potential change in -- shift in immigration and border policy. so there is a lot happening in congress that has nothing to do with impeachment, and it'll be interesting to see if the republican majority in the house decides to prioritize impeachment over those other key agenda items. >> all right. grace seagers, we appreciate it as always. congressional reporter for "the new republic," thank you for being with us. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. governor abbott has made it clear he wants to destabilize cities and send thousands of migrants and asylum seekers here to the city. we have to address -- i have to navigate this city out of it. the bottom line is i'm the mayor and it's my responsibility to find a solution even if we're not getting the help that we deserve from washington, d.c.

>> that is new york city mayor eric adams again calling out the republican governor of texas and the biden administration. we'll go through the mayor's executive action to address the busing of migrants from the border as the tension continues to grow between the democratic mayor and the president of the united states. this all comes as secretary of state antony blinken met yesterday with mexico's president to discuss what can be done about the surge of migrants with another caravan moving toward the border. also ahead this morning, nikki haley making headlines this morning for her response to a question about the civil war. it wasn't a hard one. we'll show you that exchange from a campaign stop in new hampshire. plus, another warning about donald trump's plans for a second term. this time coming from ron desantis, one of his opponents for the republican primary. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." i'm willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. with us, host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, and former white house director of communications to president obama, jennifer palmieri.

great to have you both along for the morning. let's get right into it. israeli forces moving forward with their expanded operations in refugee camps in gaza. yesterday, the idf launched new strikes across the region targeting shelters where they believe hamas terrorists are hiding. officials say troops also were fighting in the northern part of the gaza strip, and israel's navy has attacked targets along gaza's coastline. nbc news senior national correspondent jay gray is in tel aviv with more on israel's offensive, but first, nbc first correspondent josh lederman takes us inside what the israeli military says is one of hamas' largest tunnel systems in gaza. >> reporter: ever since this war started, israel has been saying that the hamas move to build tunnels underneath civilian infrastructure in the gaza strip was one of the reasons it is to difficult for israel to conduct this war without potentially putting the lives of civilians in danger, and today we got

a firsthand look inside what is the largest hamas tunnel discovered. it's about 10 feet tall with concrete walls. it's actually able for a car to be driven into it based on the width and the fact that there is a declining slope from the surface of the earth into this tunnel. israel says that this is only about a quarter mile from the israeli border, but that it extends some 2 1/2 miles into gaza toward gaza city. now nbc news cannot independently verify what hamas was using that tunnel for, whether it was used for any military purposes or how recently it was inhabited, but nbc was invited to tour this tunnel by the idf as they are really working to bolster their claims about how hamas in their view has jeopardized the safety of their own civilian population, as israel says that there are hundreds of these types of tunnels throughout the gaza strip.

the israeli government now looking for ways to try to destroy these tunnels even as they say that getting every i thinkle -- single one of them is going to be a difficult task. it is critical that israel be able to root out these tunnels if they're going to be able to accomplish their goal of completely eliminating hamas. >> let's begin on the ground in gaza where the offense is expanding in the central portion of the strip outside of gaza city. the idf now saying it is targeting some of the refugee camps in that area, calling the areas, quote, a new battlefield saying that hamas has mingled in amongst those who have left their homes for an area that they were told would be safe and now must find somewhere else to go, adding to the chaos the panic on the ground there. the fact that there continues to be a communications blackout, so no cell phones, no internet. so that's making it much more

difficult for those trying to find some place where they can be safe. the fighting is very intense and very densely populated, urban areas, and the idf says that they will continue this effort for as long as necessary while continuing air strikes to the north and over the last 24 hours saying that they have indeed killed a senior hamas military leader. they haven't said who at this point, and that they've hit more than 100 targets in that 24-hour time. the hamas-run palestinian health ministry says that more than 250 people have died during that same time period. israel says that they are dealing now with seven other fronts to this war, seven other areas where they are taking and spding to fire and says that everyone who acts against us is a potential target. there's concern not only here in israel, but globally about the regional escalation of fighting

to the north along the lebanon border. we know that the israeli air force carried out a raid in the last 24 hours on what they say are military sites and other infrastructure belonging to hezbollah. let's remember, american troops across the region have been targeted as well. more than 100 times since the middle of october with no expectation that those attacks will ease any time soon. in tel aviv, i'm jay gray. back to you. >> nbc's jay gray and josh lederman reporting for us there from israel. you heard jay mention hezbollah, a member of israel's war cabinet. they're threatening to open a second front along the country's e iranian-backed group has n. been firing since the war began. they struck a greek orthodox group. the israeli defense minister is

warning, quote, if the world and lebanese government don't act in order to prevent the firing, the world will do it. benjamin netanyahu appeared to support that saying either they back off or israel will push it themselves. they say they are in a state of very high readiness. joining us is alex ward and senior correspondent of foreign policy, michael hirsh. good morning, alex, i'll start with you. i'll start with jay. they stopped you in your tracks talking about a six or seven-front war, and as jay also mentioned, american troops i iraq and syria have been targeted. so is this part of what hamas was looking for on october 7th with that heinous attack, was to provoke israel into just this kind of war? >> i'm not sure hamas expected it to be this wide. they were definitely expecting a massive reaction in gaza itself which they have definitely

received. the fact that it has gotten as broad as it has at this point is perhaps beyond hamas' expectations. we should note, of course, that, you know, the houthi attacks which they say are in response to israel's retaliation in gaza, of course, what's going on with hezbollah, all of this is sort of tangentialily around. they haven't broken out in major fighting. there's been deaths and skirmishes, but it's not all out like israel and hamas. that is of course, still a concern and that i think hamas would see a culmination of their heinous attack. >> michael, i guess the question has to be raised. can israel -- is israel capable even with the support of the united states, of fighting a war on six or seven fronts, to the north, in gaza, of course, in some ways in the west bank, and across the region? what would that even look like?

>> it would be very ugly indeed. capable, yes, but the biden administration is rather desperately trying to prevent it from happening, particularly on the northern front with hezbollah because that would truly inflame the region, bring in iran in a much more direct way than iran has been so far, and could go on for years. i mean, the israelis are already warning that this conflict with the palestinians could go on for years. this would be rather a nightmarish turn of events. >> so alex, let's talk about this with the backdrop of the threat of an expanded war. we have had some high-level diplomacy between israel and the biden administration in recent days. a close netanyahu adviser was in d.c., met with secretary of state blinken, met with national security adviser sullivan. this week we also now know secretary blinken heading back to israel in the coming days. tell us what we know now in terms of the latest -- in terms of the impasse. the real difference of opinion

right now between washington and israel as to how the netanyahu administration is conducting this war. >> yeah. i mean, the biggest division here is you have israel saying this war is going to last months, i mean, years as michael noted and then you have the u.s. saying that now is the time to wind down the all-out operations. that now is the time to go after high-value targets, minimize the harm on civilians, minimize, you know, the widespread campaign. i read a report preparing for this, that there were folks in some of the refugee camps that felt that they were the bombardments overnight, and they were as large as sort of the earliest days of this war, and so that is where the big division is. the u.s. is really trying to get israel to wind down operations. it's unclear that that's going to happen. the messaging at least in public, they're completely far apart. so if the efforts of this diplomacy was to get israel to change course, we haven't seen any evidence that's going to happen any time soon. >> michael, while the biden administration is managing its

relationship with israel, it's doing the sameith ukraine. the biden administration announcing more assistance for ukraine yesterday as part of another weapons drawdown from u.s. stockpiles. the $250 million package includes artillery shells, air defee equipment, anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles as well as small arms ammunition. the latest batch of weapons could be the last from u.s. stockpiles unless congress approves new funding for ukraine. so michael, you've gotten the reporting for politico magazine. on the inside discussions between the biden administration and european allies surrounding the war in ukraine, specifically that both are now shifting their focus away from total victory and toward a negotiated path to end the war. so this is something that's been floated now for several months that there isn't probably going to be total victory. in other words ukraine at the end of this may not get back all it has lost during this war. so what is your sense of where those talks are, and how ukraine is feeling about them?

>> well, there aren't any talks yet, nor are there any planned. ukraine in position, that of president zelenskyy, you know, is we're not talking right now, and the only conditions for negotiation would be to start with complete russian withdrawal which of course, is not going to happen. i think what's happening now is an attempt by the united states and europe to set up the ukrainians in a much stronger defensive posture, to make russian advances much more unlikely as we get into what is probably going to be a spring offensive by russia. i think there's a great fear that the russians will bring in their very formidable air force in a way they haven't done so until now as the ukrainians run out of air defense munitions. there's a very quiet push going on to strengthen their hand at any future negotiating table, although there's, you know, a

pretty, i think, good consensus at this point on the part of the united states and the europeans that putin is unlikely to come to the table until he sees who wins the united states, you know, presidential election in november. >> you led me to my next question. negotiation requires somebody on the other side of that table. what is your sense of vladimir putin being willing to come to a negotiated end to this? of course, almost two years ago, you thought he was going to roll his tanks in kyiv and raise the flag over the capital there. that hasn't happened. he's been frustrated by that. would he at some point, maybe after as you say, after the 2024 election, sit down, talk, and have a negotiated end to this war? >> yeah. it's entirely possible. there was a "new york times" report last week which no one really has matched, indicating that putin has signaled through ba channels, a willingness t talk, to keep what he's got, which is approximately 20% of ukrainian territory in the east. there has been no indication of

actual negotiations being planned. a biden administration official told me that he knew of nothing like that. so there is a sense that at some point, putin might be willing to negotiate, and i think that might be particularly true if joe biden wins re-election and donald trump does not get back into the oval office because there's a sense that trump might -- he's indicated he would quickly cut a deal with putin that could leave the ukrainians at a disadvantage. but, you know, i think it's going to be many months, possibly even more, you know, more than a year before we know of any negotiations that might be under way. >> we know who putin's rooting for in the upcoming american election. senior correspondent of foreign policy, michael hirsh, alex ward, thank you both. we appreciate it. so jonathan lemire, we talked about the department of defense giving that last supply of weapons and ammunition to

ukraine. now it comes back when everybody comes back from this holiday break to congress and to whether they are willing to put forth money for ukraine and for israel as well which of course, has been tied up in their demands for something on border security. is the president of the united states who you cover every day -- is he ready to give republicans something on the border in order to keep the support flowing into ukraine and israel? >> he has telegraphed he's willing to do so, but it's an issue of what, and it's pressure among democrats to not give republicans too much. fearful of empowering the chief executive, that when potentially donald trump could take control of the white house again in a year or so, and therefore be equipped to do more on the border. there's also concerns that, you know, from particularly progressive liberal democrats who don't want to see too restrictive policies at the border even though so many do think something needs to be done there, and president biden and the white house, they have largely taken a hands-off

approach to these negotiations, jen, but we have heard from the president saying he's willing to make a deal at the border. he wants to make a deal at the border, and i think it's for two reasons. one is to willie's point, he needs to make a deal at the border in order to keep the aid flowing to ukraine. it would be trouble if the u.s. funds disappeared, and even for his own political future, he needs to make a deal at the border because migration right now and numbers are staggering as to how many people are trying to cross the border. it's going to overshadow the 2024 election. >> i think they would -- the ukraine and israeli funding was sort of the original impetus to be talking about border security, but we would be talking about border security whether or not that was, you know, whether or not ukraine and israel were on the table with congress right now regardless. i mean, images of caravans approaching the united states. >> yes. >> it's -- >> election year staple. >> it's an election year staple and it's brutal, and i know -- i checked in with the white house

earlier to see how they're feeling about these, you know, about the border security negotiations, and there is a chance that this could come together and actually get done, but there is, you know, there is a big pressure to get something done. there is the concerns about from, you know, from the left about giving away too much, but, you know, you look at those images coming from mexico and that is a tough thing entering the election year if you are not able to do that. >> jen, when you talk to people inside the white house and you see the images you're describing there you hear every day the democratic mayor of new york city, the mayors and governors in illinois and chicago saying, please, please. we need your help. biden administration, this is a completely untenable situation. we have 10,000 apprehensions a day. border patrol is saying this is a humanitarian crisis. we're not equipped to handle this. does the biden administration -- does this white house, does the campaign now get that this is a real problem? this is not a creation of fox news or whatever they may have

thought it was in the past? >> yeah. it's a -- yeah. it's a real problem, and i think what they, you know, they are hoping that congress will actually get something done, and then absent that or alongside that making sure people understand they have asked for more funding for the border, that the republicans have not acted on. they have been trying. they have put forward comprehensive immigration reform in different years that the congress has not acted on, that the republicans in congress in particular have not acted on and, you know, it has been true since 2013 when the last time there was a very serious bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform when the republicans were working in congress, and the underlying political vice there is republicans like to talk about immigration and make it a political issue, and they do not want to act on it because they don't actually want to solve the problem or at least many of them don't, and so i think the biden team needs -- they understand they need to make that argument

as well. so if something doesn't get done, people understand who's preventing that. >> and just to expand on jen's point there, willie, there was progress made in the senate before they went away on the holiday break. i think there is an appetite to deal in the upper chamber. question is the house. the question is what happens then with this new speaker who has the slimmest of margins, who is inherently barely hanging onto power, who has to deal with the radical right who wants significant demands and to jen's point, may not even want a deal. they want to talk about immigration as we go into this campaign. so the senate and the house may be two very different stories, and i also have heard some slight optimism towards a deal, but no one is taking it for granted that it's going to get done. >> you're right. in the house, at least, they certainly like this as an issue to hit the biden administration on every day. speaking of that race for the presidency, coming up in one minute, we'll have an update on the republican presidential campaign. ron desantis trying to trim

donald trump's lead in the polls by pointing out the former president's authoritarian plans for a second term. plus, nikki haley's answer to a question about the civil war. we'll show you what she said. "morning joe" back in just 60 seconds. t she said "morning joe" back in just 60 seconds

beautiful live picture of the united states capitol. 6:20 on a thursday morning. joining the conversation now, we've got white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "the playbook," eugene daniels. it's good to see you. republican presidential candidate ron desantis is warning donald trump is likely to use the power of government against his political opponents if he is re-elected. in an interview with real clear politics, desantis described how a second term would be focused on revenge and targeting his rivals saying, in part, trump is fine with weaponization if it's against people he doesn't like, end quote. desantis cited an ethics

complaint the trump campaign filed against him earlier this year as one piece of evidence of trump's willingness to use the government against his enemies. so no news here really, other than there is a republican who has been supportive broadly of donald trump over the years coming out and saying publicly, this guy's going to be an authoritarian. now we should pause and mention if ron desantis doesn't win the nomination, i'm sure he'll come right back around and circle the wagons around donald trump, but at least he's saying it for now. >> he's saying it for now, although he also said not when trump was indicted. he said it was a weaponization of against -- of the federal government against trump, and this is a great argument to -- a great argument to make to republican voters. it probably would have been a great argument to make to republican voters all along if it was going to have an impact and move people, but move republican voters, desantis' way, it's almost january 1. we're about 2 1/2 weeks away

from the iowa caucuses, and, you know, you can't -- you can't now be making an argument that the indictment that is we said were politically motivated that trump is also trying to weaponize the government against -- against his opponents, like, this isn't just work badly. you have to live it every day as we opened the segment with. it's, like -- it's where desantis -- that's where desantis is living. >> nicely done, jen. right from new jersey to your ears. so gene, let me ask you then about that because it's 2 1/2 weeks until the iowa caucuses. this republican primary field outside of chris christie has dipped its toe in trump criticism. it has sort of had its moments where it's nikki haley or ron desantis where they pushed back ever so slightly, but not ever fully. i think it strikes most political observers as a difficult way to defeat somebody if you are not really willing to go after him full-throated.

