the biden campaign will argue it is a year out. people aren't paying that much attention. they haven't felt the effects of his accomplishments, and it'll fall into place over time. at the same time, while trump is still going into the primary, he is also taking a look at the general election. he is targeting these groups of voters. he is going after young voters. he is going after black voters. he is going after hispanic voters. he is trying to, a, force people to just not show up for joe biden and also pull off some of that support he saw in 2020. >> the biden campaign certainly with a laser focus on winning them back. great reporting this morning from shelby talcott of "semafor" thank you for being on. thank you for getting up "way too early" on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪♪ good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, january 4th.

we have a lot to get to this morning, including donald trump formally taking his fight to remain on colorado's ballot to the supreme court. we'll tell you what his lawyers are arguing and why the former president is concerned about how the justices may rule. plus, back in 2020, donald trump hired an expert to prove election fraud. instead, that person found the 2020 election was not stolen. we're going to speak with that expert about what his data firm actually uncovered. also ahead, we'll dig into the ultimatum from house republicans following their visit to the southern border. do they want a deal? along with willie and me, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. and msnbc host jen psaki. she's a former white house press secretary. good to have you all on board this morning. willie? let's start in colorado. former president trump's legal

team officially has petitioned the supreme court to overturn last month's colorado supreme court ruling that trump engaged in an insurrection on january 6th and, therefore, is barred from the state primary ballot by the 14th amendment. the colorado republican party already appealed the decision, and because of a stay on the ruling, trump's name will appear on the ballot until the u.s. supreme court takes action. trump's lawyers argue the 14th amendment statute does not apply to the presidency, slammed the ruling that, quote, if allowed to stand, he said, will mark the first time in the history of the united states the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major party presidential candidate, end quote. in a separate statement, the trump campaign quote, "democrats are obsessively violating the american voters' constitutional right to vote for the candidate of their choice. this is un-american, unconstitutional act of election interference that cannot stand."

that's from the trump campaign. the supreme court hasn't announced whether it'll accept the case. joining us now, conservative attorney george conway, and andrew weissmann, host of "prosecuting donald trump." good morning to you both. andrew, let me start with you. this appeal up to the supreme court, where does this go from here? do you suspect the supreme court will hear any of this? >> i do think that they will take this. i think it is one where the government is not going to oppose and is going to think it is appropriate. as we know, there's another case in maine that will bubble up, as well. this is one where if you're not going to have a patchwork of decisions within the states with no supreme court guidance, i see the supreme court taking it. you know, this is one where donald trump actually has a fairly good chance, i think, of prevailing, but you wouldn't know it from the brief that he

filed which is much more of a political statement. i mean, you would think that a brief like this filed by the former president would start with the point that he did not engage in insurrection. that is not his lead argument. i mean, you'd think that should be something that you would want to declare loud and clear, but that's not where we are as a country. that's sort of buried in his papers as almost a throthrowawa argument because, in fact, there's so much evidence that he did. instead, he leads with the argument you quoted, which is that you'd disenfranchise so many voters in the colorado case, over 1 million voters in the republican primary, which is, of course, a very ironic argument for him to be making, given that he is currently criminally charged with attempting to disenfranchise 80 million people who voted for joe biden. the irony is, i think, not going to be lost on a lot of people in

the supreme court. >> while former president trump presents confidence in public that he will prevail against the cases challenging his eligibility to be on the ballot in those two states, privately, new reporting says he's worried that the supreme court he stacked with conservatives will not rule in his favor. the high court has ruled against him several times in high-profile cases, including when trump tried to stop congress from obtaining his tax returns and when trump wanted a special master to review the classified documents seized from mar-a-lago. trump lawyer alina habba voiced the president's concerns in an interview yesterday. >> yeah, that's a concern that he's voiced to me. he's voiced to everybody publicly, not privately. i can tell you that his concern is a valid one. you know, republicans are conservative. they get nervous.

they, unfortunately, are -- sometimes shy away from being pro-trump. they feel even if the law is on our side, they may appear to be swayed, much like the democratic side would do, right? they're trying hard to look neutral that sometimes they make the wrong call. i'd encourage them to look at the law and the constitution. >> george conway, from former president trump's point of view, what is worrying about this? to andrew weissmann's point, his lead argument is more of a campaign argument, campaign slogan that he's used for anything that comes his way that he doesn't like. it's not actually countering the eligibility question, the issue of engaging in insurrection, which doesn't mean a crime has to be committed and a conviction has to happen, just whether or not he engaged in insurrection and whether or not he is

eligible. >> yeah, i mean, this is a bizarre document, and i think it reflects -- i think it reflects the weakness of trump's position, actually. let me explain why. if you took a seminar on appellate advocacy, the first thing they tell you is you have to focus in appellate court, at any level, on the two, three, sometimes four will be pushing it, key issues, the ones that you think are the weak spots in the decision you're challenging. that's on steroids when you go up to the supreme court of the united states and file a petition for a writ of certiorari. it's not like the case with madison where the chief justice looks at everything in the case. they choose the issues on the basis of their importance. here, what trump did on page -- on the inside cover, you're required to put the question presented. the question presented here is

this blunder bus, did the supreme court of colorado error in ordering president trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot? he is throwing stuff up at the wall, or throwing stuff up in a zoo cage and seeing what would stick. so what this reflects, i think, is three things, the third of which is the most important. the first is, i don't know that he has real appellate advocates here of the sort that, if i were a former president and a billionaire, i would want to have. i mean, mark meadows the other day hired one of the best advocates ever to appear before the supreme court, paul clemente, a former solicitor general in the bush administration. trump can't do that because people don't want to work for him. the second is, i think this question reflects, you know, channelling trump's narcissism, "oh, poor me. i was screwed by many which ways." the third reason, i think, is the fundamental weakness of his

position. the fifth point in this brief, point five, roman numeral five, is he didn't engage in insurrection. it is not number one. the reason is, it's because his arguments are very, very weak. if you look at the question in terms of should president trump be removed from the ballot, it's kind of a shocking notion to those of us who haven't lived, until now, in an era where public officials engage in insurrection. but it was familiar to the people who enacted the 14th amendment. when you go through the issues one by one by one, the way lawyers are supposed to, his case looks terrible. >> jen psaki, at the same time, the "woe is me" works for trump supporters. it's another reason they're coming after him, and they don't want to take the time for the details because they believe in him. he has them in this, you know, some call it a cult, but some

truly believe that, you know, joe biden is the end of the world and donald trump is a victim. i don't know what the white house does with this besides watch it play out, but this one is really interesting because instead of going after trump dead on, "you committed a crime. here are the five crimes you committed, the ten crimes you committed," they're going after eligibility. just like someone who is too young to run for president or someone who wasn't born in this country can't run for president. >> that's right, mika. i mean, it is an interesting case. as george just said, i mean, we're not familiar with a president who has been a part of an insurrection because this is an unprecedented moment. that's why these are unprecedented potential actions, which is so important for people to remember. if you're sitting in the white house right now and watching this, you watch it. you don't do anything publicly. they're focused on the speech the president is going to give on friday and laying out the contrasts on democracy and somebody who is going to stand up for democracy and somebody who is not. you don't engage in this

publicly. but what this does do for the campaign, without them engaging in it, is it reminds people of trump's role in the insurrection. one of the challenges you have if you're sitting in the biden campaign right now is that people haven't tuned into the legal cases entirely yet, right? they haven't focused on it. yes, he's using this. his campaign and trump is using this effectively in the republican primary to excite people, but we're about to move to the general election. the more people are reminded of trump's engagement in an insurrection, of the battle against democracy he's had, that is better for the biden campaign. if you're sitting in the white house, you do nothing. you watch it. you focus on the speech. i did have a question, mika, for andrew. >> yeah. >> for people who are tuning in, you know, trying to have kale sa lads after the christmas cookies, whatever it may be, friends of mine at least are wondering, what happens now? there's been a lot of action by the supreme court. you just said earlier that you

don't think they'll rule in -- trump is probably in a good place. i don't want to put words in your mouth. what happens now? what is the timeline of this? what should everybody be watching? >> well, there's sort of two really important cases that are sort of winding their way up to the supreme court. we don't know yet whether the supreme court will take either of them. one is this disqualification issue. it's coming to the court in colorado. it soon may be joined by a decision from maine. that's sort of one side. i do think the supreme court will take it. they don't actually need to rule, sort of, super quickly, because right now, the colorado decision is stayed pending their decision, but i do think they will take it. in relatively short order -- of course, i'm a lawyer. everybody thinks it'll be days but, no, it'll be weeks at the

earlier -- but that's one case. the other case has to do with donald trump saying that he has absolute immunity in connection with his criminal case in washington, d.c. that is going to be argued this coming tuesday, and that also may go to the supreme court. there, i do not think that donald trump has a good shot. that is definitely a long shot for him to say that, as a former president, he cannot be charged criminally. those are the two cases to keep an eye on. >> so, andrew, do you think, is it your assessment that the supreme court wants to deal with this massive question, which in some ways, if you think about it, could dwarf bush v gore in 2000, about whether or not states can pull donald trump off of the ballot? would they rather have the states decide this? is there any chance they kick it back to the states? >> so the answer of whether they'd like to, i'm sure chief justice roberts is not sitting there going, "i can't wait to

put the court at the center of this in two cases." he can, however, if he is going to take both, there is a way to split the baby and for the court to look like it is being even-handed by denying one and granting the other. but i do think this is one where they, i think, will take one of them. that's the disqualification issue. the immunity issue is one where i think everyone thinks, i think, as well, the d.c. circuit is going to rule against donald trump. it is a really strange argument that he is making. that's one where you can imagine the supreme court saying, "you know what? we're going to stay out of that. even though no supreme court case has directly ruled on the issue, there may be a reason there to say, we don't need to be at the center of this." they have so many other controversial cases that came up

this year, they may be very much thinking about, you know, keeping some reputation in tact and not in tatters. it remains to be seen, obviously. >> stakes couldn't be higher. nbc news legal analyst andrew weissmann. thanks so much. we appreciate it. john, as you said, the president's speech at valley forge has been moved from saturday to friday because of the weather in the philadelphia area. clearly, though, a sign, this speech as we turn the new year and into a campaign year, that the biden campaign is leaning into this question of democracy, of january 6th, of the integrity of elections, of who we are. >> yeah. to jen's point earlier, they're not going to touch the legal stuff. they're not going to weigh in on the supreme court matters. as we know, they haven't talked about the criminal cases either. they're not banking on one of these trials happening in time for voters to get a conviction or an acquittal before election day, but they are focusing on

laying out the stakes of this election. per the president and his team, they simply couldn't be higher. his speech will no longer be on the anniversary of january 6th because of the snowstorm that might be coming to the northeast. they've moved it up a day. it'll be tomorrow. historically symbolic site. valley forge, of course, george washington's headquarters for the continental army during the revolutionary war. we're expecting the president, again, as he has done several times in the past, including in independence hall in nearby philadelphia, talk about just this growing sense that the nation's democracy is fragile and things could change if donald trump and his supporters were to win again. in fact, i've got reporting that president biden met with a series of historians yesterday, including a couple names familiar to the viewers of this show, and those historians talked to him about the need to urgently call out this moment. he had a meeting like this once before last year ahead of that philadelphia speech on democracy, and, again, he is returning to those themes, saying that we need to stand.

the nation needs to stand for its democracy. it is more important than ever. that is an animating principle of the biden 2024 campaign. he'll hit it again monday when he goes to south carolina and speaks at the church in charleston that was the site of a racist mass shooting years ago. expect this, again, to be a familiar refrain from this president, as now his re-election campaign is about to begin in earnest. coming up in just one minute, we're going to talk to a data expert hired by the trump campaign to uncover voter fraud in 2020. he says the former president lied after his investigation found the election was not stolen. "morning joe" is back in 60 seconds. their experts replaced my windshield and recalibrated my car's advanced safety system. ♪ acoustic rock music ♪ >> woman: safelite is the one i trust. they focus on safety so i can focus on this view. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

welcome back. we continue our conversation on the legal challenges against former president donald trump. i have a question for george conway. just listening to the entire first block of the show, now

this latest with trump appealing colorado, and you look at maine, colorado, the documents case, georgia, at election interference. you look at the civil fraud suit in new york city. you look at e. jean carroll, stormy daniels. i mean, there are -- i can't think of someone who has more legal challenges facing him. i don't know how many layers he has or can get. chris christie always said in this show he is staying in the race. even if he isn't qualifying for the iowa debate stage, he is staying in the race because one of these legal cases, if not multiple, will catch up with him. is that true in terms of the timing of all of these cases? >> well, in terms of the criminal cases, i think he's always had this fear of being prosecuted. i mean, one of the things -- i didn't realize it at the time, but i flew down to washington on a plane with him before the inauguration, and he asked me, should he fire the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new

york? you know, this is a man who is -- i didn't realize it then, but he had to be thinking about him not wanting to be investigated. maggie haberman of "the new york times" said a couple of times in 2020, one of the reasons why trump was running was to avoid prosecution, because you can't prosecute a sitting president. >> right. >> he has to run here because, you know, it is a get out of jail card if he is elected. it'll be constitutionally -- >> you're saying he could beat the clock? >> i -- no, i don't think he is going to beat the clock. i think that this case here in the district of columbia, the january 6th case before judge chutkan is going to be tried in the summer at the latest, and he is not going to beat the clock. he is a man, in my estimation, who is going to spend the rest of his life in a federal or state prison. >> donald trump, as we know -- >> and should. >> -- was told again and again

the 2020 election was not stolen. back in november of 2020, in fact, data expert ken block and his firm, sympatico software systems, was hired by the trump campaign to investigate allegations of voter fraud. ken has a new piece in "usa today" titled, "trump paid me to find voter fraud. then he lied after i found the 2020 election was not stolen." his book, "disproven," will be released in march. ken, thank you for joining us. i want to read a bit of your piece. you write, quote, we vote anonymously with good reason. noandidate can credibly claim that a fraudulent vote was credited to their opponent unless the voter tells us. this means that a candidate trying to use voter fraud as a reason to change an election result cannot show the fraudulent votes caused the election loss. there is no doubt that voter fraud can animate people. but it is one thing to provide a rallying point for supporters and quite another to drag our election infrastructure and legal system into a

foundationless set of false claims. so, ken, let's go back to the days just after november of 2020, after the election, and explain for our viewers, if you could, the circumstances under which you were hired, by whom, and then, ultimately, what you found in your investigation. >> absolutely. good morning. i was hired by lawyers attached to the trump campaign initially to look for voter fraud on behalf of the campaign. what many people don't know is that there were more than one camp of lawyers attached to the campaign. i was reporting to a fairly careful group of lawyers who wanted to conduct proper due diligence ahead of filing any court cases. my job initially was to look for voter fraud, look for deceased voters, look for duplicate voters, that sort of thing. my mission changed over time because they realized that i had a lot of capabilities i could bring to the table, and they

started running a whole bunch of claims that others brought to the attention of the campaign. they asked me to determine whether or not those claims were true. every single claim i looed at, i was able to prove they were false claims and not true. >> we're talking about dead voters, was one thing. mail-in ballots was something that donald trump was crying about right after the election. he didn't like that system all of a sudden. what were the specific claims the lawyers were making that you chased down? >> there were about 15 of them. we're a little bit ahead of where the book comes out, so i'm going to hold those back a little bit, but i can tell you that some of the claims were really bonkers. they were wild claims. they were easy to prove that they were false, and there were other claims that relied on complex mathematical theories that took a little longer to figure out. i was able, in every circumstance, to show the people that brought these claims forward that they just didn't apply and weren't true.

