thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this important tuesday morning, the morning after the iowa caucuses. we have complete coverage on "morning joe" which starts right now. we're going to make america great again. iowa, we love you. oh, you just go out and buy larger tractors and more land. don't worry about it. >> we thank you for your effort. we thank you for your support. you helped us get a ticket punched out of the hawkeye state. >> thank you, iowa. we're going to continue on. we're going to make you proud, and we're off to new hampshire. >> it was an easy win for donald trump in last night's iowa republican caucuses. the nbc news decision desk and multiple other news outlets were able to project him as the winner just 35 minutes after caucusing began in the frigid temperatures. trump ended up with 51% of the vote, winning 98 of the state's

99 counties, despite visiting only 15 of them. florida governor ron desantis came in a distant second, receiving 21% of support in the hawkeye state. 30 points behind trump and just 2 points ahead of former south carolina governor nikki haley. this year's republican caucuses had the lowest turnout since the year 2000, drawing around 108,000 voters. that's about 14% of the state's registered republicans. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 16th. how did the results reflect compared to the polls? >> i think there was a big winner, and i think there was a big loser. the big winner, of course, donald trump. he got over 50% of the vote. the big loser, of course, the republican party, who is strapped with a republican loser, a seven-time loser. the problem for republicans is they started in iowa.

this is just a perennial problem for the gop. it really, willie, is a problem that the democrats fixed, but you go back and look. who won in 2008? mike huckabee. was it -- >> yeah, huckabee, santorum. >> huckabee won in 2008. santorum won in 2012. ted cruz won in 2016. you go back to 1988, you have televangelist pat robertson beating the sitting vice president of the united states. george h.w. bush. i went back last night and looked at the news coverage. "l.a. times" quoted young george w. bush saying, "we got whipped." they did. but we're going to be reading a lot of exit polls. people will be saying, "oh, my

god." no doubt, the republican party nationwide is not the party of reagan anymore. not even close. not even the party of george w. bush. but this is a radical, in many ways, a radical electorate if y. again -- >> oh, the exit polls. >> again, they have set up, once again, donald trump, their weakness candidate, to go to the general election. a great night for donald trump given the fact that desantis wasn't pushed out of the race and haley wasn't pushed out of the race. so these two continue splitting the anti-trump vote in half, and donald trump loves that. >> you're exactly right. donald trump could not have asked for a better scenario than last night, for the obvious. he won by 30 points, which is where he was polling. as you say, the close race between ron desantis and nikki haley, separated by 1,400 votes, means that ron desantis is not going anywhere. he's not getting out of the

race. in fact, he'll go today to south carolina, signaling that new hampshire may be better off in new hampshire but he likes his chances in south carolina. we can debate that. the point being, donald trump still gets two people splitting that other never trump vote now for another month at least. as you also pointed to, joe, the radicalism of the party, and we'll look at this, but if you look at the entrance polling from nbc news and other outlets, republican voters from bought the big lie in overwhelmingly majorities. they believe that joe biden is not the legitimate president. that will persist, and that will stick to donald trump in a general election. a fascinating night to study the republican party problems ahead in a general, perhaps, if they stick with donald trump. let's go to steve kornacki. he is still, i think, from last night at the big board. he is the national political correspondent. steve, a big, big night for donald trump. >> yeah. i mean, look, a couple ways to look at this. first of all, the 51% he

finishes with. the previous record was 42%. you mentioned 2000, bush won iowa. trump ten points north of that. 30-points between trump and desantis. bob dole and robertson in 1988 was the previous record. this exceeds anything we've seen in an iowa caucus before. this is an interesting one. it is as close to donald trump for being a 99 county sweep of the state as you can get without actually getting a 99 county sweep. what i mean is look at the one county that is not trump's shade of red on here. it is johnson county where iowa city and the university of iowa are. look at the result. donald trump lost it to nikki haley by a single vote. donald trump literally came one single vote away from going 99 for 99 in iowa last night here. just in terms of why desantis

was able to edge out haley for second place, compared to trump, it's not really a strong or breakout showing for either one of them given the history we talked about, but why did desantis edge out second place? haley had, and we talked about this yesterday, the polls were suggesting this, haley had a coalition that was dependent on college educated, on independents, on non-republicans, on higher income voters. they're concentrated around the state capital, des moines, polk county, dallas county, johnson county, where nikki haley carried by a vote. those are the places, ames, iowa state university is. she did very well in a couple places there, maybe not quite as well as she wanted, but she was very competitive. where the floor well out for haley and where desantis ran up numbers on her, there's a lot of small, rural counties throughout the state that individually

don't add up to much in terms of the statewide vote but that collectively do. in those, i'll give you a couple of examples here. van buren county, very small. haley single digits, just 6% right there. take a look. wayne county, down by the missouri border. again, you don't see haley in the top four in this county. she finished behind ramaswamy. ringgold, haley single digits. desantis blown out by trump. there's not a ton of numbers in any county, but there's a bunch around the state. basically, one quarter of the counties in iowa last night, nikki haley finished in single digits in. there's only four where desantis finished in single digits. you know, the gains, the strengths that haley had in those areas of the state that are suburban, that are urban, that are metropolitan, the gains that haley made there were eventually offset by her failure to be competitive in parts of iowa that now are representative in many ways of the national republican party pace.

these are counties i'm showing you that are small, rural, where you don't have a high degree of -- consultation of college educated voters, much more working class, blue collar in nature. a lot of these voters have been swinging to the republican party for some time and accelerated when donald trump became the face of the republican party. nikki haley just doing pretty much nothing with them last night. it means for her going forward, look, new hampshire, it could be 45% of the electorate in new hampshire next week that is independent. you see that number in new hampshire regularly. you really don't see it almost anywhere else. nikki haley, what she showed last night, what she's showing in the polls, could be very competitive in new hampshire next week. the problem is what happens -- let's say she pulls off the upset. say she is john mccain in 2000. she doesn't do much in iowa. goes to new hampshire, she gets the big upset. where does she go from there? home state of south carolina, the demographics are very, very different than new hampshire. then a week after south carolina, you're into super tuesday. you're into a lot of states.

you have arkansas. you've got tennessee. you've got north carolina. you've got texas. you've got california where the rules have been changed in a way that make it very easy for donald trump to take all 169 delegates. those delegates can add up real fast for donald trump starting on super tuesday. the limitations you see here that i went through with haley on the coalition she put together in iowa last night, they'll not necessarily look large in new hampshire next week, but they'll be huge in the states that come later. >> steve, obviously, i want to stay with iowa, but, first, let's talk about what is ahead. new hampshire obviously ahead next week. if nikki haley wins there, then the space between the new hampshire primary and south carolina will be a month. where does she do next? she goes to south carolina. she has a month to campaign in her home state with donald trump. if she wins with donald trump a loser for a month, that will be

fascinating. we'll see what happens under those circumstances. but donald trump has problems in new hampshire regardless, doesn't he? even in the -- by the way, the trump argument, that, oh, you know, if nikki haley wins in new hampshire, she only wins because she gets independents in a swing state. not actually a really positive argument for the general election, which is independents in swing states hate me, so you can't really look at nikki haley beating me there. but all that being said, donald trump, even a head-to-head matchup in new hampshire with joe biden, it's one of the few states right now that biden continues to beat donald trump. >> yeah, new hampshire swung pretty dramatically from being one of the closest states in 2016 -- donald trump nearly won it -- to being decisively for

biden in 2020. it is interesting, though, the electability argument about nikki haley. again, i mentioned john mccain 2000. i think there's a lot of shades of george w. bush versus john mccain in 2000. >> yup. >> donald trump now versus nikki haley. one is exactly what you just talked about. john mccain won 18-point victory in new hampshire in 2000. nobody saw it coming. he became a political sensation overnight, and there were general election polls, famous one, cnn/"usa today" gallup poll, in that year in south carolina, mccain was 22 points ahead of gore in 2000. bush doing 13 points less. mccain said, it couldn't be more obvious, folks. i can reach out to independents and democrats. his famous line was, "i'll beat george w. bush like a drum." what undid john mccain in 2000, i think, is a big threat to nikki haley in the republican party in 2024. if you get the majority of your

votes from non-republicans, and that is what john mccain was doing back in 2000, core republican voters will look at you with suspicion. george w. bush in 2000 was able to make that race a loyalty test to republican voters. are you with the republican candidate, he'd say, or with the candidate of the mischievous democrats, of the media, of the non-republicans? donald trump, what he will be able to do, what he can do with haley, even with what we saw in iowa last night with her coalition, and if she wins new hampshire on the back of independents, he'll be able to make that loyalty argument. he'll make it more personal. more than three-quarters of haley's voters say they have a negative view of donald trump. we see in the trump era republican party, when a republican gets identified as being the face of anti-trump voters, anti-trump forces, anti-trump messages, republican voters who like donald trump, and they are still the vast majority of the republican party, they tend to turn on that

candidate. ask chris christie. he left the race with poisonous numbers with republican voters. ask mike pence, asa hutchinson. they're the only three candidates who had upside down numbers in terms of favorability with republican voters this past year. it had everything to do with being identified with the antagonism toward trump. if haley pulls off new hampshire, it is a difficult needle to thread. the lesson of the trump era is, when you're seen as the face of the non-republicans and the trump-resistant crowd, republicans turn on you and they turn on you hard. in fact, we're seeing in south carolina after new hampshire, haley is polling much worse in her home state of south carolina than in new hampshire. >> let's look at the entrance poll numbers i mentioned from nbc news, what they say about the electorate, at least in iowa. a majority of republican voters last night, well above 60%, believe the big lie. they believe that joe biden lost the election. also, 65%, 66% of voters say

that even if trump is convicted of the crimes he's facing now this year, 65% say he still is fit to be president. this party -- by the way, that's among all voters. with trump voters, those numbers go up even higher. they are bought his story and version of events inside the party. >> we've been seeing this a long time, willie. it is a story that is fundamental to donald trump's dominance that we saw last night and his dominance in the national polls right now. core republican voters see the legal situation around trump. i know there were all sorts of different areas here. i'll just say the legal situation to keep it simple. they see the legal situation as an attack, as a politically motivated attack on donald trump. you can make up your own mind whether that's fair or not, but look at this. i think this tells the story. this is the trend line of the national republican race from the very beginning of 2023 until we are this morning.

again, this is like it shall it -- it wasn't long ago, but in the early months of 2023 and the last month of 2022, december 2022, coming off the 2022 midterm where republicans underperformed, where the trump-aligned candidates lost key races that cost republicans the senate and major offices, trump was running -- this is the national average. desantis never caught him in the national average, but we'd see polls in january and february of 2022 that had desantis within ten points of trump. five polls i could find now had desantis ahead nationally of trump. the atmosphere was, republicans are moving on from trump. they're sick of the losing. they've had years of this act. they'll look for other options here. that's why so many candidates stepped forward. look where the lines diverge. look where the trump line takes off. look where the desantis line flat lines. nobody moved up. what week was that? that is literally the week that trump was indicted on the first of the charges in manhattan on

the stormy daniels matter. there was -- it is unquestionable when you look at these numbers and if you apply all the legal dates that popped up throughout the year to this, they triggered a rally around trump effect among core republicans. again, they clearly see this as politically motivated. they see this as trump's opponents using the legal system to go after him. they responded that way by rallying around him. you literally see it, the week of the first indictment. >> wow. >> that has been the story since. >> yup. >> all right. steve kornacki, pause right there. we'll be back in one minute with john heilemann live from iowa. ( bell ringing) customize and save with libberty bibberty. liberty bushumal. libtreally blubatoo. mark that one. that was nice! i think you're supposed to stand over there. oh am i? thank you. so, a couple more? we'll just...we'll rip. we'll go quick. libu smeebo. libu bribu. limu bibu...and me.

doug: he's an emu! only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ 17 past the hour. we're following donald trump's big win in iowa. let's bring in nbc news national

affairs analyst john heilemann in iowa, and the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. john heilemann, what are you seeing, especially in the exit polling? steve kornacki just drew a stark line showing the support for donald trump lining up with his indictments. >> first of all, mika, you guys talked about this earlier, the big winners and big losers here. big winner, obviously, donald trump here. you know, all the way to the afternoon yesterday, the trump campaign had been a little nervous over the course of the last few days leading spot caucuses. you know, they set expectations. they were going to clear 50%. late polling showed them not making the expectations. they started worrying about the weather. first-time caucus-goers, they were trying to get them out there. the attack on vivek ramaswamy was a sign they were worried they couldn't get over 50%, a

key indicator for them. they obviously got that done last night and surpassed their own expectations in some way internally. if they win, it's donald trump. the big loss is anyone hoping to stop donald trump from being the nominee. we were fixated on this, who is going to win second place? particularly, there was a chance if nikki haley won second clearly, desantis would have had to drop out. she would have had trump one-on-one, which everyone understands, like, if there is a way to beat trump, it is to get him one-on-one. now, we're not having him one our one. ron desantis and nikki haley will both argue they got the second ticket out of iowa. desantis, i came in second. haley says, i can win new hampshire. they got creamed. they lost by 30 plus points. no one here ever won an iowa caucus on the republican side by more than 12 until last night.

both candidates are weakened and hobbled. if you have to say who has the path, nikki haley claimed it was her. i think at some level, though it is illogical to say you came in third and you're the one with the ticket out of iowa, with the path, the truth is, as was pointed out on our air last night, in the races, you have to win something at some point. it's simple. forget what happens after new hampshire. the bottom line is, of nikki haley and ron desantis, the one who has a chance to win a primary in the foreseeable future is nikki haley. she doesn't have a great chance against donald trump, but she comes out of here with enough momentum and enough funds, enough dollars on hand that she can win. say what you want ab the new hampshire primary and how it is different from the rest of the republican electorate. it's true. but if you're going to beat donald trump, you have to beat him somewhere first. nikki haley has a chance to do that in new hampshire. i think that's the ultimate story here. again, what's after that is tomorrow's problem. right now, you have a new hampshire race coming up, and

nikki haley is the only person in the republican party right now who has a chance to win a race against donald trump. even though she finished in a disappointing fashion last night, she can make the argument, and i think it's right. >> right. you spent a lot of time in iowa, john, of course this past weekend, but you've been to iowa an awful lot the past 20 years. i'm curious, what was your takeaway this weekend on donald trump and his lasting power, and the republican party, not just in iowa, but how they represent larger forces as well as the movement? i think democrats who say, "we have a candidate. trump has a movement," they probably see that more in iowa and states like that than anywhere else. what was your takeaway this weekend? >> well, number one, and i know it's not always popular to speak well of donald trump, and i'm not going to speak well of

donald trump himself, but donald trump, if you remember, joe, 2016, the trump campaign was a joke. it was not a serious thing. you know, there's a lot of people who said if they'd had a reasonable campaign and operation, they should have won the race. they came into caucus night leading in the polls. ted cruz, better organized, better campaign, more harnessed the evangelical movement. ted cruz stole iowa from them. the difference to 2024 and 2016 on the trump campaign is night and day. the campaign itself is a professional operation. the story of trump being able to actually organize in the caucuses, something he didn't do in 2016, his ability to turn people out, his ability to dominate the evangelical vote, which he never did in 2016, those are signs that, not that trump is more popular or less toxic or he doesn't have the problems you point out all the time, we all point out he has in a general election, but the one advantage that he showed here that i think he is going to

carry forward is that he now has an actual professional campaign operation around him. the fact that they were able to get to 51, and the fact they did it on a night that was 5 below zero with a negative 30 wind chill. people were saying coming in last night that they were going to have a record low attendance. you'd be below 100,000. the previous low ever here was 89,000 or 98,000. i can't remember which. people thought they weren't going to make it last night. they made it over 100,000. the turnout was still low, but the trump people got their people out last night. that is a sign that this is a team that's more organized and professional. you're obviously right, this is a very -- it is not an outlier state exactly because the dynamics of this state are very similar across the south. the results trump racked up here, he'll be able to replicate across large swaths of the sunbelt and the deep south, large parts of the mountain west. iowa is definitely not a

