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good morning. happy new year. welcome to a special new year's day edition of "morning joe." we're on tape this morning with some of our top, recent conversations. we begin with a discussion about donald trump's increasing use of authoritarian language in his speeches and social media posts. in recent months, trump has repeated fascist rhetoric, including saying immigrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of our country, and referring to his political enemies as vermin. >> we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. the threat from outside forces is sinister, dangerous, and grave, more than the threat from

within. >> donald trump echoing the words of 20th century authoritarians at a rally earlier this month. joining us now, national affairs analyst john heilemann. special correspondent at "vanity fair" and host of "the fast politics podcast," molly jong-fast. and correspondent at "the new york times," michael c. bender, for his later piece he wrote about trump's tilt toward authoritarianism and the concern it is causing among historians and much of the american public. i would see it as a tilt, joe, or completely running straight into it. >> just going to say, mr. bender now knows, once again, even on live television, the dangers of ever writing anything about donald trump because it's never enough or it's too much. it is never just right. can i get an amen from the reporters here? >> yes, you can.

>> so, michael, let's begin with you, though. your piece obviously started, once again, a conversation about donald trump. again, not just mimicking the words of past authoritarian and fascist leaders, but doing it against a backdrop of violence on january 6th, doing that against the backdrop of violence by one of his supporters against paul pelosi. doing that against the backdrop of him mocking pelosi, calling for violence against his opponents. all a very, very toxic mix going into the 2024 election. >> that's right. kind of what -- you know, we've all known, everyone has known for a while, trump has run as an

outrageous candidate. he is willing to say and do things that few in our lifetime have been willing to do and say on a national stage. what strikes me this time, and which sparked this article, has been most of the focus of his attacks, particularly when he started, were foreign marks. muslim immigrants. hispanic immigrants. the change we've seen over the last few campaigns, particularly now, he's saved some of that most vicious attacks for domestic opponents. that turn inward comes at a time when he and his allies are coming up with plans to weaponize the department of justice, to surround himself with lawyers in a potential second term that would bless some of his actions. this piece tried to pull all of that together while also showing some of the examples of, you

know, this authoritarian language he has been leaning into for the past year. >> the past year. there are many people who believe it really needs to be discussed. you know, this show got criticized a great deal, especially through 2015, for saying that donald trump could win the republican nomination and for us having him on the show. there has also, of course, been great criticism of other networks that have allowed him to have town hall meetings. it's interesting. i'm saying this just leading up to an interesting conundrum, john heilemann. "new york times" today, "democrats want trump plastered all over the news." things have changed. let me read from it very briefly here and have you respond. three years later, after trump left the white house, mr. biden's re-election campaign and democratic fsic officials a

the party spectrum landed on a new solution instead of ignoring donald trump. more trump. criticizing the news media for giving mr. trump a platform is out, quietly pining for networks to cover trump rallies is in. the former president gobbling up oxygen again, you have democrats' outrage machine. is this not true? mr. trump has been one-man democratic turnout operation, uniting an otherwise fractures opposition and fueling victories in three straight election cycles, reports reid epstein. john, we had -- national review had a line i thought summarized it succinctly.

when americans are talking about joe biden, republicans wins. when americans are talking about donald trump, democrats win. democrats want america talking about donald trump now more than ever. >> right, joe. of course, as you said a second ago, there's a kind of grim irony of it for those of us who have been told over the course of the last seven years, "just don't talk about him. don't talk about him. he'll go away." i know you, mika anyone who had reason to talk about donald trump on this show heard this endlessly from people over the course of the last seven years. he only thrives because we give him attention. if the media didn't cover him, somehow, he wouldn't be a powerful force. of course, a ludicrous argument, given the kind of alternative media ecosystem that exists where trump gets his message out. that entire sphere of

right-wing, moderate right-wing, extreme, the ecosystem that has given him the biggest platform he has and where he's connected with tens of millions of americans, people finally have woken up to the notion that ignoring him doesn't have him go away. to mike bender's piece, the important point, that democrats understand now that they need to break through a kind of torpor among a lot of potential and past trump -- people who voted against donald trump, people who voted for democrats, who now assume, somehow, trump will not be the nominee. they're not focused on the election. he won't eventually get there. he'll be in jail, whatever it is. they have to make clear that trump is here. he is almost certainly here to stay until at least next november. as bender's piece shows, his rhetoric is amazingly getting worse, more dangerous, more inciteful -- i say inciteful, not full of incite -- but it's

getting worse. voters need to understand, as early as possible, the stakes of the election, or democrats will be in trouble a year from now. >> mika, by the way, for those waking up this morning asking what is the "morning joe" word of the day, our version of wordle, torpor by john heilemann. he's brought it to the table. >> thanks, heilemann. >> we are most grateful he has. >> right. >> a state of mental inactivity, would that be torpor? >> and lethargy, slothfulness, laziness, lack of acute understanding and focus, sure, all of them. >> i thank you for that. >> i mean, this is my word, actually, for life. i love it. go ahead, mika. >> that's his motto. molly jong-fast, the option for democrats here, it seems to me, i mean, there's always the issue, "we don't want to go

negative. we don't want to go ugly." when you're running against donald trump, go real. just use what material donald trump has provided, and put it in proper context. give people information about what will be happening if he gets another term. i think that would be enough, and i think democrats need to pound away at the dangers of donald trump, using donald trump's own words against him and actions. >> no question. i think that, look, there is a vacuum when mainstream media does not cover a subject. there becomes a vacuum, and trump and his people get into social media and spread stuff. if there isn't a fair amount of debunking, you will see these lies go again and again and again. >> talk about spreading, you can also cover the mini trumps, tommy tuberville. >> right. >> the new speaker of the house. they are all mini trumps, all republicans caught in honestly,t

you know in your life, you can't recognize these republicans. this is all out there, and it's accurate information that can be used against him that trump has amassed over the course of four to eight years. >> right. >> he has given the democrats on a silver platter. take it and run with it. >> yes. i think the white house is seeing more and more they need to fill the vacuum, they need to push back, that they need to -- you know, they were aggressively boring, and it worked for a long time. they weren't able to claim their accomplishments if they were aggressively boring, and they weren't able to shift the narrative. now, they really n that. they need to claim, you know, they did inflation reduction. they need to claim that victory. there are a lot of victories. you know, right now, inflation is going down. they should claim that victory. they have to be the ones who do it. they're going to have to be the ones to fill that void. >> joe, they have a lot of material. >> they have a lot of material. you know, the thing is, donald

trump winning in 2016, we've always talked about the incites he drew, but we haven't looked at how lucky he was. in the primary, his main opponent was jeb bush. in the general, it was hillary clinton. the bush/clinton family had been in the white house for 20 of 28 years at that point. it was hard not to blame every problem working class americans had on the clinton/bush dominance. he had that. but i say that to say, jonathan lemire, in 2016, the election really wasn't about donald trump. it was a referendum on hillary clinton. in 2020, the election wasn't about joe biden. it was a referendum on donald trump. joe biden, again, was the one candidate that could lay low

enough idealogically so trump couldn't land a punch on him. now, we go into '24, and the biden white house -- tell me about your reporting about how much do they recognize that '24 needs to be a referendum on trump once again. his words on abortion. his words on violence. his words on terminating the constitution, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. how big is that going to play. >> it is going to play a significant role. that's been the game plan all along. they spent a few months trying to make the positive case for biden, particularly on the economy. the bidenomics pitch. as we know, it hasn't really worked. it hasn't translated yet in the polls anyway. democrats were getting antsy about it and urging them to draw sharper contracts with donald trump. as we wrote after the election, they have begun to do that. that is going to be the centerpiece of their campaign going forward. and connected to the piece in "the times" about democrats wanting more coverage of trump.

we should note, white house themselves tried to ignore trump a long time. president biden wouldn't say trump's name for almost a year. connected to this idea they want more coverage of trump is, mike bender, this reporting that we had a few weeks ago, that there is a belief among democrats that donald trump at this point is a name in the headlines. he's a picture on tv. americans, especially those who aren't paying attention yet, really haven't listened to him in a long time. once they do, once they hear from him again, it might not be until next year when he starts delivering high profile speeches, they're going to be stunned by the rhetoric and his incendiary plans for the future. my question to you is, do people around donald trump think the same? are they worried that they could turn off swing voters, but they think it is worth it because they can drive out turnout from his base? >> it's a very good point. this idea that less trump is the best trump is something that both democrats and republicans agree on. trump has gotten a lot of criticism for not campaigning heavily in the past year, but a

part of that is his team knows he's better, the public views him much better when he is not in the headlines every single day. as this campaign gets closer, though, i don't think that is going to be much of an issue. we've seen trump's aggressiveness escalate to each successive campaign as the stakes get higher and higher. he is prone to become more and more combative. i'll point out heading into this election, he is facing 91 felony charges and the prospect of not just becoming a two-time loser but a historic two-time loser. one other republican in the history of the party ever lost two presidential nominations. >> there's so much to work with. where do you begin is the problem. michael c. bender, thank you. molly jong-fast, thank you, as well. hope you all have a great holiday. coming up, cnbc's andrew ross sorkin joins us to discuss his viral interview with elon musk at "the new york times"

deal book summit. "morning joe" will be right back. >> i will not pander. the only reason i am here is because you are a friend. like, what was my speaking fee? >> you're not making any -- first of all, i'm andrew. >> yeah, sorry. >> it's okay. second of all, we've known each other a long time. >> andrew sorkin, yes. >> and, you know -- >> listen -- [ laughter ] >> sometimes i say the wrong thing. that's what i'm trying to illustrate. are you replacing me? with this guy? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache! oh, look! a bibu. [limu emu squawks.] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ lowering bad cholesterol can be hard, even with a statin.

