efficiently. because there's so many issues removed from the case, there are -- there's very little evidence that needs to be put up. that's why, for example, donald trump will be limited in the amount of evidence he can put on. he will not be allowed to put on evidence that e. jean carroll is lying, that this is false, that this is a political witch hunt. all of that stuff is out because this is really about damages. compensatory and punitive damages. >> of course, we will have complete coverage of e. jean carroll's appearance later today. danny sa val less thank you very much. thank you for getting up way too early with us. "morning joe" starts right now. i come here, i meet with great groups in new hampshire. i get on a plane late at night when it's snowing and freezing out, wonderful, and the pilots say it's going to be tough, and i get there early in the morning. i go to a biden witch hunt and then i come here in the afternoon and i stop and we make

speeches and we get your votes and all that stuff. nobody has ever had to do this before. >> you know, people didn't do it before because usually candidates who judges say are rapists don't usually get this far, but what we found in iowa a couple nights ago was, well, iowa republicans that voted, those 14%, they like their presidential candidates that are called rapists by judges and they like their presidential candidates that steal nuclear secrets and like their presidential candidates that repeatedly defame women. now, you know, willie, i'm new to this political thing. >> let me help you through this. >> you brushed me off yesterday when i fell off the turnip truck and i thank you that, right in front of an icy patch of snow outside of 30 rock. you dusted me off.

>> that was nice of him. >> as we were leaving and going up into 30 rock. i was chewing on it. he explained politics to me. >> you need to hear it. >> willie, i still don't get it, though. like, this guy is complaining as the judge said, under any definition of rape, he raped a woman. >> and decided to defame her again. didn't have to be in court today. that's why he's going to court. >> that's not a biden witch hunt. that's donald trump's past catching up with him. we could keep going over the iowa results but people in iowa said not only do they like their candidates that judges say raped women, they're likely to vote for candidates if judges say they raped women and stole nuclear secrets and they gave away plans, let people in their

own campaign hear -- >> not a joke -- >> hear top secret plans on america's plans to invade iran. that's iowa baby defined in 2024. >> you're starting to get a handle on this politics thing, joe. that was a good lecture. in the elevator coming up the stairs the other day, when he complains about being put through all of this, remember his whole pitch he's a martyr, all being imposed on him, he's happy to be indicted for his people, making an illusion to the fact he might be a religious figure in a way, more on that in a way. an easy way to avoid having to shuttle between rallies and courtrooms, what the judge reiterated yesterday, do not commit rape, do not take classified documents to your beach club and wave them around your office to anyone who will listen, do not attempt a coup to overturn the united states government to change an election, do not call the secretary of state in georgia and ask him to find a bunch of

votes so that election can be flipped. this isn't happening to him. these are things he is alleged to have done and that's why he's having to shuttle back and forth. by the way, he does not have to be in the courtroom in new york. he's going through this as part of his -- >> yeah. it's a campaign stop for him. he does better in courtrooms than hobbling on to stages and saying really stupid things. it's the courtrooms. >> he likes to feed into fake hate. >> the courtroom that fuels, we've seen, fuels support because republicans, again, in 2024, they like guys that break the law and rape women, according to judges in new york, and then as you say, defame them. to hear willie tick those down. >> he knows his stuff. >> appreciate him helping. >> two reasons he doesn't have to be in court. number one, he doesn't have to

be there. he's not required. number two, after being found libel of defamation and sexual abuse, he goes on to defame the woman again. he can't stop himself. it's going to cost him a lot of money. >> he's still doing it. >> we have the host of "way too early" white house bureau chief of politico jl jonathan lemire, jen palmieri, co-host of the msnbc podcast "how to win 204 with claire" and senior political columnist for politico jonathan martin is with us this morning. while we're at it, willie mentioned sort of like making himself a religious figure. >> willie is making himself a religious figure? join me up for that cult. i'm there. >> i've given money to it. >> many levels. >> i am too. >> but did you see the -- from

the lincoln project. >> yes. and i've got to say -- >> it's -- >> i've got to say, they just totally set themselves up for this. >> yeah. >> willie, it's kind of like, if you got nolan ryan on the mound and there's a batter who keeps toying with nolan ryan and keeps stepping out of the box when ryan is ready to deliver, pedro martinez did this, too, he does it about three or four times, you need to get that look, your asetting yourself up. no one is going to put one in your back. i saw this trump take on the whole classic paul harvey thing. god made a man. here, when donald trump did that, i looked at it and everybody is like this is so -- oh, the worst thing ever. i just shook my head and said they're so stupid. they really are so stupid.

they're going to play like 3% here, basically claiming he's the second coming of jesus and all they're doing is setting themselves up for a blistering parody of this. sure enough, nolan ryan, he wound up, really hard, put about 101-mile-an-hour fastball right in the trump campaign's back. >> and to extend your metaphor, goes in the guy's back, robin ventura. he charges the mound, nolan ryan puts him in a headlock and continues to pummel him. deep on the reference. let's watch -- >> poor robin ventura. how would you like to be a good baseball player and still be known for having a 40-year-old nolan ryan pound you when you came out to the mound. >> nolan put one on him that day. here's the ad from the lincoln project, a group many of you are familiar with n response to

video shared by former president trump which declares, yes, god made trump, suggesting he's been put on earth to be some kind of savior for the country. the ad from the lincoln project is a spoof of that message. here it is. >> and on the eighth day god looked down on his planned paradise and said i need the man to test the will and goodness of a free people. god made a dictator. i need a man that failed on everything but theft and golden promises and live in palace so god made a dictator. god said, i need a wicked man to lead the common folk with hatred and fear so god made a dictator. god said i need a corrupt man above the law immune from justice so god made a dictator. god said i need a man who will use violence to seize power and god made a dictator. god said i need a man who will call black white, evil good, criminals hostages and made a dix tadser. god said i need his political

party to obey without oppression and the press fear his wrath. god made a dictator. i need a cruel man to punish and harm his opposition to god made a dictator. god said i need a man who breaks the faith of even his most godly followers and leads them to idolatry and place them above me. god made a dictator and then god said i sent this man to test you and until you have cast him down you have failed. so god made a dictator. >> you know, it is -- we, again, the trump campaign always playing small ball. always playing for their most extreme. setting up the whole he's -- he is a god-like figure. he is the second coming of jesus. and, you know, maybe that plays for the 13% of republicans that voted in iowa, but the rest of america is like, come on, man. just tell me the economy is

going to be better and inflation is going down and the border is going to be taken care of. >> stop the chaos. >> over the next four years. >> stop. >> stop all of this chaos and this god-like cult b.s. they can't do it. i mean, you know, if they campaign on the economy f they campaign on basic stuff, they could actually be in a better position. polls don't matter right now. they don't matter. the more -- i say it time and again, dan mclaughlin said it at the new republic, there's a reason when people talk about biden, republicans win. when people talk about trump, democrats win. and trump can't help himself, and he sets himself up for that nolan ryan fastball right in the back. >> i don't know -- i didn't know about the robin ventura

reference. >> football is more my thing than baseball. okay. so first of all, i had not seen the lincoln project ad and what's good about it, not only does it debunk the messiah ad, but it puts into context, which is so hard to do because trump is -- trump does and says crazy things all the time, outrageous things, threats to democracy all the time, that is a great job of putting it into context of how historically what the u.s. is dealing with because we've never seen it before, never experienced it. we're able to internalize it and show it like it's normal and put the context -- put that threat into context. the thing that i'm wondering about with him going -- you know, come on, man, first of all, as you know, iowa not that big of a win. i'm not sure how much -- like in real terms how many more votes he got in '24 than in '16.

