voters of color. >> i believe there was a story in "axios" about their reach outs to the communities of color. they're worried about turnout dropping. of course, young people have shown, you know, not super high enthusiasm, in particular, over what biden has done or not done around the situation in gaza. their question right now, again, i think, comes back to the contrast piece, they'll send figures, including biden himself, to areas they need votes to turn out from all communities. the short end is they really hope the contrast question really carries them throughout the day. biden comes back today. week in the islands. see if he is feeling more keen to talk about these thing. he hasn't been in the public eye much. messaging from the big guy. >> well-deserved vacation. now, hit the ground running. white house reporter for "bloomberg" news, josh wingrove. thank you for bringing us into 2024. thank you for getting up "way too early" on this tuesday

morning. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪♪ it's the top of the hour. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 2nd. happy new year, everybody. israel's ground offensive in gaza is entering a new phase. the israeli military has plans to pull back some troops and shift to more localized operations. we're going to go through that development and the escalating tensions in the red sea. plus, a damning, new report on the intelligence failures by the israeli military. "new york times" investigation found there was no battle plan for a massive hamas invasion that they were warned about. also ahead, a look at the long to-do list for congress in 2024 with several crucial items that were simply not addressed

late last year. plus, the supreme court has a tight timeline to rule on what would be one of the most consequential cases involving the presidency. we'll get expert, legal analysis on the issue of removing donald trump from the ballot in two states. are there going to be more? how will it be handled? with us, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. editor at "the washington post," david ignatius. the former supreme allied commander of nato, four star navy admiral james stavridis. he is chief international analyst for nbc news. first, willie, happy new year. i haven't seen you in too long. >> happy new year, mika. >> yeah. joe is on his way back from the rose bowl. i watched. >> yeah. >> it was really painful. >> yeah. >> that was as painful as it gets. >> joe is in mourning this morning. we can understand why. his crimson tide fell in what

was a great game in overtime to michigan. >> incredible. >> michigan was the favorite in this game. alabama was up late. michigan came back. this is in overtime. blake corum, their running back. saban has a good quarterback who can run the ball. low snap probably hurt 'em. michigan gets the snap, and the celebration is on for michigan fans. they go to their first championship game next monday night in houston. they'll play in another great game, washington, also unbeaten, the two seed in the tournament, beating texas in the sugar bowl. again, texas was fighting right until the end. had a play late, the last play of the game here, knocked away by washington. they hold on. really good, underrated team. your national championship game, jonathan lemire, michigan and

washington, two unbeaten teams. >> wow. >> i guess probably we can say now the two best teams in football given the results. on behalf of joe, that was a tough one. alabama was leading late. give michigan a lot of credit. their defense was awesome, in the first half especially. all over jalen milroe in the backfield there. we got our matchup now. >> yeah, i'm not convinced we're going to see joe again. this was a really, really tough one. to blow a late lead there, you're right. michigan's defense was so good early on. they sacked the quarterback six times. it just felt like it was so inevitable. alabama is inevitable. saban is inevitable. they took that lead, and you thought they'd hold on. it is stunning they didn't. they let michigan go down the field. a shaky play call on a qb draw from fourth down with michigan's defensive line being so good. they completely snuffed it. he had no chance whatsoever. now, it sets up a great title game. so unusual to have a title name

not featuring the s.e.c., who dominated college football so long. fresh blood here. michigan versus washington. that'll be fun. certainly, condolences to mr. scarborough. >> yeah, we'll be okay. he loves a great game, no matter who wins. great to see you guys. happy new year. jonathan, get ready to be really tired in 2024. >> i already am. >> you don't sleep at all. willie knows, he did the "way too early" thing. let's get to the news. the israeli military is planning to withdraw some of its troops from gaza, reservists from at least two brigades will be sent home this week, the idf says. this is expected to, quote, significantly ease the burden on the economy. many israeli businesses were forced to scale back or even shut down after losing much of their workforce to the war effort. the move will also free up units in case a wider conflict begins with hezbollah in lebanon.

the idf says the fighting in gaza will continue throughout the coming months, but the u.s. officials say this withdrawal signals israel may be shifting to a more low-intensity operation, which is something the biden administration has been pushing for. you wonder if they're also responding to pressure from their number one ally, the united states of america, where there are, willie, a lot of questions about -- >> that's a great -- >> -- not only their strategy but how this all went down. >> exactly. it is a great point. we're learning now the relationship between israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and president biden is reportedly becoming more strained, according to several sources speaking to "the new york times." and more frustrated in recent weeks by netaahs refusal to change tactics in gaza despite the insistence of the united states. in early december, biden pleased some within the white house by going off script to say israel sk losing international

support if it continued the, quote, indiscriminate bbi of its neighbor. in his many, many phone calls withnetanyahu, biden reportedly has urged netanyahu to t a more targeted approach to rooting out hamas, something the israeli prime minister has pushed back against. the sharpest disputes, though, according to "the times," have centered around what to do in gaza after the war ends, with netanyahu reportedly resisting biden's calls for an eventual two-state solution, mika. >> yeah, "the new york times" now is out with a sweeping investigation on israel's failures in responding to the deadly attack launched by hamas on october 7th. one key reason, the israeli military had no battle plan despite intelligence showing the terror group was likely planning an assault. this is according to current and former soldiers and officers who tell "th times" that if a pla for a large-scale attack on israeli soil did exist, no one

had been trained on it. the paper reports israel's military was undermanned, out of position, and so poorly organized that soldiers communicated in impromptu what's app groups and relied on social mea posts for targeting information. the israe military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy. a major in the reserves tells "the times" their train assumed that israeli intelligence would learn of a looming invasion i advance. he says his paratrooper unit mobilized on their own without a formal call uporder. seven hours into the fighting, he turned to the reservist next him and asked, "what is the idf?" making matters worse, if that is possible, the military has acknowledged that it moved two commando companies, more than 100soldiers, to the west bk just two days before the attack,

a reflection of israel's mistaken belief that a ham attack was not an imminent threat. this doesn't makesense. the assault on a military base left soldiers thereighting for their livesather than coordinating a response to the invasion. on soldier told "the times" that some did not even know they were under attack until hamas was in their sleeping arters. several were killed in their bunks, others barricaded themselves in safe rooms. "the times" asked the idf why there was no plan. the military replied that questions of this kind will be looked at into a greater stage. david ignatius and admiral stavridis. admiral, you've already said it is long past due we answer these questions. david, i'll start with you, though. um, i don't know what the options are here in terms of making sense of this. because "the new york times" piece, as incredible as the

reporting was, leaves more questions than answers. it actually is worse than we could have ever imagined. as women were being raped, children were being forcibly removed from their homes or killed, as people were being killed en masse in the streets and at a concert, you had an army that had no clue what was going on or was caught in traffic. what are the options at this point in terms of an expla explanation? what could be the explanation for this, and is there a a nefarious one? >> "the times" reporting is haunting, people pleading, where is the idf? where is this army that israel has counted on through its history, that's been regarded as one of the finest small armies in the world? where is the idf? the image of soldiers being shot

in their bunks, in their bases, in an attack that they were not warned of, were not prepared for. images of people, as you said, turning to social media rather than their own battle planning to decide on operations. i think the problem, mika, is that that disorientation that we saw on the first day, october 7, and the days that followed, has continued in some ways. israel didn't expect that hamas, its adversary, was capable of an attack like the one that happened. they simply had never considered it. there weren't plans for it pause they didn't think this enemy could do it. as they've fought in gaza, hamas has turned out to be a tougher adversary there than they expected, and that's why this war has gone on and why israel has gotten so much international criticism for what people say is

overreacting. they simply haven't been able to take control of as much of gaza as they thought. we're now getting to a point, finally, where the israelis, in part because of economic need, the need to get reservists back to work so the economy functions better, will begin pulling out, initially two brigades, three more are planned, though no date has been given, and israel in the north will move to a standoff operation scenario, where they'll get intelligence that hamas is located in a particular place. they'll send troops in there, rather than maintaining troops surrounding those positions. that will ease the casualty burn for israel. hopefully it'll allow greater humanitarian relief in gaza and make that situation better, reduce the criticism on israel and the united states. more to the point, help the desperate suffering of the palestinians. but the more we know about this war, you know, we probably

should add in netanyahu's political and judicial problems -- >> yeah. >> -- that coincide with this intelligence failure and military difficulty. the more we know about the situation, the more i think it is right to see netanyahu as embattled, as having embarked on a war for which it turned out neither he nor the military was adequately prepared. now, several months later, struggling to find an end game. when i talk to israeli military commanders, mika, i simply don't hear clear answers about how they think this war will end or who they think will come in after the israeli military to maintain order in gaza. i think that's where the u.s. is going to have to play a key role because israel itself doesn't have the answers. >> admiral stavridis, david was talking about the news that problem yesterday, israel's high court striking down benjamin netanyahu's judicial overhaul law, something i think he needed

politically to stay in power and avoid indictment or at least the consequence of an already existing indictment. putting that aside, i think it was a month ago you said it was too late, that there were no answers. it's only given us more questions, given us a sick feeling that the answers may not be good. i ask you, what are the options here at this point now that we know soldiers were killed in their beds sleeping? they were stuck in traffic. let me add, benjamin netanyahu supported the funding of hamas through qatar, that benjamin netanyahu says now is not the time to know these answers. i think it is exactly the time, especially if they want the support of their partners, complete support, transparency. also, what does it say? i guess their attitudes toward women, at the very least, are

less than to be respected, given the fact it was women researchers who raised the flag months ago that this attack was happening in a 40-page blueprint on this. i ask, what are the options? beyond the fact that israel was not prepared. that seems impossible, so what are the other options? >> let's go back to why this happened. i think there are kind of three big reasons. one is complacency. the israeli military simply could not conceive that hamas would be able to generate this high-end, striking combat attack, and they underestimated the degree to which iran had provided the weaponry to do it, the training, the functionality. complete underestimation of hamas, a complacency syndrome. secondly, you touched on it a moment ago, mika, the internal

divisions in israel had even reached into the israeli defense forces. we had seen reports of reservists who said, "we're not going to report until this constitutional crisis is resolved." that's pretty remarkable in a military that absolutely relies on its reserve component. thirdly, hamas itself stepped up and did the unexpected. you know, we talk a lot about 9/11 as a failure, not of intelligence but a failure of imagination. it was really both. the crisis for america that has some echoes here is really pearl harbor. it is where our military was literally sleeping in their bunks in pearl harbor, had no idea, seemingly, this attack was going to come, even though, in retrospect, we saw plenty of

intelligence flickers out there. so that moment for the israeli military reminds me of the pearl harbor moment for the united states. in terms of options, more importantly than all of that, and israel will pull that apart and it can't happen fast enough, they need to be doing this in parallel to the fight. let's face it, they're not fighting the japanese empire here. they are not under existential threat from hamas. they can do the investigation and understand. after pearl harbor, what the united states did was bring in new commanders. we got rid of the team that had allowed this to occur. we brought in new, fresh admirals, like chester nimitz, halsy, relatively unknown officers who stepped in and recovered from the situation

pretty remarkably. israel, a, needs to investigate this now and fully. b, reshape their military leadership based on the leadership failures that i think are quite obvious here. c, heal these internal divisions. we get back to the political and the benjamin netanyahu situation, it hurts israel's national security badly. >> as mika mentioned, quoted in "the new york times," an idf spokesperson said, "questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage." they just don't want to talk about what happened on that day from the point of view of the military. david, you've covered the middle east for so long. you understand israel so well. you know the way israel sleeps at night when they're surrounded by people who openly call for their destruction, why they have a thriving economy and the miracle of israel is because they trust the israeli military has them protected. they trust that things like this

can't happen. they trust they have one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations in the world. what is your sense internally, inside israel, about how that has been shattered a bit, and what kind of pressure is, in fact, prime minister netanyahu under internally from the israeli people? or are they so focused right now on the effort to defeat hamas, that they're unified on that question and willing to accept that we'll deal with what happened that day at a later date? >> willie, i think you put your finger on what has been so traumatizing for israel. israel lived on its -- the strength of its military, its conviction that no matter what its adversaries tried to do, israel would respond quickly and decisively. the opposite happened here. israel responded slowly and uncertainly. i think for israelis across the country, this has been deeply disorienting. this isn't the military they expected and need. i think there's been a lot of

second guessing up and down the chain. i think a lot of this has come to be focused on netanyahu, a leader who is seen as being more focused on his political interests in staying in power than on the unity of the nation, certainly in the months leading to war. israel was as divided as i've ever seen it as a correspondent. now, as the war is being fought, as i talk to israeli commanders, the people who seem to have the pest best sense of the battlefield are the same idf commanders. if you want to talk about ideas for where this might end, about the day after, as we like to say, those are things that the best people in the idf are thinking carefully about. unfortunately, there's not political consensus behind them yet, and i think we're going to have to begin to think about a post netanyahu scenario for israel. he is embattled, losing support.