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welcome back to "morning joe." billionaire elon musk had no shortage of controversies in 2023, but perhaps his most publicly revealing one came at the end of the year in an interview with cnbc's andrew ross sorkin at "the new york times" deal book summit. in an expletive-ridden tirade, musk claimed advertisers were trying to blackmail him by leaving the x platform over his anti-semitic posts. andrew joined us to discuss this latest high-profile musk saga. >> andrew, the man of the hour, a busy man. at the deal book summit yesterday. incredible list of guests that you interviewed personally. we have to start with elon musk, though. >> yup. >> give us a little background,

color, how it came together, then we'll play the bite people are talking about. >> look, he came to do an interview. going to be his first interview, and it was planned a long time ago, but since the comments he made on twitter which had gone viral, had been condemned around the world as being anti-semitic. advertisers with fleeing the platform. he made the trip to israel. he literally flew back from israel. i think he went to texas and then came to new york and sat with us. it was a remarkable conversation insofar as, one moment, he left me speechless. we'll probably show it. also, it was one of the first times he's apologized publicly, not only about the comment he made, but about anything. i mean, i think if you cover elon musk, you know elon musk, he is not somebody who expresses remorse. to actually see him do that was something. i also think the whole

conversation, and i know everybody is focused on the advertiser piece and we'll show that, but it was an opportunity to see inside his mind. you saw -- walter isaacson, who wrote the biography, who was at this table, talked about the many elon musk. the next stef steve jobs, einstein, but then you have the depressed elon musk. i think you saw it. >> many advertisers fled x, and he basically said, bring it on. >> just to give a little bit more context, one of the other people interviewed yesterday that i interviewed was bob iger, ceo of disney. i said to bob, you know, "you have stopped advertising on x. why?" he said, "look, the comment that elon musk said about what he called the actual truth was something that was upsetting." didn't think it was the right platform for him. i thought elon musk would say he wanted to get bob back.

he wanted to get disney back on the platform. here's what he had to say. >> this had been said online. there was all the criticism. there was advertisers leaving. we talked to bob iger today. >> stop. don't advertise. >> you don't want them to advertise? >> no. >> what do you mean? >> if somebody is going to blackmail me with advertising, the money, go [ bleep ] yourself. >> but -- >> go [ bleep ] yourself. is that clear? i hope it is. >> he specifically invoked bob iger's name directly. >> yes. >> start playing the victim, as if they're arbitrarily deciding not to -- >> well -- >> he said that x will collapse, and when it does, it'll be the fault of the advertise rs. >> and the planet will see it's the fault of the advertisers. i said, "look, a lot of the planet may say, elon, it is your

fault, because the advertisers aren't comfortable being there." we had a discussion about what it means to be liked or disliked. he said, bring on the hate. then we got into a conversation of trust. how much is it important to be trusted? given the influence and power he has with x, and he sells cars, you'll get in his vehicles. spacex has deals with governments. starlink is a communication device being used in the middle of wars, ukraine, russia, israel. it was fascinating to see all sides of it. >> people are saying, he could lose $40 billion with x. here's a guy, andrew, explain to our viewers, who is worth $250 billion, who gets wealthier by the year, who is going to continue to get wealthier by the year. while money may mean something to him as far as, like, sort of competing with the richest people in the world, people that know him well say the guy wears the same white t-shirt every

day. >> right. >> he is not driven by the things that drive others. >> yeah. >> if he says, "i'll lose $40 billion and i don't care about it," you can almost believe him watching that clip. >> i don't believe he'll let this company fail or go under. i think he cares about it too much. you could see it. that was what was interesting about this interview. you could physically, palpably see how much he cares. i would also say, and, look, the economics of x, i think, are complicated, but you look at all of the interest and people on x still. i mean, the advertisers may not be there, but people are. there's some interesting sort of juxtaposition there, and whether he knows something we don't, which is, at some point, maybe advertiser say, "well, if that's where the people are, we'll go there." i don't know. we'll see. coming up, we'll take a look at the nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers that has resulted in an exhausted

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♪♪ a troubling investigation published by "the new york times" spotlighting the nation's overworked air traffic controllers. including some who claim their colleagues use drugs and alcohol while on the job. in a moment, we're going to speak with one of the reporters on the story. first, let's get the details from nbc news correspondent tom costello. >> reporter: it's a high-stakes, high-pressure job, and 2023 has been a year of close calls involving both pilots and controller error. including this one in austin, when a controller cleared a fedex plane to land just as a southwest plane was departing. >> southwest abort! >> fedex is on the go. >> reporter: one problem, controller fatigue. 77% of air traffic control facilities are understaffed, leading to mandatory overtime.

medical issues forced neil burke to retire this year. >> we're tired of working six days a week, ten-hour days. >> reporter: nbc news obtained internal faa documents first reported by "the new york times" detailing controllers' only anonymous reporting of mistakes and exhaustion. among the entries, "many employees can be observed sleeping on the job." "if i had not been fatigued, i may have been able to recognize the aircraft lined up for the incorrect runway sooner." and, "i pray no one dies due to controller fatigue." also included, isolated cases of controllers using alcohol and illegal drugs while on position. one claimed a colleague regularly smoked marijuana on break. another said a controller bragged about making big money buzzed. with more than 10,000 certified controllers on the job, the new faa chief says substance abuse is very rare. >> we monit drug and alcohol use very closely.

we have robust reporting, and we follow up on every possible lead that comes in. >> reporter: still, both the faa and controllers' union say overtime fatigue is real. >> you're missing your home life. you're missing your kids's ball game and spouse's events, and it does have an effect. >> reporter: michelle hager left last june. >> that is not a sustainable lifestyle to be working that hard at a job that requires so much mental focus at all times. >> we're working every day to make sure that the system stays as safe as it has been for decades. we're not letting down our guard, and we're working that issue hard every day. >> joining us now, economics reporter for "the new york times," sydney ember. she is one of the reporters behind that "new york times" piece titled, "drunk and asleep on the job: air traffic controllers pushed to the brink." sydney, great to see you this morning. that's a terrifying headline. it is a terrifying story. tell us a little more about what you and your colleagues found. >> yeah, it is.

so this investigation actually started almost a year ago. you might remember that there was sort of this southwest meltdown. a lot of things were happening. it was becoming very annoying to fly. thousands of passengers were stranded all the time. we started looking into this, and then, you know, all these close calls started happening. we wondered why is this happening? through our reporting and through lots of documents, we talked to more than 70 people, including current air traffic controllers, we found these close calls are happening, on average, multiple times a week, and a big part is air traffic controllers are overworked, they're fatigued, demoralized. everything is just very, very understaffed. >> sydney, is it a problem of there just aren't enough trained air traffic controllers, and what is the government doing to try to remedy that? >> yeah, i mean, that is the problem. our reporting found that 99% of air traffic facilities in the united states are understaffed. you know, i think one of the biggest issues is we haven't had

a crash, you know, fortunately. there hasn't been a collision in a long, long time, so there's a lot of, you know, what is to be done? it looks really safe. you know, the faa has a budget, just like all federal agencies. you know, there's just this understaffing is pervasive, but the problem is, this understaffing, you know, dates back to the 1980s. the government hasn't really kept pace with these wave of retirements that have been happening, and so they're in this really big hole right now. >> that is the big picture solution, the staffing issues. in the short term, as your story indicates, some of these air traffic controllers dealing with the stress are turning to drugs or alcohol. what is being done on the short term to try to -- is there anything being done on the short term to crack down on those poor choices that endanger passengers? >> yeah, i mean, that's an excellent question. i think the controllers we talked to say that they're very demoralized, very stressed, overworked. they're working six days a week, ten hour days, and they actually do say there's really not enough

support. the faa isn't doing enough. you know, things are reaching a crisis level. a lot of people tell us they're really afraid that a crash is inevitable at this point because everyone is just so, so overworked. >> economics reporter for "the new york times," sydney ember, thank you very much for that reporting. staying in the air now and the growing push -- >> i have to say this, first of all. >> no, i can't. >> i have to say it. jonathan lemire -- >> no. >> -- i've been reading "the times," my god, i don't know. >> your whole life. >> i don't want to be a nerd and say since i was 8 or 9, but i've been looking at it for a very long time. i'm going to be honest, there were years where i would look at the sunday "times" going, the editor in me going, "what are they doing? what are they doing here? what is their audience?" yesterday's sunday "times," and

this is the nerd in me, incredible. one great story after another. the placement was perfect. this was the lead. it should have been the lead. because, again, it's such an important story. the story out of colorado was there. again, it was a perfect mix. again, i know i'm sounding too nerdy right here, but i'm just going to say, there are years that have gone by in the past where i look at the sunday "times" and said, what do i get out of this? you know, it's -- most of the time, it's great. yesterday, i got finished with my sunday "times," and i said, "my god, like, they're hitting on all cylinders." >> joe scarborough, unlikely "times" editor. >> i've been this way my whole life. >> i've also worked at newspapers for decades. my parents always had the local

papers around, "the boston globe." we consume most of the media on phones and media screens, sadly, now, but there is something delicious and perfect about grabbing the printed edition, particularly a wonderful paper like the sunday "new york times" and going through it. not only do you see the stories you want to find, you discover others you never would have encountered online. you read so much more, and you're better for it. >> oklahoma. this wasn't in the sunday "times," but it has really good. the growing push to get the government to share more information about ufos, also called unidentified aerial phenomena. it prompted lawmakers to hold a hearing on the matter over the summer. >> i have experience in advanced uap firsthand, and i'm here to voice a concern to veterans who have similar concerns with me. uap are in the air space but underreported. they're not rare or isolated.

they are routine. we're frequently witnessing these phenomenon. >> that was part of former navy fighter pilot ryan graves' opening statement. he is now on a mission to increase transparency about the phenomenon and encourage more people to report sightings. graves is one of the subjects of the new episode for "meet the press reports," entitled, "ufos: is the truth out there?" it looks at various claims of unknown flying objects and concerns the government might be hiding something. joining us now, the reporter of that piece, nbc news correspondent sam brock. sam, what more do we know, or, rather, what more do we not know? >> that is the key question, mika, joe. good to be with you. there has been this mythology around ufos or uaps, unidentified aerial phenomena, for generations. what is different now?

some of the videos that have been released in the last several years seem to show aircraft, guys, doing things that just defy what we understand about the capabilities technologically of aircraft. you mentioned "the new york times". this dates back to 2017 of the leaking of several videos from navy pilots and "the new york times" reporting, perhaps clairvoyantly, about a shadowy pentagon program studying these airborne objects. since then, congress has taken a keen interest in what is going on. obviously, the hearings this last summer, the first time in a half century you're having government oversight in hearings on the topic of ufos or uaps. what did they find? first of all, you mentioned ryan graves, the pilot. he discussed before congress this notion that his squadron for years had seen uaps, and doing things standing stationary in hurricane force winds, traveling at mock level speeds,

but doing all these things simultaneously where they were stretching the boundaries of what we know. at one point during the debriefings, several of his fellow pilots nearly crashed their jet because of coming into close contact with uaps. he called this a national security risk. that video there, tilting in very strong winds. we had robert powell. this was fascinating. robert powell is a nanotechnology expert, the co-founder of the scientific coalition on studies. he zeroed in on this event in stephenville, texas, in 2008. you had 300 plus people reporting seeing something in the sky, bright lights, weird movements. he interviewed them. he also, guys, requested faa radar data that would no longer be available today, and put the pieces together on, first of all, whether or not there was actually something in the sky, and then reports from people on the ground that say saw f-16 fighter jets. he looked at what was on the radar, did some calculations, and here's a glimpse into what

he found. >> initially, the government said there were no f-16s in the air. however, i knew there were because i got the radar data from the faa, and i can track the f-16s. the acceleration, to go from standing still to 1900 miles an hour in 10 seconds or less, depending on how you calculate it, is anywhere from 10 to 20 g forces. the only way we can do that is by firing a missile. >> there is no aircraft, humanmade aircraft, that can accelerate at 10g? >> no. not with a human being in it. >> straight line acceleration, according to mr. powell, for a fighter jet would be more like 1 to 1.5 g. he is talking 10 to 20g. there is a d.o.d. program, arrow, identifying these objects. what will they find and release to the public is the question right now, joe and mika. >> you can watch "meet the press

reports," ufos:is the truth out there? sam brock, thank you very much for the preview. appreciate it. take care. coming up, our next guest has insight on how to unlock hidden potential. we are joined by the author of the new book that focuses on the science of achieving greater things. "morning joe" will be right back. . i gotta wrap this commercial, i think i'm late on my payment. it's okay, the general gives you a break when you need it. yeah, we let you pick your own due date so you can pay your car insurance when it's best for you. well that's good to know, because this next scene might take a while. [ helicopter and wind noises ] for a great low rate, go with the general. i found a cheaper price on my meds with singlecare. did you say singlecare? i use singlecare. are we talking singlecare? i saved 40 bucks with singlecare. -that's cool. - yeah. i have all my customers check the singlecare price first. good job. whenever my customers ask me if there's a cheaper price on their meds. i always tell them about singlecare.

