day. though the transition by violence was defeated, the violence itself was not expunged. the schemes and plots of a second trump term may be defeated, too, yet, every future would-be dictator will know, a president can attempt a coup, and if stopped, can still return to office to try again." david, the dangers are so many to those of us who truly understand where this is going. i think that's half the problem.

because there's normalization happening, which is one way on the road to autocracy and fascism, but the other is overwhelming the society with information, with lies, with disinformation, with so much. we have tv networks and podcasts and even so-called news networks that help inflame this fire hose of falsehoods, that between normalization and overwhelming a society is the danger you're talking about. >> well, let's think about that moment on noon of inauguration day 2025. suppose donald trump is the person taking the oath. at that point, donald trump will be at the center of four criminal indictments, two federal and two state. he may already be on trial. he may already have been convicted. there is nothing that stops a convicted person from being elected president. in the state of new york, he'll have a civil trial to dissolve all his companies for their

crimes. so what does he do when he finishes his inaugural address and goes back to the white house at 12:05 or 12:10, skips the parade, he's bored? his very first priority is going to be to bust up the legal system of the united states. if he doesn't, he probably goes to prison. so that's priority one, wrecking the legal system of the united states. richard nixon lost the presidency because he was accused because evidence emerged he tried to use the power of the united states to stop a criminal investigation. nixon had done that secretly. we only knew about it because of the smoking gun tape. donald trump is going to do it in public. that's what he does when he goes to the office. he is anticipating there will be protest, so his second plan is to send the military a bunch of illegal orders, to use its force to suppress dissent in american cities, which is not something the military is designed to do, not something the military will want to do. he'll confront the military almost immediately with the question, "do we obey the orders of the president or these orders

illegal?" >> we don't have to wonder about what donald trump will do. this isn't 2016, maybe he'll be the wrecker like we've seen on "apprentice." now, there's no mark milley, general mattis, people who stand in the void to prevent donald trump from doing his worse. those people are gone and won't be back in a second term. as david pointed out, donald trump is telling us exactly who he is going to be, what president he will be. by the way, if you watch his rallies, there's no talk about policy, about getting things better for people and changing their lives. it's all about retribution. >> he is saying out loud, as loud as he can, as often as he can, exactly what he is going to do. i think many of us are caught up on things that are totally immaterial to the threat of the whole democratic process.

that donald trump is not only going to do but criminalize by pardoning himself and possibly others of real crimes. i think it was chris christie that said, accurately, he may be convicted before the election. he'd be the first american president, if convicted of a felony by then, that couldn't even vote for himself. i mean, we're running around the country telling young people, "register to vote. you need to come out," but we're going to elect somebody who couldn't vote because of a criminal record. i mean, we are really at a cross section of whether we're going to be for democracy or autocracy or dictatorship. i think david and the extensive things they've done in "the atlantic," as i've been reading it, is very important. i mean, it's almost stuff you want to pass out in church on sunday morning. >> david, let's do the hypothetical, that trump wins again. we assume in this case, if he is

a republican, won the white house, republicans probably capture at least one house of congress, as well. we know that he has said, and the heritage foundation is already hard at work at repop repopulating the federal government with those loyal to him. the supreme court is deeply conservative, and he appointed three of those justices. what guardrails, what barriers actually would remain? how could he be slowed down in the second term? >> i don't think we get any of those things he so-called wants to do. his administration will be a chaos. one of the very first things, we're talking about day one or two, he is either going to try to fire much of the justice department, or he is going to try to pardon himself. you don't have to wait for a conviction to be pardoned. you can pardon somebody in the middle of a proceeding. gerald ford pardoned nixon before he was charged with anything. donald trump will be thinking about pardoning himself. think about what that means. if a president can pardon himself for a crime, that means the president can walk into the bedroom of the white house -- of a federal crime -- shoot the

first lady dead and pardon himself. or write the pardon in advance, then shoot the president dead. it means the vice president can shoot the president dead, pardon himself since the president is today, and then not face criminal liability. none of that can be true. that's crazy. that's the logic of self-pardoning. the president can commit murder in the white house. people will be in the streets. congress will be in an uproar. nothing will get done. the military will have illegal orders. nothing will be done. american's adversaries are confronting a venezuelan army mobilizing to invade another country. we have crisis in the middle east. not only in israel but maybe iran. the enemies of the united states are gathering. in the united states, we'll be paralyzed because there will be people in the streets. the president will be claiming he is immune from the law. the military will be sifting every order to the general counsel to say, "can we do this one, or is this illegal?"

we'll have a breakdown in the authority structure of the united states. meanwhile, if the democrats do have one of the houses of congress, we'll have an instant impeachment crisis. what we're looking at here, i wrote an article in 2017 predicting the first trump term would put us on the path to autocracy. this time, i'm predicting a second trump term takes us on the path to chaos, breakdown of authority, weakening of the presidency, and predation by america's foreign enemies. >> all right. on that note, "the atlantic's" david frum, thank you very much. very well said and frightening as hell. his new piece, part of the magazine's special issue on a potential trump second term, is online now. it is worth the read if you care about this country. up next, "the atlantic's" frank foer will join us for his piece outlining the corruption we could see in a second trump term. that's ahead on "morning joe."

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i want to be very, very clear on this. to be clear, do you in any way have any plans whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people? >> you mean like they're using right now? [ laughter ] so in the history of our

country, what's happened to us, again, has never happened before. over nonsense, over nothing, made-up charges. i often say, al capone, he was one of the greatest of all time if you like criminals, he was a mob boss, the likes of which -- scarface, they call him. he got indicted once. i was indicted four times. >> i want to go back to this one issue, though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. under no circumstances, you are promising america tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody? >> except for day one. >> except for? >> except for day one. >> meaning? >> i want to close the border, and i want to drill, drill, drill. >> that's not retribution. >> i'm going to be -- i'm going to be -- you know, we love this guy. he says, "you're not going to be a dictator, are you?" i say, "no, no, other than day

one." >> we talked about this. remember the answer? we talked about it, donald trump doesn't do it. previous interview, said, "you didn't take thedocuments, did you?" he says, "i did." hannity drops his head. if you don't think this will all happen day one, you have a bridge across the river for you here. we have the dangers of a potential second term. >> willie, think about it, if any other politician in american history were asked the question, "are you going to be a dictator?" "no." donald trump never answered it. he never answered it. >> no. >> when he said -- and i just want -- there is a sickness. there is a sickness among, unfortunately, some of our fellow americans regarding authoritarianism and

totalitarianism. they want it. willie, when he promised he'd be a dictator on week one, he got applause. >> that's on fox news. >> even before -- >> there's a lot of people watching who are right on board. >> even before he'd talk, even before he talked about the border, which majority of americans would support closing the border today, probably an overwhelming majority, are drilling. by the way, stupid thing to say, "drill, drill, drill." stupid thing to say. you can tell he doesn't read the newspapers. the people applauding that don't even read the newspapers. u.s. oil production, record highs. we are drilling more and producing more oil, whether you like it or not, we are drilling more oil now than the saudis, getting more oil out of the ground than the saudis, getting

more oil out of the ground than russia. what are you going to drill, your teeth? we're already doing it. that just shows, willie, how stupid he is. i have to say, people who applaud "drill, drill, drill," how stupid they are. that's what we're doing right now. in fact, like, biden's administration -- i know a lot of people on the left aren't going to like this -- they're presidency is seeing more oil production than any other presidency in u.s. history. yet, they applaud "drill, drill, drill." >> they also could be victims of a cultlike personality. >> well, listen, this is -- >> by the way, it's not good for america. >> this is a personality cult. >> yes. >> it is very bad for america. make no mistake of it, a large chunk of those people in the audience cheering when donald trump said, "i'll be a dictator on day one," well, they want

that. >> look at the polling. this race is going to be close, right down to the end, because of the applause you heard in that room last night. let's talk more about this with staff writer at "the atlantic," frank foer. he's one of the contributors on the special issue of the threats a second trump term would pose. his piece is titled, "corruption unbound." yesterday, frank, we were talking about some of the foreign policy stuff with david frum about a potential withdrawal from nato and the implications of that. what are you writing about this morning? which corruption specifically? >> right. if you go back and look at the first trump term, there was a great deal of corruption. you had cabinet secretaries traveling on private jets. you had paid for by people who were administering. you had all sorts of people who wanted to change policy, paying the trump resorts and hotels enormous sums of money, with the hopes that that, too, would change policy. we also saw the way the first

trump term, trump tried to use the regulatory state to punish enemies. well, that was all just a dry run. everybody figured out the way that the system works. if the first trump term was what was described as malevolence tempered by incompetence, the second term is all the experience that was gleaned. there is know-how now. there is a term that the hungarians have to describe what emerged there under viktor orban, which was that a mafia state emerged. so if the trump officials come in, clear out the deep state, and install their cronies in power, those cronies have no allegiance to higher norms or values, they'll all be susceptible to corruption. the way the system works is, you start to have this corruption that emerges at the center and is protected by all of these foot soldiers who are also profiting along the way. >> frank, i want to highlight

another line from president biden at one of the fundraisers in boston last night talking about trump, saying he didn't show up at my inauguration, which i can't say was a disappointment. he added, "my guess is, he won't show up at my next inauguration either." a confident joe biden there, one that democrats, of course, cheer, but polls suggest this is a tight race, to willie's point. on the idea of political corruption, were trump to get the second term, talk about how he could also enrich himself even further, family members, staffers, loyalists, and doing so at the expense of civil servants, career professionals, and the american taxpayer. >> well, we saw the way in which his family clearly enriched themselves along the way. on the way out the door, got paid billions of dollars by foreign governments. you saw the way, in the first trump term, where foreign governments that wanted to manipulate trump spent money.

an entity in qatar bought a building for $6 million. trump never disentangled himself from the network of business interests, so it becomes this ripe target that governments around the world, that interests in the united states all know that they can spend money on, invest in, with the hopes of changing policy here. that is the very definition of corruption. >> frank, it's sam stein. you paint a pleasant picture of civil society for us. i really appreciate it. i guess my question is, why don't people -- i mean, you look at these polls and really mention that it is going to be a close race regardless, but at this juncture, it is fair to say trump is probably the favorite to win. i guess, why do people not find these issues, why don't they find them persuasive? why don't they see political salience in the issues?

why do people seem drawn to what trump is overtly talking about, day one dictatorships? >> first of all, one of the things that happened during the first trump term was that a at the beginning, it wasn't clear how much corruption his own party would tolerate. over time, norms shifted. his party was willing to forgive whatever corruption happened on his side. corruption simply was a bludgeon you could use to wield against democrats but never against your own team. your own team was never corrupt. so you have the way it's become a polarized issue. in the end, the democracy questions will be the most powerful quiver in joe biden's bow. in 2022, he framed that election as a binary choice between himself and trump style authoritarianism with abortion being one of the primary illustrations of that.