>> that's right. this is the argument that ron desantis and others could have been making this entire time. donald trump has always made it very clear that he would use a second term to go after his political opponents. he has talked about the vindictiveness of a trump 2025 and on for months and months and months. this isn't new, right? and you -- if you want someone's job, you have to say why you're better at the job, and they have not done that, right? they have tried to needle around it because they are worried and scared of trump supporters, right? they're worried that trying to get those folks on their side during this primary means trying to figure out how to be nice to donald trump, but that also means that there's no constituency. you don't have donald trump supporters backing you and then the folks who are maybe never trumpers or don't want to be trumpers don't really have a reason to go to you either. why go for, you know, the fake coke, the shasta when you have coke standing in front of you? that's what republicans have been looking at this entire

time. this probably isn't going to change a lot of minds in iowa and new hampshire for desantis especially when we're just days, a couple of weeks away from things actually really kicking off, and so figuring out how he's going to continue to say especially as voter -- voters ask him this question, will be something folks need to watch. >> governor desantis has put most of his eggs in that iowa basket. he's got to do something right out of the gate here on the 15th of january. meanwhile in new hampshire, republican candidate nikki haley was asked this question by an audience member. quote, what was the cause of the civil war? this is how governor haley responded. >> what was the cause of the united states civil war? >> well, don't come with an easy question, or anything. i think the cause of the civil war was basely how government

was going to run. the freedoms of what people could and couldn't do. what do you think the cause of the civil war was? i'm sorry? >> i'm not running for president. i wanted to know -- >> that's a good thing. >> i want to know what you think is the cause of the civil war. >> i think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are, and we -- i will always stand by the fact that i think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. it was never meant to be all things to all people. government doesn't need to tell you how to live your life. they don't need to tell you what you can and can't do. they don't need to be a part of your life. they need to make sure that you have freedom. we need to have capitalism. we need to have economic freedom. we need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way. >> thank you, and in the year 2023, it's a stonishing to me

that you answered that question without mentioning the word slavery. >> what do you want me to say about slavery? >> you've answered my question, thank you. >> next question. >> so eugene, we can pick through that a million different ways. perhaps the follow-up question where she says, what do you want me to say about slavery is what stuck with most people as they watched that commentary on governor haley perhaps, but also about the state of the republican party and as you watched the gears turning there, what she should and she should not say in order to keep her support. >> yeah. that's absolutely right, and if you watched the crowd as things were going downhill, you could start to see people kind of get a little squeamish as she was answering those questions. my family's always been from south carolina. so i am very, very well-versed on the conversation that happens. i was just there earlier this week for christmas. i'm very well-versed in the

conversation that happens versus, you know, whether it was states' rights or slavery. what was the real conversation? she's showing that, right? that she's a product of that conversation. this is also something in line with what she said before when asked when running for governor in 2010 about slavery or about the -- about the cause of the civil war. obviously it was about slavery. if it was about states' rights, it was the states' ability to hold slaves. if it was about freedoms and the governor would tell what you to do, it was about if you could own or beat people and keep them as property and rape them. that is in the history books, but what she is showing is the fact that in the republican party right now, there is not a lot of room for folks who would say something like that, who would be honest about slavery as the cause and the main cause of the civil war. you know, you would think about

the last few years and what the republican party has focused on. the conversation about race in this country, the attacking of critical race theory. there's almost no other answer that she could give in this republican primary that wouldn't, you know, take some votes away from her as she is moving forward. i will say i got some texts from some of the staffers on the other campaigns of this exact message when it happened, but when i asked them how their candidate would answer, they got a little pissed off at me and said, you would never ask them that question. so it tells you that they don't want to answer the question either. >> jen, this shouldn't have been hard. slavery is the answer here, but to eugene's point, it is reflective of where the republican base is right now, that you can't tell a simple truth for fear of losing voters and what has become such a radicalized republican party. let's take a step back and put this in the context of this primary season. >> yep. >> i mean, we didn't quite have

a ron desantis welcome to the resistance moment there, but at least he's telling the truth about what trump is trying to do. >> you feel like desantis is actually saying what he has always thought. >> he's got nothing left to lose i suppose. i wonder if it goes to this moment here last night, haley and the civil war which is really exploding on social media. we had the biden campaign weigh in already, also making clear it was about slavery. >> yep. >> this could blunt some of her momentum. iowa's been hard for her, but going into new hampshire, she did have the wind at her back. maybe this costs her. >> it's breathtaking. i had read the transcript, but i had not actually seen it, and it's just breathtaking when she says, what do you want me to say about slavery? that is her campaign in one question, right? it is, like, who do you want me to be right now? who do i need to morph into in order to never take trump on, but be acceptable enough to sort of the maga majority?

that should something happen outside of my control because she's not doing anything to actually beat trump, i can be the person that inherits everyone else's votes. so this could be -- this is in new hampshire, right? that -- new hampshire voters, they don't -- they want you to be courageous. they like independent thinkers. they want you to speak frankly. this could, you know, so i think that it could hurt her, and, you know, if desantis' operation is effective, they should be doing more to lift it up and make ate -- it a thing, but she came on the national scene by being the republican governor who took down or was part of the taking down the confederate flag over the south carolina state legislature after the terrible shooting -- race-based shooting in charleston at the church there in 2015, and that is when we first learned of nikki haley. this could have been a great moment that said, i come from the south. this is what we've learned, and instead it is this panic.

what do you want me to say about slavery? >> it's that last line. what do you want me to say about slavery? almost sort of defiant that she was going to refuse to say something there. so eugene, let's talk about the man you cover at the white house for politico, joe biden, as we turn the corner into a new year into this all-important election year. how he's feeling, how his campaign is feeling about its prospects, encouraging economic data, and yet his approval numbers and some of these head to head numbers match up certainly with the the margin of error. some polls better for him, some worse. how they're feeling about a matchup likely unless something dramatic happens likely with donald trump. >> one, they feel good about a matchup against donald trump, right? they have kind of always seen that as what was going to happen, and obviously biden beat trump once and they feel like he can do it again and more importantly, they want to make

this a choice election, right? they don't want to make it a referendum on president biden. they want to say to voters, and have said to voters. this is what i'm going to do. look how scary this guy is. you have all this great reporting about what a second term for trump would look like. ron desantis adding to that report saying he would be vindictive and he would attack his political rivals. donald trump has said he would do as much. that's one thing, but i will also say on the kind of selling the economy and their agenda, they have to figure out a way, and they know this, to make people feel better about the economy, right? you can't just explain the macro economics and talk about jobs. though that's great, you can't just talk about inflation going down. some prices going down. you have to figure out a way to get people to feel differently about the economy, and that's going to be, you know, their struggle here. they have over the last three-plus years struggled with selling the things that they've

done to the american people. now they have to figure out a way to make folks feel better and that contrast against trump i think would be extremely helpful for them moving forward. i think you can say our economy is much better. you may be feeling scared, but give us the wills again and you won't have to be scared that donald trump is going to be in the white house. >> jen, you have been at the center of presidential campaigns in the past, of course. how would you be feeling right now holding the hand that joe biden has turning into an election year? >> i would think, you know, it's super scary, you know? like, the fate of the republic is hanging in the balance, and there are polls that have donald trump leading right now, but i would have faith that -- i mean, on the -- to eugene's point on the economy, we know that the -- we know that the federal reserve is planning on lowering rates. we know that -- we know that, you know, that is something that can -- that is -- that is something that signals to actual

consumers, real voters, things are different and things are improving. you hear that -- when you hear about people not liking biden's economic policies, if you dig underneath that, interest rates are a big part of that. i would feel good about making the economic argument. i would feel great about being able to make the argument against what the sort of threat that trump represents, and we can use ron desantis talking about trump with government. we can use chris christie's voice about the danger that trump represents. it's not just going to be biden, but there is this scary thing that overhangs everything about whether, you know, we're just too divided. it's just too late. there's too many silos. how am i going to reach all the voters i need to reach given all the media silos that there are? i mean, that is what i would be turning on every day is just sort of the mechanics of getting that message out. >> and the biden administration also has to contend with just

this sort of anti-incumbent settlement globally that right now leaders in office aren't polling well. people are coming out of the pandemic. prices are too high, and people aren't happy with what they have. that is a real fear amongst some in the biden camp. even though the metrics are good, to jen's point, they should get better. people say they like things about it, but there's a sense they've written off the biden economy, that they won't give him credit for it and that's something they're worried about. willie, biden aids tell me they really believe their best chance to win though, is the next year. when it becomes that binary choice, when the republican field is gone, and it's simply biden/trump, and americans start paying attention again, because most people are not paying attention like we all do each and every day. when they start paying attention again, and they see what trump is saying, they hear what he's threatening to do, and they're reminded of what his chaos in office was like, they won't want

to make is choice again. it won't be an enthusiastic vote for president biden, but it'll be a vote for president biden, and it'll be enough to win. >> you can bet the campaign will be leaning heavily on donald trump saying i'm the man who took away roe versus wade. eugene daniels, thank you so much as always. coming up next, we'll break down the good, the bad, and the wild political stories that defined 2023. dave weigel joins us for his americana awards. and tom smothers, one-half of the smothers brothers. "morning joe" is coming back. ss "morning joe" is coming back

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plus, no interest until january 2027. ends monday. only at sleep number. famous singer and comedian tom smothers died yesterday at the age of 86 after battle with cancer. he of course, made a path of the smothers brothers duo whose variety shown in the 1960s became a bane for network

executives. nbc's harry smith reports. >> singing right now. >> no. >> how do you know? >> because i can. >> reporter: tommy smothers made us laugh. first, that look on his face, while listening to brother dick. then what came next. >> mom always liked you best. [ laughter ] >> reporter: in 1967, the smothers brothers got their own variety show on cbs. >> we do everything as a unit. >> we do not. >> everything as a unit. >> just because we're brothers, we don't everything as a unit. >> we do everything as a everything. >> you couldn't touch my wife with a 10-foot pole. >> that's right. i use an 11-foot pole. >> reporter: they satirized the powerful and made clear their opposition to the vietnam war. ♪ if you ever get a war without blood and gore, i'll be the first to go ♪ >> reporter: the show was a hit, but the network was not amused. ♪ i guess it was something that we said ♪ >> reporter: after multiple run-ins with network censors, cbs canceled "the smothers

brothers comedy hour" in 1970. >> we feel that it's a grave -- a very grave thing when any network can take off a show that is reflecting these maybe unpopular views. >> reporter: the duo continued to perform for decades. of tom, his brother, dick, said this in a statement. our relationship was like a good marriage. the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected each other. we were truly blessed. >> tom smothers was 86 years old. nbc's harry smith reporting there. coming up next, nbc's steve kornacki will give us a look ahead. what to expect with next year's election season as president biden and donald trump are on a course for a likely rematch while independent and third party candidates could impact the race. "morning joe" will be right back. race "morning joe" will be right back