reflection of the general election in america. it is not going to be a swing state in 2024. it's not going to be a georgia or michigan or wisconsin or arizona even, but in terms of the republican party, it is actually pretty representative of what gives trump so much strength going forward into the rest of this nomination fight. this state does look a lot like the stronghold that trump has, the bulwark he has against anybody, nikki haley, ron desantis, anybody else, this state is representative of the way in which trump has transformed the republican party into the maga party. >> one other note, vivek ramaswamy finished in fourth place, dropped out of the race, predictability endorsed donald trump. this was the outcome we predicted, in terms of the outcome and dominance of donald trump. maybe what wasn't exactly predicted was how close desantis and haley would be, leaving them both in the race to continue to split the vote in favor of

donald trump. >> that's the best possible outcome for donald trump. not only does he put up an impressive win. yes, all thecaveats heilemann mentioned, it is still a small turnout in a very, very white state that doesn't tell us much about november 2024, but it does tell us about the republican primary process. trump gets the win he wants. the ground game was impressive. desantis and haley can claim they're still alive. as long as they're out there splitting the vote, because new hampshire is so important. i think, clearly, haley has a shot to win new hampshire. i'm not saying a great shot but has a shot. even if desantis hangs around and puts up a 6, 7, 8, 10 points, if some went to haley, maybe that's the difference. ramaswamy on the margins, he wasn't putting up much in new hampshire, but if two, three, four points, they go to trump. if trump wins new hampshire by any margin, it'll be hard for haley. yes, she's heading into her home state, but she's down 30, 40

points in her home state. that'd be a difficult act to pull off. the difficult lesson, the most honest moment from desantis in his campaign was a few days ago, where he acknowledged the thing that changed the course of the race were the indictments. steve walked us through it on the board yesterday. that was the moment the republicans came home to trump. i think that the second guessing that desantis, and i'm sure the haley camp is having now, certainly the campaigns of mike pence and tim scott, there was a moment to go on the attack and they didn't. had they gone after trump at the beginning of the campaign, instead of being fearful of losing his support, maybe the trajectory of the race could have changed. but they held their fire. trump grew stronger. outside of chris christie who, of course, did attack him and had to drop out, they all largely kept their mouth shut and didn't go after trump. trump was able to dominate the field. we saw this resounding victory. let's be clear, long way to go, but it is his nomination to lose clearly. >> not only did they not go

after him, in many ways they defended him. >> rallied around him. >> said the justice department is weaponized against donald trump. they rallied at a time they could have criticized. joe and mika, a week from today is new hampshire. all eyes there. then you go to nevada, where donald trump is expected to roll. then you have the big gap, not until february 24th. a lot of time before south carolina, where that could be, if donald trump runs the way he is polling right now and finishes that way, that could be decisive, could be ball game. >> so interesting. when you look at the exit polling, and steve kornacki showed us the strong maga presence for donald trump, in line with his indictments. the indictments actually help. and both ron desantis and nikki haley made the choice, made the conclusion they should not insult trump voters, and the data backs up it'd be a mistake to do so. by my question is, at what point is that a failing act of complicity instead of a sign of

strength and leadership? they're asking themselves to twist themselves in into a pretzel over issues pertaining to the truth and the law. >> i mean, listen, if you want to see what happens to a candidate that goes after donald trump and says the sort of things we want to hear them say, ask chris christie how it works. you're running for the republican nomination. trump's party. you have candidates that don't have the skill set. i guess maybe there is a candidate out there that could do that, that could sort of mock donald trump, talk about how he is a losing candidate. i mean, chris christie did that. what we found is if you are a republican and attack donald trump, your numbers go down. if you are a republican seen as not fully supporting donald

trump, your numbers go down. mike pence was the most loyal vice president in the world to donald trump. if donald trump took a bottle of water off the table, mike pence took his bottle off the table. he followed him almost religiously. then on january 6th, when people were saying, "hang mike pence," donald trump said, "yeah, yeah, he deserves it. maybe he deserves it." republicans just abandoned mike pence like that. so i think what we found here is, yeah, you know, what we've really always kind of known. john heilemann, if donald trump is going to lose, donald trump has to beat himself. it's the way it is. these republican candidates can go for republican voters, but it can't be about donald trump. it just can't. they can't attack. donald trump was the last republican president of the

united states. in this age of tribalism, i mean, there is -- it is tribalism on steroids. in many cases, it really looks like a personality cult. trump has the majority of people following the big lie. he brings up a conspiracy theory, they follow it. you've got that, john heilemann. it puts both of these people in a difficult position. i want, though, to look at this another way. is let me ask you, if barack obama took four years off and then ran in a democratic caucus in iowa, would 50% of democrats vote against barack obama? no, they wouldn't. i'll answer the question. they wouldn't. >> it's -- >> the fact that donald trump

has -- we have a delay. >> yeah. >> the fact that donald trump has 50% of republicans not voting for him, and as steve kornacki said, one-third hating him in the state of iowa, in the state of iowa, you know. we can all sit here and, you know, put on sack cloth and ashes and moan about donald trump getting 51% of the vote. i have to say, for people who actually want to win general elections, that's not good news. >> right. there wasn't a delay, joe, i was making a calculation in my head. in a way, trump didn't take time off. here's the analogy that's the right analogy. trump transformed -- you know, iowa was a state that -- to bring up barack obama, he wins this state in the general election in 2008 and 2012. trump comes in and comes in third in the iowa caucuses in 2016 but wins the state, turns it red in 2016, turns it red easily in 2020.

so he's actually run here as a presidential candidate in the last two presidential cycles. he hasn't taken time off, right? he is effectively the incumbent running in the republican party. if you thought about that, imagine barack obama wins iowa in 2008, wins it in 2012, and now barack obama is running in the iowa caucuses in 2016. what would his margin have been in iowa in the 2016 democratic caucuses? i would reckon, 90%, 95%, 85%. >> yes. >> one of the most popular democratic presidents in history. trump getting over 50% was an achievement for him in terms of proing he has the majority of the republican party, at least here in iowa, but it is a sign of something. there continues to be this large -- people know donald trump really well. he has transformed the party. republicans know him really well, and there still may not be enough of a hunger to depose donald trump as the republican nominee, but there is a large

hunger in the party for people who want to depose donald trump. people who voted for nikki haley, some who voted for ron desantis, those people are not -- normally, you'll say they'll fall in line behind their republican nominee in the general election. a fair number of those people are democrats and independents who are out there for nikki haley, likely to be voting for joe biden when it comes to 2024. enough to make iowa blue? probably not. but as a national indicator, it's an important thing that points to trump's weakness as a general election candidate. >> yeah. i understand what people are saying. well, look at the polls right now. okay, look right now. i'll look at the polls next year around election time. again, 50% of people voting in iowa caucuses against a former president is bad news for that party's prospects in the general election. not good news. again, let's ask what barack

obama would have gotten if he'd done the same thing. it would have been in the high 90s. before i let you go, we have to talk about the most important thing that happened last night. that's the "bear" winning big in the emmys. you brought this series to "morning joe," and we appreciate it. man, what a big night for "the bear." "succession" did well, also. man, huge night for "the bear." >> they both won six, and they swept their categories, joe. huge night. the little engine that could. because of the delay in the emmys, because of the strike last year, these emmys were still based on season one of "the bear." as great as season one of "the bear," is, season two is transcendent. >> oh, dear. >> it's a leading indicator. there is the kiss on stage.

great moment in the show last night. evan who supporting actor in the category. great performance in season one, but transcendent in season two. he'll be back up there again at the next emmys. they were bigger winners last night than donald trump, i'll tell you that. "the bear" for president. >> they'll be around longer, as well, more staying power. you are so right. when people say they've seen season one, i'm like, oh -- >> you have to chill out. >> please, please, you have to see season two. it's extraordinary. willie, you usually watch masterpiece theater. >> with a pipe. >> with mozart playing in the background. >> "the crown"? >> i don't know if you've seen "the bear." >> oh, have i. >> have you? >> "the bear," to your point and

john's point, we're not even talking about season two. the christmas episode, episode six. i'm not going to say anything else. it's one of the greatest episodes of anything i've ever seen. >> if i can just say, jamie lee curtis has my heart. >> oh, my gosh. >> she has my heart. >> i will say, you know, we talk -- i'm so glad you talked about seven fishes, that episode. i will say, there are three episodes there. one with the replacement song at the end and one with -- i will not blow the surprise. >> try not to. >> cousin takes it. but i will say, those three episodes that make up the heart of season two, i think are probably the three best back-to-back-to-back episodes i've ever seen. it is michael jordan with the bulls winning three championships in a row. >> no argument here. no argument here.

i think -- i don't want to go too far, but for me, it's maybe the best acted show i've ever seen. that's why i was so happy to see the cast honored last night and also at the golden globes a few nights ago. jeremy allen white, the star of the show, is incredible. ayo, the young actress playing the chef at the restaurant, she is unbelievable. great cast. can't wait to see what comes. if they got six this year, is it ten next year, including one for jamie lee curtis? we'll see. >> i can only hope. john heilemann, thank you very much. we'll see you again very soon. >> john -- >> stay warm. >> final word on "the bear." >> agree with willie. great acting. also, a beautifully written show. a shout-out last night to the mind behind "the bear," chris store, won twice. best director, best written episode on the comedy side.

he wasn't there last night, but, man, this work of genius, it's chris' show really. >> amazing. >> a good friend. great guy. >> amazing. >> thank you. >> by the way, do you know who helped with music, just talking through it and everything, who was kind of on the ground from the beginning for "the bear"? >> john heilemann. >> stop, are you serious? >> yes. >> okay. coming up, reverend al sharpton joins the panel on the heels of his new interview with president joe biden. we'll discuss some of the major campaign issues they talked about. >> are we going to also -- i cannot wait to hear reverend al talk about that. also, willie, looking at the white house, are we going to talk about maybe -- sorry -- i had to let "the replacements" come in there. are we talking about one of the greatest collapses in nfl history with the eagles? one of the greatest collapses in

nfl history. i guess we are. we'll be right back, my friends. we'll be right back. well, the answer is "no", but a kettlebell squad. well, that's the opposite of whatever cosine is. knowing the proper way to do a dumbbell row is more useful than knowing the atomic weight of magnesium. 36? maybe. and you'll get a lot more out of cardio than you will knowing who ruled after king tut. queen tut? king tut junior? sounds good to me.

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third down and seven. mayfield wide open. there's moore again. his second catch, still working through the secondary. and a touchdown, tampa bay. >> where is the d.? david moore of the buccaneers scoring on a 44 yard reception, just waltzing into the end zone in the first quarter against the eagles. first of three touchdown passes from bucs quarterback baker mayfield. threw for 337 in his first playoff appearance since 2020. meanwhile, tampa's defense stymied philly, stuffing the infamous tush push before halftime. sacking jalen hurts in the end zone for a safety late in the third. >> unbelievable. >> he was out of it last night, too. >> ay-ay-ay. >> the bucs are hot. they win for the sixth time in seven games, dominating the

eagles, 32-9 last night, to advance to the nfc divisional round. they go to detroit to play the lions, who get another home playoff game. joe, i don't know what to say about the philadelphia eagles. they started the season 10-1. >> i don't either. >> lose six of the last seven. they look dreadful last night. >> dreadful. >> a team that was a quarter away from winning the super bowl last year. you figure, okay, they're in the playoffs now. it's been a rough stretch. they flip the switch, turn it on. they played totally uninspired. if you and i tackled in high school the way they tackled last night, our coach would have us running sprints all day in the heat. it was staggering to watch how bad they were. credit to the bucs. they played really well and they're hot, but, man, the eagles are bad right now. >> i wish we had pablo here today because we'd talk about all the bad tackling in the playoffs. the miami dolphins literally turning sideways like this, hoping to hit -- i swear. >> i know. >> like nothing i've ever seen. you see it time and time again.

last night, i mean, you saw it with the cowboys against the packers. you say it last night, too. willie, the thing is, again, i've never seen a collapse like this in football. the philadelphia eagles, 11 weeks into the season, they were the sure-fire bet to go back to the super bowl. probably win it. it has been a collapse. you look at last night, horrific. you look at the week before, they made the giants look great. >> yeah. >> the week before that, they lost to the lowly arizona cardinals. this is a team -- the coach obviously has to go. you know, willie, you can look at this game and people can say, what happened? there we go. what happened to jalen hurts? what happened to the offense? you can say the same thing in dallas with dak, right? you can even say the same thing with alabama when they lost to michigan. but what's the common denominator in all three cases? the much bigger problem.

alabama, how did you give up a fourth quarter -- how did the defense give up a fourth quarter lead and collapse in overtime? with the cowboys, they got run over by the bills a couple weeks back. jordan love looked like joe namath in 1969 for the jets. the cowboys defense was horrid. last night, my god, the eagles defense, horrid. this is a much bigger problem for the eagles. don't look at jalen. don't look at the offense. start with the defense. that was one of the -- that was just, along with the cowboys, just two great teams that turned in two horrible defensive displays. >> yeah, it was really bad. to watch -- there is something called a shell drill in practice where the quarterback throws to his receivers whenever he wants to, that's what ited like a practice drill. everyone was open, and they were running free. if they were tackled, it was shoulder knocks instead of the

block. the new york tabloids, "cry, eagles, cry," instead of "fly, eagles, fly." it was disastrous. they're talking about it in philly. >> there will be a conversation and wholesale changes. warning sign, they brought in matt patricia to help out the defense. he's had a tough couple years. this eagles team, it felt like they broke in recent weeks. jalen hurts was banged up yesterday. a.j. brown, best receiver, didn't play. he was out. but the bigger point is, they just fell apart down the stretch. seems something is missing with this team. a lack of heart, certainly lack of defense. the non-effort on the long touchdowns where guys didn't even try to wrap him up. they weren't competing. certainly, the nfc east all year long, cowboys and eagles thought to be among the two top teams in the league, they go out in embarrassing fashion yesterday. the other winner last night, the

lions who get another home playoff game after the wonderful scene. >> unbelievable. >> grown men crying in the stands. win their first playoff game in decades. now, another home game against a tampa bay team. they could be in the nfc title game. >> great story coming out of detroit. the earlier game, the buffalo bills cruised past the steelers. josh allen throwing three touchdown passes and scoring on a franchise postseason record 52 yard touchdown run. he is a beast. look at this run. >> amazing. >> 6'5", 240 running like this. >> fakes a slide. >> carrying a five-game regular season winning streak into the first round of the playoffs with a 31-17 win over the pittsburgh steelers, who lost five consecutive playoff games. great scene, joe, in puff low. buffalo. snowballs all over the place. now, the kansas city chiefs come to buffalo for a night game. should be a crazy atmosphere. a crazy stat, by the way. patrick mahomes through this

incredible run has never played a road playoff game. they've been so good, they've always been the higher seed or it's been the super bowl at a neutral site. you get the chiefs, mahomes, and kelce on the road in buffalo on a sunday knights. should be amazing. >> by the way, three great teams there. three hot teams. the kansas city chiefs aren't one of them. what's so fascinating about this game, again, people thought the eagles were going to turn on the switch and go, the kansas city chiefs have just stumbled and bumbled through the season. let's face it, josh allen and the bills started the first half of the season horribly. jack and i kept watching on sundays. of course, after seeing willie's show sunday morning. >> right. >> then we'd go to "the red zone." in the afternoons, we'd be going, what is wrong with josh allen? what's wrong? he was horrible the first half of this season. then they played dallas, boom. that is a hot team.