i guess a few people caucused. to go from there instead of your rally in new hampshire to your sexual assault trial in new york city, if things don't go well for him in new hampshire, all of a sudden this campaign centerpiece of making the courthouse his communication strategy could look like a mistake. if he doesn't do great in new hampshire, nikki haley catches up to him, interesting things to say about that, then all of a sudden that strategy could look weak. he doesn't handle losses well. that part could fall apart. things could catch up to him sooner. >> so jonathan martin, joe cited important number a while ago, 14%. 14% of republicans showed up in iowa to caucus on monday night. >> not great turnout. >> and 51% of them voted for donald trump. and so they're about 700,000 republicans in the state of iowa, just over 100,000 of them showed up. it was cold, but that doesn't account for the huge gap in

turnout. what do you read into that? number two, how does this spin into new hampshire? >> well, i think the big takeaway is that there's, obviously, less enthusiasm in a race seen as a foregone conclusion. the voters out there pretty sophisticated and if they're being barraged for months, accurately, with reporting that this is not a real race, then they're not going to show up, right. the other big thing, too, willie, i think a lot of republicans from 2016 aren't republicans anymore. whether that's iowa or anywhere else. look no further than the biggest county in the state polk county around des moines and look at the collapse in turnout from 2016 to monday. that tells you a lot about the realignment of the party and the folks who have left the gop. i think that combined, willie, with the entrance poll which showed 30% people believe felonies would be disqualifying was the most ominous news for trump. the suburbanite gone, number

one, and for folks still in the party or at least willing to participate, saying, they're not going to vote for a felon on election day. that, to me, was the biggest take away from iowa. >> do you know what you called 14% of registered republicans in iowa? do you know what you call that? >> a caucus in a phone booth? >> you call that a busy friday night at the red bar in great lodge. a little reference right there. >> okay. >> so -- >> good line. >> that is going -- >> take a number. >> that's some -- >> i know, man. that's some 30-a stuff. it feels like it. >> yeah. >> so jonathan lemire, jay martin and i need to take you to the red barn. >> happy to go. >> burned down, rebuilt it. maybe the best place in america.

this god thing that donald trump is pushing, right, it plays for the cult, but you don't win in wisconsin and michigan, and pennsylvania, and georgia, playing to the cult. and he's got ben carson out there, you know, comparing him to the second coming of jesus too. like, alex, do we have the ben carson thing, where it just -- >> biblical -- >> compared him to king david, a man after god's own heart. play it. >> well, you know, you think about the bible and king david. most of those people probably back in those days would have said what a horrible guy. the episode with the things he did, and yet he was a man after god's own heart. god uses different people for different times.

you need somebody with a manhattan business type of personality and administrative state. there are wolves in that environment and to exceed in that, that doesn't mean he can't be. when he's not being attacked he's a wonderful person. everybody would love him. >> to be clear, you're comparing him to king david? you're comparing him to -- you are just to put up for the record, comparing him to king david and that worked out well for king david and this is another king david, right? . >> i don't know about him king, but certainly he has some policies that are very worthwhile and the other thing that must be mentioned, if the left is allowed to use the doj

to hurt him and to eliminate him from the process, then that's when we lose democracy. >> see, this is why -- >> wow. >> this is -- >> frame that. >> this is a little bit of a shift. a little bit of a shift. he goes from donald trump is like king david, a man after god's own heart, to neal cavuto saying we're comparing him to king david? comparing him to king david? is that what you do? he goes, well -- you know, his policies on quantitative easing are fascinating. he kind of went all the way from old testament and man after god's heart to i like some of his policies. you know, maybe that's the perfect interview and clip we showed before. >> exactly. >> jonathan lemire, to show that this, donald trump is jesus.

>> oh, joe, come on. >> ben carson remains a unique surrogate in the political world right now. i think we can say, i'm trying to -- i have to clean up what happened there. >> thank you. >> so yeah. i mean, carson, king david, look he was really strong, he was really opposed to the weaponization of government. we know that. carson is right about that. the larger point, one thing that is a truism about trump that gets lost every so often as we focus on his base, the base stays with him. he absolutely has a very high floor for politicians. he also has a very low ceiling. there's only so far his support can go. these arguments right here are not going to win over the suburban voters of milwaukee, philadelphia, atlanta. they're not going to be into him being compared to the all mighty, i would guess. this is someone facing a series of criminal trials, who will be

in court at a defamation suit connected to a sexual assault case. this is someone who fueled an insurrection. this is someone the biden campaign is missing no opportunity to paint as extreme and as dangerous to the very fabric of the nation. someone being the -- calling himself the chosen one as donald trump has done, and also calls himself the retribution that's a scary combination for a lot of voters. trump's base is going to be there. the democrats will have to get their base out. that's where they're concerned. none of this as the lincoln project ad does, none of this will win swing voters hep won in '16, lost in '20, they're not going to come back. >> given what we saw in iowa, the fact that it was only 14% of republicans who showed up, evangelicals did overwhelmingly go for donald trump. apparently some of them are buying this argument he is the

chosen one. >> yeah. >> look ahead for us to new hampshire. nikki haley's making the pitch she got the ticket out of iowa somehow even though she came in third place. ron desantis is effectively skipping new hampshire where he's not polling well and looking at south carolina. what does the next week and couple weeks look like here? >> you have to separate the next two contests. they are fundamentally different races. they go to the heart of donald trump's strength. the fact is, willie, that new hampshire does not look like the rest of the republican primary because it doesn't look like today's republican party. it's going to be full of moderate voters, folks who are unaffiliated voters can participate, much more secular, and also, a lot more educated and upscale. to borrow a recent primary, this reminds me of 2000 where mccain got a brief reprieve in new hampshire because of those kinds of voters. willie, once you're back to

republicans deciding the republican nominating process, that's going to be nikki haley's challenge. i think that's the challenge she has in south carolina is that once you're back to talking about republicans and more conservative ones and more blue collar ones at that, that's trump's base and i think it's hard for her to find a path beyond new hampshire. >> really at his best when he's been up all night at the red bar. political columnist for politico, jonathan martin. keep that look. i like it. coming up in one minute. >> one minute. >> writer e. jean carroll is expected to take the stand today in her second defamation trial against donald trump. we'll be joined by legal analyst lisa ruben who was in the courtroom for opening arguments and we'll be back again today. "morning joe" back in 60 seconds.

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>> all right. >> okay. >> your cereal -- >> 2 2 past the hour >> mom and dads are having to take thomas the tank engine -- the kids still watch thomas? >> thomas the tank engine. >> thomas? still watch thomas. >> john says yes. >> my kids have aged out, but they were really into thomas the train. yeah. the show. the toys. we still have a set around the house somewhere that my wife and i are trying to get rid of. >> huge. >> like that. i'll buy it. >> i actually hear parents say i want to watch "morning joe" but i have to watch thomas. >> really? it used to be "sponge bob." we used to go -- >> former president trump is expected to be in a new york federal courtroom again this morning to attend the second day of the defamation damages trial involving writer e. jean carroll. >> he's in court again? >> he likes to do it for his campaign.

doesn't have to be there but it gives him that juice for hate for his base to say i'm a victim. >> i'm a victim of defaming a woman again. he was in court yesterday for jury selection but left opening statements. defaming carroll in 2019 while he was the president for mocking her sexual assault claim against him which he was found libel for. in this trial, jurors will be asked to figure out how much money trump will have to pay in damages. carroll's team is asking for at least $10 million. she is expected to testify today. willie? >> joining us now former litigator, msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin, covering this so closely for us. lisa, remind our viewers as mika said, this is the penalty phase. the judge has determined -- >> the judge has determined

liability and trump was fined $5 million for assaulting e. jean carroll and statements he made about her after he was president in october of 2022. think about this trial as a messy defamation sandwich if the last trial was the filling, this is the bread. this addresses statements trump made while he was president in june of 2019. in addition, e. jean carroll's lawyers are seeking punitive damages for trump's continued statements about her after last may's verdict including up to yesterday when he through truth social posted about her as many as 22 times in the lead up to the opening of yesterday's trial. >> 22 times in a day in the hours leading up to his defamation trial, he continued to defame e. jean carroll. >> correct. >> yesterday there was procedural stuff. donald trump's attorneys tried to get the trial delayed. no. that's not happening. got into jury selection. he was there for that but left, is that right? >> jury selection took us all the way through a lunch break and a delayed lunch break around