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a picture of reagan national airport in washington. 6:47 in the morning. for the second year, semafor is out with its biggest political hits and misses of the year, and join us now to take us through the americana awards. it's senior politics reporter for semafor david weigle. this will have to do at this hour of the morning, but i should be in black tie. starting with the best winning campaign, talking the non-candidate division, who was it this year? >> that was the ohio coalition for reproductive freedom, the people who really twice in august and november won by a double-digit margin, the abortion referendum. i should say the republicans had a year to figure out a strategy. they tried everything. they tried linking it to gender

surgeries. they tried warning that -- with bout language is inaccurate, how far-reaching this would be. it didn't work. you have -- at this point, one of the most efficient operations in center-left politics are these pro-choice campaigns and this ohioan was probably the most effective we've seen. >> as you point out in the piece, august, there was that first run to sort of stop the way constitutional amendments are made. there was one run made, defeated by 14 points and the amendment defeated by mainly the same margin. that's the best winning campaign, talking about an actual candidate here and an incumbent governor. >> that was kentucky's governor andy bashear. he was the top priority on defense, and on offense, republicans had the attorney general daniel cameron, a rising star in the party who had to navigate a tough primary, and you had in a red state with very bleak mood about president biden. biden's approval rating in some

parts of the state in the single digits, beshear able to win and extend his margin for four years ago. there's going to be a theme this year. he did so for a number of reasons men talked about the state's economy, but he also talked about abortion rights and he had what i thought was the most effective ad of the year about a woman talking about her very gruesome, unpleasant personal experience with abortion really befudding republicans who were on the statewide abortion ban. good campaign, blocked and tackled all the right things and came up with messaging that i already within hours of the campaign was seeing other democrats try to copy in other states. >> we'll revisit that ad in just a moment a little later in this awards show, but let's continue with the honor roll here. best winning campaign challenger division. tell us who it is, and why it matters. >> yes. it was jeff landry in louisiana. he's somebody who did not make a lot of national news this year

for the dynamic. if somebody is winning by a lot, they don't get the same coverage, but this is a campaign that very early on organized to replace john bel edwards, the outgoing democratic governor in louisiana. it started with a simple message about, i'm the attorney general. i'm a former cop. i'm going to crack down on crime specifically in the big urban precincts, big urban parts of louisiana, big urban parishes, and did a combination of that outreach to republican voters and outreach to black voters. he had very effective early ads directed at black voters in louisiana who do not vote republican mostly about how crime was affecting them. black victims of crime talking about why they supported jeff landry. just the kind of very efficient, basic expanding. i should say and just electorate expanding and pulling in what republicans wouldn't normally. very efficient campaign of what we did not see a lot of in 2023. >> dave, you have best losing campaign. that doesn't often get a good mention. >> yeah. >> you've picked the glenn youngkin effort to win back the

state legislature in virginia. now this is something i paid attention to because i was, you know, there was worry among democrats that he had a 15-week abortion ban that he was sort of putting the campaign for republicans behind, and there was a concern that if that was succeeded and he was succeeded in capturing the senate the democrats controlled in virginia, that this would mean a national -- in a state like virginia, pretty blue-ish, a tint of purple in there, that that would mean that sort of -- that moderate position, you know, this could be perceived as a moderate position, that he would do well for 2024 for republicans across the border. i looked at this as a loss, but you're giving youngkin credit for almost winning. so explain why you think that was significant. >> there's a little bit of the holiday spirit going on, but i'm trying to also correct i think there was a lot of obituary writing for the youngkin effort after they lost these elections. they lost the statehouse of delegates by one seat. they lost the senate by one

seat. that involved them losing seats in the house of delegates on a new map. the reason i say it was an effective campaign is because they won every seat in both houses that voted for joe biden by less than eight points. so they won everything that was republican. they really came very close to the youngkin 2021 margin. i'm comparing this to what republicans were doing around the rest of the country. outside louisiana and virginia, there was not much overperformance. they were losing in suburbs. they lost -- they lost to mayoralties in indiana where they were feeling confident. in virginia, they were able to come close to the -- to build this youngkin coalition of maga voters and some suburbanites not just around washington, d.c., but they were able to do that. we're republicans and able to improve the economy. we do not want to ban abortions. democrats say we do, and we don't. there was a 15-week limit.

it was republicans' effort and it encouraged them that you can run in a swing house seat with a version of this message in 2024. they were outspent by democrats and they were hurt by speculation around youngkin. you had wealthy donors saying we need youngkin to run for president. even with that complication which scored up tens of millions of dollars. they ran close to their baseline 2021. the rest of the election, the dobbs decision wasn't happening in virginia. it just wasn't enough for them because it was such a democratic state. >> as we move to best campaign ad, we come back around to one you've mentioned already from andy beshear. the governor of kentucky, it's titled unthinkable around the issue of abortion. it's a stunning ad. let's watch it. >> i was raped by my stepfather after years of sexual abuse. i was 12. anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it's like to stand in my shoes.

this is to you, daniel cameron. to tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable. i'm speaking out because when women and girls need to have options. daniel cameron would give us none. >> dave, so that's hadley duval. she's 21 now talking about her experience when she was 12 being raped by her stepfather, and that really echoed well beyond kentucky. she sort of in many ways became the voice of this abortion rights movement nationally. >> yes, and that format of that is one we've seen a lot of since 2022, since the dobbs decision, is democrats finding a woman who can tell a personal story. there's not a rebuttal from somebody else. there's not a third narrator. the candidate's not even featured from it apart from endorsing the ad. this is the most effective version of it we've seen because in kentucky, it's one of these state that is had a ban ready to go if roe was overturned. you had the attorney general, daniel cameron running for

governor who had defended the total abortion ban. as i said at the top of the segment, it's not just that this was effective and humanized the issue. it totally scrambled his strategy. he was saying maybe he was open to some exceptions if the legislature would pass them. he denounced the ad, but it's not clear what he was denouncing. he didn't have a good answer for democrats or really the electorate on how situations like hers would not happen. i think something we've seen all year is the republican line on abortion for a long time, at least since 2016, has been, well, democrats want no limits. no limits means abortions up to the ninth month. it means abortions on the table after the baby's born. what democrats say is, we'll look at what is actually happening in a total ban situation. you have the contrast of a story that is happening. you saw one out of texas after the elections. then look at the fantasy republicans are talking about of a healthy pregnancy being terminated in month nine. that's not a thing that happened. that's not a thing that generates stories. these stories are real, and it's not just that democrats are good at running ads about them.

they're realistic, that this is happening in america. it is something that horrifies those voters when maybe got five or six reasons they might vote republican for parts of the ballot. maybe they're angry about inflation or whatever, but on this issue, they know that democrats are not in favor of total bans and that really has been enough for democrats to hold and take back a lot of ground across the country this year. again, with the president's approval rating in the dumpster in a lot of states. >> the candidate had no good answer for that ad because what could you possibly say to hadley? stay with us if you can. we love this list. we want to take a quick break and then bring everybody the worst campaign ad of the year. we'll be right back on "morning joe." d of the year. we'll be right back on "morning joe.

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just past 7:00 in the morning, sun not quite up yet in times square. three days from now, about a million people standing right there to watch the ball drop as we turn the corner to 2024. speaking of which, steve

kornacki is standing by for us at the big board with the breakdown of the 2024 presidential campaign. the primary's third party contenders and everything that's going into the stew into a campaign unlike any of us ever has seen. welcome back to the second hour of "morning joe." 7:01 here on the east coast. we're talking to dave weigle of semafor with the second annual americana awards. so dave, let's hop right back in. we just gave the best campaign ad of the year to andy beshear's campaign in kentucky. what was the worst campaign ad of 2023? >> that was trump attacks iowa which is one of the first negative ads, never back down, the ron desantis superpac. it was one of several. it ran about trump criticizing the governor of iowa who ended up endorsing desantis, but it was most notable for using a reconstruction, and on truth

social. it turned the trump quote into this kind of tinny, like, any ai voice that you've heard. it sounded off and instead of recreating a clear hit for the campaign on message, it created a -- politico noticed this first. it created a what the heck are they doing news cycle? you mentioned the one domino spilling over another. maybe this is domino number five. it wasn't just a superpac with a ton of money lifted from desantis' state pac. it wasn't effective, but the ads often backfired. it had something negative the campaign didn't want to be associated with by september and october when the campaign was reformulating. i should say later november, but never back down's brand was terrible, and the superpac should not have a brand at all. people should not see things buttoning on tv and say, it's the superpac. i don't like that, but it kept running these ads that made bizarre decisions and did not help desantis at all.

this is the most dramatic i think. >> really strange stuff. here is that ad that semafor calls the worst of 2023. >> governor kim reynolds is a conservative champion. she signed the heartbeat bill and stands up for americans every day. why is donald trump attacking her? >> i opened up the governor position for kim reynolds in which she fell behind. i endorsed her. did big rallies and she won. now she wants to remain neutral. i don't invite her to events. >> trump should fight democrats, not republicans. what happened to donald trump? never back down is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> so jonathan, that was an ai recreation of a post donald trump had written. not great, and one of the many reasons that ron desantis supporters abandoned never back down. >> it was also just so poorly done. that didn't sound anything like him. there are so many people, comedians out there who do

terrific impersonations. we all could have done better than that. dave, i want to turn to an intriguing category which is called worst best friends. we all have a few of those, but tell us what you mean in this context. >> the worst best friends were the megadonors. i mentioned some before who kept giving their unsolicited advice to candidates often without money attached, and so a theme of this cycle as it was, not so much with democrats in 2020 because democrats were embarrassed by not having superpacs, but there were donors who everyone knew could put $20 million in the campaign like larry ellison, like ken griffin, and they would talk to reporters on or off the record, often on the record about what they wanted the candidates to do. they created a super structure, this layer of criticism over the campaigns that made expectations higher. sometimes randomly, sometimes in ways they couldn't deliver. this is a donor who just kept

stepping on youngkin's message back home who said, he should run for president. he made known that desantis signing the heartbeat bill, the abortion ban in florida, not popular with voters either outside. republican base. he made known that was a mistake. you saw with larry ellison, he loved tim scott and supported hum in every race, given his superpac $20 million, and then tim scott made budgeting decisions. the campaign ended up -- i should say the superpac ended up retracting its buys leading an embarrassing cycle for the campaign. maybe tim scott wasn't going to win anyway, but you saw the risk there for relying on a donor they thought was amazing. who did that happen to? donald trump and nikki haley. until the very end of the campaign with some of the donation she's gotten didn't see much support.

you saw them praising her like jamie dimon saying good things about her. you've seen ron desantis say she's bought and an establishment candidate. there is no upside in having these donors talk so much about the candidates and i think coming from 2020 and watching democrats so closely it's an advantage for them. they don't have people that expect them to deliver exactly the message that they're delivering to cnbc on "squawk box" to these candidates because they have $20 million. >> talkative donors and it gives -- it gives trump a big opening to say -- >> yeah. >> -- each of these people are owned by established, you know, specific and establish-y billionaires, and so okay. speaking of giving donald trump a big opening, you have an interesting choice for your best bet of 2023. >> yes. it was donald trump's decision not to debate which hurt a lot of people's bottom lines and reporting targets, but it was not obvious when he announce thad he wasn't going to

participate in the first debate in milwaukee. it was not obvious this was going to pay off. there was a risk of him alienating some people that you saw both ron desantis, chris christie, really more at the time, mike pence who was still running, criticize him and say, this is donald trump who's changed. he has new statements and allegations that you need to address before his voters, but what happened? the first debate in milwaukee, fox news organizing, the first half of it did not touch on trump at all because they were trying to keep trump's audience watching the debate. he did a counterprogramming event with tucker carlson, and two more counterprogramming events for the next two debates and stopped bothering. really by the second -- i was talking to his campaign manager in the spin room of the second debate, and the campaign was already saying, well, look. he's up by so much. why are the rest of these candidates indulging in our exercise and hurting our nominee in debating? the only thing you could do by a candidate up by 30 points. i'm not trying to say, all candidates winning by this much

should skip debates, but it was a smart move for trump to make that was not obvious, that was risky and left everyone kind of scrambling and by the end, ron desantis is trying to have a fund-raiser around alabama and has to cancel it because donors aren't showing up for the numbers they should be. trump through force of personality and 30-point lead squashed the whole process. >> dave, let's end the semafor americana awards where we began which is with the issue of abortion and worst bet. you have susan b. anthony's pro-life america process who oppose any candidate who refuses to embrace at a minimum, 15-week national standard. why was this such a bad bet? >> that's also partly a trump story. this is the problem of a lot of organizations on the right. it's can you get donald trump on board? if he's not, what is the impetus if he is not on board?

that's what susan b. anthony had here. we want at least a 15-week ban on abortion. we're going to say we want that, but we can't get donald trump to commit. who will? what ends up happening? tim scott commits to that. mike pence commits to that. they use their speeches at events to say they want a 15-week ban. who doesn't commit? trump, nikki haley who gives a speech at susan b. anthony's pro-life headquarters who thinks she might be announcing a 15-week limit as her policy. it's not. it's her going to this group and saying i'm a candidate who believes in compromise. we're not going to get a federal abortion ban. i'll tell you who your face. it was just overused. it wasn't quite, that but it was haley taking a fairly careful poll-tested position, doing it looking like she was taking a big risk from this group. you have at the end of the year a group that has won generational gains. the pro-life movement that has won more than it dreamed of ten years ago, but it can't get

republican candidates to commit to this. they lost key winnable looking races on abortion rights. the movement is -- has taken a lot of territory. a lot of red states where its laws are in its race, but it doesn't have the clout that a lot of conservatives do. that was not obvious because of a couple of choices made early on to show their clout that totally back fired. >> that will be through 2023 and 2024. honorable mention, best political book, "the squad" by ryan grim, and "ordinary man" by richard smith. that's the story of gerald r. ford, and best as you put it, best autobiography, "romney." all great books. dave weigle doing a lot of work for us today taking us through the americana awards. dave, thanks so much. we will see you at the after party. we appreciate it, man.

thank you. >> thank you. all right. let's turn now to nbc's steph kornacki. as promised, he's over at the big board for a breakdown of what we can expect in next year's presidential election. >> all right. well, we are approaching once every four years the big one. the presidential election, year 2024 almost upon us. let's take a look here at how politics have kind of -- and how the election of 2024's kind of taken shape in '23 and the big questions we're looking at as 2023 kicks off. so first of all, who's going to be the republican nominee presumably against joe biden? at the start of 2023, this seemed like a very up in the air question. you can see the trend line for the candidates and remember, at the start of '23, republicans were coming off a pretty rough midterm. candidates who had been closely aligned with donald trump had lost key races in 2022. at the start of '23, ron desantis was running pretty close in the poll average to donald trump, and then look what happened. it just exploded here for trump and went the other way for desantis. what happened right around here

in the counter? this was when the first indictment of trump came down. the one from the manhattan district attorney almost seems to have triggered a rally around trump effect among republicans, and that's just held all year, through all the legal drama and everything else that's happened, and here we are at the end of the year and trump just, you know, lengths ahead of ron desantis, nikki haley and ramaswamy, and christie for that matter. we'll see in the early contest if any of those candidates will beat trump, they will have to make noise. whether it's desantis in iowa, he'll have to plant his flag there. haley in new hampshire, she's gotten some encouraging polling news there. can one of them beat trump in one of these early states? of course, haley's south carolina will play a key role among the early states as well. can one of them beat trump in the early states and make this a race? that's what they'll find out in the first six weeks or so of 2024. how about the democratic end of things? joe biden seems poised to be the democratic nominee. what kind of year has he had

politically? he started 2023 coming off these good midterms for democrats and his approval rating, 46%/50%. he had 47% approval, and 50% approval. how does this compare to past presidents entering the re-election year? you can see here. here's the 40% we are at right now. these are the final polls heading into the re-election year. trump got beat in 2020. he was at 44% heading into his re-election year. bush sr. got beat in '92. he was heading south rapidly there, but you can see how that number compares. that's the lowest in an nbc poll for an incumbent face a re-election year, but it is a tight race when you poll biden versus trump. at the start of the year in the average polls nationally, biden had a two-point advantage now. at the end of the year, it is trump who on average has a two-point advantage here. a very, very close race

obviously, and what are the concerns of voters in the dynamics we'll be talking about if this race does materialize, joe biden of course, is the oldest president ever at this point, and his physical -- his fitness, his age got three in four voters and our polls say it's a major or moderate concern. a big thing in '24 will be trump's legal situation. are there convictions? what goes on in the courtroom for him? 62% right now say that's a major or moderate concern for them. will that number change if there's a conviction? would that number change based on how those cases start to sort out? big question obviously we'll be following well into 2024, and this is interesting too. just -- there is clearly what this question is showing here, trump with just a generic democrat, trump loses. biden loses by double digits if it's not trump. there's not a big appetite for trump versus biden even though it seems that each party at least as we enter 2024 is poised to go in that direction. that leads to this poll.