>> ken, i'm assuming that your company, when they take on a client, they do work for them that is to stay private. that's part of the deal probably and part of making sure that you remain respected in the field. i guess my question is, what prompted you to completely unearth everything that you did for the former president? >> yeah. when i realized that the totality of my work was going to become public no matter what, the work was disclosed to the january 6th committee that my company has done the work. i had been subpoenaed by jack smith, by fani willis in fulton county, georgia. ultimately, i don't have an nda attached to any of the work i did which makes it possible for me to freely talk about my work now. >> ken, we obviously are now in an election year again, so just as someone who is an expert on

these matters, give us -- talk to the viewers here about the sense of confidence they should have that their votes this coming fall will be counted freely and fairly and there wouldn't be much in the way of fraud, or do you think there's reason to worry? >> it is a complicated question. we have an imperfect election infrastructure. it can be improved in a great many ways. but the necessary improvements that we need to make are not responsible for anything i've seen so far for massive fraud that can change the outcome of an election. so it is a nuanced answer that i give you, and what i ask everybody who is paying attention and has worries or believes the election was stolen so you have to take a step back. you have to rely on facts, and you can't convict somebody based on hearsay. you can't change the course of an election because you think

somebody bad might have happened. you have to be able to have ironclad proof that it has happened, and that proof is utterly lacking from every one of the claims that i've looked at attached to the 2020 election. >> ken, is it fair to say that the summery of your findings was clear to the trump campaign lawyers, and that donald trump himself knew, based on your findings, that the 2020 election was not stolen? >> i communicated my findings, all of them, to the lawyer that i reported to at the trump campaign. that lawyer told the january 6th committee that he took the totality of my findings to mark meadows, communicated to mark meadows. mark meadows accepted those findings as true. in response to those findings, said, "i guess there's no there there." he was referring to the voter fraud claims. mark meadows, it was reported in the last couple of months, back in april or may of last year, took those findings to the oval

office. i believe that, yes, my findings were communicated to the oval office. they had to have known because mark meadows certainly knew. >> yet, mark meadows went along for the ride, as well. we should point out that ken's findings, sympatico findings, also have been subpoenaed by jack smith and fani willis, as well, down in fulton county. ken block, fascinating stuff. we'll look forward to your book on sale in march, titled, "disproven: my unbias search for voter fraud for the trump campaign. the data that shows why he lost and how we can improve our elections." ken, thanks so much. mika? >> for sure. republican majority whip tom emmer endorsed donald trump f president yesterday, less than four months after trump torpedoed emmer's bid to become house speaker. in a statement posted to x, o twitter, the number three house republican wrote, quote, it was time tonite behind the party's clear frontrunner."

the congressman threw his hat in the ring to be the next house speaker and trump wrote on social media, quote, voting for a rhino like emmer would a mistake." trump's problem with emmer is he voted to certify joe biden's election win in 2020, something none of the other current members of house republican leadership did. among them is majority leader steve scalise, who also endorsed trump's 2024 campaign this week. like he did with emmer, trump also derailed scalise's speakership bid in october, suggesting scalise was too sick to hold the position after being diagnosed with cancer months before. george conway, i'll tell ya what's sick. i mean, yeah, these guys will put up with anything. unfortunately, it's the american voters, i think, who ultimately lose. >> yeah, it just -- i never

cease to be amazed at how willing these people are to sacrifice their honor and their dignity to worship this man, to keep, you know, a job. don't these people have anything else to do with their lives? it's just crazy that you would -- i mean, it's not worth being a member of congress if you have to kowtow to a psychopath like this. but here we are. that is essentially the state of the republican party where, you know, people are afraid. like desantis the other day, you know, chastising a voter who said, "why don't you go after trump?" it is shameless pandering to people who have been greatly misled. >> yeah, jen psaki, we've had this conversation with joe on the show many times. at what point does personal pride enter the equation? how badly do you need the job? as claire mccaskill made the plea to some of these guys on camera, saying, "guys, it's not so bad out here. you can find other gainful

employment. it is not worth it." it seems to be -- well, it seems to me there is almost maybe nothing they wouldn't do for donald trump. >> i mean, willie, it's a big world out there. as george just said, there's a lot of different things these people can do. as he also just said, they basically look pathetic. i mean, they're embarrassed. their dignity is being questioned here, for good reason. they did, at a moment, they did the right thing, and then they showed they had no spine. they're so desperate to stay in congress. is it that great? i mean, this is -- it's sad and pathetic, and it is an addiction to donald trump by the core of the republican party, including people who, at moments, we have all applauded for standing up to it. >> right. >> they just couldn't stay firm. that's what's sad. >> and this is the latest example of how we are just a couple of days away from the third anniversary of the january

6th insurrection, and donald trump is more powerful now over the republican party than he was then. >> yeah. >> he has an ironclad grip over the gop. yes, i know there is a little momentum for nikki haley, but most believe the republican nomination process is over. donald trump will be the nominee. these criminal indictments have not hurt him within his own party. the general election is a different story. in terms of within the republican party, trump is the dominant figure. those few, lonely voices, mika, who had been standing up to him, they're all but gone at this point. liz cheney got routed in her primary last year. mitt romney in the senate is on his way out. he's announced his retirement. mitch mcconnell is a diminished figure. there are very, very few voices of any stature at all who dare stand up to him. >> also, he is doing a town hall, and we're days away from that. a network is giving him, you know, full range, it appears,

unless he is actually asked and held accountable. and we're a couple days away from iowa. this is incredible. george conway, thank you very much for coming on this morning. it is always good to see you. coming up on "morning joe," we'll have a live report from israel as tensions over the killing of a senior hamas leader in beirut sparks new fears of a widening conflict in the middle east. plus, what we're learning about the twin bombings that killed scores of people in iran yesterday. "morning joe" will be right back. ck

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[tires pop] dang it. that's some bad luck brian. and i think i'm late on my car insurance. good thing the general gives you a break when you need it. yeah, with flexible payment options to keep you covered. so today is your lucky... oh! [crash] ...day. meteor! [screams] dangit. for a great low rate, go with the general. welcome back. the leader of hezbollah is pledging revenge for the death of a top hamas leader in beirut. the man was killed in a strike on tuesday. several american officials believe israel is responsible, but israel has not confirmed nor denied the claim. the head of israel's

intelligence agency vowed to hunt down every hamas member involved in the october 7th attack, no matter where they are. while israel and hezbollah has been exchanging fire since the war in gaza began, this was the first time an attack was launched in beirut. the move is now raising fears a second warfront may open up on israel's northern border with lebanon. a senior u.s. official tells "the new york times" this will also, likely, set back talks to reach another hostage release deal and temporary cease-fire in gaza. joining us now from tel-aviv for more on all of this, nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez. raf? >> reporter: mika, good morning. israel's military says they are at peak readiness along the lebanese border, an expectation there will be some form of retaliation to that israeli assassination of the senior

hamas leader in beirut. we've already seen fighting across that border since the drone strike. just in the last hour, the israeli military says there have been a number of rockets launched from lebanon into northern israel. they say they've responded with air strikes and with mortar fire. yesterday, mika, nine hezbollah fighters were killed by israeli fighters according to the group. that is the most significant casualties hezbollah has suffered since october 7th. this is a sign of how serious the friction is right now across that border. the expectation here in israel is that there may be more to come. as you said, the strike was in beirut, in the lebanese capital. that is something the leader of hezbollah said will be a red line for him. now the question is how and at what scale does hezbollah

respond. the u.s. says it doesn't assess that neither hezbollah nor israel wants a full-scale war, but that doesn't mean there may not be one. one of the sides could miscalculate and edge into full-blown conflict. the u.s. said since october 7th, since the hamas terror attack, it does not want to see the war in gaza spreading across the region, especially to lebanon. today, a senior u.s. official, president biden's troubleshooter when it comes to lebanon, is here and will meet with israeli prime minister netanyahu later to discuss the situation on the lebanese border. his trip is coming ahead of secretary blinken's visit to the middle east. the secretary is leaving washington later tonight. he is heading to a region, mika, that is just on edge in almost every direction, from yemen to

iraq to gaza to lebanon. all of it made more complicated by the fact that iran's leadership is reeling from that major explosion yesterday on the fourth anniversary of the killing of soleimani, the revolutionary guard commander. 84 people killed in those twin blasts, according to the iranian government. that is one of the deadliest attacks iran has suffered since 1979. they are accusing israel of being responsible for the attack. israel, at this moment, is not commenting. mika? >> a lot of moving parts. nbc's raf sanchez, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll get an exclusive look at a brand-new ad from the biden-harris campaign, which highlights the existential threat our country faces from maga extremism. maryland governor wes moore, a member of the biden-harris campaign national advisory board

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live picture of the white house. sun not quite up at 6:44 in the morning. the biden/harris campaign out with its first ad of the new year about the ongoing threat to american democracy. it becomes the head of a major speech set to be delivered by the president tomorrow, nearly three years after the january 6th attack on the capitol. here now, an exclusive first look at that ad. >> i've made the preservation of american democracy the central issue of my presidency. i believe in free and fair elections and the right to vote fairly and have your vote counted. something dangerous happened in america. there is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. all of us are being asked right now, what will we do to maintain

our democracy? history is watching. the world is watching. most importantly, our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible. the vice president and i have supported voting rights since day one of this administration. i ask every american to join me in this cause. america is still a place of possibilities, where the power presides with we, the people. that's our soul. we are the united states of america. there is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. i'm joe biden, and i approve this message. >> political ad from the biden/harris campaign. joining us now, maryland's democratic governor wes moore. he is the biden/harris campaign's national advisory board member. >> glad to be here. >> let's talk about the ad and the context around it. on the one hand, the president is going to go out this year and tout what he believes is a strong economy, that the numbers we've seen will continue into the new year. on the other hand, as we saw in

the ad, setting the stakes for this election in broader terms around democracy. >> that's right. i think one thing we're seeing is the stakes of this election are important and on the line, but also the framing of what people are going to hear for the next ten months. because we're going to watch donald trump, who is going to spend the next ten months fighting for his freedom and fighting for his future. one thing we're not going to hear over the next ten months is him fighting for any of ours. you know, we know that the future of our democracy is going to matter in all of this, and, you know, having this being announced and having the president go to valley forge, you know, my old stomping grounds where i was sent to military school when i was 13 years old, and also being here in annapolis where george washington resigned his commission, for the first time letting the people know the power does not belong to an individual. the power belongs to the people.

i think the president is setting the stakes and really hoping to set the platform for what people are going to hear. from him, it is a vision for their future. for donald trump, they're going to hear a vision about his future. that's the difference. >> governor, let me ask you then, with all that said, and those are the stakes for this election as set out by the campaign, some of these numbers we've seen recently, knowing that we are still a ways out from democratic votes being cast here, about the way the coalition, democrats, young people, black voters, latino voters are feeling about this president. some stunning numbers in a "usa today"/suffolk university poll a couple days ago that show donald trump, for now, leading among latino voters. that's a group of voters that joe biden won by more than 30 points in 2020. black voters, joe biden's support eroding there, though not going to donald trump but perhaps some voters looking at a third-party candidate. notably, young voters, who seem to be fishing around, looking

for an alternative, as well. how do you explain those trends? >> well, i know over the next ten months that the president is going to be going around and making the case and also continuing to work with all of us as surrogates to remind people about what's actually happening. if you look at what's happening, you know, here in the state of maryland, the reason we've been able to have so much momentum, the reason that, in maryland, we have the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country, that we are -- that we have made systematic impacts on being able to address the racial wealth gap, our ability to create a diverse administration that's making sure we're seeing every single part of our state, that's being done in partnership with the biden administration. that's being done because we're able to have not just resources and guidance but a true sense of partnership with the federal government, in order to make sure that all groups, to include african-americans and young voters and latino voters, are not just being seen in this process but are advancing in significant clips.

i think people -- we're going to go out there and we're going to make the case and show people that the actions that we're seeing from the federal government, the action we're seeing from the biden administration, are translating into the everyday lives of young voters who are watching everything from environmental protections that are being put forward in the strongest voice we've seen in any administration historically, that we're watching abortion rights being protected all across the country. in the state of maryland, we'll have abortion rights on the ballot to put as part of our constitution in the next election. all of these things that are happening, that young voters are crying out for us to address, they're happening in partnership with the biden administration. we'll continue to make that case. >> governor, it is jen psaki. happy new year. >> happy new year. >> you're an effective communicator. ha one of the frustrations i had is the president wants more democrats echoing his message, and they're doing that now.

a question i have is what is, like, the 30-second pitch for why joe biden is better? is it abortion rights? is it economy? is it democracy? it may be all of them. but give people kind of, what is the pitch they should be doing so their neighbors, out on their streets when they're doing volunteer phone calls right now? >> i want people to remember that we have a president who sees us. you know, i ask the jewish-american to remember we have a president who does not see good people on both sides when it comes to charlottesville. i want to remind immigrants to this country, people like my mom, who was an immigrant single mom who raised three kids on her own, that we have a president who sees us and understands that we have a population that's looking to support this country and who believes in the future of this country and is not looking to tear it down. i want to say to all the young people and young voters out there, we have a president who understands that the future of our environment matters.