the supreme court's rebuff of his judicial reform package makes his problems, i think, all the more difficult. to go to the basics, willie, as you said, an army that symbolized the country, and on which the country depended, seems to have failed here, and that really hurts and upsets the whole country. >> there's two things we're talking about in this, jonathan lemire. number one, when admiral stavridis talks about complacency syndrome, that makes sense for the weeks and months coming up. i mean, it doesn't to me. when they talk about hamas living their lives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to want to kill jews, kill israelis, that doesn't sound like you should be co complacent, just, you know, from the outside. but let's just entertain that. it doesn't explain what happened in the seven hours, okay, the eight hours, the nine hours,

where soldiers were operating on their own, making up stuff on what's app to try to figure out what to do to help. stuck in traffic. sleeping. like, somebody in the moment was making decisions or not, and that's the question, i guess, i ask you. is the white house interested in these answers as they work to help their partner? they're working on wars on two fronts, okay, where they need clarity to appeal to our congress and to the american people as to why we are supporting these wars. i guess my question is, is the white house interested in these answers? are they concerned about the answers? >> oh, they most certainly are. from the early days after october 7th, u.s. officials made it very clear that they wanted to know just what went wrong. this is so devastating for prime minister netanyahu, who really billed himself as the security, the national security prime minister. it's not -- it's both

complacency but also being distracted, that netanyahu's focus was on the west bank. he just redeployed two commando units, the idf did, in days before the attack, because netanyahu was placating his base, his right-wing settlers in the west bank. that's where he wanted the focus. he didn't put his focus on a two-state solution, and that, mika, is at the heart of the rising frustration that the white house has with netanyahu. he has not given license to this support. they feel like a two-state solution is essential for peace and stability in the region, as is, admiral stavridis, the idea that israel shouldn't be part of gaza occupation whenever the war does come. the white house has been clear about that. netanyahu seemingly not listening. this comes at a difficult moment where we're seeing tensions rise in the red sea. the u.s. is taking aggressive action to ward off the houthi rebels. they're leaning on israel to be more targeted in their strikes

of gaza. depends on the day, whether israel seems to be listening there or not. it does seem like though netanyahu has become an unreliable partner, the u.s. feels, he's not going anywhere, at least for now. the u.s. has to manage this. how do you think they can? >> first and foremost, let me go to the sea for a moment and what's happening in the red sea. this is big casino for the global economy, frankly. this red sea is the size of the state of california. it lies right under the suez canal. so far, the houthi rebels, who are completely creatures of iran, trained, equipped, organized, ordered, much like hamas is, these houthi rebels are actually creating the conditions in which the big shipping economies are simply not going through there. this is like closing the suez canal. we're not there yet, but you could see the outlines of a real

blow to the global economy. 15%, 20% of the world's shipping passes through the red sea. yes, we have to continue to work with our friends, partners, and allies in the region, that's israel, but it is also the kingdom of saudi arabia, the uae, bahrain, and our allies engaged in the maritime side of this. going back to land for a minute, what i worry about, jonathan, here are two things. one is tactical. from the report, back to mika's excellent questions, how could this happen? another part of it we haven't touched on yet is no plan, no training, no sense of practicing to respond to this. that's pretty remarkable. that's what militaries do. they build plans that mirror what their enemies might do, then they train against them. to me, the most striking thing in "the new york times" reporting was the lack of any kind of planning, training, or exercising. as mika said, soldiers just

making stuff up. that just hurts your heart as a military professional. you can't conceive of that. secondly, at the strategic level, what this does, and this is what would keep me awake at night if i were an israeli in my bed, is that deterrence is shattered. the opponents see this weakness. hezbollah says, hmm. the houthis say, hmm. iran says, hmm. deterrence, if not shattered, is deeply weakened here. those are big concerns. the u.s. needs to stand with israel in this time, but we have a very troubled partner leading that nation. >> retired admiral james stavridis, thank you very much for coming on. happy new year. we're glad to have you this coming year in the months to come as we cover this story and this question. still ahead on "morning joe," former trump staffers echo warnings and concerns over the

possibility of a second trump presidency. we have that. plus, a breakdown of the legal battles facing the gop frontrunner this year as the election approaches. also, karine jean-pierre, white house press secretary, will join the conversation to discuss what the biden administration has planned for 2024. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. uality cand, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. do you like that bone? i got a great price on it. did you see my tail when that chewy box showed up? oh, i saw it. my tail goes bonkers for treats at great prices. sorry about the vase. shop and get a $30 egift card through january 14th, at chewy. hey, doc, if you had to choose, shop and get a $30 egift card through january 14th, would you give yourself a root canal or run payroll? oh, run payroll. paying my team with gusto takes just a few clicks. they automatically file my taxes for me too. can i run payroll too? choose payroll without the pain.

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what scares me as much as his retribution is the cult-like following with his supporters. the threats you get when he targets you, and he is deliberate in targeting, is horrifying and has no place in our american discourse. it is unlike anything i've seen in the decades plus i've been in politics. >> our singular focus needs to be, if he is the nominee, making sure he is not elected the

president again next november. >> even if it means electing a democrat? >> it is disappointing. i'm upset with the options. at the end of the day, i trust one person with our government and democracy than i do the other. i've never voted for a democrat in my life, but in this next election, i'd put policy aside and choose democracy. >> former trump white house aides speaking out on the dangers of a potential second trump term. the supreme court is poised to rule on one of the most consequential cases in american history. two states now have ruled former president trump is not eligible to hold the office of presidency. the colorado case has already been appealed. if the supreme court agrees to hear the case, "the new york times" writes, justices will act in the shadow of two competing political realizes. "the times" reports, they will be reluctant to wrest from

voters the power to asses mr. trump's conduct, particularly given the certain backlash that would bring. yet they will also be wary of giving mr. trump the electoral boost of an unqualified victory in the nation's highest court. chief justice john roberts will doubtless seek consensus, or at least try to avoid a partisan split, of the six republican appointees against the three democratic ones. joining us now, the author of that piece, supreme court reporter for "the new york times," adam liptak. also with us for the conversation, former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst, joyce vance. adam, in your reporting, what is the question before the courts here? because while in some of your analysis there is a concern about looking partisan or tipping the scales, isn't the question about engaging in insurrection, whether or not he did? >> the question for the court is a legal question. that question is whether the

14th amendment to the constitution adopted after the civil war bars people who have, first, taken an oath to support the constitution, and then engaged in an insurrection. lots of people think the case against donald trump is airtight, that he did both of those things. >> right. >> but there are a lot of sub issues and threshold issues that may be attractive to the court if it takes the case. it hasn't taken the case yet, but the colorado republican party has already asked the court to take the case and act really fast, before the super tuesday primary. it is quite likely the court engages. >> joyce, i want to ask in a second about how quickly the supreme court needs to take this up, how quickly it will, but let's talk about its job in the case. is it not the job of the supreme court to interpret the constitution without concern for the political backlash or the questions that might arise for the country, which are all

noteworthy and things we should probably be concerned about? but in terms of the justices on that court, are they not just looking at whether this is constitutional? >> that's the job. as adam points out, the issue in front of them is the pure legal issue of trump's eligibility. the court isn't supported to take into account any political considerations. but i think adam is dead on the money when he talks about there being a lot of potential procedural off-ramps that the court could take that would permit trump to remain on the ballot. i think in this situation, it's difficult to believe that they'll completely divorce themselves from the policy considerations. a lot of people are concerned about removing the choice from the hands of voters, but if we look at it strictly as a legal matter, there are certain eligibility criteria to be president. you have to be 35. you have to be a native born citizen. those criteria are a little more black and white than this

question of whether or not trump engaged in insurrection. that, i suspect, is the area the court will focus on if they want to avoid disqualifying him based on the 14th amendment. >> joyce, what about the speed? some of these ballots are to be printed in a matter of days, actually. how quickly can we expect the supreme court to move here? >> right. so the supreme court could go ahead and accept the case based on the existing petition. they might decide that they want to wait for the former president to actually file the notice of appeal. here's the bottom line, though. if trump does not appeal this ruling and the court doesn't hear the appeal from the colorado republican party, then he will not be on the ballot in that state. maybe that's something he believes is survivable, but with so many other states in play, maine is only one of them, there are a number of other states looking at this. i think the court will have to go ahead and take up the issue.

with at least maine and colorado part of the super tuesday primary group, they need to do it quickly. >> adam, draw upon your experience covering the highest court to put this into context for us. seems like the most important election-based case since gore v. bush in 2000. frankly, one of the most important cases it may ever take. beyond that, tell us the role of how you see chief justice roberts approaching this and what strategy or consensus building he might try to use. >> well, the court, as you know, is embattled. it is going through a rough period. its public approval ratings are down. it's been the subject of ethics scandals. this is not a case the chief justice is eager to have. but it is probably unavoidable. the question needs a national solution. his impulse will be trying to avoid doing damage to the legitimacy of the court, which is 6-3, republican and democratic split of the

appointees on the court, and would give rise to. i think he'd look for consensus. he would look for something incremental, something technical. there are, as we've been discussing, off-ramps. there are ideas that congress has to act first or that it is a political question. i think the chief justice will want to find a way, not to give trump a victory here, but to tell the american public that it is not -- the court is not taking a position on the question of whether he engaged in insurrection, but probably look for some technical way to rule for trump but not in a kind of earth-shattering way. this is not a court that's been sympathetic to donald trump. it is a conservative court, but it has rebuffed trump and his allies when they tried to get the court to overturn the election. and when the manhattan d.a. and a congressional committee sought

records from him, the court voted 7-2 against trump. with all of the trump appointees in the majority and only justices thomas and alito in dissent. >> yeah, no, there is some reporting that former president trump is worried about this. joyce, it's very hard to count how many different legal battles this former president is fighting at the same time. in this case, are colorado and maine the only states that are doing something like this? >> you know, they're not, mika. other states have ruled that trump does get to remain on the ballot. the minnesota supreme court has taken that position. there are proceedings in a whole host of states. this is complicated because we don't have one national election. we've got 50 different state elections with different rules. for instance, in colorado, trump has to accomplish he's eligible to run, and that drove some of that ruling. in michigan, where the law is a little different, the courts have held that trump is eligible

to remain on the ballots, at least for the primaries. all of this complexity adds up to adam's point, that the supreme court really will have to decide this issue. we can't have a patchwork quilt of 50 different states with 50 different rules when it comes to a presidential election. >> msnbc legal analyst joyce vance, one of the co-hosts of "the sisters-in-law" podcast. thank you very much. supreme court reporter for "the new york times," adam liptak, thank you for your reporting this morning. we appreciate it. still ahead, it appears the playoff committee got it right. both games yesterday were incredible. one went into overtime. the other came down to the final second. we'll go through those games and some of the headlines out of the nfl with pablo torre. he joins us next on "morning joe." ♪ this is all you need ♪

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three michigan tight ends. hand the ball to corum. spins and scores. blake corum puts michigan on top in overtime. >> game on the line. it's williams in motion. milroe stopped! michigan makes a stand and comes up with a milestone playoff victory. texas trailing all night long, one last chance to advance to the national championship game. ewers lobs it up, and it is incomplete! >> some of the scenes from yesterday's thrilling slate of college football games, all coming down to the last play. the washington huskies there at the end defeating the texas longhorns in the sugar bowl. michigan stopping alabama short in the end zone in overtime. short of the end zone in overtime in the rose bowl. both face off monday night in

houston for the national championship. joining us now, host of "pablo torre finds out," pablo torre, our good buddy. great to see you. >> happy new year, all that. >> happy new year. joe is not here, so we can talk openly about the alabama loss, which is painful for all of us. >> we should talk about joe. this is embarrassing for everybody, that i cannot yell at him, willie. joe was at this game. joe saw a nick saban team which, i would say this, it is impressive they got here. >> yeah. >> what happened at the end of this game raised all sorts of questions i would have loved to make fun of joe about. >> you didn't like the call at the end. >> the call that we'll get to in the highlight reel, because it was back and forth. alabama was up in the fourth quarter. it gets to overtime, and they run jalen milroe on a quarterback sneak, right up the middle. he just collapses to the floor. look, michigan, the harbaugh end of this, i want to doff my cap.

this was a man who was a little napoleon, ankle monitor house arrest to his season. there is a spying scandal. but his michigan team, objectively more talented than alabama, which is not a sentence you can say often. >> no. >> i just imagine that somewhere, as this play is unfolding, as alabama is coming down the field -- >> there's overtime, blake corum. >> i presume joe was in the stands. mika, i don't know if he weeps at these things, but here's the play. running right into the line. people are just like, that's what we called after, like, five minutes of time-outs? >> that was it. >> milroe, he is an incredible runner. >> yes. >> it was a low snap, i'll say that, killing his momentum. >> in his defense. >> that's tough, right up the gut against a run defense that had been so good all night in michigan. >> yes. >> michigan's defense's dominance of alabama's line was

noted. michael penix jr. is incredible, finished second in the heisman. threw for 430 last night. >> incredible. >> still, this game came down to the last play, as well. >> yeah, these were both suspeneful games. texas is no slouch. this game was more back and forth. michael penix jr., as you said, might be a top three pick in the nfl draft. i don't know if they put kids on -- adults on wheaties boxes anymore, but he is a candidate for that. threw for a zillion yards, as you said. when i'm watching this game, willie, i am thinking to myself, i don't know how many people are familiar with the experience that is the washington huskies. suddenly, the national championship game, you're going to see a team unload all of that cannon attached to michael penix's shoulder will be on full display. this was a game, admittedly, that got hairy at the end. washington had a late-stage game experiences where you're like, i hope they're not going to blow

this and choke it away. they should have kneeled it and didn't, tried to run it, but they outlast texas. it was a nail biter to the end. >> can we say, can we not, the committee, after all the consternation about florida state and everything else, got it right here? these are the two best teams? >> i think so. >> i will stipulate, i was watching last night thinking, i still think georgia would beat all these teams. that's a conversation for another day. >> georgia would love to have it. i mean, florida, the state of florida would like to have it less because they got blown out by 50, i believe. >> 60. >> excuse me. all the votes have been counted. blown out by 60. it's embarrassing for fsu. they threatened legislation because they were left out of this. georgia lost to alabama, can't complain too much. i think they got it right. the political system, i dare say, worked. >> there we go. quick nfl. man, the baltimore ravens look good. lamar jackson probably the mvp, i think. >> yes. >> he led my fantasy team, most importantly, to a championship on sunday. >> there it is. you were whispering this before the segment.