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we have two basketballs and a wall. let's have a right hand or left hand chest pass, looking something like this. then you can add a dribble move into it to challenge yourself a little bit. start here. looks something like that. >> nba superstar steph curry there giving fans an inside look at one part of his extensive training regime that helped him become a four-time nba champion and one of the greatest players of all time. joining us now, "new york times" best selling author and professor of organizational psychology at the wharton school at the university of pennsylvania, adam grant. he writes about curry and others in his new book titled "hidden potential: the science of achieving greater things." adam, great to have you here. welcome back to the show. congrats on your latest best seller. let's dig into this idea of hidden potential. it's not quite what we think it is, i guess, when we think of hidden potential. you dig a little deeper.

let's take steph curry as a first example. what do you say about him? >> documents about how he was underrated. in high school, you'd say, he is not playing in college. he's short and not quick enough, but he can shoot. we know steph curry is dedicated to reimagining the game. one of the things he does, he takes his shot, which is releasing from his hip and too easy to block, and moves backwards to move forward. he needs a higher are elise to get over his defenders. after months of discomfort, he is able to improve his game. that's the beginning of his rise. >> that's one of the things you write about in the book, this embrace of discomfort. you have to maybe take that step backwards to figure out how you'll succeed, rather than plowing ahead. >> when psychologists study people who get stuck, if you hit a plateau or wall, you often have to reverse and learn a new method, which means you'll feel

like you're getting worse to get better. >> i think we've experienced that. okay, i've hit a road block and don't know how to get around it, but sometimes you have to back up. the science in the title, "achieving greater things," what do we know about the human brain that answers for in. >> one of the mistakes we make, and you can see it in steph, too, we think we have to push it through the daily grind. that's the recipe for burnout. it is also a great way to experience boreout, where you're bored out of your mind. a better option is to transform the daily grind into a source of daily joy. that's where you see steph playing all these little games to try to elevate his skills. it sounds like something unique to sports, but it is not. you can do it in any field. i've started doing this as a writer when i get stuck on trying to make my sentences more concrete and bring them to life, i'll start to write in different voices. how would maya angelou write

this sentence? no one wants to read that, but it is a sewers of writing fun for me. >> steph curry is an amazing guy to begin with, but listening to him and listening to you talk about him, part of his key might be, and you tell us, is he knows who he is. i mean, he has a real sense of who he is. i was just looking at -- you were on cnbc the other day -- your keys to success. you had 11 of them. several of them are very fascinating. successful people ask for advice, not feedback. one that really jumped off the page at me is they open doors for people who are underrated and overlooked. that's most of us. >> it is. it is amazing how many late bloomers there are. you can see this in music especially. for every prodigy who might stand out early, there are going to be multiple people who did not have natural talent. if you look at the research, who

were not recognized by their early teachers, even their own parents, as having superior ability. through a passion for learning and seeking out coaches who make them better, they exceeded expectations. we shouldn't count people out because they aren't naturals at first. >> give an example or two beyond steph curry that you write about in the book. one is steve martin. tell us about him and others, as well. >> steve martin was not a natural comedian at all. he bombed on stages for years. he had to change his style of learning. his style was basically to stand up and improvise. he had to learn how to write. he spent years writing for tv, and that honed his ability to deliver those perfect one-liners we all know him for today. other examples. the raging rooks in chess. racial minorities in harlem had to compete against the kids who had been trained for years at private schools. this coach knew that talent is

evenly distributed but opportunity is not. he said, i'll teach them the game backwards. i'll show them how to checkmate, and they'll get the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and that'll fire them up to learn the game. they not only go on to a national championship, they learn a set of character skills that end up leading them to do greater things in life. >> one of the things you write about, too, is the mistake a lot of us make, striving for perfection. the way you put it, finding the sweet spot between flawed and flawless. to sort of embrace the flaws and learn from them, as well. >> i am still struggling at this myself. >> all of us do. >> i wrote a chapter about overcoming perfectionism, and i'm putting together a quiz for people to take. my worst score was on perfectionism. i failed the perfectionism test. i'm still in recovery, apparently. >> how do you rid ourselves of that? it feels, probably to everyone at the table, it is an instinct, you want to do it the best you can possibly do, hopefully perfectly. how do you embrace it's not

going to be perfect ever? >> we have to figure out what the right imperfections are. i learned this as a springboard diver. an amazing coach said, there's no such thing as a perfect 10. that's for excellence. we need to calibrate for every dive what is possible for you. some dives, we were aiming for a 7. they were easy. others, we were happy with a 4.5. i learned to do that in life. when writing a book, i'll ask people for feedback. the goal is, i want a 9 on each chapter. posting on social media, i'm happy with a 6.5, right above getting canceled. >> that's good. good place for all of us to be, right above getting canceled. by the way, not only an accomplished diver, a professional magician at one time. the man's talents -- >> i'm retired. >> -- are limitless. the book is "hidden potential: the science of achieving greater things." "new york times" bestselling author and professor at wharton, adam grant, thank you. congrats on the book. >> thank you.

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conversations. we begin with a discussion about donald trump's repeated assaults on american democracy. despite the former president being indicted in two separate jurisdictions for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he has now started to accuse his likely opponent, president biden, as the real threat to democracy. take a look. >> joe biden is not the defender of american democracy. joe biden is the destroyer of american democracy. it's him and his people. they can do whatever they want, break any law, tell any lie, ruin any life, trash any norm, and get away with anything they want. >> i mean, what projection. what confession on his part. >> "the new york times" writes, quote, mr. trump has a history of accusing his opponents of behavior he, himself, is guilty of, the political equivalent of a, "no, you are" playground

retort. polls have shown that significant percentages of voters in both parties are concerned about threats to democracy. during the midterm elections, candidates who embraced mr. trump's lie, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, were defeated, even in races in which voters did not rank democracy as a top concern. mr. trump and his campaign have sought to dismiss such concerns as a concoction to scare voters, but on saturday, they tried to turn the biden campaign's arguments back against the president. >> let's bring in right now the host of "the last word" on msnbc, lawrence o'donnell. also justice department reporter for "the new york times," katie benner. thank you for being with us. lawrence, it's a little harder for donald trump to say, "no, you are," when it's donald trump who said he'd terminate the constitution if he needed to do

that to become president again, who is talking about executing members of the military, the chairman of the joint chiefs, because he is not sufficiently loyal, taking networks off the air and trying their leaders for treason because they are insufficiently loyal to him. and, yes, was the guy that incited the riots on january 6th. so talk about donald trump and the rising threat that he poses to democracy, regardless of what he tries to project onto joe biden. >> well, this is his -- what he believes works for him, is actually just tell these lies so directly. it almost seems that the more his lies about joe biden mirror what donald trump has actually done, the happier he is, when he is just delivering it right back

with absolutely no substance to it whatsoever. i did a long piece the other night, joe, about how the leading republican presidential candidate came out and said, "i want to close down a news network," and there was nothing. there was nothing. the three national news broadcasts, nbc, abc, cbs, did not mention it. didn't mention it. here's the thought experiment. imagine joe biden came out -- and the language he used was, "you should use the power of government to come down hard on msnbc." that's what he said. let's say president biden comes out today and says, "i am announcing that i am using the power of government to come down hard on fox." how long? how long would it be that that was the leading story in the country before any other story ever got air? that's the world we're living in. >> yup, well put.

>> it's the world we're living in. also, it's a world where hillary clinton can talk about deplorables, and it's on the front page of the newspapers for days, discussed for the rest of the campaign. donald trump uses nazi terminology to dehumanize his opponents, vermin, and it's barely a blip. you know, talk about the threats and the future to the justice department with a look back at what donald trump said at the end of his campaign. i'm always surprised this didn't get more attention. donald trump said two weeks before the campaign ended in 2020 that the justice department, his attorney general should arrest joe biden and his family and send them to jail. >> yes, certainly. it's not just what donald trump said at the end of his presidency, but it's what he continues to say on the campaign trail. he's made very clear that his

top priority if he is president again is vengeance. he understands as the chief law enforcement officer, he'd love to use the justice department and fbi to exact it. he has a list we know according to reporting. there are people who worked in his own administration who have since criticized him, so people like former attorney general bill barr, people like ty cobb, his former lawyer when he was under investigation in the mueller investigation. these people criticized him, and now they believe, and he's said, he'd like to go after enemies like that using the justice department, basically explicitly saying the rule of law is no longer something that, under the 14th amendment, is equal production under the law, but that the rule of law will be wielded specifically politically. that's the threat he poses there. >> lawrence, you were talking about how trump can say the most

outrageous things, about banning a network -- >> it didn't get a blip. it wasn't mentioned that undecided voters can ever see it. >> stuff he said in 2016 that were outrageous, beating up people at his rallies, and he supported it, political violence, now he is on a different level. how does the media have to adjust and recalibrate to not cover this as a campaign but cover it as a man under indictment, 91 counts? >> this has been the question, i think, actually, since 2011, when donald trump first started lying about president obama's birth certificate. i called that a lie immediately, called him a liar. he was shocked. he didn't know he could be called a liar for that. it took "the new york times" five years, five years after that to first call donald trump a liar. use the word "lie" about the birth certificate. that shows you the built-in lag

time of reaction in most of the media for this kind of me phenomenon. you know, the thing about the trump administration and how they would use the justice department to go after the enemies, this is why i think the prosecution in georgia by fani willis might be the most important of all. there, you see trump lawyers facing the possibility now, live possibility of going to prison. you see trump lawyers indicted. you see giuliani has been temporarily disbarred. he is going to be disbarred. all these lawyers, most of them will end up disbarred, some in prison. that's the lesson. that's the lesson. jeffrey clark, you know, the former justice department official who tried to do the most to help donald trump, the most illegally, is now facing prison. he will be disbarred. the jeffrey clark picture should be on the wall in any justice

department, you know, controlled by donald trump, to remind them all that donald trump is not going to live forever. at some point, there's going to be other people in charge of this justice department. every one of you will be prosecuted like jeffrey clark as being prosecuted in georgia now, if you do the things that donald trump is saying he wants you to do. >> so, first of all, a segue here, we had a lot of fun last week with the idea that, in liz cheney's new book, she reveals kevin mccarthy said he went to mar-a-lago because donald trump wasn't eating enough and he had to check on him. trump responded on truth social. says the statement is not true. i was not depressed. i was angry. it was not that i was not eating. it w tt i was eating too much. maybe we have a moment of truth from social media on truth social. but he bashes liz cheney, who we'll have on the show yesterday, saying he tried to rally the republican party together and asked for trump's support. the republican party has rallied

around donald trump. he stands a one in two chance to be the next president. what would it mean for anyone working in washington? they're going to be asked to pledge their loyalty not to the constitution but donald j. trump. >> before we get to that, what you said about mccarthy is so important. think about trump's rhetoric. so much of it is really about accountability. who can hold him accountable? he's trying to discredit the rule of law. he is trying to discredit the levers of government that could hold someone accountable. it's raised this question about whether or not the executive branch can actually do that job. can the justice department get that job done? can the civil service get that job done? the civil service he just mentioned which, if he were to be president again, he'd want to gut, to get rid of anybody not loyal to him. he'd want to get rid of people who had fealty to the constitution, which is extremely dangerous. that leaves two parties able to hold him accountable, the voters and the republican party. the republican party under mccarthy buckled, so it is to be

seen whether or not they'd want to do that. for the voters, he trying to poison the well with as many lies as possible so that they, too, will be neutered when it comes time to figure out whether or not he is going to become president. >> justice department reporter for "t new york times," katie benner, thank you very much for being on this morning. lawrence, we want to take a moment to highlight the work you continue to do with your kids in need of desks fund. every holiday season, k.i.n.d. raises money and awareness for desks and scholarships for girls across malawi. you traveled there and were able to talk to some of the students who benefitted from this help. let's take a look. >> what did it feel like the first time you sat at the desk?