a poll from the "wall street journal" recently included a bunch of third party options and against biden and trump, they added up to 17%. that's a big question heading into 2024. is there going to be a real third party candidate to create a wild card in this? >> steve kornacki at the big board where he's going to be spending a lot of time in 2024. joining us, staff writer at "the new yorker," susan glasser. it's great. you were watching with us. what jumped out to you the age question, whether the biden campaign likes it or not, whether it's fair or not given comparisons to donald trump who's only a couple of years younger than joe biden, is front and center on the mind of many voters. on the other hand, the biden campaign can take some solace despite president biden's low approval ratings that this is ultimately a margin of error race at this point, and likely to be air-tight right to the finish. >> well, that's right. that number really does leap out at you, how many voters clearly in both parties have significant concern about biden's age and

fitness for office. that includes many democrats and independent voters he'll need in order to win the election. what i recall is that in the 2020 election, biden actually had an advantage on this question in the fall of 2020 in some of the polls and that was significant, right? at the time, it was all about donald trump's fitness for office, his ability to put together a coherent sentence. by the way, it has not improved in the last four years, you know, i could tell you from interviewing trump for our book, you know, this is not someone who speaks in sentences with nouns and verbs and periods. remember person, woman, man, camera, tv. i think one of the things you're going to see is the biden campaign attacking trump on this issue, seeking to make it not so much of a liability just for the president, but overall, if the incumbent president is taking solace from the idea that he's running dead even or just a little bit behind donald trump heading into his re-election

year, well, that suggests that it's really going to be a nail-biter in 2024. the term anticipatory dread comes to mind i have to say, thinking of next year. >> there's certainly time for president biden to turn around his poll numbers, but right now as the election year begins, he's in a weak position, you know, historical comparisons say as much, but i'm struck though. there's a lot of americans who simply don't like this choice. they wish it weren't trump or biden. they wish they had fresh faces. i don't think we're going to get that, and the thing that might decide this election, is who gets the most votes from the voters who don't like either candidate? those that didn't like either candidate in 2016 voted for trump. in 2020, they broke for biden. where do you think that group ends up this time around? >> you know, that's why it's going to be such a nail-biter, right? i'm focused to the extent to

which any little misstep or screwup or mitch mcconnell moment where, you know, biden or trump trips and falls at a fund-raiser in september could decide the outcome. when it's this close, i think we're just never going to know. neither candidate appears likely at this moment in time to put together a significant enough lead to be outside the zone where any individual screwup can change the outcome of the race. that's why we're still debating what actually happened in 2016. was it james comey? was it the hillary clinton email investigation? was it that she didn't show up in michigan in-person, right? it's that close, and i think tsa what we appear to be headed towards once again in 2024. >> susan, you did a year-end podcast for "the new yorker," in which you all decreed that 2023 was a state of denial in that even though it was a very surprising year from all of the

indictments against trump, you know, the attack -- hamas' attack on israel, things we had not anticipated, we're just sort of deadlocked in, it's going to be trump versus biden again. biden -- the biden campaign saying, don't look at the polls. the trump team saying don't look at the indictments, like, the fact that even though we had all of these major developments and nothing sort of changing in the underlying political ecosystem, does that tell you that this is just that the election is fundamentally about a big foundational issue when outside, you know, outside developments can't affect that or, you know, what's underlying them? >> well, certainly, right, it's a story about our politics that we're sort of stuck in many ways, you know? remember during the trump presidency that approval and disapproval rating, it was pretty darn close to a straight line. it was pretty immune to events,

and, you know, the story of biden has been, you know, since he crossed the line between popular and unpopular and in his first year in the summer of 2021, you know, it's been pretty consistently, you know, negative approval ratings, pretty consistently the american public saying we don't want this rematch between trump and biden that we appear to be headed towards, and i think that's why denial is a legitimate word for 2023 because in the end, right, people just keep saying, well, where's the choice? where's the, you know, some different outcome, and of course, there was no different outcome for this race and these candidates than the one we're ending up with. so, you know, in 2024, people are going to have to pick, and that's where biden -- he loves to say races are, you know, a choice, not a referendum. well, people are going to have to choose it looks like between two candidates they don't want to choose from.

>> we'll see how many people cast a vote for someone else. robert kennedy jr., cornell west, as a kind of protest about their choices. "the new yorker's" susan glasser. susan, thank you so much as always. we appreciate it. coming up next, we'll be joined by the family of adan alexander, a 19-year-old soldier held in captivity by hamas terrorists. they're pleading for his return as the call to free hostages intensify. you're watching "morning joe." n. you're watching "morning joe." ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

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can't catch. too short. what else does it say? give the gift of family heritage with ancestry. in an emotional letter to president biden, the terminally ill mother of noah argamani asked for one last chance to see her 26-year-old daughter. noah was kidnapped on october 7th while attending this music festival on the gaza border. this is footage of her abduction. in what her mother calls her final hour, she writes, i'm terminally ill with stage 4

brain cancer. all that's running through my mind before i part ways with my family forever is the chance to hug my daughter, my only child, one last time. i want to know that she is safe in her father's care and out of harm's way. i'm out of time, but not out of hope, end quote. more than 100 hostages are still being held by hamas. that includes 19-year-old adan alexander, an american israeli taken on october 7th while stationed at an army outpost near the gaza strip. his father and sister join us now. thank you both for being with us this morning. i'm so sorry for the ordeal and what you have been through for more than 80 years ago. i grew up not far from where you all live, from where your son grew up. a kid probably like a lot of people that are watching this show, that the way they grew up or kids that they have themselves, an american kid who went to join the idf. tell me what you know about your

son's whereabouts, if anything, what you know about his health, if anything. what you have heard over these last more than 80 days now. >> he is a great kid, grew up in new jersey, graduated last year from high school. he was taken hostage on october 7th from his post. he was abducted. the post was surrounded by almost 20 terrorists, and he had to surrender. the only thing that we do know that he was taken alive. he was healthy, and he was led straight into the gaza strip shortly after abduction. >> and mika, tell us a little more about your brother, you know, who right now obviously, the world knows as someone who's being hostage, but you of course, know him as your sibling, one of your closest friends, someone you've spent your whole life with. tell us what we should all know

about him, the person. >> i mean, i would always describe him as a very lively kid, and also it's his 20th birthday tomorrow, and yeah. i just miss him very much and, you know, we grew up very close. we're only three years apart, and yeah. >> so actually, adi, let me ask you, have you heard -- what sort of communication have you had with the biden administration or the israeli government? and do you feel like they've done enough? what's your message to them? >> actually, we are very grateful to the biden administration on many levels, on the highest levels possible, with antony blinken, jack sullivan, and joe biden himself. we met the president a couple of weeks ago, and i couldn't be happier after this meeting. the president actually knows exactly what the families are going through because he had his personal loss with a wife and

daughter and obviously beau biden in iraq, but we need to push harder and implore all the regional partners as the qataris and egyptians and israelis just to execute another deal and release everybody. >> you have -- it's his birthday tomorrow. that's part of the reason why you all wanted to be here today. i feel like so many americans are just, like, heartbroken for your families. is there something people -- is there something people have done to show support for you that has been meaningful or, you know, is there anything people can do to -- it's great to hear you feel support from the administration and i know his family background helps in doing, that, but, you know, what has helped you all? >> i guess we need to keep

pushing in israel and also in the states. we have seven americans being held by hamas for almost three months now, and that's it. >> so mika, what obviously beyond his safe return -- what are you hoping for here? is there some suggestion that you can get some sort of communication? i mean, what -- what helps you each night to try to fall asleep to settle yourself knowing that, you know, your brother obviously is in harm's way, but what do you do to hang onto hope? >> i mean, the main thing that i think i hang onto is the fact that there were hostages released in the past, and the fact that that happened gives -- i mean, me and my whole family a lot of hope that it may happen with edan, and i think the best thing that i can do when -- for example, i'm falling asleep at night is remembering that i am doing the best that i can. i am being very vocal and active

about it on social media and i'm attending these interviews and stuff, and yeah. i've been -- i know that i'm doing the best that i can in order to see him again. >> he sounds like an absolutely amazing young man, and we join you in that hope. adi and mika alexander, father and sister of 19-year-old edan alexander who turns 20 tomorrow, an american israeli, from bergen county, new jersey taken hostage by hamas on october 7th. thank you both so much for being here and sharing your story this morning. we really are grateful. >> thank you so much. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you guys. coming up here, we'll get a live report from israel on the fight against hamas. also ahead, an important year for space exploration. 2024 is shaping up to be even more consequential on that front as nasa sets its sights for a new mission to the moon. tom costello reports for us next on "morning joe." e.

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and a shot of lower manhattan at 7:36 in the morning. low cloud cover on a rainy day in new york city. spacex planning for two separate launches tonight with its falcon heavy rocket expected to launch from kennedy space center just after 8:00. if all goes to plan, just hours later, spacex will launch a falcon 9 rocket from the cape canaveral space station. this as nasa is preparing for its first moon mission in decades. tom costello has details. >> three, two, one. we have liftoff. >> reporter: that rocket roar and cheering coming from south texas in november. >> there is separation. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: it was for a much-improved second test of elon musk's starship after the first starship exploded shortly after liftoff.

nasa and america have strapped their dreams to that spacex rocket. that next flight will be early next year. then late in the year, nasa's artemis astronauts will loop around the moon. in 2022 an artemis test flight orbited the moon with no crew. that is the spaceship that will take the artemis 2 crew around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. this is a nine-day mission, a quarter of a million miles just to get there, and this ship is nothing like apollo that carried neil armstrong and buzz aldrin. it is much more advanced, much more automated. already they're training at nasa's johnson space center. mission commander reid wiseman, victor glover, christina koch, and canadian fighter pilot, jeremy hansen. >> i'm most looking forward to paving the way back to the future, back to the moon, onto mars. the fact we get to contribute to that, absolutely an honor.

the honor of my life. >> we are proud to be a part of the artemis generation. we are the artemis generation and we're going back to the moon. >> reporter: nasa hopes artemis and elon musk's starship will rendezvous in lunar orbit and land on the moon's south pole and begin building a lunar base. china wants to land its own astronauts there by 2030. also in 2024, boeing is hoping to finally launch its starliner spaceship with astronauts to the space station. and billionaire entrepreneur, jared isaacman will also oversee a mission. i caught up with them in training in colorado. why do we need to do this? why do we need to go into space? >> i mean, there are questions that we've been asking ourselves since, like, the dawn of

civilization, right? that we don't know the answers to. >> nbc's tom costello reporting on a big year in space. coming up next, dianne feinstein, sandra day o'connor, and others. just some of the trailblazing way who died this year. we take a look at those who caused justice, and shattered norms. and we look at what is expected to be one of the worst days on the road and busiest days for air travel today. stephanie gosk is out on the new jersey turnpike with what to expect. >> reporter: this morning, the travel rush is on. >> i'm coming from atlanta, but i'm headed back to puerto rico. >> reporter: when you are sglsh. >> when you travel for the holidays, you anticipate it'll be hectic. >> reporter: millions of americans are back home and headed to a potential travel nightmare. flood concerns across the northeast and visibility affecting travelers on the road.

the new york city skyline blanketed in fog. today is expected to be one of the worst days to drive. traffic on the roads could also be impacted by a new storm system that's making its way up the east coast bringing heavy rain. millions under flood alerts in pennsylvania, new jersey, and delaware, and if you are taking to the skies, prepare for packed airports. the tsa says today will also be one of the busiest days for air travel this holiday season. >> i just found out our flight is delayed by about an hour. >> reporter: on wednesday, southwest airlines accounted for more than 1,600 of the 7,000 delays nationwide. the airline telling nbc news the areas are due to air traffic control, reducing the flow of traffic. the travel disruption still nowhere near last year's christmas meltdown when the airline canceled nearly 17,000 flights leaving millions stranded, but a scary journey wednesday for one southwest flight bound for austin making an emergency return to fort lauderdale after a possible bird strike shortly after takeoff.

some of the worst delays this week continue to be in florida. for the second day in a row, the faa slowed down traffic because of flight congestion. meantime out west and in the great plains, many are still digging out for more than a foot of snow. in colorado, parts of the busy interstate still remain closed due to the blizzard and hazardous driving conditions. >> this is a line. it goes out of the airport. >> reporter: some of the busiest airports, travelers are now getting ready to take on the holiday crowds. >> start early. be on time. ♪♪ 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.