2:00 p.m. when we came back from the break, donald trump was nowhere to be found, but he stayed for the entirety of jury selection. the way this judge kaplan does the jury selection is asking a series of questions to prospective jurors, if their answers is yes, and some cases explain. former president trump was engaged in that process, turning around in his seat to look at the prospective jurors as they were answering. some cases he nodded, other times he shook his head. a woman who was a prospective juror who volunteered for the biden campaign as a phone banker. former president trump was not enamored with her. >> he has said he will be back in court listening to e. jean carroll as she testifies. tell us what we should expect to hear interest her. what will that look like today? >> i think e. jean carroll can't testify about the sexual assault, but what she can testify to is the person she was before, what her career looked like before the defamation, and

what her life and her career now look like after. particularly in the wake of his initial comments in 2019, you'll remember e. jean carroll published an excerpt from her memoir in which she accounted for the sexual assault in june of 2019. within a day or five hours after that first went up on "new york" magazine website donald trump was on the attack. it's those statements e. jean carroll will testify in the wake of the threats started coming, the contracts were cut, her life changed in two meaningful ways. in terms of the threats to her physical security and in terms of her ability to earn a livelihood as a writer. e. jean carroll is a very distinguished writer who has written for everything from esquire to "rolling stone" to "saturday night live" where she was nominated for an emmy. a person who had a real career that ended in the wake of donald trump's defamation. >> there is a lot of precedence for -- there's no precedence -- even aside the fact that he is

the former president of this kind of trial repeated defamation and then for the person to be sitting there during jury selection and then while she's testifying so he is able to -- that's the intimidating presence i would imagine for jurors and for e. jean carroll? hat's true. let's start with the first question. i'm not aware of cases in which you've got the same plaintiff and the same defendant litigating successive defamation. usually the first damage award is enough to stem the tide. but a civil defendant has every right to participate in their trial and they have every right to be present. what's the aggregating factor is two fold. the threats that have enoernlgds e. jean carroll and two the dimension of what the defamation is about, sexual assault. i asked about e. jean carroll's posture during the trial. donald trump was sitting in back of her the way this courtroom is set up, the plaintiffs and defendants don't sit next to each other but the plaintiff's

table goes first, the defendant's table is in back and e. jean carroll knowing donald trump was in the courtroom, sat straight in her seat on the edge of her seat almost pitched forward as if to inch herself as many millimeters away from him as she could. if trauma had a seated position that was it. >> how is the ongoing tweets or truth social, how do they play into this? can't the prosecution say not only did he defame e. jean carroll, he continues to defame e. jean carroll, he did it 15 minutes ago before he walked into the courtroom. is that a compelling argument against donald trump? >> it's a compelling argument for punitive damages and it's a factor that the jurors are entitled to consider in punitive damages. how repen tent is this person or do they continue with their behavior? some have suggested the right remedy is to seek an injunction against donald trump continuing to put e. jean carroll's name in his mouth as ruby freeman and

shaye moss' lawyers have done. that's not what i've understood e. jean carroll's attorneys are going to do. they want to find an award that makes him think twice about continuing this behavior. how much is it going to take to make him shut up? that's a rougher version of the question her lawyer asked yesterday. >> a lot apparently because he's been punished for it, and he continues to do it day in and day out. >> the difference between $5 million and silence, willie, is probably a big goal and that's what e. jean carroll's lawyers are trying to find out. >> he will be back there today. former litigator, legal analyst lisa rubin, thanks as always. mika? >> thank you, lisa. coming up, tensions are growing in the middle east as the u.s. targets iranian-backed houthi militants in yemen. for the third time in a week raising concerns about a broader regional war. we'll tell you what new actions the biden administration plans on taking against the group. "morning joe" will be right back.

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complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost. the united states has carried out another strike against the houthis in yemen. yesterday's attack destroyed four missiles that the pentagon says posed a threat to ships traveling through the red sea and nearby waters. this marks the third attack since last week when the u.s., and its allies hit dozens of targets in yemen. the white house warned the militant group to stop attacking ships in the red sea, for risk of further action. the houthis have ignored that warning and continuing to fire missiles at ships, including a u.s. owned vessel. joining us now, president emeritus of the council on

foreign relations, richard haass. what are the options for the administration? warnings are one thing. what's next? >> there aren't a lot of good options, which is too often the case. we could continue shooting at this or that missile site, and we have to hope that we destroy more missiles than they import from iran. you can continue to try interdict the missiles going there, which is what the s.e.a.l.s. were doing the other day, but tragically two lost their lives. i think there's also the question of whether you can get the chinese interestingly enough to help. this is going to slow down all sorts of shipping and raise the price of oil potentially. >> china's a major importer of oil, so the question is whether there's something to be worked out diplomatically. it's unlikely this would be happening without iran's approval. groups like the houthis have a degree of independence, but i don't think you can exaggerate it. >> what's the overall strategy

in you have iran work through the houthis? you have iran, obviously, launching attacks through third parties in iran, in syria, all across the region. what's the grand strategy here? >> the answer is there isn't one -- >> what should it be? let me ask you, what should it be? that look on your face. >> what it might be. >> what we want to do to the extent possible is settle the middle east to focus on iran. it's iran both itself, its nuclear program, and, obviously, the half dozen or so militias backed from hamas, hezbollah, the houthis, what have you. we want to isolate that. in order to do that you need israel and the arab world working in concert. as we've learned over the last 100 plus days, you only have a chance of doing that if you deal with the palestinian issue among other things, so that ought to be our strategy and we ought to be lning much more to try to bring the war in gaza to an end, not to allow the war to expand

to lebanon, to get a palestinian political process under way and we can get the saudis normalized with the israelis and try to build a regional coalition to isolate the irans and if need be take them on. >> what have we said all along, what a fool's errand to think you can make middle east peace ignoring the palestinian crisis. a couple articles, "the new york times" talks about the scope and quality of the gaza tunnels awe israelis. up to 450 miles of tunnels underneath. just an extraordinary network. "the wall street journal" has a story about perils for israeli. reftsgys are growing -- refugees are growing against israel and as we have said here, i think most importantly, joe biden's patience not with the israelis, but with benjamin netanyahu, running out fasts.

>> well, it should run out fast and it should have run out already. he's getting in some ways played because bibi netanyahu wants to see this going, so long as the war is going, i would argue, he feels it makes it more difficult for people to move against him politically. i think the president has to lean on him more. there's really only three options joe -- we can introduce resolutions in the security council isolating israel to some extent, we can condition certain arms, which is what bernie sanders and others want. what i think, again, he needs to do, is go public and needs to be much more forceful go over the head of the government and talk to the israeli people and politicians and guess what, you're beginning to see an israel finally a post-october 7th politics begin to emerge and people are saying hey, to keep this war going forever isn't going to make sense. we're never going to eliminate hamas 100%. meanwhile, we're not getting the hostages home and hey, what about introducing a political track? who is going to occupy gaza?

we don't want to do it. how are we going to get gaza rebuilt? we don't have the money to do that. you're beginning to see for the first time some politics emerging, and the united states ought to be a participant in that debate. >> the president is going to meet with congressional leaders today at the white house. the big emphasis on national security supplemental spending. he needs more money for ukraine and israel as well. ukraine really appears to be -- funding appears to be in jeopardy because republicans want to attach border spending security there. so what is the pitch, do you think, from the president about why support for ukraine remains crucial? >> two things. i'm not sure the republican argument about the border is in good faith. the cynic in me thinks, maybe joe disagree, the republicans prefer to keep that issue alive because it's such a powerful issue, to bang the president over the head with. one idea maybe to split it. split it out. basically go public and try to build a coalition of, if you

will, real conserve positive republicans, who believe america is playing a role in the world and most democrats and couple the aid to ukraine with taiwan republicans want, with aid to israel. basically probably separating out the border issue again into three. the reason to help ukraine it's the most basic issue in the world. we can't allow borders to be change with impunity by the use of force. vladimir putin must be stopped. he can't be allowed to go on. ukraine should not become subservient to russia. we don't want the chinese to learn the lesson if they use force and hang in long enough the united states and west will fold their cards. that lesson cannot emerge. >> let's talk about ukraine. secretary of state blinken, national security adviser sullivan met with zelenskyy yesterday, the u.s. is there to support, but the money is not there, not yet. there's rising alarm in kyiv

about the delay in funding. how do you project the next few weeks or months if the money doesn't come through? if a deal can't be reached what happens next? >> you're seeing it. the stories that ukrainian soldiers are on the front lines and have one or two shells to launch in the course of a day, it's really painful to read. they can get some help from south korea. some help from europe. little bit from us still. it's not going to be enough. what they have to do, i would argue, i think they should do this, switch to a defensive strategy. ukraine is not in a position to take the war to russia. ukraine needs to dig in and make sure russia cannot overwhelm them. advantage accrue to defenders, in terms of you need less munitions and the like and i think ukraine needs to make this transition. nothing will happen diplomatically this year. putin is playing for time. he wants to see what happens after november. i think if ukraine focuses on the defense they can basically -- they can hold out

and again maybe it's hoping against hope but the flow of munitions and arms may not -- won't go back to what it was. i don't think republicans want to be tagged with losing this war. my guess ukraine can get through this, but again not with an offensive strategy but with a defensive strategy. >> you brought up putin may be buying time waiting until after the election. i'm sorry to do this, projecting way ahead, netanyahu, perhaps prefer a trump presidency, putin prefer a trump presidency. i mean, both those countries have a lot of stake in ukraine and a lot of stake in israel, less stake in gaza, but will they let, would, will they let their concerns about the presidential election and who they want play into how they manage ukraine and gaza coming into the fall? >> absolutely. that's why there's not going to