>> all about fantasy. they smoked a pretty good miami team. >> 56-19. the baltimore ravens, look, there's been this carousel of teams all season because the nfl has been defined by immediate i don't care -- mediocrity this year. who is the best? ravens. lamar jackson is the mvp. he is setting records. he's a guy who has been questioned for whether he is a real quarterback. is he quarterbacky enough? yeah, look at this throw. >> quarterbacky. >> sufficiently quarterbacky, i dare say. the dolphins were once the team that everybody was afraid of, and here come the baltimore ravens. statistically, as well as the eye test, look what your eyes are telling you, this is the team that's probably going to win the super bowl, assuming everything holds. >> they're telling me lamar is more quarterbacky. >> yes. >> what's up with the eagles? they look terrible lately. >> man, they were the previous answer to who is going to win the super bowl.

the team in it last year lost it, but they're back. the tush push, no one can stop it. they push jalen hurts' butt cheeks, and no one can solve it. now, the cardinals and a number of teams have solved it, so the philadelphia eagles have gone to the philadelphia place of total ecstasy at one point to, suddenly, i think we have to fire the head coach. we have to fire people. people are angry. i don't have answers for them, other than to say, they are, in fact, to quote a former cardinals coach, dennis green, they're not as good as we thought term. >> 11 months after the super bowl, they want everybody fired. >> that's how it works. >> catch pablo in his podcast, "pablo torre finds out." >> thank you, sir. richard haass on why 2024 could be the biggest year yet for democracy. also, how a change in messaging shaped the abortion debate, how it is being

discussed and why it is leaving conservatives scrambling to respond. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. 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. you just search your prescription, find the best price and show your coupon, in the app, to the pharmacist. i found a cheaper price with singlecare! i know. download the singlecare app free today.

breaking news out of ukraine. its two largest cities have come under attack. russian missiles hit kharkiv. in kharkiv, five areas of the city were struck. the ukrainian air force says it involves some of russia's most powerful weapons. friday, it was the kremlin's single largest attack on ukraine since the war started. 41 civilians were killed in the barrage, mika. also, breaking news we're covering out of tokyo. this is on the heels of an earthquake in japan yesterday. japanese local media is reporting that five crew members aboard a coast guard plane that collided with a passenger jet

after landing have died. the pilot was able to escape. it happened overnight on the runway of one of tokyo's busiest airports. the plane bursting into flames there as it landed. get this, all of the 400 passengers on board the japanese airlines flight got out safely. the coast guard personnel was on the way to help victims of yesterday's earthquake. right now, crews are still working to try and contain that fire, but look at that, those pictures of the fire. unbelievable. the 400 passengers had under two minutes to get out of the plane. there were multiple toddlers. everybody got out of the passenger plane alive. incredible. we'll be following this breaking story out of tokyo. coming up, a report from nbc news foreign correspondent, matt bradley, on how democracy is on the ballot in 2024.

not just here in the u.s. but across the world. plus, the strained relationship between president biden and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu over the war in gaza between israel and hamas. the latest on what is simmering the tensions behind the scenes. that's coming up next on "morning joe." your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is the top of the second hour. 7:00 on the east coast on this tuesday, january 2nd. happy new year, everybody. jonathan lemire is still with us. 2024 is expected to be the largest expression of democracy in human history. with more than half of the world's population living in countries that will host nationwide elections next year. in many of the largest and most important elections, including in the united states, it is democracy itself that will be on the ballot. nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley has more. >> i will prevent world war iii. >> reporter: 2024 will be a bumper year for elections. not just in the u.s., more than half the world's population live in countries that will hold nationwide voting this year.

it could be the largest expression of democracy in human history. but if democracy is on the march, autocracy appears to be striding right beside it. >> we're seeing all these elections in 2024. is democracy also on the ballot? >> democracy is on the ballot. in fact, you have this paradox that defines global democracy right now. you have more elections than ever before in human history, yet the world is becoming less democratic year on year. >> reporter: some elections like in russia, bangladesh, mexico, and pakistan, will be held in places where monitors say the elections could be compromised or won't carry much weight. africa will be the most elections, but countries there suffered nine coup coups in thr years. in the u.s., india, and indonesia, voters will be asked to choose between democracy or what some are calling a kind of creeping authoritarianism. >> you have a decline of democracy even as people go through the charade of voting. that's the norm for a lot of

countries around the world. you also have it on the ballot because the u.s., which is the global bastion of democracy, the most powerful democracy in the world, has effectively an authoritarian candidate in donald trump going up against a pro-democracy candidate in joe biden. >> reporter: poorly run elections can damage more than the results. they can defame democracy, diminishing its appeal to the voters it is supposed to represent. >> the problem with that is when people go into fake democracies and believe that's what democracy is, they lose faith in it. >> reporter: it may already be happening. a 2020 cambridge university study, which drew on surveys of 4.8 million people worldwide over nearly 50 years, said young people have become steadily more dissatisfied with democracy. britain is among a number of european countries that are going to have elections, and they all face one issue that will challenge elections throughout the world. last month, the uk accused

russian intelligence of interfering in the upcoming parliamentary elections, targeting top officials and leaking secret documents, a charge moscow denied. >> this is a dangerous time. >> reporter: artificial intelligence is already mimicking prominent politicians. just last summer, hackers created a fake speech, showing russian president vladimir putin calling for a mass troop mobilization. and graphica revealed accounts showing fake support for candidates. >> well-run elections through the use of false narratives is a challenge. >> reporter: just like with other unfree or fraudulent elections held by autocrats, it sows a general sense of democracy, denting its reputation. it could turn what should be an abundant year of voting into the start of its slump. >> joining us now, president

emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. "the bill of obligations: the ten habits of good citizens" is the basis for a new documentary, "a citizen's guide to preserving democracy," which premieres tonight on pbs. perfect timing for this and for this conversation. we'll get to the documentary in a moment. first, richard, i want to get your reaction to what we just heard from matt bradley. what i saw anecdotally over the holiday, i spent a lot of time with young adults, and the things coming out of their mouths, things they were hearing from places on their phone that, you know, were not legitimate news organizations, i found it scary there is a whole generation, or two perhaps, behind us that are losing faith in democracy, are beginning to sort of find their answers in

places that are dangerous. >> happy new year, mika. it could be an unhappy new year for exactly what you're saying. think about it. if you're a young person in your 20s or 30s, what have you seen in your lifetime? you had maybe your first major awareness with, what, 9/11? you've had a pandemic. you've had several economic and financial crises, unsuccessful wars in afghanistan and iraq. they see the nonsense that often goes on in washington, the inability to get stuff done. people say, hey, i see what democracy has done to me, but i'm not seeing what democracy is doing for me. i don't think any longer that we can assume that, somehow, people appreciate or value democracy. on top of it, you're right, they don't have the educational background. we don't teach civics in most of our schools. they don't have a lot of history. they don't have what is increasingly called information literacy.

they don't know how to establish between facts and other sorts of information. they don't know where to go for safeguarding information, almost what is good information hygiene, how to multiple source it and so forth. for all these reasons, democracy is extraordinarily vulnerable in this country, not to mention much of the world. >> while there are different areas in our society to blame, you could look at the media landscape, at networks that continue to promote lies even though they've been, you know, paid $787 million to stop doing it. at the same time, let's look at the white house and how this white house is managing wars on several fronts, racking up more accomplishments than you could say in the history of the modern presidency, and, yet, this reality and this sort of losing the young people and this sense of who to believe is still happening. what should the administration

be doing more of to not only get the message out that democracy is on the line, but also of the accomplishments that they can draw from? >> i think the president has to educate more. in some ways, to turn the oval office into a classroom. the most effective president maybe in modern times was ronald reagan. going back to fdr, the fireside chats, what he did with those, mika, is he took a reluctant country that was, in many ways, quite isolationist, and he gradually moved it in a direction where american entry into world war ii became politically possible. obviously, it happened. even before our entry into the war with things like lend/lease, we were helping the allies in europe. but he educated. he explained. he did it regularly. i think the white house has to do more about that. one of the harsh lessons i've learned in recent years is we can't assume anything. we can't assume that people know

the facts. we can't assume they see and can distinguish between successes and failures, and they understand the real causes of certain problems or what is a realistic set of remedies. i think politicians not only have to do the right thing, they have to explain why they're doing what they're doing every step of the way. >> richard, as we turn the page to this new year, let's talk about israel and gaza. the israeli military is planning to withdraw some troops from gaza. reservists from at least two brigades will be sent home this week. the move is meant to significantly ease the burden on the economy. many israeli businesses were forced to scale back, even close, after losing their workforce to the war effort. it also frees up units in case of a wider conflict with hezbollah in lebanon. still, the idf says the fighting in gaza will continue through the coming months. american officials say the withdrawal signals israel may be

shifting its strategy a bit, something the biden administration, of course, has been pushing for, that relationship between prime minister netanyahu and biden, though, is becoming trained. president biden has become frustrated by netanyahu's refusal to change tactics in gaza. biden went off script in early december saying israel risked losing international support if it continued what the president called t indiscriminate bombing o gaza. in his near constant phone calls with netanyahu, biden reportedly has urged him to take a more targeted approach to rooting out hamas. sharpest disputes have centered around what to do in gaza after the war ends with netanyahu resisting biden's calls for a two-state solution. richard, let's put those two things together there. is this move, and, again, it is

two brigades scheduled later this week, to pull out of gaza, is it a nod to the pressure that president biden, frankly, has been putting on prime minister netanyahu? perhaps symbolic, as the idf will continue its fight in gaza to root out hamas, but is that a nod to president biden, saying, okay, pull back a bit? >> not really, willie. the one area where i think the israelis have listened to the president is byallowing more humanitarian aid to get into gaza. there, the administration has had some effect on israeli policy. the fact the israelis can reduce the military presence in gaza doesn't change the way they're conducting the war. what we're actually hearing from the israelis, it'll be an extraordinarily long war. as you, yourself, said a minute ago, what's still missing is any political dimension to the strategy. what we're looking at is a long war followed by an open-ended

israeli op occupation. i don't see any reason for the palestinians to turn on hamas. again, we have to show there is a better way for palestinians to realize some of their political aspiration. if we don't, they're going to turn to the dangerous ways of hamas. the israelis, again, have not introduced a political track. i'm not saying we should be talking about a two-state solution. israelis are not, for the most part, ready to have that conversation, but we have to open a political process and make clear, for example, we don't want to see settlements expanded, we're against settler violence in the west bank. what do we do to empower a new generation of palestinian leadership so hamas is not the only game in town? >> so let's talk about this with white house reporter for "the washington post," yasmin. what are the options for the

white house in terms of supporting israel? also, how do we end this, "this is not time to talk about the response to october 7th. we cannot give you any answers right now. that's for a later date"? i mean, that response is being given to any question that is asked of israel and of benjamin netanyahu. as a competent partner, is the u.s. requiring that perhaps more information is forthcoming about what in the world happened here? >> not that we've picked up in our reporting. i think they still feel that the time is not right, especially as israel is in the midst of this war. but i think the challenge that they're facing here with benjamin netanyahu is he has an interest in prolonging the war as long as possible because he has said a look at what went wrong and what happened will come once the war is done, once things have settled down. he is one of the few top israeli officials who has not taken responsibility for what happened

on october 7th. like dr. haas was saying earlier, the question of the political horizon the day after is the biggest source of tension between the white house and netanyahu's government. netanyahu said publicly and more brazenly in the last couple of weeks that he is proud of the fact that he has stopped the establishment of a palestinian state for all these years, that he has no interest in letting the palestinian authority come back to gaza. he has no interest in finding a pathway to a palestinian state. there are obviously deep disagreements and conflicts over the way the war is being waged right now. i think it is pretty clear, israel, allowing aid, other than that, it is not listening to the u.s. we don't know what will come after, and it'll be hard to get arab allies in arab states to get to reconstruction without the promise of a political solution.

>> yasmeen, the president is in a re-election year officially. it is 2024. of course, there are political concerns here, as well. we have seen poll after poll that show a number of democrats, particularly young democrats, progressives, democrats of color, arab-american or muslim-american voters very unhappy with how he is handling this. walk us through a little, if you will, in the thinking in the white house, in the campaign, as to how they are trying to pull off this tricky balancing act of continuing to support israel, even as they continue to sour on netanyahu, but also to try to avoid alienating further a group of voters they simply need to turn out come november. >> yeah, jonathan, i think you hit on all the big issues they're facing. they're losing a really key part of their coalition here. voters they really shouldn't have to worry about too much but should be more focused on turning out in big numbers. poll after poll show young voters are extremely unhappy with the president's response to israel. arab-americans and muslims, it's not a huge voter group, but they

are a growing share of the population. in a key state like michigan, they could swing the vote. there is an effort among arab and muslim leaders in key states to organize people to not vote for biden. it doesn't mean they'd vote for trump but would vote for third party or abstain from voting for the presidential election all together. this is a really key problem. i think right now, the biden campaign is still banking on the fact that when it becomes a head-to-head contest between president biden and former president trump, who looks like he is going to run away with the republican nomination, that voters will ultimately vote for biden because too much will be on the line. i think we're seeing that that is a dangerous calculation because of how deeply unhappy people are with the response. not only that, this war that netanyahu is saying will go on for months, the more it'll remain in the forefront of people's minds. you have these mounting casualties, and that'll make it very hard for people to look past that who feel very deeply about this issue.