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♪♪ good morning. welcome to "morning joe." we're on tape today for christmas, and we have for you some of the best discussions from the past month. we begin this hour with the

major strife in this country sparked by the israel-hamas war. much of it driven by social media, which allows pretty much anyone to share any thought on any topic at any time. but comedian bill maher argues that most people, including those who lead major companies, shouldn't say anything at all. >> among the worst things that social media ever did was it made everyone feel they had to weigh in on every controversial issue or breaking news story, and that's my job. in the olden days, people would watch the evening news, and then, well, nothing. they went on with their lives. but, today, everybody has to share their theory on everything. has anyone noticed the more time everyone spends telling everyone else their political position on anything, the more we've been at each other's throats? here's a trend i would love to see on twitter.

no opinion. this is unsustainable. it's unsustainable. to politicize everything means we're always fighting because we don't agree and never will. most people don't want to be forced to say anything. kylie jenner posted, "we stand with the people of israel" and then deleted it, which is the opposite of standing with. [ applause ] one executive who was interviewed about the pressure companies have felt to make a statement about the hamas war said, "we're not historians. a lot of us didn't understand the issue very well, didn't understand the history." exactly! i bet you still don't, so why not just shut the [ bleep ] up. >> okay, that's definitely very much one way of putting it. our next guest is making a similar argument. political columnist for "new york" magazine, jonathan chait joins us now. his piece entitled, "just stop

making official statements about the news." in it, jonathan, you write this, "a significant portion of the domestic strife we are currently experiencing is completely avoidable. it is a product of the newfound expectation that institutions will issue statements about national and world events. the solution is to simply stop making such statements. if we expect schools and towns and businesses to muster a clear position that everyone can agree on, we are setting them up for anger and betrayal. the most obvious step leaders of our institutions can take is to stop trying to settle our moral beliefs and, instead, establish rules of the road that let people peacefully co-exist with their disagreements." you know, jonathan, it seems this would be a great approach to take for campuses, for educational institutions, where

you're supposed to express ideas and exchange ideas and learn to debate ideas and learn more about each other and how we think and our outlook by communicating. >> that's exactly right. campuses are the number one place where there's agitation around the expectation that the university is going to have a position. what they're fighting over is what is going to be the official stance of this university? it's also, you know, this business or this town or whatever other organization, about the conflict. i think it all goes back in some ways to 2020 because you had such a clear-cut case with derek chauvin murdering george floyd. the people thought, okay, since we have such obvious moral clarity in this example, we can set the precedent of making an official statement that we're against murdering innocent

people or against racism. now, we can apply this moral clarity to other issues. in most issues, there isn't moral clarity. you had an extraordinary case that set a bad precedent that just doesn't work for most things. >> jonathan, what do you do about companies who, since 2020, and in many cases before that, have said, "well, we actually now have a responsibility to listen to our employees, or if a university, listen to our students who demand we step forward and say something about this, who demand we take a position." in some cases in college, you can say, "we're going to be the adult and you can't do what you're doing on our campus. we're not going to have a statement about this story." there is a new social wokeness or activism, or a feeling your employees matter and you have to say something that reflects the way they feel. >> i mean, i think there is a disconnect between what -- the

problem you identify is and the solution. you're right, they should listen to their employees. that doesn't mean they need to say what their employees say. listening doesn't mean giving them unqualified agreement. employees can say whatever they want, but the organization -- and students can say whatever they want, but the organization doesn't need to take sides. there are going to be people within these schools and within these businesses and within these towns who disagree with each other. you're just creating unnecessary strife to settle it and say, "this group of students and employees is right, and that group of students and employees is wrong." you can't have a stable organization where you are expected to take sides between people who disagree with each other. >> jonathan, i totally agree with what you've written, and i'm looking now at the front page of "the new york post," the paper of record. cinthia nixon is on the cover. she's protesting, calling for a permanent cease-fire now. what do we do about people like

cinthia nixon -- and there are a lot of people just like cinthia nixon, not just celebrities. they're on college campuses -- who act as if they're recent graduates of the national war college and they know how to conduct the war? >> well, that's kind of a different issue. she's absolutely free to protest. that's the correct way that people should carry out their point of view. they should personally speak out. they should represent their own opinion. what they shouldn't do is expect the institution they work for to endorse their point of view pause that is unfair to the people who disagree with them at their own organization. settle this through traditional free speech ways, not expecting the institution to come in and come down with a position that represents everyone, because that's almost always impossible. >> jonathan, eugene daniels. great, really interesting piece here. i'm curious, if you think we might be too far down the road

of where we are right now. younger generations, my siblings and younger cousins, they want to hear more from folks with a platform, especially people with actual power, universities, big businesses, because they say -- and curious what you think about this -- whether or not the silence from these organizations only breeds and lets the status quo to grow, right? black and brown people, younger people, people without power and money don't have the same access to influence, unless these organizations take a stand and try to change some policy here. >> yeah, i agree we're too far down the road. that's why i think we need to go back. i think leveraging the power of the organizations is not the way social change is supposed to work. again, these organizations are supposed to be responsive to everyone who works with. so you don't -- you can't have a healthy equilibrium where these organizations just respond to the loudest people in their --

within the loudest group of students, the loudest group of employees and say, "okay, they're angry, so we'll take the position that they're right and the other employees who don't agree with them don't matter." that's not fair to the other employees. that's just not how it is supposed to work. protest has a different dynamic. protest enables people who are passionate to go out in public and make their case. that's how you do it. those people go to the public. you don't leverage your voice within the organization and conscript the organization to disempower people who disagree with you in your community. >> "new york" magazine's jonathan chait with the piece of the week. thank you so much. that generates a great conversation that we all need to continue to have. thanks. "politico's" eugene daniels, thank you, as well. up next, the warning from a group of conserative lawyers, that the possibility of a second donald trump term could pose a

constitutional crisis. that's still ahead on "morning joe."

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♪♪ welcome back. a group of conservative lawyers are forming a new institution to fight back against donald trump and his allies' repeated attacks on american democracy.

the society for the rule of law institute plans to, quote, bring sanity back to conservative lawyering and jurisprudence. retired judge. michael luttig who served on the count of appeals now serves on the board of the newly formed organization. he joined us to emphasize the need for lawyers across the political spectrum to come together and protect the rule of law. >> good morning. i want to get into your piece, explaining the need for this new organization in an opinion piece for "the new york times" that you co-wrote with fellow board members, george conway and barbara comstock. the piece is, "the trump threat is growing. lawyers must rise to meet this moment." you wrote, "should mr. trump return to the white house, he will arrive with lawyers and advisors who are determined no

to be thwarted again. the federalist society failed to respond in this period of crisis." you continue, "more alarming is the growing crowd of grifters and conmen willing to subvert the constitution for the political expediency. the conservative republican lawyers are increasingly becoming the new normal. for a group of lawyers sworn to uphold the constitution, this is an indictment of the nation's legal profession. any legal movement that could foment a constitutional abdication and subtract those willing to fight for the causes is heading to a reckoning. the constitution and the rule of law incentivizes and promotes the lawyers prepared to do the same." there was a time not long ago, judge luttig, where everybody you wrote would seem obvious, so

obvious you wouldn't have to write it in "the new york times" or proclaim these things. here we are. this gets to one of the major concerns of the next trump administration, that the guardrails would be gone, the people that understand how washington works and, in fact, respect the constitution at a very baseline level would not be around, and it would look more like the crew that was around donald trump after the election in 2020, leading up to january 6th. what are your specific concerns here? >> well, thank you for having me on with you this morning. for reasons we all know, reasons that are entirely related to the former president's effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his conduct and behavior in the three years since then, the causes of our times are america's democracy and the rule of law. as we say in our essay in "the new york times," these are righteous causes, to be sure.