>> how wonderful, lawrence. that must have been so absolutely fulfilling to go on the trip. tell us more about the need out there. >> it's the high point of my year always, mika. these kids are so great. you know, depravation is a relative concept, and so they don't see any more wealth around them. they don't see kids who have toys. they don't see kids who have phones. they don't see kids who have things they don't have. they don't actually feel that depravation the way you would here because you can constantly compare yourself to others. you know, this is one of those situations where every penny helps. the girls who we sent to high school were public high schools not free in malawi. we have to provide them with uniforms, everything, including

the shoes. the shoes cost $8.25. no family in mamalawi, almost n family sending their daughters to high school can afford the shoes. that's part of the package. anyone who can send in $8.25 can get some shoes on a girl who needs shoes to go to high school. you can donate at lastworddesks @msnbc.com. "morning joe" has been so supportive. some of the biggest contributions have come from viewers of this program. mika, joe, i really thank you for giving it a voice here. it's really important. >> absolutely. >> we're so grateful. >> let me say it again -- >> for what you are doing. >> if you want to donate to k.i.n.d., lastworddesks.msnbc.com. or you can call 1-800-4unicef.

coming up, with donald trump holding a lead over joe biden in many public polls, our next guest will explain why the pro-trump movement must be countered by a pro-democracy one. that is next on "morning joe."

i think he's having a midlife crisis i'm not. you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre-- i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else? then you would know what year it was. i know what year it is.

♪♪ welcome back. as the 2024 election approaches, donald trump looks poised to sail to the republican nomination. author and msnbc political analyst, anan, joined us to discuss why he thinks the only way to defeat the former president at the ballot box is by inspiring voters to choose democracy over trump. >> first time you were on the show here, we were talking about the muslim ban. i remember saying in 2015, like, this must be what germany looked like, felt like in 1933. we're there again, except it is far more chilling because donald trump is being really specific

about what he wants to do, that he wants to be an authoritarian president, and the people who will be serving him are saying even more frightening things. day one, he says he'll be a dictator. they say, "from day one, we are going after all our critics, jailing them," basically doing whatever they can do. >> you know, the first trump term i felt, never has so much malice been filtered through so much incompetence, and the retran restrain of some of the people with consciences. now, from all the reporting, that is going to be different. i think we are at risk of ignoring the fact it is not just a poll number that is making that likely. the end of the day, this is the only guy in america, i would

argue, who has a movement, okay? so as -- and you don't defeat a movement through shame and finger wagging. you have to build a bigger, better movement, okay? none of these other republicans are building a movement. >> what does a movement look like on the democratic side? >> there is no movement. >> what would it look like? >> it looks like a movement -- you know, all these questions about biden's age, it is all sideshows. at the end of the day, a movement is people who are actually part of something together, who meet at the local level, are hanging out and doing ba barbecues, who are part of a thing. they're not just being asked for money. think of the civil rights movement. these are people meeting, doing things. we are in need of -- the people i know in the democratic party establishment, the left more broadly, aren't even attempting to build a movement. they're trying to do a policy, do this, figure out a message. there's just a missing project

here, right? and you need people to feel an allegiance to the leaders who are running. you need people to be helping each other in their own communities and understand that to be part of a larger project. you need a pro democracy movement in this country that is organized. the truth is, donald trump is an organizer, has an organizer spirit, right, which is, you actually bring people in at all levels of political awareness, including people who don't understand anything about politics. you have a kind of funnel is that takes them from nothing to total belief. he has kind of media, bannon's war room. they have a whole funnel and infrastructure of conversion. it's like a religious conversion engine. that's kind of what real organizing is, except you should do it for good instead of doing it for brainwashing and hatred. this entire infrastructure, it doesn't even exist on the left. >> why?

>> i mean, i think there's a couple errors. one, it has become an extremely online movement. people are -- you say twitter is not real life. people are diluted into saying, if they're online and participating in politics, they're involved. they are not. the democratic party, it is a fundraising organization. the people who run it are people who are good at fundraising. they've been promoted. that's their job. they're not people -- i know so many incredible organizers on the left who built cross-racial coalitions across the country. none of them are even being called for meetings with the people running the 2024 effort. so, at the end of the day, you can blame trump and say he should go to jail, whatever, but fair and square, he is building a movement that has organized people. he's done this since 2015. i hate to say this about my people, but my people are not

building a pro democracy movement, not endeavoring to build with, of equal force, equal and opposite force, a movement that would be truly enthralling to people, that would make people feel part of something, that when you disagree with the president or your member of congress on an issue, you still want to be in the movement because you feel good about being part of this. there is no pro democracy movement in this country. there is just outrage at trump, and it doesn't work. you need to build a movement bigger and more compelling than his movement. going back to mike barnicle's point, and i agree with jim, this is not about white america, this is americans across races, across gender, across ages. people are afraid. people feel screwed by the system. that's why bernie had success. that's why donald trump had success. it's omnidirectional. what you need to do is not just ask people for their vote. you need to help answer the questions they have. the questions about, am i going

to be okay? who am i in the new world that's coming? am i going to find work if we solve climate change? is me wife making more money than me making me less of a man, or is that okay and is that progress? these are the deep, substrate questions that are roiling the electorate beneath the political surface, and it is movements that step into people's lives and answer those deeper questions for them, make them feel part of something. and i, at the end of the day -- we can't offer candidates and ask for $5. we have to organize people into a movement that is so excited to, not just defeat american fascism, but build an incredible country in the wake of american fascism. >> democrats can do it. barack obama did it in 2007 and 2008. >> it is not just about survival of the country. it's about how do i thrive on the other side of it if we do defeat donald trump. >> exactly right.

>> anand, thank you, as always. love having you here and your insights. appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, how do you pull communities torn apart by political division back together? one colorado town just might have found a way. "morning joe" has that story next. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪♪)

a new fature in "the new york times" offers a blueprint for how to bring communities back together who have been torn apart by the raging political wildfire that has engulfed the nation since the rise of trump. two years ago, tensions in the town of silverton, colorado, erupted after the mayor suspended the pledge of allegiance at city council

meetings. the battle lines were drawn between so-called old-timers to links to the mining town's past and millennial professionals who recently moved in from big cities such as denver and new york. "new york times" political correspondent jonathan wiseman details how residents in silverton managed to come together and find common ground in what some are calling a miracle. i would call it a miracle. >> yeah. >> jonathan joins us now. first of all, tell us more about what was diviing the town, and then how it is coming back together. >> you know, silverton is not exactly anytown, usa. 9,000 feet above sea level, there are 900 full-time residents. there are elements of what is reminiscent of what is happening in this country. you have an older generation

that used to be the majority and that are losing their grip on power. you have younger, more liberal people coming up, and that had created the atmosphere for tension when the mayor, shane fuhrman, decided to suspend the saying of the pledge of allegiance because another, more liberal member of the town trustees council had been harassed in the streets. this just led to an absolute eruption. fox news got involved. death threas poured in. they had to shut the city council, had to shut the visitors' center. it was a terrible mess. this town that took pride in, you know, neighborliness, loving each other, was really at each other's throats. at one point, the mayor left town because the sheriff's department told them that the threats on his life were credible and they didn't have the manpower to protect him.

>> wow. >> jonathan, as i was reading this story, it was -- it reminded me so much of a movie i saw on netflix called "the best of enemies." it was based durham, north carolina, 1971. you had a civil rights leader, an older woman who was a civil rights leader, and you had a guy who was actually secretly the head of the kkk. somebody came in from outside and believed they could just get them talking and get groups talking. even in the old south, going through the conversion, it would make a difference, and it did. it was a shock. anybody that doesn't believe something like that could happen after watching that movie should read your piece.

dialogue, it is an incredible thing. >> it is. the lesson in silverton is that collapse happens fast, but rebuilding is a slow, methodical process. in silverton, they took small groups, two, three people met, away from the cameras, away from the public spotlight, and just began the conversations about what you want from this town, to find out, you know, what people had in common. showily, methodically, it began knitting the town back together. it did work. >> jonathan, it's lawrence o'donnell. so take us through the architecture of repair. you're at a point where the mayor has to leave town because of death threats. then who does what? who says what to whom that starts this off, and how does this become a larger dialogue? >> this outside group -- well, not that far outside -- from glenwood springs, colorado, called community builders,

they'd begun this process of coming up with a ten-year plan for developing silverton, a blueprint. they had -- community builders had experience dealing with division, not so much political division but social divisions in towns. they had two guys in there, and they began talking to the most influential members, not necessarily the mayor, not the political people, but people who had real sway in the town. they began saying, okay, "meet with this person and this person. meet in private. have them talk." at first, it was tough. i heard this story about this woman who walked into one of these meetings. there were only going to be three people in the meeting. she took one look at one of the people who was at her meeting and just turned on her tail and left. "i can't talk to this guy." but they kept at it. they realized that one of the real power centers of the town

was the volunteer fire department, where the very long-term fire chief was kind of taking potshots at other members of the community. they started working with him, gill archuleta, to try to get him on board. as he began coming around and started seeing, hey, these guys have a point. if we could sit down and talk together, maybe we can all find a common vision for the town. once they start wearing down the centers of discord, they can start smoothing things out. they did. what's really remarkable in silverton is some of the people who actually fomented the worst of things. one guy i talked to admitted that he was the guy who sent the video of the refusal to say the pledge to sean hannity on fox and really brought in the outside world. he was apologetic. he said, "if i had known it would have the impact it did, i'd never have done it."

another guy, one of the weed dealers in town, he also said he really feels like he made a huge mistake by fomenting this division. but, you know, i had to meet hie he felt ostracized for what he'd done. in some ways, it is a bad thing, but at least the sense in town was, now, what you need to do is come together. you can't be the guy who is taking shots from the outside. >> the new piece is online for "the new york times." amazing. political correspondent for "the times," jonathan weisman, thank you so much for doing this story and coming on this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> is it possible in a grander scheme to try and bring america back together? that shows, you know, not just what can be done, but how deep the divisions can be. >> i think the key is, actually, it can be done across the nation, but it has to start in

really small groups. it can start at dinner tables. it can start -- >> so good. >> -- in communities. lawrence, i talked to a republican legislator up in connecticut after sandy hook. i said, "you voted" -- i said, "you are a hard core conservative. you voted for probably the most dramatic, sweeping gun safety law in america, and you got re-elected." i said, "how did you do it?" he said, "first, i had town hall meetings with 100 people, and they screamed." i said, "i'll break it down to 10 people." it was ugly." he broke it down to 5 people." he said, "i broke it down to 3 people, me and two other people." we just started talking. he said, "when we started talking, they let down their guard, and we talked person to person." he said, "by the end of it, my district understood why i did

what i did, and a lot of them supported it." that's the key. it starts at grassroots level. >> yeah, joe, i used to see this in upstate new york with senator moynihan, when he'd do town halls in purely republican locations. i'd be kind of standing in the back of the room. when it was over, i'd hear people as they were leaving saying, "well, i disagree with him about everything, but he's really smart." what you saw was those people were connecting with who the person was who was speaking to them. he was making, you know, a liberals' case to them, a thinking liberals' case for what he was doing. some of those people ended up voting for the person who they heard up there, because connecting to human beings is actually what we are good at. >> yeah, no doubt about it. >> lawrence o'donnell, thank you so much. it's great to have you on. we will be watching "the last word" weeknights at 10:00 p.m.,

right here on msnbc. coming up, a former u.s. capitol police sergeant joins us to discuss his emotional experience defending the capitol on january 6th. "morning joe" will be right back.