>> white house reporter for "the washington post," yasmeen, thank you very much. "the new york times" is out with a sweeping investigation on israel's failures in responding to the deadly attack on october 7th launched by hamas. one key reason they point out, the israeli military had no battle plan despite intelligence showing the terror group was likely planning an assault. that's according to current and former soldiers and officers who tell "the mes," if a plan for a large-scal attack on israeli soil did exist, no oneadeen trained on it. the paper reports israel's military was undermanned, out of position, and sooorly organized that soldiers communicated in impromptu whatsapp groups and relied on social media posts for targeting information. making matters worse, the military has acknowledged that it moved two commando mpanies,

more than 100 soldiers, to the west bank just two days before the attack, a reflection of israel's mistaken belief that a hamas attack was not an imminent threat. richard, before we get to your documentary, i just have to ask, do you believe that they just didn't think hamas was interested in hurting them? i think that hypothesis has some questions to it. >> mika, this was one of the two great intelligence failures in modern israeli history. the first was 50 years ago, the 1973 war. the israelis didn't take seriously the possibility that the arab states, egypt and syria, principally, were going to attack them. we know it happened. here again, you had the dismissal of any serious threat that could conceivably emanate

from hamas. the israelis thought they had something of an arrangement with hamas. we'll let money come into you. we will let some people from gaza come work in israel, and you'll just leave us alone. it was all illusion or delusion. what you had was an intelligence failure, and there was no fallback, no plan b. where was the military readiness? why were troops being transferred away from the south? it was a holiday. there is a history of israel being attacked on holidays. >> yeah. >> this was a colossal failure in intelligence and a political and military failure. there are reasons there need to be investigations. getting to what yasmeen was saying a few minutes ago, it is one of the reasons this leadership in israel wants to prolong the war. it makes it very hard for israelis to change political leadership in the middle of a war, and it delays these investigations, which are going to make the civilian leadership,

as well as the military and intelligence leadership, look awful. >> richard, before you go, let's take a look at a clip from the trailer of the new documentary that you are a part of, that examines the history of u.s. democracy and how it can be saved in this year's election. >> this democracy has been around for over two centuries for a reason, but then what? >> it doesn't matter whether or not you're a republican, democrat, or independent, whether in the green party, it doesn't really matter, as long as you're here for america to be better. >> democracy is not a spectator sport. democracy requires people to suit up and get on the field. this country was founded on people fighting for the right to vote and govern ourselves. the stakes are enormous in this election, but the differences are real. i want americans to get informed and then to vote. >> you know, richard, there's always a state of the union, and

every president says, "the state of our union is strong." i think in many ways, it's not. i think young people and those that might be busy about kitchen table issues, too concerned with their own, quite frankly, survival in this economy and raising kids, may not have such a close look on the issue of democracy, which is precious and fragile. what do you think the challenges are to our democracy in the years ahead? how serious is the potential loss of it? >> look, it's incredibly serious, mika. let me just divide it into three periods. we have now, running up to the election, and we have real questions about the ability of our government to function during this period. we have all sorts of spending challenges.

ukraine and israel and so forth. then we have the question, are people able to vote, whether it was going to be physical disruption of people trying to vote and so forth. i think there's that phase. after the election, i can imagine unclear outcomes. you could have some competing slates of electors. again, i could imagine political violence. then if mr. trump were to emerge and be inaugurated in january of next year, of 2025, then the united states could very much become an illiberal democracy. we see elements of it, for example, in hungary. you could see calling out the military to quell domestic dissent. you could see the weaponization of the organs of government, the irs or the justice department. the elimination of tens of thousands of civil servants, replacement with political people who aren't necessarily qualified. again, nothing is inevitable. i don't want anybody watching this to say, you know, we're cooked, you know, nothing good can happen, but nobody should be

complacent. get informed. get involved. vote. in the longer run, we can address things like civics in our schools, public service and so forth. for this year, for 2024, the priority for americans has to be get informed, get involved, get out and vote. >> president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, thank you so much. the new documentary, "a citizen's guide to preserving democracy." it premieres tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern on pbs. richard, thank you so much. ahead on "morning joe," we'll go live to the white house where press secretary kareem -- karine jean-pierre is standing by. we have the administration's prioriies for 2024. later, steve rattner will be at the southwest wall with some

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♪♪ 27 past the hour. the white house wrapped up 2023 by defending the biden economy. on sund, jared bernstein, the chair of the white house council of economic advisors, laid out an all-around defense of president biden's economic policies over the past year. bernstein pointed out there was no recession. the unemployment rate has been below 4% for 22 months in a row, and the price of gas is currently below $3 in 28 states across the u.s. >> on a yearly basis, wages for mid-level workers have been beating prices for nine months in a row. that's a trend, mike, not a blip. >> okay. >> you reasonably ask, why isn't

that reaching more americans? well, if we look at our two most closely watched measures of consumer sentiment, consumer confidence, they both rose big time in december. one was up 10%, the other a whopping 14%. now, that's one month, that's not yet a trend, but it is certainly suggestive that the measures that this president is taking to help provide support relief to families like the one he grew up in are working and that people are starting to feel it. >> joining us now, white house press secretary, karine jean-pierre. great to have you on. >> happy new year, mika. thank you for having me. >> jumping off this interview with jared and the overall strategy on the economy, i'm just curious, is there more good news to come on the economy? i just think there are some who say it is perilous to label an economy, like bidenomics with the president's name, because this is something that could be

impacted by unforeseen events, in ways that cannot be controlled. >> i'll say something else, and happy new year to you and everybody at "morning joe." something else the chair said, we're headed in the right direction as it relates to the economy. look, when we left 2023, we saw the data. we pay attention to the data that showed consumer confidence was up. that showed 14 million jobs were created. unemployment was under 4%. those things matter, and that's what we are going to pay attention to. what the president also said, the job is not done. we need to do more. two words, two words that i'm going to give you that we're going to continue to do as it relates to the economy is continue to lower costs. that has been at the center of bidenomics. that's been at the center of how the president feels like he needs to move forward. i'll take a step back for a second. in the last two years, almost three years now, the president

has done more in the last three years than some presidents had done in two terms, mika, in two terms. that is related to the legislation, when you think of the infrastructure and chips act. these are important. as we move forward into 2024, the president's priority, as well as lower costs for american people, is going to make sure that we implement, we implement those pieces of legislation. we think about prescription drugs, continue to lower that. make sure we're negotiating with big pharma. the president beat big pharma last year. that's how we deal with whatever may come our way, is making sure we move forward in implementing the key pieces of legislation. >> we're going to talk about the strong economic data with steve rattner in the next segment. good to see you. >> good to see you, willie. >> the "usa today"/suffolk poll came out and shows warning signs among the coalition that

supported democrats and this president so long, according to this poll, the president has 63% of support from black voters. he enjoyed 87% support in 2020. among latino voters, most troubling perhaps, he won the group by 33 points in the 2020 election. donald trump leads among latino voters by five points. how do you explain those numbers? >> yeah, willie, good to see you, as well. i'll be very careful because you mentioned donald trump, so i'll be really careful in not talking about the 2024 election because of the hatch act. what i will say is, and i think this is why it is important for us, like jared bernstein and for people like myself and others to talk to all of you, right, and lay out what we have done for those two critical communities. you're right, in 2020, the president was able to bring together the largest, most historic coalition that we've ever seen, that democrats have ever seen. obviously, we want to continue that. what we have done for the black community and the latino community, the black community,

when the president walked in, unemployment was 9.2%. now, it is under 6%. that is because of bidenomics, as we started this conversation. very similarly, in the latino community, we saw unemployment go down. we saw, also, when you think about wealth, the wealth gap, the economic wealth, that grew with both communities. look, the president has always, always put equity at the center of every policy he's put forward, every legislation. we understand that many communities have been left behind, have been left behind. we're not trying to do the trickle down economics. we truly are not. that's not what the president believes in. he wants to make sure the middle class, we build an economy bottom-up, and we continue to build the middle class. that's what's really important. and we do not believe anybody behind. we'll continue to have those conversations, to let that strong coalition know what we have done in the last almost three years now of this administration. again, what this president has

been steadfast on, making sure we give that relief to american context of the election, just to the perspective of job performance from the president, how do you explain the groups that have supported joe biden for so long, democrats for so long, now kind of looking around, actually, not just with young voters, too, not that they're looking at donald trump but they're looking at other choices, how do you explain them straying from the this president and the democratic party? >> again, i'm going to be super mindful of 2024 as we're into an election year. look, we understand what the american people went through these past three years. we came out of a pandemic, right, a pandemic we haven't seen in 100 years. when the president walked in, the economy was upside down. so we get it. we get that it is going to take a little bit of time for folks

to feel what bidenomics has been able to do. that is not something i'm saying. that is something that economists have said, right? it takes a little bit of time. but it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that the president is not going to continue to work. one of the things that the president said at the last state of the union last year was that he is going to finish the job, right? finishing the job is continuing to do that unity agenda, getting fentanyl out of the streets, making sure we're, again, not leaing anybody behind, but making sure our veterans are getting what they need. making sure that all of the important things that affect us in our public health, like cancer, really dealing with that issue, as well. there's been a couple times i've been on the show and talked about guns, preventing gun violence. that's going to be something the president is going to focus on. guns should not be the number one killer of our children. he is going to continue to figure out, how do we do more there? making sure roe becomes the law of the land. there's so much more to work on, and that's what the president

will focus on. we'll speak directly to the american people. you'll see the president doing that certainly this year. >> karine, good morning. happy new year. >> happy new year. how are you, jonathan? >> congress comes back next week with a lot on the to-do list. pushing for the supplemental, border deal connected to aid in ukraine, the border funding, and israel. we have the impeachment inquiry into the president. you know, the white house has made clear they don't believe there's any evidence there, but talk to us about how you are preparing for what is coming, you know, in the weeks and months ahead, which, if nothing else, will be a drain on staff, time, pernell, and resources. >> look, the white house counsel is dealing with this issue, so i'll leave that to them. that is something in their purview. but you said it, jonathan, there is no evidence. it is not just coming from democrats. it is coming from republicans, as well. there is no there there.

it is so unfortunate that republicans in congress want to focus on the president's family instead of the american family. we want to work with them in a bipartisan way to get things done. we just talked about, leading to your question, we talked about a list of things that i discussed, that we discussed, that we really need to work on for the american family, whether it is gun violence prevention. we were able to do last year or the year before in 2022, able to come in a bipartisan way, to put out a significant, bipartisan legislation to deal with gun violence, the first in 30 years. we need to do that and continue to work together on border security. the president, first day in his administration, couple weeks we'll hit three years since the president has been in the administration, the first thing he put forward was a comprehensive immigration law. that's what he put forward to congress. that's because he believed that our system was broken and it had been broken for decades and wanted to take that seriously. but we need republicans in congress to work with us on that.

we appreciate the negotiations that are currently happening in the senate. it is headed in the right direction. we want to come up with a bipartisan agreement. we saw what the house passed ending of last year. they wanted to take away law enforcement folks who are at the border, trying to protect our border. that's not what we want to see. we want to figure out how we work together. i just talked about the unity agenda. there's a lot of ways that we can work with congress instead of them going after the president's family, they should truly focus on the american family. >> white house press secretary karine jean-pierre, thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> thank you, mika. >> happy new year. good to see you. >> happy new year. good to see you. coming up, from inflation to the war in gaza, we'll take a look at the biggest news stories that shaped 2023. economic analyst steve rattner joins us next on "morning joe." know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even

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live picture. tree still up at rockefeller center. 7:42 on a tuesday morning. "the new york times," check this out, publishing our buddy, steve rattner's list, of the ten charts that dene the political and economic landscape in 2023. that is in the paper this morning. steve writes in the piece, quote, the economy and inflation remain front of mind until the war in gaza grabbed headlines and the world's attention, all while donald trump's candidacy loomed in the background. joining us with three of the charts included in his 2023 round-up, former treasury official, "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. steve, it is great to see you over at the southwest wall. your post there. let's start with chart one you've chosen out of the ten that define the year, and that is falling inflation, rising incomes. >> yeah, i'm going to focus mostly on the economy and the implications politically, potentially for president biden today, willie. on inflation, as everybody knows, inflation soared up, got

to 9.1% at its peak in 2022. here's what's happened in 2023. inflation, which is this black line, subsided, subsided, subsided, got down to 3.1% at the end of the year. here is what maybe most people don't know. within inflation, the price of goods with television sets, toys, bicycles, things like that, has been basically zero for the last several months. that's because during the pandemic, people bought a lot of stuff, drove the prices up. now, as people found, presumably over the holidays, there were some relative bargains at least to be had. inflation is actually turned way down. what people probably don't know is what the effect has been on their incomes. i think most americans still feel, and i understand why they feel it, that they've been left behind by inflation in terms of their purchasing power and their ability to buy things and provide for their families. in actual fact, since the beginning of the biden administration, for the average american, typical american,

their income, even adjusting for inflation, is up 6.6%. that's not nothing. obviously, we'd like it to be more, but it is not nothing. here's what is even more surprising if you're not surprised yet, which is that people at the bottom actually did better in relative terms than people at the top. people at the bottom saw their inflation adjustment incomes go up almost 14%, while people at the top saw their inflation adjusted incomes go up by 1.6%. we don't wish will on anyone. we want people everywhere to do well. the idea that people at the bottom in the last three years have done better percentage wise than people at the top should be very good news to americans. >> good news, steve. i want to ask, too, about gas prices. that's the gas and groceries, the one that smacked most of us in the face. you watch it, the register rolling up. gas prices were over 5 bucks in june of 2022, now around $3.11 a gallon this morning.