for years now, our democracy and rule of law have been under malicious attack. frankly, by the former president and his republican allies. today, as a consequence, american democracy and the rule of law are in peril. it would be fair to say, i think, that, today, these foundational pillars of our society are faltering under the weight of these malignant attacks. the legal profession, though, is uniquely positioned and obligated, obligated to defend our democracy and the rule of law. we in the legal profession take an oath to support and defend the constitution and the rule of law. we at the new society for the rule of law don't believe that the legal profession has

acquitted itself well over the past years when our democracy and our rule of law have been under attack. as a result, we decided it's time for a new legal movement generally, but, in particular, a new conservative legal movement that will preserve, protect, and defend american's democracy, the constitution, and the rule of law in the years ahead. we believe that lawyers are obligated to take positions on the issues of our democracy and the rule of law, and, in particular, the constitutional and other legal excesses of the former president. that's what we intend to do. >> judge luttig, this is an admirable and necessary exercise you're performing here, but what

do we do about, as general kelly, his former chief of staff, raised. general kelly spoke out strongly and articulately in describing the danger to democracy that donald trump presents on a nearly hourly basis. the thought of him going back into the oval office frightened general kelly, a man not frightened by a whole lot. what do we do about the fact that when he speaks, when you speak, seemingly, people just turn the page and move on? what do we do about making it stick? >> well, your question goes to the former president's escalation of his vicious and even violent attacks recently on his political opponents and on the institutions of law and democracy in our country. the intent, the purpose, and effect of these attacks is to

dehumanize the individuals and delegitimize our democratic and legal institutions in the eyes of the american people. all for the purposes of his primary campaign for the republican party nomination, and then his 2024 campaign for the presidency. this is all very conscious, very deliberate of the former president. his maga followers and a large swath of what is now very clearly his republican party admire him for this dehumanization and delegitimization. so he knows what he is doing. he's galvanizing his base through this violent rhetoric. this is what his supporters want to hear. of course, the president, the former president has largely been successful in dehumanizing his opponents and delegitimizing

our institutions, and anyone who disagrees with him on anything. millions of americans no longer believe in american democracy, our elections, and the institutions of our democracy and law. today, we see, to no surprise, that the former president is viciously attacking both the federal and the state courts, and even the individual judges who are presiding over his cases. what do we do about it? there's nothing that we can do other than what we have been doing and are doing, except we need, frankly, republicans to join the chorus that our very democracy and our rule of law in america is in peril. and it's in peril because of the

conduct and the violent political rhetoric of the former president. but, to date, most republicans have stood silent. >> you've led me to my next question, judge luttig, as to what you'd say to those republicans who know better. those who went to the finest law schools, josh hawley, ted cruz, those who know better and know their duty is to the constitution and not a man. even the new speaker of the house, mike johnson, a constitutional lawyer who, he claimed, on a constitutional basis, led the effort to overturn the 2020 election. privately, they'd say they have to do this if they want to get re-elected to stay in power, to stay relevant. what would be your message to republican leadership who have gone along for the ride here? >> i have appealed to them based on their oath of office, to support and defend the constitution. to date, there's no evidence that that appeal has had any

impact whatsoever. but i would continue to do that. then i believe that the political world should put pressure now on the republican party, in particular, and the republican officials that are in office at the moment, to place party beneath the constitution and their oath. that is, put their oath and their country ahead of their party affiliation. as to those who are not in office today, i would appeal to them on their -- to their moral senses of duty and obligation to their country. and ask them to think about and

appreciate the campaign that the former president is now running on to become the next president of the united states. >> the piece is titled "the trump threat is growing, lawyers must rise to meet the moment." you can read it in "the new york times" opinion section. retired federal judge j. luttig, thank you for your time. appreciate it. >> thank you. he starred alongside robert denero in "about my father." now, sebastian stars in a new dark comedy series, "bookie." the comedy superstar joins us to talk about that when "morning joe" comes right back. g joe" comes right back. in support of indigenous peoples... including funding solar furnaces that convert sunlight... (grandma) come into the warm house (girl) hi grandma! (vo) into household heat. (grandma) [in navajo] are you kids hungry? (vo) doing gets it done. wells fargo, the bank of doing.

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♪♪ what kind of job do i got? nobody pays me. >> what if i make this right with baseball memorabilia? >> guys, i've got babe ruth's autopsy report. >> i'm going to tell ya something i never told a client ever. you shouldn't bet on sports. >> i can't do this anymore, danny. this small-time bookie. >> matter of time before california legalizes sports betting and if and when, what is our edge? >> you extend credit to low-life degenerates? >> i have personal relationships

with my clients. >> oswalds are here. >> that was good. >> throw it like you're going to jail forever. >> that's a look at the new show, "bookie," premiering today on max. the eight-part series follows the life of a bookmaker in l.a., just as california is about to legalize sports betting. joining us now, the star of the show, one of the top selling comedians on the planet, sebastian maniscalco. this year, he's already starred opposite the legendary robert de niro in "about my father," which sebastian co-wrote. he has a 47-city "it ain't right" tour, including two nights up the road from here at madison square garden. great to see you, man. >> nice to see you. >> you're busy when you hear that. 47 nights, you go, what have i done? i heard that, like, am i doing that? yeah, we're excited. excited for the show to come out, launch the tour this week. yeah, i'm bouncing around new york city, talking to everybody

on the planet. >> so this show is great. "bookie" looks really good, out today. people are going to love it. it's you again, like we've seen you a few times now, the irishman, for example, comedy, of course, but you have acting chops, too. the story goes, chuck laurie, one of the co-creaco-creators, in "the irishman," and said, he's good at stand-up, but he can act, too. >> yeah, i met him. i pitched him a show around my life, and he said, "you know, we got this show about a bookie we'd like to do. do you have any interest in that?" i was like, "wow, that's an idea or concept i never really have seen on tv, exploring what a bookie is doing now that legalized gambling is pretty much everywhere." it's interesting where it takes me and my character in los angeles. we go to a bunch of different -- you know, i'm collecting money from a trust fund kid, a housewife, and everybody in

between. >> how do it different now then for a bookie? i can pick up my phone and make the bet. i don't have to meet somebody in a dark alley like i used to all the time. i revealed too much. >> dark alley with a paper bag of money, "here." >> lay the points on the dolphins, yeah. >> i think people like a bookie. some people like a bookie because they want to be off the grid. they don't want to have any trail of maybe them gambling. you know, there's a relationship there with a bookie that you don't have with an iphone. >> you're a busy guy, as we detailed there. you have a lot coming at you. how did you decide this was a part you wanted to play, to invest your time and effort in? >> first, i wanted to do a comedy. i've never done a tv show. i did a pilot six years ago, but i never really did a comedic tv show, single camera. with chuck, who is, you know, a hit maker, and he has north of 1,000 episodes of tv under his belt, i was like, wow, what a great guy to do this with.

i had a great time. we shot in los angeles. i live in l.a., so i got to be at home with my kids. it was really great. i hope i have an opportunity to do it again. it's a funny show. it's dark. i joaned doing it. >> it is a funny show. "bookie," we see sebastian's character juggling everyday life with the unusual day job. >> hey, honey. >> we have a problem. >> go. >> go? i'm not one of your scumbag losers. >> what do you need? >> $1,500. >> i gave you three grand. >> my invisalign. >> i like your snaggletooth. >> anthony's tuition, too. >> when will his father kick in a few bucks? >> he is in a psych ward eating with a spork. >> hey, 703. >> go, 703. >> how is your day going? >> life is a cabaret.

go. >> packers and rams over 52. titans plus 6. dime on each. it's all i got. >> good luck, 703. >> all right. i'm sorry. i'll come by later. >> if you let me open a checking account, i wouldn't have to bother you like this. >> honey, two conditions i gave you before we got married. >> no banks. no musicals. >> i love you. buh-bye. >> juggling a lot, this guy. >> yeah. you know, he has a wife, a stepkid, so a bookie also has another life outside of being a bookie. the connotation when you hear bookie, he's in a darkroom with papers and smoking a cigarette. this character we explore, it's his life outside of being a bookie, as well, which was really interesting. >> you obviously have shown that you can command a stage. you sold out arenas around the world with your stand-up. madison square garden multiple nights and everywhere else in the country. what do you get out of this kind of work that's different?

you don't have the immediate response from the audience, but how is this gratifying in a different way than stand-up? >> this is challenging for me. there is no audience, so sometimes i don't know if it is funny because the validation when i do stand-up, i hear the laughter, and i go, okay, that works. here, it's a getting used to, but i like it. it's a different form of entertainment for me. every day i go on set, i'm learning something new. for me, i'm working with other people. you know, stand-up, you're alone. now, you know, i got co-stars. i have other actors i'm working with, so it's fun. fun to explore. fun to improv a lot. it's nice. it's a nice departure to do this and then go back to stand-up. i appreciate stand-up more. >> we were watching some of the clips. people are going to say, was that charlie sheen? yeah, back with chuck

lorre after their break-up on "two and a half men." >> he was really nice, kind of quiet, shy, humble, a professional. we ran lines, and, you know, i'm 50 and i can't remember anything anymore. you know, i have to read these scripts over and over again. i was asking people, "you want to run lines?" so i know i have it. he was great, a professional. i never met him prior to this. he is in two episodes. he plays himself. it's great. >> the last time i talked to you about a year ago, you were on the cusp of your movie coming out where you're playing with de niro, who was playing your father. you said, i can't believe this. i actually didn't think he'd say yes. he said yes. you tell the story about your dad going down and spending some time with de niro for a few days. do you still pinch yourself at the fact you got a 47-night tour that will sell out arenas around

the country, and you and de niro are acting in scenes together? >> i was on an airplane, and somebody was watching "about my father" in front of me. i've never had a movie on an airplane before. i tapped the woman on the shoulder and said, "is that a good movie?" she's like, "yeah, it's all right." nothing. then she turned around again, "it's about, you know, a son and a father. want to visit a rich family." i go, "you know i'm in the movie, right?" she goes, "that's you?" it's the story of my career, you know? i'm in a movie with de niro, and the woman on the airplane in front of me doesn't know i'm in it and she's talking to me. yeah, it's crazy. listen, i got in this business to do stand-up comedy, and it's taken me places i never thought it'd take me. >> we can't wait to see you back out on the road with the next tour. congratulations on the show. the first two episodes of

"bookie" are available now to stream on max. catch new episodes every thursday. sebastian maniscalco, man, you're the best. great to see you. congrats. >> thanks for having me. up next, the remarkable, underappreciated people who broke the rules and changed the world. we'll explain that ahead.