he understands things like being able to address student loans and the cost of insulin for seniors, that matters. we have a president who doesn't just see us but a president who is fighting for us. we know what the alternative is. the alternative is someone who is going to spend the next ten months fighting for his own future and freedom. the thing that makes me so excited to get out there every single day and campaign for this president is not because i'm scared of the alternative, but it is because i know what we can get done and what he's already gotten done on behalf of the american people. imagine, look what we've gotten done just here in maryland in the first year. imagine if you can give me four more with this president. that's why i'm excited to do everything i can to make sure joe biden gets another four years. >> okay. wes, that was a minute and a half, just fyi. actually, it's to my next point. actually, it is a really serious

one. you could go on for five minutes talking about the accomplishments of this presidency and i'd agree with you. you sound great. you're right, and you speak about the accomplishments. you make the case. i think there are some democrats who are really worried. there are some people who are asking, when is joe biden, when is kamala harris, when is anybody who runs the campaign going to actually take on trump head on? trump republicans and donald trump himself don't play on a factual basis. there are people in america right now who believe that joe biden runs the biden crime family, you know, and he colluded with his son to steal money. you know, here you are talking about all the great stuff this president has done. i believe that's falling on a lot of deaf ears. there are democrats who are really worried that trump will

win this, dirty and ugly and any way he can, and no one is speaking to that. >> yeah. i do know that you're right, mika. we have, you know -- donald trump will stop at nothing because everything is on the line. not just for the country but for him personally. he knows that. we also know that this is about -- so this is something bigger than just one person. you know, whether you're looking at maryland or michigan, whether you look at pennsylvania or arizona, for each of the governors of all of the states, the one thing that all of us have in common is we all ran against people who essentially said they will honor the election results once they know the election results. this is something bigger than just one person. the thing that i know is that every single day, we have an administration who is fighting on our behalf and who believes in a sense of partnership with our states and our locals and our communities.

we have to remember what is at stake on this. the president, the vice president, the administration, they are going to be working every single day to make sure their message is heard and making sure that people understand the frame of the arguments, hence what we're seeing with valley forge and this new ad. i also think all of us as surrogates and, frankly, all of us as citizens have to understand our role, too. democracy is not just going to be a spectator sport. it's not something we just participate in on election day. every single day, we have got to take that additional sense of ownership, making sure we're putting in the same kind of work for our future that the administration is pitting in for our future, as well. >> governor, before we let you go, perhaps the most important and, frankly, easiest question for you today, it's a two-parter. number one, is there any question in your mind that the baltimore ravens are the best team in the nfl, or that lamar jackson is the mvp of the nfl? >> i don't think there should be any question in anyone's mind.

if you look at what happened the past couple weeks, you know, the baltimore ravens didn't just beat two of the best teams in the nfl in the dolphins and also the 49ers, they dismantled both of them. this is the most complete team in football. it's the best defense in football. it's the best offense in football, the best special teams. also, someone -- until someone finds an answer for lamar jackson, there is no answer for lamar jackson. he is, by far, the league mvp. he's putting together a really special year. we're preparing to head to vegas sometime in february for the super bowl. >> i thought that question might fire you up. since governor moore was sworn into office, the orioles' best record in the american league and the ravens, best record in the nfl. coincidence? i don't know. >> just saying. >> governor, good to see you. >> great to see you. >> thank you, wes. we have a lot more news to

get to. coming up on "morning joe," we have a live report from tehran as tensions heat up in the middle east. plus, we'll take a look at a new interactive piece from "the atlantic" to help people improve themselves in 2024. the author of that piece, arthur brooks, will join us with his tips. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. when you walk up to the counter at the pharmacy and you have a new prescription, you don't know what it's going to cost. that's why i always recommend you check the singlecare app before you go to the counter. i found the cheaper price with singlecare! yes, you did. see. give it a try. go to singecare.com or download the free app today.

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♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it's the top of the second hour on this thursday, january 4th. jonathan lemire and jen psaki are still with us. joining the conversation, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle and special correspondent at "vanity fair" is host of the "fast politics" podcast, molly jong-fast. good to have you all aboard this hour. more than 60 house republicans toured the southern border in eagle pass, texas, yesterday.

they say their aim was to draw attention to the recent record migrant crossings. >> last month alone, we saw the most illegal crossings in recorded history. itn unmitigated disaster, a catastrophe. what's more tragic is that it is a disaster of the president's own design. >> several house republicans are now calling for the southern border to be completely closed. and they're threatening to shut down the government if that doesn't happen. as the first funding deadline approaches on january 19th. a white house spokesman issued this statement in response. quote, there they go again, "we'll shut down the government. we control the money." after voting to eliminate thousands of border patrol agents and undercut our fentanyl crackdown, opposing the record border security funding president biden delivered. and now blocking his urntly-needed proposal to hire

more cbp agents and invest in new fentanyl-detection technology, house republicans are once more compromising america's national security and economic growth with shutdown threats. willie? >> there's the question of whether house republicans even want a deal or whether they like this as an issue for 2024. >> exactly. >> a number of house republicans said they'll only accept a border deal that resembles the bill their chamber passed last year. at least one is suggesting any deal that helps president biden's election chances should be rejected. congressman troy nails of texas told cnnnn interview yesterday, this is a que, "let me tell you, i'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a democrat and to help joe biden's approval rating. i will not help the democra try to improve this man's dismal approval ratings. i'm not going to do it. why would i? chuck schumer has had hr-2 on his desk since july, and he did nothing with it."

jen psaki, this raises the important question of, what is the senate in this bipartisan group, what is the point of the work they're doing? they are working, and secretary mayorkas has been in the room with democrats and republicans on this. republicans saying out loud, "we're not going to pass anything. if we do, it has to be tied to other things we want as a part of this bill, to avoid a government shutdown, for example." >> right. they're going to shut the government down over an immigration negotiation that is not a negotiation. as my mother would say, this is not on the level. you know, this is not on the level. couple things can be true at the same time, willie. i mean, there are increasing numbers of people coming in at the border. there's a range of reasons for that, including the broken immigration system. there is something that needs to be done. i think most people in the biden administration would say that. they also need to address the broken immigration system which is part of the issue here. at the same time, what the republicans are doing right now, not just mike johnson, but look

at the op-eds that the presidential candidates have in the "des moines register" today. donald trump and ron desantis have op-eds because they think this is a winning political issue. they're not interested in negotiating. they're interested in making this a fear tactic to get their voters out in 2024. that's important for people to remember. otherwise, they would be having a real negotiation with joe biden, with democrats, which chris murphy says they're not even doing, and sit at the table and do that. they're not interested in solving it. they're interested in making it a political issue. >> molly, also, we know next they've announced, house republicans are going to start impeachment hearings on secretary mayorkas because of, they say, his role in the crisis at the border. obviously, they see fertile political ground here, and a resolution, which is what they're supposed to be doing, to find some solution to this problem at the border, hurts them, actually, politically, and the issue goes away.

>> right. look, they're also trying to impeach biden. let us not forget, they're trying two impeachments at the same time. mike johnson is worried, right? the last speaker did not keep his job, and i think this is a ploy. gas is under $3. inflation is coming down. economic news is good. we've had that soft landing. people may be cranky about the economy, but the fundamentals are solid. that's kind of a miracle. i think republicans don't have that much to run on. the crime numbers are down. the thing they have, the thing they need is fear. the only thing they can find that they think will help them run is the border because they think there's fear. but the thing we don't talk about when it comes to immigration is we don't talk about, this is a very tight labor market. we actually need these people to work jobs. i think you're not -- you know, there's a larger issue here, which is that we don't have a path to immigration.

>> you know, if you are a democrat, though, if you're helping to run president biden's re-election campaign, one of the things you have to do is recognize reality. the reality is that fear has been sold quite successfully to the american public for at least the last six years by one donald j. trump and his acolytes, who are clearly members of the house of representatives on the republican side of the aisle. what jen was just talking about, she's absolutely right, this is not on the level. but i guess, just walking around would tell you that it is a reality. it's a reality. the issue is not a sleeper issue. it is the most visible issue we have in this country, other than grocery prices. people see this. they see the teems of people at the border. this is a three decade old problem that has not been resolved in at least three decades. jonathan, the negotiations between secretary mayorkas, with

chris murphy in the senate helping lead them, we don't know what status they have right now this morning on it, but this issue isn't going to go away. it is going to play a huge, huge role in the primaries for the next two or three months. >> and as evidence of that, mike, we've had democrats call this out. democratic mayors of big cities, democratic governors, staunch biden allies who have been critical of the white house, saying more needs to be done here. our communities simply cannot handle this influx of migrants. now, there was a little bit of progress made before the holidays in the senate working group, and there is a sense that there's some good faith activities among republican senators to try to get some sort of deal, which, for now, remains linked to funding for israel and ukraine. there's certainly some republican senators who are strong on those issues and, therefore, want to get a deal done to fund our allies and, therefore, get something fixed at the border, as well. to this conversation, there is a

growing skepticism the republicans in the house want to get something done. we heard yesterday at the highest volume yet, these threats to shut down the government if they don't get this sort of draconian bill that no democrat would ever go for. this is a real impasse. the clock is ticking. you know, mika, january 19th is the first of these government funding deadlines, a little more than two weeks away. the house doesn't even come back until next week. i was in the white house briefing room yesterday, and karine jean-pierre, the press secretary, opened up her first post new year briefing really chiding the republicans for this stunt and for, frankly, not getting to work, not being in washington as the clock is ticking. there is worry here a deal is not going to get done in time. >> we'll be following this. one of the other stories we're following this morning is about former president trump and his legal team officially petitioning the supreme court to overturn last month's colorado

supreme court ruling that trump engaged in insurrection on january 6th and, therefore, is barred from the state primary ballot by the 14th amendment. the colorado republican party had already appealed the decision, and because of a stay on the ruling, trump's name will appear on the ballot until the u.s. supreme court takes action. trump's lawyers argue, the 14th amendment statute does not apply to theing is allowed to stand, it'll be the first time in the united states' history that the judiciary prevented the casting of ballots for the leading presidential candidate. the supreme court hasn't announced whether it will accept the case. joining us now, former u.s. attorney and an msnbc contributor, barbara mcquaid. she is co-host of "the sisters-in-law" podcast. and author of the forthcoming book entitled, "attack from

within: how disinformation is sabotaging america," due out on february 27th. we look forward to that. barbara, the trump team has petitioned the supreme court. what are your thoughts on whether the supreme court actually takes it, the timing of it, and also how the trump team created their petition, what they led with versus what donald trump is accused of, therefore making him ineligible to be on the ballot? >> yes, i think the court will have to take up the case. whether it decides it on the merits, i think, is another question. donald trump, i do agree with one of the things he wrote in his brief, which is, this is a matter of significant importance that must be decided urgently. i think that as we see all of these other primaries starting to play out across the country, starting this month, i think it is very important that this issue be resolved. the lead argument that he makes

here is one i haven't heard before. you know, he's got all the greatest hits in there, the 14th amendment doesn't apply to the u.s. president. this wasn't an insurrection. even if it was, he didn't engage in it, all the things we might expect. one he led with that is interesting to me is the 14th amendment only bars someone from holding office, not running for office. therefore, he should be permitted to run, be elected, and only on january 20th of 2025, should it be say, "sorry, folks, he can't serve." you know, that sounds like a tex textualist argument, but imagine the absurdity. he can't serve, so his vice president is the president of the united states. maybe that's how we'll see the court play out. i believe the court is likely to take an off-ramp. a more likely off-ramp, i think, is one that says this is not a justiciable argument, that is,

this is a part ermatter for con not the courts to decide. may be another one they bite on. >> your instinct is that they may pass the buck on this? >> i think they'll take up the case. i think they'll look at it, but i think -- you know, there are about eight different legal questions presented here. you know, whether this is a question for the courts, whether it applies to the president, whether it's self-executing, whether this was an insurrection, whether he engaged in it. i think when you get to one of those questions, i'll think they'll find a way to say, therefore, this provision does not apply here, and trump may run. that's my gut. i've been wrong before. >> we shall see. former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade, thank you very much for being on this morning. molly jong-fast, your piece for "vanity fair" is entitled, "donald trump's tirades barely make a blip." you write this,"on new year's day, trump accused former jaar6th committee vice chair liz cheneyf having illegally

deleted and destroyed evidence that could have been used in his legal defense, while pushing the long debunked claim that crazy nancy pelosi turned down his request for 10,000 soldiers to go to the capitol. jack smith's request for ruling on whether trump is immune from federal prosecution, he said, is now completely compromised and should be thrownutnd terminated. just like the radical left lunatics did to the evidence. close your eyes and imagine joe biden had written something lik that. you can't, of course, because biden isn't fundamentally unhinged. yet biden got beat up during the same period for saying that he'd been eating a lot of chicken parm while neglecting to mention his consumption of ice cream. yes, developments in trump's legal cases grab headlines, while raising major constitutional issues, but the former president seems to keep skating by. according to the polls, he's thriving. the maga faithfulav surely

seen his mad rants, but persuadable voters who aren't plugged into truth social or far-right media could have missed them given the relative lack of mainstream attention. journalists may no longer be shocked or even surprised by trump's words and actions, but it is no time to ignore them." you know, molly, i don't disagree with you. at the same time, i think we have seen trump do town halls on major networks and roll everybody. >> right. >> and lie after lie after lie after lie goes by, and they can't be questioned. the question is, do you allow lies to fly freely on your network or in your publication, or do you take them head on and debunk them one by one by one? then there is the criticism all along that everyone has gotten, every network at one time or another, you give him too much time. >> right. >> it's like, this is exactly how it works when someone has

autocratic tendencies. they throw a firehose of you know what at the wall, and people can't keep up with it. what's your solution? >> so i've been writing about this ad nauseam, and i feel i'll keep writing about it. we keep saying it, but this is true, it is the most important election of our lifetime, right? this is the, do you want to have more elections election. how we cover it in the mainstream media is going to be hugely important. i think that's why i keep getting stuck on writing about it, because it is so important. you have a really good point, mika, the firehose of lies we've seen him do, town halls where you see him screaming at the moderator and saying lies, and, you know, it's just too much. it is a firehose, and you can't fact-check that in real time. but i do also think we don't want voters to miss things like these truth social posts which are so unhinged.