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♪♪ welcome back. as we continue to learn more about the emotional and physical

toll that january 6th had on members of law enforcement who defended the capitol that day. one former capitol police sergeant is speaking out. he joined us to discuss his new book about what happened, some of which he recounted in a hearing a few months after the attack. >> to be honest, i did not recognize my fellow citizens who were storming the capitol on january 6th, or the united states they claimed to represent. the writers called me a traitor, a disgrace, and they shouted that i, i, an army veteran and police officer, should be executed. for most people, january 6th happened for a few hours. for those of us who worked, who were in the thick of it, it has

not ended. that day continued to be a constant trauma for us literally every day, whether because our physical or emotional injuries, or both. >> former u.s. capitol police officer gonell joins us now. his book, "american shield: the immigrant sergeant who defended democracy." thank you for being with us this morning. great to have you back on the show. i'm curious, before we dive into the book, your reaction as you hear leadership in the republican party and loud voices in the media try to rewrite the story of what happened on january 6th. >> good morning. thanks for having me back. in respect of the new speaker of the house conflating some of the events and trying to rewrite history is amazing. this is the same person who probably is a material witness to the events of january 6th. if i were in his position, of course i'd also want to blur out

some of the images, but then again, this is coming from a party that claims to be in support of law and order and the rule of law. when he says, in the same sentence, yesterday, he said, "we are the party of law and order. we want to blur out some of the faces so these people cannot be arrested and prosecuted." also saying, you know, he wants to be transparent. how can you be transparent, how can you say those things in the same sentence? in relation to what we are experiencing and since january 6th, they keep telling us we need to move on from that day, the officers and those of us who have spoken out. yet, the former president is running just on january 6th alone, by calling those

insurrectionists hostages. if they are hostages and political prisoners, what does that make us, the police officer? we defended the capitol. we kept the oath. we did what we were signed up for. >> sergeant gonell, you came to the united states of america when you were 12 years of age from the dominican. >> yes, sir. >> within a decade, you were going to iraq wearing the uniform of the united states of america as a united states army member. then you became a member of the capitol police force, and you wore the uniform of the united states capitol police. >> yeah. >> we know what happened to you. we know what happened on january 6th. what do you think today of the united states of america? >> i mean, it's -- we are going through turbulent times. it's amazing that, as i speak in my book, "american shield," you have a lot of people that claim to be conservative, claiming to

be supportive of the constitution, our democracy. we have even gone to war for it. that's one of the main reasons we ended up in iraq in the first place. as a soldier, and also as a police officer, i devoted half of my life to defending and protecting this country. january 6th was no different for me. to hear some of these people, the very same people who i protected and ran, allowing some of them to hide in their safehouse or evacuate the building same day. first, it was antifa, then the fbi. then these are innocent people. then these are political prisoners. then these are hostages. then they desecrate our national anthem with creating a january 6th anthem, and the former president also used that as a badge of honor.

this is -- this is condoning that behavior for future use. it is amazing that they had abandoned and betrayed those principles and values, as i speak in my book. >> sergeant, on the topic of your book, "american shield," which is available now, tell us a little more about your long road to recovery after the injuries you suffered there on january 6th and what you think about your own future. >> i've made a lot of strives, both physical, mental, and also morally. you know, it's been -- you know, from the image you showed me testifying in front of congress, it's almost three years. it's night and for me, a loft the physical injury has healed, however the moral and the mental are the ones that play a big part in my life, because how -- if i were to be a

police officer still, how can i do my job impartially when the very same people i protected now say that nothing happened. if something happened, insurrection part ii happened would they help me secure the door of the capitol or restrain me from doing my job. officers who still work at the capitol may have, you know, we're protecting, yes, we're supposed to be neutral in terms of those things, how can you not when the very same people that we protect are calling for threats, amplifying those threats and desecradesecrating .

he died as a result of that horrific day on january 6th. and many people need to realize that it wasn't a peaceful protest getting ouft hand, this was a deliberate attack as i mentioned in my book and people need to learn, my story, my book is not just about january 6th, it's about sacrifices that i have made throughout my life since arriving here in the united states at age 12, learning the language, overcoming a lot of obstacles and adversities and voting half of my life both in military and as a capitol police, to defend this country. >> the ultimate american story. >> so, sergeant, this is like, let me just say, i'm so grateful for you and your service to america, an immigrant who came

to this country who learned the english language, who not only assimilated and succeeded but chose to wear the uniform to serve our country in combat, and then to become a police officer, it's an extraordinary story, "american shield," what a book i would guess that fox news is calling you nonstop to have this incredible patriotic american success story, when are you going to go on fox news, newsmax, joe rogan. we want to tune in, because this is patriotism personified in one man and i'm so grateful for your service to your country. have any plans to go on fox news or newsmax or any of those

shows? >> they have not reached out to me, if they do i'll let you know so you can tune in and record it, but i'm willing to speak to them, the same people who claim to be wanting immigrants like me, somebody who assimilates, somebody who comes here legally, somebody who pays their taxes, joined the military, who's a police officer or was a police officer, someone who protected our democracy, the check marks claim they want from immigrants when they talk about reform, but yet, as i speak in my book "american shield," the ideals and principles they don't want to talk to me because i don't fit their narrative it was another entity other than trump supporters who attacked the capitol. a great disservice to people like me and people around the

country because they are clearly lying to the american people when they say nothing happened on january 6th. what would i like to have the speaker of the house mike johnson to release the tapes of them running for their lives, when they were being evacuated by the capitol police, while i was fighting in the tunnel, those are the tapes he should be releasing not the walk-around peaceful protesting. >> he's lying to the american people when he says transparency, he wants the opposite. but i just want to get back to you and just thank you for your service to america, here at least, i don't know why other networks wouldn't want to have you on, we salute your pat

treatism and service to this country and going into combat. we salute you for all of your service in ooik, we salute you for wearing the uniform as a police officer. we thank you. the new book is entitled "american shield," what a great american story, mika, it makes me proud to be an american. >> his story about his place in history. >> why wouldn't you want to cover this story? >> thank you so much. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." joe." he doesn't even have a mustache. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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good morning. welcome to third hour of this new year's day edition of morning joe, on tape today bringing some of our best recent discussions the conversation with two experts in the field of disinformation, who are sounding the alarm ahead of the upcoming election. 2024 will be an election year full of nonstop lying.

that will challenge the public's ability to discern the truth like never before, with political misinformation and disinformation threatening the u.s. system of government itself. that's the dire warning from our next two guests. joining us now research fellow lee mcintyre, author of "on disinformation." and m.i.t. professor adam berinsky, the author of "political rumors." the important work that university presses do ensuring academic excellence and

disseminating information. how bad is it going to get? >> pretty bad. disinformation has been a part of political campaigns for a while but it seems to be ramping up, one of the problems is, people don't know that it's going on. >> adam, go ahead, mika. >> i was going to follow up with -- you said people don't know it's going on, i'm seeing it all over the place, i can discern, i worry about the next and the next generation, so what exactly are you talking about when you say people don't know it's happening. >> well, this is an important thing, i think that we always have to relentlessly draw the distinction between misinformation and disinformation, misinformation is an accident, but decision

information is a lie and sometimes i see a lot of journalists, a lot of other folks using the term misinformationses a a sort of a yufism, if you don't know if it's intentional maybe it's not. disinformation is intentional and once you know something is decision information, important to report on it that way, if there's a lie, there has to be a liar and you have to do the work of exposing the plot. disinformation is not an accident, a strategic campaign. this has all been done before the road map has been there, what's recent that denialist road map was picked up by politicians who discovered they

can use it not just for science denial but for reality denial. that's disinformation and it's extremely dangerous. >> so, adam, disinformation and misinformation both worries in the landscape as we head into an election year and both spread like wildfire on social media, yet right now, we're seeing some of these social media companies roll back some of the protections they put in place after 2016, after 2020, twitter x, elon musk, impossible to know what's real and what's not real. how deeply concerned are you about that? i've done work for facebook and for twitter when it was twitter and google as well, so i think the important thing to remember is that there are people at tech companies who do really care about this, so i think there are, there's been a lot of

stories about how some of these guardrails are put into place and rolled back, there's still a lot in place there, but a tricky thing is that as the media has become politicized and fact-checking has become politicized you is a loft republicans who don't trust fact-checkers, difficult to have an external referee of sort to say this is true and this is false. that's really the larger issue, there's this climate of distrust and the notion that experts can come in and this is supported and this is not supported. here's what's true and here what's not true. that's really tricky. >> on that point, how do you deal with the political contest in '24, where one of the

candidates we presume will be donald trump whose whole campaign is based on misinformation, said he won in 2020, a martyr and a victim of the judicial system, how do you counter that without looking like you're just being partisan political supporting biden on the other side but you're really trying to get people to deal with what's true and make their decision what's true. >> well, again, i think that's disinformation, because it's intentional, i think one thing to try to do is point out that it's intentional and remember that the point of disinformation is not just to get you to believe a falsehood it's polarize you, to erode your trust in other people,

disinformation is about team building, so what trump is trying to do is to build this enormous army of people who will believe anything that he says but also he's polarizing the people on the other side, trying to convince them there's no reason to talk with anyone who disagrees with you. people in the media in particular are particularly allergic of being accused of political bias, that's another disinformation tactic, they want you to feel that way so you don't call it out as a lie. expose the plot, who's behind it, who has something to gain by the lie and then just to relent lessly reports what the facts are, i look at the journalists who are used to interviewing

political dictators when they interview saddam hussein, that's the kind of way you would have to interview trump, you have to understand that he's going to lie and misuse it and i think there's no benefit for using the word "misinformation" when what we mean is "disinformation." >> adam, you write about the power of republicans or democrats, politicians calling out their own side when they see disinformation in their own party, what can the general public do, we're getting a slew of this, everyone is trying to think, what can i do to point out what's fact and what's not fact? >> yeah, what's really important is that we need to distinguish authorities who determine whether or not something is true or false, supported or not supported but to recognize these independent authorities,

nonpartisan sources aren't the best to deliver that message. we need fact-checkers. if you're a republican you hear a message saying that trump is telling lies, that can either sort of either not believe what trump is saying or i could not believe you who's coming inened telling me this, the key is to have people who speak against the interest, republicans, not death panels more effective than nonpartisan sources or democrats and i think the media really needs to amplify these sources, not so much about individuals but in terms of getting the people the message out that this is not true. >> all right, lee mcintyre, adam

berinsky, thank you both very much. we appreciate it. coming up, staff writer at the atlantic, joins us to discuss his piece for the publication's special issue on the potential dangers of a second trump term. "morning joe" will be right back. back