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and you can bring your own device. oh, and all on the most reliable 5g mobile network nationwide. wireless that works for you. it's not just possible, it's happening. house to the nation's highest court and beyond. here to discuss msnbc analyst and vice chair of the "forbes" and know your value summit, huma abedin, and maggie winter. i want to start with rosalynn carter who my family knew well. she passed at the age of 96 in november. i think of her. i think of soft power, strong influence, and opening america's eyes to mental health. what do you think her legacy will be? >> you know, she really was a woman before her time. i mean, she was the most politically active first lady since eleanor roosevelt. she was unapologetic about what she believed in, you know, long before hillary clinton said she

could have stayed home to bake cookies, and she said it. she was proudly more political than her husband and a lot of people that know anything about politics believe that one of the reasons he was able to be successful, to even get to the white house was thanks to her participation and her leadership, but, you know, your point about mental health i think is really striking. i mean, she really was talking about mental health at a time when nobody was talking about it. it was not a socially acceptable issue, and now of course, we're just beginning to talk about it and she led the way, and, you know, the other thing i have to share is i was privileged to be at her funeral, and it was such a testament to how to live a life in and -- >> yes. >> -- with love. i mean, to have president jimmy carter there who is himself in hospice sitting to honor her, it was so moving, so powerful, and so inspiring. it was a real celebration. >> you are absolutely right, and maggie, let's talk about sandra day o'connor who was the first woman to serve on the u.s.

supreme court. she passed away earlier this month at the age of 93. how do you think -- where to even begin on how she will be remembered especially in her regard to her remarkable impact on women's rights? >> i actually go back to the beginning of her career when i think about her impact. she was the first woman to sit on the supreme court, but when she received her law degree, she did so at a time when only 2% of american law students were female. when she graduated at the top of her class in 1952, no one wanted to hire her except one firm in l.a. that wanted her to be a legal secretary. she of course, negotiated and bargained for more, and we are so fortunate that she did. in 1972, she had been a legislator in the arizona state senate and she became the first woman to become the state senate majority leader out of any state in the nation. of course, on the supreme court, she was known for her centrism

and pragmaticism, and she didn't like the term swing vote, but she was the most powerful woman in america for much of her time on the bench. she was a crucial vote in protecting roe v. wade and judicial precedent for much of her time on the bench. in 1992, planned parenthood's v. casey, she protected the right to abortion and protected legal precedent which lasted of course, until 2022. >> and huma, we also lost longtime senator dianne feinstein this fall. you knew her very well. tell us about her lasting impact on women in office and her influence on you. >> well, as we know, dianne feinstein was the longest serving female senator to serve and yes, i was privileged to know her, and i think her lasting legacy is courageous leadership. i don't think -- i don't know how many people remember that her rise to power -- i mean, she

gave -- she was sitting on the board of supervisors in san francisco and was about to quit politics when this horrible tragedy, the mayor was assassinated down the hall and she -- hours later, and she just rose to the occasion and showed what it was like, what it is like to be a leader in a time of crisis. she went on to, you know, a very successful career in the senate where she was known for bringing people together, you know, taking on issues like gun control and civil rights advocacy, but more than that, she was willing -- and this is hard. this is something she did really well which is looking at an issue and deciding, this is going to be my position, but being willing to change, but opposing same-sex marriage and changing her mind on that. she was -- supported the death penalty. she changed her mind on that. she voted for the war in iraq and then, you know, presided over, you know, the investigation into the treatment of prisoners at guantanamo bay.

challenging, tough things, but she was not afraid to do that, and my most poignant, personal memory with her was in that very fraught, divided primary campaign in 2007 when hillary clinton ran against barack obama and people remember she was the one when it was time for that primary to end and hillary was going to turn her support over to obama, it was at senator feinstein's house in washington that they met, this top secret meeting and hillary and i got into the trunk of a van and got into her house and i remember her graciously offering wine to both of them kind of breaking that tension, and the ice and just such a, you know, an example of a gracious and tenacious woman leader. >> what an amazing story. so maggie, this year we also said good-bye to several entertainers, from tina turner, sinead o'connor, lisa presley.

how will the world remember them? >> there's a musical footprint they left on the world, but each one overcame tragedy in their lives and they will all collectively be remembered for their fiery rock 'n' roll personalities. lisa marie presley of course, was the only daughter of elvis presley. she was 9 when he died, and she became the sole inheriter to his estate. she really became the custodian of his legacy. she did have her own solo career. it never reached the level that elvis' did, but she never tried to be anything that she wasn't. she spoke openly about embracing imperfection and what was being more important was learning from the mistake, and then sinead o'connor was a powerful irish singer. so powerful i used the present tense, and she will be remembered as much for her musical voice as the political voice. she topped the cover of prince's "nothing compares to you," and she famously ripped up

a photo of pope john ii on "snl." that derailed her career. she never reached the top of the musical charts in the same way, but in 2021, she said it was being number one that derailed her career and ripping up the photo brought her back to herself and put her career back on track. then saving the best for last, the queen of rock 'n' roll, tina turner, she burst onto the scene in the '60s and received acclaimed attention in the '60s and '70s and they were married. it was an abusive marriage so she left that, and it turned out when she embarked on her solo career, she stepped into her power. >> maggie mcgrath and huma abedin, thank you so much. you can read much more about the women we discussed here and many of the other notable women who passed away this year at

knowyourvalue.com. knowyourvalue.com.

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governor abbott has made it clear he wants to destabilize cities, sending migrants and asylum seekers here to the city. we have to address i have to navigate this city out of it. the bottom line is i'm the mayor and it's my obligation and responsibility to find the solutions even if we're not getting the help that we deserve from washington, d.c. >> that is new york city mayor eric adams again calling out the republican governor of texas and the biden administration. we'll go through the mayor's executive action to address the

busing of migrants from the border as the tension continues to grow between the democratic mayor and the president of the united states. this all comes as secretary of state antony blinken met yesterday with mexico's president to discuss what can be done about the surge of migrants with another caravan moving toward the border. also ahead this morning, nikki haley making headline this is morning for her response to a question about the civil war. it wasn't a hard one. we'll show you that exchange from a campaign stop in new hampshire. plus, another warning about donald trump's plans for a second term. this time coming from ron desantis, one of his opponents for the republican primary. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, december 28th. i'm willie geist. joe and mika have the day off. jonathan lemire and former white house director of communications to president obama jennifer palmieri join us. great to have you both along for the morning. israeli forces moving forward with their expanded operations

in refugee camps in gaza. yesterday, the idf launched new strikes across the region targeting shelters where they believe hamas terrorists are hiding. officials say troops also are fighting in the northern part of the gaza strip, and israel's navy has attacked targets along gaza's coastline. nbc news senior national correspondent jay gray is in tel aviv with more on israel's offensive, but first, josh lederman takes us inside what the israeli military says is one of hamas' largest tunnel systems in gaza. # >> reporter: ever since this war started, israel has been saying that the hamas move to build tunnels underneath civilian infrastructure in the gaza strip was one of the reasons it is to difficult for israel to conduct this war without potentially putting the lives of civilians in danger, and today we got a firsthand look inside what is the largest hamas tunnel discovered during this war so

far. it's about 10 feet tall with concrete walls. it's actually able for a car to be driven into it based on the width and the fact that there is a declining slope from the surface of the earth into this tunnel. israel says that this is only about a quarter mile from the israeli border, but that it extends some 2 1/2 miles into gaza toward gaza city. now nbc news cannot independently verify what hamas was using that tunnel for, whether it was used for any military purposes or how recently it was inhabited, but nbc was invited to tour this tunnel by the idf as they are really working to bolster their claims about how hamas in their view has jeopardized the safety of their own civilian population, as israel says that there are hundreds of these types of tunnels throughout the gaza strip. the israeli government now looking for ways to try to destroy these tunnels even as they say that getting every single one of them is going to

be a very difficult task, but they say it is critical that israel be able to root out these tunnels if they're going to be able to accomplish their goal of completely eliminating hamas. >> let's begin on the ground in gaza where the offense is expanding in the central portion of the strip outside of gaza city. the idf now saying it is targeting some of the refugee camps in that area, calling the areas, quote, a new battlefield saying that hamas has mingled in amongst those who have left their homes for an area that they were told would be safe and now must find somewhere else to go, adding to the chaos the panic on the ground there. the fact that there continues to be a communications blackout, so no cell phones, no internet. so that's making it much more difficult for those trying to find some place where they can be safe. the fighting is very intense and

very densely populated, urban areas, and the idf says that they will continue this effort for as long as necessary while continuing air strikes to the north and over the last 24 hours saying that they have indeed killed a senior hamas military leader. they haven't said who at this point, and that they've hit more than 100 targets in that 24-hour time. the hamas-run palestinian health ministry says that more than 250 people have died during that same time period. israel says that they are dealing now with seven other fronts to this war, seven other areas where they are taking and responding to fire and says that everyone who acts against us is a potential target. there's concern not only here in israel, but globally about the regional escalation of fighting

to the north along the lebanon border. we know that the israeli air force carried out a raid in the last 24 hours on what they say are military sites and other infrastructure belonging to hezbollah. let's remember, american troops across the region have been targeted as well. more than 100 times since the middle of october with no expectation that those attacks will ease any time soon. in tel aviv, i'm jay gray. back to you. >> nbc's jay gray and josh lederman reporting for us there from israel. you heard jay mention hezbollah, a member of israel's war cabinet. they're threatening to open a second front along the country's northern border with lebanon. the iranian-backed group has been firing rockets into israel since the war began. they struck a greek orthodox church. the israeli defense minister is warning, quote, if the world and lebanese government don't act in order to prevent the firing on israel's northern residents, the idf will do it. a spokesperson for president

netanyahu's office appears to support that view saying, either hezbollah backs off or israel will push it themselves. they say the israel command is, quote, in a state of very high readiness. joining us is alex ward and senior correspondent of foreign policy, michael hirsh. good morning, alex, i'll start with you. i'll start with jay. they stopped you in your tracks talking about a six or seven-front war, and as jay also mentioned, american troops in iraq and syria have been targeted. so is this part of what hamas was looking for on october 7th with that heinous attack, was to provoke israel into just this kind of war? >> i'm not sure hamas expected it to be this wide. they were definitely expecting a massive reaction in gaza itself which they have definitely received. the fact that it has gotten as broad as it has at this point is perhaps beyond hamas' expectations. we should note, of course, that,

you know, the houthi attacks which they say are in response to israel's retaliation in gaza, of course, what's going on with hezbollah, all of this is sort of tangentialily around. it's around that central conflict. they haven't broken out in major fighting. there's been deaths and skirmishes, but it's not all out like israel and hamas. that is of course, still a concern and that i think hamas would see a culmination of their heinous attack. >> michael, i guess the question has to be raised. can israel -- is israel capable even with the support of the united states, of fighting a war on six or seven fronts, to the north, in gaza, of course, in some ways in the west bank, and across the region? what would that even look like? >> it would be very ugly indeed. capable, yes, but the biden administration is rather desperately trying to prevent it from happening, particularly on the northern front with

hezbollah because that would truly inflame the region, bring in iran in a much more direct way than iran has been so far, and could go on for years. i mean, the israelis are already warning that this conflict with the palestinians could go on for years. this would be rather a nightmarish turn of events. >> so alex, let's talk about this with the backdrop of the threat of an expanded war. we have had some high-level diplomacy between israel and the biden administration in recent days. a close netanyahu adviser was in d.c., met with secretary of state blinken, met with national security adviser sullivan. this week we also now know secretary blinken heading back to israel in the coming days. tell us what we know now in terms of the latest -- in terms of the impasse. the real difference of opinion right now between washington and israel as to how the netanyahu administration is conducting this war. >> yeah. i mean, the biggest division here is you have israel saying this war is going to last

months, i mean, years as michael noted and then you have the u.s. saying that now is the time to wind down the all-out operations. that now is the time to go after high-value targets, minimize the harm on civilians, minimize, you know, the widespread campaign. i read a report preparing for this, that there were folks in some of the refugee camps that felt that they were the bombardments overnight, and they were as large as sort of the earliest days of this war, and so that is where the big division is. the u.s. is really trying to get israel to wind down operations. it's unclear that that's going to happen. the messaging at least in public, they're completely far apart. so if the efforts of this diplomacy was to get israel to change course, we haven't seen any evidence that's going to happen any time soon. >> michael, while the biden administration is managing its relationship with israel, it's doing the same with ukraine. the biden administration announcing more assistance for ukraine yesterday as part of another weapons drawdown from u.s. stockpiles.

the $250 million package includes artillery shells, air defense equipment, anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles as well as small arms ammunition. officials say the latest batch of weapons could be the last from u.s. stockpiles unless congress approves new funding for ukraine. so michael, you've gotten the reporting for politico magazine. on the inside discussions between the biden administration and european allies surrounding the war in ukraine, specifically that both are now shifting their focus away from total victory and toward a negotiated path to end the war. so this is something that's been floated now for several months that there isn't probably going to be total victory. in other words ukraine at the end of this may not get back all it has lost during this war. so what is your sense of where those talks are, and how ukraine is feeling about them? >> well, there aren't any talks yet, nor are there any planned.