i think, you know, it's just going to be a delicate balance. how does a free press cover the rise of autocracy is a terrifying problem to have, and it is where we are. >> it is a dilemma. when he is vomiting conspiracy theory on social media, don't want to read through those and give them oxygen, but we've grappled with this, you have to pause and say, "he said he wants to terminate the constitution." that is noteworthy. he suggested the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff should be executed. you have to pause and say, "this is what is coming if you vote for him again." >> look, we have two really big problems. social media is super siloed now, and mainstream media is super sisiloed. it is very hard for voters to sort of get the full picture, the full landscape. that is really important, and that is our jobs. but, yeah, i mean, it is an impossible situation. the stakes are so impossibly

high. >> why do you think -- there are so many smart people in the media, including yourself, but a lot of smart people in the media. why do you think it's taken us so long to address something called know your enemy, and give the enemy credit for what expertise the enemy might have? in donald trump's case, he is one of the master salespeople of all time. he has sold fear, division, incompetence. he has sold it all, and the majority of people seem to have bought it. >> yeah. >> so going forward, why is it, you think, that the democrats haven't figured out the opposite? let's sell competence. let's sell decency. let's sell civility. does it no longer work? >> i just think it is hard to cover unprecedented events. even though that is our job, it's like the great irony of the whole situation, is it is very

difficult. you see, i mean, history is littered with the bodies of mainstream media journalists who tried to cover autocracy. i just think it is a fundamental disconnect. you know, we have a supposition of normal that gets us in a lot of trouble. i think we're getting better at it. i think we've seen this happen over time, but it's really -- this is really a structurally difficult problem. >> "vanity fair's" molly jong-fast, thank you so much for coming on this morning. great piece. still ahead on "morning joe," a new year means a new chance for self-improvement. "the atlantic" has an interactive series to help you better yourself in 2024. the author, arthur brooks, joins us next to share some of his tips. later, the secretary of the air force will join the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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beautiful live picture of lower manhattan. 7:23 in new york city. if you're looking to stick to your 2024 resolutions for self-improvement, or maybe to make better ones, our next guest has you covered. in "the atlantic's" "be 1 days to a better you," arthur brooks gives a piece of advice for every day in january. arthur joins us now. a columnist for "the atlantic" and a professor at harvard business school. good to see you. >> good to see you, too. >> this is important stuff. when we fall into resolutions, maybe fall into the cliches. i'm going to lose some weight, get exercise. you say be more clear, be more specific in what you want to achieve. >> also, pay attention to the things you really want in your life. the reason people don't stick to the resolutions, most give up within the first three weeks. it doesn't last long because the costs are higher than the benefits. the things you're focusing on

are not what you want the most in your life. think about what will really bring you the greatest well-being. those things are clear. we have tons of research on this. i am a social scientist. i teach this class at harvard. it boils down to four things. faith, family, friends, and work. work that serves other people. now, i don't mean my faith. i mean a transcendent sense of life. family life means different things to different people. real friends, not virtual friends, deal friends. and work where you really feel like you're creating value and people need you. those are the things to be doubling and tripling down on. that's what your rsolutions should be about. you do that, you'll make it through the year and get better. >> you have to remind yourself of that over the course of the year. this is what is important. you have to center yourself a little bit. your second tip, we desperately need it here. i'm not sure it is possible. >> what's that? >> press "snooze." get more sleep. 16, 17 years, mika, we've been getting no sleep on this show.

>> you have to go to bed earlier. >> that's the answer. >> that's the thing. the whole point is science has been catching up with what commonsense, what grandma has been telling us, sleep is one of the great secrets to living a happier and better life. most people don't have good high hygiene about it. a lot of young adults watch this great show, what is the problem? they're rebelling against themselves. they're procrastinaing against their own sleep, an act of rebellion against childhoods. mom is not here. go to bed. it is important. >> i remember feeling that way when i was at college, i don't have to go to bed. >> yes. >> next is the phone. people put it by the bed. before bed, which you're not supposed to do, you control until you close euroyour eyes. >> get an alarm clock on amazon. read a book, turn off the light, and go to bed. >> faith, family, friends. faith, obviously.

family, obviously. friends. >> right. >> if you're given the gift of health, you know, you live longer, okay? >> mm-hmm. >> what happens to the friends aspect when your friends begin to die? people you've known for 50, 60 years. >> one of the things that's really important that we remember is that we shouldn't have friends that are all the same age. when you're young, get more old friends. when you're old, get more young friends. one of the best ways for you to have friends all the way until your deathbed is you have people who are decades younger than you are. it's the important thing. by the way, when you're in your 20s, you should have friends in their 60s because they're interesting people and you'll learn from them. if everybody is marching through first grade, second grade, third grade, by the time you're 60, they're 60, it is a big problem. it is also boring. >> that's good advice. you refresh a little bit. >> yeah. >> meet new people over the course of your life. >> totally. >> brings out something new in me. >> exactly right. look, i'm turning 60 this year. i have more and more friends who are younger than i am. >> keeps you in the culture.

>> it keeps me in the culture. by the way, it gives me an opportunity to talk to them about the things that matter. people ask me, what do you wish you knew at 20 you know when you're 60? of course, that's what i do for a living, teaching at harvard. on happiness for that matter, but it is great. that's a way to solve that problem. >> your tip from yesterday, january 3rd, was tame your envy, which you call the happiness killer. what do you mean by that? >> yeah. we are evolved to be envious because we have a natural sense of hierarchy. you have to know your place in the tribe. you want to rise in the hierarchy. everybody does this. when we're consuming ourselves with this malignancy of envy, it'll destroy our sense of happiness. the whole important point is to turn from envy to admiration. look at people who are doing something that's really good and admire them and be open about that aadmiration. you can turn the envy into something that is positive in a heartbeat. >> i had a friend once, he's now

passed away, getting back to death. >> a theme here. >> who once said to me that he would rather get in the ring with mike tyson than get in the ring with envy. >> yeah, absolutely. envy will wipe you out every single time. look, there's always somebody who has got more than you. if you're comparing your own self-worth to somebody on some weird dimension, like money or prestige or instagram followers, how ridiculous. you're going to be unhappy all the time, is the point. look for people virtue, who have somebody you aspire to as a person, and admire that. that'll eat up the envy. you'll get happier in heart beat. >> easier for us to do than kids. i have two teenagers who are born into this social media universe that you're talking about, which is, frankly, predicated on envy, as you scroll. >> for sure. that's what it is built on. we get addicted to the envy, and the envy will start to consume us. it also keeps us addicted to looking at the phone. it's part of the algorithm of the social media.

social media consumption -- over consumption of social media is one of the great engines of unhappiness in our culture today. that's one of the things with young people i wind up talking about almost more than any other. >> it is so interesting. we don't want to give away the whole month. check it out in "the atlantic." arthur brooks, good stuff. >> good to see you. >> appreciate it. we'll get back to the news. iranian-backed militia group is accusing the united states of carrying out an attack that killed a leader in iraq. we'll get more from tehran on the mounting tensions in the region. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back

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welcome back. several high-profile names were mentioned in a batch of documents released yesterday pertaining to the crimes of convicted sex offender jeffrey epstein. 40 exhibits in the settled case

against long-time epstein confidant ghislaine maxwell were made public last night. maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year for recruiting teenage girls to be abused by the late billionaire. the documents were related to an earlier lawsuit against her for civil defamation. among those named in the more than 800 pages yesterday were former presidents donald trump and bill clinton, though they are not accused of any wrongdoing. trump's name came up during witness testimony from one epstein accuser who recalled the sex offender saying he would, quote, call up trump to visit one of his casinos in new jersey. the same woman testified that she never gave the former president a massage. in 2002, trump told "new york" magazine that epstein was, quote, a terrific guy and a lot of fun to be with. adding that he, quote, likes

beautiful women on the younger side. but in 2019, prior to epstein's death in a new york city jail s years. a witness called epstein saying the former president, quote, likes them young, referring to girls. in maxwell's deposition, she said clinton had dined on epstein's plane but denied he ever visited an island where abuse often took place. in 2019, a spokesman for the former president said he had not spoken to epstein in more than a decade. the documents do contain allegations of wrongdoing against other figures, though. the duke of york, prince andrew, who settled a sexual abuse lawsuit with an epstein accuser last year, is alleged to have had sex with an unnamed minor in

new york, london, and on epstein's island. he has previously denied all allegations against him. the documents also accuse epstein of forcing that same girl to have sex with his lawyer, alan dershowitz. dershowitz is alleged to have abused other minors, as well, something he denies. the documents released yesterday was the first batch of several that are expected to be released over the next few days. still ahead, president biden is marking the third anniversary of the january 6th attack by making the case for the reasons why democracy is on the line in this year's election. we'll show you the new ad from his campaign. also ahead, we'll get a live report from the border town of eagle pass, texas, where house republicans held a news conference yesterday.

up next, we'll speak to u.s. air force secretary frank kendall for the role his branch of the military is playing in hot spots around the world. "morning joe" will be right back. 13 degrees on either side. the queen sleep number® c2 smart bed is now only $990. plus, special financing. shop for a limited time, only at sleep number.

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give your business a head start in 2024 with this great offer. plus, ask how to get up to $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. a high-ranking member of the militia was killed in iraq. it happened in central baghdad earlier this morning. now, the attack is being blamed on the united states. american officials did not respond to request for comment. iran-backed militants have been launching strikes against american forces in syria and iraq since the war in gaza began in october. united states retaliated last month with an air strike inside iraq. the strike is just another example of escalating tension in the region. yesterday, at least 84 people were killed in two explosions in

iran. it happened during a memorial for general soleimani, who was killed in a u.s. drone strike in 2020. iran vowing revenge, but it's not clear who is responsible for that attack. joining us now, nbc news correspondent tehran bureau chief. ali, what can you tell us about what happened? >> reporter: hey, willie. the attack in southern iran killed at least 84 people and wounded 210 people, including women and children. most of the casualties appear to have been civilian. the death toll was revised down this morning by the head of iran's emergency services from a figure of 95 and 103. nonetheless, willie, in marks the deadliest terror attack in iran since the islamic revolution in 1979. now, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but iranian officials are being quick to point the finger at israel. senior member of parliament said

this bears all the hallmarks of a mossad operation. the united states and israel have been blamed. however, the u.s. said there is no indication that israel was involved, and any suggestions that washington was involved were ridiculous, as well. israel's hallmark is targeted assassinations of key military and scientific figures inside iran, as opposed to mass casualty attacks like the one we saw yesterday. there's a lot of confusion here about exactly what's going on. there have been a few interesting developments, as well, willie, this morning. the irgc has released a statement condemning, yes, these attacks, but they didn't mention israel as opposed to iranian officials who are mentioning israel all last night. just this morning, willie, we are seeing on telegram channels and some iranian news channels that they are expecting some sort of a statement from isis, and that statement could be related to yesterday's attacks. still a lot up in the air here.

the iranians are still furious. this morning, all over tehran, billboards sprung up across the city vowing revenge for these attacks. more often than not, willie, these public displays of revenge are little more than bluster from the regime here. >> you're right. as we saw a couple days ago, if israel wants to take out a senior member of a terrorist group, they can do just that without killing a bunch of civilians like happened in iran yesterday. what are theo theories, ali? if the government is saying it was israel. the united states saying there is no evidence of that. who else could it be? >> reporter: well, there are clearly a lot of opposition groups who have the ability to carry out violent attacks in iran, but i don't think they're going to be regime-threatening attacks. but they certainly raise the temperature. now, the suspicion may fall on

arab separatists and jihadi groups like i mentioned, or a group who have also conducted a lot of attacks in iran. they would be the main suspects to have carried out this attack and have the ability to do that. and the type of attack also matches their modus operandum. you know, putting a suitcase laden with explosives in the middle of a civilian crowd is how they conduct attacks. that would be the obvious culprits. again, it's strange that iranian officials are insisting that the u.s. and israel was behind this, but iranian military figures are distancing themselves from that language. what is important to look out for, willie, over the next 24 or 48 hours is what sort of reaction will come out from iran. i doubt there will be any sort of direct reaction from iran's military, but we may see an uptick in iranian militias in

the levant or houthis in the red sea conducting more attacks in the region. again, falling short of some sort of massive reprisal from the u.s. or israel. these next few days will be critical to see how far iran takes up the temperature. we've seen that they have an ability, you know, to ratchet up the temperature at will and then bring it back down. we may see a cycle of that over the next few days, but beyond that, i don't think anything more serious. >> we'll be watching very closely with your help. ali arouzi, thank you so much. reporting from tehran this morning. joining us in new york, secretary of the united states air force, frank kendall. secretary kendall, thanks for being here today. a lot of ground to cover with you, but one of the concerns about what we're seeing with israel and hamas is a widening of this war because iran, obviously, backs so many of these militias across the region. we've seen strikes against american troops in syria and iraq, as well. how is the air force preparing

for at least assessing the possibility of a wider war here? >> yeah, i should be clear at the outset, my role as secretary of the air force is act organizing, equipping, and training forces that are provided to the commanders and secretary of defense. i'm not directly involved in the operations. we are providing forces. we've had squadrons region in the -- remain in the region to provide strength there. the things we're doing to ensure the war does not widen are generally diplomatic, backed up by american military power, as well. >> we were talking in the break about the need for funding for the department of defense, just for eventualities like this. and your concern, and the concern more broadly among many people, that the appropriations won't be there from this congress, that they're not going to pass the money you need. can you talk about where you are in making that case to congress, that it needs to happen soon, and what might happen if the money doesn't arrive? >> my obsession, and i don't

think it is too strong a word in the role i have, has been china, china, china, and making sure we remain competitive with china in terms of military modernization. i came into office about 2 1/2 years ago and set to work to identify the things we need to be superior or remain superior to china. that is $30 billion total the next five years that we've identified and put into our budget. the first installment of that is $5 billion in the '24 budget, which we won't get unless congress passes appropriation. i'm very, very anxious to have congress move forward and do its job and give us the funds we need to defend the country. >> you confident that will happen? >> i wish i were more confidence than i am. >> mr. secretary, the south china sea, china, the united states, the concept of artificial intelligence is going to play a role going forward in any military operation. are you at all concerned that china has a -- is perhaps a step ahead of us on ai, only because

of the theft of intellectual property from the united states? how does that impact the united states' safety, security going forward? >> the united states has formidable technical capabilities. i'm not terribly worried about china being very far ahead of us in terms of ai or its applications. from the technical point of view. it is the field of capability side of it that i worry about. again, it comes back to resources and being allowed to move forward with the programs we've identified we need. >> on resources, we just showed a map going from the red sea, suez canal, right up the coast through jordan, libya, syria, south china sea. what kind of resources do we need as a country to go forward continuing with the strength of the united states that we have now? >> we requested appropriate levels of resources to do the things that we need to do.