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welcome back. as donald trump continues to mount an increasingly authoritarian campaign to take back the white house, the atlantic is featuring warnings from 24 writers about what trump's return to power could look like. here's staff writer mark leibovitz. your piece is titled this is who we are, you write in part, quote, in the last spring of the obama administration, michelle obama was delivering her final commencement address as first lady at city college of new york, obama couldn't help but lobs some barely cloaked denuns yagss of trump's wrecking ball.

that is not who we are, the first lady assured the graduates. that is not what this country stars for, no. the promise didn't not age well, not that november and not since. the axiom prompts a question, who is "we" anyway, because it sure seems a lot of this "we" keeps voting for trump. you can dismiss trump voters all you want, but give them this. if trump wins in 2024 his detractorsill have to reckon once again with the voters who got us here to reconcile what it means to share a country with so many citizens who keep watching trump spiral deeper into his moral void and still concludes, yes, that's our guy. mark, that especially applies to

evangelical community and people who call themselves christians, who spend a lot of time judging other people but can't seem to reconcile these two realities, i would also add i do think a lot of people are somewhat victims of sort of a cult, really. >> there's no doubt, the powers of persuasion in the media and given the sound machines that the right and the trump world has at their disposal, online, whether it's fox, any number of outlets, they have a powerful messaging system and it starts with the guy who's been in our faces for basically eight years or more, what i wanted to look at here and the issue of the atlantic looks very, you know, issue by issue, granularly at what this administration if it happens again what it could look

like, i wanted to step back and evaluate what it means to live in a country where this keeps happening, where there is a critical electoral mass, where we're just a lot of people think this is fine, and obviously, i don't think one -- we have a loft information about donald trump, i mean, his character is not a mystery at this point, the fact is a lot of people like it. >> mark, good morning. as usual you're on to one of the central questions of our time, people took a flyer on donald trump, they didn't like hillary clinton, the ceo on tv and shake things up and change the way washington gets done and makes everything work. there's large body of evidence of how he conducts himself as president,s how he conducts himself outside the presidency in attempting to overturn the

government, it's not donald trump as you write, it's all the people, they're getting a lot of support and a lot of people see what they do, they see how they conduct themselves, it's question it's not some anomaly it's who we are. >> it's not again it's probably not a majority electorally, you know the powers of denial among people who don't support donald trump are extremely strong, i think like you said, there were people who sort of assumed at the end of 2016, this is a one-off, this is statement, donald trump is sort of teaching a lesson to the political establishment, entrenched in this. it was broken and then donald trump did not exactly go out in a blaze of glory, he did not,

you know, land his presidency or his post-presidency do a lot on the things would that would enhance his popularity, to this day he's probably a jump ball possibility of being elected again and again people know exactly who he is, again, it's not like he's being -- the con -- he's very in some ways fundamentally a conman as pointed out many times, again it's very up front, yeah, i mean, this is our country right now, at least a good portion of them, that's why i started that's not who we are question that we have been scolded with or maybe comforted with for a long time now. >> you know, mark, one of the most interesting aspects of the whole trump phenomenon and he's not hiding, he's not hiding anything at all and you live in a town and we all live in certain areas and know certain people who come up to you and

eventually the conversation might get around to trump and the question they pose to you is, who are these people who vote for him? when you say they're your neighbors, i've come to the conclusion over the past several years that maybe we focus in the media, focus too much on trump and not enough on the legitimate human beings and many people vote for trump who are absolutely otherwise normal and they lead normal lives and have normal families, what's their beef? who are they? >> i think one thing i would point out is that, yes, they are our neighbors figuratively in some ways, you know when you live in blue bubbles or red bubbles, lot of your neighbors are going to vote exactly like

you, very few swing districts, swing neighborhoods left in this country for a lot of reasons and that extends to the online world, that extends to the media sort of silos that we choose for ourselves, the fact is it's entirely possible in a lot of big cities on the coasts, or if you're in a rural area to go long stretches of time without ever dealing with someone on the other side and i think one of the sort of realities of the trump years, it used to be a lot more possible for kind of garden variety republicans and garden variety democrats, to sort of interact and it's like okay we're on both sides, we have different views and we can get along, at this point lot of trump supporters and a lot of nontrump supporters make black and white value judgments on the other side and not only do you

not have to deal with people on the other side you really recoil at the idea at it, survey of how people view finding spouse or something, quite often the strongest prejudice people have, i'm not going to sanction anyone on the other side going off with my kid. i think that's a new reality we're in in trump world. >> the piece is in the new issue of "the atlantic." up next, nbc's morgan radford joins us with a look at how democrats in florida are pushing to get the issue of abortion on the ballot in 2024. and the help they're getting from an unlikely source, that's ahead on "morning joe." joe. at bombas, we're obsessed with socks. tees. and underwear. because your basic things should be your best things.

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♪♪ ♪ christmas comes each time this year ♪ one of the big issues that will drive the 2024 campaign, florida, among nine states where abortion protections could be on the ballot next year in the form of a cobbs constitutional amendment. morgan radford joins us with a

look at how this fight is shaping up. not just democrats but republicans pushing to get these on the ballot. >> it's really interesting, because at issue is a constitutional amendment that would protect abortion rights up to 24 weeks. similar measures have been successful in kansas and ohio. in order to get this language on the ballot supporters need to gather almost 900,000 signatures by february 1st, although this is a popular position among democrats as you mentioned they say they're also getting help from across the political spectrum. >> thank you for signing. >> reporter: at festivals, farmers markets, even the beach, volunteers are fanning out. >> bringing competition to mahjong parties and pool parties. >> reporter: trying to get one issue on the 2024 ballot, a constitutional amendment that would bar any restrictions on abortion, before viability around the 24th week of pregnancy, or when necessary to

protect the patient's health. >> i don't think there's any doubt that when this thing is on the ballot, that it will pass. >> reporter: anna hokum leads the florida women's freedom coalition, one of several groups behind the movement, from right here in her south florida home. a coalition that she says doesn't just include democrats, by her organization's count, of the 1.3 million signatures they've collected thus far, more than 150,000 have come from registered republicans. >> i had one woman say to me, i was in a room full of republican women when we heard that roe v. wade was overturned, and it was like being at a funeral. they'd all been through this battle before. they thought it was settled. >> are you both registered republicans? >> yes. >> yes. >> reporter: and there are voices behind those numbers. carol whitmore was introduced to us by the florida women's freedom coalition. >> to say that women can't make this very important decision in their life is atrocious. so you will be surprised, and you will hear there are a lot of republicans that support what jamie and i do.

>> reporter: her friend jamie carter is unaffiliated with the organization, but has signed a petition in favor of the amendment. >> there's still a lot of people that you wouldn't think would be the pro-choice advocates, but they are, and i think it's really just having control of our own bodies and the government overreach is huge right now. >> reporter: what do you all think happens if the republican party as a whole doesn't see this issue the way you do? >> i think the national level, they're realizing they're not going to win this battle. >> reporter: and it's not just women, former state representative carlos legasa and ed williamson, a prominent local businessman, are also donating time and money to the petition cause. both are registered republicans. why do you think it's important that you speak out as men on this issue? >> i expect my privacy rights to be respected by the government. i don't want to be forced to be vaccinated, and for that reason i think that a woman's right to

choose is fundamental and should be defended. >> carlos is right, and of course the right to abortion, i think, is one of those things that the government's got no business being into. >> reporter: nationally they're not alone, recent gallup polls show just 24% of republicans believe abortion should be illegal in all cases, but in a state where republican governor ron desantis won re-election by nearly 20 percentage points, then signed legislation that would ban most abortions after six weeks, political experts we spoke to said the measure is not guaranteed. >> you're going to get a substantial support across party lines for this kind of amendment, and we've seen that even in states that are more republican than florida is. the big caveat, though, especially here in florida, is that the threshold for constitutional amendment in florida is 60%. and that's a difficult threshold on any issue, let alone one that can be quite as divisive as the abortion issue. >> this is something that a lot of people don't talk about, but they know how they're going to vote. and when you get behind that booth and do your thing we're going to speak up for ourselves.

>> we reached out to republican party of florida multiple times, via phone and via e-mail, they have yet to respond to our request for comment. the state republican attorney general has filed a brief with the state supreme court urging it to keep the question from appearing on the ballot. regardless of how many signatures are in fact collected as for that six-week abortion ban is still on hold. no matter the outcome, if this ballot measure were to pass in 2024 then both laws would be automatically invalidated. >> fascinating look at this issue, roe v. wade spurred all of this, but also in the year and a half since then we've seen people going to the ballots, going to the ballot box and saying, no, we want to keep our rights, republicans as well, it's not just new york city, it's kansas and it's ohio and places that lean more red, so

why now i guess the question. >> the question for us, why this issue, why is this issue you're choosing to break ranks. they said, why not this issue. what we're doing at the ballot box we were in the streets, this they say is an issue that fits in alignment about personal freedom, about small government, the key they say is how they recruit people to their side of this issue, they said they do it with language that they think is more open, instead of signaling more progressive issues they say women and girls. that leaves the door open to get more republican women on their side on this issue. >> what morgan just said, i'm a small government republican, i don't want the attorney general

of texas for example stepping into this relationship that a woman has with her doctor, when her baby has a fatal condition and wants to get health care for that, it's small government position to say, get the government out of my health care. >> yeah, no question, in the cases that we're seeing that are heartbreaking where people have the nerve to say that woman in texas was having an elective abortion, when her doctor was explaining to her her child was going to die and that she was going to risk her reproductive ability in the future for a woman who wanted more children. as a word of caution, we're struggling in missouri right now, because there's a disagreement among those people who want to make sure that the government stays out of women's decisions on reproductive health and the language matters and getting everyone on the same page matters, we're seeing in

some states where some people want to go further than the electorate will, for example making sure there are taxpayer-funded abortion, that's not going to pass in missouri. each individual state make sure they go as far as possibly can where their state will still support it. i'm afraid we'll miss the mark in missouri because the people advocating can't agree among themselves what language goes on the ballot. coming up, actor jan isaacs will discuss his limited series "archie." "morning joe" will be right back. " will be right back ou to try knix. makers of the world's comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com

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they want you to change your name. doesn't cut it. anything come to mind? >> cary grant. >> cary grant is a character, very careful about how he's perceived. >> dreamiest guy in the world we're talking about. >> i walked into that one.