ukraine in position, that of president zelenskyy, you know, is we're not talking right now, and the only conditions for negotiation would be to start with complete russian withdrawal which of course, is not going to happen. i think what's happening now is an attempt by the united states and europe to set up the ukrainians in a much stronger defensive posture, to make russian advances much more unlikely as we get into what is probably going to be a spring offensive by russia. i think there's a great fear that the russians will bring in their very formidable air force in a way they haven't done so until now as the ukrainians run out of air defense munitions. there's a very quiet push going on to strengthen their hand at any future negotiating table, although there's, you know, a pretty, i think, good consensus at this point on the part of the united states and the europeans

that putin is unlikely to come to the table until he sees who wins the united states, you know, presidential election in november. >> you led me to my next question. negotiation requires somebody on the other side of that table. what is your sense of vladimir putin being willing to come to a negotiated end to this? of course, almost two years ago, you thought he was going to roll his tanks in kyiv and raise the flag over the capital there. that hasn't happened. he's been frustrated by that. would he at some point, maybe after as you say, after the 2024 election, sit down, talk, and have a negotiated end to this war? >> yeah. it's entirely possible. there was a "new york times" report last week which no one really has matched, indicating that putin has signaled through back channels, a willingness to talk, to keep what he's got, which is approximately 20% of ukrainian territory in the east. there has been no indication of actual negotiations being planned. a biden administration official told me that he knew of nothing

like that. so there is a sense that at some point, putin might be willing to negotiate, and i think that might be particularly true if joe biden wins re-election and donald trump does not get back into the oval office because there's a sense that trump might -- he's indicated he would quickly cut a deal with putin that could leave the ukrainians at a disadvantage. but, you know, i think it's going to be many months, possibly even more, you know, more than a year before we know of any negotiations that might be under way. >> we know who putin's rooting for in the upcoming american election. senior correspondent of foreign policy, michael hirsh, alex ward, thank you both. we appreciate it. so jonathan lemire, we just talked about the department of defense giving that last supply of weapons and ammunition to ukraine. now it comes back when everybody comes back from this holiday break to congress and to whether they are willing to put forth money for ukraine and for israel

as well which of course, has been tied up in their demands for something on border security. is the president of the united states who you cover every day -- is he ready to give republicans something on the border in order to keep the support flowing into ukraine and israel? >> he has telegraphed he's willing to do so. it's just a question of what, and it's pressure among democrats to not give republicans too much. fearful of empowering the chief executive, that when potentially donald trump could take control of the white house again in a year or so, and therefore be equipped to do more on the border. there's also concerns that, you know, from particularly progressive liberal democrats who don't want to see too restrictive policies at the border even though so many do think something needs to be done there, and president biden and the white house, they have largely taken a hands-off approach to these negotiations, jen, but we have heard from the president saying he's willing to make a deal at the border. he wants to make a deal at the border, and i think it's for two

reasons. one is to willie's point, he needs to make a deal at the border in order to keep the aid flowing to ukraine. it would be trouble if the u.s. funds disappeared, and even for his own political future, he needs to make a deal at the border because migration right now and numbers are staggering as to how many people are trying to cross the border. it's going to overshadow the 2024 election. >> i think they would -- the ukraine and israeli funding was sort of the original impetus to be talking about border security, but we would be talking about border security whether or not that was, you know, whether or not ukraine and israel were on the table with congress right now regardless. i mean, images of caravans approaching the united states. >> yes. >> it's -- >> election year staple. >> it's an election year staple and it's brutal, and i know -- i checked in with the white house earlier to see how they're feeling about these, you know, about the border security negotiations, and there is a chance that this could come

together and actually get done, but there is, you know, there is a big pressure to get something done. there is the concerns about from, you know, from the left about giving away too much, but, you know, you look at those images coming from mexico and that is a tough thing entering the election year if you are not able to do that. >> jen, when you talk to people inside the white house and you see the images you're describing there you hear every day the democratic mayor of new york city, the mayors and governors in illinois and chicago saying, please, please. we need your help. biden administration, this is a completely untenable situation. we have 10,000 apprehensions a day. border patrol is saying this is a humanitarian crisis. we're not equipped to handle this. does the biden administration -- does this white house, does the campaign now get that this is a real problem? this is not a creation of fox news or whatever they may have thought it was in the past? >> yeah. it's a -- yeah. it's a real problem, and i think what they, you know, they are hoping that congress will actually get something done, and

then absent that or alongside that making sure people understand they have asked for more funding for the border, that the republicans have not acted on. they have been trying. they have put forward comprehensive immigration reform in different years that the congress has not acted on, that the republicans in congress in particular have not acted on and, you know, it has been true since 2013 when the last time there was a very serious bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform when the republicans were working in congress, and the underlying political vice there is republicans like to talk about immigration and make it a political issue, and they do not want to act on it because they don't actually want to solve the problem or at least many of them don't, and so i think the biden team needs -- they understand they need to make that argument as well. so if something doesn't get done, people understand who's preventing that. >> and just to expand on jen's

point there, willie, there was progress made in the senate before they went away on the holiday break. i think there is an appetite to deal in the upper chamber. question is the house. the question is what happens then with this new speaker who has the slimmest of margins, who is inherently barely hanging onto power, who has to deal with the radical right who wants significant demands and to jen's point, may not even want a deal. they want to talk about immigration as we go into this campaign. so the senate and the house may be two very different stories, and i also have heard some slight optimism towards a deal, but no one is taking it for granted that it's going to get done. coming up, an update on the race for the republican nomination. ron desantis trying to trim donald trump's lead in the polls by putting out the authoritarian plans for a second term. plus, nikki haley's answer to a question about the civil war. we'll show what you she said next on "morning joe." what youd next on "morning joe."

beautiful live picture of the united states capitol. joining the conversation now, we've got white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "the playbook," eugene daniels. it's good to see you. republican presidential candidate ron desantis is warning donald trump is likely to use the power of government against his political opponents if he is re-elected. in an interview with real clear politics, desantis described how a second term would be focused on revenge and targeting his rivals saying, in part, trump is fine with weaponization if it's against people he doesn't like, end quote. desantis cited an ethics complaint the trump campaign filed against him earlier this year as one piece of evidence of trump's willingness to use the government against his enemies. so no news here really, other than there is a republican who has been supportive broadly of

donald trump over the years coming out and saying publicly, this guy's going to be an authoritarian. now we should pause and mention if ron desantis doesn't win the nomination, i'm sure he'll come right back around and circle the wagons around donald trump, but at least he's saying it for now. >> he's saying it for now, although he also said not when trump was indicted. he said it was a weaponization of against -- of the federal government against trump, and this is a great argument to -- a great argument to make to republican voters. it probably would have been a great argument to make to republican voters all along if it was going to have an impact and move people, but move republican voters, desantis' way, it's almost january 1. we're about 2 1/2 weeks away from the iowa caucuses, and, you know, you can't -- you can't now be making an argument that the indictments that we said all along were politically motivated that trump

is also trying to weaponize the government against -- against his opponents, like, this isn't just work badly. you have to live it every day as we opened the segment with. it's, like -- it's where desantis -- that's where desantis is living. >> nicely done, jen. right from new jersey to your ears. so gene, let me ask you then about that because it's 2 1/2 weeks until the iowa caucuses. this republican primary field outside of chris christie has dipped its toe in trump criticism. it has sort of had its moments where it's nikki haley or ron desantis where they pushed back ever so slightly, but not ever fully. i think it strikes most political observers as a difficult way to defeat somebody if you are not really willing to go after him full-throated. >> that's right. jen is completely right, right? this is the argument that ron desantis and others could have been making this entire time. donald trump has always made it very clear that he would use a second term to go after his political opponents. he has talked about the vindictiveness of a trump 2025 and on for months and months and months.

this isn't new, right? and you -- if you want someone's job, you have to say why you're better at the job, and they have not done that, right? they have tried to needle around it because they are worried and scared of trump supporters, right? they're worried that trying to get those folks on their side during this primary means trying to figure out how to be nice to donald trump, but that also means that there's no constituency. you don't have donald trump supporters backing you and then the folks who are maybe never trumpers or don't want to be trumpers don't really have a reason to go to you either. why go for, you know, the fake coke, the shasta when you have coke standing in front of you? that's what republicans have been looking at this entire time. this probably isn't going to change a lot of minds in iowa and new hampshire for desantis especially when we're just days, a couple of weeks away from things actually really kicking off, and so figuring out how he's going to continue to say especially as voter -- voters

reporters ask him this question, it will will something folks need to watch. >> governor desantis has put most of his eggs in that iowa basket. he's got to do something right out of the gate here on the 15th of january. meanwhile in new hampshire, republican candidate nikki haley was asked this question by an audience member. quote, what was the cause of the civil war? this is how governor haley responded. >> what was the cause of the united states civil war? >> well, don't come with an easy question, or anything. i think the cause of the civil war was basically how government was going to run. the freedoms of what people could and couldn't do. what do you think the cause of the civil war was? i'm sorry? >> i'm not running for president. i wanted to know -- >> that's a good thing.

>> i want to know what you think is the cause of the civil war. >> i think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are, and we -- i will always stand by the fact that i think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. it was never meant to be all things to all people. government doesn't need to tell you how to live your life. they don't need to tell you what you can and can't do. they don't need to be a part of your life. they need to make sure that you have freedom. we need to have capitalism. we need to have economic freedom. we need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way. >> thank you, and in the year 2023, it's astonishing to me that you answered that question without mentioning the word slavery. >> what do you want me to say about slavery? >> you've answered my question, thank you. >> next question. >> so eugene, we can pick through that a million different

ways. perhaps the follow-up question where she says, what do you want me to say about slavery is what stuck with most people as they watched that commentary on governor haley perhaps, but also about the state of the republican party and as you watched the gears turning there, what she should and she should not say in order to keep her support. >> yeah. that's absolutely right, and if you watched the crowd as things were going downhill, you could start to see people kind of get a little squeamish as she was answering those questions. my family's always been from south carolina. so i am very, very well-versed on the conversation that happens. i was just there earlier this week for christmas. i'm very well-versed in the conversation that happens versus, you know, whether it was states' rights or slavery. what was the real conversation? she's showing that, right? that she's a product of that conversation. this is also something in line with what she said before when asked when running for governor

in 2010 about slavery or about the -- about the cause of the civil war. obviously it was about slavery. if it was about states' rights, it was the states' ability to hold slaves. if it was about freedoms and the governor would tell what you to do, it was about if you could own or beat people and keep them as property and rape and kill them. that is in the history books, but what she is showing is the fact that in the republican party right now, there is not a lot of room for folks who would say something like that, who would be honest about slavery as the cause and the main cause of the civil war. you know, you would think about the last few years and what the republican party has focused on. the conversation about race in this country, the attacking of critical race theory. there's almost no other answer that she could give in this republican primary that wouldn't, you know, take some

votes away from her as she is moving forward. i will say i got some texts from some of the staffers on the other campaigns of this exact message when it happened, but when i asked them how their candidate would answer, they got a little pissed off at me and said, you would never ask them that question. so it tells you that they don't want to answer the question either. >> jen, this shouldn't have been hard. slavery is the answer here, but to eugene's point, it is reflective of where the republican base is right now, that you can't tell a simple truth for fear of losing voters and what has become such a radicalized republican party. let's take a step back and put this in the context of this primary season. >> yep. >> i mean, we didn't quite have a ron desantis welcome to the resistance moment there, but at least he's telling the truth about what trump is trying to do. >> you feel like desantis is actually saying what he has always thought. >> he's got nothing left to lose

i suppose. i wonder if it goes to this moment here last night, haley and the civil war which is really exploding on social media. we had the biden campaign weigh in already, also making clear it was about slavery. >> yep. >> this could blunt some of her momentum. iowa's been hard for her, but going into new hampshire, she did have the wind at her back. maybe this costs her. >> it's breathtaking. i had read the transcript, but i had not actually seen it, and it's just breathtaking when she says, what do you want me to say about slavery? that is her campaign in one question, right? it is, like, who do you want me to be right now? who do i need to morph into in order to never take trump on, but be acceptable enough to sort of the maga majority? that should something happen outside of my control because she's not doing anything to actually beat trump, i can be the person that inherits everyone else's votes.

so this could be -- this is in new hampshire, right? that -- new hampshire voters, they don't -- they want you to be courageous. they like independent thinkers. they want you to speak frankly. this could, you know, so i think that it could hurt her, and, you know, if desantis' operation is effective, they should be doing more to lift it up and make it a thing, but this could be big for her because she came on the national scene by being the republican governor who took down or was part of the taking down the confederate flag over the south carolina state legislature after the terrible shooting -- race-based shooting in charleston at the church there in 2015, and that is when we first learned of nikki haley. this could have been a great moment that said, i come from the south. this is what we've learned, and instead it is this panic. what do you want me to say about slavery? >> it's that last line. what do you want me to say about slavery? almost sort of defiant that she was going to refuse to say

something there. so eugene, let's talk about the man you cover at the white house for politico, joe biden, as we turn the corner into a new year into this all-important election year. how he's feeling, how his campaign is feeling about its prospects, encouraging economic data, and yet his approval numbers and some of these head to head numbers match up certainly with the the margin of error. some polls better for him, some worse. how they're feeling about a matchup likely unless something dramatic happens likely with donald trump. >> one, they feel good about a matchup against donald trump, right? they have kind of always seen that as what was going to happen, and obviously biden beat trump once and they feel like he can do it again and more importantly, they want to make this a choice election, right? they don't want to make it a referendum on president biden. they want to say to voters, and have said to voters. this is what i'm going to do. look how scary this guy is. you have all this great reporting about what a second term for trump would look like.

ron desantis adding to that report saying he would be vindictive and he would attack his political rivals. donald trump has said he would do as much. that's one thing, but i will also say on the kind of selling the economy and their agenda, they have to figure out a way, and they know this, to make people feel better about the economy, right? you can't just explain the macro economics and talk about jobs. though that's great, you can't just talk about inflation going down. some prices going down. you have to figure out a way to get people to feel differently about the economy, and that's going to be, you know, their struggle here. they have over the last three-plus years struggled with selling the things that they've done to the american people. now they have to figure out a way to make folks feel better and that contrast against trump i think would be extremely helpful for them moving forward. i think you can say our economy is much better.

you may be feeling scared, but give us the wills again and you won't have to be scared that donald trump is going to be in the white house. >> thank you so much, eugene. how one of the hollywood strikes could have caused lasting damage to the industry. that's next on "morning joe." iny that's next on "morning joe. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. 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.♪ switch to shopify and sell smarter at every stage of your business. take full control of your brand with your own custom store. scale faster with tools that let you manage every sale from every channel.