it's very powerful. we forces -- i just came back from a trip to the middle east. i visited five of our bases in the region. we have a lot of combat power there. we also have a lot of combat power in europe and a lot of combat power in the pacific. the air force and space force provide the two services they're responsible for, but we have to move forward with modernization. sustaining that force will not get us where we need to be. they have been working for more than two decades now to fuel the military that is designed with the intention of being able to defeat the united states, and we can't be complacent about the capabilities we have. we have to move forward. >> this is secretary jonathan lemire in washington with a question for you. john? >> senator tommy tuberville of course, had a months' long blockade of military promotions, finally forced to end, but can you speak about the impact that had on the air force, and how long it might take you to catch up? >> well, first of all, we have

capable people who were occupying those roles during the several months, the ten months roughly that those holds were in place, but they were very debilitating. they had a significant impact on our abilities to make strategic choices and move forward. we have a lot of qualified people who can keep the trains running so to speak, but you need the leadership that will be in place for a period of years to really make real progress and to change the strategic direction and move organizations forward. we couldn't do that. it was putting the brakes on a lot of the things we wanted to do. it was also disruptive for individuals who serve their country loyally, often in combat for 30-odd years or more, and don't expect to be treated this way by the u.s. congress. it was very bad for morale, and we have a powerful, strong group of people, and senior leaders i'm very pleased to have on my team to work with, and they absorbed it and we move forward, but it was very debilitating. >> one of the things that senator tuberville said was that the united states military is already top-heavy.

there are too many generals and admirals and people at the top. also, you've heard these accusations from some politicians saying the military has gone woke and they're focused on the wrong things. what's your response to that? >> let me talk about the world thing first. i think that's ridiculous. i don't know exactly what's meant by that accusation. i think it has to do with the fact that we have diverse teams and we want those teams to be as capable as possible and we need our leaders to be able to lead and have effective teams given the diversity of the united states of america. that's fine. there's nothing wrong with us doing that, and a small amount of our training is designed to prepare our leaders to lead teams where everybody isn't from the same kind of background or experience. the military is not top-heavy. congress constrains the number of general officers that we have, and basically our structure is reasonable. congress can intervene, and they can reduce those numbers and we react to that. i don't think we're top-heavy.

the people we need in the air force and the space force have real responsibilities with their rank and they're doing very serious jobs for the country and doing them very well, and i think we've got the kind of team that we need. >> well, i would say all of us, but most of us are quite grateful for the work you do and for all the men and women of our armed services in the united states of america. secretary of the united states air force, frank kendall, thank you for being here. we appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> mika? all right. we have this news now. ukraine and russia yesterday carried out the largest prisoner swap of the war. since it began nearly two years ago, about 500 prisoners of war were returned across battle lines. ukraine got back 230 soldiers while russia received 248 of its troops. neither number has been independently verified. russian and ukrainian officials say the united arab emirates

helped mediate the negotiations. we'll be following that. and we're getting new details this morning about what might have caused that fiery plane collision in tokyo. this as japan deals with a rising death toll from the devastating earthquake. nbc news foreign correspondent janis mackey frayer has more. >> reporter: new clues in the investigation into the fiery crash at tokyo's haneda airport. air traffic control introductions just before the collision appear to confirm that japan airlines flight 516 was cleared to land and approached runway 34 right. the smaller japan coast guard aircraft had permission to taxi, but not to take off. the coast guard acknowledging that call from the tower in its last transmission before the crash, and a flight operations document shows that the red stoplights meant to alert pilots not to taxi onto the runway where the crash occurred were out of service at the time.

people inside the airbus a-350 felt the impact. >> you felt the aircraft was not in a normal position. it was, like, bending on the front. >> reporter: all 379 passengers and crew safely evacuating the burning aircraft in less than 90 seconds. it's a tragedy for japan's coast guard. five of six crew members killed in the collision. the plane, part of the effort to get supplies to japan's western coast, devastated by earthquakes on new year's day. government officials confirming at least 73 people have died. japan's prime minister saying, we are at a crucial stage. >> that's nbc's janice mackey frayer. still ahead, donald trump appeals to the supreme court to overturn colorado's decision to remove him from that state's republican primary ballot. we'll get legal analysis on what comes next. also ahead, a voter in iowa

accuses ron desantis of going soft on trump. we'll show you how the florida governor responded. plus, we'll get a live report from des moines as gop candidates make a final push ahead of the first in the nation caucuses. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪♪

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good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, january 4th. we have a lot to get to this morning, including donald trump formally taking his fight to remain on colorado's ballot to the supreme court. we'll tell you what his lawyers are arguing and why the former president is concerned about how the justices may rule. plus, back in 2020, donald trump hired an expert to prove election fraud. instead, that person found the 2020 election was not stolen. we're going to speak with that

expert about what his data firm actually uncovered. also ahead, we'll dig into the new ultimatum from house republicans following their visit to the southern border. do they really want a deal? do they want a deal? along with willie and me, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire, and msnbc host jen psaki. she's a former white house press secretary. good to have you all on board this morning. willie? >> let's start in colorado. former president trump's legal team has formally petitioned the supreme court to overturn last month's colorado supreme court ruling that trump engaged in an insurrection on january 6th and therefore is barred from the state primary ballot by the 14th amendment. the colorado republican party already had appealed the decision, and because of a stay on the ruling, trump's name will appear on the ballot until the u.s. supreme court takes action. trump's lawyers argue the 14th

amendment statute does not apply to the presidency, slammed the ruling that, quote, if allowed to stand, he said, will mark the first time in the history of the united states the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major party presidential candidate, end quote. in a separate statement, the trump campaign wrote, democrats are obsessively violating the american voters' constitutional right to vote for the candidate of their choice. this is un-american, unconstitutional act of election interference which cannot stand. that's from the trump campaign. the supreme court still has not announced whether it will accept the case. joining us is george conway and andrew weissmann. he's co-host of the msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump." good morning to you both. andrew, let me start with you. this appeal up to the supreme court, where does this go from here? do you suspect the supreme court will hear any of this? >> i do think that they will take this. i think it's one where the

government is not going to oppose and it's going to think that it's appropriate as we know. there's another case in maine that will bubble up as well. so this is one where if you are not going to have a patchwork of decisions within the states with no supreme court guidance, i see the supreme court taking it. you know, this is one where donald trump actually has a fairly good chance, i think, of prevailing, but you wouldn't know it from the brief that he filed which is much more of a political statement. i mean, you would think that a brief like this filed by the former president would start with the point that he did not engage in insurrection. that's not his lead argument. you would think that would be something you would want to declare loud and clear. that's not where we are as a country. that's sort of buried in his papers as almost a throwaway argument because, in fact, there's so much evidence that he

did. instead, he leads with the argument that you quoted which is that you would disenfranchise so many voters in the colorado case, over a million voters in the republican primary which is of course, a very ironic argument for him to be making given that he is currently criminally charged with attempting to disenfranchise 80 million people who voted for joe biden. so that's -- the irony is, i think, not going to be lost on a lot of people in the supreme court. >> so while former president trump presents confidence in public that he will prevail against the cases challenging his eligibility to be on the ballot in those two states, privately new reporting says he's worried that the supreme court he stacked with conservatives will not rule in his favor. the high court has ruled against him several times in high-profile cases including when trump tried to stop

congress from obtaining his tax returns and when trump wanted a special master to review the classified documents seized from mar-a-lago. trump lawyer alina haba acknowledged the former president's concerns in an interview yesterday. >> that's a concern that he's voiced to me. he's voiced to everybody publicly and not privately, and i can tell you his concern is a valid one, you know, republicans are conservative. they get nervous. they unfortunately are known to shy away from pro-trump because they feel even if the law is on our side, they may appear to be swayed much like the democratic side would do, right? so they're trying so hard to look neutral, that sometimes they make the wrong call, and i just encourage them to really look at the law and the constitution. >> george conway, so let's -- from former president trump's point of view, what is worrying

about this? to andrew weissmann's point, his lead argument is more of a campaign, you know, argument, a campaign slogan that he's used for anything that comes his way that he doesn't like, and it's not actually countering the eligibility question, the issue of engaging in insurrection which doesn't mean a crime has to be committed and a conviction has to happen, just whether or not he engaged in insurrection and whether or not he is eligible. >> yeah. i mean, this is a bizarre document, and i think it reflects -- i think it reflects the weakness of trump's position, actually. now let me explain why. when you -- if you took out a seminar on appellate advocacy, the first thing they tell you is you have to focus in appellate court on any level, sometimes two, three, four key issues the ones that you think are the weak spots in the decision that you are challenging, and that's --

on steroids when you go up to the supreme court of the united states and file a petition because there -- the supreme court doesn't take whole cases where chief justice marshal can look at everything in the case. they look at discreet issues and choose those issues on the basis of their importance. here what trump did, on page -- on the front inside cover, you're required to put the question presented and it's this blunder bust. did the supreme court of colorado err in ordering donald trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot? he's throwing stuff up in the wall or the zoo cage and seeing what will stick. so what this reflects, i think, is three things, the third of which is the most important. the first is i don't know that he has real appellate advocates here of the sort that if i were

a former president and a billionaire, i want to have. mark meadows the other day hired one of the best advocatesadvoca clements. trump can't do that because people can't work -- people don't want to work for him. the second is i think this question reflects, you know, they're channeling trump's narcissism. poor me. i was screwed by many which ways, and the third is the fundamental weakness of his position. the fifth point in this brief, point five, roman numeral v, is he didn't engage in insurrection. it's not number one, and the reason is because it's his arguments are very, very weak. if you look at the question of in terms of, did -- should president trump be removed from the ballot, it's kind of a shocking notion to those of us who haven't lived in an era -- haven't lived until now in an era where public officials engage in insurrection, but it was familiar to the people who enacted the 14th amendment, and

when you go through the issues one by one by one, the way lawyers are supposed to, his case looks terrible. >> so jen psaki, at the same time, the woe is me works for trump supporters. >> yeah. >> it's just another reason why they're coming after him, and they don't want to take the time for the details because they're -- they believe in him, and he has them in this -- some call it a cult, but some truly believe that, you know, joe biden is the end of the world and donald trump is a victim. so i don't know what the white house does with this besides watch it play out, but this one is really interesting because instead of going after trump dead on, you committed a crime. here are the five crimes you committed. here are the ten crimes you committed, they're going after eligibility. >> yeah. >> just like someone who's to too young to run for president or someone who wasn't born in this country can't run for president. >> that's right, mika.

it's such an interesting case, and as george just said, i mean, we're not familiar with a president who has been part of an insurrection because this is an unprecedented moment. that's why these are unprecedented potential actions which is so important for people to remember. if you are sitting in the white house right now, and you're watching this, you watch it. you don't do anything publicly. they're focused on the speech the president is going to give on friday and laying out the contrast on democracy and somebody's going to stand up for democracy and somebody who is not. you don't engage in this publicly, but what this does do for the campaign, without them engaging in it is it reminds people of trump's role in the insurrection, and one of the challenges you have, if you are sitting in the biden campaign right now is people haven't tuned into the legal cases entirely yet, right? they haven't focused on it, so yes. he's using this. his campaign and trump are using this effectively in the republican primary to excite people, but we're about to move to the general election, and the more people are reminded of

trump's engagement in an insurrection, of the battle against democracy he has had, that is better for the biden campaign, but if you are sitting in the white house, you do nothing. you watch it. you focus on the speech. i did have a question, mika, for andrew. >> yeah. >> for people who are tuning in, they're, you know, trying to have kale salad after their christmas cookies or whatever it may be. a lot of people are wondering -- friends of mine at least, what happens now, right? it feels like there's been a lot of action by the supreme court. you just said earlier that you don't think they'll rule in -- trump is probably in a good place. i don't want to put words in your mouth, but what happens now? what's the timeline of this? what should everybody be watching? >> well, there are sort of two really important cases that are sort of winding their way up to the supreme court. we don't know yet whether the supreme court will take either of them. one is this disqualification issue. it's coming to the fore in

colorado. it soon may be joined by a decision from maine. so that's sort of one side, and i do think the supreme court will take it, and if they don't actually need to rule sort of super quickly because right now the colorado decision is stayed pending their decision, but i do think that they will take it and that in relatively short order -- of course, i'm a lawyer and everyone always thinks it's going to be days, but no. it'll be weeks at the earliest, but that's one case. the other case has to do with donald trump saying that he has absolute immunity in connection with his criminal case in washington, d.c. >> right. >> that is going to be argued this coming tuesday, and that also may go to the supreme court. there i do not think that donald trump has a good shot. that is definitely a long shot for him to say that as a former president, he could not be

charged criminally, but those are the two cases to keep an eye on. >> so andrew, do you think -- is it your assessment that the supreme court wants to deal with this massive question which in some ways, if you think about it, could dwarf 2000, of whether or not states can pull donald trump off of the ballot? would they rather have the states decide this, or is there any chance they can kick it back to the states? >> the answer of whether they would like to, i'm sure that chief justice roberts is not sitting there going, i can't wait, but the court at the center of this in two cases. he can, however, if he is going to take both, there is a way to sort of split the baby and for the court to look like it's being even-handed by denying one and granting the other, but i do think this is one where they, i think, will take one of them, and the immunity -- that's the disqualification issue. the immunity issue is one where

i think everyone thinks, and i think as well, that the d.c. circuit is going to rule against donald trump. it's a strange argument he is making. that's one you can imagine the supreme court saying, you know what? we'll stay out of that even though no supreme court case has directly ruled on the issue. there may be a reason there that they say, you know what? we do not need to be at the center of this. they have so many other controversial cases that came up last year and that are coming up this year that they may be very much thinking about just, you know, keeping some reputation intact and not in tatters, but it remains to be seen obviously. >> the stakes couldn't be higher. nbc news legal analyst andrew weissmann. we appreciate it. john, as you said, the speech at valley ford moved from saturday to friday because of weather up in the philadelphia area. clearly though a sign the speech as we turn the new year and into

the campaign year, that the biden campaign is leaning into this question of democracy, of january 6th, of the integrity of elections, of who we are. >> yeah. to jen's point earlier, they're not going to touch the legal stuff. they're not going to weigh in on the supreme court matter. as we know, they haven't talked about the criminal cases either, and they're not banking on one of these trials happening in time for voters to get a conviction or an acquittal before election day, but they are focusing on laying out the stakes of this election, and per the president and his team, they simply couldn't be higher, and his speech will no longer be on the anniversary of january 6th because of the snowstorm that might be coming to the northeast. they moved it up a day. it will be tomorrow. valley forge was george washington's headquarters for the continental army during the revolutionary war, and this will be at independence hall in

philadelphia. they're talking about the growing sense that the nation's democracy is fragile and that things could change if donald trump and his supporters were to win again. in fact, i've got reporting that president biden met with a series of historians yesterday, including a couple of names familiar to the viewers of this show, and those historians talked to him about the need to urgently call out this moment. he had a meeting like this once before last year ahead of that philadelphia speech on democracy, and again, he's returning to those themes saying that we need to stand -- the nation needs to stand for its democracy and it's more important than ever. that is an animated principle of the biden 2024 campaign, and he'll hit on it monday when he goes to south carolina and speaks at the church in charleston that was the site of a racist mass shooting some years ago. so expect this again to be a familiar refrain from this president as this election is about to begin in earnest. the iowa caucus is less than two weeks away.

nbc's vaughn hillyard joins us straight ahead on "morning joe." s straight ahead on "morning joe."