>> i'm going to stay here and i'm going to be a star. >> next. >> spent my life wondering who i was supposed to be. that was a look at the trailer for the new four-part series entitled archie available to stream through britbox, the scripted series explores archibald became cary grant. the drama is partly based on the memoir of grant's fourth wife, dyan cannon. joining us now is the star of archie, actor jason isaacs. it's good to have you on the show. >> it's an odd thing to be promote a tv show in the middle of subjects of enormous

profoundty and weight. >> we also appreciate just a little joy, i totally understand what you're saying, curious to know how you prepare as an actor to portray one of the greatest actors of all time. >> i didn't, frankly, when i read the script it's about archie leach. a very complicated, very troubled man whose childhood who was full of abuse and abandonment and felt so unlovedable, he had to create this avatar to make the world love him. he felt even emptie and played out. >> someone who's so famous, as

you did dive into the role as noted, families involved in the production, what was that like? >> contributed, but it's the wonderful writer, oscar-nominated screenwriter who wrote it and he got permission from both, it's my story, if you give my permission it's my way. >> i had no idea until researching this little bit, cary had five wives. >> he had a lot of relationships. we think of him as this unflappable ladies' man for whom nothing bothered him. he was very fragile and instead of women pursuing him, he pursued the people he had relations with.

he took lsd hundreds of time with a doctor, didn't believe in hippy stuff, but he took it to try and rid himself of this torment. what he said, even he said i drove all of my wives away, i turned them into my mother, i made them rejebt me before they could abandon me. >> did it surprise you -- were you a cary grant fan? >> everything was a shock to me. as an actor you know actors aren't what they portray themselves to be. >> yes, it shocked me, you're right, none of my guys on screen, i knew he'd be different

because no one could with that thing. one of the hard things you asked how i prepared, doing the research because he didn't do interviews. >> are there people beyond, friends, contemporaries or friends who could give you a glimmer. >> dyan was incredibly in love with him. once they got married things turned tox ix and she was so unguarded. i asked her personal questions, and she was very candid and it was horrifying. i kept apologizing to her for something that happened to her 50 years ago, because no young girl should be put through that. his daughter jennifer saw a very

different man, doting, loving father, difficult to reconcile these accounts. >> fascinating. you can watch the first two episodes of archie through britbox. jayson isaacs thank you very much for coming on the show. >> next time i'll tell you who you should elect and why. >> that's a tease. turning now to a disturbing new connection between a donald trump pardon and the kushner family, michael sch midt joins us with that report. shining a light on how he allegedly used his presidential powers and what it could mean for a potential second term. "the new york times" reports on his final day in office, trump

granted clemency to a convicted marijuana trafficker named jonathan brawn, quote, at the time trump's own justice departnt and federal regulators as well as new york state authorities were still after him for his role in an entirely separate matter, his work as a predatory lender, making what judges later found were fraudulent loans to cash-strapped small businesses. according to the times', he was put on trump's radar by charles kushner, father of trump's son-in-law jared kushner. a broader criminal investigation by his own justice department into predatory lending. >> michael, before we talk about this investigation, i want to read from your article

yesterday, mr. braun was to say an unusual candidate for clemency, with a history of violent threats, he told a rabbi who owed him money, quote, i'm going to make you bleed. mr. braun's family told confidantes willing to spend millions of dollars to get him out of prison. then you go into the investigation, there were other threats telling a father he wasn't going to see his daughters again, i mean, again, based on your reporting and the criminal inquiries before him, this was just a terrible man and a terrible, terrible candidate for a

and woe came back 2 1/2, three years later to see what were the consequences of this, what did it mean? what did it mean give this man a confirmation? we often talk about how donald trump undermines the rule of law and democratic norms and democracy and stuff like that. in this case, what we found remarkable was we were able to find tangible damage that was done from the commutation. the biggest was to an sdny

criminal investigation. there was a back and forth going and the prosecutors had an enormous about of leverage on braun because he was in prison and he was going to be there for five, six, seven more years. they were going to let him out if he cooperated. what happened is trump commuted his sentence, and all the leverage was lost and it really damaged the investigation. >> there's a line in here.

the vice president's chief of staff, who said, we wanted no part of this process. it was so unseemly. the entire pardon process was so unseemly, the quote goes, it was so unseemly, it would make the clintons blush. >> had to get the shot in. michael, congrats to you and nicole. >> yay, a baby, isabella. >> explain how a pardon or commutation usually works in the white house and how it worked in the trump house, in particular in this case. >> let's use the obama administration as an example. they spent a long time trying to use the clemency process to help nonviolent criminals get out of

jail. to do that, there was a massive cooperation between the justice department and the prosecutors. hey, guys, what really happened here? is this a good candidate for clemency? there would be debates back and forth. they would look at their record in prison. they would give that to the white house and the white house would look at the process to make sure they weren't giving commutations to people who maybe shouldn't be receiving them. that process was designed to try and ensure there weren't questions about why does this person get a pardon or commutation. bill barr, the attorney general, says that trump completely sidelined the justice department's process on it.

>> one thing that came to mind is that charles kushner himself had an interesting background in terms of having gone to jail. when you know donald trump as i knew him in the '80s and '90s, donald trump was a mentee of roy cohen. he knew a lot of seedy people. you'd go to boxing matches. he'd be sitting ringside with seedy people. the boxing world has plenty of that. roy cohen wasn't exactly a statesman. he represented the mob. these are the people he was comfortable with. i don't think americans understand donald trump's background. >> i think, to your point, trump was very attracted to the

clemency powers, because it was almost an absolute power. he could do it unilaterally himself. bill barr didn't like it. didn't matter, he could still do it. congress couldn't get in the way. no one could get in the way. from what we know about donald trump, something that gives him an enormous amount of power and leverage over people, what we don't address in the story is the commutations and for people who didn't cooperate with the mueller investigation or were part of helping to overturn the election. >> michael schmitt, thank you very much. we'll be right back for another hour of "morning joe." k for ano hour of "morning joe."

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good morning. welcome to "morning joe." happy new year. we begin this hour with a closer study of what donald trump is actually saying these days. contributing writer for "the atlanta" pete werner joins us. your piece is entitled "have you listened lately to what trump is saying." in it you write, quote, trump's rhetoric is a permission slip for his supporters to dehumanize others just as he does. he portrays other as existential threats determined to destroy everything maga world loves about america. trump is doing two things at

once, while dissolving the natural inhibitions others have against hating and harming others. the most troubling aspect has been the people in the republican party, who though they know better, have accommodated themselves to trump's corruption time after time after time. for them to acknowledge what trump truly is and still stay loyal to him would create enormous cognitive dissonance. is a remarkae indictment of those who claim to be followers of jesus that they would continue to show fealty to a man whose cruel ethic as always been

antithetal to jesus'. far too many christians in erica are not only betraying their humanity, they are betraying the lord they claim to love and serve. >> pete, this is not a close call. what you just wrote there is not a close call. you and i grew up with similar backgrounds. we learned from the same bible. it's about reading the bible and understanding what it says and understanding the conflict between donald trump and everything that jesus teaches. you get a guy that some self-professed christians are following who talks about

terminating the constitution, but he uses fascism tactics to dehumanize his enemies. he said to staff members that his vice president deserves lynching. he talks about execuing generals. he mocks and ridicules an 82-year-old man who was brutalized with a hammer and almost killed. what shocks me is not that trump is saying it, it's the people who are laughing and cheering him on. i have to question what my parents would have asked me if i had done something like that, who raised you? that's the question i ask those people who were cheering on the assault of 82-year-old men and the dehumanization of all political opponents. >> well said, joe. it is a moral inversion that we

have seen. people who for most of their life have claimed one ethic have not only gone away from that ethic, but they've inverted it and are behind a person who embodies cruelty and dehumanization that is unprecedented in american history. it's subordination of faith to politics, not just politics, but a particularly malicious and malignant type of politics. this is a kind of mass psychosis that's happening. it was said that passions are slave to reason, and i think that's what is happening. i think passions are dominating,

and this is a combustible mix of hatred and fear. they have to elevate the threat of joe biden. they have to turn him into a progressive woke warrior aoc, so they have to escalate the sense that this is an existential attack on everything that they want. i also think this actually brings forth a lot of people who feel like they have been dishonored and discredited and they see trump as their retribution. >> pete, i understand that and you understand that. i don't mean to cut you off here, but that's how we explain trump. even throughout the presidency, they'd say, why are they following him? i'd say, you know, they feelmai

academics have mocked and ridiculed them their entire lives. so that's why they follow the guy. the enemy of my enemy is my friend. maybe that explains an initial attraction. but they are cheering on the assault of an 82-year-old man. they are cheering on for calls of the lynching of the vice president. they are cheering on the assassination of the joint chiefs. they are applauding people who brutalized cops with american flags that our troops carried bravely into battle for 225 years. if you don't like what the democratic party is doing, vote for nikki haley or ron desantis or chris christie.

they have a choice, but they continue to choose the darkest, most evil approach to american politics where you celebrate the brutalization of 82-year-old men and the call for assassinations of american generals. >> yeah. look, i think that's eloquently put, joe, and i share your outrage. this is a defamation of the christian faith. this has happened historically. you saw what happened in rwanda. 90% of the country is christian. unfortunately, there's a long history of these dehumanizations and passions consuming people. that's why there has to be such a pushback from others to shake them and say, do you know what

you're doing, do you know what you're a part of, that you have jettisoned everything that you claim to most cherish in your life to make peace with this man who is an unfiltered sociopath. he's undisguised in who he is and what he wants to do. it's just a sickening episode in the history of american politics and american christianity. >> we should underscore that donald trump's thanksgiving day message to the nation was sent at 2:03 a.m. we know that his base is with him. they eat up messages like this. isn't this proof to the point that the biden team has made all

along that next year when faced with a binary choice of trump/biden, swing voters, suburban women, some of them who might even gone for trump in 2016, broke away from him in 2020, aren't they just going to say, enough's enough and not go back to this? >> i would hope that they do, and i think they will. you have to expect that at some point the moral leaders and spiritual leaders will say this is not about politics. it's not even about trump. it's about who you are. can you be part of someone who reduces the humanity of people, calming them names that make them other than human and just absolutely declares war on everything that we stand for? there was an evangelical leader that endorsed another candidate in iowa this week, and he just

absolutely smeared this guy. he bounced back. he shot back. i think faith leaders are going to have to start shooting back from wait a minute, this is not politics. >> by the way, the piece is amazing. >> one more thing. >> real quick. >> hey claire, when we talk this way, i know trumpers are going, oh, well, they're so liberal. no. as you know, i'm really conservative. what we're saying right now, just like what i've been saying for years now about trump, would actually help the republican party if evangelicals would listen. they lost in 2017 because of

trump, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and they're going to lose in 2024 if they get behind this man who is losing it even more day by day by day. this is not anti-republicanism. what we're saying would actually help the republican party if they moved beyond this madman. >> there's no question that he is the weakest candidate they could possibly nominate. i know it's dangerous for me to talk about faith leaders with both reverend al and pete on right now. i think the point that reverend al made is so important. people who stand at the pulpit in front of an evangelical congregation who are dependent on their contributions for the

finances of their church to work, it is time for those people, the people who lead these flocks to do a gut check and just take a tour around the new testament and remind themselves what jesus stood for and ask themselves am i paying a price that is frankly not infidelity to my faith by not speaking out, by not saying anything about the dehumanization of other people by this man? jesus is the opposite, the opposite of what donald trump says, 180 degrees opposite. i just for the life of me can't figure out how these people leading these churches look at themselves in the mirror and

claim they are faithful. >> claire, thank you very much. pete, your piece is incredible. e up next, the united nations has been accused recently of responding way too slowly to the sexual violence hamas committed against women on its october 7th attack against israel. diabetes can serve up a lot of questions, like...