be any diplomacy that's going to succeed in terms of ukraine this year. it's one of the many reasons bibi netanyahu is playing. there's a group of foes beginning with russia that prefers a trump presidency. bibi netanyahu, hungary, turkey, prefer a trump presidency, much less emphasis on democracy and human rights and less pressure on making peace, but 90% of our friends around the world and allies are really uneasy and looking at their options. do we become self-sufficient. do we think about our own nuclear deterrent. that's the biggest debate in south korea right now. do we need to find new security partners, however limited, to substitute for the united states. what they're not saying publicly, maybe we have to cozy up to a russia or china if we don't have the united states to depend on. the entire world is beginning to have this conversation. i've made two trips out to asia in the last six weeks, this is the conversation every government is having. it's almost how do we hedge

against the uncertainty here in the united states. yeah. people -- even though our election is ten months away, nine months away, the rest of the world is already essentially factoring in those possibilities and beginning to adjust how they act in 2024. >> joe, one note before we let richard go. as we listen to his insightful analysis, globe trotting, shuttle diplomacy, buttoned up, i just learned in the commercial break, hope you don't mind my sharing, richard haass was at woodstock in the summer of '69. >> no. >> yes. parked his car on a new york thruway and walked in and saw janis joplin at 2:00 in the morning. richard haass. >> still have the tickets. never collected the tickets. i still have them. >> picture this. >> yeah. exactly. >> here's the other side of the story which you may not know. he dressed as a cop and had a

baton and walking along and it was just like tapped people in the back and say keep walking. is that right, richard? >> something like that, joe, yeah. >> yeah pop i just -- >> wait. so you were actually at woodstock. >> mental image. >> the summer of '69. >> you don't have to tell me when woodstock was. >> you weren't born yet, joe. >> yeah. i was born. >> so we need -- we need information, so you saw janis joplin. >> that's amazing. >> saw many. did not stay until the very end. did not stay to the end. i apologize. can i make up with point, you're a musician. as central as you think the music was, when you were at woodstock the music wasn't the most central thing. it was the mud, the rain, what you were drinking, whatever. it was -- it was the experience.

>> i think you should stop, yeah. >> it was three days of peace, love and music, richard. >> crosby, stills & nash. >> it's time to go. president emeritus -- >> glad you brought that up. >> what you tell me in commercial break. >> last time we ever talk. >> oh, no. listen, i mean, that's like -- you know, that's a long like walking on the moon with neil armstrong so that's a good way if you couldn't do that in the summer of '69, going to woodstock was the thing to do. do you have any pictures from that? >> i asked. >> oh. >> i don't think so. this is shocking enough, before the day of cell phones we didn't have, you know, carrying that with us, i don't think there -- if you look closely at some of those group pictures i'm sure you can find me. >> president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, thank you very much. i need to so a picture of that. mental image is not working for me.

much more on the tensions in the middle east in our next hour. >> and richard haass' secret life. >> when former u.s. navy pilot and congresswoman mikie sherrill of new jersey joins the conversation. plus, a big headline out of the nfl, with one of the kelce brothers reportedly retiring. we'll tell you which one next on "morning joe." ne next on "morning joe." hey you, with the small business... ...whoa... you've got all kinds of bright ideas, that your customers need to know about. constant contact makes it easy. with everything from managing your social posts,

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he hits his mark —center stage—and is crushed by a baby grand piano. you're replacing me? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

i think he's having a midlife crisis only pay for what you need. i'm not. you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre-- i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else? then you would know what year it was. i know what year it is. welcome back to "morning joe." look at that beautiful shot of new york city as the sun comes up. so pretty. time now for a look at the morning papers from across the country. in missouri, "the kansas city star" reports multiple people at saturday's chiefs/dolphins game at arrowhead stadium were

hospitalized due to the extreme cold. during the game temperatures dropped to minus 6 degrees with a windchill of minus 27. making it the coldest chiefs game ever. according to the city's fire department, 15 people at the stadium were hospitalized including seven for hypothermia and three for frostbite. >> you know, willie, i was watching the game. really, it was just terrible even watching. >> too cold. >> we talk about the ice broel and it looks so cool on tv, but, man, it just looked painful. when you have mahomes putting his head down and his helmet breaks, it's just -- nobody wants to put off a game. that's just dangerous. >> minus 27 i knew as die hard as chiefs fans were, there were

empty seats, minus 27 is unsafe as we learned in that report, and yet even on the field for people moving around, it was -- mahomes, there was a lot going on . "the philadelphia enquirer" responding to reports eagles center jason kelce has decided to retire according to the toll of more than a dozen seasons in the nfl. he has recorded 160 consecutive starts, seven pro bowls, six all-pro selections, and a super bowl lii win. travis kelce, gets all the attention because of his relationship with taylor swift and what a great player he is, but jason kelce a legendary hall of fame center for the eagles and an incredibly charismatic guy. >> he's more than just taylor swift's possible brother-in-law. not only an eagles hall of famer but pro football hall of famer.

he was a heart of the team, sadly defeated the new england patriots a number of years ago. he and his brother have the podcast. it's clear if he wants a future in media, he'll have one. a smart guy who also, it seems like, knew when it was time to hang it up even after a disappointing end to the season. >> but a great guy, really great football player. >> banning tackle football for children under the age of 12. parental rights groups argue parents should get to decide their children's activities, and say it gives children a source of exercise and community. and governor gavin newsom may hand them a win n. a statement yesterday he said he would veto any bill with an outright ban on youth tackle football. >> jonathan lemire, what do you think of that? >> i personally, as a parent,

don't want my two sons to play tackle football. that's a decision we've made. they play flag football, and play it very well, i'll have you known. both won their league titles this year, thank you very much. of course it should be every parent's, in my opinion, every parent's decision. they make the decision with their son or daughter as to what to do. >> i'm curious what you think and, of course, i come from a family where, you know, they got us out of the crib and put a football helmet on us by the time we were 7 years old. my parents would very much disagree with this. a lot of things have been learned about football, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but do you really -- does a state really ban tackle football for kids under 12? >> when gavin newsom is saying no, you know the american public -- when even gavin newsom is like i'm not outlawing tackle football, then, you know -- i know that the nfl -- because when i worked for president obama and he said something

about i would not let -- if i had a son, i would not let him play football. this was the nfl's huge concern is not you would start losing the fan base if young people weren't playing football, and this is why they say they put -- among the reasons -- they put efforts into dealing with concussions. concern the next ten years the nfl has just grown. >> the numbers are extraordinary and we've said them here before if you look at last year's ratings. something like 82 out of 100 shows, the rest were "morning joe" reruns. we know that. very interesting, mika, even though we grew up on football, it was my family's life growing

up, even more than baseball. i didn't want my kids to play baseball and then jack wanted to play football. >> he made that choice. >> he's bigger than most of the guys out there. it's hard. you have to balance it. we talked to a lot of people. it is a much tougher decision now than it was, say, 20, 30 years ago, knowing all the things you know. it's a real balance. >> i'm very torn by it. i started watching, with you guys, and i see what an incredible experience it is as a fan or a player. >> and the discipline, willie, the thing is you can do a lot of things in high school. i'm just speaking for myself here. high school or college. there are very few things, as you know, that bring you together with another group of people and also that push your endurance, test your skills. i mean, i remember two-a-days in northwest florida when it was

100 degrees, and i remember, of course, back then the coaches would just give you warm water out of a water faucet. true. said cold water made you foggy, made your head foggy. there aren't a lot of things i'm going to do in my life much harder than this, because if they were, i'd be dead. it pushes you to the edge, especially for a 16, 17, 18-year-old kid. >> yeah, i played in high school. played from fifth grade on ward, and that's exactly it for me, the relationships, the friendships, the guys that i see. we still get together and talk about that, as everybody knows, the 1991 new jersey state championship. >> of course. >> won by the richmond high school maroons. everybody talks about it. still top of mind in the culture. that was it for me was all the relationships and now we've learned a lot more. given the safeties, a lot of

teams don't tackle in practice anymore, pee-wee up through. the hits when you're 10 years old are not nfl hits. that's one vote for it. all parents grapple with it. i do think it's a parent's decision. we know about the long-term impacts what football can do. it does, like so many team activities whether, joe, you play in a band or on a football team, that stuff is for life and it's invaluable. coming up, another bitter rival of donald trump back in 2016 is now endorsing him for president. we'll tell you who it is ahead on "morning joe." we're back in one minute.