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with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. welcome back. we continue our conversation on the legal challenges against former president donald trump, and i have a question for george conway, just listening to the entire first block of the show. now this latest now with trump appeal in colorado, and when you look at maine, you look at colorado. you look at the documents case. you look at georgia. you look at election interference. you look at the civil fraud suit in new york city. you look at e. jean carroll. you look at stormy daniels. i can't think of someone who has more legal challenges facing him. i don't know how many lawyers he has or can get, but chris christie has always said,

george, on this show that he's staying in the race even if he's not qualifying for the iowa debate stage. he's staying in the race because one of these legal cases, if not multiple, will catch up with him. is that true in terms of the timing of all of these cases? >> well, in terms of the criminal cases, i think he's always had this fear of being prosecuted. i mean, one of the things -- i didn't realize it at the time, but i flew down to washington on a plane with him before the inauguration, and he asked me, should he fire the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york? you know, this is a man -- i didn't realize it then, but he had to be thinking of him not wanting to be investigated, and maggie haberman of "the new york times" said a couple of times in 2020 that one of the reasons why trump was running was to avoid prosecution because you can't prosecute a sitting president. >> right. >> this he has to run here, and it's a get out of jail card if

he's elected. it would be constitutionally impossible. >> you're saying he could beat the clock. >> no. i don't think he's going to beat the clock. i think that this case here in the district of columbia, the january 6th case before chutkan is going to be tried this summer at the latest. >> mm-hmm. >> and i think he's not going to beat the clock, but he is running for his freedom. i mean, he's a man who's probably in my estimation, going to spend the rest of his life in a federal or state prison. >> so donald trump as we know -- >> and should. >> was told again and again that the 2020 election was not stolen. back in 2020, ken block and his simpatico software systems were looked at. he said, trump paid me to find voter fraud, and the election was not stole. this book title "disproven" will

be released in march. ken, thank you for joining us. i want to read a bit of your piece in which you write, quote, we vote anonymously with good reason. no candidate can credibly claim that a fraudulent vote was credited to their opponent unless the person who cast that vote tells us. this means a candidate trying to use voter fraud as the reason to change an election result cannot show that the fraudulent votes caused their election loss. there is no doubt that voter fraud can animate people, but it is one thing to provide a rallying point for supporters and quite another to drag our election infrastructure and legal system into a foundationless set of false claims. so ken, let's go back to the days just after november of 2020, after the election, and explain for ours viewers if you could the circumstances under which you were hired, by whom, and ultimately what you found in your investigation. >> absolutely, and good morning. i was hired by lawyers attached to the trump campaign initially

to look for voter fraud on behalf of the campaign. what many people don't know is that there were more than one camp of lawyers attached to the campaign. i was reporting to a fairly careful group of lawyers who wanted to conduct proper due diligence ahead of filing any court cases, and my job initially was to look for voter fraud, look for deceased voters, look for duplicate voters, that sort of things, and my mission changed over time because they realized that i had a lot of capabilities i could bring to the table, and they started running a whole bunch of claims that others brought to the attention of the campaign, and they asked me to determine whether or not those claims were true, and every single claim that i looked at, i was able to prove that they were false claims and not true. >> and so we're talking about dead voters was one thing. mail-in ballots was something that donald trump was crying about right after the election. he didn't like that system all

of a sudden. what were the specific claims the lawyers were making that you chased down? >> well, there were about 15 of them. we're a little bit of head of where the book comes out. so i'm going to hold those back a little bit, but i can tell thaw some of the claims were really bonkers. they were wild claims. they were easy to prove that they were true -- that they were false, and there were other claims that relied on complex mathematical theories that took a little bit longer to figure out, but i was able in every circumstance to show the people that brought these claims forward that they just didn't -- they didn't apply and they weren't true. >> so ken, i'm assuming that your company when they take on a client, they do work for them. that is to stay private. that's part of the deal probably, and part of making sure that you remain respected in the field. so i guess my question is, what prompted you to completely unearth everything that you did

for the former president? >> yeah. when i realized that the totality of my work was going to become public no matter what -- >> uh-huh. >> -- the work -- i was disposed to the january 6th committee that i had done the work. i had been subpoenaed by jack smith and fani willis in fulton county, georgia, and i don't have an nda attached to any of the work that i did which makes it possible for me to freely talk about my work now. >> so ken, we are obviously now in an election year again. so just as someone who's an expert on these matters, talk to the viewers here about the sense of confidence they should have that their votes this coming fall will be counted freely and fairly, and that there wouldn't be much in the way of fraud or do you think there's reason to worry? >> it's a complicated question. we have an imperfect election infrastructure. it can be improved in a great

many ways, but the necessary improvements that we need to make are not responsible from anything that i've seen so far, for massive fraud that can change the outcome of an election. so it's a nuanced answer that i give you, and what i ask everybody who's paying attention and has worries or believes that the election was stolen, is you have to take a step back, and you have to rely on facts and you can't convict somebody based on hearsay. you can't change the course of an election because you think something bad might have happened. you have to be able to have ironclad proof that it has happened, and that proof is utterly lacking attached to the 2020 election. >> is it fair to say that the summer of your findings was clear to the trump campaign's lawyers and that donald trump himself knew based on your findings that the 2020 election was not stolen?

>> i communicated my findings, all of them, to the lawyer that i reported to at the trump campaign. that lawyer told the january 6th committee that he took the totality of my findings to mark meadows, communicated to mark meadows. he accepted the findings as true, and in response to those findings said, i guess there's no there there, and he was referring to the florida fraud claims. mark meadows, it was reported in the last couple of months back in april or may of last year, took those findings to the oval office. so i believe that, yes. my findings were communicated to the oval office. they had to have known because mark meadows certainly knew. >> and yet mark meadows went along for the ride as well. we should point out that ken's findings have also been subpoenaed by jack smith and fani willis down in fulton county. fascinating stuff. we'll look for your book on sale in march. it's titled "disproven: my

unbiased search for voter fraud during the trump campaign". data that shows why he lost and how we can improve our elections. ken, thanks so much. mika? for sure. republican majority whip tom emmer endorsed president trump for president eeb after donald trump torpedoed his run. he wrote, quote, it's time to unite behind our clear front-runner. when the whip threw his hat into the ring to become the house speaker, trump wrote on social media, quote, voting for a globalist rhino like tom emmer would be a tragic mistake. trump's problem with emmer was because he voted in 2020 to certify joe biden's election win, something none of the other current members of house republican leadership did. among them is majority leader steve scalise who also endorsed

trump's 2024 campaign this week. like he did with emmer, trump derailed his leadership bid in october suggesting scalise was too sick to hold the position after being diagnosed with cancer months before. george conway, i'll tell you what's sick. i mean, yeah. these guys will put up with anything, and unfortunately it's the american voters i think who ultimately lose. >> yeah. it just -- i never cease to be amazed at how willing these people are to sacrifice their honor and their dignity to worship this man to keep, you know, a job. i'm -- don't these people have anything else to do with their lives? it's just crazy that you would -- i mean, it's not worth being a member of congress if you have to kowtow to a psychopath like this, but here we are, and that's essentially

the state of the republican party where, you know, people are afraid. i mean, like, desantis the other day, you know, chastising a voter who said, why don't you go after trump? it's just -- it's just shameless pandering to people who have been greatly misled. >> yeah. jen psaki, we have had this conversation with joe on the show many times. >> mm-hmm. >> at what point does personal pride enter the equation? how badly do you need the job? as claire mcgaskill has made the point, it's not that bad out here. there seems to be almost nothing they wouldn't do for donald trump. >> i mean, willie, it's a big world out there. as george just said, there's a lot of different things these people can do, and as he also just said, they basically look pathetic. >> yeah. >> i mean, they're putting -- they're embarrassed. their dignity is, you know,

being questioned here for good reason, and they did -- at a moment, they did the right thing, and then they showed they had no spine because they're so desperate to stay in congress. is it that great? i mean, this is -- it's sad and pathetic, and it's an addiction to donald trump by the core of the republican party, including people who at moments we have all applauded for standing up to it and they just couldn't stay firm. >> right. >> that's what's sad. >> and this is the latest example of how we are just a couple of days away from the third anniversary of the january 6th insurrection. >> right. >> and donald trump is more powerful now over the republican party than he was then. he has an ironclad grip over the gop. >> yeah. >> that yes, i know there's a little momentum for nikki haley, but most believe the republican nomination process is over, that donald trump will be the nominee. these criminal indictments have not hurt him within his own party. the general election, that's a different story, but in terms of

within the republican party, trump is the dominant figure, and those few lonely voices, mika, who have been standing up to him, they're all but gone at this point. liz cheney got routed last year, and mitch mcconnell is a diminished figure. there's just no -- very few voices of any stature al autowho dare to stand up to trump. coming up, a live report from the southern border where a group of house republicans is looking to turn up the pressure on president biden. a recap of their trip to texas yesterday, and how the white house is responding. "morning joe" is back in a moment. responding. "morning joe" is back in a moment

welcome back. the leader of hezbollah is pledging revenge for the death of a top hamas leader in beirut. the man was killed in a strike on tuesday. several american officials believe israel is responsible,

but israel has not confirmed or denied that claim. the head of israel's intelligence agency vowed yesterday to hunt down every hamas member involved in the october 7th attack, no matter where they are. while israel and hezbollah have been exchanging fire since the war in gaza began, this was the first time an attack was launched in beirut. the move is now raising fears a second warfront may open up on israel's northern border with lebanon. a senior u.s. official tells "the new york times" this will also likely set back talks to reach another hostage release deal and temporary ceasefire in gaza. joining us now from tel aviv for more on all of this, nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez. >> reporter: mika, good morning. israel's military says they are at peak readiness along the lebanese border, an expectation that there will be some form of

retaliation to that israeli assassination of the senior hamas leader in beirut. we have already seen fighting across that border since that drone strike. just in the last hour, the israelis say there have been a number of rockets launched from lebanon into northern israel. they say they've responded with air strikes and with mortar fire, and yesterday, mika, nine hezbollah fighters were killed by israeli fighters according to the group. that is the most significant casualty hezbollah has suffered since october 7th. so this is a sign of how serious the friction is right now across that border, but the expectation here in israel is there may be more to come because as you said, that drone strike was not on the border in southern lebanon. it was in beirut in the lebanese capital. that's something the leader of

hezbollah has said would be a redline for him, and at what scale does hezbollah respond? the u.s. is saying it does not assess that either hezbollah or israel wants a full-scale war, but that doesn't mean there might not be one, that one of the two sides could miscalculate, could edge into full-blown conflict. the u.s. has said since october 7th, since the hamas terror attack, it does not want to see the war in gaza spreading across the region, especially to lebanon. today a senior u.s. official amos hawkstein who is president biden's troubleshooter when it comes to israel and lebanon is here in tel aviv and an israeli official tells me he will meet israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu later today to discuss the situation on the lebanese border. his trip is coming just ahead of secretary blinken's visit to the middle east. the secretary is leaving washington later tonight. he's heading to a region, mika,

that is just on edge in almost every direction, from yemen to iraq, to gaza to lebanon, but all of it made more complicated by the fact that iran's leadership is reeling from that major explosion yesterday on the fourth anniversary of the killing of kasam sulamani. 84 people killed in those twin blasts according to the iranian government. that is one of the deadliest attacks iran has suffered since 1997. >> -- 1979. >> oh my. >> at this moment, israel is not commenting. >> a lot of moving parts. raf sanchez, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. coming up, will the supreme court hand donald trump a political lifeline? the latest on the ex-president's appeals to keep his name on the ballot in colorado and beyond. that conversation is just ahead on "morning joe." that conversation is just ahead on "morning joe.