somebody said two weeks going into the playoffs, you don't want to play the bills. josh allen and the bills are hot. man, they're thinking about what, no hyperbole here, what may have been the greatest playoff game ever when they played kansas city three years ago in kansas city. now, it's in buffalo. that scene is going to be wild. we'll see if josh allen can get his revenge. >> for sure. you had me at papa, papa. >> i was waiting for willie's response, like, yes, i agree. >> i'm with you. the bills, the way they're playing, at home against the chiefs, they look really good. don't sleep on the ravens, though. everyone talks about the chiefs. >> they're so good. >> man, they are really good. they've been sitting, getting healthy the last week and a half. watch out for them, too. >> jonathan lemire, i'll tell ya, right now, what i'm hoping for, there are a lot of teams i

love that are still playing right now, but, come on, give us that lake erie super bowl. give us buffalo against detroit. i mean, could it get any better than that? that is just, i mean, that's just this side of the oldblack and blue division. that'd be amazing. >> those would be the two passionate fan bases that have never won a super bowl. that could be the sign of the apocalypse, perhaps, but it'd be so fun for all of us to watch. those are fan bases that would really deserve it. one note of caution on the bills, who i will be rooting for this weekend, they suffered a bunch of injuries yesterday. the chiefs will have had two extra days of rest. they played saturday. bills had to play on a monday because of that storm. that's going to be a tough, tough game. it's hard to bet against patrick mahomes even with a flawed chiefs team. >> yup. let's bring in the president of the national action network

and msnbc's "politics nation's" reverend al. and biden presidential campaign's adrienne elrod is back with us. >> reverend al, you talked to the president yesterday. let's take a list. >> the way, the things that trump is saying, trump is saying things that are just off t wall. he is most anti-democratic, with a small d,resident in american history. the things hs saying. and he means th. he's talking about he's running to get revenge o people. he is running because he wants to see that -- i mean, it's just outrageous things. for example, he said the other day that because of our economy doing so wellnd getting better and better, he said he is lookrward to a recession, a depression, because he does not want to be -- he wants it to happen on, quote, my watch. he wouldn't be talking about

this if he didn't acknowledge the economy's doing pretty damn well, particularly for people who, in fact, need the most help. >> rev, tell us more about the interview. >> well, the context is that for the last several years, president biden has come down to the national action network d.c. breakfast. he decided to go in pennsylvania and do service this martin luther king holiday. he said he would do a few minutes on my radio show. the white house said you have five, six minutes, and he went almost triple that. the context of the question i asked him, i said, you know, in 2020 at our national action network breakfast, martin luther king iii, you and i were talking in the back room. you said, i'm really thinking of running for president this year. of course, i'd worked with him when he was vice president. he said, because when i saw what happened in charlottesville and how this guy, trump, is acting, i really want to get in there

and help turn this country around. it was in that context that i asked him, i said, well, you told us that and you ended up running that year. you won. what motivated you to seek re-election? he said, well, you know, al, it's because this guy is off the wall. you heard the rest of his comment. in many ways, he was saying that donald trump is what motivated him to run in 2020. donald trump was part of the impetus of why he is running now, because he feels what he is saying is so anti-democratic that it is more than just donald trump. in many ways, i don't know that he, joe biden, would have been as motivated as he seems to be. he was full of vigor yesterday on the phone interview, if donald trump was not running. i think he really sees trump as something that would be irreparable to the american democratic process. i think that is what gets him a

lot of energy and gets him going. >> rev, the result last night in iowa, huge win for donald trump, confirms what the biden campaign and the president has assumed, that he is running against donald trump. that's why he focused in your interview on donald trump. i talk to people around the president, the white house, the campaign, and they say, yes, polls show it close or biden losing in swing states. there's a poll out of georgia in the "atlanta journal constitution." they say, let's wait until it's one-on-one. let's talk about the economy. let's do some work on immigration. they believe when it is a binary choice and the other choice is the guy who led an attempted coup against the government, a guy who is on trial, may have been convicted by the time voters go to the polls, that they'll maybe not in a sweeping win, but just enough of them will go for joe biden. >> in my conversations over the last several months with the president in the context of

being president of the national action network, so on civil rights issues, i think the president is different than those running his campaign in this sense. those running his campaign are relaxed. wait a minute. he's like, "we've got to fight." it is good that he fights like the underdog. he's not taking anything for granted. the reason i think he went overtime yesterday is he knows there are polls out there saying he is going down with black voters. he started running down, "al, black voters need to understand that i brought black unemployment from 9.5% down to 5%." historic. "i've helped to close the gap between black and white families." he started running tangible things he did in the black community that he wants voters to know. that's not a guy waiting to relax and will come in later. i think the thing that will motivate joe biden, and people will forget he is 81 years old, is donald trump. when i was a kid, i was blessed

enough to have a relationship with muhammad ali. there were opponents that made ali really train because they were challenges. i think donald trump brings the youth out of joe biden. >> adrienne, you talked -- and i know you do all the tim -- you talked to the biden white house, to people running the biden white house, and there is this confidence. there's just a, yeah, things aren't perfect. there are things we have to do. i've been around a lot of politicians. i've been around a lot of campaigns. it's like these people -- and i know it is making democrats crazy, but you talk about the georgia poll. looks like he's down by about 8 points. you can bring up polls like that. you can bring up -- they're like, relax. we've been underestimated.

biden has been underestimated since 1972. he always has been. talk about that confidence that drives the biden white house but also drives a lot of democrats who weren't on the inside crazy. >> couple things, joe. number one, we talked about this a few times. it is really hard to get a poll that is accurate right now that really reflects how abortion is going to play in the general election, you know, how a number of other factors are going to play in. i think that's part of the confidence. also, at the same time, it is the fact that, as you just said, joe biden has always been underestimated. that is an absolute fact. we saw the midterms 2022 when, obviously, he wasn't on the ballot, but effectively, he was. effectively, trump was on the ballot with a potential run for president. democrats did exceptionally well in the midterms, far better than what the polls were showing. that's part of it, too. also, this administration and this campaign knows the general election has not quite started

yet. a lot of americans are not tuned in. i heard you and heilemann talk about the fact that, you know, trump, we got to keep in mind that trump received slightly more than 50% in iowa. yes, it is a domination in a primary in terms of winning the caucus, but you're still looking at the fact that nearly half of iowa republicans did not support, do not support donald trump. that doesn't always play well for the general election. you're looking at some factors here and there that sort of all play into this. look, also this white house and campaign knows, this is going to be a very, very close election. elections in the last few cycles, presidentials, have not. democrats, including hillary clinton, president biden won by a huge amount of the popular vote, by a significant margin, but when it comes to the key electoral votes in states that decide the election, they've been very, very close. you know, you combine all those factors. we know a lot of americans are not tuning into the election,

and this administration, joe biden is running on a long list of accomplishments. as the rev said, he is going out there and talking to voters. he is talking to black voters who he knows he needs to get his numbers up there. he's talking about what he's done and making a contrast with donald trump. i think you're going to see more of that. i think that's one of the many reasons why the biden administration and campaign feels pretty good about where they are right now. >> reverend sharpton, few people in the biden camp think any longer that some of trump's criminal trials will be the difference in the election. it is not going to be this huge swing. they now think his support is largely baked in. at least among republicans, the indictments have only helped him. now, there is a sense it could help around the margins. trump, though voluntary, after an election win, he is choosing to appear in court today. he'll be in court with e. jean carroll, then he heads on to new hampshire. we're going to see a lot of that in the year ahead, whether it is

a trial or various proceedings. do you think it'll carry some impact with those undecided, with those independent voters, where even along the margins, that might be enough to tilt things biden's way? >> i think the fact that donald trump is, so far, only playing to his base will end up helping the democrats and joe biden with the undecided and those that are not part of the trump cult. as adrienne just said, as i said, when he knows -- he being joe biden -- he has to do more in terms of the black vote, in terms of the youth vote, and he's going after that, you don't see donald trump going outside of his comfort zone. he is playing to his base. going to these trials are playing to his base. all of that open area that he may try to go after, donald trump is not going after it and joe biden is. the reason trump is not doing that, he knows to reach out to younger voters or the black

voters, he risks the base, the cult following that he's built by having against blacks and against youth and other things. he's kind of put himself into a corner, donald trump. he's got to play it out and hope it is enough. i just don't think there's going to be enough there. >> rev, let's talk about, though, donald trump, and you know this. you know donald trump. you've known him longer than i've known him. he loves the grand spectacle. you've gone to fights with him before, the heavyweight championship fights. he loves the grand spectacle. while we in polite society, and, well, actually, in sane, rational society, see a man going into court to stare down a woman that a judge says he was guilty of raping, when we see a man going into court to rant and

rave at a judge after he's been found guilty of committing fraud in his business, likely going to have his business licenses stripped from him. when we see a man fighting in courts where he has been accused and will likely be convicted of stealing nuclear secrets. to rational, sane human beings, to people who actually respect the rule of law and don't think it is a cool thing to have a president who a judge said raped a woman -- >> and that woman, he is going back today. all he had to do was simply not talk about her, but he chose to defame her again. >> continues, yup. >> after he was found liable of defamation. he is in court today because of his mouth. >> right. but for donald trump, and if you look at the entrance polls yesterday, these republics say

they don't care he's in court. in fact, the fact he is in court today facing a woman that a judge says he raped, donald trump is there because that's the best political fuel he can get. that's how twisted things are in the personality cult, and he is going into these courtrooms because of the grand spectacle, because it helps him. because 65% of republicans in iowa say if he is convicted, they still want him to be president. there's 20% in another poll in the "des moines register"/nbc poll, 20% said that the fact that he's indicted or that he is found guilty of -- that a judge says he raped a woman, that makes them more likely to vote for him. >> the spectacle is what he has

been giving them, and the spectacle is what he's become a prisoner of by his own doing. he is playing to people who want the spectacle. many of them feel they've been the victim of the same kinds of stuff in life for whatever reason. they've joined this cult. donald trump knows, i have to play the bottom of politics and keep giving them spectacles or i could lose my audience. because he has no firm political beliefs. he has no real social beliefs that he wants to try to change society. it's all about the spectacle an. he has to keep the tiger jumping through fire hoops to keep his crowd. he's about filling arenas, not about changing the country. >> adrienne, final thoughts. do you think the biden campaign is prepared to push back against

the disinformation filtering through different sects of society? even the football conversations on cable, you see trumpism seeping through in different ways. >> yeah. again, president biden going on rev's show is a prime example to break through. you have to meet the voters where they are. you have to be a part of those conversations. you saw president biden doing an interview with conen o'brien. you'll see creative ways they'll use his voice and the voices of surrogates to get out there and break through into the living rooms of key voters that he will need in this general election. they have a smart strategy. they're getting creative. you'll just see more of that. >> reverend al sharpton and adrienne elrod, thank you both for coming in this morning. let's bring in msnbc contributor mike barnicle. former senator and now msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill.

and ceo of the messina messina. he served deputy chief of staff to president obama and ran his re-election campaign. good to have you all this morning. >> jim, i'd love to get your input on what happened in iowa last night, and what is your takeaway as it pertains to to a potential trump/biden matchup in the fall? >> well, look, i think a couple things are really interesting. first, joe, like, this enthusiasm number for the republicans. 14% total turnout of republican voters in iowa i think is a startling number. i think if i was the team trump, i'd be worried about this. he was supposed to be this guy that motivated everyone. the second is, desantis' performance was ridiculous. a republican operative reminded me that desantis went to all 99 counties. every time he did, he ended up sliding in those counties. he did worse in the counties as they saw him more.

the more they were exposed to him, the worse he did. you and i talked about this in the past. this is a guy who just isn't ready for prime time. now, what's the rational for his candidacy? like, what do people now believe? he was supposed to be the trump alternative. the truth is, the more people see the alternative, the less they want him. on to the general election -- >> jim, can i really quickly, before you get to the general election, can i say now, again, donald trump could not have paid for a better result last night if you look at haley splitting. but you're right, a low turnout. not a lot of enthusiasm for republicans. a third of republicans saying they loathe donald trump in the polls, doesn't get more than half of the republican vote. this is not a huge vote of confidence for donald trump, but the way haley and desantis chopped each other's support in half, very good for donald trump. now, nikki haley goes to new hampshire. probably overperforms there.

you have ron desantis going down to south carolina. what is ron desantis going to be doing in south carolina? he is going to camp out there for a month, and he is going to go and campaign on vets and military issues, which, of course, will gut any support that haley may have had with those groups. we're going to probably see a repeat in south carolina of these two cutting each other in half and donald trump just gliding through. >> i think you're exactly right. what the republicans desperately needed from last night was an alternative to donald trump. they just didn't get it. for the second cycle in a row, 2016 they tried to make it a choice between trump and someone else. they couldn't do it. now, joe is exactly right, they can't do it now. they're going to go into south carolina, into super tuesday, seeing the anti-donald trump vote split, and trump is going to walk into this nomination. what i learned last night, joe,

is that we can just stop pretending donald trump is not going to be the republican nominee for president. he is. >> yup. >> i think it is depressing. it is what it is. but we now can start the general election. that's what last night taught me. >> we'll go live to des moines in a second. also, new hampshire, one week from today. claire mccaskill, first, your take on what you saw last night. not a big surprise. donald trump won by about the margin most people expected. low turnout. as we've been saying all morning, almost half of republican voters voted for someone other than donald trump last night, which is a stunning statistic when you consider he was president of the united states and sort of a de facto incumbent in some ways here in the party. what are your takeaways from the result last night? >> first of all, 50/50 for an incumbent really sucks. this is not good for donald trump. i don't care how they spin it. i get it that he won more delegates than the other candidates, but he got 50% of the vote in his own party after

being an incumbent president. as you have said, it is not good. then think about the money that was spent and how much of it was spent on negative ads. $70 million was spent by desantis and haley. only $11 million by trump. of that money, most were negative ads against desantis and haley. no negative ads against trump. there were no negative ads against trump, he still only managed 50% of the vote. can you imagine having an election where your opponents refuse to run a negative ad on you? it's crazy. so this -- all the democrats need is an aggressive campaign, make sure the base stays together, and women of america understand what this man did to our freedom in this country, and to grab the 25% to 30% of the

republican party that said last night very clearly, "nah, i don't really want to go there. i don't believe that all this evidence in courts of law has been made up. i don't believe that he won the election. i think he is not a good idea for our country." so i don't think it was that great a night for donald trump. by the way, on a point of personal privilege, you're killing me talking about football. i'm listening before i come on. >> oh, my god. >> i'm sitting here going, i need to talk about the chiefs. i'll let it go this time. >> no, no. >> let's go there right now. >> i yield my time to the senator. >> thank you so much, congressman. let's talk about the chiefs. let's talk about the chiefs for a second. i mean, they have been confounding. you know, claire, i like -- i go back to dawson smoking cigarettes on the sidelines in 1970. >> amazing. >> i like the chiefs. that said, they have been really spotty and up and down.

they haven't really hit, you know, that rhythm yet. do you think they'll be able to do it against a team really on fire right now, the buffalo bills? >> listen, i think going into buffalo is tough. you're right, this is the first time mahomes played on the road in the playoffs. but what you've missed is the consistency of the chiefs team this year, defense. if you watched our defense against miami, they were on lockdown. it was really a thing to see. spagnuolo has the defense performing at a level that allows the wide receivers to drop a few balls. rice looked good over the weekend. by the way, the last time we played buffalo in a playoff game, 16 seconds, who you got? if i had to pick who i want with a game on the line at 16 seconds, i'll still take mahomes. >> wow, that was a long, long time ago, claire. three years ago. that's a lifetime in the nfl.