he is choking like a dog, because he's losing so badly. we have to put him away tomorrow. >> this man is a pathological liar. a narcissist at a level i don't think this country has ever seen. >> hold that bible high, puts it down and then he lies. >> donald is a bully. the man is utterly amoral. leave heidi the hell alone. >> should we support him as the nominee? >> i'm going to beat him for the nomination. >> that's not answering the question. >> i am. donald trump will not be the nominee. >> he's leading right now -- >> donald trump will not be the nominee. >> will you support him as the nominee? >> donald trump will not be the nominee. in 2020 donald trump will be overwhelmingly re-elected as president of the united states. i'm a big believer in letting democracy play out, well, last night it played out, trump's victory was across the board, he

won 98 of the counties. congratulations on that dominating victory. at this point i believe the race is over. i am proud to endorse donald trump for president of the united states. i look forward to supporting him enthusiastically. i think it's time for the republican party for us to unite, to come together. >> so -- >> senator ted cruz, once again backing trump for president, making that announcement on fox news. now he's the 25th sitting u.s. senator to publicly support the former president's campaign. >> he goes from being a bully and a sniffling coward, someone who attacked his wife, more than suggested she was ugly. just heinous personal attacks

against his family. ted cruz rightfully called him a bully, rightfully called him a sniveling coward, and then went on to endorse him and now says he's a proud, enthusiastic endorser and supporter of donald trump. willie geist, what say you? >> well, again, that's the 25th republican senator, by the way, so now we can say a majority of republican senators already have endorsed donald trump, many of them were in the capitol on january 6th. many of them briefly condemned what happened on january 6th before coming back around. an endorsement now is an endorsement of everything we know from the last few years of donald trump, an endorsement of everything he's doing, on trial for in places across the country in federal courtrooms in georgia, new york this morning, as we speak.

that's what these senators, that's what these members of congress are endorsing, including a man who led an attempted coup against the united states government. i love, joe, he says i support the democratic process, and then after the comment, he says, but now that 14% of republicans in iowa have voted, i think it's time to call the race. it's just, you know, moths to a flame of power. they feel he's the guy, and they don't want to cross him. they want to keep their jobs, his supporters and theirs. they're so desperate in washington to continue to say they will support him. we knew this was coming, by the way, especially from ted cruz. >> of course. >> joining the conversation we have the host of the podcast on brand with donny deutsch. professor at princeton university, msnbc contributor mikepalmeiri is still with us. >> how does someone have their spouse insulted, their family

insulted. my god, we forgot, trump accused ted cruz's father of killing jfk. >> right. so he attacked his father. he attacked his wife. i'm just telling you, most -- i'm just speaking for myself -- most men i know if somebody attacked their father and attacked their wife, game over. >> yeah. >> game over. just don't come back. >> they would spend the rest of their time going after that guy to take him down politically. in this case, he's proud and supporting a man, who said his father helped kill jfk and his wife was ugly.

>> so what a thing like this reveals is not just -- first of all, just a lack of self-worth, but ted cruz knows how dangerous donald trump is. obviously, he spoke clearly about that in 2016. he must not think any of this really matters. he must not actually be concerned about the long-term healthy american democracy or find it that important because they understand, you know, they were there on january 6. he know what is a threat donald trump is. he spoke about it in 2016, and they continue to prop him up. i think it reveals something cynical about the republicans that hold on to him, they don't think this republic actually matters. >> you know, donnie, we heard from senator mike lee of utah who endorsed a couple weeks ago donald trump, saying i'll take the, what he called, mean tweets from donald trump because joe

biden is that bad. the mean tweets, we have a record of what he calls mean tweets which are an attempt to overturn a presidential election, try to flip the election in the state of georgia. he's in a courtroom today for defamation for what a judge said was rape. so that's an endorsement of all of that. this isn't mean tweets. this is a man who has shown us what he is and what he will do if elected president. in their minds they have to downplay what he is and what he represents to get to the endorsement. >> joe, i want to pick up on something you just said and the sexist police will come get us. that's okay because cops are always asking me anyway, that his men, how do they look themselves in the mirror. the republican party historically has always had more testosterone in it. they've been the law and order party, the hawkish party. how many had their lunch money

taken when they were kids? how do they look themselves in the mirror? how do they look at their wives, at their children? where are the men in the republican party who have all become sniveling little weak, sniveling little dogs. >> january 6 this was an awful day. lindsey graham got on the floor, i'm done. all it took was noise from trump supporters, oh, the people who elect me, the people who put me in power, they're on his side, so i'd better jump back over. these aren't leaders. these are people following along. they're still going along for the ride. >> it shows us the problem isn't just donald trump, those who are cynical in their pursuit of power. there's a character question, we

have folks who are on the hill who really have no broad sense of their obligation than to themselves, their self-interest. they make possible this person, this presence that threatened the very foundation of democracy itself. it's an ecosystem and trump is in the center of it, the moral or amoral gravity of it all. >> following up on what donny said, who has gone up against, liz cheney, sarah matthews, relative low-level women in the trump white house, the ones that are standing up and saying -- >> absolutely. >> those are the ones. >> says it all. >> this new ad from the lincoln project we've been talking about, in response to a video shared by former president trump which declares, yes, god made

trump, suggesting that trump, somehow, was put on earth to be a savior for the country. this new ad from the lincoln project mocks that message. >> and on the eighth day god looked down on his planned paradise and said i need the men to test the will and goodness of a free people so god said i need a dictator. a man who failed on theft and broken promises, so god made a dictator. god said, i need a wicked man to lead the common folk with hatred and fear, so god made a dictator. god said i need a corrupt man who is above the law and immune from justice, so god made a dictator. i need a man who will use violence to seize power. i need a follower who will call black white, evil good, so god made a dictator. god said i need his political party to obey without question, and the press fear his wrath, so god made a dictator. god said i need a cruel man who

uses his power and position to punish and harm his opposition, so god made a dictator. god said i need a man who breaks the faith of his most godly followers and place him above me, so god made a dictator. and then god said, i sent this man to test you. until you cast him down, you have failed. so god made a dictator. >> donny, what makes ads against donald trump so powerful is using the weight of donald trump's own arrogance, own conceit -- >> truth. >> own flamboyance against him, and you see that there. they are not of hitler, are not of saddam hussein. the most powerful images are of the hypocrites surrounding him,

praying this guy is a savior, jesus christ being hung on the cross this is what donald trump pushes. god made trump. he pushes that nonsense. people say how is joe biden going to come back and win? it's really joe biden's -- i think he has a lot of things going for him over the course of 2024. nothing stronger than donald trump, donald trump's own words, donald trump's own actions as donald trump limps toward the 2024 election. >> you said this earlier talking about this, if it's a referendum on biden, he loses. if it's a referendum on trump, he wins, meaning biden wins.

that ad was done by the lincoln project and is brilliantly done. what it does is, yes, the images are ominous and important. we can go on and on, that's where we have to put him, show the darkness. i think people truly don't understand what absolute power for donald trump will mean. joe -- and this is not a stretch -- you could end up in jail. that's what dictators do. they take their political opponents and put them in jail. we will no longer have a vote. >> he tried it once. he called me a murderer and was saying i should be thrown in jail for murder. he's already tried it when he was president last time, so these people that are sitting around going, oh, you guys are catastrophizing, when he says he's going to throw his political opponents into jail, you can trust him. people are not going to be u.s.

attorneys unless they promise to go after democrats, members of the media, judges, with phony charges, to throw them in jail. that's what trump is going to do. it's that simple. >> he will own the justice department, he will own the military, he will own the fcc. when people say it's a stretch to put him next to adolf hitler or next to mussolini, says who? as an absolute leader in power, everyone who is thinking twice, if you want to vote more than one more time, you nepd to vote for joe biden, because your vote will not matter anymore. you will give that up. we will to longer be a free society. we take that for granted. the darkness is that dark. >> mike barnicle, when you look at that ad, we went from 2016 people sort of explaining their vote for donald trump sometimes by saying, evangelicals in

particular, we're not voting for a saint. we're voting for a president. now it's taken a leap, in some quarters, not in all, to this idea he is a messiah of some kind, that the country needs saving, and that he has been anointed by god to come down and do it. >> wow. the past seven minutes, it might be me personally here at the table, is unbelievably depressing. unbelievably depressing. i mean, first of all -- >> scary. >> to donny's point and to joe's point, what donald trump has done successfully is taken an industry that used to be filled with sometimes promise, sometimes horror, but always aimed at the future. politics in america and he's drawn a darkness over that business that has endeveloped it now for nearly a decade. the darkness has fallen over america to a certain extent, people are now negative about

everything. ted cruz is the poster boy for white people hate politics, a sleaze ball, a spineless sleaze ball who will say or do anything. and trump, himself, is out there pretending he's a messiah, being portrayed as a messiah. somewhere out there this morning there's a mother and a father individually or still together, whose child, son or daughter, just got early admission to boston college or vanderbilt or some state school, and they're thinking, how can we pay the down payment for tuition? that's politics. that's what it ought to be about. the future. what are we going to do about these people? what are we going to do about the cost of groceries in this country? inflation is coming down, sure it has. cost of eggs hasn't gone down. i do the grocery shopping in my house -- because my wife makes the money, you know. she's my best earner, as tony soprano would say.