>> the $3.11 may still seem high to people, but on an inflation-adjusted basis, it is at or below the average, really, since opec started doing its thing. food prices, which will also surprise people, were up 2.8% last year. even less than the overall inflation rate. >> as we move, steve, to your next chart, about this economy defying expectations, you talk to people who may even not be big fans of joe biden as we closed the year. the dow was up 37,000 from wall street's view, and for regular folks working, unemployment is down. what else are you looking at there? >> yeah, this was an economy and a stock market that surprised really all the experts. i don't think many predicted this. you'll see this the beginning of the year, economists were looking at a sliver of growth for the economy. some were predicting recession but not a lot of growth. what happened, and this includes the fourth quarter, which we'll get the actual number but we

have good estimates, 3% growth. a very solid, very, very solid performance to the economy. then look at unemployment. people thought, economists thought it'd edge up close to 5% as the federal reserve raised rates and forced the economy to slow down. in fact, it's just under 4%. it is still more or less where it has been for several years. if you look, tied to that is jobs growth, of course. consensus for the reasons i said, expecting a slower economy, thought we'd actually lose a few jobs per month. in fact, we gained almost 250,000 jobs a month through november. we'll get one more number on friday of this week. lastly, the s&p, willie, as you mentioned, nobody can predict the s&p. let's be honest about that for starters. we were looking at 5%, the strategists. instead, they got 25%. >> wow. >> for joe biden's re-election, let's just look ahead to what people think about 2024.

if you take this all together, they're basically looking for an economy that is still not in recession, not growing as fast as it was, unemployment ticks up a bit, job growth a bit slower, and the stock market, who knows, but they're predicting a small increase. as biden goes into his re-election, the consensus among economists is that we have achieved something that looks like a soft landing, a little slower growth, a little less job growth as a result for now, but not a big recession. a bit of a tailwind for joe biden as he goes into his re-election. >> which leads us to your third chart, steve, which is the "and yet." despite all the good economic news you presented, president biden remains historically unpopular. >> i think "and yet" is a great way to introduce any conversation about the president's approval rating relative to his economy. these are all the presidents since jimmy carter. you can see joe biden up here at 39%. we all know that.

some numbers even lower, but in that range. lowest of any president since somewhere before carter, i don't know where. even people like carter and reagan, who we'll talk about in more detail in a second, were sitting at 54%. obama at 43%. trump at 45%. a very strange situation for the president given the numbers i just showed you. obviously, there's a war going on in gaza. you know, jimmy carter faced a hostage crisis already under way at this point in his re-election. he still sat at 54%. let's look at the economic statistics. why might biden's arrival rating be so low? not because of the economic performance. at 3.1%, it's a little higher than some of these presidents but kind of in line. look at jimmy carter, 13.3% inflation and 54% approval rating. if you look at unemployment, the 3.7% for biden that i mentioned, again, this is lower, trump was at 3.6%, but this is lower

basically than any president. carter was facing 6.0%. joe talks about reagan's election. 3.8% inflation. higher than this president's. he had 8.3% unemployment. he was obviously re-elected in 1984 in a landslide. this remains the big disconnect for the political scientists and other pundits to try to untangle, which is why, with the economy so good, is biden doing so poorly, at least by these public opinion polls? >> big frustration for the biden white house. voters say the economy is the number one issue for them. they always do. yet, even with this data, the president is unpopular. steve rattner, thanks fascinating stuff. steve's full analysis of all the charts in "the new york times" this morning. thank you. coming up next, a potential impeachment battle, immigration reform, the threat of a government shutdown, and we'll go live to capitol hill to preview the big fights facing

congress here in 2024. "morning joe" is coming right back. 2024. "morning joe" is coming right back

we're going to turn back now to all the breaking news out of japan, where a passenger plane collided with a coast guard aircraft overnight. five coast guard members were killed. with the pilot of that jet sustaining severe injuries. on the passenger plane, nearly 400 passengers and crew, everyone on board, were able to evacuate before it was fully engulfed in flames. this comes after yesterday's deadly earthquake on the west coast of that country, which officials say killed at least 48 people. nbc news foreign correspondent meagan fitzgerald has the latest on both breaking stories. >> reporter: this morning, an emergency on the runway in tokyo, this aircraft bursting

into flames at haneda airport. the plane collided with another plane operated by the coast guard. all of the nearly 400 people on the passenger plane are safe, the coast guard saying they're looking into the reports. it seems unrelated to the series of earthquakes that have rocked japan. as first responders desperately look for survivors, the death toll on japan's western coast already rising, more than 45 dead after a series of earthquakes including a magnitude 7.6 that struck monday afternoon. the quake, the largest the region has seen in decades. violently shaking train platforms and houses, sparking a massive fire that burned for hours. people in malls and shops scrambling for safety, but as the sunrises across the region, a look at the scope of the devastation and loss. this woman surveying the damage of her home, debris everywhere and walls caved in.

she says i don't think we can live here anymore. she joins dozens of others now left without a place to live, near the epicenter, smoke and embers still filled the air. officials say this region was among the hardest hit, homes and buildings flattened, private roads and streets buckled, cutting off access to people trapped on the other side. that's nbc's meagan fitzgerald reporting. we'll stay on that. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest on the war between israel and hamas in gaza. and the strange relationship between president biden and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. that's all coming up next on "morning joe." netanyahu. that's all coming up next on "morning joe."

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it's the top of the hour. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 2nd. happy new year, everybody. israel's ground offensive in gaza is entering a new phase. the israeli military has plans to pull back some troops and shift more localized operations. we're going to go through that development and the escalating tensions in the red sea. plus, a damning new report on the intelligence failures by the israeli military. "new york times" investigation found that there was no battle plan for a massive hamas invasion that they were warned about. also ahead, a look at the long to do list for congress in 2024, with several crucial items that were just simply not addressed late last year. plus, the supreme court has a tight timeline to rule on what would be one of the most consequential cases involving the presidency. we'll get expert legal analysis on the issue of removing donald

trump from the ballot. two states. are there going to be more? how will it be handled? we have jonathan lemire, columnist and associate editor at "the washington post" david ignacious, and former supreme allied commander of nato, retired four star navy admiral james stavridis, chief international analyst for nbc news. but, first, willie, happy new year! >> happy new year, m mika. >> i haven't seen you in too long. joe is on the way back from the rose bowl. i watched. i watched. it was really painful. that was as painful as it gets. >> joe's in mourning this morning. we can understand why. his crimson tide fell in what was a great game in overtime to michigan. michigan was the top seed, favorite in this game. alabama up late. michigan came back. this is an overtime tie, and

then fourth down play for alabama, saban going with the quarterback draw. low snap, probably hurt him, michigan gets the stop, and the celebration is on for michigan fans. they go to their first college football playoff championship game, that's coming up next monday night in houston. and they will play in another great game, late last night, mika, washington also unbeaten, the two seed in this tournament beating texas in the sugar bowl. again, texas was fighting right to the end, had a play late, last play of the game here, knocked away by washington. they hold on, really good, maybe underrated teams, so your national championship game, jonathan lemire, michigan and washington, two unbeaten teams, i guess probably we can say now the two best teams in football, given the results. but on behalf of joe, that was a tough one, alabama was leading late, give michigan a lot of credit, their defense was awesome in the first half,

especially, all over jalen monroe in the backfield there. we got our matchup now. >> yeah, i'm not convinced we'll see joe again. this was a really tough one to blow a late lead there, you're right, michigan's defense was so good early on. they sacked the quarterback six times. it felt like it was so inevitable. alabama is inevitable. saban is inevitable. they took that lead and thought they would hold on to it and stunning they didn't. they let michigan go down the field. and pretty shaky call there, qb draw from fourth down with michigan's defensive line had been so good and they just completely snuffed it. he had no chance whatsoever. and now sets up a great title game. and so unusual to have a title game not featuring the s.e.c. that conference has dominated college football for so long and it is something, fresh blood here, michigan and washington. our condolences do mr. scarborough. >> he'll be okay. he loves a great game, no matter

who wins. it is great to see you guys. happy new year, jonathan, get ready to be really tired in 2024. this is the year you don't sleep at all. willie knows. he did the way too early thing. let's get right to the news. the israeli military is planning to withdraw some of its troops from gaza, reservists from at least two brigades will be sent home this week. the idf says. this is expected to, quote, significantly ease the burden on the economy. many israeli businesses were forced to scale back or even shut down after losing much of their workforce to the war effort. the move will free up units in a case -- a wider conflict begins with hezbollah in lebanon. still, the idf says the fighting in gaza will continue throughout the coming months, but u.s. officials say this withdrawal signas israel might be shifting to a more low intensity operation, which is something the biden administration has

been pushing for, so you wonder if they are also responding to pressure from their number one ally, the united states of america, where there are, willie, a lot of questions about not only their strategy, but how this all went down. >> exactly. and it is a great point because we're learning now the relationship between israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and president biden is reportedly becoming more strained. according to several sources speaking to the "new york times," president biden has grown more and more frustrated in recent weeks by the refusal to change tactics in gaza despite the insistence of the united states. in early december, biden reportedly pleased some within the white house by going off script to say israel risks losing international support if it connued the, quote, indiscriminate bombing of its neighbor. it has many phone calls with netanyahu, biden reportedly urged netanyahu to take a more targeted approach to rooting out hamas, something the israeli prime minister has pushed back

against. the sharpest disputes, though, according to the times, has centered around what to do in gaza after the war ends. with netanyahu reportedly resisting biden's calls for an eventual two-state solution, mika. >> yeah, "the new york times" now is out with a sweeping investigation on israel's failures in responding to the deadly attack launched by hamas on october 7th. one key reason, the israeli military had no battle plan, despite intelligence showing the terror group was likely planning an assault. this is according to current and former soldiers and officers who tell the times, if a plan for a large scale attack on israeli soil did exist, no one had been trained on it. the paper reports israel's military was undermanned, out of position, and so poorly organized that soldiers communicated in an impromptu whatsapp groups and relied on

social media posts for targeting information. the israeli military reservists were also not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy. a major in the reserves tells the times their training assumed that israeli intelligence would learn of a looming invasion in advance. he says his paratrooper unit mobilized on their own without a formal call-up order. roughly seven hours into the fighting, he turned to the reservist next to him and asked where's the idf? making matters worse, if that's possible, the military has acknowledged that it moved two commando companies, more than 100 soldiers, to the west bank, just two days before the attack. a reflection of israel's mistaken belief that a hamas attack was not an imminent threat. this doesn't make sense. the assault on a military base left soldiers there fighting for their lives rather than coordinating a response to the

invasion. one soldier told the times that some did not even know they were under attack until hamas was in their sleeping quarters. several were killed in their bunks, others barricaded themselves in safe rooms, the times asks the idf why there was no plan. the military replied that questions of this kind will be looked at into a greater stage. so, david ignacious and admiral stavridis, admiral, i know you already said it is long past due that we answer these questions. david, i'll start with you, though. i don't know what the options are here in terms of making sense of this because "the new york times" piece as incredible as the reporting was leaves more questions than answers. it actually is worse than we could have ever imagined as women were being raped, as children were being forcibly removed from their homes or killed, as people were being

killed en masse in the streets and at a concert, you had an army that had no clue what was going on or was caught in traffic. so, what are the options at this point in terms of an explanation? what could be the explanation for this? and is there an nefarious one? >> so, mika, the images i found in "the new york times" reporting absolutely haunting, people saying, almost pleading, where's the idf? where's this army that israel has counted on through its history that has been regarded as one of the finest small armies in the world, where is the idf? the image of soldiers being shot in their bunks, in their bases, in an attack that they were not warned of, were not prepared for, images of people as you said turning to social media rather than their own battle

planning to decide on operations. and i think the problem, mika, is that that disorientation that we saw on the first day, october 7 and the days that followed, has continued in some ways. israel didn't expect that hamas, its adversary was capable of an attack like the one that happened. they had never considered it. there weren't plans for it because they didn't think this enemy could do it. and as they fought in gaza, hamas turned out to be a tougher adversary there than they expected and that's why this war has gone on and why israel has gotten so much international criticism for what people say is overreacting. they simply haven't been able to take control of as much of gaza as they thought. we're now getting to a point finally where the israelis in part because of economic need, the need to get reservists back to work, so the economy

functions better, will begin pulling out initially two brigades, three more brigades are planned, though no date has been given, and i think israel certainly in the north will now move to a kind of standoff operation scenario where they'll get intelligence that hamas is located in a particular plac they'll send troops in there, rather than maintaining the troops. hopefully it will allow greater humanitarian relief in gaza and make that situation better, reduce the criticism on israel and the united states, but more to the point, help the desperate suffering of the palestinians. but the more we know about this war and we probably should add in that netanyahu's political and judicial problems that are coinciding with this intelligence failure, military difficulty, is the more we know about the situation, the more i think it is right to see netanyahu as embattled, having

embarked on a war which it turned out neither he nor the israeli military was adequately prepared and now several months later, really struggling to find an endgame. when i talk to israeli military commanders, mika, i don't hear clear answers about how they think this war will end or who they think will come in after the israeli military to maintain order in gaza. i think that's where the u.s. is going to have to play a key role because israel itself doesn't have the answers. >> so, admiral stavridis, david was talking about the news that broke yesterday. israel's high court striking down benjamin netanyahu's judicial overhaul law. something i think he needed politically to stay in power and avoid indictment or at least the consequences of an already existing indictment. putting that aside, i think it was a month ago you said it was too late, there were no answers.