♪ merry christmas ♪ my name is shorty harris. don't bother to applaud. i'm here strictly for the cash. ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and those of you who aren't too sure, um, you are about to witness what is almost certainly the world's greatest

demonstration of -- >> venn. >> that was a pioneer who broke ground in her field as a transgender performer in the mid to late 20s century. despite her success and critical acclaim, rogers never received an obituary in the paper of record, the new york times, when she passed away. "overlooked," remarkable, unappreciated people who broke the rules and changed the world. joining us now is the book's co-author, amy padnani, creator of the paper's coming on the shw

this morning. it's a great idea. where did the concept come from? >> thank you for having me. i joined the obituaries desk in 2017. this book is based on a project i started a year later called "overlooked." basically, we would get these emails from readers, so i credit the readers. they said, "why don't you have more women and people of color in your obituaies pages?" i thought, why don't we? i'd like to see more people like myself, for example, represented. we were seeing largely a slate of men, white men. i set off on this journey to see how we could balance our report. i stumbled upon these fascinating people in history who i learned never got a "new york times" obituary. we published 218 obituaries for mostly women, people of color, people from the lgbtq community,

people with disabilities, and this book contains 66 obituaries of those people, about two dozen of which have never been published before in the newspaper. >> extraordinary, though overlooked in the pages, but people who left an imprint on this nation. tell us about ida b. wells. >> oh, gosh, every journalist, especially every woman journalist, she's just an absolute hero. she pioneered investigative methods of reporting, and she started a campaign against lynching. she risked threats to her own life to publish articles on injustices in her lifetime. we had a front page notice about her wedding in "the new york times," but we had absolutely nothing about her death. >> that is what is striking to me. it'd be unimaginable to me that you wouldn't have ida b. wells' obituary. what is the criteria they were using to decide who gets a

written obituary or not? >> yeah, you know, i can only surmise why all of these people were overlooked. it's still confounding to me. i had a couple thoughts. we didn't always have an obituaries desk, so it would have been up to the national desk, perhaps, other sections to write about these people. maybe it was a busy news day. maybe a person died in obscurity. maybe simply an editor didn't think they were worthy of an obituary at the time. >> i mean -- >> just amazing. >> -- there are names here you just -- really, sylvia plat, allen turing? again, the names are well-known today. it is hard to believe that sylvia plath was overlooked, as well as the guy who broke the nazi code and helped win world war ii for the u.s. and the british.

>> i thought with alan turing, a british phenomenon, and maybe we were u.s. focused. with sylvia plath, she's often referred to as the wife of ted hughes. i don't think she got the recognition in her lifetime that we're aware of today. >> wow. >> one of the big benefits of "overlooked" is now cannot only recount the person's life and achievements but you can see what their impact was in the many decades since their death. these names are extremely surprising, and i think they were worthy of including in this project. there are so many unsung heros, as well, who changed our world that you may never have heard of or -- we have a section called "capturing your imagination." these are people who just did quirky things and we don't even know, you know, what compelled them. annie taylor, the first to go over niagara falls and survive. others didn't make it. people since her, as well. it was her 60th birthday.

>> wow. >> she wanted to get rich quick, actually. it was a get rich quick scheme during the world's fair. she did not get rich, but it is really interesting that she came up with this idea. >> wow. >> what? >> insane. >> okay. the new book "overlooked," we'll have to read it. a celebration of remarkable, underappreciateded people who broke the rules and changed the world. it's out now. amy, thank you very much. turning now to a major impact of climate change. a polar bear invasion is overrunning a small town very far north in canada because there isn't enough ice in their natural habitat. chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson went there to learn more. there is a growing problem in the pole polar bear capital of the world.

a small town in canada is being overrun because there isn't enough ice in their natural has been has been tet. anne thompson went there and joins us now. what did you find out? >> mika, it was absolutely fascinating. we went back to the town of churchill in manatopa to see what changed in a deck raid for the -- decade for the people and polar bears who lived there. it was an easy existence. now, climate change is the root cause why bears and people come into contact. >> reporter: polar bears draw tourists to tiny churchill, canada. here where the forest stops and the tundra starts, they come to see the bears make their annual trek back to hudson bay sea ice to feed on seals. want to know how close you can get? take a look. we're about 12 feet from this polar bear. fine from a protected buggy but

dangerous. >> baby! it's in the backyard. >> reporter: when hungry bears come to town. and when they are spotted, conservation sergeant ian van ness gets the call. >> we're going to be there in about one minute. >> reporter: his polar bear alert team on this day tracking bears at 5:00 a.m. in the town of 900 people. >> judging by the size of the tracks, it's a sub-adult. >> reporter: one of the bears was spotted near our hotel. it was a juvenile. the warning shots woke us up. when they up. when they find one of the bears -- >> we'll ease them to west. >> reporter: they fire shotgun blanks in the air to scare it away. >> it's all about trying to steer that bear in the right direction. >> reporter: by afternoon, it's a day to remember. >> there's been six that have tried to walk in the town today. >> six? >> yes. >> is that an unusually high

number? is that the most in one day? >> today has set the record for this season. >> reporter: government officials say this year, they're seeing more than twice as many bears in up to compared to 2022. on the tundra where the bears belong, polar bear international's jeff york says the lack of sea ice is the problem. >> the longer they're on shore, they'll look for alternative sources of food. >> how hungry are these bears? >> they've been generally fasting for five months. >> reporter: an issue we first saw in 2013. as a result, polar bears, like this mother and cub, they must now spend an extra month on land. ten years later, the risk is even greater. researchers say the polar bear population here in western hudson bay has declined 27% in the last five years. the bears are smaller and this year the sea ice is taking even

longer to form. inside, york shows us what's happening. >> you can see there's really no ice at all. >> if this was normal, how much of hudson bay should be frozen? >> by now, we would see ice coming down into the fox basin and ice forming around the shelf, especially down here into the corner around churchill. >> reporter: increasingly, putting churchill in danger. next year, york hopes to add something called bear dog to detect threatening bears. so jeff, what is this? >> this is the bear dar. >> reporter: but the mayor is just as worried about the other threat, the changing climate. how much dor worry that one day this will no longer be the polar bear capital of the world? >> we think of it at times. we're proud of the fact that this community is pretty

special, that there's no other place like it. so we do our part to make sure that we can continue to co-exist. >> reporter: a town doing its part, hoping the rest of the world does the same. now, the polar bear alert team in churchill is doing a truly amazing job. it has been ten years since a bear mauled a human being, and it's been 40 years since there was a killing. but the longer the ice takes to form, the higher the risk. and this year, the bears were off the ice 164 days, that's more than five months. it's the fifth longest time since 199, mika. >> absolutely incredible. nbc's anne thompson. anne, thank you so much for that report. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." more "morning joe.

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♪ ♪ good morning. welcome to the third hour of this christmas day edition of "morning joe." we hope you're enjoying the holidays. we're on tape this morning with some of our most compelling recent discussions, and we begin this hour with former congresswoman liz cheney, who joined us to discuss her decision to put oath and honor over loyalty to donald trump and the republican party. and how america may be sleepwalking to authoritarianism by electing trump to a second term. >> in our country, we don't swear an oath to an individual or a political party. we take our oath to defend the

united states constitution. and that oath must mean something. tonight, i say this to my republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. there will come a day when donald trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain. as americans, we all have a duty to ensure that what happened on january 6th never happens again. to set aside partisan battles, to stand together, to perpetuate and preserve our great republic. >> that was former congresswoman and vice chair of the house select committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol, liz cheney, with a warning to her own party. since those hearings, we have seen the republican party elect a house speaker who cheney says cannot be counted on to uphold their oath to the constitution. >> and one who actually took the lead in the big lie. >> and back another trump term, even as he touts an extreme and

authoritarian agenda, while facing 91 criminal counts. and liz cheney joins us now. she is a professor of practice at the university of virginia center for politics and author of the new book out today entitled "oath and honor, a memoir and a warning." thank you very much for coming on the show this morning to talk with us. we were all watched, impressed and aghast at your work during the january 6th committee hearings. you know, just to maim a knew things. we've been talking this week about the latest issue of "the atlantic" which is a deep dive into a look at the dangers of a second trump presidency. and we look at trump's own words even now. we could go on for four hours and still have not enough time to talk about the things he says he will do, the things he has said he would do, and has done. so my first question to you,

with so much insight into this, into the republican party, and what is happening to it, why do you think he's still very much the front-runner for the republican nomination, and how much of the reasons you have for that concern you about the future? >> well, first of all, thank you for having me on, and thanks to you guys and to everybody here for the coverage that you have been giving of this issue now for so many years. it really is important and very much appreciated. and you put your finger on what i think is, you know, one of and maybe the most important question politically certainly that we face at this moment. i think they're a combination of things going on. i think first of all, there are millions of people around the country who feel like they, they are not heard by the government who have felt they like don't have a voice, and donald trump has managed to convince them

that he could be their voice. and so i think that reflects a certain program of the republican party. it's not a huge percentage, certainly the people in congress who actually believe what he's saying is very, very small. but he's enabled and appeased and collaborated with by people who know better in leadership in the republican party today. and that's partly what makes him so dangerous. >> right. >> people have been willing to look the other way and go along even though they know that's wrong. >> you know, it once was they would look the other way because, you know, they don't want to lose the base, they don't want to lose their seats in congress. but you write that, you know, even during the trump impeachment time that some members, maybe even many, were scared for their own safety if they would vote toward impeachment. can you tell us more about that, what you heard. >> yeah. i mean, it was, it was

widespread in many instances. people would say it directly, a knowledge that if they did the right thing, if they publicly opposed trump, if they voted for his impeachment for example, that they would be putting themselves and potentially their family at risk. you know, i talk in the book about the vote the first time that the republicans attempted to oust me from my conference chair position where, you know, we prevailed significantly. it was a secret ballot. i suspect if impeachment been a secret ballot, the numbers would have been much more -- many more republicans would have voted in favor of impeachment. now, that's -- the fact that we're living in a situation where you have to think about a secret ballot because people feel they're threatened by violence, that's not a place we've been before in this country. >> congresswoman, what's very

clear read thing book is you knew this effort would cost you your job, that you knew a state like wyoming where donald trump won by 43 points, it would not be popular to stand up to him. as you undertook this fight, did you give any consideration to your political career, your political future? you have a lot of road ahead, senate, maybe higher office. how did you balance those things? clearly you, adam kinsinger and others made that choice when others said no, this job and power is more important to me? >> you know, in a way it's a difficult question to answer, because i never thought about it that way. i was surprised that people did think about it that way. >> that's the only reason i ask, because so many other people did think about it that way. >> right. to me, there was no question about what the constitution required. and so, you know, beginning actually while we were being evacuated from the floor of the house and down the steps into