>> no. >> and i have to say, the fact that you're using the dolphins as your example of the kpee chi- i mean, the dolphins defenders were so cold, they were turning sideways instead of tackling the chiefs. i mean, here we go, let's see. i don't want to touch him. it happens all night. can you tell me -- and, by the way, this is not a hostile question because, again, i like the chiefs. give me the last five, six weeks -- god, that guy is good. >> wow. >> give me the last five, six weeks, a great game the kansas city chiefs played. >> it doesn't matter how great -- >> it does matter. >> -- the game is. what matters is the score. they've been to the super bowl three of the last five years. let's talk about andy reid, by the way. >> i love him. >> yeah, i mean, we have a team

that is used to this pressure. by the way, mahomes does very well on the road. we had more trouble at home this year than on the road. >> yeah. >> i like it. i love it that the chiefs are going to be an underdog. >> is she schooling you? >> no. >> this week, if i have to say i was wrong, i promise i will. >> and same here. i mean, if the chiefs take off next week, great. that'll be -- i love watching the chiefs. i just think that what we call this, at least in the south, is whistling past the graveyard. >> aw. >> willie, the chiefs have just not clicked this year. maybe they will in buffalo next week. man, that is a tough environment to turn things around. >> it is. to claire's point, you never bet against patrick mahomes until it doesn't happen. we'll see. you can't ask for a better environment. buffalo on a sunday night.

it'll be cold. >> wow. >> you know, think of the buffalo 6:30 start. eight hours of drinking before the game out in the parking lot. eight hours of breaking tables out there. >> bills mafia. >> throwing chairs through windows. >> man. >> it is america's game, baby. bills mafia all the way. >> joe wasn't joking. look it up in the next commercial break, super bowl i, halftime, chiefs quarterback smoking a cigarette on a folding chair. one of the great photographs of all time. let's get back to the news. mike barnicle. >> yes, sir. >> talk about iowa, or we can spin ahead to new hampshire, one week from today. your neck of the woods. nikki haley thinks she is close enough to maybe do some damage there. does the result last night, do voters watching how dominant donald trump was in iowa, does that impact what happens in new hampshire? do they say, he's the guy, we'll fall in line?

>> couple things from last night that i noted personally. philadelphia eagles cannot tackle. >> no. >> that was incredible. the second thing is, we can talk all we want about what happened in iowa last night. this thing is over. donald trump is going to be the republican nominee for president. as soon as the democrats realize that, facet upon that, the better off they're going to be. they've got to recognize the fact that we all talk about it, walk around it, make fun of it. he has a dark genius to him. a dark genius enabled him to put his hands on the country and have large portions of the country, large numbers of people thinking he's our guy. he knows what my life is like. the democrats have not utilized their best asset yet, joe biden's life. everyone knows he is president, but it's been lost in the last three, four years, it seems to me and to others, that they have

lost who he is. joe biden is a guy who can go to the country and say, "hey, i know who you are. i, too, have almost missed a mortgage payment. i, too, have lost a child. i know what your life is like. i know what success is about. i know what loss is about. i know what grief is all about. i carry your burdens. i have carried your burdens. i know you. i am you." jim, i don't know about you, but i don't think they are utilizing joe biden's natural gift for relating to people and make this a contest between not trump and biden but between good and evil. >> oh, mike, i completely agree. it is time to let joe biden be joe biden. put him on the campaign trail. let him be this empathetic man that can win the presidency. elections are choices. you know, i agree with claire, the choice is so clear for the democrats. donald trump sets up that choice.

what we have not yet seen, though, is joe biden looking at the american public and saying, "this is about you. this isn't about me. this isn't about donald trump. this is about you." when i ran president obama's campaign, bill clinton would wake me up in the middle of the night once a month and say, "all elections are referendums on the economy and how people feel about their own situation." there is no one better at that than joe biden. they need to let him do it. >> let's go to des moines. nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard is standing by and shivering for us there. vaughn, what is your takeaways from what we saw last night? different than expectations at all? >> reporter: if i may, my first trip to iowa, guys, of the 2024 cycle, if you will, was march of 2021. less than two months after the january 6th attack, when mike pompeo came and talked to the west side conservative club in dallas county, just outside here of des moines. what was so telling, i went back

to the conversations i had with the voters at that event, and there was only one person who suggested that they were hostile to donald trump to the point they would not caucus for him in three years. what happened over the three years? the conspiracy theories, the loyalty to donald trump was only baked in. what we watched unfold here were candidates coming to iowa and not going on the attack against donald trump, except for the likes of asa hutchinson who you saw how well that worked out for him. you know, this is telling because, in so many ways, guys, the conversation i've had with my producer, dan gallo, on the ground here, covered the ted cruz candidacy eight years ago, we feel we're repeating history. that goes for today, as well. there was a candidate eight years ago, and it sounds like one in ron desantis and nikki haley now, suggesting, number one, this is a two-person race. ted cruz continued to say that day after day in the lead-up to

the caucus and after the caucus. he talked often about the southern wall. south carolina is going to stand in the way. evangelical support is going to come out in droves to support him. but this time around, donald trump doesn't even need jerry falwell. you also heard eight years ago, much like desantis in the last days, frustration over fox news. fox news has all been coalesced around donald trump's candidacy. the lights are there. this is the pathway for him. marco rubio consolidating and endorsing him this weekend. eight years ago, then governor nikki haley endorsing marco rubio. last night, i know doug burgum may not be the most notable american politician, but him standing up on stage, being invited on stage by donald trump, was telling. it sent a message to other republicans around the country to get in line and be by his side. tim scott never coalesced around nikki haley or ron desantis.

neither did mike pence. this is a republican party here as we head over to new hampshire that clearly has in front of them a decision. as a senior adviser to trump told me back around the time of the hialeah event for donald trump, the counterprogram to the republican debate in miami, i asked, "what has been the message from your campaign to republicans who have stayed on the sidelines and not backed donald trump yet?" his response was, quote, "tick-tock." well, it's moving faster. >> even last night, some skeptics of donald trump who have been critical here or there falling in line last night. nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. we see in the upper right of the screen it is minus 7 degrees in des moines. get inside and get warm. on to manchester, where it is a balmy 23. thanks so much, vaughn. joe. >> mike, i want to go back to you and talk about what a contrast this election should

be. to the central question voters often ask of politicians, do you understand who i am? do you understand how i live? you know, is a politician -- are they one of us, voters will often ask, whether you're in iowa or texas or michigan, wisconsin, wherever. and you are so right, with joe biden, you have a guy who grew up in a family whose dad struggled. dad lost a job. struggled in scranton. moved around. as he got older, joe biden went through one tragedy after another. he lost a wife and a baby girl in a tragic car accident. he lost a son to cancer. his other son struggles with addiction. through it all, you have joe biden persevering. persevering and achieving a

dream that his father and his mother, who, by the way, lived with him until she passed i think at 97 or 98, could have never imagined. on the other side, he's running against a guy who, right now, is trashing american democracy, trying to convince americans they cannot trust american democracy, trashing america's rule of law, what really separates us from other countries across the world. a guy who is trashing our military leaders and trashing, actually, the armed forces just because he is not president of the united states. he was a draft dodger. he got his daddy to line him up with a doctor that said he had bone spurs. his daddy gave him $400 million. he inherited $400 million which he lost. he left in his wake a line of bankruptcies. a new york judge says he is a

rapist. another new york judge says he is a fraudster. he's already been found guilty of fraud. you've got other cases where he has been caught stealing nuclear secrets. he's been caught stealing war plans. yet, he's lived in country clubs and gold plated towers his entire life. he's continued to somehow, as you said, spread the lie that he's one of us to the voters of iowa. as you said, it is so clear, joe biden has lived their life. joe biden has lived their struggles. he did it growing up in scranton. he did it in delaware when he got the call that he lost his wife and daughter. it's happened time and time again. joe biden has persevered. what's he doing?

he's not telling people to hate american democracy. he is not telling people to hate america's economy. he is not telling americans to hate the military or its military leaders. he's lifting them up. saying, "we've got a great country. we've got a great democracy. we've got a great judicial system. we've got a great military." mike, i don't think there's ever been a starker difference on the question of "who is one of us" for middle class and working class voters. as you said, these contrasts may need to be drawn. >> you know, joe, i think you're talking about something that the pollsters don't really ask about or that the people running campaigns don't really focus or concentrate on. it's that it might be that the huge majority of people in this

country walk around each and every day thinking the country is damaged. that they can't put their finger on the damage. they can't articulate the damage, but they think the country is presently damaged. the future might be in doubt. they think about this when they look at their children, and they wonder, what's my child's life going to be like going forward? what they're looking for is some sense of assurance that the people in charge of the country, from the president down to the mayor of their city or the select men of their small town, do they know what my life is like? do they want to know what i want to do for my child and family? do they know this? they get the sense now they don't. that's joe biden's strongest asset. just as you indicated. i shouldn't pot this out because it is not really public knowledge, but in terms of what you were just talking about, to this day, joe biden carries in

his wallet a picture of his deceased daughter who was killed in a car crash shortly before christmas in 1972. right after he was first elected to the united states senate. joe biden carries this every day. he knows the worry, the concern, the grief, the heartache, and the successes that ordinary people have, because he's had all of it. he still does. what happened? as mitch landrieu said the other day, what happened after his wife and daughter were killed? he wore the cloak of grief, still wears it, but he went to work. what happened when he realized and was told and was confronted with the fact that his only surviving son, hunter biden, was an addict? most families in this country know what it is like to have someone in the family who is an addict and who is addicted to something, no matter what the addiction is. they know what that's like. what do they do?

do they quit? do they complain? no, most of them, like joe biden, get up and they go to work. that's what he does every single day. >> yeah. >> his work is the presidency. but he is at heart an ordinary citizen. he is at heart one of us. they don't make that strong enough on his behalf, i don't think. >> well, and you are so right. it's so moving that he carries a picture of his young daughters who was killed in a car accident so long ago. and when he's going around showing you pictures in his office, he will point to beau. yes, he will still tear up and say, "he should have been here. he should have been president, not me." he continues that fight not only for his deceased son, the memory of his deceased daughter, his

mom, his father that stay with him wherever he goes, those working class roots. anybody that's been around joe biden for five minutes knows this to be the case. you can find the video of lindsey graham tearing up, saying, "anybody that says anything bad about joe biden doesn't know joe biden." of course, we won't go there about lindsey. but you talked about the economy. you talked about people worrying about where things are. this is the perversion. this is the perversion of these networks that twist and contort the reality if their guy or woman is not in office. we have an economy that's stronger than ever. i've said it before. one of the most columnists, said the economy was the winner in 2023.

you have a military stronger than ever. relative to the rest of the world, stronger than any time since 1945. anybody who understands military strength and power will tell you that. for all of its failings, and elite colleges have a hell of a lot of failings, for all its failings, our educational system, our colleges and universities still the best in the world. people send their children to america from all over the world because our educational system, with all of its failings, the best in the world. guess what? another conservative "wall street journal" writer said that last week in a column. why? because it's true. i don't understand these networks that trash america. i don't understand politicians like donald trump who trash america. i don't understand people who hate america when america's economy is stronger than it's been in a long, long time.

our military is stronger than it's been in generations. yes, our educational systems, with all its failings, with elite universities, still the best in the world. there is not a close second. not a close second in any of these areas. if people are out there preaching hate, talking about how america is weak, they are lying to you. they are lying through their teeth, and they're doing it for their own reasons. america is strong. america is powerful. america is great. >> and america has a choice. >> now, america has a choice on whether they want to give up the greatest democracy, the greatest constitutional republic ever known to this world. up next is the new hampshire primary. one week from today. joining us from manchester, new hampshire, is the political reporter for "the boston globe" and msnbc contributor, james

pindell. what are you seeing and hearing? >> the challenge here is, will there be a primary after the new hampshire primary? the campaign will be focused on that the next eight days. nikki haley's challenge is to get people to care. polls show her down 20 points. we had the one poll, of course, showing her down by nine, but it is an outlier at this point. the first test for nikki haley is to drive up the enthusiasm m for this primary in general. this is my seventh new hampshire primary. enthusiasm is way down. talk about crowd sizes in contest to what the other guy is doing in 2024 but not what happened in 2016 or anything like that. we're talking about crowd sizes in the hundreds, not the thousands. that is something that nikki haley is going to have to battle against. try to get people to even care in the first place, and, second, have their excited to care about her campaign. >> what is her message, nikki

haley, for people who haven't been following on the ground? they may watch us in the morning, and we talk about how she's not gone at donald trump directly over the course of her campaign. new hampshire is it for her. she needs to win there, finish a close second, then she can make the case she's going home to south carolina after that. what is her message inside the state in new hampshire? >> you know, it is fascinating. every single time there is an incumbent president in office and there is a new hampshire primary, presidential primary, we typically talk about one big thing. electability. i'm sure there are other issues. the war in iraq or the economy. electability emerges as a theme. this time, there hasn't been electability. some of that is republican voters have their minds made up and they want donald trump. some of it is donald trump is beating joe biden in the polls. electability, you have donald trump. but their final pitch to voters here in new hampshire has been, per this "wall street journal" poll showing they're up 17

points or 9 or 10, versus a hard slog against donald trump versus joe biden. there's also a message of turning the page. i just don't think it has been really catching on and working for her. in this state anyway. >> we talked about what nikki haley needs to do there. what about donald trump? this is a state, new hampshire, in 2016, he lost iowa closely and had a resounding victory in new hampshire and propelled his way towards the gop nomination that year. tell us a little bit about his ground game there, what his strategy is. he took a pretty light approach to iowa campaigning. to we expect the same in new hampshire? will we see more of him? >> great questions. i mean, on the ground, it's a similar story of what happened in iowa. 2016, he had basically a joke of a field. they were trying to bring me into the office to make the point, look at our ground game, james. tell the story. this is 2016. it was a total joke. this time, it is serious.

the mere fact that he's had so many trials away from the state allowed the operatives to build and grow. in terms of his actually being on the ground, he is going to be on the ground pretty much every single day in new hampshire to make sure he can solidify his lead here. look, if you look at the first four states, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, nevada, you talked about this again and again, this is the state where he has been the most vulnerable. he's been consistently under 50% in polling all year. two polls out of about a hundred showed him over 50%. if there's anywhere there's going to be any action against donald trump, it would be here. he's still up 15, 20 points. >> all right. political reporter for "the boston globe," james pindell, thank you very much for your insight this morning. jim messina, on to new hampshire, final word to you. >> look, i agree with james. if they can't slow trump down here, there's no way they're

going to slow him down. i think this is obviously donald trump to be the nominee. if there's going to be a last stand, it has to be here. yet, they still won't hit him. you still don't see nikki haley take his head off. you don't see nikki haley say, "this is a fight here." you don't see her have any kind of compelling message. i'm just very doubtful that the voters of new hampshire, who saved donald trump's candidacy in 2016, are going to deliver him some stunning rebuke when none of his opponents have the guts to make the contrast. >> jim, thank you so much. still ahead on "morning joe," before heading to new hampshire, donald trump will make a stop in new york today as the second defamation trial involving writer e. jean carroll gets under way. we'll have a preview of what to expect in court. plus, senators have spent weeks working on a bipartisan border security deal, but it appears the legislation won't

get very far in the house. we'll have the latest on the republican in-fighting. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. ight back. whenever my customers ask how to get a better price on their meds, i always tell them about singlecare. it's a free app. accepted at major pharmacies nationwide. before i pick up my prescription at the pharmacy, i always check the singlecare price. it's quick, easy, and totally free to use. singlecare can literally beat my insurance copay. you just search for your prescription, and show your coupon in the app to your pharmacist. i just show you the coupon and i get this price? that's right! go to singlecare.com and start saving today. nexium 24hr prevents heartburn acid for twice as long as pepcid. get all-day and all-night heartburn acid prevention with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention. choose nexium.

i will not break a sweat when i take the stairs. i will not break a sweat when i take the stairs. i will dunk on the hoop over my garage. i will dunk on the hoop over my garage.