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>> reporter: tommy smothers made us laugh. first, that look on his face, while listening to brother dick. then what came next. >> mom always liked you best. [ laughter ] >> reporter: in 1967, the smothers brothers got their own variety show on cbs. >> we do everything as a unit. >> we do not. >> everything as a unit. >> just because we're brothers, we don't do everything as a unit. >> we do everything as a everything. >> you couldn't touch my wife with a 10-foot pole. >> that's right. i use an 11-foot pole. >> reporter: they satirized the powerful and made clear their opposition to the vietnam war. ♪ if you ever get a war without blood and gore, boy, i'll be the first to go ♪ >> reporter: the show was a hit, but the network was not amused. ♪ i guess it was something that we said ♪ >> reporter: after multiple run-ins with network censors, cbs canceled "the smothers brothers comedy hour" in 1970. >> we feel that it's a grave -- a very grave thing when any

network can take off a show that is reflecting these maybe unpopular views. >> reporter: the duo continued to perform for decades. of tom, his brother, dick, said this in a statement. our relationship was like a good marriage. the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected each other. we were truly blessed. >> tom smothers was 86 years old. nbc's harry smith reporting there. coming up, a look at the record-setting year on wall street as the so-called santa claus rally takes shape. plus, new apple watches are back on the shelves this morning after an import ban was temporarily paused by an appeals court yesterday. we'll have the latest on that story ahead straight on "morning joe." ♪♪ joe. ♪

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for the second year, semafor is out with its biggest political hits and misses of the year, and join us now to take us through the americana awards. it's senior politics reporter for semafor david weigle. it's great to see you. i feel like i should be in black tie for this awards ceremony, but this will do for this hour of the morning. starting with the best winning campaign, talking the non-candidate division, who was it this year? >> that was the ohio coalition for reproductive freedom, the people who really twice in august and november won by a double-digit margin, the abortion referendum. republicans -- i should say social conservatives and republicans had a year to figure out a strategy. they tried everything. they tried linking it to gender surgeries. they tried warning that -- with bout language is inaccurate, how far-reaching this would be. it didn't work. you have -- at this point, one of the most efficient operations in center-left politics are

these pro-choice campaigns and this ohioan was probably the most effective we've seen. >> and as you point out in the piece, august, there was that first run to sort of stop the way constitutional amendments are made. that was one run made, defeated by 14 points and the amendment defeated by mainly the same margin. let's move to best winning campaign and talk about an actual candidate here and an incumbent governor. >> that was kentucky's governor andy beshear. he was the top priority on defense, and on offense, republicans had the attorney general daniel cameron, a rising star in the party who had to navigate a tough primary, and won it pretty easily with donald trump's endorsement, and you had a red state with very bleak mood about president biden. biden's approval rating in some parts of the state in the single digits, beshear able to win and extend his margin for four years ago. there's going to be a theme this year. he did so for a number of

reasons. he talked about the state's economy, but he also talked about abortion rights and he had what i thought was the most effective ad of the year about a woman talking about her very gruesome, unpleasant personal experience with abortion really befuddling republicans who were on the statewide abortion ban. good campaign, blocked and tackled all the right things and came up with messaging that i already within hours of the campaign was seeing other democrats try to copy in other states. >> we'll revisit that ad in just a moment a little later in this awards show, but let's continue with the honor roll here. best winning campaign challenger division. tell us who it is, and why it matters. >> yes. it was jeff landry in louisiana. he's somebody who did not make a lot of national news this year for the dynamic. if somebody is winning by a lot, they don't get the same coverage, but this is a campaign that very early on organized to replace john bel edwards, the outgoing democratic governor in louisiana. it started with a simple message

about, i'm the attorney general. i'm a former cop. i'm going to crack down on crime specifically in the big urban precincts, big urban parts of louisiana, big urban parishes, and did a combination of that outreach to republican voters and outreach to black voters. he had very effective early ads directed at black voters in louisiana who do not vote republican mostly about how crime was affecting them. black victims of crime talking about why they supported jeff landry. just the kind of very efficient, basic expanding. normally, very efficient campaign of the kind we do not see a lot of in 2023. >> you picked the glenn youngkin effort to win back the state legislature in virginia. now, this is something i paid attention to, because there was worry among democrats that he had a 15-week abortion ban that he was sort of putting the campaign for republicans behind. there was concern if that

succeeded and he succeeded in capturing the senate that the democrats controlled in virginia, that would mean that moderate position that would do well in 2024 for republicans across the board. i looked at this as a loss, but you're giving youngkin credit for almost winning. explain why you think that was significant. >> there's a little bit of a holiday spirit going on. i think there was a lot of obituary writing for the youngkin effort after they narrowly lost these elections. they lost the state house of delegates by one seat and the senate by one seat. that involved them losing seats in the house of delegates on a new map. they won every seat in both houses that voted by joe biden by less than eight points. they came very close to the youngkin 2021 margin.

i'm comparing this to what republicans were doing around the rest of the country. outside of louisiana and virginia, there was not much overperformance. they were losing in suburbs. in virginia, they were able to come close to building the youngkin coalition of maga voters and some suburbanites. they say democrats say we want to ban abortion, we don't. it was effective. it did encourage them that you can run in the swing house seat with a version of this message in 2024. they were outspent in the end by democrats. they were hurt, frankly, by all the presidential speculation around youngkin. we had very wealthy donors

saying we need youngkin to win and then run for president. that scared up tens of millions of dollars for democrats. it was like the rest of the election the dobbs position wasn't happening in virginia. it wasn't enough for them. >> as we move to best campaign ad, we come to andy beshear, the governor of kentucky. it's titled unthinkable around the issue of abortion. it is a stunning ad. >> i was raped by my stepfather after years of sexual abuse. i was 12. anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and insist could never understand what it's like to stand in my shoes. this is what it's like, daniel cameron. to tell the girl raped by her stepfather she doesn't have

options is unthinkable. >> that's hadley duvall talking about her experience at 12 being raped by her stepfather. she sort of became the voice of this abortion rights movement nationally. >> yes. that format is democrats finding a woman who can tell a personal story. there's not a rebuttal. the candidate is not even featured in it apart from endorsing the ad. this is the most effective version we've seen. kentucky is a state that had a ban ready to go if roe was overturned. you had attorney general daniel cameron running for governor who defended the total abortion ban. it wasn't just that this ad was effective and humanized the issue. it totally scrambled his strategy. he denounced the ad, but it

wasn't clear what he was denouncing. he didn't have a good answer for democrats or the electorate on how situations like hers would not happen. the republican line on abortion for a long time, at least in 2016 has been, well, democrats want no limits, abortions up to the ninth month, abortions on the table after the baby is born. democrats say look at what's happening in a total ban. you have the contrast in the story that is happening. you saw one out of texas after the election. it's the fantasy republicans are talking about, of a healthy pregnancy being terminated in month nine. that's not a thing that happens. these stories are real. it's not just that democrats are good at running ads about them. they're realistic this is happening in america. it horrifies those voters who might have five or six reasons they might vote republican, maybe they're angry about inflation or whatever. but on this issue, democrats are

not in favor of total bands. that has been enough to hold and take back a lot of ground this year. coming up, we'll be joined by a senior israeli diplomat as the country moved forward with its military operation in gaza. "morning joe" is coming right back. gaza "morning joe" is coming right back ♪ 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. only sleep number smart beds let you each choose your individual firmness and comfort. ♪ youuu did it! ♪ your sleep number setting. and actively cools and warms up to 13 degrees on either side. the queen sleep number® c2 smart bed is now only $990. plus, no interest until january 2027. ends monday. only at sleep number.

♪♪ a live picture of los angeles, sun still waiting to come up. we're coming up on 6:00 a.m. out west, 9:00 a.m. here in the east. welcome to "morning joe." joe and mika have the morning off. we begin this hour with some developments in the number of efforts to bar donald trump from state primary ballots across the country. yesterday we reported on michigan state supreme court rejecting an effort to remove trump from the ballot there. the lawsuit tried to use the same constitutional statute

colorado supreme court used to make trump ineligible. a michigan appeals court unanimously said it was not within its jurisdiction to remove a candidate. the state supreme court ruling yesterday affirmed that opinion. as for colorado, that state's republican party wants the united states supreme court to overturn the state supreme court ruling that trump is ineligible to appear on colorado's primary ballot. the state party wrote in a new filing, the prompt hearing of this case is necessary to prevent the colorado supreme court's decision from having an irreparable effect on the electoral process. this issue also playing out in the state of maine, where the democratic secretary of state says she will decide this week on complaints challenging donald trump's eligibility. it requires the secretary of state to issue a ruling first. that decision then can be appealed. yesterday, lawyers for former

president trump filed a request for the secretary of state to recuse herself from ruling on trump's primary ballot access. the trump campaign accused secretary bellows of being biased, saying her social media history displays a deep disdain for president trump and portrays a level of personal animus and bias so deep she is incapable of ruling on this matter. as we've been saying for weeks, all of this is going to end up at the supreme court. the 14th amendment, the third section of it, so hard to predict how that court is going to act. three of those justices appointed by donald trump, doesn't mean they'll rule in his favor. >> this will go to the supreme court.

the legal issues will be sorted out. we're seeing that different states have different interpretations. it could cut two distinct ways. it's not a good headline in a general election for donald trump to be cast off the ballot, to have a reminder for everyone to see he is someone that many people believe fuelled an insurrection. that said, in a republican primary, it only helps. we've already seen his gop rivals come to his aid. it furthers his claim that the deep state is behind this, that this is another means by the government to prevent him being president again. of course, we can fact check all of that. but i know some democrats as well who are nervous about these arguments, who just say, look, we've got to beat him at the

ballot box, not in the courts. they worry this will fire up people to come out to vote for trump. >> it seems unlikely this will amount to jeopardizing his ability to be on enough ballots to get to 270. it does fuel the grievance narrative. it seems like it's going really great at mar-a-lago, the holidays seem to be fun down there. he's attacking the doj, jack smith, congresswoman debbie dingle. >> attacking the creators of "home alone 2." the directors said trump strong-armed his way into the

movie. trump is now attacking that in all caps. >> that shows you the stuff is getting under his skin. when the jack smith trial starts, how is he going to behave? when jack smith can present a full argument like the january 6th hearings did in 2022, that can have an impact on public opinion. it's getting under his skin. >> yes. "home alone 2," full post on the director, chris columbus, the president wondering is that his real name? he wondered if it was donald trump's appearance that rocketed

"home alone 2" to success. israel and hezbollah continue to exchange fire this morning along the northern border with lebanon. officials are warning there may soon be another war along that front. josh lederman has the latest from israel. >> reporter: israel's air force says it has intercepted a drone that crossed into israeli territory from lebanon. fears of a widening war are surging. this morning, as the idf pummels central gaza's refugee camps, israel is on the verge of a second front erupting, this one on its border with lebanon, where there's been a major escalation with hezbollah, including 30 rockets iran-backed militants say they fired yesterday at israel's northernmost city. while a member of israel's war

cabinet says the hope for a diplomatic solution is running out. new violence overnight in iraq. a u.s. base in iraqi kurdistan targeted by an attack drone. this morning, two israeli officials tell nbc news that secretary of state antony blinken is headed to israel in early january for his fifth visit since the war started. the state department hasn't confirmed his travelers. but the u.s. and israel are at odds over how gaza should be ruled after the war and what israel's role should be. >> we have to create an opportunity that people can believe in a better future. maybe you can't control what people think, but by removing hamas from power it won't have the capability to hurt other people. >> reporter: israel says it's almost finished clearing hamas battalions from gaza's north.

they invited nbc news in for a look. the only signs of life are idf troops standing guard. this man is an artist, now a refugee. we're a people who deserve to live and have our rights, he says. i am a true believer that freed has a price. just this morning, israel's military announcing the number of israeli troops who have died in this war has now surpassed 500, including the troops that died in the terrorist attacks of october 7th. >> joining us now is the consul general aviv ezra.

>> thank you for having me, first of all. for the last 83 days, our focus mostly on the immediate implications of what's happening between israel and hamas. when we zoom out a little bit, we see that surrounding israel we have additional proxies, one in the north, hezbollah, but also in yemen, the houthis attacking israeli and u.s. interests, and the pro-iranian militias in iraq and syria going after both u.s. interests and after israel. if we zoom out from what we immediately see as the israel/hamas war, we see that we have actually bigger strings all attached back to tehran. tehran is behind all of it.

there is a u.n. security council resolution that requires hezbollah not to come anywhere south from the border and we have t ability to defend ourselves, god willing, if needed, if they come after us like hamas did on october 7th. >> no secret there's been some tension between the biden administration and the netanyahu government on how to conduct this war. independent groups like the u.n. say numbers are pretty close. what does the israeli government say in response to the accusation that israel is not doing enough to prevent civilian deaths? >> first of all, in regards to

d.c. and the relationship between the united states and israel for self-defense and israel's duty for self-defense, i think there's no daylight between washington and jerusalem between the two strategic keys, eradicating hamas and bringing back the hostages. we do have some different ideas and opinions when it comes to how to do it. i think israel's interest and our strategy is to minimize as much as we can innocent civilian casualties. on the other side, we have hamas increasing their own civilian casualties to create pressure on israel and achieing the ceasefire. the ceasefire is leaving a lifeline for hamas to remain in power. they say in their own words if they have the ability, they will

again and again commit the atrocities of october 7th. >> it's reported the biden administration is pushing for more targeted operations. i don't know that this is just a desire on the administration's part to limit civilian casualties. it's also what they believe to be the best way to conduct that kind of counter terrorism against hamas. how much is the government going to take into account what the biden administration doesn't just desire, but actually thinks is the best way to conduct this war? >> we are in continuous conversation with our american

colleagues, secretary of defense, secretary of state, national security advisor. there are certain stages in the military campaign. we are moving to the central part of gaza. lastly, we will go to the southern part of gaza where the architect of these atrocities is going to be in a subterranean level of tunnels. i think it's important to finish the second phase in a correct manner where we make sure that hamas' war machine will be broken to pieces. and of course the advice coming from d.c. to move to a more counter insurgency kind of strategy like the united states has done, vis-a-vis isis or al qaeda or any other warfare throughout the region. >> mr. ezra, you live in new york in the united states. you're aware of how the war is playing here in the united states.

of course, our country stands side by side with israel. you have seen particularly among young people in this country, if you look at polling, they now end to take the side of the palestinian people, the civilians. they view israel now as the aggressor. too many civilians are dying. that puts pressure on our president and our politicians. they listen. they have to win elections here. what do you make of the reaction particularly among young people in the united states to this war? >> first of all, you're 100% right that we have our work cut out for us for the ages of 18-24. the polls are very dramatic in a sense. i have to begin by saying we are deeply appreciative of the ongoing support from public opinion as a whole that i've seen in washington, d.c. in the rally of 300,000 people.

what was amazing is on the stage you could see speaker johnson and minority leader hakeem jeffries and next to them you could see senate majority leader senator schumer with the leadership of the republican party, all of them expressing israel's right for self-defense. you're 100% right that we have these challenges with the younger age. we need to do a better job of educating, not through tiktok, not through 15-second segments, because this is more complex. i can also tell you one last thing about the demonstrations here in new york. i'm less concerned about the specific demonstration, but more concerned about the content of the chants, genocidal chants against the state of israel. sometimes the best case scenario is ignorance. they don't know which river, which sea. but they're calling for genocide

of israel, which is very, very worrisome. >> you say a lot of that does come off of tiktok. they repeat the chant. when you stop and explain what it means, they say, oh gosh, no, that's not what i meant to say. coming up here on "morning joe," an update on the markets and the rally that has the s&p 500 near an all-time high as well as the dow. it does come as one tech giant is stuck in a sales slump. plus, republican congresswoman lauren boebert of colorado seeking an easier path to a third term after winning reelection last year by less than 600 votes and facing a tough challenge in her district this year. also ahead, a look back at a turbulent year in hollywood. hol.