what "the new york times" is reporting has only given us more questions, only given you -- us a kind of sick feeling that the answers may not be good. i ask you what are the options here at this point now that we know soldiers were killed in their beds sleeping, they were stuck in traffic, and let me add that benjamin netanyahu supported the funding of hamas through qatar, that benjamin netanyahu says now is not the time to know the answers. i think it is exactly the time, especially if they want the support of their partners, complete support, transparency. and also what does it say, i guess, their attitudes toward women at the very least are less than to be respected given the fact that it was women researchers who raised the flag months ago that this attack was happening in a 40-page blueprint on this. i ask what are the options,

beyond the fact that israel was not prepared? that seems impossible. so what are the other options? >> let's go back to why this happened. i think there are three big reasons. one is complacency. the israeli military simply could not concede that hamas would be able to generate this kind of high end striking combat attack and they underestimated the degree to which iran had provided the weaponry to do it, the training, the functionality, so, complete underestimation of hamas of complacency syndrome. secondly, you touched on it a moment ago, mika, the internal divisions in israel had even reached into the israeli defense forces. we had seen reports of reservists who said we're not going to report until this constitutional crisis is

resolved. that's pretty remarkable in a military that absolutely relies on its reserve component. and then thirdly, hamas itself stepped up and did the unexpected. you know, we talk a lot about 9/11 as a failure, not of intelligence, but a failure of imagination. it was really both. but the crisis for america that has some echoes here is really pearl harbor. it is where our military was literally sleeping in their bunks and pearl harbor had no idea, seemingly, this attack was going to come, even though in retrospect we saw plenty of intelligence flickers out there. so that moment for the israeli military reminds me of the pearl harbor moment for the united states. in terms of options, i think more importantly than all of

that and israel will pull that apart and it can't happen fast enough, they need to be doing this in parallel to the fight. and let's face it, they're not fighting the japanese empire here. they're not under existential threat from hamas. so they can do the investigation and understand. and after pearl harbor, with the united states, they brought in new commanders. we got rid of the team that had allowed this to occur, we brought in new, fresh admirals, like chester nimitz, relatively unknown, who stepped in and recovered from that situation pretty remarkably. i think israel, a, needs to investigate this now and fully. b, reshape their military leadership based on the leadership failures that i think are quite obvious here. and, c, heal these internal

divisions. here we get back to the political and the benjamin netanyahu situation. it hurts israel's national security badly. >> as mika mentioned, quoted in "the new york times" and idf spokesperson said questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage. they just don't want to talk about what happened on that day from the point of view of the military. david, you covered the middle east for so long. you understand israel so well. and you know that the way that israel sleeps at night when they're surrounded by people who openly call for their destruction, why they have a thriving democracy and economy and the miracle of israel is that because they trust that the israeli military has them protected. they trust that things like this can't happen. they trust they have one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations in the world. so what is your sense internally inside israel about how that has been shattered a bit and what kind of pressure is, in fact, is prime minister netanyahu under internally from the israeli people or are they so focused on

the effort to defeat hamas that they're unified on that question, willing to accept that we'll deal with what happened that day at a later date? >> so, willie, i think you put your finger on what has been so traumatizing for israel. israel lived on its -- the strength of its military. its conviction that no matter what its adversaries tried to do, israel would respond quickly and decisively. and the opposite happened here. israel responded slowly and uncertainly. and i think for israelis across the country, this has been deeply disorienting. this isn't the military that they expected and need. i think there has been a lot of second guessing up and down the chain. i think a lot of this has come to be focused on netanyahu, a leader who is seen as being more focused on this political interests in staying in power than on the unity of the nation,

certainly in the months leading to war, israel was as divided as i've ever seen it as a correspondent. now, as the war is being fought, as i talk to israeli commanders, the people who seem to have the best sense of the battlefield are those same idf commanders. if you want to talk about ideas for where this might end, about the day after as we like to say, those are things that the best people in the idf are thinking carefully about. unfortunately, there is not political consensus behind them yet. and i think we're going to have to do begin to think about owe post netanyahu scenario for israel. he is embattled, losing support, the supreme court's rebuff of his judicial reform package makes his problems all the more difficult, but to go to the basics, willie, as you said, an army that symbolized the country

on which the country depended seems to have failed here and that really hurts and upsets the whole country. >> yeah, and there is two things we're talking about in this, jonathan lemire. number one, when admiral stavridis talks about complacency syndrome, that makes sense for the weeks and months coming up. it doesn't to me. because when they talk about hamas living their lives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to want to kill jews, to want to kill israelis, that doesn't sound like you should be complacent. just, you know, from the outside. but let's just -- let's entertain that. it doesn't explain what happened in the seven hours. okay. the eight hours, the nine hours, where soldiers were operating on their own, making up stuff on whatsapp to try to figure out what to do to help. stuck in traffic? sleeping? like somebody in the moment was making decisions or not.

and that's the question i guess i ask you is the white house interested in these answers as they work to help their partner? they're working on wars on two fronts, okay, where they need clarity to appeal to our congress and to the american people as to why we are supporting these wars. and i guess my question is, is the white house interested in these answers? are they concerned about the answers? >> they most certainly are. from the early days after october 7th, u.s. officials made it very clear they wanted to know just what went wrong. this is so devastating for prime minister netanyahu, who really billed himself as the security, national security prime minister. and it is not -- it is both complacency, but also being distracted. that netanyahu's focus was on the west bank. he redeployed two commando units, the idf did, in the days before the attack because netanyahu was placating his political base. his coalition government, extreme right wing settlers in the west bank.

that's where he wanted his focus. didn't put his focus on a two-state solution. that's at the heart of the frustration and rising frustration that the white house has with netanyahu, that he is not given license to this support, that they feel like a two-state solution is essential for peace and stability in the region. as is admiral stavridis, the idea that israel shouldn't be part of gaza occupation whenever the war does come, the white house has been so clear about that. and netanyahu seemingly not listening, and this comes at a difficult moment where we're seeing tensions rise in the red sea, the u.s. is taking more aggressive action to ward off the houthi rebels, leaning on israel to be more targeted in their strikes of gaza, depends on the day, whether israel seems to be listening there or not. but it does seem like that though netanyahu has become an unreliable partner, the u.s. feels, he's not going anywhere at least for now so the u.s. has

been to be able to manage it. how do you think they can? >> let me go to the sea for a moment and what is happening in the red sea. this is big casino for the global economy, frankly. this red sea is the size of the state of california, lies right under the suez canal. and so far the houthi rebels who are completely creatures of iran, trained, equipped, organized, ordered, much like hamas is, these houthi rebels are actually creating the conditions in which the big shipping companies are simply not going through there. this is like closing the suez canal. we're not there yet, but you can see the outlines of a real blow to the global economy because 15, 20% of the world's shipping passes through the red sea. so, yes, we have to continue to work with our friends, partners and allies in the region, that's israel. but it is also the kingdom of saudi arabia, the uae, bahrain, as well as nato allies all

engaged in the maritime side of this. going back to land for a minute, what i worry about, jonathan, here, are two things. one is tactical from the report. back to mika's excellent questions, how could this happen? another part of it we haven't touched on yet is no plan, no training, no sense of practicing to respond to this. that's pretty remarkable because that's what militaries do. they build plans that mirror what their enemies might do, then they train against them. to me, the most striking thing in the "new york times" reporting was the lack of any kind of planning, training or exercising. as mika said, soldiers just making stuff up. that just hurts your heart and as a military professional. you can't conceive of that. and then secondly, at the strategic level, what this does, and this is what would keep me awake at night if i was an

israeli in my bed is that deterrence is shattered. the opponents cede this weakness. hezbollah say hmm, the houthis say hmm, deterrence is deeply weakened here. those are big concerns. the u.s. needs to stand with israel in this time, but we have a very troubled partner leading that nation. >> coming up, how supporters of abortion rights changed their message and started winning. molly ball joins us with her reporting in "the wall street journal." straight ahead on "morning joe." journal. straight ahead on "morning joe." only sleep number smart bed let you each choose your individual firmness and comfort.

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what scares me as much as him and his retribution is the cult-like following he has over his most diehard supporters. the threats, the harassment, the death threats you get when he targets you and he's deliberate in targeting is really horrifying and has no place in our american discourse. and it is unlike anything i've seen in the decades plus i've been in politics. >> our singular focus needs to be if he is the nominee on making sure that he is not elected the president again next november. >> even if that means electing a democrat. >> it is really disappointing because i look at these options and i'm upset with them but at the end of the day, i trust one person with our government and democracy than i do the other. and so i never voted for a democrat in my life, but i think that in this next election i would put policy aside and choose democracy. >> former trump white house aides speaking out on the dangers of a potential second trump term.

the supreme court is poised to rule on one of the most consequential ballot cases in american history. at least two states now have ruled former president trump is not eligible to hold the office of the presidency. the colorado case has already been appealed. if the supreme court agrees to hear the case, "the new york times" writes justices will act in the shadow of two competing political realities. the times reports they will be reluctant to wrest from voters the power to assess mr. trump's conduct, particularly given the certain backlash that would bring, yet they will also be wary of giving mr. trump the electoral boost of an unqualified victory in the nation's highest court. chief justice john roberts will doubtless seek consensus, or at least try to avoid a partisan split of the six republican appointees against the three democratic ones. joining us now, the author of that piece, supreme court

reporter for "the new york times" adam liptak and also msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. adam, in your reporting, what is your question before the courts here? while in some of your analysis there is a concern about looking partisan or tipping the scales, isn't the question about engaging in insurrection whether or not he did? >> the question for the court is a legal question. and that question is whether the 14th amendment to the constitution adopted after the civil war, bars people who have first taken an oath to support the constitution, and then engaged in an insurrection. and lots of people think the case against donald trump is airtight, that he did both of those things. >> right. >> but there are a lot of subissues and threshold issues that may be attractive to the court if it takes the case.

it hasn't taken the case yet, but the colorado republican party is already asked the court to take the case and act really fast before the super tuesday primary. so, it is quite likely the court engages. >> joyce, i want to ask you in a second about how quickly the supreme court needs to take this up, how quickly it will. let's talk about its job in this case. is it not the job of the supreme court here to interpret the constitution without concern for the political backlash or the questions that might arise for the country, all noteworthy and things we should probably be concerned about, but in terms of the justices on that court, are they not just looking at whether this is constitutional? >> that's the job. and as adam points out, the issue in front of them is the pure legal issue of trump's eligibility, the court isn't supposed to take into account any political considerations. but i think adam is dead on the money when he talks about there being a lot of potential procedural off ramps that the

court could take that would permit trump to remain on the ballot. and i think in this situation it is difficult to believe that they'll completely divorce themselves from the policy considerations. a lot of people are concerned about removing the choice from the hands of voters. but if we look at it strictly as a legal matter, there are certain eligibility criteria to be president. you have to be 35, you have to be a native born citizen, those sorts of criteria are more black and white than this question of whether or not trump engaged in insurrection. so that i suspect is the area that the court will focus on if they want to avoid disqualifying him based on the 14th amendment. >> and, joyce, what about the speed? some of these ballots are to be printed in a matter of days actually. so how quickly can we expect the supreme court to move here? >> right, so the supreme court can go ahead and accept the case based on the existing petition. they might decide that they want

to wait for the former president to actually file the notice of appeal. here is the bottom line though, if trump does not appeal this ruling, and the court doesn't hear the appeal from the colorado republican party, then he will not be on the ballot in that state. maybe that's something he believes is survivable, but with so many other states in play, maine is only one of them, there are a number of other states looking at this i think the court will have to go ahead and take up the issue and with at least maine and colorado part of the super tuesday primary group, they need to do it quickly. >> adam, draw upon your experience covering the highest court to put this in some context for us, seems like the most important election-based case since gore v. bush in 2000, one of the most important cases that it may ever take. and beyond that, tell us the rule of how you see chief justice roberts approaching this and what sort of strategy or consensus building he might try to use. >> well, the court, as you know,

is embattled, going through a rough period. the public approval ratings are down. it has been the subject of ethics scandals, and this is not a case that chief justice is eager to have. but it is probably unavoidable, this question needs a national solution. and his impulse is going to be to try to avoid doing damage to the legitimacy of the court, which is 6-3 republican-democrat split would give rise to. so i think he would look for consensus. he would look for something incremental. he would look for something technical. and there are as we have been discussing off ramps. there are ideas that congress has to act first, or that it is a political question. so, i think that the chief justice will want to find a way not to give trump a victory here, but to tell the american public it is not the court --

the court is not taking a position on the question of whether he engaged in insurrection, but probably look for some technical way to rule for trump but not in a kind of earth shattering way. this is not a court that has been particularly sympathetic to donald trump. it is a conservative court but it rebuffed trump and his allies when they tried to get the court to overturn the election. and when the manhattan d.a. and a congressional committee sought records from him, the court voted 7-2 against trump with all of the trump appointees in the majority and only justices thomas and alito in dissent. traders kick off the new year on wall street. what 2024 holds in store for the economy when "morning joe" continues. for the economy when "morning joe" continues. i love your dress. oh thanks! i splurged a little because liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great.