i will insist it's regulation height, even though it's definitely not. i will insist it's regulation height, even though it's definitely not. excellent. a little snow, 7:41 in the morning, the plaza. like an inch and a half, already gone. turning back to washington, top house republicans say a carefully brokered senate border deal would be dead on arrival at the house. that's how steve scalise described it during a sunday conference call. that's according to our friend jake sherman at punch bowl news. jake reports in the same call, house speaker mike johnson said the border issue cannot be solved until donald trump or another republican is back in the white house. joining us now, congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany. bring us, if you would, some of your own reporting on this, on the state of these negotiations

over immigration, which i should point out, again, iowa voters said the economy was their top issue this election year. >> our team confirmed what jake sherman and the rest of our congressional cohort reported on sunday about this house conference call with speaker johnson. during a time where there is a vast array of bills up in the air that johnson is trying to juggle in order to prove that house republicans can govern to some extent. basically, what johnson said is they're not going to consider this bipartisan senate deal. that's not quite complete just yet, but it is on the verge and is closer than ever to being completed. now, the senate deal does not mirror this house deal that was passed in may called hr-2 or se secure the border, which johnson said is the red line for republicans. in order for lawmakers in the house to support whatever the

senate does, the senate bill needs to essentially reflect what republicans have already passed. that is extremely unlikely, though, based on our months now of reporting on these bipartisan negotiations. one of the big issues at stake here is this issue of parole, which is an authority that allows foreigners to come into the u.s. on temporary or provisional basis. republicans argued that president biden has abused it. the cases where parole has been used primarily has been to accommodate refugees. historically andrefugees, afgha refugees, people fleeing dictatorship in cuba and from dictatorships in countries where they're facing political persecution across the world. democrats don't want to limit biden's powers. they want give him more tools to try to stop and curb what's happening at the border, while republicans are trying to take some of the tools away or at

least control what biden is doing. all of this, i think it's important to note, is coming in the context of johnson up against two spending deals and dates that are about to expire. the government funding is january 20th, february 2nd, and he's also facing a revolt from these hard line republicans who are pushing this same border bill to now hold up government spending and government funding all together. which is, i think, something important to keep in mind as johnson is privately trying to cajole and talking with his house members. >> claire, let's talk about the border and the republican party, both locally and nationally. in texas, the republican governor prevents federal officials from trying to rescue a woman and her two children who drowned trying to cross a river in texas. they couldn't get to them because the texas officials are under orders not to let the federal officials come into the

territory that they were taking over there. the other aspect of it, steve scalise, prominent republican, member of the majority in the house, has indicated that nothing going to be done on the border legislatively until republicans are in charge. in other words, the country can wait. the damage being done to the country, the threats being posed to the country have to wait until it is our guy because we don't want a democrat to get any credit. did you ever think we'd be in this position? >> well, yeah, for the last, you know, five, six years, i have because what you've seen is congress, republican members of congress always favor power over principle. the only place in america where trump is winning the majority of college educated voters are republicans in congress who know better. what these guys are doing on the border is really bad. what they're doing is they are saying loudly, if anybody is listening carefully, we don't want to solve the problem. the house republicans don't want to solve the problem.

they want the issue. they want it to be a mess at the border. they want the visuals of the people trying to come into this country and us being unable to handle the huge numbers. let's not dance around this. it's a problem. we are seeing record numbers of people come into this country who are presenting themselves at the border, saying, i'm not trying to evade. i'm here. they are being told, you'll have a court date to judge whether or not you get to stay based on your asylum claims. then they disappear into the country for a long time because the system is completely overwhelmed. it's a problem. i think the senate is acting responsibly. jim langford, a republican who has, you know, way conservative bones, he is negotiating this. mcconnell said to the republicans in the senate, we need to get on board. this is a responsible way to deal with the problem. but the house, you know, johnson is trying to hold on to his job, and the rest of them all believe

this is how they're going to win, how they're going to hold on to power. it's really irresponsible. >> jackie, can you provide for us, please, updates on other orders of business for congress this week? they're coming back, snowstorm, d.c. got a little snow there, too, both on the hunter biden matters, the potential contempt held in congress, and keeping the government open. progress made many recent days but tell us where that stands, as well. >> john, those are the two primary orders of business. first and foremost is getting these stopgap funding continuing resolutions done so government funding doesn't expire january 20th and february 2nd. these are how they were separated the last time around when the house was dealing with this issue in order to avert a shutdown and a crisis. right now, there is no possibility that the house going to be able to enact a full 2024 spending deal before these

deadlines happen. that's why the house is considering this stopgap deal which johnson believes he has the support for. what he's really dealing with, the primary issue is getting the support of these hardline republicans who are quickly losing faith in him and don't want to support this deal which they think essentially mirrors what mccarthy already hashed out with president biden earlier at the end of last year. which was one of the reasons why they ousted him to begin with. there is no conversations about a motion to vacate part two with johnson, but members are increasingly frustrated. that leads us to the other priority we're going to see this week, which is the thursday criminal contempt vote for hunter biden, which is an important component to johnson's strategy to keep hardline republicans at bay who really want to show that they have some sort of accountability here, even though hunter biden and his lawyers have actively been advocating for a deposition just in a public setting.

abbe lowell, hunter biden's lawyer, told house republicans the two subpoenas they issued previously were moot because the house hadn't yet authorized a formal impeachment inquiry. the house issued two new subpoenas to him and said they're still going to proceed and plan to hold him in criminal contempt if his lawyers don't negotiate in good faith about him testifying in a private deposition, like anyone else who is subject to the congressional investigative process. >> all right. "the washington post"'s jackie alemany, as always, thank you so much for coming on this morning. claire mccaskill, thank you, as well. we'll see you both thank you as well. we will see you both very soon. coming up, we will take you live to a manhattan courthouse for the start of the second defamation trial against donald trump for his comments repeated comments about writer e. jean carroll. also ahead, an emotional moment from last night's emmy

awards. a standing ovation for christina applegate. we'll show you more of that. and go through the big winners. "morning joe" is coming right back. ning joe" is coming right back

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get over here kids. constant contact. time for today's lesson. wow. -whoa. what are those? these are humans. they rely on something called the internet to survive. huh, powers out. [ gasp ] are they gonna to die? worse, they are gonna get bored. [ gasp ] wait look! they figured out a way to keep the internet on. yeah! -nature finds a way. [ grunt ] stay connected when the power goes out, with storm ready wifi from xfinity. and see migration in theaters now. >> the emmy goes to -- >> reporter: a night of sweeping wins, big reunions, and touching tributes. as hollywood celebrated the biggest names in television. "succession" best drama along with three acting wins. >> this is a show about family. >> reporter: including kieran culkin for lead actor in a drama series with his own family

moment on stage. >> my beautiful wife jazz, thank you for sharing your life with me and for giving me two amazing kids. and jazz, i want more. >> reporter: "the bear" swept the comedy category. jeremy allen white and best supporting actress with an assist from carson daly. the emmy awards marking 75 years by reuniting some of tv's most iconic ensemble casts on re-created sets, including "cheers," the "sopranos," martin, he is graceland anatomy, tina fey and mamie polar. >> we have eechd the stage stage in life where we will on the present awards sitting down. >> the dancing stars from "ally mcbeal." this night was also a celebration of diversity. tying the record for most

winning actors of color. "abbott elementary's" quinta brunson the first black woman to win lead actress in a comedy series in 40 years. >> i love comedy so much that i am so happy to be able to get this. >> reporter: niecy nash-betts bringing the room to its feet with her acceptance speech. >> i want to thank me. [ cheers and applause ] >> for believing in me and doing what they said i could not do. and i want to say to myself in front of all you beautiful people, go, girl, with your bad self. >> reporter: one of the most touching moments when christina applegate, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, received a standing ovation. >> thank you so much. oh, my god. >> so this morning on social media everyone is talking about something that i wholeheartedly agree with. it was one of the best awards shows in years. granted, they had an extra four months to plan it. they spent so much money on

re-creating all of those iconic sets, the star power alone. anthony anderson was efficient. the show ended -- we were joking in the nbc live blog. the show ended at like 10:59, okay? >> that never happens. >> i have a fun fact for you guys. so "beef" creator sonny lee, guess where he used to work? the "today" show. he was writing teases and working here and now look at him. all those emmy wins with "beef" sweeping. >> that's cool. i didn't see all of it last night. there was football on. let's be honest. >> and the iowa caucus. >> and that, too. but just as you said, the production of it, all those reunions on the set of "cheers," on the set of gray's anatomy, and the friends and tribute to matthew perry and all that. it was like the oscars. >> it was like the oscars. the execution was -- you know, because awards show viewership

is down year after year, right. so it's not really in the zeitgeist. you hear about moments the next day. i will be interested to hear what the ratings were last night but the star power alone and how efficient that the show was and it was funny and nostalgic, i am telling you, i think they should look to this and think about it when they are planning the oscars. the oscars have big shoes to fill now. >> a new standard. great recap. nbc news entertainment, thank you. donald trump's runaway win in iowa. we will break down the results, what they mean for ron desantis and nikki haley as we turn the corner to new hampshire. we are back in just two minutes. . we are back in just two minutes. .

you helped us get a ticket punched out of the hawkeye state. >> thank you, iowa. we are going to continue on, we are gonna make you proud and we are off to new hampshire. >> it was an easy win for donald trump in last night's iowa republican caucuses. the nbc news decision desk and multiple other news outlets were able to project him as the winner just 35 minutes after caucusing began in the frigid temperatures. trump ended up with 51% of the vote, winning 98 of the state's 99 counties. despite visiting only 15 of them. florida governor ron desantis came in a distant second, receiving 21% of support in the hawkeye state. 30 points behind trump and just two points ahead of former south carolina governor nikki haley.

this year's republican caucuses had the lowest turnout since the year 2000, drawing around 108,000 voters. that's about 14% of the state's registered republicans. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 16th. so how did the results reflect compared to the polls? >> i think there was a big winner. i think there was a big loser. the winner, of course, donald trump, over 50% of the vote. the loser, the republican party who was strapped at the republican loser, seven-time loser. and the problem for republicans is they started in iowa. this is just a perennial problem for the gop. and it really, willie, it's a problem that the democrats fix. but you go back and look who won in 2008. it was mike huckabee. who won in -- was it huckabee?

>> yeah, huckabee, santorum. >> huckabee won in 2008. santorum won in 2012. ted cruz won in 2016. you go back to 1988, you had televangelist pat robertson beating the sitting vice president of the united states, george h.w. bush. i actually went back last night and looked at the news coverage. l.a. times quoted young george w. bush saying, we got whipped. they did get whipped. we are going to be reading a lot of exit polls, people like, oh, my god, this -- no doubt the republican party nationwide is not the party of reagan any more. not even close. not even the party of george w. bush. but this is a radical, in many ways, radical electorate if you look at what they say.

and again vague -- they have set up once again donald trump their weakest candidate to go to the general election. a great night for donald trump given the fact that desantis wasn't pushed out of the race and haley wasn't pushed out of the race. so these two continue splitting the anti-trump vote in half and donald trump loves that. >> you are exactly right. donald trump could not have asked for a better scenario for the obvious because he won by 30 points, about where he was polling. as you say, that close race between ron desantis and nikki haley separate bid only about 1,400 votes means ron desantis is not going anywhere. he is not getting out of this race. he is going today to south carolina signaling that nikki haley may be better off in new hampshire. he likes his chances in south carolina. we can debate that. the point being donald trump still gets two people splitting that other never trump vote now for another month at least.

and as you also pointed to, joe, the radicalism of the party. we will look at some of this. the entrance polling from nbc news and other outlets, republican voters have bought the big lie in overwhelming majority, believe that joe biden is not the legitimate president and that will persist and that will stick to donald trump in a general election. so a fascinating night to study the republican party. problems ahead in the general perhaps if they stick with donald trump. but let's go over to steve kornacki. he is still, i think, from last night at the big board. of course, the nbc news national political correspondent. a big, big night for donald trump. >> yeah, a couple ways to look at this, 51% he finishes with the previous record in an iowa republican caucus was 41%. you mentioned 2000, george w. bush, 41%, trump ten points north of that. and the margin of victory is basically 30 points. trump over desantis. the previous record for a margin of victory in iowa was 12

points. bob dole over pat robertson in 1988. these numbers trump vastly exceeded anything in an iowa republican caucus. here is an interesting one. it is as close for donald trump to being a 99 county sweep of the state as you can get without actually getting a 99 county sweep. what i mean is look at the one county that is not trump shade of red, johnson county where iowa city and the university of iowa are. look at the result here. donald trump lost to nikki haley by a single vote. so donald trump literally came one single vote away from going 99 for 99 in iowa last night here. just in terms of why desantis was able to edge out haley for second place, look, compared to trump, it's not really a strong or breakout showing for either one of them given the history we talked about. why was desantis able to edge out second place? essentially, it's this. haley had -- we talked about

this yesterday, the polls were suggesting this, haley had a coalition that was dependent on college educated, on independents, on non-republicans, on higher income voters. they are concentrated around the state capitol, des moines, polk county, dallas county, johnson county, nikki haley carried by a vote. storey county, ames, iowa state university. those are the kinds of places. she did well, very well last night in a couple of places there. maybe not quite as well as she wanted. certainly competitive. where the floor fell out for haley and where desantis ran up numbers on her, there is a lot of small rural counties throughout the state that individually don't add up to much in terms of the statewide vote. but that collectively do. and in those i give you a couple of examples here. van buren county very small, haley single digits. just 6% right there. take a look. you know, wayne county, down by the missouri border, again you

don't see haley in the top four in this county. she finished behind ramaswamy. take a look at ring old county, haley single digits. you know, desantis getting blown out by trump. these add up. it's not a ton of numbers, but there is a whole bunch of these around the state. basically, one quarter of the counties in iowa last night nikki haley finished in single digits in. there is only four where desantis finished in single digits. so, you know, the gains, the strengths that haley had in those areas of the state that are suburban, metropolitan, the gains that haley made were eventually offset by her failure to be competitive in parts of iowa that now are representative in many ways of the national republican party base. these are counties i am showing you that are small, rural, where you don't have a high degree of concentration of college educated voters, much more working class in blue collar in nature. a lot of these voters, you know, had been swinging to the republican party for some time,

accelerated when donald trump became the face of the republican party and nikki haley doing pretty much nothing with them last night. it means for her going forward, new hampshire could be 45% of the electorate in new hampshire next week independent. you see that number in new hampshire regularly. you result don't see it almost anywhere else. so nikki haley with what she showed last night, showing in the polls, could be very competitive in new hampshire next week. the problem for her is what happens. let's say she pulls off the upset, john mccain in 2000, doesn't do much in iowa, goes to new hampshire, gets the big upset. where does she go? home state of south carolina. the demographics are very, very different than new hampshire. then you go a week after south carolina you're in super tuesday, into a lot of states. arkansas, tennessee, north carolina, texas, california where the rules have been changed in a way that make it very easy for donald trump to take all 169 delegates. those delegates add up real fast

for donald trump on super tuesday. the limitations that i went through for haley in the coalition she put together in iowa last night they will not necessarily loom large in new hampshire next week but they will be huge the other states that i talked about that come later. >> steve, obviously, we can -- i want to stay with iowa. first let's talk about what is ahead. new hampshire, obviously, ahead next week. if nikki haley wins there, then the space between new hampshire primary and south carolina will be a month. so where does she go next? she goes to south carolina, and she has a month to campaign in her home state with donald trump. if she wins with donald trump a loser for a month, that will -- that will be fascinating. we will see what happens under those circumstances. but donald trump has problems in new hampshire regardless, doesn't he? even in the -- you know, by the way, the trump argument that,

oh, you know, if nikki haley wins in new hampshire, she only wins because she gets independents in a swing state. actually, that's a positive argument to make for the general election, which is independents in swing states hate me, so you can't really look at nikki haley beating me there. all that being said, donald trump, even the head-to-head matchup in new hampshire with joe biden, it's one of the few states right now that biden continues to beat donald trump. >> yeah. new hampshire swung dramatically from one of the closest states in 2016, you know, donald trump nearly won it to decisively for biden in 2020. that electability argument there about nikki haley, again i mentioned john mccain 2000, i think there is a lot of shades of george w. bush versus john mccain in 2000 and donald trump now versus nikki haley. one of them is exactly what you