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beautiful live picture of the sun just peeking up in denver this morning, where it is 7:20 in the morning, home of the world champion nuggets and a new quarterback. republican congresswoman lauren boebert is switching districts in the state of colorado. she currently represents the state's third congressional district. last year she won a second term, barely beating her democratic opponent by fewer than 600 votes. adam frisch is running again and his campaign has raised $7.7 million to boebert's 2.4 million. boebert's move takes her out of a competitive race and into the primary for colorado's much more

conservative fourth congressional district. ken buckholt holds that seat and is retiring. she saw the writing on the wall, moving to a congressional district that i believe goes plus 27 or something like that, a safe republican district now for lauren boebert to remain in congress one way or another. >> but she could have a tough primary. ken buck was sort of a never-trump kind of republican. you know, colorado is not a red state. biden won that state, hillary won that state. that state goes democrat statewide. so trump does not have a hold on the republican party there the way he might in some other states. i don't know. i feel like that could be a tough race for her. >> this is not unheard of for representatives to change districts. what's surprising is how honest

she was about it where she said, yes, i am changing districts because i have a chance to win here. she generated a lot of negative headlines during her time in congress. it did seem like the beetlejuice scandal has hurt her and stuck with her in her district. she is certainly someone who, if she were to survive the primary, likely would win because of the nature of this new district. >> for people wondering, you do not have to live in the district you represent. you just have to live in the state you're representing. let's turn to the economy. the so-called santa claus rally continued to be the big story on wall street. the dow and the s&p 500 up 13

and 24% for the year respectively with just two trading sessions left in the year. the nasdaq is in its best year since 2003, climbing more than 44%. apple last month reporting earnings for the fourth quarter, marking a drop in sales for the fourth consecutive quarter. let's talk about the latest here. >> what's going on here with apple is, it used to be this high-flying, high-growth company. it's not growing anymore. the sales have declined from a year ago. what can return it to growth is what investors are asking as we head into 2024.

for the holiday quarter, sales are going to be flat compared to a year ago. that was another troubling sign. despite all that, we're seeing the stock up almost 50% so far this year. a lot of optimism around artificial intelligence and the like. another thing that's going to help apple is services. every time you subscribe to an app or play a game, that services business is growing quite rapidly again and injecting some optimism as we move forward into 2024. >> apple obviously earned the trust of investors that they're going to figure out a way to turn it around here. let me ask you about the u.s. appeals court pausing an import ban on the apple watch. why were those apple watches banned, and what happened in court?

>> this all stems from a patent dispute between apple and this health tech company called mossimo. it all comes down to that blod oxygen sensor. mossimo says apple stole the technology. that's what's behind the import ban. this appeals court ruling yesterday is going through the legal process as they try to make changes to the watch to get around these patents. right now, it's just a stay until they can have their next court hearing to really get into the meat of this case. that's going to happen later in january. apple is selling watches again. they went on sale in physical

retail stores yesterday. around noon pacific time today you'll be able to buy them again on apple.com. the nba officially has approved the sale of the dallas mavericks, which moves the controlling interest of the franchise from mark cuban, who's owned the team forever, to the families who run the las vegas sands casino company. deal still allows cuban to continue running the team's basketball operations. sources tell espn the purchase is in excess of $4 billion. cuban bought the mavs in the year 2000 for around $285 million. in the nfl, the denver broncos are benching quarterback russell wilson for sunday's game against the chargers.

the personnel change helps increase the broncos' financial flexy in the off season, raiing doubt about wilson's future with the nfl. they're keeping him sidelined from potential injury that could trigger a salary. the benching of tommy devito in favor of tyrod taylor, is devito mania over? >> it may have run its course. my husband was disappointed that they took devito out, thinking this game does not matter. don't injure tyrod taylor. don't let the giants do worse in that game. let tommy stay in and see out

the game on christmas day. just a little homage to how much joy he brought us in a pretty joyless season. >> don't be sad the journey is over. be happy about the cutlets we had along the way. devito may have earned himself a backup role next year, but he really struggled in those last couple games. tyrod has been a solid backup quarterback for some time. the giants are, for whatever reason, still trying to win games. it was a fun month in the new york area, for the jokes, if nothing else, for tommy devito. for all three of us, it was a very tough nfl season. >> it's been brutal. tommy devito's family was awesome, his agent. there was so much to love.

i'm not saying good-bye to touchdown tommy yet. i think he played well enough that he's going to be in a roster somewhere next year. let's hope it's with the giants. we're going to tell you about one college bowl game. west virginia celebrated a 30-10 duke's mayo bowl victory over north carolina last night by dousing its head coach with a bucket of mayonnaise. that's some runny mayonnaise. duke's mayonnaise. usually you get the gatorade bath. when you win the duke's mayo bowl, you get a tub of mayo. he looked thrilled. >> mayo is good on a sandwich.

i dip a fry into mayo. my god, i would not want it dumped on me. >> i can't even stand to touch mayonnaise. i hate it. that's a nightmare for me. so gross. >> you learn so much on these holiday shows when we have room to breathe and talk about mayonnaise. coming

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you may have noticed that they politely nudged you to get your own subscription. at the same time, they started making global hits out of random shows like "suits." that was a show that aired on the usa network ten years ago, and it became one of the biggest shows on netflix. netflix at the end of the year started releasing the ratings data that showed us that some of these shows on netflix are generating billions of hours of viewing on netflix. the other streaming services just aren't keeping up to that level, so much so that they have started selling a lot of their shows to netflix.

you can watch hbo shows on netflix. netflix is really dominating and pulling away from the other competitors. >> on the "suits" thing, that became a phenomenon. was that a meghan markle thing? what prompted that? >> it was a factor. you could put meghan markle on the little tile and people would check it out. it's a fun, fast procedural show that people liked. the netflix algorithm really juices that. one cohort of people start watching it, they start serving it to other people and it becomes this big viral thing everybody is then watching. it's part of the platform and it's also part of the show. >> peacock is growing very fast.

we're proud to have "morning joe" on there as well. let me ask you about the "barbenheimer" phenomenon. the idea that the box office and theaters were gone after the pandemic, this was a very big moment for movie theaters in america. >> absolutely. i think "barbenheimer" really showed that nothing can dominate the culture like hit movies on a global scale. "barbie" got to $1.4 billion. oppenheimer, a movie that was three hours long, largely in black and white, got to about 950 world wide. that is a huge win. but it masks an overall problem for the movie industry. if you look back to 2019, one studio, disney, released six movies that grossed a billion dollars world wide. this year, disney had zero. the entire movie industry only produced two movies that got to

a billion dollars, barbie and the super mario brothers movie from universal. that's a real problem. box office overall is going to be about 20% down in 2003 from pre-covid times. the projections for next year are not better because of the strike delays. the box office has not recovered despite the huge success of "barbenheimer." >> you can't count on a "barbenheimer" every summer. so much at play in hollywood right now. matthew belloni, thanks for bringing it to us. next, we're learning new details about the devastating lahaina wildfire that killed more than 100 people and destroyed entire communities in hawaii. n hawaii

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picture this morning of the failures surrounding one of the deadliest natural disasters in american history. tom llamas has new reporting on what went wrong ahead of the wildfires this year in maui. a warning, some of the images you will see here are graphic. >> i called in sick to work the day before the fire, and then i get a couple calls coming in to my fiance. what really triggered me is when she's talking to a colleague and she says my neighbor's roof is on fire. that's when it hit me, like i have to go in. >> we were able to get in front of it. that's when a big gust came. i see it start running westerly. once i saw that, that sense of helplessness kicked in.

>> adrenaline kicks in. i see smoke, i see flames, and then i see the crew. the look on their face is something i won't ever forget. >> by 4:27 p.m., the fire has traveled about a mile to resident diego rivera's house. he doesn't have cell service or power. at 4:44 rivera makes an attempt to flee to safety. this video captured the sheer terror that those escaping the inferno were facing. >> somebody's down right here. >> somebody's down. we cannot do nothing for her. >> oh my god, bro. >> let's go. we cannot do nothing for her. >> rivera declined to talk to us on camera. the memory is still too

traumatic. >> wow. >> around the same time, noah tompkinson and his family were driving along the water. around 5:20, realizing they're trapped, they jumped into the ocean. >> you're okay, my love. both sides to the left and the right are on fire. [ bleep ] scary. >> a little after 6:00 p.m.,maui's mayor appears live on television, seemingly unaware about the extent of the fire. >> i'm happy to report the road is open to and from lahaina. >> the mayor appears to be unaware that front street has already been burning. >> on the north end of front

street, hawaii native charles is unaware a fire is raging. >> i didn't realize there was an inferno happening down the road. i was thinking all along we're going to be okay. >> everybody needs to evacuate! >> police were evacuating residents, but an apparent breakdown in official communication left many with no warning and almost no way out. >> there was no guidance. we had to make the decision on our own when it was time to go. >> back in the ocean noah and his little brother milo are with their mother, who has been struggling to keep her head above wire. days after the fire, still no shock, they told me about their experience. what was that like, seeing your mom in that position? >> i think among all the stress of looking out for her kids, she started to have a hard time.

she was like, you know, shaking, cold from the anxiety. there was one point where we kind of like all huddled around her to keep her warm. >> meanwhile, for hours, they had been trying to save various homes. here she is taking over for police at the shed. the fire turned heros into victims. >> this is your house? >> yeah. >> at around 8:00, firefighter . >> they're shooting it. this is your house? >> at around 8:00, firefighter ina heads to her neighborhood and tries to retrieve water from the hydrants, but the hydrants are dry. >> like going to a gun fight with no bullets. good luck, hope you, you know -- >> then we finally get above the bypass looking down on lahaina.

>> it cut us off and it was too dangerous to see because lined were down and trees had fallen. >> we're up top and like this is it. it can't get worse than this. and then i swear, not even 20 minutes later, i go up over the hill and look down, and i just. i'm like, how did it jump and just eat everything in its path? that sense of helplessness, nothing can prepare you for it. yeah, nothing could have prepared us for that moment. >> reporter: around midnight, after an extraordinary 16 hours battling the flames, the moment ina had been fearing all day. >> there was fire above it, fire around it. you know, and then finally, one time we went through and you could see it was my house that

was on fire. you can't stop and think about that. you just have to keep going. >> almost rescued. there's a fire truck here. >> reporter: finally, at around 2:00 a.m., firefighters rescue the thompkinsons. >> if any of us were alone, i don't know if we would have made it. >> we worked until about 10:00 a.m. the next morning. driving back to the station was tough. and it was just ash. this is the place i grew up. how do i not know what street this is? >> even at 400 feet in the air,

you can still smell the smoke days later. you look down and you can't make out what you're seeing. >> it was a david and goliath situation. we were battling an inferno that we could not put out. >> the fire department will always win. we will win this time. >> still half staff. >> what happened that day is now the subject of dozens of lawsuits. many blame the utility company, hawaiian electric, for allegedly causing the fire with its power lines. the county of maui is also suing hawaiian electric for negligence, a lawsuit the utility says is factually and legally irresponsible. there have been persistent and

frequent public warnings about maui's fire risk, and on maui, heavy winds fueling a string of brush fires -- >> after devastating wildfires in 2018, residents raised concerns about power line risks, highly flammable, overgrown grasses, and communication failures. but not enough changed. the island avoided catastrophe then, but this time, the wind was just too strong. >> my old church, my old house. this is the coffee shop. oh, there's my sign. >> reporter: as kohler takes us to what remains of her home and coffee shop she once owned, she can't help think about what lies ahead. >> it's hard to stay positive and move forward.

how are we going to continuously pay our mortgage and rent once insurance is up? we're going to need a lot of help. >> nbc's tom llamas reporting there. just a small piece of the full nbc news digital documentary, it's called in the ashes, the firefighters, victims, and survivors of lahaina's deadly inferno. it's available now at nbcnews.com, and well worth a watch. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." emergen-c crystals. switch to shopify and sell smarter at every stage of your business. take full control of your brand with your own custom store. scale faster with tools that let you manage every sale from every channel. and sell more with the best converting checkout on the planet. a lot more.

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jonathan lemire in our final moments, we were talking earlier this morning, it was merely hours, about nikki haley and her nonanswer about what caused the civil war. a cleanup effort on her part today, but the fact remains, couldn't answer that simple question. >> she couldn't. that's a sound bite that's going to carry some weight, i think. although it is also a sad

reflection, jen, on the republican party right now, that she probably was afraid to really condemn slavery because she thought it would cost her some votes in the gop primary field. >> i remember talking when she had her big moment when the confederate flag came down off the state capitol in stairk, talking with a former governor of south carolina and asking how talented is she, and this person saying, when it matters, she's not going to do the right thing. when it matters, she's always looking to see with her finger in the wind to see what the popular thing is. i was like, that person who will continue to remain nameless, was correct. >> we'll see what more comes of this. the big headline of today's show, my goodness, jen hates mayonnaise, more on that tomorrow. that does it for us this morning. yasmin vossoughian picks up the coverage now. >> good morning. todan