the tunnels underneath the capitol, i knew then he had to be impeached and removed. he was a clear and present danger. it was obvious that he was not sending help. he was not telling the mob to stop, and each moment that went by, it was just obvious, self-evident that was in another moment of an inpeachable offense. i think that the founders were very clear about trying to ensure that people who were elected, in elected office, swear an oath to the constitution and put something above what they called factionalism, allegiance to a single individual, and i think what we have seen over the last couple of years is how important that really is, how much that really matters, and what we have to demand of our elected officials. >> you publish here the remarks you never got to make on january 6th, where you say this is not a close call. we in congress do not have the

power to overturn the will of the voters. but so many of your colleagues did do that. we mentioned mike johnson, the colonel speaker of the house. he's a constitutional lawyer by trade, practice and by education. yet he led that charge. you say in the book he sent out a caucus-wide email that said donald trump has directed me to get a list effectively to take names, who is signing onto our brief and who is not? and he's going to be very disappointed this those that didn't. can you may more about that and how you responded to it? >> when that email went out, i heard from a number of members as soon as they received the email that -- who were very concerned who said wait, is this a threat that donald trump is going to be looking at this list? of course, mike said no, no, no, he didn't mean it that way. but what he was doing very much with that amicus brief was, first of all, conveying to members that this amicus brief

really doesn't suggest that we understand or that we believe or that we're asserting that there's been fraud. of course, it was doing precisely that. he was convincing members to sign onto something that, you know, through my discussions with him, through -- i enlisted others. i went to kevin mccarthy's senior lead attorney, and she also was similarly concerned and had been talking to mike and saying, this is without basis in the constitution. so it was troubling to see and frankly, it was really disturbing. he was a friend of mine, and i was surprised and sorry to see the path he was willing to go down. >> there's so many vivid se sce in these, when there was a no-confidence vote for you. a caucus meeting. congressman kelly of pennsylvania described his feeling toward you how? >> well, this was in february,

the first time that i was -- that they attempted to oust me. we had a four-hour conference meeting that i presided over where people basically went to microphones and stood up. there were people who were supporting me, people who were very angry with me over the impeachment vote, over the statement that i issued to impeach. there were a number of the men who stood up and expressed frustration and anger with my attitude, frustration and anger with my tone. said that i was just too defiant, that was my problem. but the emotion was running very high, and i think what was one of the most surprising moments of the meeting was the one you mentioned where congressman kelly suggested that, you know, watching me to vote to impeach was like playing in the biggest game of your life and looking up and seeing your girlfriend sitting in the stands of the opposing team. it was a moment where you are standing up there presiding,

what do you say? >> and some of your colleagues did shout, as well. >> right, right. >> who is this guy? i'm sorry, mike kelley? what was mike's position in the caucus? >> he was a member of the conference. >> a member. >> yeah. >> what was your position in the conference? >> well, i was the chair of the conference. >> yeah. so you're -- so can you answer this question? why would the chair be sitting up in the stands while one of 435 would be on the field? what in the world? i don't quite understand that analogy. can you help us? >> i can't really help you, joe. it left me speechless. it was really stunning. >> he's the quarterback in that

analogy to answer that question, joe. >> the book is filled with vivid illustrations of how much power trump wielded over your must be colleagues, including how kevin mccarthy, then speaker, would let him listen in secretly to your weekly misings, leaving some of your colleagues to put lavish praise upon him because they knew he was missing. but that hole still remains. so many of you -- willie listed only you and a few colleagues stood up to him. others have left. mitt romney has announced his retirement. when you look at those still behind him in washington, who do you see that's going to stand up to him? >> well, i think that's exactly the danger that we face, if you think about the future. you know, there have been editorials written saying well, you know, this was in "the wall street journal" a few weeks ago,

if donald trump is elected again, we don't have to worry, because the institutions of our government will prevent the worst he will attempt to do. but nothing could be further from the truth. those republicans, a house with republicans like mike johnson, a senate with people like josh holly and mike lee, they won't stand up to him. the other thing that's really important in this regard is he will not abide by the rulings of the courts. i think people really need to pause and think about what that means. a president who won't enforce court rulings with which he disagrees, as soon as that happens, then people need to recognize immediately, you know, we are unraveling the fundamental structures and systems that make us a nation of laws. and so there won't be any guard rails to stop him. >> so liz, what do you say to people who, who accuse you, me, a lot of us of, of, just

catastrophizing, being hysterical when we bring up the fact that he's talking about terminating the constitution, assassinating generals that disagree with him, taking tv networks off that he disagrees with, jailing immediately those that he opposes, former lawyers that have been insufficiently loyal, what do you -- how do you explain to your friends, your former allies, and other skeptics that this is a decision between democracy and authoritarianism in 2024? >> well, i think that you -- that's exactly what we have to do. i think part of it is remembering that there are certain people that we aren't going to convince. there are going to be people with trump no matter what. but there are more people, republicans, democrats, independents, who we have to make sure they understand he's not a choice, he's not an

option, he's not fit for this office. i think that those are the people who are listening, those are the people we have to mobilize and motivate to stand against the danger that he presents. and i think that the facts matter. there are a lot of people today who i think say well, the truth doesn't matter anymore. for some segment of the population, that's true, it doesn't. but far more people are willing to listen, and i think that because this isn't just us imagining what he would do, it's us saying, take him seriously. he's telling us what he will do every single day he does that. and just remind people they can't think of him as an option when they go in to vote in 2024. >> yeah. i wanted to ask you the next question, i'm going to ask you for counseling advice. i'm wondering how you have dealt with, and how you work through it in the book, the fact that

you, like me, had 95% ratings, acu ratings, that was my lifetime rate, i think yours was around 95, as well. for those uninitiated, that means you're like one of the most conservative members of congress, like i was when i was there. and the very people who we were always trying to pull to make the tough conservative votes but were cowards and wouldn't do the conservative thing, those are now the people who are running around, chanting rino, rino, while they hug a guy who has never been conservative his whole life, donald trump. i'm just curious, how do you deal with the tact that so many people that supported you back in your direct, back in your state, so many people that you knew in church, so many people that you knew and grew up with, who were the foundation of, you

know, your childhood and growing into adulthood, those are the very people who have forgotten everything they taught you. those are the very people who have forgotten everything about what they said that mattered about what you want to teach your kids to do, what limited government should look like. how -- how do you work through that still? >> umm, you know, i think it's certainly painful in many cases to think about people that you thought you knew, people you thought you had taken sort of a judgment of their character and decided certainly that the people -- these were people that you thought were honorable. and to see that they aren't is very difficult. i do think, though, part of it is understanding and recognizing that there are millions of really good people who have been betrayed by donald trump, and recognizing the power that he's

had to prey on their patriotism, but then also understanding that those are not the people that -- the ones that are always going to be with him aren't the ones we have to convince, we have to talk to people across the spectrum about the threat he poses. coming up, more of our conversation with former congresswoman liz cheney and her warnings about the prospect of another trump presidency. p presy . with the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. oh. [dog barks] no it's just a bunny! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪

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i think a continuation of the biden presidency would be a disaster for peace and prosperity at home and abroad. our border is broken. the only person that is going to fix a broken border is donald trump. when he was president, none of this was going on in ukraine. hamas and all these other terrorist groups were afraid of trump. i think liz's hatred of trump is real. i understand why people don't like what he does and says at times, but in terms of actions and results, he was far better president than biden. if we have four more years of this, liz cheney, we won't recognize america and the world will be trowely on fire. >> there's one of the people i knew, i came in with lindsey in 1994. who recognizes lindsay? i mean, he came in and was one of the nine, ten people in the rooms with myself and others

who, you know, fought time and time again to push, to make sure the budget was balanced, and ultimately ran newt out of up to. then lindsey went to the senate and affixed himself to john mccain, then started sucking up to donald trump. john mccain telling me that lindsey couldn't help himself, that he was willing to trade his soul for a round of golf with the president. and that's lindsey. and isn't that, liz, a perfect example of a guy who says he's off the train on january 6th, i'm done. i'm done with him. and then he goes to the reagan airport, and chased by like three people and a hound dog, and he suddenly starts sucking up to this guy again. i know you can't imagine doing that. i, i, i would fear for anybody that was shouting and chasing

you in a reagan airport. but lindsey completely folds. i only bring him up so much because is that not a perfect example of the men in that conference that cowered and sold their political souls for a failed reality tv host? >> certainly it is. i mean, look, i think that you have to say that, you know, since senator mccain's passing, lindsey is having a hard time putting on his own shoes. >> yeah. >> so i feel sorry for lindsey. i think the record is pretty clear about his understanding at one point. look, all of the republicans, almost, in the days just after january 6th understood what had happened. the republicans had a bill they proposed called the commission to investigate the domestic

terror attack on the capitol. so, you know, at the beginning of this, there was no question about what donald trump had done and who was responsible for what had happened. >> yeah. >> liz, can you tell us about the conversations that you had with your father before january 6th? >> yeah. the -- on a number of occasions i talk about it in the book. it's an emotional thing for me, you know, understanding the extent to which my dad has been -- and my mother also -- so fearful and heart broken about what's happening in our party, what's happening in our country. so, you know, time and time again, particularly with respect to things like the letter from the living secretaries of defense, you know, i sought his counsel. i talk to him every day. there were moments where, you

know, listening to him, for example, read the defense secretary letter over the phone to don rumsfeld, and thinking of the history of those two men, whether you agree with the policies or not, they served the country for decades. we were having this discussion about the possibility that the leaders of the department of defense, including secretary of defense chris miller, the acting secretary, you know, the need to warn them publicly against, you know, following an illegal order from donald trump, to warn them there might be criminal liability for them personally if they took some of the steps we were hearing they might take. those were very chilling moments. and then, of course, on january 6th itself, when he called me to tell me that i was in danger, you know, just after donald trump had said that they need to get rid of the liz chainies of the world, they were very

emotional and moving moments, and my commitment, both to my dad, my mom, but also to my kids, to make sure that we stay a country where we have a peaceful transfer of power is really fundamental to what i know is important to do. >> you talk about it in the book sitting across the table from your kids going my god, they may live in this world where that's not a given where there will be a peaceful transfer of power. i'm curious how you assess the future of the republican party. if there's no room for liz cheney, for goodness sakes, or mitt romney, or john mccain is going to be trashed by this current version of the party, if as you write in the book they defy everything that ronald reagan stood for, what is the republican party look like going forward as you see it? >> certainly right now it's abandoned those presence pls. i joined the party during the era of ronald reagan.