just talked about. john mccain won 18 point victory in new hampshire in 2000. nobody saw it coming. a political sensation overnight. and there were general election polls. famous one. cnn usa gallup poll before south carolina had john mccain 22 points ahead of al gore back in 21. bush doing 13 points less. mccain said it couldn't be any more obvious. you can reach out to independents, reach out to democrats. his famous line was i'll beat george w. bush like a drum. what undid john mccain in 2000 is a big threat to nikki haley and the republican party in 2024. things don't change in some ways. if you get the majority of your votes, if you are getting it them from non-republicans and that is what john mccain was doing in 2000, core republican voters look at you with suspicion. george w. bush in 2000 made that race a loyalty test to republican voters. are you with the republican

candidate or the candidate of the mischievous democrats of the media the non-republicans and donald trump, what he will be able to do, what he can do with haley even what we saw in iowa last night with her coalition, if she wins new hampshire on the back of independents make a similar loyalty argument. i think he would make it more personal because we see this. three quarters of haley's voters say they have a negative view of donald trump. and we see in the trump era republican party that when a republican gets identified as being the face of anti-trump voters, anti-trump forces, anti-trump messages, republican voters who like donald trump and they are still the vast majority of the republican party, they tend to turn on that candidate. ask chris christie. he left the race with poisonous numbers with republican voters. mike pence, same thing. ask asa hutchinson. all of them. they are the only three candidates who had upside down numbers in terms of favorability with republican voters this past

year and had everything to do with being identified with the antagonism towards trump. if nikki haley pulls off new hampshire her challenge, that's a difficult needle to thread because the lesson of the trump era when you become seen as the face of the non-republicans and trump resistant crowd, republicans turn on you and turn on you hard. we are seeing in south carolina after new hampshire haley's polling much worse in her home state of south carolina than she it in new hampshire. >> look at some of those entrance poll numbers i mentioned from nbc news and what they say about the electorate in iowa. a majority of republican voters last night well above 60% believe the big lie, believe that joe biden lost the election. also 65, 66% of voters say even if donald trump is convicted of the crimes he is facing now this year, 65% say he still is fit to be president. so this party -- by the way, among all voters, trump voters, those numbers go way up even

higher. so they have bought his story. they have bought his version of events inside the party. >> we have been seeing this for a long time. i think it's a story that's fundamental to donald trump's dominance that we saw last night in his dominance in the national polls right now is that core republican voters see the legal situation around trump. i know all sorts of different areas here. i will say the legal situation to keep it simple. they see the legal situation as an attack, as a politically motivated attack on donald trump. you could make up your own mind whether that's fair or not. look at this. i think this tells the story. this is the trend line of the national republican race from the very beginning of 2023 until we are this morning, and again this is like it wasn't that long ago. i want to remind folks. in the early months of 2023 and the last month of 2022, december 2022, coming off that 2022 midterm with the republicans underperformed, the trump aligned candidates lost key races that cost republicans the senate, other major offices,

trump was running. this is the national average. desantis never caught him in the national average. we would see polls in january and february of 2023 that had desantis within 10 points of trump. there were polls -- i could find you five right now that had desantis ahead nationally of donald trump. the atmosphere in early '23 was, republicans are moving on from trump. they are sick of the losing. they had years of this. they are going to look for other options here. that's why so many candidates stepped forward. look where the lines diverge, where the trump line takes off, where the desantis line kinda flat lines and nobody's moved up. that is literally the week that donald trump was indicted on the first of the charges in manhattan on the stormy daniels matter. when you look at these numbers, if you apply the little legal dates that popped up throughout the year, they triggered a rally around trump effect among core

republicans. again, they clearly see this as politically motivated. they see this as trump's opponents using the legal system to go after him and they responded that way by rallying around him. you see it the week of the first indictment and that has been the story since. >> coming up, new york isn't an early primary state but that's where donald trump is heading today. a preview of his appearance inside a manhattan courtroom strait ahead on "morning joe." r" doesn't your family deserve the best? eggland's best eggs. classic, cage free, and organic. more delicious, farm-fresh taste. plus, superior nutrition. because the way we care is anything but ordinary.

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♪♪ we are following donald trump's big win in iowa. let's bling in nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann in iowa and the host of way too early, wows burr chief at politico. what are you seeing, especially in the exit polling. steve kornacki just drew a very

stark line showing the support for donald trump lining up with his indictments. >> well, first of all, you know, you guys talked about the big winners and losers here. big winner, obviously, donald trump here. you know, all the way to the afternoon yesterday, the trump campaign had been a little nervous over the last few days leading into the caucuses. they set expectations. they were going to clear 50%. their late polling showed them not making those expectations. they started worrying about the weather and the first time caucusgoers are trying to get out there. the whole attack vivek ramaswamy thing was sort of a tell that they were starting to get a little worried. not that trump wasn't going to win, but get over 50%, which was a key indicator for them. they, obviously, got that done last night. kind of surpassed their own expectations internally. a big win for donald trump. the big loss here, as you guys said, i think really for anybody

who hopes to stop donald trump from being the nominee. you have to look -- we got fixated on who is going to win second place, particularly because there was a chance if nikki haley won second place, clearly that she would have, you know, desantis have to drop out, she would have had trump one-on-one, which everyone understands, if there is a way to beat trump. now we won't have him one-on-one. ron desantis and nikki haley are both going to argue they got the second ticket out of iowa. desantis i came in second. haley says i can win new hampshire. bottom line, they both got creamed, both lost by 30 plus points. no one here has ever won an iowa caucus by more than 12 until last night. so both of these candidates walk out of here weakened and hobbled. if you had to say who has the path, nikki haley last night claimed it was her. although it's kind of in some level illogical to say you are third and you have the ticket to

iowa, the path, the truth is, in these races you've got to win something at some point. and forget about what happens after new hampshire. the bottom line is of ron desantis and nikki haley, the one who has a chance to win a primary in the foreseeable future is nikki haley. she doesn't have a great chance against donald trump. she comes out with enough of momentum and enough funds, enough dollars on hand she can win. say whatever you want about the new hampshire primary and how it's different from the republican electorate. it's true. if you are going to beat donald trump, you have to beat him somewhere first. nikki haley has a chance to do that. a chance in new hampshire. and i think that's the ultimate story here. what happens after that is tomorrow's problem. right now you have a new hampshire race coming up and nikki haley is the only person in the republican party right now who has a chance to win a race against donald trump. so even though she finished in disappointing fashion last night, she could make that argument. i think it's right. >> you spent a lot of time, john, in iowa.

of course, over this past weekend, you have been to iowa an awful lot over the past 20 years. i am curious. what was your takeaway this weekend on donald trump and his lasting power, and the republican party not just in iowa, but how they represent larger forces as well as the movement? i think people who -- democrats who say we have a candidate, trump has a movement, they probably see that more in iowa and states like that than anywhere else. what was your big takeaway this weekend? >> well, number one, and i know it's not always popular to speak well of donald trump. and i am not going to speak well of donald trump himself. if you remember, joe, 2016, the trump campaign was a joke. it was not a serious thing and there is a lot of people who say if they had a reasonable campaign and reasonable operation, they should have won that race.

they came into caucus night leading in the poms and ted cruz better organized, better campaign, more harnessed the evangelical movement, you know, ted cruz stole iowa from them. the difference to 2024 and 2016 on the trump campaign is night and day. the campaign itself is a professional operation. the story of trump being able to actually organize in the caucuses, something he didn't do in 2016, his ability to turn people out, ability to dominate the evangelical vote, which he never did in 2016, those are signs that not that trump is any more popular or toxic or doesn't have the problems that you point out all the time that he has in a general election, but the one advantage he did -- that he showed here that i think he is going to carry forward is he has a professional campaign operation around him. the fact that they got to 51 and the fact they did it on a night that was 530 below zero with a negative 30 windchill.

people said last night they were going to have a record low attendance, below 100,000, i think the previous low ever here was 89 or 98,000. i can't remember which. people thought they wouldn't make it. they made it over 100. the turnout was so low. but the trump people got their people out last night and that is a sign that this is a team that's more organized and more professional. you are, obviously, right. this is a very -- it's not an outlier state exactly because the dynamics in this state are similar across the south. i mean, the results that trump racked up last night here he is going to be able to replicate across large parts of the sun belt, the deep south, the mountain west. so iowa is definitely not a reflection of the general election in america. it's not going to be a swing state in 2024. it's not going to be georgia or michigan or wisconsin or arizona even. but it is in terms of the republican party, it is actually

pretty representative what gives trump so much strength going forward. this state looks a lot like the stronghold that trump has, the bulwark he has against anybody, nikki haley, ron desantis, anybody else, the state is representative of the way which trump transformed the republican party into the maga party. >> one other note. vivek ramaswamy finished way back in fourth place, dropped out of the race and despite the fact he was attacked the last search days by donald trump, endorsed donald trump. if you look at the polling, was the outcome we predicted in terms of a margin, in terms of the dominance of donald trump. what wasn't predicted was house close desantis and haley would be leaving them both in the race to continue to split the vote in favor of the donald trump. >> that's the best possible outcome for donald trump. an impressive win, and, yes, the caveats, it's a low turnout, a small percentage of the republican vote in a very, very white state that doesn't tell us much about november 2024.

but it does tell us about the republican primary process right now. trump gets the win he wants. the ground game was impressive. and both desantis and haley can claim that they are still alive. as long as they are splitting the vote, because new hampshire is so important. and i think clearly haley has a shot to win new hampshire. i am not saying great shot, a shot. even if desantis hangs around and puts up a six, seven, eight, ten points, if some of that would have gone to haley, maybe that's the difference. ramaswamy on the margins. he wasn't putting up much in new hampshire. if trump wins new hampshire sort of by any margin it will be hard for haley who i know has to enter her home state. yes, a few weeks between new hampshire and south carolina. she it down 30, 40 points in her home state. that would be difficult to pull off. the most honest moment from ron desantis perhaps in the entire campaign a few days ago he acknowledged that the thing that changed the course of the race were the indictments. and steve walked us through it on the board yesterday. that was the moment republicans

came home to trump. and i think that the second-guessing that desantis -- i am sure the haley camp is having now as well, certainly the campaigns that belong to mike pence, tim scott, there was a moment to have gone on the attack and they didn't. had they gone after trump right at the beginning of the campaign instead of being so fearful of losing his support, maybe the trajectory of the race could have changed. but they held their fire. trump only grew stronger. then at this point outside of chris christie, who of course, you know, did attack him and had to drop out, they largely kept their mouths shut and didn't go after trump and trump dominated the field and we saw this resounding victory. let's be clear. long way to go. it's his nomination to lose clearly. >> not only not go after him. many ways, defended him. the justice department is being weaponized. a week from today a new hampshire. then but into nevada where

donald trump is expected to roll and then you have got that big gap until february the 24th. a lot of time before south carolina where that could be, if donald trump runs the way he is polling right now and finishes that way, that could be decisive, could be ball game. >> so interesting. when you look at that exit polling and steve kornacki showed us in really stark terms, the strong maga presence for donald trump in line with his indictments. so the indictments actually help. and both ron desantis and nikki haley made the choice, made the conclusion that they should not insult trump voters and the data backs up it would be a mistake to do so. my question is, at what point is that a failing act of complicity instead of a sign of strength in leadership because they are asking themselves to twist themselves in a pretzel over issues pertaining to the truth and to the law. >> well, listen. if you want to see what happens

to a candidate that goes after donald trump and says the sort of things that we want to hear them say, ask chris christie how it works. you are running for the republican nomination. trump's party. and you have candidates that don't have the skill set. i guess maybe there is a candidate out there that could do that. that could sort of mock donald trump, talk about how he is a losing candidate. you mean, chris christie did that. but what we found is that if you're a republican and you attack donald trump, your numbers go down. if you're a republican and you are seen as not fully supporting donald trump, your numbers go down. mike pence was the most loyal is vice president in the world to donald trump. if donald trump took his bottle of water off the table, mike pence followed and took his bottle off the table. he followed him, you know.

he followed him almost religiously. and then on january 6th, when people were saying hang mike pence, donald trump said, yeah, yeah, he deserves it. maybe he deserves it. and republicans just abandoned mike pence like that. so what we found here is, yeah, you know, i think we've really always kind of known. john heilemann, if donald trump is going to lose, then donald trump's going to have to beat himself. just the way it is. these republican candidates can go for republican voters, but it can't be about donald trump. just can't. they can't attack. donald trump was the last republican president of the united states, and in this age of tribalism, i mean, there is -- it is tribalism on steroids. in many cases, it really looks like a personality cult. trump has got the majority of

people following the big lie in the party. you name it. he brings up a conspiracy theory, they follow it. so you've got that, john heilemann. and it puts both of these people in a difficult position. i want the -- i want to look at this another way. let me just ask you, if barack obama took four years off and then ran in a democratic caucus in iowa, would 50% of democrats vote against barack obama? >> no. they wouldn't. let me answer your question. the fact -- >> the fact that donald trump -- we have a delay. the fact that donald trump has 50% of republicans not voting for him, and as steve kornacki said, one-third hating him in the state of iowa. in the state of iowa. you know, we can all sit here

and, you know, put him sack cloth and ashes and moan about donald trump getting 51% of the vote. got to say, for people who want to win general elections, that's not good news. >> right. there wasn't a delay. i was making the calculation in my head. in a way trump didn't take time off. the right analogy, trump transformed -- you know, iowa was a state that -- to bring up barack obama. barack obama wins this state in the general election in 2008. he wins the state in the general election in 2012. trump comes in, wins -- comes in third in the iowa caucuses in 2016 but wins the state, turns it red in 2016, turns it red easily in 2020. so he is actually run here as a presidential candidate in the last two presidential cycles. he hasn't taken any time off, right. he is effectively the incumbent running in the republican party. imagine barack obama wins iowa

in 2008 and 2012 and now running in 2016. what would barack obama's margin have been in iowa in the 2016 democratic caucuses? i would reckon 90, 95%. 85%? i mean, one of the most popular democratic presidents in history. trump getting over 50 was an achievement for him in terms of proving he has the majority of the republican party at least here in iowa. but it is a sign of something that there is this -- there continues to be this large -- people know donald trump really well. he has transformed the party. of the republicans know him really well and there is still -- there may not be enough of a hunger to depose donald trump as the republican nominee but there is a hunger for people who want to, and people last night who voted for nikki haley, some voted for ron desantis, those people are not -- normally you say they will fall in line behind their republican nominee in the general election. a fair number of those people

are democrats and independents for nikki haley that last fight, likely to be voting for joe biden when it comes to -- in 2024. enough to make iowa blue? probably not. as a national indicator, it's an important thing that points to trump's weakness as a general election candidate. coming up, from the white house to the campaign trail, our next guest is leaving the administration and joining the biden re-election team. the president's former senior advisor mitchell andrew joins the table straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ [ tires screeching ] director: cut! jordana, easy on the gas. force of habit. i gotta wrap this commercial, i think i'm late on my payment. it's okay, the general gives you a break when you need it. yeah, we let you pick your own due date so you can pay your car insurance when it's best for you. well that's good to know, because this next scene might take a while. [ helicopter and wind noises ] for a great low rate, go with the general.