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the biden/harris campaign out this morning with its first ad of the new year about the ongoing threat to american democracy. it comes ahead of a major speech set to be delivered by the president tomorrow nearly three years after the january 6th attack on the capital. here now an exclusive look at that ad. ♪♪ >> i've made the preservation of american democracy a central issue of my campaign. and have the right to vote fairly and have your vote counted. there's something dangerous happening in america. there's an extremism movement

that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. all of us are being asked right now, what will we do to maintain our democracy? history's watching. the world is watching. most important, our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible. the vice president and i have supported voting rights since day one of this administration and i ask every american to join me in this cause. america's still a place of possibilities, where the power presides with we the people. that's our soul. we are the united states of america. there is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> political ad from the biden/harris campaign. joining us is wes moore. he's been with the biden/harris campaign's national advisory board. great to see you. happy new year. >> appreciate it. happy new year. >> let's talk about the context

around it. the president will go out and tout what he believes is a strong economy, that the numbers we've seen will continue into the new year. on the other hand, as we just saw if that ad, setting the stakes for this election in broader terms around democracy. >> that's right, and i think one thing we're seeing is the stakes of this election are important on the line, but also the frame and what people are going to hear for the next ten months because we're going to watch donald trump who's going to spend the next ten months fighting for his freedom and fighting for his future, but one thing we're not going to hear over the next ten months is him fighting for any of ours. you know,this. having the president going to valley forge, my old stomping grounds when i got sent to military school when i was 13 years old, and also being here in annapolis where george washington resigned his

commission, the power belongs to the people. so the president is setting the stakes and really hoping to set the platform for what people are going to hear. from him, it's a vision for their future. from donald trump, they're going to hear a vision for his future. that's the difference. >> governor, let me ask you then some of these numbers we've seen recently, knowing we are still aways out from democratic votes being cast, about the coalition, the way young voters, black voters are feeling. there was a suffolk university poll a couple days ago that show donald trump for now leading among latino voters. that's a group of voters that joe biden won by more than 30 points in 2020. black voters, joe biden's support eroding there, though not going to donald trump, but perhaps some voters looking at a

third-party candidate. and notably, young voters who seem to be fishing around looking for an alternative as well. how do you explain those trends? >> i know over the next ten months the president is going to be going around and making the case and continuing to work with all of us as surrogates to remind people what actually is happening. here in the state of maryland, the reason we've had so much momentum and the reason we have the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country, that we have made systemic impacts on being able to address the racial wealth gap, our ability to create a diverse administration, that's being done in partnership with the biden administration. that's being done because we're able to have not just resources and guidance, but a true sense of partnership with the federal government in order to make sure that all groups, to include african-americans and young voters and latino voters, are

not just being seen in this process, but are advancing at significant clips. we're going to show people that the actions we're seeing from the federal government and the biden administration are translating into the everyday lives of young voters who are watching everything from environmental protections that are being put forward in the strongest voice we've seen in many administrations historically, that we're watching abortion rights being protected across the country. in the state of maryland, we're going to have abortion rights on the ballot as part of our constitution in the next election. all of these things are happening in partnership with the biden administration, and we're going to continue making that case. >> governor moore, i wanted to raise because you're a very effective communicator and one of the frustrations the president had is he wants more democrats out there echoing his message. you're doing that now. the question i have for people

watching right now that are ready to roll up their sleeves for election year, what is the 30-second pitch for why jo biden is better? >> i want people to remember that we have a president who sees us. you know, i asked the jewish american to remember that we have a president who does not see good people on both sides when it comes to charlottesville. i want to remind immigrants to this country, people like my mom, who was an immigrant single mom who raised three kids on her own, that we have a president who's looking to support this country and believes in the future of this country and is not looking to tear it down. i want to say to the young voters out there that we have a president who understands that the future of our environment

matters and who understands that things like being able to address things like student loans and the cost of insulin for our seniors matters. we have a president who doesn't just see us, but a president who's fighting for us. the alternative is someone who's going to spend the next ten months fighting for his own future and his own freedom. the thing that makes me so excite to campaign for this president is not because i'm scared of the alternative, but because i know what he has gotten done on behalf of the american people. look at what we've gotten done just here in maryland in the first year. imagine if you could give me four more with this president. that's why i'm excited to get out there and do everything we can to make sure joe biden gets another four years. >> is there any question in your mind that the baltimore ravens are the best team in the nfl, or that lamar jackson is the mvp of

the nfl? >> i don't think there should be any question in anyone's mind. if you look at just what happened over the past couple weeks, the baltimore ravens just didn't just beat two of the best teams in the nfl in the dolphins and the 49ers, they dismantled both of them. this is the most complete team in football, the best defense and offense and special teams in football. until someone finds an answer for lamar jackson, there is no answer for lamar jackson. he is by far the league mvp. he's putting together a really special year and we're preparing to head to vegas some time in february for the super bowl. we're looking forward to it. >> i thought that question might fire you up, governor. since governor moore was sworn into offense, the orioles have the best record in the american league and the ravens have the best record in the nfl. >> i'm just saying. >> thank you.

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♪♪ live in los angeles, it is 6:00 on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." jonathan lemire and mike barnicle are back with willie and me. former president trump's legal team has officially petitioned the supreme court to overturn last month's colorado supreme court ruling that trump engaged in an insurrection on january 6th and, therefore, is barred from the state's primary ballot by the 14th amendment.

trump's lawyers argue the 14th amendment statute does not apply to the presidency, writing if the ruling is allowed to stand, it will, quote, mark the first time in the history of the united states the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major party presidential candidate. the supreme court has not announced whether it will accept the case. willie. >> former litigator, nbc legal analyst lisa rubin is with us. good to see you. president trump appealing to the united states supreme court. colorado supreme court has had its say, of course. will they hear this? >> my analysis of that today is maybe slightly different than it would have been a week or two ago. but now that maine's secretary of state has made her own decision to disqualify trump, i think you could see a cascading effect if the supreme court were not to intervene here, you could

see a very inconsistent pattern developing across the country. so i think the supreme court has no choice but to intervene here and will take the case. on what timetable is the big open question. >> some of these ballots have to be printed this week, like in a matter of days. without any ruling, donald trump would stay on the ballot. how fast can the supreme court handle this case? >> the supreme court is capable of handling cases with the utmost rapidity if it wants to. bush v gore is an example. they issued a written decision in only four days. when the supreme court wants to, it's capable of that. the question is, how can they put together a coalition here that sustains a ruling that most americans will accept?

that's the big question on chief justice roberts' mind this morning. >> isn't it obvious they have to make a ruling to prevent the chaos of various states just toppling one after another to remove him from the ballot of specific states and have the rest of the states? say ten states rule to get him off the ballot, that leaves 40 other states saying, no, no, he's going to be on our ballot. that'schaos. >> if the supreme court were to say that colora's supreme court was within its rights to hold that president trump could be disqualified, it doesn't necessaril flow that every state in the country has to make that same decision. ct, because that was a finding that combined factual findings about whether or not he engaged in insurrection, it's possible that the court could say the colorado supreme court was well within its rights to do what it did, but that doesn't mean we are necessarily saying

every other state has to reach the same determination, particularly when each state has its own set of laws that govern how they administer elections. i think you've got a ripe old mess here for the supreme court to deal with. perhaps the best way to deal with it is to hold that the colorado supreme court's decision has to be invalidated. there are a number of different off ramps that the supreme court could take to get to that conclusion. >> as you go into that chamber and say we are going to be the ones who potentially keep the leading candidate for the republican nominee off the ballot, feels like a big bridge to cross. >> i agree with you. i want to be clear. i'm not saying that i personally don't believe that donald trump engaged in insurrection behavior or participated or encouraged it. that's not what i'm saying. what i am saying is that i

believe this supreme court will not uphold the colorado supreme court in part because of the divisions in our country and because of the chaos that could ensue when you've got this checker board of states reaching different decisions about whether or not former president trump should remain on the ballot. i think they will choose some sort of legal option here, not necessarily that the 14th amendment doesn't apply to the president, but meaning it's not self-executing, meaning, it would have taken an act of congress to disqualify him from the ballot. that's my own personal interpretation of how the amendment should have worked. indeed, at the time in january of 2021 when congress was considering impeachment, that is an idea percolating through some of the same minds in congress that were considering impeachment, which is, how do we ensure that the 14th amendment comes to congress? >> does it apply to the

presidency? >> i believe that it does. in the fulton county rico case, the federal removal statute in essence applies only to federal officers. there was a point in time when former president trump notified the court that he was prepared to make that argument as well or at least would have joined in it. then he sort of reversed course, because he would have had to say he was a federal officer. he knew that if he said that in the context of removal, that it would be antithetical to the argument he would need to make in these 14th amendment cases. i believe president trump is aware that he likely qualifies as an officer within the meaning of the 14th amendment, but very deliberately took a strategy in the removal cases that wouldn't have undermined the contrary

argument we're dealing with in the 14th amendment cases now. >> there is a piece in the "new york times" entitled "the case for disqualifying donald trump is strong." quote, the trump movement commits threats, violence and lies, and then it tries to escape accountability for those acts through more threats, more violence and more lies. at the heart of the "but the consequences" argument against disqualification is a concession that if we hold trump accountable for his fomenting violence on january 6th, he might foment additional violence now. enough. it is time to apply the plain language of the constitution to trump's actions and remove him from the ballot without fear of the consequences. republics are not maintained by

cowardice. the pty of lincoln, as it was known, hpe save the union, and it washe party of lincoln that passed the 14th amendment and ratified it in state houses across the land. the wisdom of the old republican party should save us from the fecklessness and sedition of the new. jonathan lemire, i think the same theory can be applied to no man is above the law. i keep hearing people say, well, the supreme court doesn't want to put a hand on it. but, like, then who? >> it's a great point. there are political considerations here. i speak to democrats who are nervous about these efforts, because they do think it's going to give trump more fuel to his fire in his claims that the deep state is trying to keep him out of the white house. that's something they think will rally his base.

that does make some democrats nervous. however, the other side of the coin is what you just raised. what is the point of being a nation of laws if you don't enforce the laws? a president out of office needs to be held accountable. we are seeing that. he has now been indicted four different times. in this case, if he indeed is found to have incited insurrection, then maybe he shouldn't hold office and these efforts should go forward in these various states. i do think it's clear that the supreme court is going to have to weigh in one way or another, especially if more states opt for this route. >> yeah. just one quick tweak to what you said, he doesn't even need to have incited the insurrection. he needs to have participated in some way, shape or form. the evidence that's being presented is something that somebody has to make a decision on. it seems the supreme court might

be the place to go, or you're going to have states all over the country doing it one way or another. it's called the court system. it's called consequences. sometimes actually people have to look at consequences. for some reason, donald trump has skated consequences right, left and center. maybe this is where the buck stops. former litigator and msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin, thank you very much for your insight. a major campaign address from president biden slated to coincide with the third anniversary of the january 6th attack on the capitol, the insurrection, was pushed up by a day. the speech will now take place tomorrow on january 5th, due to a snowstorm expected to affect the philadelphia region on saturday. president will speak at montgomery county community college near valley forge. he's expected to lay out the risks a second trump presidency could pose to democracy.

joining us now, symone sanders townsend. it's great to have you on. who do you think the president needs to be speaking to beyond all americans, but appealing to when he makes his pitch to voters, to american citizens about the threat to democracy? i guess what i'm really asking you is, is there anything he can actually say that will sway people who are all in for trump no matter what he decides to do to the u.s. constitution? >> that's a good point. the people that are all in for donald trump, those are the maga base, if you will. those people are decidedly with donald trump, regardless of what he does. i don't think there's anything joe biden or any of the republican candidates in the presidential primary could do to speak to those people. that is, again, a small subset of the republican party electorate. i think that the president's

speech on friday is a speech that has a number of different audiences. first and foremost, obviously the folks that do feel as though or felt in 2020 that donald trump was a threat, so much so that they could not cast a ballot for him another time if they cast a ballot for him in 2016, maybe moderate republicans, for example. also, i think there is an audience for democrats here. i'm particularly thinking of black women and black voters and some of these suburban moms. we often think suburban moms is code for white women, but increasingly the suburbs are more diverse and they're younger. the oldest millennials are 40 years old. they have families and homes and they are concerned about their children who go to school doing not just fire drills but shooting drills. this is a topic that frankly is familiar to the president. remember, he started his first

campaign because of charlottesville. he said he's running to restore the soul of the nation. well, donald trump is a real existential threat to the very soul of this nation. in the same spot where joe biden and donald trump took their oath of office where they swore to protect and preserve the constitution of the united states, in that very same spot is where insurrectionists attempted to take over the u.s. capitol and disrupt the peaceful transition of power. >> do you think he should speak to and about trump directly, about the damage he has done and will do to our democracy and public discourse? >> yes. it's not enough just to talk about how bad donald trump is. i do think the biden campaign officials understand this point. they've been trying to walk a

fine line. you have to talk about and clearly identify the danger that is trump, but you will not scare the base of the democratic party to go to the polls. you also have to give people something to vote for. i think the biden administration has a good track record. it's just about how they talk about it. that needle is going to need to be threaded. it's not going to happen in one speech. this speech should be the jumping-off point for the company to go out in communities. days after the president visits valley forge, he's going to south carolina to the mother emanuel ame church, the place of a racist white supremacist shooting that killed the pastor and parishioners during bible study. that is a direct play the president is making and an appeal to black voters in america. the vice president will also be in south carolina this upcoming

weekend in advance of those remarks. it's early, but now is the time that people are looking, what is joe biden, kamala harris and this ticket going to offer. >> immigration will be a central issue in the campaign. we're following new developments along the southern border. the justice department is suing the state of texas over a law that would allow police to arrest migrants who enter the united states illegally, this as house speaker mike johnson yesterday led a group of fellow republican lawmakers on a visit to the border town of eagle pass, texas. that's where we find morgan chesky. what's the latest there? >> reporter: good morning. it is an uncharacteristically quiet morning here in eagle pass. hard to believe it was just a few weeks ago that we saw thousands of migrants waiting in this field behind me waiting to be processed by border patrol. this new year we have seen that

number drop off significantly, although no one is convinced this dip in migrant crossings will last forever. we did have a chance yesterday to take a tour of with one of the heaviest crossed areas of the rio grande with the texas tactical marine unit. there are about 90 members of this unit across the entire texas/mexico border. we were on one of their boats, able to go in shallow water where a lot of migrants have been recently crossing. you look at some of the areas, and it's absolutely clear that not hundreds but thousands of people have been crossing here. i want you to hear what one of those troopers told us about the past several weeks and months. >> what have you typically encountered on this stretch of the river? >> mostly family units, 20, 30 people crossing at a time. as you can see, there's a lot of clothes on the side. that tells you how many people cross at times.