i do the grocery shopping. inflation has not infected -- or affected groceries yet. bread and eggs -- >> if that messaging is not getting across, no matter what you say about the economy, isn't the dark messaging the way to keep donald trump out of office? when you give these arguments, it doesn't seem to hit in the gut. i wish it did. but i think that messaging we saw is the correct messaging. >> eddie glaude, i think it's a combination of both. there are people out there who hear us talking about how good the economy is. they're struggling right now. you look at personal savings across america. 40% of americans only have a couple hundred dollars in savings right now. trying to buy a home is next to improbable.

there are a lot of pressures still out there. you look at the swing states from wisconsin to michigan to pennsylvania down to georgia, out to arizona. there are still economic challenges. they have to keep improving through the year. i want to follow up on what mike barnicle said. it can be incredibly depressing. it's incredibly inspiring in this way. it motivates me and i hope it motivates other americans to register their friends to vote, to register their neighbors to vote, to figure out how they build communities of supporters for democracy, for diversity, for the america that ronald reagan, yes, ronald reagan,

talked about on his last day in office. didn't fear immigrants but put his arms around immigration and said when we close the gates to the world we become an old, tired world. i think we should be -- i think all of this should motivate us to understand that, yes, democracy is on the line, so what's required? that we win by working harder, by fighting more, for giving our all to make sure we win this election legally fairly and, i think, overwhelmingly. i don't want a one-point win. we have to crush maga extremism forever. >> i absolutely agree, joe. two things can happen at once. we can do the very things mike just laid out, and we can address the existential threat that trumpism and maga

republicanism represents. this is the brilliance of the lincoln ad, at least for me. donny, you tell me if i'm wrong -- of course you will. they go on the battlefield of the evangelicals. when you're on that battlefield, this is an existential question, a theological question, right? and that is this is white christian nationalism at work. they said god sent you this, god sent you that. all of that is a test. all of it is a test. at that moment the lincoln project isn't speaking to those of us who are outside of that particular -- they're speaking directly to the white christian, directly to those -- those who believe in the gospel. and they're saying at this moment god is testing you. will you identify with the idol, or will you live up to the gospel? and that, to me is a very strong

to a specific demographic. >> you nailed it. they're putting it on the voter, then at the end they flip the switch. they put it on you, the voter. that's the brilliance of the ad. >> you can talk about this positive message, the economy has improved. it will continue to get better but also here are the stakes of this election. >> i think that what the -- what i think the biden team can do now trump has done a great job biden needs to talk about success. i did this and i did that, under me the unemployment rate is lower. reagan didn't say it's morning in the reagan white house. right? it's morning in america.

and to say we have come back, you did this, only in america could we have survived, come out of covid, and built a new foundation through the infrastructure bill, the semiconductors and everything happening in america and got unemployment under. it's your hard work that did this. they are not certain in their own lives and should be more certain and proud of what they accomplished. >> you break it down, put the ads aside. it's a follow me election. the good guy, joe biden, or the bad guy, donald trump. make up your mind and ask the people of america, what are you willing to risk? what are you willing to risk? >> the compelling message is the fear of the bad guy. what would the republicans do if they were running against trump ? what kind of advertising would they run? >> oh, my god.

it would be scorched earth. the right republican. oh, you can't beat trump. the right republican would have destroyed trump by now. i always bring up the example because a lot of people watching the show may get george w. bush. he would have cut donald trump up 1,000 times politically on the campaign. trump would say one of thinks stupid things. bush would look over, i thought i was supposed to be the dumb one. and then he would take him apart piece by piece. you know who else would? bill clinton. my god, i wouldn't -- i just wouldn't want to even see that. do you know who else would have? barack obama. there's a reason donald trump didn't run against barack obama. >> but why can't these primary candidates do it?

>> they're bad at what they do. >> get better. >> they can't. i go back to casey stengel. can't anybody here play this game? seriously. that's what casey stengel said to one of the worst baseball teams and you look at these people who keep from marco rubio to rand paul to this group and you keep looking at them and, jen, i just ask myself every single day, can't anybody play this blanking game? >> nikki haley seems like a character written for -- she's like a presidential character on a bad television show.

somebody who wants to win and has it in her to win and as gutsy as you need to be. then you have ted cruz continuing to prop them up. >> to come full circle, all the republican candidates who have opposed trump, with the exception of chris christie, end up in the same baseball metaphor, looking like robben ventura against nolan ryan. they're going to go get him, donald trump puts them in a headlock and beats the hell out of them, every single one of them. >> and they let him do it. >> they don't say what needs to be said. they have so much material, they're afraid of the maga voters. >> and after they do it, they then thank -- after he does it, they thank him. please, sir, may i have another?

and then they endorse him. donny, i have to say again, i don't know where they came from but let me tell you, this would not fly. it would not fly with me or any of my friends. i don't understand. what job is worth that? what job is worth it? i will say -- we've been here for 16 years. people don't call me up and tell me what to do on the show. if they did, that wouldn't end well. it just wouldn't end well. you have to be your own person. oh, yes, she tells me, and i listen to her, because i'm smart. >> it's different. >> i'm just talking, though, you can't be scared of your own shadow and all of these candidates are scared of their own shadow. >> where i grew up in queens, we had a word for people like this.

it's not appropriate to say. >> where are the men -- and i think jen palmieri hit on it, it's the women who are standing up to these men. >> thank you so much. still ahead on "morning joe" a report on the latest developments in the war between israel and hamas as conflicts across the region intensify. plus new details about lloyd austin, a newly released 911 call revealing about the day he was admitted to the hospital. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> here's ventura, rbi single in the first. watch out. look at this.

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secure payment. card readers you can rely on. and one place to manage it all. whatever the stage, businesses that grow grow with shopify. 32 past the hour. the u.s. launched another strike against the iranian-backed houthis in the wake of their continued attacks on ships in the red sea. nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez has more on that and the latest out of gaza. >> reporter: this morning conflict in the middle east continuing to flare up far beyond israel and gaza. new strikes by american forces against iranian-backed houthi rebels in yemen who are stepping up attacks in the red sea threatening global shipping. u.s. central command says it destroyed four houthi missiles ready to launch and posed an imminent threat to both merchant and u.s. navy ships. >> this goes way beyond being a

regional challenge, this is a global challenge. >> reporter: israel says it's scaling back its assaults against hamas after three months of war. but lawn pg ground and air strikes on the city of khan yunis, and hamas allowing medicine to finally be delivered to the hostages. in exchange, israel letting more medical supplies in for palestinian civilians. the hostages missing milestones every day. shahar was born five weeks ago with curious eyes, and two older sisters who adore her. but she's missing one thing -- her father is one of six american hostages still being held in gaza. his wife, seven months pregnant on october 7th, giving birth without him. he has never held his baby girl, doesn't know her name, which

means dawn in hebrew, or even that his family survived the attack. if you could speak to him, what would you tell him about his new daughter? >> i would say she is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. there will come a time when he is going to enter a room somewhere, two little girls are going to leap into his arms, and his wife and new baby are going to hug him and never let him go. >> nbc's raf sanchez from tel aviv. mikie sherrill of new jersey, a united states navy veteran. congresswoman, thanks for being with us. you do sit on the armed services. curious for your take on these counter strikes from the united states military against the houthis, who have been persistently attacking cargo ships and attempting to attack the united states military ships in the red sea. do you worry about where this goes from here, if the houthis

continue this? >> well, certainly. good morning. i think everyone is worried about where this is going. we're seeing attacks on shipping lanes from the houthis, from iran, from china, across the world. it's incumbent on us for our global economy to keep these open for our u.s. economy here at home. i think what we have been worried about, the united states, the israeli/gaza conflict does not bleed out into a broader regional war, which we're seeing signs of. the united states has worked incredibly hard to keep that from happening, and this is just a piece of that drive to keep our allies united and keep the stability that we can in the region. >> congresswoman, good to see you that morning. president biden is hosting at the white house today, the big four, congressional leaders and other key committee leaders. the president will be talking about the supplemental which, of course, is the big package that has israel aid, ukraine aid a border security aid. republicans want to link border