today, the party looks much more like a cult of personality, frankly. donald trump is not a conservative. he's not been a republican very long. i talk in the book at one point, i wanted to say -- tweet that i had been a republican longer than donald trump had been spray training. my communications director said no, no, don't do that. but the seriousness of it is, the party has walked away from the constitution. so i don't know if our party can be saved. it may be we need to build a new party. but those issues have to come after this 2024 cycle. the focus has to be on making sure we don't return donald trump to the white house. >> which leads, liz, to the question that i know you and a lot of conservatives, a question that i've been troubled by every day, how do you beat trump? how do you beat trump in 2024? what is your advice to

democrats? what's your advice to independents? what's your advice to people running the biden campaign, what do they need to do to beat trump? >> what we have to do to beat trump is be up unified. we have the numbers of people who will not support him, but we cannot get into a situation where people think there are other issues that matter more than this one. and we have plenty of time to debate and to argue about all of those issues we care deeply about. but that is not where we are now. where we are now, we've got to be focused on defeating him. >> congresswoman, i want to revisit the book on january 4th. you were on a phone call with trump lawyers, campaign staffers and surrogates. walk us through what was said this that call, what alarmed you and what did you have to do after this? >> i had been invited to this call. i was on the email list from during the campaign, so i got an

email the day before saying there's going to be this surrogate call to talk about january 6th. i thought i'm going to dial in and listen. as i listened in, it was jason miller and jenna ellis, talking -- it was the first time i had heard in such clear terms what they were planning to do with the fake electors, and making these claims that there were these -- they called them alternate lectors, they were fake electors that vice president pence was going to use to justify stopping the count, either throwing out votes that were legitimate ones or refusing to count. and it was chilling. as soon as i listened to this call, and they walked through these are the plans, they walked through names of members of the house who were on board, including jim jordan and elise stefanik. as soon as the call ended, i ran to the office of the house parliamentarian, who is the

nonpartisan professional expert on the rules of the house to say to him, you know, wait, what do we do if we're in a joint session and the vice president refuses to do his duty and rejects legitimate votes? after that meeting, where it was very informative meeting, because it was clear that there was not much we could do, he said you have to work with the senate on this. so i called mitch mcconnell to say, what is our game plan here if they do this, do we move to adjourn? i learned later there were other people, people in vice president pence's office who were precisely focused on this, but it gave me just a sickening feeling, what do we do if those fake electors are in the mahogany boxes carried into the house chamber, are we going to tas the most serious constitutional crisis since the civil war? >> so much incredible recounting in this book, and as the title says, much a warning. the new book is entitled "oath

and honor, a memoir and a warning." former congresswoman liz cheney, thank you very much for writing the book. thank you for your service, and thanks for coming on this morning. coming up on "morning joe," "saturday night live" cast member keenan thompson is live in studio with his new memoir. hear how he describes his early days on the legendary show, and why he nearly quit. plus, a bit of a reunion. >> either way -- >> it's pronounced phenomenal. what's going on with you today, al? you're usually a very smart person. >> i don't know. i think all this weight fluctuation is messing with my brain. >> kenan thompson joins us, along with the real rev, next. h.

what's up with that? what's up with that? ♪ what's up with that, what's up with that ♪ ♪ what's up, i said what's up,

somebody tell me what is up with that ♪ ♪ if you're down by the rockefeller christmas tree, you best get the hell out my way ♪ >> ted lasso working hard back there. >> ted lasso pumping. >> that is kenan thompson, the man who holds the record as the longest running cast member of "snl," now in his 21st season. he's out with a new memoir that goes in with his time o the show and the time he nearly quit. and he details what life is like off stage, describing himself as a 40 something regular guy and dad of two young girls. his new book is out today. he joins us now. always good to see you. >> good to see you, man. this is a cool environment, all

in 30 rock together. >> yeah. we put you to work doing bits with rev. >> off the top, man. thanks for being cool with that. >> hey, you know me. >> when i say 21 seasons at "snl," what does that mean to you, besides the fact that people love seeing you every saturday night, what does it mean? >> it means a lot. the 21 i grew up with was dominic wilkins. so i just remember that number being very powerful. but honestly, it just feels like a long journey and a very special place. i've been lucky and blessed enough to stay that long and get the job in the first place, you know what i'm saying? it's definitely been a journey, like the best times of my life. it's like my ongoing college. because i didn't finish college. >> we were watching deandre there. do you have sketches for you that are most memorable? do your fans have some they love

the most? >> scared straight is up there. what's up with that for sure. black jeopardy. big papi. >> that's my personal favorite. >> you also, i know about you, as busy as you are upstairs here, you're always doing something. you were doing the show on nbc for a long time, flying back and forth. you have the new "trolls" movie is out, "good burger 2" is out. and now you're writing memoirs. how do you keep yourself so constantly working? >> you just stay busy, try to multitask and keep a lot of things going, because everything kind of schedules itself out. like the book was a five-year process, you know what i mean? and "trolls" was a year and a half and "good burger" we shot

over the summer. so that's a blessing. it makes me seem like i'm a lot busier than i am. but i do like to try to dabble in a bunch of little things. >> what inspired you to write the book, and what are some of the things you wanted to tell? >> i felt like a lot of people do them. a lot of my heros in the game have written books and they have done well. it's like a peek inside to the actual person. a lot of the times i don't really get to be myself, you know what i mean? it's very performtive when you see me on a talk show or actual show. so i thought this might be a good peek into who i really am for people, because it's been like a 30-year career at this point kind of thing. it felt like i had enough to talk about. >> talking about who you really are, i met you 20 years ago. i was running for president and i hosted "saturday night live." we did a skit.

jimmy fallon was still on there, and tracy. we did a skit around this time of year about three wise men going and following the star in the east. >> that's right. >> so i watched you grow back and forth, but what impressed me is what i found grounded you. and i want to know if you cover that in the book. i was rushing through airport one day. a lady stops me, and i said yes, ma'am, and keep going. she says i don't want a selfie, i'm kenan's mother. i almost missed the plane talking to your mother. talk about how you were grounded by your family and your mother that made you kenan. >> as you can see, my mom is a real one. my whole family is like that. i talk about it in the book. two young kids from virginia that took their kids and raised them in atlanta. my whole family that's in virginia, all my cousins, they're real normal people, and that was my whole life growing up until i was 15.

i think that was another advantage was, yes, i was young, but i wasn't too young. i was pretty established in who i was as a person, i guess. so by the time i was 15, i loved my family. i was very close to the experiences i had. i don't come from a whole lot of actors or musicians or anybody like that. i was kind of like the first one to do it, even though my dad sang at church and like in the army and stuff like that, you know what i mean? but nobody knows their names. i'm like the first one to get famous in the family. so it was easy for me to kind of keep it real, because the holidays is what i preferred. lynchburg, virginia, that's my comfort zone. it's a real place. >> we watched a little footage of that sketch you were talking about. the three wise men. rev in the middle. >> and they brought tracy back to do that sketch. >> looking good, rev.

you also now continue the family tradition with your beautiful daughters. >> yes. >> i think the experience a lot of well-known people have is they're just kids, you're just dad. they don't realize what you are doing for a living until they found out you were a voice in "the trolls. " >> i finally got them with "trolls." they discovered "good burger" on their own, because their friends would bring it to them. they're at that age where they know what i do, but they're not impressed. >> it's better that way. >> yeah. it's more so about what's going on this their world. shout out to the girl dads. >> busy man, but dad is the number one job. the new book, "when i was your age" is on sale now. keenan thompson, congratulations on the book. >> thank you very much. good to see y'all. enjoy the morning.

i know you have a lot to discuss. >> two of the three wise men at the table. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." ht backh much more "morning joe." ♪ today, my friend you did it, you did it, you did it... ♪ centrum silver is now clinically shown to support cognitive health in older adults. it's one more step towards taking charge of your health. so every day, you can say, ♪ youuu did it! ♪ with centrum silver. switch to shopify so you can build it better, scale it faster and sell more. much more. take your business to the next stage when you switch to shopify. i got this $1,000 camera for only $41 on dealdash. dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5

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when it comes to writing, poet and civil rights activist, maya angelou said the idea is to write it so it slides to the brain and goes straight to the heart. this may have been in mind when the editors created "black love letters, a collection of letters and original illustrations that bring together a number of influential black figures to write to the people, places, and moments that mean the most to them. joining us now, the book's co-editors, author and political commentator cole brown, writer and illustrator natalie johnson. she's also responsible for the collections of ridge natural illustrations she's written for "know your values. "natalie, i'll start with you. congratulations on this. >> thank you so much. >> well done. tell us about the concept of

this book, what inspired it? >> so "black love letters" was based on a project i started in the spring of 2020 when the world felt like it was on fire. and america was in this deep moment of pain and profound social isolation. i wanted to create something for black people to come together and reflect on our deepest emotion. and so i created this idea for a collection of places and things that meant the most to them. as an illustrator, i responded to each of these letters. it was really a moment to insist on our humanity when everything else was telling us otherwise. >> we should note that one of the authors in here who penned one of these letters is the reverend al sharpton. >> i was very glad to do one of

the letters. my colleague joy reid is in there as well as jonathan capehart. i landed on writing a letter to my grandson, because i realized that growing up an activist i was in a generation that got to see their grandchild. i only have one. i felt the most important love letter i could write was to explain to my grandson what happened before him and what's expected of him. the beauty of the book is that all of us address love from ap a different way.