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three michigan tight ends in the ball game. first down! michigan on top in overtime! game on the line. it is williams in motion. michigan makes a stand! and comes up with a milestone playoff victory! >> texas trailing all night long, one last chance to advance to the national championship game. lobs it up and it is incomplete! >> some of the scenes from yesterday's thrilling slate of college football games, all coming down to the last play. the washington huskies there at the end defeating the texas long horns in the sugar bowl and michigan stopping alabama short in the end zone in overtime. short of the end zone in

overtime. the rose bowl both now face off monday night in houston for the national championship. joining us now, the host of pablo torre finds out, pablo torre, good to see you. >> happy new year. >> happy new year to you. let's go in order. joe is not here. we can talk openly. >> we should talk about -- >> the loss is painful for all of us. >> we should talk about joe. this is embarrassing for everybody, i cannot yell at him, willie. joe is at this game. joe saw a nick saban team which i would say this, it is impressive they got here, but what happened at the end of this game raised all sorts of questions that i would have loved to make fun of joe about. >> you didn't like the call at the end? >> the call that we'll get to in this highlight, it goes back and forth, but it gets to overtime, and they run jalen millrow, a quarterback sneak up the middle and he collapses to the 4 and, look, michigan, the harbaugh end

of this, i want to also duff my cap. this is a man, a little bit of a napoleon, a little ankle monitor house arrest to his season, the whole spying scandal, but his michigan team objectively more talented it turns out than alabama, which is not a sentence you can say very often. i just imagine that somewhere as this play is unfolding, michigan is rolling down the -- >> here is overtime. >> yeah, man. just an impressive run. and somewhere there is joe in the stands. i presume weeping, mika. i don't know if he weeps at these things. but here's the play, running right into the line and people are just, like, that's what we called after, like, five minutes of time-outs? >> that was it? >> millrow, an incredible runner. low snap, i'll say that, kind of killed his momentum, but still, that's tough. right up the gut against the run defense that had been so good all night. michigan's defense dominance of alabama's offensive line i think was the most shocking part of

the game there. they're on to the championship game against washington. >> two undefeateds. >> doesn't get all the love it deserves. michael pennock jr., incredible, second in the heisman, threw for 430 last night. this game came down to the last play as well. >> two suspenseful games. the first one was a defensive slugfest. this one is more offense. he might be a top three pick in the nfl draft, a guy we'll see, i don't know if they put kids on -- adults on wheaties boxes anymore, but he's a candidate for that sort of thing. threw for a zillion yards. when i'm watching this game, willie, i'm thinking to myself, i don't know how many people are familiar with the experience that is the washington huskies. and suddenly the national championship game, you'll see a team unload all of that cannon attached to his shoulder will be on full display. and this was a game admittedly that got a little hairy at the

end. washington had one of those late stage game, like experiences where you're, like, i hope they're not going to just blow this and choke it away. they should have kneeled it, they didn't, they tried to run it, but they outlast texas and it was a nail biter to the end. >> i think we can say, can we not, the committee after all the consternation about florida state and everything else, got it right here? these are the two best teams? i will stipulate, i was watching last night thinking i still think georgia would beat all of these teams, but that's a conversation for another day. >> georgia would love to have it. the state of florida would like to have it less them got blown out by 50, i believe. all the votes have been counted. they got blown out by 60. georgia lost to alabama, can't complain too much but i think they got it right. the political system, i dare say, worked. >> quick nfl, man, the baltimore ravens look good. lamar jackson probably the mvp. he led my fantasy team most

importantly to a championship on sunday. >> there it is. >> you were whispering before the segment. deserved, willie. >> they smoked a pretty good miami team. >> absolutely. 56-19. and the baltimore ravens, look, there has been this carousel of teams all season because i believe the nfl did most by mediocrity this year. who is the best team this year? the answer is unequivocally the baltimore ravens. lamar jackson is the mvp. he's setting records. he's a guy who has been questioned for whether he's a real quarterback. is he quarterbacky enough? look at this throw. sufficiently quarterbacky, i dare say. the dolphins were the team that everybody was afraid of and here come the baltimore ravens, statistically as well as just by the eye test, all scouts love the eye test, look at what your eyes are telling you, this is the team that is going to win the super bowl, assuming everything holds serve. >> they're telling me lamar is really quarterbacky. what is up with the eagles? they looked terrible lately.

>> they were the previous answer to who is going to win the super bowl. the team that was in the super bowl last year, lost it, back with a vengeance, they have this play, the tush push that nobody can solve it, the arizona cardinals solved it, a number of teams have solved it. the philadelphia eagles have gone to that very philadelphia place of total ecstasy at one point to suddenly we got to fire the head coach, we got to fire people, people are angry, i don't have answers for them other than to say they are, in fact, to quote a former cardinals coach, they are not actually as good as we thought they were. >> 11 months after being the super bowl, philadelphia fans want everybody fired. >> that's how it works there. >> catch more of pablo through his podcast on meadowlark media. great to see you. >> thank you, sir. coming up, the five big fights facing congress in this new year. we'll run through the list, including, yes, the threat of a government shutdown. "morning joe" is coming right

back. vernment shutdown. "morning joe" is coming right back

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the breaking news this morning out of ukraine, where its two largest cities have come under heavy attacks this morning. russian missiles hit the center of kharkiv and in kyiv five areas were struck. the barrage involves some of russia's most powerful weapons and follows a massive assault on friday. it's the largest single attack on ukraine since the war started. at least 41 civilians were killed. we're getting also to this breaking news out of tokyo on the heels of an earthquake in japan yesterday. five crew members aboard a coast card plane that collided with a passenger jet after landing have died. we're told the pilot was able to escape. it happened overnight on the runway of one of tokyo's busiest

airports. you see the plane bursting into flames as it landed. get this. all of the 400 passengers on board the japanese airline flight got out safely. the coast guard personnel were on the way to help victims of yesterday's earthquake. crews are still working to try and contain that fire. look at those pictures of the fire. the reports are these 400 passengers had under two minutes to get out of the plane. there were multiple toddlers. everybody got out of the passenger plane alive. incredible. coming, where was the israeli military on october 7th? the "new york times" is digging into that question with a deep dive on the failures to stop the hamas terror attacks. terror atts

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♪♪ welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." a live look at los angeles for you at 6:00 on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have a lot to get to, including the big unanswered question since the hamas temperature attacks on october 7th, where was the israeli military? we'll be joined by one of the reporters behind an alarming investigation from the "new york times." also ahead, the messaging from abortion rights groups that keep winning, even in red states. we'll dig into that strategy as more states are expected to have the issue on the ballot this year. plus, we're keeping an eye on wall street ahead of the

first trading day of the new year. the futures board is deep in the red following a strong ending to 2023. cnbc's dom chu joins us later with insight on all of that. we begin this hour with the latest out of the israel/hamas war. the idf is planning to withdraw some troops from gaza, but says its war against hamas will continue for several more months. this comes as tensions in the red sea have escalated while a battle over prime minister benjamin netanyahu's judicial overhaul continues. matt bradley has more. >> reporter: this morning, the war in the middle east spilling beyond israel's borders. tensions between the u.s. and iran escalating on the high seas. iran had sorted yemeni rebels attacking ships in the red sea, but is deploying a warship there for the first time since the

conflict began. it comes as the u.s. navy is confronting those iran-backed militants, the yemen-based houthis, killing ten fighters and sinking three ships, raising stakes in a region already reeling from war. now israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu has just taken a direct hit. the country's supreme court shot down his signature legislation, a law designed to limit the court's own power. months before the war, netanyahu's judicial overhaul bill had divided israel and inspired weeks of often violent protests. and significant announcement from israel, pulling back thousands of troops from gaza, the biggest withdrawal since the war began after hamas's terror attacks inside israel on october 7th, which killed 1200 people and captured more than 200 hostages, but israel still vowing to fight on through the

year. in gaza, the civilian population continues to suffer, including children. once again, he's appealing to the world for help, but this time from a hospital bed in gaza. >> i am just like a million boys and girls are. >> reporter: a new year for this new generation, who will spend their youths pummelled by war. >> matt bradley reporting there. joining us now, investigative reporter for the "new york times" mark mazzetti. the october 7th attacks found the military had no battle plan despite intelligence showing hamas likely was planning an assault inside of israel.

mark, good morning. we knew the response was slow, but i think to see it all spelled out in your piece that it was effectively idf soldiers fending for themselves, communicating over whatsapp because there was no central command, especially in some of the kibbutzes. how could this have happened to one of the most sophisticated militaries and intelligence agencies in the world? >> you're talking about the most sophisticated military in the middle east. israel is a very small country. the question asked by everyone is, where was the military on october 7th? i think you start with the baseline premise that intelligence for years in israel assessed that hamas was incapable of doing this and they weren't particularly interested in it. with that assessment, there was then no plan in place for the

eventuality that hamas might carry out this type of ground attack. in the absence of a plan, everybody was fending for themselves. this left troops that were on vacation because it was a holiday in israel. you had people in bed even hours after early indications were that hamas was planning something. you had major intersections in israel blocked by hamas fighters that kept troops from getting south. most shockingly, even hours after the battle had started, you had special forces in israel basically relying on social media to see where to go to target fighters. also, they're communicating on whatsapp in order to battle a far less sophisticated military. it was this confluence of things that happened. >> it's one thing to be shocked by this attack.

of course, it was shocking not to be prepared for it, perhaps even to ignore intelligence suggesting it was coming. it's another to respond in such a slow way. how did they explain that? i know you've had difficulty getting answers from the israeli government. they say these arers to be discussed another day once hamas is destroyed. what took so long to bring troops to where people were being slaughtered? >> first of all, there were not enough troops in place in the beginning. even an hour or so after the attack, only then does it dawn on the high command that there's a major invasion under way. then the question is where to send them. hamas breached the border wall in three dozen different places. the israelis didn't know where to send the troops. there were many, many people who

had not been called up. basic units had not been mobilized because there was a holiday. the reservists weren't in place. a key moment in what hamas was able to do can was create chokepoints at signifint intersections in israel. they blocked the major roadways. there were only a few leading to the south, and that kept troops from going south. it also, we found out, took a very long time for helicopter units to get mobilized, again, because there was a late realization that this was a large-scale ground attack and not just rocket fire toward the cities in israel. >> i'm curious, mark, what questions you're left with given this reporting. i know we had a lot of netanyahu's top people and we heard from netanyahu himself in the days and weeks after october 7th defining hamas as a terrorist organization that

lives and breathes every day to kill jews, to kill israelis, to attack them. it doesn't really jibe with the complacency and complete lack of readiness and soldiers sleeping and being killed in their beds and soldiers being moved from strategic positions that would perhaps help in the casef an attack likethis. i guess my question is, from your reporting that this is definable as a mistake and a series of mistakes? or are there other terms that could be used for this? >> i think it was a colossal mistake that was sort of years in the making. i think complacency, as you put it, is a good way to term it. even during the years, you had

tough talk by prime minister netanyahu about hamas. we've reported that for years they are basically what they call buying quiet in gaza. they are allowing millions and millions of dollars to go to gaza through the qataris to basically allow for governance in gaza and basically allows the israeli government to kind of wash their hands from the situation and sort of take their eye off gaza while netanyahu and the senior leadership focused on what they thought was the biggest threat, which was iran. there's that sort of years of complacency. i think we would still like to know at the highest level what is happening on that day between the prime minister, some of his top generals at the highest command of the idf, how did they see the situation? were there orders that were ignored? were there just deployments that

they hoped to make, but they just didn't have the troops available? there's still a lot more to be learned about what happened that morning at the highest level. of course, the israeli government has said they're going to do a full-scale commission to answer some of these questions. >> let's talk about the state of the israeli military right now in gaza. some news of the weekend, some redeployments, some drawdowns in very small numbers. where do you think the fighting goes in the next weeks? >> i think this does seem to be a quiet indication from the idf and the israeli leadership that they are drawing this down even though they don't want to say that they are, because not only it will question of the international pressure, especially from the united states, to effectively end the campaign, but a recognition that some of the objectives have been achieved, but the question is

what more can be achieved by drawing this out. i think the war will continue. it seems there is a commitment from the leadership in israel to continue it, but perhaps we're looking at the beginning of an end game where the fighting becomes less intense and there's just more discussions of what happens the day after. that's still a question that needs to be answered, that when you speak to people in israel, they don't have a clear answer. >> thank you for coming on this morning. turning now to the race for the white house with the iowa caucuses now just 13 days away. donald trump's republican rivals are hoping to cut into the former president's dominating lead amid his looming legal challenges. nbc's garrett haake has the very latest. >> reporter: with less than two weeks to go until the iowa caucuses, former president trump and his legal troubles still

dominating the political world. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: the donald trump campaign expected to file an appeal this week to a decision by maine's top election official that he is disqualified from the presidency because of his role in the january 6th attack. that decision in maine is similar to one earlier last month barring trump from the ballot in colorado. critics of the ruling have called them partisan attacks on the former president. >> they're trying to take the election away from the voters. >> reporter: while both rulings are unprecedented, former president trump's name will remain on the ballot in both states while the appeals process plays out. there is the potential for up to five trump trials in the campaign year. >> these are biden indictments against a political opponent. >> reporter: over the weekend, special counsel jack smith urging an appeals court to reject the former president's

efforts to dismiss the federal election interference case on presidential immunity grounds. all of it comes as the remaining candidates take aim at the frontrunner in the hawkeye state. >> we can't be a country in disarray and have a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. >> reporter: ron desantis -- >> donald trump is running on his issues. nikki haley is running on her donor's issues. i'm the only one running on your issues. >> reporter: meanwhile, president biden on vacation in st. croix with his eyes already on the objection. [indiscernible] >> nbc's garrett haake with that report. at the same time senator ron johnson is currently leading efforts to block a deal on border security. during an interview with fox news before the holiday recess, the wisconsin republican boasted

about sabotaing the border security deal. >> i've been leading the effort to slow this process down. i've got 14 of my colleagues to sign a letter to republican leadership to hold a conference meeting when we return on january 8th. that was really designed to make sure that they would jam us this week to take a vote on a bill that nobody's seen. so i think we were largely successful. >> let's bring in sahil kapur. the immigration battle is just one of the big challenges facing congress. it's something that the republicans consider a priority. can you tell us more about that and the other fights you're watching on capitol hill? which are real and which are made-up fights just to look like you're fighting something? >> it's a new year, but it's the

same divided congress that struggle to do even the basics of legislating. a number of deadlines from 2023 are comingdue. let's look at five of them. first, ukraine aid and immigration. these two a connected, because republicans say they will be no rther ukraine money without tougher asylum laws. let's show what the top democratic negotiator tweeted on christmas day, saying that it's up to republicans whether next year on christmas kyiv is a russian city. it remains to be seen whether they can resolve an issue that has eluded congress for decades. even if they reach a deal, there's no guarantee that it gets through the house. if it dies, aid to ukraine and israel could die with it. the government is on january 19th and february 2nd. the house and senate are on a

collision course. speaker mike johnson says if they can't reach a deal, they'll do a stopgap that force cuts across the board that democrats and senate republicans say they find unacceptable. yet, at the same time, the chambers haven't agreed on how much to spend. republicans voted unanimously to formalize their impeachment inquiry into president biden. their only problem, they still don't have a smoking gun. this continues to be an investigation in search of an impeachable offense. beyond that, surveillance power underis section 702 expires in april. on one side, the fbi and some leaders in both parties want to extend these authorities. on the other side, conservative republicans have teamed up with progressive democrats to require a warrant to surveil people in the united states. the farm bill with ag subsidies

and snap benefits needs to be renewed by september. now, big picture, what's special about this congress in the wrong ways is how little it's doing in terms of active legislating. the backdrop of an election year will test what this spectacularly unproductive congress can achieve in 2024. >> spectacularly unproductive. well put. the biden white house talking about the urgency of the ukraine aid. we are now officially into an election year. new polling shows president biden losing support right now among key voting groups. in the latest poll, donald trump leads joe biden by three points, 37-34 among likely voters

nationwide. that's, of course, within the margin of error. biden still has the support of 63% of black voters, down from 87 in the 2020 election. among hispanic voters and young voters, the poll shows him trailing trump by five points and four points respectively. the latino vote jumps out in particular, because joe biden won that by 30-some points, trailing at least at this moment in this poll by five points. you see a lot of people searching a little bit, some saying i'm not necessarily for donald trump, i might entertain a third party. we've talked to the white house press secretary about this a couple of hours ago. her take was effectively we need to get the message out that the country is getting better for

everyone. how concerned are they? >> there is some concern here. biden officials that i've spoken to in recent weeks feel like most americans frankly aren't paying attention just yet. there's polling that suggests a significant portion of the population still doesn't believe the final choice is going to be biden versus trump. they think biden is too old or trump will be in jail or whatever it might be. the biden team feels confident of this. sometime in the summer or the fall when it becomes very clear it's biden versus trump, enough americans will look at that choice and go, i may not love everything about president biden, but i can't do donald trump again. i can't go back to that chaos. we don't even know where his criminal trials will stand at that point. they feel pretty good about where they are with some swing voters. they know their biggest issue is their base, voters of color,

black men, latinos, young voters, progressives, the president's handling of the israel/hamas war is dragging his numbers down with those groups, but they feel like they have time to turn it around. they're going to need every single ballot in an election that's going to be extremely close. coming up on "morning joe," abortion rights are expected to take center stage this election year. we'll break down how pro rights groups have changed their messaging since roe v wade was overturned. r messaging since roe v wade was overturned