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third down and seven. mayfield, wide open. there is moore again. his second catch, still working through the secondary, and a touchdown tampa bay! >> where is the d? that's david moore of the tampa bay buccaneers scoring on a 44-yard reception, waltzing in the end zone in the first

quarter against the eagles. first of three touchdown passes from baker mayfield, threw for 337 in his first playoff appearance since 2020. tampa's defense stymied philly, stuffing the tush push before halftime, sacking jalen hurts in the end zone for a safety late in the third. he was out of it last night, too. >> aye-yai-yai. >> the bucs are hot. win for the sixth time in seven games, dominating the eagles, 32-9 last night to advance to the nfc divisional round. they go to detroit to play the lions. jo, the philadelphia eagles started 10-1, lose six of the last seven and dreadful last night. a team that a quarter away from winning the super bowl last year. you figure, okay, they are in the playoffs now. it's been a rough stretch. they flip the switch, turn it on. they played totally uninspired. if you and i tackled in high school the way they tackled last

night, our coach would have us running sprints all day in the heat. it was kind of staggering to watch how bad they were. credit to the bucs. they did really well and they are hot. man, the eagles are bad now. >> i wish we had pablo here today because we would talk about the bad tackling in the playoffs. the miami dolphins turning sideways like this and hoping to, like, hit. i swear, like nothing i have ever seen. you see it time and time again. you saw it with the cowboys against the packers. you saw it last night, too. willie, the thing is, again, i have never seen a collapse like this in football. the philadelphia eagles 11 weeks into the season, they were the surefire bet to go back to the super bowl, probably win it. it has been just a collapse. you look at last night. horrific. the week before, the giants, they made the giants look great. the week before that, they lost to the lowly arizona cardinals. this is a team -- the coach,

obviously, has to go. but, you know, willie, you could look at this game and say what happened? there we go. what happened to jalen hurts? what happened to the offense? you could say the same thing in dallas with dak, right? you could say the same thing with alabama, when they lost to michigan. but what's the common denominator? the bigger problem. in alabama, how did you give up a fourth quarter -- how did the defense give up the fourth quarter lead and collapse in overtime? with the cowboys, they got run over by the bills a couple of weeks back. and jordan love looked like joe namath in 1969 for the jets. the cowboys' defense was horrid. and last night, my god, the eagles' defense, this is a much bigger problem for the eagles. don't look at jalen. don't look at the offense. start with the defense. that was one -- that was just, along with the cowboys, just two

great teams that turned in two horrible defensive displays. >> yeah. it was really bad. to watch -- there is something called a shell drill in practice, where the quarterback throws to the receivers wherever he wants to. that's what it looked like, like a practice drill. everyone was so open. when they got the ball they were running free. if they were tackled, shoulder blocks instead of grabbing -- the new york tabloids. giants fans, cry eagles cry instead of fly eagles fly. they were in the super bowl last year. they are talking about that this morning in philly. >> that's going to at least be a conversation. certainly wholesale changes. warning sign when they brought in matt patricia to help the defense. he had a tough couple of years. this eagles team broke. i felt like they broke in recent weeks. jalen hurts was banged up yesterday. a.j. brown, the best receiver, didn't play. he was out. but the bigger point is that

they just fell apart down the stretch. something missing with the team, a lack of heart and certainly a lack of defense and which the non-effort on those two long touchdowns guys didn't even try to wrap him up. they weren't competing. and certainly the nfc east all year long, cowboys and eagles thought to be among the two top teams in the league g out in embarrassing fashion yesterday. the winner last night, the detroit lions, get another home playoff game after that wonderful scene. grown men crying in the stands. now they get another home game against the tampa bay team they should beat. they could win the nfc title game. >> yes. great story coming out of the detroit. the earlier game yesterday, the buffalo bills cruise past the steelers. josh allen three touchdown passes and scoring on a franchise postseason record. 52-yard touchdown run. he is a beast. look at this run. >> amazing. >> 6'5", 240 running like this.

the slide. carrying a five-game regular season winning streak into the first round of the playoffs with a 31-17 win over pittsburgh. steelers now lost five consecutive playoff games. great scene, joe, last night in buffalo. snowballs all over the place. and now the kansas city chiefs next weekend come to buffalo for a night game. should be a crazy atmosphere and a crazy stat, by the way, that patrick mahomes through this incredible run has never played a road playoff game. they have been so good, they have always been the higher seed or been the super bowl at a neutral site. so you get the chiefs, mahomes and kelsey on the road in buffalo on a sunday night. should be amazing. >> i mean, you look at that, by the way, three great teams there. three great hot teams. kansas city chiefs aren't one of them. what's fascinating about this game, people thought the eagles would turn on the switch and go. the kansas city chiefs have just, they have stumbled their way through the season. just like, i mean let's face it,

josh allen and the bills started the season horribly. the first half of the season. jack and i kept watching on sundays. of course, after seeing willie's show sunday morning. and then when you go to the red zone in the afternoons, what's wrong with josh allen? he was horrible the first half of this season. and then they played dallas, boom. that is a hot team. somebody said two weeks going into the playoffs, you don't want to play the bills. josh allen and the bills are hot. and, man, they are thinking about what no hyperbole here, what may have been the greatest playoff game ever when they played kansas city three years ago in kansas city. now it's in buffalo. that scene is going to be wild and we'll see if josh allen can get his revenge. >> coming up, donald trump won iowa in a landslide, but his republican challengers aren't going away.

a full breakdown of where the race heads next when "morning joe" comes right back.

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i will not break a sweat when i take the stairs. i will not break a sweat when i take the stairs. i will dunk on the hoop over my garage. i will dunk on the hoop over my garage. i will insist it's regulation height even though it's definitely not. i will insist it's regulation height, even though it's definitely not. i will be able to open the jar of pickles. i don't like pickles. what about kosher dill? no.

half sour? no. full sour? no. you like cucumbers? oh, yeah. that's a pre-pickle. let's go. [strains] excellent. one more.

♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." as the republican candidates were wrapping up their campaigns in iowa, president biden was at the white house also looking ahead to november. the president joined reverend al sharpton for a special one-on-one interview. >> the way, the things that trump is saying, trump is saying things that areust off the wall. he is the most anti-democratic president in american ory. the things he's saying, and he means them. he's talking about running to get revengen people.

it is outrageous things. for example, he said the other day that because our economy is doing so well and getting better and better, he said he's looking forward to a recession, a depression, because he wants it to happen on, quote, my watch. he wouldn't be talking about this if he didn't acknowledge the economy is doing pretty damn well and particularly for people who in fact need the most help. >> rev, tell us about that interview. >> the context is for the last several years, president biden has come to the national action network d.c. breakfast. he decided to come and do service this martin luther king, jr. holiday. he said he would do a few minutes on my radio show. the white house said you have five or six minutes. he ended up going almost triple that. i said, in 2020 at our national

action network breakfast, you said i'm really thinking about running for president this year he said because when i saw what happened in charlottesville and how this guy trump is acting, i really want to get in there and help turn this country around. what motivated you to seek reelection? he said, you know, al, it's because this guy is off the wall. you heard the rest of his comment. in many ways, he was saying that donald trump is what motivated him to run in 2020 and donald trump was part of the impetus of why he's running now, because he feels what he's saying is so anti-democratic that it's more than just donald trump. in many ways i don't know that

he, joe biden, would have been as motivated as he seems to be, because he was full of vigor yesterday in the phone interview if donald trump was not running. i think he really sees trump as something that would be irreparable to the democratic process. coming up, vaughn hilliard is in iowa. he'll recap last night's big win for donald trump and preview where the race for the republican nomination goes from here. republican nomination goes from here

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♪♪ they said, well, if you win by 12%, that's a big win. i think we more than doubled

that, i guess, tripled it may be. they said you'll never get over 50. i just left and we're at 54. >> i can tell you, because of your support, in spite of all that they threw at us, everyone against us, we've got our ticket punched out of iowa. >> i can safely say tonight iowa made this republican primary a two-person race. >> donald trump basking in his big win last night in iowa as ron desantis and nikki haley try to make the case that they are still contenders going forward. but trump dominated the contest with 51% of the vote, winning 98 of the state's 99 counties. desantis came in a distant second, receiving 21% of support in the hawkeye state, 30 points behind trump and just two points

ahead of nikki haley. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. jonathan lemire and mike barnicle are back with us. willie, i guess it was a trouncing in iowa, but still the numbers don't add up in a great way for trump when you look at what other republican contenders have done in the iowa caucuses. >> they add up really nicely for him last night, because he won by 30 points and he's got two candidates still in the race now fighting for votes that would be theoretically taken from him otherwise. for a guy who's been president to get just over 50% of the vote, historically isn't great. vaughn hilliard is in iowa. what are you seeing as the big story lines from last night?

>> reporter: this is an electorate that had a front-row seat to ron desantis and nikki haley for the better part of the last year, and frankly, they chose not to pick them as their nominee. ron desantis had quadruple the number of events that donald trump did, and there was all the talk of retail politics here in the state of iowa. you've got to meet iowans where they are. guess what? a majority of iowans went with donald trump, who prioritized going to the courtroom over the last several months as opposed to coming and meeting the iowans where they were here on ground. nikki haley said that the iowans sent the message it was a two-person race, but she didn't mention the fact that she came in third place. donald trump from the stage congratulated vivek, thanked him for endorsing him. he called ron desantis and nikki

haley smart and capable people, all but suggesting it's time for them to get out of the race. we should not expect that to be donald trump's temperature here over the course of the next days. he put out a tweet in which he send a message to ron desantis saying, quote, you have no idea what's about to happen and the pain your campaign and candidate will experience. that is the trump campaign message as they make their way to new hampshire. so we should expect donald trump to come with these final punches to try to end this race quite early on. >> he's a uniter, not a divider. vaughn, let's talk about a couple of the issues that did resonate in iowa. there were two polls that are telling. one is that the majority of republican voters there do not think joe biden was duly elected president in 2020, and that also immigration looms large. there are only so many lessons we could take out of iowa and

apply to the general election, but that might be one, the idea that immigration is going to be a key issue. give us your read. >> reporter: right. donald trump, after making mention of those other candidates in the race last night, the very first policy issue, if you will, that he mentioned was installing the greatest deportation effort in u.s. history, going back to the eisenhower administration in the '50s. for donald trump, this is a message that has resonated not only with him in 2016, but he used the caravan as a cudgel in 2018. we continue to hear that emphasized by him and his campaign, promising to use every means possible to not only close the border but also deport a great share of individuals that are in this country. this was baked in here.

it was only in the last couple weeks you saw nikki haley and ron desantis push back that the election was stolen from donald trump. when you have conversations with folks on the ground, time and again the idea is that the election was stolen, so therefore, they need to get behind donald trump. it's hard to say this is all but inevitable, but a great share of the republican electorate feel loyalty and an obligation to support the man who they believe the election was stolen from. >> joining us we have former msnbc host and contributor to washington monthly, chris matthews back with us and author

and columnist joe klein is with us as well. chris, your take-away after last night's results? >> 62% say they don't care if he's convicted of felonies. 200 people have pled guilty to felonies from raiding the

capitol. where is he on civil rights or any rights? i think about obamacare, the 20 some million people that have obamacare now, he's determined to get rid of it. he wants to have a 10% tax on consumers buying goods from overseas. he enjoyed himself sitting in the room next to the oval office watching crimes being committed. that's fun, but they're not the victims yet. tyranny has victims. people start thinking how funny it is that this guy can get away with murder, because it's not affecting them yet. i think donald trump is not the nicest guy in the world. why people think it's great that he's backing up criminals and

he's committing crimes. by the way e. jean carroll, are you rooting for him in that case? are you saying he's innocent? he's not innocent. he's guilty. we've got to think about not how people are polling, but what their attitude is when they poll. i know they don't like the government or the elite and all that. but do they really want this guy to control their lives? >> who's the big shot? you've got a guy from scranton, pennsylvania, whose dad was unemployed, who struggled, grew up in a working class family who carries around a picture of his young daughter who was killed in a car accident 50 years ago, who has pictures of his son who died of cancer and openly tears up and weeps and says he should have been the president, not me. this is a guy who struggled,

just like so many working class people in iowa, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. but he paints himself as a working man's hero. last night, iowans bought into it in the republican party, at least 14% of voters did there. they don't care if he committed crimes. they don't care if he's convicted. they just want their retribution. >> joe, i covered 11 iowa caucuses starting in 1976, almost 50 years. i think when i total it all up, i probably spent more than two years of my life in iowa, and it was always winter. i don't recognize the electorate that voted last night. i spent many, many years talking

to evangelicals in their churches and shopkeepers and folks having coffee in the cafes. as a new yorker, i had to say they were weirdly nice people. there wasn't an anger to them. a lot of the evangelicals were frightened for their children. a lot of them were in families where both mom and dad worked, and they were worried what their kids were doing after school. if they were in the church, they felt a lot more comfortable. there was never the kind of anger and irrationality that you saw last night. to me, that is extremely troubling, and it makes me very sad, because you can't get a more american place than iowa. the two numbers from the entry polling that stick out are the

ones that chris just mentioned and vaughn mentioned and you mentioned, 62% of the people think that the election was stolen. that means they don't have very much faith in our democracy. it also means they don't have very much faith in the second pillar of our democracy, which is the judiciary. because if he gets convicted, they'll still vote for him. it means they don't care all that much about democracy anymore. >> we've spent a good bit of time there as well. we like people in iowa. again, i wish i could explain it a different way, but you just

can't. i've seen it, joe. they're pumped with disinformation from the time they wake up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night. they're told constantly lies, whether it's on a cable network or online, constant lies, constant conspiracy theories. so many people i grew up with and know, after the election, they spit out things that a website run by a chinese religious cult was spitting to them. they didn't care. >> they kind of took our jobs away from us, because normally

on the morning after we would be talking about scenarios for nikki haley and ron desantis and how this thing is going to go forward and how new hampshire is going to play. i don't hear very much of that happening today. those guys were crushed. the only logical conclusion you can come to is that punditry at this point about the state of the race and how things are going to go is irrelevant. what you have is this monster who looks strong. and i always go back to what bill clinton said, strong and wrong beats weak and right. as wonderful a man as joe biden is, he seems weak. >> i liked the speech in valley

forge. you are so right about the strong and wrong. democrats have looked weak for a very long time. i will say, though, we've got to have a reality check here. i got to say it. it's just the truth. donald trump's republican party lost in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, but they got that red wave in 2022 that the media -- oh no, they didn't. the media was wrong again. they lost in 2022. they've lost elections in 2023. my money is on them losing again in 2024. make no mistake about it, this election last night showed there are people who wanted to vote for a guy who said he wanted to terminate the constitution, a guy said he'd be a dictator on day one, a guy who said he'd

execute generals he diplomat think were sufficiently loyal to him, a guy who said he wanted the economy to crash into a depression. this is a guy who trashes the united states, trashes our military, trashes our institutions. he is not a conservative. he's a radical, focused on one thing, the destruction of any institution that can check his power. by the way, it's just me saying that. the "wall street journal" editorial page has said that, so many other conservatives have said that. yet voters say we'll vote for the guy who says he's going to be a dictator on day one, because he's funny, he speaks to us, he's entertaining. >> well, i don't disagree with you, joe. we've got to look at this in a way we have not. the democratic party has not taken a real look at it.

the republican party has lost consistently since donald trump was first elected in 2016. guess what the flip side of that coin is? donald trump won in 2016. he almost won in 2020. he's clearly ahead of the field right now and has almost a certain lock to get the nomination to run for the presidency again as a republican. so we wander around wondering how could the people in iowa have ever voted for him? how could 62% believe that the election was rigged and that joe biden is not the real president of the united states? how could these people have voted for him, and who are these people and why are they voing for him? we know who these people are. they're your neighbors. they're my neighbors. we know them. you just know they're trump people. why are they like this?

why are they voting for him? basically because the united states of america might not have come to terms with what has happened. you, joe and i are approximately the same age. for 50 years we've been carrying the baggage of vietnam. a couple more piles were thrown onto it with the recessions that have occurred, with the collapse of the economy in 2008, with kids having to go to iraq and afghanistan. that's what they're carrying. they're carrying the load of history. the democratic party has not yet figured out how to deal with that in dealing with trump. >> that line of history is real. lbj and nixon, even eisenhower and kennedy, they all gave us a bad bill of goods, bad facts about vietnam. they told us we were winning

again and again, and we were losing. i've been watching that series again and teaching over there. that's always been the big lie. it led to watergate and the rest. the new guy spreading lies is donald trump. he's out there telling everybody he won. if anybody is watching from that point of view, name the states he won that he didn't get credit for? was it georgia where he went to raffensperger, the secretary of state and said find me 12,000 votes? where was it he actually did win? he lies, and they accept the lie. the reason those republicans, 68% say he won the election is he said so. if he hadn't lied, they wouldn't believe it. it's all him. so the lie continues with donald trump, and the tyranny will follow him.