>> remember the conversation that we had about you writing to your grandson. i have to say as someone who is known for his strength, for you to believe vulnerable in this moment was really powerful for me and, frankly, a conversation i won't soon forget. i think we were trying to capture the breadth of black love. you chose your grandson. other people chose their hometowns. other people chose their grandmothers. it was really different. we're a vast and varied people and we try very much to present that to the world. >> my grandson's name is marcus al, because he'll get angry i didn't call his name.

let me ask you, natalie, what do you hope people who don't know the black experience will come away with after reading this book? i think it comes from a variety of black perspectives. it's not a book just for black people. >> certainly, there's something really universal about it, so fundamentally human about all of these letters that i hope that everyone can find a little piece of themselves in it. but at the same time, i really wanted this project to insist on our humanity, because we see the effects of dehumanizing back people from that moment in 2020 with ahmaud arbery and george floyd. >> you mentioned the breadth of

the subject matter, but tell us who some of the authors are? >> so many. obviously we have the reverend al sharpton, ben crump, famed civil rights attorney. we also have lesser-known writers that needed a platform to substantiate on. finally john legend, who helped us public the book, but he also wrote the forward. >> cole brown and natalie johnson, thank you both very much. great job. congratulations. we'll be right back with another hour of "morning joe." kh another hour of "morning joe."

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we want to say a big thank

you. we couldn't do it without you. we couldn't do it without you. good morning. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe" on this christmas day. we're on tape this hour for the holiday. we begin with a recent conversation about the christian evangelical movement in america and its powerful influence on the rise and staying power of donald trump. >> we're going to protect christianity. i can say that. i don't have to be politically correct. we're going to protect it, you know? i asked jerry and i asked some of the folks, because i hear this is a major theme right here. two corinthians that's the whole ball game. where the spirit of the lord is,

there is liberty. here there is liberty university, but it is so true. is that the one you like? i think that's the one you like. >> it was the mistake heard around the evangelical world. in 2016, donald trump attempted to cite a bible verse following the advice of tony perkins at liberty university. the gaffe led the future president to harbor resentment toward the evangelical community for years, despite being the key voting bloc that propelled him to power. joining us is staff writer from "the atlantic" tim alberta, the author of the new book "the kingdom, the power and the glory." i'm fascinated and frightened by

this issue. tell us about the inspiration for the book. >> thanks for having me. yes. look, i grew up evangelical. my dad was a pastor in the evangelical presbyterian church. i grew up literally physically inside the church. as i grew older, even though my relationship with jesus never changed, i really started to feel my relationship with the church changing and really became disillusioned with evangelical christianity, which was wrapped up in national ideals, political zealotry and

hypocrisy. ultimately, when my dad died, it forced me to reexamine some of this, in part because i had some people basically confronting me at his funeral when i went home to michigan, basically wanting to use his funeral to confront me and argue with me about trump and politics. that was kind of the moment for me when i realized that something had really, really gone wrong here. >> what happened at the funeral? >> as it happens, i had actually just written my first book that was about trump's takeover of the republican party just before my dad died. that was the last time i saw my dad, was when the book came out. i was sort of in the cross hairs of right-wing media at the time, including rush limbaugh. so when i went home, people were coming up to me and saying, hey, rush is ripping you on his show,

what's going on with you? the next day at the eulogy i kind of let people have it a little bit, like what are we doing here, rush limbaugh in the church? is that who we are? i was handed a note after we buried my dad. basically the note from an elder in the church, someone who's a close friend of my dad's since i was a little boy, basically said i was part of the deep state and i was betraying the church, betraying the country and i should beg for forgiveness. i have not begged for forgiveness. i'm trying to reclaim the church's true identity from this sort of hijacked nationalized version we're witnessing now. >> such an extraordinary and terrible moment.

i was lucky enough to receive an early copy. it's great. people should pick it up. it seems trump is such an unlikely fit in this community. he was seen as a means to an end, that they were able to get what he wanted. explain his persistence as being their choice despite all that we know he has done since taking office. >> in 2015, early 2016, trump was the last choice of all these white evangelical voters. even after he clenched the nomination, there was a tremendous amount of resistance to the point where trump had to go to new york and meet with about 500 major evangelical ministers and he had to have the endorsement of some of the leading evangelical figures to really vouch for him. then he chose mike pence. then he released his supreme

court list. a lot of those voters entered into a transactional relationship with trump where they say, he's not one of us, we know he doesn't share our values, but if we give him our votes, he will bring us these political victories. for a lot of these voters, they truly believe at this point that the end is near, that network as they've known it is under attack, that the country is on its last legs, that the secular leftist government is coming for them and christianity. that sort of creates a permission structure for them to almost rent out trump as a mercenary to fight for them.

it's almost like where george w. bush said to protect the free market, he had to bail out banks. >> there's something else in the corinthians. the former president tried to jumble that. that is, evil communications corrupts good manners, which is what we see from the former president. you're getting at christian nationalism. i read the piece in "the atlantic" about it that ended that the pastor who took over for your father who was trying to fight the takeover in the church, you asked him what's happened to evangelicals in america. he said, they love america too

much. >> christian nationalism is a loaded term. it means different things to different people. i think clarifying in this context what the definition is, is helpful. at the end of the day, if you are a follower of jesus christ, you are called to a citizenship in heaven. we are warned as christians through the bible it's not ambiguous, that your identity is rooted in heaven, your identity is rooted following jesus. unfortunately, i think this love of country, which can be healthy to a point, overrealized by christians has merged two kingdoms into one and that is creating this notion that if america falls, so do christians.

when you begin to think of america as almost this covenant nation that god has ordained and blessed us and you are fighting for god by fighting for america, that is christian nationalism and that is what has infected much of the church today. >> growing up in the southern baptist church, the golden rule was it. what would jesus do was the catchphrase for the '90s. that's why i'm reeling a bit at your experience at your own father's funeral being confronted by someone who was a close family friend and someone you had known your whole life. that wasn't the golden rule in practice. that wasn't what would jesus do. i don't think jesus would harass a grieving son.

how has trump changed our basic kindness? >> i think what we have to understand in the context of trump and his relationship with evangelical voters is that, in many ways, one of trump's enduring political legacies will be how he has reconditioned the evangelical expectation of what a political leader should be. for example, when you look at mike pence's presidential campaign floundering the way that it has, i have this memory of a couple of summers ago when donald trump went to the faith and freedom coalition and he lit into mike pence and let him have it in front of a couple of thousand evangelicals, who were mike pence's people.

the crowd went crazy, booing pence, jeering him, cheering for trump. when you look at the collapse of mike pence's political campaign, i was at a rally where he described himself as rush limbaugh on decalf. one of these christian activists came up to me and said, decaf. we need the real thing. trump's enduring legacy with the church, is he has conditioned them to accept a hostility that is, of course, completely abiblical and antithetical to the teachings of christ.

>> one of the things we were talking about earlier in the show is normalization and how some of the worst things that trump says and does are becoming so normalized in american society and in the electorate. but isn't the evangelical community supposed to be the strongest when it comes to their core values as followers of jesus christ? how exactly did this happen? how can they answer to supporting a man that is antithetical to what it means to follow jesus christ? >> i hesitate to try to sound smart or original in a 30-second sound bite when i've spent 500 pages unpacking this.

but the best answer i could try to give you is that at the end of the day, there is a sort of ends justify the means mentality specific to the evangelical world. when you believe that the country is at the abyss and you believe that your way of life, your very identity, that it is in the cross hairs and that you may not have another election in front of you, but this is the end, i think you feel excused in a way. i write at one point in the book how the political system for many evangelicals has come to almost feel like a weekend in las vegas for a suburban dad, which is to say that none of the rules of your ordinary life apply, that it's this self-contained escape where you can go and act differently there than you would in any other walk of life.

what happens is, in this analogy, what happens in vegas doesn't stay in vegas. they are concluding that they want nothing to do with this christianity that they practice. they want nothing do with this christ that they purport to follow. that is the great tragedy in this. c.s. lewis told us we know what a crooked line looks like only because we know what a straight line looks like first. if we can try to get this right and course correct and let the outside world know who jesus really is and what christianity really looks like, i think they'll realize that it bears no resemblance whatsoever to what

we've seen in recent years. >> "the kingdom, the power and the glory" the age of evangelicals in an age of extremism. tim alberta, thank you very much for coming on. thanks for writing this book. >> thank you for having me. coming up, award-winning filmmaker martin scorsese joins us to discuss his new film. e jo us to discuss his new film i p with my doctor, and i'd weighed in at 345 pounds. my doctor prescribed a weight loss drug, but as soon as i stopped taking the drug, i gained all the weight back and then some. that's when i decided to give golo a try. taking the release supplement, i noticed a change within the first week, and each month the weight just kept coming off. with golo, you can keep the weight off. i'm andrea, founder of a

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>> from acclaimed director martin scorsese comes this highly anticipated and highly praised "killers on the flower moon." scosese shines a spotlight on the osage nation in the 1920s, starring leonardo decaprio and lily gladstone. suspicious murders would later shock the nation. let's bring in martin scorsese. thank you very much for being with us today.

we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we had the opportunity to talk before you went to oklahoma. you were talking about this movie you were going to make, but when you got there, between covid and robert de niro's broken leg and a lot of other problems, this had to be a pretty incredible challenge for you to make this movie. and yet, it's just turned out to be a masterpiece. talk about how rewarding this must be. >> obviously it really is. it has taken over six years to pull it together. granted, two of these years i was making "irishmen." to see the result this way is really a blessing. >> you said you wanted to stay as true to the osage history as possible, which meant actually

learning their language. i just want our viewers to see a scene of lily gladstone. she's gossiping to her sisters over the hand some coyote played by leonardo dicaprio. let's take a look. [ speaking in a global language ] >> after seeing the movie, i didn't have to read articles

telling me that you actually had osage actors in there. it was obvious watching that this was so, so natural to everybody. i mean, talk about how important it was for you to get it right, to be authentic. >> authenticity is one thing, but you radical to really live with the osage in a sense. it's all about trust. one of our associate producers was very much involved with the osage community, one on customs, one on culture, one on language, because the osage language, we stamped it out. we destroyed it. very few people know. it's being put back together by the younger generation.

the improvisation, for example, where she says something to leo driving the car and he says i don't know what you said, but it must be indian for "handsome devil." that's the very fun nature of their relationship as actors. >> i wonder why it is that for a lot of americans like me, even though i studied history most of my life, my exposure to it has been through "i buried my heart at wounded knee" and this movie and other pop cultural moments, landmarks. but we don't really teach this history so much. is that one of the reasons you thought this was such an important story to tell? >> new generations have become

inured to this kind of thing. if we do it for the people, if you identify with molly and her sisters and even identify with ernest and bill. how much did he know and when did he know it about what he was doing with her and with bill? this was about marriage and love. the corruption could affect every one of us in a sense. are we capable of such behavior? are we capable of turning a blind eye to injustices around us? >> it's hard to believe that until this book and this movie

we didn't really know their story. we didn't know they were some of the wealthiest people per capita in the world. we didn't know that the story you're telling to the whole world was actually the founding of the fbi. >> that's right. that's a whole other aspect of it. we found that these guys come to town to see who did it. they all did it. our thinking and culture is complicit in something like this. so it's important to just get it out there, talk about it, argue about it, live through it. >> this was a reunion of sorts for de niro and dicaprio.