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ever since the supreme court overturned roe v wade in june of 2022, voters have consistently sided with abortion rights in

ohio, montana, michigan, california, vermont, kansas and kentucky, voters were all in favor of protecting reproductive rights. even more states are expected to put the issue on the ballot this year. a woman's freedom to decide is the subject of a new piece in the "wall street journal" entitled "how abortion rights backers changed their message and started winning." joining us now is the author of that piece molly ball. thanks for coming on. what did you find in terms of how opinions are changing? we know the numbers overall across the country are leaning towards favoring abortion rights, but what are the changes you're seeing? >> number one, yes, this is an issue that crosses partisan lines and is no longer a 50/50 issue. since the dobbs decision, we have seen that support for abortion rights has continued to

climb as people see in many cases the consequences of that decision, the tragic stories coming out of the many states that have banned abortion or limited it. but this messaging battle is also a factor. actually, backers of abortion rights have been researching this issue for going on a decade, trying to find a deeper way to talk about this than simply the old buzzwords of pro life/pro-choice. when you talk about this in the context of the values people hold dear, particularly the value of freedom to people's sense of themselves as americans, it can be a ten, 20 or 30-point difference in the large majority that supports abortion rights. >> i would think it's also a keyword would be that it's not abortion care, it's health care,

abortion health care. it's these stories that you're hearing, kate cox, where she's being put in position where she has to leave the state of texas to have an abortion because she would be giving birth to a stillborn child or a baby that will die in her arms and lose the ability to have more children because she can't get the abortion health care she needs. there are stories of women in florida and other states being told they need to wait until they're bleeding out, or they need to follow through with a nonviable pregnancy. you see the faces of these women, and these women are you, my daughters, my friends, people's wives, sisters, aunts, mothers. they're everybody, and they're real stories. we want to show you a sexual abuse victim who did an ad that helped andy beshear in kentucky win his race for reelection.

it's extremely compelling. >> i was raped by my stepfather after years of sexual abuse. i was 12. anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand. this is to you, daniel cameron. to tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable. i'm speaking out because women and girls need to have options. daniel cameron would give us none. >> give a sense how ads like this, how much of an effect they have. >> that helped andy beshear win an election in a deeply red state as a democrat by a five-point margin. his opponent daniel cameron changed his position on those exceptions late in the campaign, although it wasn't enough for him to win. one thing i found interesting in

talking to andy beshear's campaign, they said people think this is a women's issue. people think you put that ad onto win women in the suburbs. actually, they said the demographic that moved the most in response to that ad was older white, republican, rural men, because those people have never had to think about this issue before, have never had to put themselves ses of that who was raped by her stepfather and said, what would i do i that situation, what would my daughter or granddaughter do? as an american, shouldn't a person have that option even though i might be morally opposed to abortion, might have religious concerns or any kind of objection? a lot of people really feel like this is not something that should be a political decision. this isn't something that should

be up to the government or a politician or a legislature. it's a deeply personal decision that should be up to families and their doctors. so ads like that -- you know, i think your point about health care, that was sort of the previous messaging guidance for a lot of liberals on this issue, you know, don't say the word abortion, talk about it as reproductive health care. what we're seeing is people know what abortion is, people aren't scared by that word, and they think it's a decision people should be able to make for themselves. >> that kentucky governors race is the perfect example, because it worked for andy beshear, but it sent cameron scrambling to say, well, okay, i said previously no exceptions, but i guess we should probably have exceptions. does that illustrate the position the other side is in, which is, the anti-abortion activists that fought 50 years

for the day they saw in june of 2022, the overturning of roe, how are they grappling with this? they have what they wanted, but it's backfiring on them spectacularly. in red states too, montana. >> that's right. it's never been a factor in a presidential campaign before, so it will be interesting to see how that resonates with the presidential race, but states like arizona, perhaps florida, arkansas could see this on the ballot. as you say, it is an issue that has been resonant even in red states. it has left conservatives, republicans really scrambling to try to find a way to talk about this issue that doesn't alienate voters. so now democrats are talking about using this as an opening to expand the pitch to talk

about, well, yes, this is an issue of personal freedom, but here are some other issues where we believe republicans are against freedom. i spoke to a lot of republicans for this story. it's something that the republican national committee chair ronna mcdaniel has really been hammering on the idea that her party needs to find a more moderate message. she's been urging candidates and republicans to talk about their support for exceptions, to try to convince the electorate that they don't have these extreme views. it's not all a winning issue for democrats necessarily. voters believe the right to abortion should have some limitations and guardrails. but the attempts we've seen republicans make so far to find a way to position themselves on this issue, whether it's a moderate limit like a 15 weeks, which is something republican governor glenn youngkin talked

about in virginia a couple of months ago, voters have not so far been convinced by that. in general, they are saying they want to support the right for people to make their own decisions when it comes to this very personal, very divisive choice. >> thank you for your reporting and analysis. we appreciate it. still ahead, it's the first trading day of the new year. the markets just opened moments ago. we'll look at what's in store for wall street in 2024. what's for wall street in 2024.

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first trading day of the new year on a bit of a slow note after a 2023 which saw the s&p rally more than 4%. rising interest rates put the squeeze on borrowers and the housing market in general. for more on what to expect in 2024, let's bring in cnbc's dom chu. >> what you mentioned in terms of the market action in 2023, a lot of it had to do with big-name technology media stock like apple, microsoft, alphabet, amazon, meta platforms, nvidia, tesla. those names were a driving force behind the surge in markets last year, so they will be a focal point again this year. a lot of this had to do with optimism over artificial intelligence and cloud computing. another big trend to watch in 2024 is going to be in health

care and pharmaceuticals, diabetes and weight control drugs like ozempic. all of it is amid that backdrop of the u.s. economy and interest rates in 2024. what will it look like for the federal reserve? will it keep rates steady or possibly cut them at some point to boost the economy. these are all key market focuses this coming year. will consumers become more cost conscious in the new year? one report on streaming services is getting some attention this morning. according to data from antenna, roughly a quarter of u.s. subscribers to streaming platforms have cancelled three or more of them in just the last two years.

you compare that to a couple of years ago when that metric was closer to 15%. it might be this indication that consumers are becoming more selective about where they spend their money, looking for deals on streaming platforms. in the world of sports, the golf world is still in limbo as negotiations for a deal between the pga tour and saudi arabia missed their new year's eve deadline. pga tour commissioner jay monaghan sent a letter to players saying that the negotiations will continue in 2024. he added that private equity groups have had meaningful discussions and that the goal would be to have a for-profit pro golf tour in america that

has the saudis as minority investors. >> a busy year ahead in so many ways, including the economy. dom, thank you so much. coming up, the "new york times" telling us what could improve our way of life. could improve our way of life. ♪♪ it's two things a young man want to be, a cowboy or a gangster. and a gangster's out of style. i got back to my roots. we come from a long line of cowboys. my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my aunt even rode horses. when i see all of us out here on this ranch i see how far our legacy can go.

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46 past the hour. look at san francisco. the sun hasn't come up yet, but as the holiday travel season wraps up, we are getting a clearer picture of just how busy it was.

>> reporter: this morning, travelers are heading back home and back to work after a massive holiday rush crowded planes, trains and roadways. tsa screened more than 2.6 million passengers on seven out of ten days around christmas, lines weaving through christmas over the long weekend in places like orlando, chicago and atlanta. still, 2023 marked the lowest flight cancellation rate in 25 years, according to the faa. last christmas, a winter storm set off a cascade of problems that stranded travelers. while for many flying has been smooth, there have been heightened security concerns over the holiday from the war in the middle east. a scary scene in rochester, new york, a fiery crash killing two and injuring others after two suvs collided near a concert

venue. the fbi is investigating. elsewhere in new york, traffic backed up yesterday around jfk and la guardia airports by pro-palestinian protests. major server issues caused amtrak disruptions in the northeast over the weekend. >> my train has been delayed. i don't know how i'm going to get there. >> reporter: in florida, this family is relieved their travel nightmare is over after their 16-year-old son flying alone for the first time accidentally boarded the wrong flight. the airline never scanned his ticket and he ended up in puerto rico rather than cleveland. >> my heart sank. >> reporter: frontier apologized to the family and got logan to cleveland the next day. while new year's capped off a record stretch of air travel,

analysts say 2024 will be even busier. coming up, how small changes to our everyday lives could lead to big impacts in 2024. that is next on "morning joe." that is next on "morning joe." she found it. the feeling of finding the psoriasis treatment she's been looking for. sotyktu is the first-of-its-kind, once-daily pill for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis... for the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding that outfit psoriasis tried to hide from you. or finding your swimsuit is ready for primetime. dad! once-daily sotyktu is proven to get more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor.

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"the new york times" wants to help you get a fresh start to 2024. "the times" well desk is out with its new six-day energy challenge, highlighting how small lifestyle habits can raise your energy levels as you go throughout the day. joining us, columnist for "the new york times" well newsletter jocelyn dunn. we were discussing our own energy, how we keep it moving through the long days and waking up early, but let's start for everybody, day one, this is a six-day challenge, a five-minute

trick for more energy, which is -- >> yes, because we wanted to focus on energy this year for the challenge because who doesn't need more energy? we kind of went around the room at the well desk and everyone kind of went, you know, so the five-minute trick is to get some daytime rest. this is not meditation, this isn't a nap, it is simply to get some rest. there is decent research behind this, you know, our challenges, they're science-backed, evidence-based. so, if you can take five minutes to rest during the day, ideally once, i do it twice, and just rest your body and mind, it can really have long-term benefits and you can play music. it is very loose what we're suggesting. it is not, you know, you don't have to go chant somewhere, but find a quietish place, you can do it at work. i'm going to the "new york times" offices after this and i like to go to the supply closet so i'm like the office weirdo.

but there is something very comforting about, like, the stacks of papers and post-its in there, so everyone knows, there she goes, she's going to do her -- we call it an oasis moment, that was coined by the expert we used dr. sue varma, she says that rest isn't something you deserve at the end of the day, it is something that you should put into practice throughout the day, as much as you can. >> only five minutes, supply closet or wherever you want to go, if you want to chant, that's fine too. let's look at day two, move for three minutes to refresh your mind. what are we talking about here? >> so, again, the science behind that, it's that in fact three minutes can make a difference in your energy levels. we have an exercise in which you move for three minutes and you -- it is very playful, but you can sort of pantomime different athletes. we start with boxing, you do an upper cut. do you box?

>> not a lot. i watch. i observe. >> you watch. okay. and, you know, there is ballet, so you imitate the moves of an athlete, but you're not actually doing it. and we thought, okay, is this -- this was -- we have an expert for every one, or a squadron of experts. this one was originated by dr. kelly mcgonagal at stanford. she's been trying it out. and so i've been -- i've been testing this stuff for months and i tested it with three generations and everyone loves it. we have a little timer embedded in our exercise, so you change the exercise over 30 seconds for three minutes total. when you're done, you do feel energized. >> 30 seconds, different athlete for each interval? >> yes. >> oh, okay. >> tennis, basketball, a layup. >> little michael jordan into mikaela shiffrin, all over the place, i like this, yeah. >> exactly. >> mika, these are all good ideas for people like us who desperately are seeking energy. >> i think, yeah, i'm going to

make sure that you have your oasis moment every day, willie. because you don't work hard enough. yeah. no, but seriously, jancee, i love this, i think it is responding to something. let's see if i'm right. who is this really for? >> we -- i mean, we were going over ideas in july. we prepped for this like you cannot believe. and we wanted this to be for as many people as possible. and really everyone seems to need more energy no matter what age you are, no matter what you do for a living and we wanted to be realistic about it. there are plenty of things that sap your energy that you can't do anything about. maybe you have a demanding job or you're a caregiver for somebody. we wanted small, actionable tips that could make a difference in your year ahead. >> i love it. columnist for the well newsletter for "the new york times," jancee dunn, thank you very, very much. that does it for us this morning.

yasmin vossoughian picks up the coverage after a quick final break. soughian picks up the coverage after a quick final break.

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