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on the morning of october 7th, hamas brutalized, bound, burned, murdered, beheaded and sexual assaulted young girls and women in israel. as a feminist and activist, i have stood shoulder to shoulder with women my entire adult life. but then on october 7th, i suddenly found myself completely alone. the champions i had stood next to so many times through so many injustices just disappeared, peers and friends who have remained silent, it took 50 days to condemn this

violence and another seven to utter a single word about the terrorists that perpetrated them. when we commit to speaking out for women and girls, that means all women and girls. >> the remarks come as the u.n. women's rights body has been criticized by many, including 80 house lawmakers for not condemning the terrorist group's violent abuse of israeli women fast enough, only doing so eight weeks after the attack. mundana joins us now. thank you for everything you're doing. you spoke yesterday with former secretary of state hillary clinton, senator kirsten

gillibrand and many others. what was the message you were hoping to send to members? >> thank you for having me. you know, it's been really, really heartbreaking watching people that i admire and respect just not show up for these women and girls. we know what happened to them. we have enough videos. we have enough testimony. the terrorists admitted to it. they filmed it on their go pros and live streamed it on their feeds. these women deserve to be believed. if we are feminists, if we are in any way evolved as human beings, we've learned to believe women. to not have them supported by people i admire and respect is deeply heartbreaking, and they need to show up.

many of these women didn't survive. the brutality was beyond anything we could imagine. part of my call to action that day was, well, it's very clear you haven't shown up for a lot of reasons, but now is the time to speak up and use your voice. i shared a little bit about my childhood, really just to draw the parallel. >> why do you think the delay happened for so many to speak out about what hamas did to israeli women? what do you want the u.n., foreign governments, the u.s. government to do?

>> i think there are a lot of people who don't like jews and they are afraid of siding with israel. they have deep anti-zionist beliefs. my goal is we are not here to politicize their experience. we cannot act like they are undeserving of our support. we cannot be complicit in emboldening the perpetrators. we have to condemn these war crimes and condemn gender-based violence when we see it, and we've seen it. that is what i'm asking. it is time that everyone stands up and does the right thing. >> it seems like an obvious

request, but it's one that so many have not stepped up. we were talking about the palestinian people deserve dignity. they deserve a good life. you can disagree with the way israel is prosecuting the war, all the civilian casualties, but this is something else. this is something we know happened. we have video evidence and testimony from survivors. it's beyond most of us to understand that people are willing to say, okay, it happened, but, or to ignore the fact that it happened at all. have you spoken to some of the people, friends, colleagues behind the scenes and expressed your disappointment? >> i picked up the phone. i've called a lot of people. i've had this conversation many times.

i look at what happened on october 7th and what happened after. what happened on october 7th cannot in any way be conflated with these other stories. what happened that day was unacceptable, unprovoked. these people were home asleep with their children or they were at a peace festival dancing with their friends. anything beyond that is acting like there is a reason or excuse for something like that to happen, and there isn't. there is nothing on earth that will justify that behavior. it must be condemned. hamas is a terrorist group. what happened after, israel's response is a completely different conversation. we can have all the conversations you want about the geopolitical conflict and the middle east and who's indigenous. happy to have that conversation. none of that has anything to do with what israelis suffered that day. it's completely unacceptable that those messages are being mixed right now. >> there's no question that what

happened on october 7th should be separate from what has come since then. so many democrats have had real trouble saying exactly that. they've had real trouble talking about what happened and not mixing it up with the geopolitics of the situation. >> it is disgraceful. if you cannot take a moral position on civilians being killed, women being raped, then how do you take a position later on other issues? on october 7th, when i reached out and said this was wrong, people that i work with in civil rights are saying that's touchy. touchy about what? how do you stand up for anything if you don't stand up for everything? i talked yesterday to martin

luther king iii and i had a zoom call with one of the mothers of the hostages. what i didn't know and i feel bad i didn't know is that hamas is not only holding israelis and jews. they have two people from tanzania and one from south africa. they're holding blacks. they do not care about women, blacks, anybody else. yet everybody seems to be rallying around that. tell us how isolated it makes you feel that people you marched with and have in many ways championed the cause of feminism that are now, for whatever reasons, backing up. >> i never did those things for some quid pro quo because i wanted people to have my back. i did those things because it was the right thing to do. i quit my job and spent years

advocating for the reunification of families at the border because it was the right thing to do. i was just in israel. i went to one of the kibbutz, i saw the destruction. the pain was the point. these people are acting like they're trying to see the best in hamas. it defies any form of logic. it is is a terrorist organization. they took so many people that came from every corner of this world. they don't care. they keep repeating they're going to do this again and again and again. they're not going to stop with the jews. they want the eradication of israel and jews. then they come for the west. to see leaders not recognize how dangerous this is, again, i lived in iran. i know how dangerous these people are. it really is disturbing that

they're supporting this. this is the other kibbutz that i went to. the destruction was the worst. so many of these people were there to work on peace. it was the worst thing i've ever seen truly. >> you have been working 24/7 to try and shine a light on not just your message, but on the entire situation and to promote understanding, a real understanding of the complexity of this. while in israel, you spoke with a mother whose 21-year-old son was taken hostage when he was attending the music festival in southern israel. here's a bit of that conversation. i want to show it. >> my son went to the party, the festival for peace and love. it was saturday morning.

he calls me and he said, mom, they closed the party. they are shooting all over. [indiscernible] we published his picture on facebook and after three or four hours someone recognized him from a video clip that hamas published. he was lying on the floor with four other guys. i understand at this moment that my life is going to change. i have to fight for him. i have to fight to bring him

back. >> thank you for all of your work and your continued work in the days and weeks to come. come back soon and keep us posted. thank you for coming on this morning. coming up, taylor swift is a billionaire musical performer, icon, producer, and now "time's" 2023 person of the year. the reason behind that decision is next. year. the reason behind that decision is next. ♪you... can make it happen...♪ ♪♪ try dietary supplements from voltaren for healthy joints.

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♪ you're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset ♪ welcome back to the start of 2023. few could have imagined that there was another level of superstardom for taylor swift. between her eras tour, rerecording two of her earlier albums and releasing a recordbreaking concert movie, swift's success soared to new heights this year. now the 12-time grammy award winner was named the 2023 "time" person of the year. joining us so discuss the decision is time's editor in chief sam jacobs. sam, i'm going to be -- what's the word? everyone's going to disagree with me and then i'm going to agree with everybody on the set about the amazing accomplishments and impact

taylor swift has had on society. but looking at the guidelines for how this choice is made, is there perhaps a concern that you're ignoring the grave injustice and threats that some of the other people on the list are posing not just to america, but to the world? >> good morning, mika. thank you for having me. i'm always glad when you remind us what "time's" rules are when it comes to person of the year. every year we look at the person who has the biggest impact on the headlines over the last 12 months. 2023, like most years, was a year full of light and darkness. our choice this year is someone who brought light and joy to the world. it doesn't mean we overlook the serious issues. we have a great profile of sam altman, our ceo of the year in this issue. we're looking at leaders across society. ultimately, what is a greater form of influence than giving millions of people around the world the ability to find their

own voice, to gather together as we come out of the pandemic and to join together in joy? for all those reasons, taylor swift is "time's" 2023 person of the year. >> mika is "morning joe's" lone dissenter. it's like the beatles. the beatles were extraordinary musicians, their impact on popular culture even more extraordinary 60 years later. taylor swift, she more than any other act, rivals that. it's just next level. you look at not only young girls, but also older women, young men, older men. talk about her impact not only on popular culture, but also on their lives? >> she made a space this year by telling her own story for everyone's stories.

while taylor smith was ubiquitous, we don't hear from her a lot. we have the first in-depth conversation she's had with any journalist since the beginning of 2020, and we hear what it was like to hear from her perspective. some of that influence goes beyond measurement. it's about how you make people feel, how you build community. i think for that reason she is deserving of this recognition. >> she brings such happiness to people. let's go through some of the other contenders who taylor swift beat out. walk us through. there are familiar names here for bad reasons. vladimir putin is one.

another would be the trump prosecutors. tell us about them. >> i think that's a story that's still developing. hard to argue this isn't the central story of our american democracy right now, what is going to happen to the former president. there are prosecutors across the united states who are going to play a tremendous role in that future. i think what this year showed is the cost and limits of hard power, which is why we selected someone who really demonstrates significant soft power in a way that few others can. >> thank you very much. up next, a look at the documentary featuring former first lady, lady bird johnson in her own words. we'll be joining by the director of "the lady bird diaries." of "the lady bird diaries.

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streets are lined with people, lots and lots of children, all smiling. we were rounding a curve going down a hill. suddenly there was a sharp, loud shot and then two more.

i heard over the radio system, let's get out of here. the man vaulted over the seat on top of lyndon and said, get down. cars accelerated faster and faster. i cast a look back over my shoulder. there was a bundle of pink lying in the back seat. it was mrs. kennedy lying over the president's body. >> still giving me chills. that was the voice of former first lady, lady bird johnson recalling the assassination of john f. kennedy. later that day aboard air force one, mrs. johnson and jacqueline kennedy stood next to lyndon

johnson as he was hastily sworn in as president. she began recording her thoughts on the johnson's five years in the white house. those recordings remained private until she died in 2007. now that audio is in the new documentary titled "the lady bird diaries" streaming on hulu. joining us is the film's director dawn gratulations on t. tell us about what you learned as you were listening to these tapes from 50, 60 years ago, what you learned about lady bird johnson that people in the younger generations might not know and remember about her. >> lady bird johnson is well known for efforts people termed beautification. actually, she was really an environmentalist. her work led to lbj signing more

than 300 bills to protect the environment. richard nixon credited her with the research that led to the formation of the epa. while her work was termed beautification, and that's what women were allowed to do, they could plant flowers. but really lady bird was one of our first environmentalists. that's what we learned from hearing the tapes. >> peter talked to some members of the family last night, and one of the stories he heard was how shocked lady bird was when she went down to alabama. she wanted to go down and talk to people in the alabama, explain what they were doing. yet, she was met with jeers, a very hostile reaction. how difficult was it for her to endure what she and lbj endured

the rest of their lives, considered traitors to their own region? >> one of the most interesting things that we discovered was lady bird was really one of the first political spouses to go by herself on a campaign tour. eleanor roosevelt famously went to make speeches on behalf of fdr. lady bird went on something called a whistle stop tour. lbj sent her there. he knew he had to keep the south. he had to keep the black voters that propelled jfk into the presidency, but he also couldn't lose the white vote. he sends this white, southern women on thevote. he sends this white, southern woman on this whistle stop tour. she's met with very, very ugly troefts. she holds her own, completes the tour and she actually does deliver the south for lbj.

>> dawn, the film really captures how some of what she reacted to or responded to moments in history including critiques and attacks on her husband. what did you learn about her from that or generally the role of first ladies in that regard? >> one thing that people forget is that before jfk was assassinated, there was no plan of succession. there wasn't a number two. lbj had no vice president for that first period where he completed jfk's term of office. instead, he had a group of close advisers including lady bird. some of the most stunning things that she talks about are lbj considered resigning the presidency, and he was going to do it in a public address to the nation. lady bird writes out his resignation speech. he puts it into his pocket and he goes to address the nation. she's recording as she's watching him deliver this speech, and she says in the

recorder, is he going to do it? when you look at the tape, you see that moment where we almost had a president of the united states resign. i think, jen, you can imagine, what holy heck would erupt if the president resigned during a public address. that's just some of the things she tells us through her diaries which are now available, that she made them available. she also made johnson's tapes available. those have been just such a benefit to history. >> so remarkable. the documentary is the lady bird diaries streaming now on hulu. dawn porter, thank you very much. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you very much for having me. before we go, we want to give you is a look at the incredible team that makes "morning joe" happen every day.

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>> that does it for us this morning. msnbc reports picks up the coverage of a quick final break. . >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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