>> yeah. they're first film together was "this boy's life" in which he played dicaprio's father. it was one of the few times de niro called me and said there's this young actor, you've got to work with him some day. it was almost like a family situation. the newcomer, of course was lily. in a sense, fs like a real family that we created. we had a head start, because leo and bob already played family and know each other so well. >> you can now watch "killers of the flower moon" in theaters world wide. it is extraordinary. what an honor to have you with us today. thank you very much.

>> good to speak to you. still ahead on "morning joe," we're digging into a new book out on ufos. on ufos generalized myasthenia gravis made my life a lot harder. but the picture started changing when i started on vyvgart. ♪♪ vyvgart is for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are anti-achr antibody positive. in a clinical trial, vyvgart significantly improved most participants' ability to do daily activities when added to their current gmg treatment. ♪♪ most participants taking vyvgart also had less muscle weakness. and your vyvgart treatment schedule is designed just for you. in a clinical study, the most common side effects included urinary and respiratory tract infections, and headache. vyvgart may increase the risk of infection.

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there's a whole fleet of

them. >> my gosh. >> they're all going against the wind. the wind is 120 knots west. >> look at that thing! >> it's rotated. >> that was a video released by the department of defense that shows a navy jet crew's encounter with a uap, or unidentified aerial phenomenon. the government has been releasing more photos like this as part of a new office working to detect these sightings and then share information with the public. the new book is entitled "ufo" the u.s. government's search for alien life, here and out there."

congratulations on the book. i want to understand what you've done here. it's broken up into three parts, the saucer age, the space age and the interstellar age. what does that mean, what are you look at, and is there life out there? >> the math is on the side of the aliens. in the 1990's we did not know there was a single other planet outside of our solar system. we now believe effectively every star in the universe has habitable planets, that there are roughly a thousand trillion.

the u.s.'s hunt for ufos dates back to the dawn of the cold war, 1947, roswell sort of incidents people are familiar with. and then the involving astronomy science that shows life is quite common across the universe. >> it does seem like they've been a really sharp increase in people thinking they've seen them. that could be attributable to people having cameras. but also the government has been really more forth coming about these things. >> right. we now see serious people talking seriously about this

subject. john brennan gave this interview where he says basically there's something flying around up there, we don't know what it is and it puzzles me. john bran than was the cia director, white house security advisor. >> what do you think is the most credible sighting or instance that you've come across? >> part of the challenge is ufos are real. all they are is an unidentified flying object. they broadly break down in four categories. we have adversary technology being tested against us. we have a bunch of weird sky clutter flying around up there.

then you end up with the weird categories. i think that is a mix of atmospheric, meteorological and astronomical stuff that we don't understand. i think there's physics that we don't understand yet that are going to reveal some chunk of it. >> with the government becoming more open to talking about the existence of ufos, do you think government will get to the point of trying to explore exactly what these ufos are going back to, what kind of life? when do we start making it real rather than speculate on what it could be. >> that's part of this really interesting shift we've seen,

which is the u.s. government trying to talk a little bit more openly about this. to me, though, there is a government coverup about ufos. it's just not the one most people might think it is. the government, i think, at the end of the day is covering up its ignorance about what this is. john brennan is right that there's weird stuff up there. we don't know what it is. and the government is trying to not tell us that it fundamentally doesn't know. >> if the government was covering it up, trump would just blurt it out. >> of course. do we get closer to knowing by reading this book? >> i think you do. and i think the dawning of what

we are going to discover is going to fundamentally transform the waye think about ourselves and our cosmic consciousness. >> thank you so much. coming up, the "new york times" released its ten best books of 2023. the editor of the book review section will join us to go through the list. join us to go through the list (vo) wells fargo has donated $525 million dollars... (girl) hey mom! is this one really mine? (mom) honey, like i said... you get your own room. (vo) ...to support housing affordability solutions for families across america. when a bank does what it says, more people can find a place to call their own. doing gets it done.

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live picture of san francisco, the sun starting to creep up at 6:49 in the morning. it is an effort that compiles a year's worth of work and spurs heated debates, all in pursuit of determining the standout books of the year. the members of the "new york times" book review are out with their ten best books of 2023. joining us now is gilbert cruz. before we crack this impressive list of books, how do you get together and agree that these are the ten best? >> it's an air-tight process and nobody ever has any argument about the ten books that we pick. we review about 1500 books a

year, which is a lot. it's about 30 books a week. there are about a dozen of us trying to figure out does this rise. the process starts in january, february. does this feel like if we were to arrive at the end of the year, we can say this has a sense of scope and ambition and is there something in here. we have a series of monthly debates that turn into weekly debates. at the end of the year we have a couple votes and democracy remains. >> you say people don't lobby for you because they know you're not going to listen. >> i think publishers know there would be no point. we're never trying to sort of

make a statement about the year. we're trying to say of all the books we read, these are the one we think will stand the test of time. >> how many people are around the table doing this? >> it varies, but about a dozen. >> let's get into the list. "the bee sting" by paul murray. tell us about it. >> it's a book about a family that takes place in ireland right around 2008 when the economy tanking. this family has been riding high on the hog and they're experiencing hard times for the first time. you get really deep into the minds of the teenage boy and the daughter that's about to go to

college. the reason we all fell in love with this book is because the characters are amazing. there are some books that are plot driven. there are some books you read to get information. and there are some books that every time you put it down, you wonder what are the people in the book doing? i cannot wait to find out what's next. >> how about "fire weather" by john valiant? >> this is a nonfiction book. this is essentially a climate change book. the reason this one stood out is sort of the force and energy of the writing. essentially it's about the 2016 wildfires at fort mcmurray, an oil boom town in alberta canada.

in 2016 a giant wildfire swept through the town and destroyed parts of it. there was a giant evacuation, one of the biggest that ever happened in canada at the time. the author intertwines it with the history of climate change science and the history of petroleum extraction in north america. the great irony is that there is this town based on taking oil from the ground and that oil lead to climate change. >> this is an extraordinary true story that i didn't know before this book came out. "master, slave, husband, wife." what is the story of this enslaved couple? >> incredible story. this is a book that came out in

january almost a year ago. it is a book that ran the gauntlet. ellen and william craft in 1848 right around christmas time decided to run away from their masters in georgia and go north. ellen, who was a lighter-skinned woman decided to disguise herself as a rich white man. her husband william played the role of her enslaved servant. they had a four-day trip from georgia all the way up to philadelphia. the author gives this journey such detail and such tension that it just reads like a thriller. that is only the first part of the book. they become involved in the anti-slavery lecture circuits and try to grapple with the fact that the fugitive slave law had just been passed.

it's an amazing tale. this author is able to add all of this context and history and detail. it's very richly told. >> tell us about "north woods". >> this is a wild one. it's sort of a genre-spanning novel based around this plot of land in western massachusetts. it tells the tale of all the people over 300 years that live in this plot of land, which eventually becomes a house and eventually people over 300 years which live in this plot of land, which essentially becomes a house and eventually becomes a run down house, and each part of the book, each person that lives there is almost its own little genera, and it hops around these characters and their vignettes, it's hard to describe but the writing is gorgeous and makes you want to move to a little cabin in the woods in

massachusetts, which maybe is all of our dreams. >> and one more from an author we have all heard of before. zadie smith. >> this is her first historical novel. it's about a scottish housekeeper, her cousin, a real famous novelist and a real trial that happened in england at the time in which a person came out of nowhere and claimed to be a long lost nobleman. it was pretty obvious to everyone that this guy was not a lost nobleman. he didn't have the airs of a fancy person, but the british public becomes invested in the idea that a low born person could be a nobleman. and zadie weaves the stories together, which is very entertaining. if you're an audio book person, she reads the audio book, does all the voices and it's an

incredible experience. >> that's half the list. how good is he at a book report, bang, bang, bang, he's got them all. a great gift buying list for the holidays is the "new york times" best books of 2023, you can find it at nytimes.com. editor of the "new york times" book review gilbert cruz, thank you very much for bringing them to us. good to see you. before we go, we want to give you a look at our very special teams behind the scenes here at "morning joe," a team that gets up way too early every day to make "morning joe" happen. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ why don't we try to make our journey better ♪ ♪ by turning enemies to friends ♪ ♪ christmas time come on be of good cheer ♪ ♪ dream of better years it starts with you starts with me ♪ ♪ we'll start together christmas time lift your voices sing ♪ ♪ christmas time to the newborn king we'll be the ones that made this christmas right ♪ ♪ what good is faith if it can't move a mountain ♪ ♪ what good is love if it can't heal ♪ ♪ a broken world that keeps on

growing colder ♪ ♪ let's make this christmas magic real ♪ ♪ christmas time ♪ ime ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪ what a strange trip we have been on together ♪ ♪ sometimes it seems like it won't end ♪ ♪ why don't we try to make our journey better ♪ ♪ by turning enemies to friends ♪ ♪ christmas time try to wipe away those tears ♪ ♪ christmas time forget about your fears ♪ ♪ make a toast to christmas

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