security with ukraine. but what is your read on these talks? is your sense as you speak to your colleagues there, republican colleagues in the house, a good faith effort by the gop, or do you think these talks are doomed to fail because they want to keep immigration alive as an election year issue? >> well, when you talk about the gop, it's hard to understand where everyone is at. i think given trump's success in iowa, it almost feels as if the republican members of the gop have this last gas of sort of a group that's trying to negotiate in good faith, that's trying to come up with a bipartisan deal that will move the country forward, going to secure aid for our democratic allies in a very important way, and yet you see the house, the house freedom caucus, which to date, and, you know, to remind everyone, we're over halfway through the session of congress, the most ineffective group of people ever

in leading the house of representatives, continues to find pathways to chaos as we work on successful ventures forward. we think we come to deals with the house republicans and then the freedom caucus blows up those deals. they're doing the same thing, and i think you see the increasing frustration from republican members of the senate. so i would suggest that in the house it's not a good faith effort. every time it feels as if we come closer to a deal, whether it's funding the government or for the supplemental, they add chaos into the system and take down the ability to move forward on good legislation. so, no, i think we have come to a place where i think as mcconnell suggested, this is really not just the supplemental but movement forward on border security, which we've all come together to address. and yet the freedom caucus, again, is looking for ways to undermine the pathway forward here. it's hard to see with the chaos

that is the house republicans, it's hard to see us moving forward on this. >> congresswoman, in the midst of all this chaos and all this danger, global danger, a lit fuse in the middle east, hezbollah, hamas, it's almost as if it seems congress is walking around and people are walking around saying, hey, whatever happened to ukraine? and that's still going on. what is the future for ukraine? >> well, if the united states will come to the table to continue to lead the effort, and by that i mean passing the supplemental, which i think will trigger aid from our european allies as well, i think the future for ukraine is quite bright. we look at a country that has successfully opened up the port of odesa to get the grain shipments out. that's important not only to feed large parts of africa but also for the economy of ukraine. we look at a country that has

successfully staved off the russians in the eastern participate of the state in that critical manufacturing area, an area that, as you recall, manufactured the majority of munitions for the soviet union. so they could once again supply themselves. so we see the outlines of the future state of ukraine. they've been successful at keeping the territory they need and yet now is a critical time. i had a friend say to me, why doesn't ukraine sue for peace? why would putin agree to peace right now when the united states. >> so, congresswoman, i want to get your reaction to another reaction. we actually have newly released 911 audio shedding light, the

details and senior white house correspondent gabe gutierrez. >> fairfax county 911. where is your emergency? >> it was new year's day, just after 7:00 p.m., when lloyd austin's aide called 911 from the defense secretary's home. >> can i ask can an ambulance not show up with lights and sirens? we're trying to remain a little subtle. >> yeah, i understand. usually when they turn into a residential neighborhood, they'll turn them off. >> reporter: in the newly released audio, the dispatcher then asks about austin's condition. >> did he pass out or does he feel like he's going to pass out? >> no. >> reporter: the pentagon previously said he was taken to the hospital for complications for surgery to treat prostate cancer about two weeks earlier. >> if we need them to take him to walter reed medical, is that

a possibility? >> let them know when they get there. >> reporter: austin was first diagnosed in early december. the 911 call now adding to questions about why president biden was not informed of that diagnosis for a month. >> does the president think that's acceptable? >> it is not optimal. >> reporter: the white house wasn't even told about the hospitalization for three days, neither was austin's deputy who has taken over the duties since she was vacationing in puerto rico. austin said he took full responsibility and could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. the president says he still has full confidence in him, but -- >> was it a lapse in judgment earlier? >> yes. >> so what's your gut on what should happen here, making it a decision like this, we have so much respect for the defense

secretary. we know him and still can't understand the decision. >> it's a bewildering decision. however, this is something the president has to handle, if he has full faith, the secretary has weighed that despite this mistake, which the secretary has fully admitted to it being a mistake, can he move forward with secretary austin, and is it important to do so with the conflicts across the nation? is austin handling those as well as his administration in the defense department? does the president want to move forward? the president has made the decision, yes, this is the best path forward and the best path forward for the country. which is, again, his decision. i do think it's important that the white house has put out new guidance. there is clarity and can be no

more mistakes moving forward on what is expected of our cabinet secretaries in the event of illness. >> what's the policy? you served in the military for a similar situation. >> the policy we always had as officers in the navy working under various commands was no surprises. you didn't want your commanding officer to be surprised. whether you were sick for some reason, going on vacation, if something happened, if you got a call about one of the men or women that were in your department doing something out in town, you immediately wanted the commanding officer to know that. because they can then better handle the situation and be more transparent and when you're dealing with the department of defense, you're dealing with an organization that should constantly be ready for a

crisis, has to possibly act very, very quickly. you need leadership to be aware of who will be able to act in a crisis and who is in charge. what does that chain of command look like at all times? >> mikie sherrill of new jersey, congresswoman, thank you so much, as always. so jonathan lemire, the president is standing by secretary austin privately. there's frustration for something that feels unnecessary and unforced which is if you're not feeling well, everyone understands that. you can tell the white house what's going on. there are all these protocols. it just seems like something that didn't have to be this way. >> no, certainly not. the secretary of defense is an intensely private man, something he's carried with him throughout his career. >> you don't get to do that. and there's no doubt there's real happiness in the white

house about how this was handled. the chief of staff has put together new guidelines so this can't happen again. from what i'm told the president, though miffed, is standing by him, likes him personally. would not accept a resignation if offered. and that he believes, particularly now, as we have two hot wars, ukraine and what we're seeing in gaza, a widening conflict, this is not the time to change leadership at the pentagon. we'll see if it changes then but at least for now the inclination from this president is to stick by secretary austin and make sure something like this never happens again. >> no change there. we wish the secretary well in his recovery. what do americans really think about race and identity? our next guest spent more than a decade exploring that very question, award winning journalist michele norris and what she has learned. "morning joe" is coming right back. g right back

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ten minutes before the top of the hour. for the past 14 years people from all around the world have been reflecting on race and identity as part of the race card project. the peabody award winning initiative asked participants to answer questions, six words on race, please send. the book's author, award-winning journalist and founder of the race card project. congratulations on the book. thank you for coming on the

show. i can't wait to talk about the six-word answers and everything else in the book. tell us what surprised you the most along the way in the research for this? >> good morning, mika, and thank you so much for having me. i have been surprised at every step of the journey. i was surprised people took the bait, and we moved past snail mail, and over time i have been surprised at the depth of how much you can pack into just six words, how it really captures the american story in such a potent and powerful way. i have been surprised at who put their stories in the basket. i am an african american woman and i am talking about race, and i thought those that shared their stories would be people of color, and a majority of the stories have been from white

people and everywhere else, and this allowed me to see america in a different way, in a powerful way, in a fuller way, because there was so much from white americans. >> to me, what reading through the book what surprised me is how honest people were, and maybe sometimes it did not reveal the best thing about them sometimes, and were you surprised with the responses you got from them, saying this is who i am and maybe it's not the best version? >> yeah, in some cases this is who i am and i am very proud of that. white privileged, earned it, enjoy it. that's a stake in the ground. some people over the years have been critical, like, why do they get a seat at the table.