they want to accept the lie because they're so angry against the establishment, the government, the irs, everybody. they're so angry. he didn't invent the ananger, b he's tapped into it. his jokes are always angry jokes. by the way, think about those cops defending the capitol. which side were you on, the cops defending the capitol or the mob? who do you want to win that fight between the mob and the cop? that's what the democrats should be saying, which side are you on, this liar who wants to hurt women? what side are you on? i know you're angry, but he's wrong. >> chris, you describe it so well. i do understand what you're saying as it pertains to the

angry and perhaps vulnerable members of our population. what i don't understand is the evangelical community, the people who claim to be among the faithful, the people who claim to know the difference between right and wrong, the people who claim to be arbiters of right and long who are leaders. the man has four indictments, liability for sexual abuse, defamation, fraud, stealing documents. these are things he admits to or doubles down on. these people are 100% with him. what is happening? >> chris, you can follow up with a question whose side are you on. whose side is he on?

he's on president xi's side, constantly praising him. he's on kim jong-un's side. he's on the side of putin after the invasion, calling him brilliant. these people who voted for ronald reagan and strong cold war republicans, they've now folded, and they're voting for a guy who praises the head of communist china, who praises tyrants of the world. >> sometimes we're surprised. remember all the kavanaugh hearings? remember how he was crying and talking about drinking too much and all that, and people can identify with that. people in places like indiana and missouri liked him. they thought the big shots were tearing into him. a lot of regular people out

there whose kids drink too much. they saw this guy and said he's just getting beat up by these big shots. lindsey graham won the crowd that night by defending brett kavanaugh. you have to be careful about the big shots and the elite, because when you look too big shot, the people start routing against goliath. >> chris matthews and joe klein, thank you both very much for your insights this morning. coming up on "morning joe," we'll tell you how president biden responded to the iowa caucus results. and we'll be joined by a national cochair for biden's reelection campaign, which now boasts the largest war chest ever amassed by a democrat at this point in a presidential election cycle. plus, we'll take you live to

manhattan to the courthouse for the start of the second defamation trial against donald trump for his comments about writer e. jean carroll. he defamed her again. defamed ha 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. ♪ (avo) kate made progress with her mental health... jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ...but her medication caused unintentional movements in her

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♪♪ beautiful live picture of a snowy white house at 9:28 in the morning. president biden is responding to donald trump's win in iowa last night. the president wrote, looks like donald trump just won iowa. he's the clear frontrunner on the other side at this point. here's the thing, this election was always going to be you and me versus extreme maga republicans. joining us now, national cochair for president biden's reelection campaign, mitch landry. great to have you with us. what is your take coming out of

iowa? a 30-point win for donald trump. he's got a couple of candidates that are going to stay in the race, ron desantis and nikki haley. they'll be around for new hampshire. we also saw in iowa an electorate among republicans that has bought into the lie that joe biden did not win the presidential election. the majority saying last night they still would vote for donald trump even if he's convicted in one of his trials. what's your take-away? >> that's amazing. you have seen in the last five or six months every candidate for the presidency on the republican side racing over to the extreme maga side of the party that donald trump clearly owns, the republican party that used to be a really great part of the american political system is dead. donald trump owns the maga right. last night, 50,000 iowans, two-thirds of whom believe that the election was stolen, election deniers, and actually

say it doesn't matter to them if the president of the united states is a convicted criminal. that should tell you all you need to know about the current republican party in iowa last night that does not represent most republicans in the country or independents. everybody's always known this was a fight between joe biden and donald trump. joe biden ran for the presidency to save a democracy which is under threat. donald trump is an existential threat. it's the greatest threat to democracy we've seen in our life, and all of us are going to have to get in this fight. also, the president wakes up every day fighting for average, everyday americans. donald trump was born with a million dollar spoon in his mouth and probably never sat at the kitchen table. joe biden grew up at the kitchen table in scranton after his dad got fired and is working every day to put money in people's

pockets. >> you and i grew up along the gulf coast. this guy is not a man of the people. let's dig in. i know you've heard this like i've heard this. you talk to pollsters and focus groups and people inside the white house. they will tell you so many people in polls that they've talked to over the past six months go, no, no, no, it's not going to be donald trump. i'm going to vote for whoever it is, but trump is not going to win this. so we do this four hours a day, you live it, but there are a lot of people out there who aren't tuned in that haven't really focused on the threat before them. iowa helps. iowa brings that reality closer

home to people that are disengaged. >> i think when somebody slaps the crap out of you, you start paying attention. that's what iowa did last night. the president went to valley forge, he went to south carolina. he's given four speeches on the threat to democracy that donald trump poses. americans are going to start waking up and thinking what the hell just happened? joe biden has shown up every day with his shoulder to the wheel. i disagree with joe klein strenuously that joe biden looks weak. you can't pass four of the biggest pieces of legislation in the history of the country and be weak. donald trump said when he came to the white house he was going to be a builder. he hasn't built a damn thing. joe biden has 40,000 projects going on in this country right now, making sure that people have high-speed internet, clean air, safe water and a clean energy economy.

donald trump hadn't built anything. he's a destroyer. joe biden is working hard today. donald trump is in trial yet again. i just believe the american people when they focus and have to choose between joe biden and donald trump, i think they're going to do the same thing you noticed in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. they're going to vote for joe biden. >> i'm so glad you brought up the people that get up, take their kids to school, go to work day in and day out. only 14% of iowans went out and voted last night. that's really low.

i want you to see something. if we could put up joe biden's tweet again,his is so important. joe biden gets that we're running against extreme maga republicans. it's n an us versus them. joe biden is not saying all republicans are bad guys, all republicans hate the rule of law, all republicans still are going to chinese religious cul websites to get their information. no. he's talking about extreme maga republicans. it makes a difference, because there are a lot of republicans out there and independents out there that joe biden is going to get voting for him. >> i'll agree with everything you've said. i definitely agree with mitch.

joe klein, i didn't agree with. i don't think joe biden looks weak at all. there are so many accomplishments that you don't even know where to begin. that's not just me talking. it actually defies history in terms of the modern american presidency in terms of what he's been able to get done on a bipartisan level at the most divisive time in american history. >> especially on a bipartisan level. >> communicating it can't be just on biden. it's got to be the campaign and the democratic party. if you look at the number of iowans who think the election was stolen, look at the number of people who don't care that he's been indicted, isn't that a

sign that a good amount of the electorate is poisoned? and how, mitch, do you counter that? we can talk here about how great he is, but if a lot of people out there are poisoned with lies, how do you counter that? >> mitch, before you answer, i've got to say again we've got to look at these polls and understand this is 14%. you're talking about all iowans. this is 14% of the electorate. so we can't paint all of iowa with the same brush. 14% of iowan voters. go ahead, mitch. >> i spent one of the greatest years in my life when i was 13 in summer camp in iowa. i love iowa and i love the people here. some perspective here is important. only 14% of people voted last night. again, it was the extreme week

of the republican party as they themselves professed by telling you what they thought before they went in there. iowa is not really representative of the demographics of the united states of america. this has to be won at work, in the barbershop or the hair dressers, in the locker room, on the basketball court in the corner. benjamin franklin said, we have a republican if we can keep it. i want you to think about donald trump, who basically calls people vermin and says they poison other people's blood. i don't care if you're american or what country you live in, you shouldn't speak about another human being that way. because when you do, it allows you when you have power to hurt them. we really need to wake up,

because freedom is not free. we have to fight for it every day. i'll tell you who understands that. joe biden understands that. he has told us about it many, many times. just to put an exclamation point on this, joe biden came into office during one of the worst periods of chaos that trump created every day that he was president. i think he had four secretaries of defense in four years. one of them, mike esper, is warning us that donald trump is not fit to be president, as is most of the people that have worked for him. most of the people who worked for joe biden, like me, will remind you he is a hard working, decent man, and he has accomplished more in four years than most presidents that have served. 14.5 million jobs have been created. you know how many donald trump created? negative 2.5.

the unemployment rate is as low as it's been in many, many years. wages are going up. inflation is going down. gas prices are going down. prices for drugs have gone down because joe biden wrestled the pharmaceutical industry to the ground. when you have this stark choice, i believe the american people, republicans, independents, moderates, democrats, progressives are going to say we're going to save democracy together and make sure everybody has a chance in america. >> there isn't much that republicans and democrats agree about in this coming campaign, but everyone knows it's going to be very, very, very expensive. talk to us about the strategy going forward to keep the money coming in particularly at a moment where some democrats have raised concerns about excitement

among the party's base and they're so key to get those small dollar donations going to fill up the coffers. >> i would give you a comparison. all of the republicans last night spent $100 million plus in iowa for 50,000 votes, while joe biden was outraising not only them but everybody in the history of the country. i don't know how the media says there's not a lot of enthusiasm out there. we have low dollar donors, high dollar donors. by the way, this is the story of joe biden. people say, i don't understand why joe biden is not doing good. actually, he's winning and beating everybody and passing major pieces of legislation. we ought to stick with that guy. he has always overperformed expectations in his life, and he's going to do it again.

>> huge number of small donors are fuelling this. >> absolutely. >> this is a lot of small donors. go ahead, mitch. >> joe, i want to say this. when joe klein says joe biden might not be tough, he got elected to the senate when he was 29 years old, which is amazing. before he took office, his wife and one of his children were killed. you know what joe biden did after that? he got up and went to work. he raised two sons. he traveled back and forth to delaware every night to take care of them. later in his life, he lost another son to cancer. did he quit and go home? no. he went back to work. he had another son that suffered

to addiction. did he kick him to the curb? no. he pulled him close. he's going to fight for the american people and take this country to the place where we need to be as we prepare to that more perfect union that we all have committed to each other we deserve. >> thank you very much. we'll see you again soon. coming up, just moments ago donald trump arrived at a federal court in new york city for his second defamation trial brought by e. jean carroll. e. l

what kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes you're playing hanky panky in a dressing room?

>> that, in part, is why donald trump is facing yet another defamation case this morning. jury selection in the e. jean carroll civil damages trial is under way in new york. this trial involves trump's ongoing comments like you just heard about carroll that he made both while he was president and after the verdict last summer, so now another trial. a jury will determine how much trump will pay carroll in damages. just moments ago trump arrived at the courthouse where the president will be down a lawyer. joe tacopina says he has withdrawn from all cases related to trump. let's bring in yasmin ve sugian. good morning. we can tell you donald trump has been up going after e. jean carroll again on his social media site. >> reporter: he certainly has. i think the weather is

representative of what's happening right now. i think iowa has essentially come to town. the difference this time around is the former president won in iowa last night. they're not relitigating the case of sexual assault. e. jean carroll was awarded money back in 2022. the question now is how much. the former president was calling her a joke, saying he never actually met her. if you remember, we think back to that deposition of the former president, he was shown a picture of himself alongside e. jean carroll and asked to identify who the woman in that photo was. at the time he said, well, that's marla, his second wife. in fact, it was e. jean carroll.

this is not going to be relitigated. this is just about damages. e. jean carroll is seeking $10 million plus in punitive damages. the former president wants to testify. you mentioned joe tack pino no longer wants to testify. you just mentioned it. he is continuing to defame her and attack her this morning. this seems more like a campaign stop today than anything else. we're going to have to wait and see how this plays out and camp stop today, more than anything else. we're going to have to wait and see how this all plays out and whether or not he'll be able to testify. because the judge here has said essentially this is not going to be relitigation, you're not going to talk about anything else besides this trial that

stands before us. if he gets to testify, that will likely happen on monday, if the defense rests by thursday. >> msnbc's yasmin vossoughian, thank you so much for your coverage. joining us now, nbc news legal analyst andrew weizman and state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aaronburg. why is he obsessed with defaming this woman? >> it is a cruel game of groundhog day. he does it over and over again. even this morning on his social media site. that will lead to more punitive damages. he's more interested in the public relations war than winning in court. he already lost this case. he wants to play to his maga base, show how tough he is and misogyny plays well with his rabid base. in the end, he's hit with massive damages and i think the more he keeps saying these things about e. jean carroll, the higher the punitive damages will be and he'll regret that. >> i wonder, andrew, though,

donald trump's gotten away with everything his entire life. here he's been hit with, again, he's been hit with liability, for defamation. the judge in the case even said he raped her. he continues to go after her. is it going to be any accountability? is he ever going to be hit with a fine that actually is significant enough to make him stop defaming this woman? >> that is exactly what is going to be argued to the jury here. this reminds me so much of the rudy giuliani case where there is also a defamation case which also was only about damages because there the judge had found because of rudy giuliani's violation of discovery rules over and over again that there was liability. here there is liability because there already has been a trial on what happened. donald trump had his day in

court and he lost. so now the jury is deciding both compensatory damages, that's the amount that is potentially up to $10 million, and an unspecified amount of punitive damages and the issue raised, joe, is exactly what the plaintiff is going to argue to the jury, that if this continues over and over again, up to and including today, during the trial, which is exactly sort of what rudy giuliani did with respect to ruby freeman and shaye moss, that you need to award an amount of damages that will make him stop. and also this judge, the federal judge, louis kaplan, highly respected, is a no nonsense judge. the kinds of antics we have seen donald trump engage in, in the past, is simply not going to be tolerated here. this judge runs an extremely tight ship. the other thing i would point out, this is going to be a very fast trial because it is just about damages.

yes, donald trump may testify next monday, but that would be the very last thing before it goes to the jury. >> andrew, it seems that we are surrounded by a sad reality and the sad reality is that a lot of sensible people, we don't know how many, but a lot of sensible people seem to view any prosecution now of donald trump as a persecution of donald trump. and he's capitalized on that politically. so, in terms of the pace of the trial going on now, when will the trial end, do you think? will it end next monday? and the result of the trial, the imposition of a fine or whatever it is that the judge imposes, the federal judge, it is a federal court, which is different than a state court, can he appeal that? and continue this charade? >> so, he can appeal the case. it is unlikely to be altered. this is, you remember this was a jury finding in trial number

one. it will be a jury finding in trial number two. and because it is only damages, it is very hard to get that fully reversed, maybe the amount will be slightly lower. the -- in terms of the trial, if donald trump testifies that will be next monday. but then there will be summations that day. i would expect the jury to come back very quickly. it is still not clear that donald trump will, in fact, testify, because i think that would be a bit of a bloodbath in terms of what he could possibly say in his defense. and finally, to the political point, i would just point out that the initial trial was to a jury. that meant that a jury found him guilty, and in this case, because it was a type of defamation, part of it required the standard of proof to be what is called clear and convincing evidence. so this isn't a single judge who made a determination.

it is civilians who sat and listened to the testimony, if you remember donald trump didn't have the temerity to actually testify in that case, to even deny under oath that this happened, and the jury made a determination based on clear and convincing evidence that he had done this conduct. and if anyone is victimized here, the jury found it is e. jean carroll who they found unanimously was sexually assaulted by the former president. so, the victimization tour that donald trump is purporting to have is in complete defiance of what the jury found at that first trial, and it may be in defiance of what the second jury finds in terms of the damages that they award to e. jean carroll. >> so, dave, if there is one thing donald trump is not known for, it is discipline, obviously. because he started criticizing e. jean carroll again, defamed her. that's why we have a second trial. is there anything stopping this process from happening again? trump is on a screed right now on truth social.

let's say next week this -- the verdict comes down against him, he goes off again on a rally stage on social media, could she just sue again? >> only if it comes back to haunt him politically and so far it has not. we have not seen any harm to his numbers because of this. you would think a candidate who just won iowa would not be going around talking about how terrible the victim of a sexual assault was. after all, a jury found she was a victim of sexual assault, also known as rape, but yet he's leaning into this. he's a different kind of candidate and he's going to keep doing it until he loses support politically or until the court imposes a massive fine of punitive damages because of the fact that he keeps doing it over and over and over again. there is nothing else that is going to stop him. >> nbc news legal analyst andrew weizman and state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aronberg, thank you, both, very much for your analysis this

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