people cross and change here because they're wet. mostly those are the things that we see. >> reporter: the trooper tells me there is not one person in that unit who has not personally rescued someone, a migrant from the rio grande. we were there yesterday as house speaker mike johnson stood on the shore banks and basically blamed the biden administration for this record influx, pointing to the fact that in december alone there were 300,000 crossings and on one day there was an all-time high. he says the president's inaction will only make this problem worse and that he could basically fix some of the issues that he undid upon taking office, but he refuses to do so. one thing i think was a poignant moment here is that as speaker johnson was addressing the crowd here, a migrant family crossed directly behind him, appeared to be a mother and a father, three young children, the father

carrying a little girl in pajamas, just going to show the extent of the issue here happening in eagle pass. >> harrowing scenes. morgan chesky along the border in eagle pass, texas, thank you so much. as you consider speaker johnson's plea to get something done, consider this. republican congressman troy nails of texas told cnn in an interview yesterday, quote, let me tell you, i'm not willing to do too damn much to help joe biden's approval rating. i will not help the democrats improve this n's dismal approval ratings. i'm not going to do it. why would i? talking about the potential deal on the border. you have it out loud. you have republicans in congress down at the border yesterday saying the biden administration needs to do something. we have these bipartisan conversations happening over in the senate. and when the biden administration proposes to do something, we hear the truth from some republicans, which is

that, yes, there is a crisis at the border and we've been saying something should happen and most people agree something should happen, but at the same time we don't want to give up this issue, give the president a potential win that would resolve the problem. >> those are the words that we should all gist repeat over and over again, because these are, in fact, the facts. i am struck by all of these mayors, frankly, across the country, the mayor of chicago, new york or mayors in suburban towns in new jersey who are having to take on this issue. the reason that the mayors are taking on the issue, the reason they're issuing edicts and decrees and making up this policy is because republicans in congress are playing political games with the american people. that is an objective fact at this point. speaker mike johnson told jake tapper yesterday that, no,

border patrol doesn't want more money. it's insane. it is absolutely insane. but this, frankly, is a conundrum. i think it is important that we as the media tell the truth about what's happening, but democrats have to not be afraid to go on offense on this particular issue. the president did send a $13.6 billion package request to congress for migration mitigation, border security, more judges to adjudicate cases. that is part of the issue that's happening at the border. all the people that are coming, there are not enough judges to adjudicate the cases, so they're just being held at the border. people don't want to leave home. most people are fleeing persecution, famine, dire economic situations. we have to work with our regional partners within

guatemala, mexico, el salvador to mitigate that travel, venezuela. that takes money and policy. these are just unserious people, as my mother would say. >> we're look forward to the brand new show "the weekend" cohosted by you symone sanders townsend. it premiers at 8:00 a.m. eastern on january 13th. congratulations. >> thank you. i'm so excited. i'll be calling you for all the tips to go to bed early. >> okay. sleep medicines. there you go. coming up, republican presidential candidates have 11 days left to win the support of iowa voters ahead of the first in the nation caucuses. we'll get a live report from the campaign trail in des moines. plus, the trump campaign did something yesterday for the very

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with just weeks to go until the new hampshire primary, the trump campaign is now going after gop rival nikki haley. in a new 30-second spot airing in new hampshire, the ad tries to connect haley's immigration position with these of president biden by arguing both opposed trump's border wall and trump's visitor ban from terrorist nations. this marks the first time trump's campaign has gone after haley in an effort to blunt her rising popularity as polls show her gaining on trump in new hampshire. meanwhile, we are just 11 days away from the iowa caucuses. joining us from des moines, van

hilliard. how are things playing out there? >> reporter: it feels sort of like what it felt like a year ago when we were standing out here in the cold. not much has changed. i was with ron desantis yesterday in a suburb outside of des moines. there were about 60 folks in the crowd. garnered a bigger crowd in sioux city when she was campaigning for donald trump. new hampshire has a history of correcting iowa's decisions, in her words. it's always from the voters, including those who want someone other than former president trump to win this caucus. listen to this exchange with ron desantis yesterday at a town hall and my conversation with that voter after. >> can i be honest with you?

>> sure. >> one, why haven't you gone directly after trump? polls are down. >> what do you mean by going directly after? >> i mean, in my viewpoint, you're going pretty soft on him. >> but what do you think -- i've articulated all the differences time and time again on the campaign trail. i know. i think there's just a narrative that what the media wants is they want republican candidates to kind of like smear him personally. that's just not how i roll. >> reporter: i went onto talk with that gentleman afterwards. he made it clear to me he was frustrated with desantis, because the example he used is, why was desantis not using the

incessant bashing of john mccain to knock down donald trump? why was he not drawing voters' attention to the fact that donald trump has a long history of objectifying women and in one instance calling one woman horse face. this is the frustration we're hearing from voters on the ground who want to see donald trump go down. desantis announced his candidacy a long time ago. there's just 12 days left. i met a republican voter who changed her voter registration to partake in the democratic caucus four years ago. i called her yesterday to check back in. she told me she plans to go and caucus on january 14th and change her party registration to republican again. i asked who is she looking at. she said she plans to caucus for asa hutchinson because she wants a normal conservative

republican. those are the exact types of voters that nikki haley and ron desantis need. there's little evidence that there is a surge of support among long time trump loyalists that are looking to defect. >> let's bring in patrick healey. great to see you. nikki haley is gaining ground in new hampshire. she still trails by a lot in most polls, but she's doing better. is there a scenario where she, quote, does it? >> probably not. we need to prepare people as much as possible for donald

trump's renomination. what we're looking at right now in iowa, i think, is some ambivalence among some iowa republicans about going with trump again, about seeing a guy who they really liked when he was in office. we did a focus group with iowa republicans last night. they said he just became deing deranged after he lost, january 6th, all that follows. yet, there's still that base of support that in a three or four-candidate race is very much going to stick with donald trump. and we may see a historic margin coming out of iowa. going into new hampshire, sure, nikki haley has some momentum. she has some strength in the polls. but at least at this point in terms of dynamics that we've all seen when john kerry surprised and toppled howard dean, when barack obama came up hard late against hillary clinton, we're not seeing that kind of energy

and surging among voters right now. anything could happen, but i think we need to be fully prepared for trump. >> as you write in the piece, there is the ron desantis of it all. he's put almost all of his eggs in the iowa basket. if he finished third behind trump and nikki haley in iowa, there will be questions about whether he should continue from there, allowing nikki haley a little more direct confrontation with trump in new hampshire. >> totally possible. a third-place finish would be a pretty big shock for ron desantis. the money could dry up quick. there will be calls for him to drop out. he spends so much time in iowa. he's put governor reynolds' credibility on the line, so you may see him fade quick. you also might see a surprise. in the focus group we did last night with iowa republicans, there is support for desantis certainly in iowa.

for voters who need another choice other than trump, desantis is kind of the traditional conservative who wears well for some of them. a lot of others are just, you know, sort of saying he hasn't sold me on it. the personality, some of the positions on abortion haven't done it. i think once we see that result in iowa, there will be a desire at least among some republicans for a really clean two-way fight between a trump and a haley if desantis underperforms. >> you've done the focus groups and reported on all of it in the "new york times." there's an old newspaper expression that one of the best stories is always located in the loser's.

i'm wondering what you see and what you think it portends for iowa and new hampshire later? >> he's a defensive guy. he started playing media critic with a voter, trying to correct a voter in iowa 12 days before the caucuses about how they feel about him. what some republican voters want from ron desantis is saying what trump did on january 6th makes him unelectable. desantis is trying to walk that fine line. there is that sense that this is not a happy warrior. this is not a comeback kid.

it's someone who's never lost anything before in terms of a big race. he went in with huge expectations. his poll numbers since may have only gone down. i think you're seeing that defensiveness that certainly people in florida have seen when desantis has had his back up against the wall. >> it feels like a lifetime ago, but he was leading the polls in the republican primary. ron desantis was beating donald trump in april and may of last year. >> desantis has gone down. haley has gone up. it's understandable that people ask could she actually do it, because she has defied some expectations. but you can't just win one state and have it all turn around. ask john kasich. it doesn't work that way against trump. >> patrick healey, great to see

you. coming up, cnbc's dom chu joins us. plus, how the national debt could weigh on the deadlines in washington. could weigh on the d washington new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

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20 minutes before the top of the hour. a live look at the golden gate bridge in san francisco. it's 6:40 in the morning on the west coast. new employment data released just moments ago shows the number of americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest total in nearly three months. private employers in the u.s. added far more jobs than

expected in december, racking up the largest increase in four months. let's bring in dom chu. what's the reason for this? >> we have a stronger economy overall, one that maybe is not teetering on the brink of recession just yet. this economic data is certainly being viewed as strong, at least in the eyes of the market. interest rates did move higher after the data was released. interest rate on government bonds moved to around 4% on the heels of those numbers. also, just to point out that data showing that fewer americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits, that number 202,000, like you said, less than the prior week, less than the consensus expectation forecast. on the adp front, 164,000 private sector jobs gained in december, much better than the november count of 101,000 and better than the expectation for 130,000 jobs.

as for where those job gains were, it was leisure and hospitality, construction, support services, financial jobs. there were losses in manufacturing, information services and mining. small businesses are those with fewer than 50 employees contributed to those jobs. america has hit a new milestone and not necessarily a positive one. the u.s. national debt just hit a record $34 trillion according to latest data from the treasury. the level of debt has become one of the biggest hot-button political issues of this economic and ection cycle. it could be a sticking point when it comes to any kind of bipartisan steal to be struck on things like averting future government shutdowns and budget legislation. increasing levels of debt, not necessarily a bad thing as long as the u.s. economy keeps getting bigger in a proportionate way. speaking of spending, one of the most high-profile pieces of

legislation sponsored by the biden administration is the chips act, which was passed by congress in the summer of 2022. that near $53 billion package meant to bolster u.s. manufacturing and research for computer chips has made a second preliminary grant. this time it's to microchip technologies for $162 million to ramp up semiconductor production at two u.s. facilities, one in colorado springs and one in oregon. the first one was $35 million to bae systems to help with chips used in aerospace and defense applications. a lot of headlines here, but certainly ones that are economically sensitive. a judge in las vegas was attacked yesterday by a defendant in a felony battery case during sentencing. that violent scene was caught on camera. take a look.

[indiscernible] >> i appreciate that, but i think it's time that he gets a taste of something else. i just can't with that history. [ bleep ]. >> whoa, whoa, whoa! >> that was clark county district judge falling out of her seat after the defendant leaped over a table and onto the judge's bench, landing on top of her. the defendant was eventually wrestled to the floor. the defendant faces new charges, including battery on a protected person, referring to the judge and court officers. according to court health officials, the judge suffered some injuries, but was not hospitalized. coming up, a new appeal for more government action to secure the release of hostages being

held by hamas. we'll show you a new national tv ad from the families of americans being held captive. "morning joe" will be right back. captive "morning joe" will be right back 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. sorry about the vase. can we just say vase like normal people? fine. i always wonder what it would be like to have a tail. maybe you did one time. maybe a thousand years from now, i'll be tailless using that chewy app to get you great prices on treats. i'm pretty sure it takes more than a thousand years ... vase ... pets aren't just pets. they're more. ... vase ... shop and get a $30 egift card through january 14th. at chewy.

welcome back. the families of american hostages being held captive in gaza have launched a new national tv ad calling on the government to do whatever it takes to bring them home. it features eight israeli americans, two of whom were murdered by hamas on october 7th, but whose bodies have not yet been returned. here's part of that ad. >> these same terrorists are holding americans hostage, retu. here's part of that ad. >> these same terrorists are holding americans hostage, sons, brothers, fathers, americans, brutalized, murdered. act now or more will die.

every second counts. do everything. bring them home now. >> earlier this week israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu met with families of some of the hostages and assured them that talks to strike a new release deal are underway, but some fear the killing of a hamas leader in beirut will stall negotiations. willie. >> as israel's war with hamas enters its third month, our next guest is writing about the emotional toll the news is having on just about everybody, professor of organizational psychology at the wharton school adam grant joins us now. he's a contributing opinion writer for "the new york times." his latest piece is titled "that numbness you're feeling? there's a word for it." . you write, quote, in mid-october a few days after the attack on israel, a friend sent me a text from a rabbi. she said she couldn't look away from the horror on the news but felt completely numb. she was struggling to feel even the tiniest bit useful.

what can i even do? many people are feeling similarly defeated. many others are outraged by the political inaction that ensues. a muslim colleague of mine said she was appled to see so much indifference to the atrocitynd innocent lives lost in gaza and israel. how could anyone just go on as if nothing had happened. the conclusion is that people just don't care. but inaction isn't always caused by apathy. it can also be a product of empathy, more specifically, it can be the result of what psychologists call empathetic distress. hurting for others while feeling unable to help. i think just about all of us have felt that to some tree. you do feel it when you're reading it and watching it and thinking about the people we saw in that ad, and then you sort of feel helpless in some ways. what's a good way to deal with all of that? >> well, willie, i think empathy is challening for a lot of people. what it leads you to do is feel other people's pain, when you're hurting and you have no way to help, the only thing you can do

really at that point is withdraw. over time that leads people to look disengaged. i think a better option is compassion, and a lot of people use compassion and empathy interchangeably, but they are not the same. whereas empathy is feeling somebody else's pain, compassion is seeing their pain and trying to figure out what you can do to support them. so instead of saying i feel for you, it's i'm here for you. >> let's revert back to empathy for a minute. years ago when -- i'd read a sad story in the newspaper about something that happened to somebody and you'd feel an immediate sense of empathy from some people, but after a while, after years of doing it, i came to the conclusion that empathy is a little like money in a savings account. we only have so much to withdraw, and what happens? do we ever get to a point -- this tremendously sad story about the hostages, do we ever get to a point where there is

nothing left in the tank, nothing left in the bank? >> i think it's happened to all of us, mike. i think empathy is in some ways a renewable resource. it can be drained very quickly, especially when it's coupled with that sense of helplessness, it seems like there's one massive problem in the world after another. at some point you just don't have the energy to care about every issue and every person that's suffering. that's where we need to turn and say, you know what, i can't absorb everybody else's emotions as my own. what i can do is figure out the people i know who need my support and try to show up for them. even if i can't make them feel better, i can at least make them feel seen. >> that feels on the local level. when it's something happening thousands of miles away and you hurt for all the people you see, you hurt for innocent civilians being killed. you hurt for israelis being attacked in their homes and beds on october 7th, you feel like i don't know who to help. it turns out here in the united states there are plenty of people who need your support, even if they weren't directly

impacted by what happened there. >> i think that's such a crucial point. there's a psychologist who writes about this idea of thinking about the circle of concern. there are people who are immediately affected, the direct victims, in israel and gaza but then there are also people who share their identities who have common memberships right here in the u.s. who are feeling that sense of threat, and so i think those are the people that we want to offer comfort to, who are often suffering in silence! when does helplessness turn into guilt? >> ooh, that's an interesting question. i think it often goes the other way. i think that people feel guilt and they want to act. they don't know what they can do. they feel like social media is a hornet's nest, you know, it's also just, you know, donating to charity is sort of a drop in the bucket. then they feel like they've failed to repair the wrongs that have been done and at that point they start to feel helpless. >> your small gesture of kindness won't end the crisis in the middle east, but it can

certainly help someone else. that's good advice not just for this story, "new york times" best selling author, organizational psychologist adam grant, always great to have you. adam's latest book titled hidden potential is available now and predictably excellent. thanks, adam. that does it for us this morning, we'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage after a quick final break. up the coverage after a quick final break. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great. i know, i've bee telling everyone. baby: liberty. oh! baby: liberty. how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪

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right now on msnbc, breaking news as court documents in the jeffrey epstein case are released to the public overnight. among them, hundreds of pages that include some big names from epstein's orbit in the years before his death. what's in those documents, and when could we see other pages still under se