what we are trying to do is trying to hold up a mirror so people could see the identity of america, and you shouldn't like or understand everything you see, and it's a big conundrum, an open wound. we tried to include all of that, as long as it was not hurtful or not threatening somebody, but you see triumph and anxiety, and you see humor. every so often a card will come up where we all taste like chicken. some people use the humor on the card, lady, i don't want your purse. you have ever walked into an elevator and touched your wallet and you don't know why you do it, and somebody is making you

feel uncomfortable, and that's usually a black man that is inoculating somebody's fears, and he uses humor, lady, i don't want your purse. >> you read through the book, there are these little daily indignities, and a man is the only black family in the neighborhood and he is out sweeping his driveway, and somebody drives by and says, are you the maintenance guy. no, i'm the neighbor. >> yeah, just the other day i was asked if i was the flight attendant. it was great. in the intimacy of our hatreds,

the intimacy, the book gets to this. in the older generation, they have stories and secrets. the younger generation has judgments and questions. unpack that for us? >> so many were writing about their grandparents, and there's a chasm, if you are 8 years old and your grandparent is 85, think about how much america has changed in that time, and a lot of people were leaving bread crumbs for the children, and if you are somebody that enjoyed, enforced, was silent about segregation, how do you tell that about your kids? if you came to america as one thing, and then in the quest to become american decided i will

shed this language, and i don't want -- i came here and i am italian, greek, and in the quest to become american they lose that. often they leave little clues, because they want to tell the story but just don't know how. >> you have been doing the six words for many, many years now. what is it about the brevity that makes people be so forthcoming where they feel like they can unburden themselves? is it because they don't feel like they need to explain themselves? >> i have talked to you about this for years, and people thought i was crazy about this book, what can you say in six words? if i can distill it, i can build on that. it takes something complicated, and you have to get to the essence of what that means to

you. it's a little fun because there's a certain cadence in writing something that just has six words, and most of the cards come in digitally, and people have a chance to explain their story and things get interesting, and there's modeling, and in that there's a difficult conversation, and people see, these are the rules of engagement? okay, i will be totally honest, because that person is being totally honest. if we can do difficult things, it's easier for the next person that comes along to have that complicated conversation. >> it's a decade and a half of conversations. "our hidden conversations: what people think about race and

identity." >> thank you for having me. the next guest writes, we cannot just write away donald trump, joe biden needs to defeat him. we are back in two minutes. hi! constant contact. helping the small stand tall. (♪♪) we come from a long line of cowboys. (♪♪) when i see all of us out here on this ranch,

i see how far our legacy can go. (♪♪) get over here kids. i see how far our legacy 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.

i meet with great groups in new hampshire, and then i get on a plane late at night when it's snowing and freezing out, and the pilots say it's going to be tough. i go to a biden witch hunt, and then i come here in the afternoon and we stop and make speeches and we get your votes and all that stuff, but nobody has ever had to do this before. >> well, you know, people didn't do it before because usually candidates who judges say are rapists don't usually get this far, but what we found in iowa a couple nights was, well, iowa republicans voted -- those 14%,

they like their presidential candidates that are called rapists by judges, and they like their presidential candidates that steal nuclear secrets -- >> and defame women. >> and they like those presidential candidates that constantly defame women. willie, i have never been through this. >> let me help you through this. >> yeah, he dusted me off -- >> oh, willie, that was nice of him. >> we were going up into 30 rock, and i was chewing on it, and he said here is the deal, and he explained politics to me. >> that's good. you need to hear it from kids. >> i still don't get it, though. this guy is complaining, because, you know, as the judge said under any definition of

rape, he raped a woman. >> and then decided to defame her again. >> that's why he's going to court. >> yesterday or today? >> that's not a biden witch hunt, that's donald trump's past finally catching up with him. people in iowa said not only do they like their candidates that judges say raped women, they are more likely to vote for their candidates if judges say they raped women and stole nuclear secrets and gave away plans, and -- >> yeah, this is not a joke. >> and then gave away top secret plans on america's plans to invade -- >> you are starting to get a handle on the politics, joe. you are right. when he complains about being

put through all this, the whole pitch is he's a martyr and this is all being imposed on him and he's happy to be indicted for his people, and he might be a religious figure in some way, and there's an easy way to avoid shuttles between courtrooms and rallies, do not rape, and do not attempt a coup to overturn the united states election, and then this is not happening to him, these are things he's alleged to have done, and that's why he's having to shuttle back and forth. by the way, voluntarily, it's voluntarily, and he doesn't have to be in the courtroom in new york. >> it's a campaign stop for him. actually he does better in

courtrooms than he does hobbling on to stages and seeing really stupid things. >> he likes to feed into fake hate. >> it actually fuels support, because republicans, again, in 2024, they like guys that break the law and rape women according to judges in new york, and as you say, to defame them. just to tick down -- >> he's stuck. >> yeah, two reasons why he doesn't have to be in court. number one, he doesn't have to be there. it's not required. number two, after being found liable of defamation and sexual abuse, which the judge says was rape, he goes on to defame the women again, and it will cost him a lot of money to do that. >> he's still doing it. >> along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of "way too

early," jonathan lemire, and former white house director of communications for president obama, jen palmieri, and she's the host of a podcast, and senior political columnist for politico, jay martin is here this morning. you mentioned him making himself a religious figure -- >> willie is making himself a religious figure? i'm there. >> no, but did you see the add from the lincoln project? >> yeah, and i have got to say -- >> it's -- >> i've got to say, they just totally set themselves up for this. >> yeah. >> willie, it's kind of like if you have nolan ryan on the mound, and there's a batter who keeps toying with nolan ryan,

and he kept stepping out of the box when ryan is going to deliver, and you get that look where you are setting yourself up, nobody is going to put one in your back. well, i saw this trump take on the whole classic paul harvey thing, you know, and here -- here, when donald trump did that, i looked at it and everybody was like, oh, this is the worst thing ever, and i shook my head and said, they're so stupid. they are really so stupid. they are going to play for, like, 3% here, basically claiming he's the second coming of jesus, and all they are doing is setting themselves up for a blistering parody of this. sure enough, nolan ryan, he wound up really hard, put about

101-mile-per-hour fastball right in the trump campaign's back. >> and then to extend your metaphor, joe, goes into his back and it's ventura, and he charges the mound and he continues to -- >> poor ventura. how would you like to be a good baseball player, and be known for having nolan ryan pound you when you charge the mound? >> yeah, and this declares, yes, god made trump, suggesting he has been put on earth to put a savior from the country. it's a spoof of that message. here it is. >> and on the 8th day, god looked down on his planned paradise and said i need a man

who will failed on everything but theft and broken promises to live in a golden palace, and so god made a dictator. god said i need a wicked man to lead the common folk with hatred and fear, so god made a dictator. and god said i need a corrupt man immune from justice, so god made a dictator. god said i need a man whose followers will call black white, call evil good and so he made a dictator. god said i need a cruel man who uses his power and position to punish and harm his opposition, so god made a dictator. god said i need a man that breaks the faith of his closest followers, so god made a

dictator. i said i sent this man to test you, and unless you cast him down, you have failed. so god made a dictator. >> you know, jen, it is -- >> oh, my god. >> again, we just see the trump campaign always playing small ball, always playing for their most extreme, setting up the whole he's -- he is a god-like figure, he's the second coming of jesus. you know, maybe that plays for the 13% of republicans that voted in iowa, but the rest of america is, like, come on, man, just tell me the economy is going to be better and inflation is going down and the border will be taken care of for the next four years, and -- >> stop the chaos. >> yes, stop the chaos and this god-like cult bs, but they can't do it. i mean, you know, if they campaigned on the economy, if they campaign on basic stuff, they could actually be in a

better position, because polls don't matter right now. they just don't matter. i say it time and again, and dan mcloughlin said it at the new republic, there's a reason when talking about biden republicans win, and when people talk about trump, democrats win, and trump can't help himself and he sets himself up for that nolan ryan fastball right in the back. >> i don't know -- i didn't know about the robin ventura reference. >> yeah. >> it's okay. football is more my thing than baseball. first, i had not seen the lincoln project ad, and what is so good about it, not only does it debunk the messiah ad, but puts into context because trump does and says outrageous things

now, and that's a great job of putting it into context, historically what we are dealing with and we are able to normalize it, and put that threat into context. the thing that i am wondering about with him going -- come on, man. first of all, as you know, iowa, not that big of a win. i'm not sure like in real terms how many more votes he got in '24 than he got in '16, because a few people caucused, but to go there from your sexual assault trial in new york city, if things don't go well for him in new hampshire all of a sudden the new campaign centerpiece of making it to the courtroom communication strategy could look like a mistake. if nikki haley catches up to him, there's interesting things

to say about that, and then all of a sudden that strategy could look weak. he doesn't handle losses well, and that part could fall apart. things could catch up to him even sooner. >> jonathan martin, 14% of republicans showed newspaper iowa to caucus on monday night. >> not a great turnout. yeah. not a great turnout. >> and there are 700 odd thousand republicans in iowa, and yes it was cold but doesn't account for the huge difference in the turnouts. >> well, there's less enthusiasm and a race seen as a forgone conclusion. the voters out there are

sophisticated, and the other big thing, willie, is a lot of the republicans from 2016 are not republicans anywhere, whether it's iowa or anywhere else. and polk county around des moines, look at the collapse in turnout from 2016 to monday. that tells you a lot about the alignment of the party and the folks that left of the gop. that combined, willie, with the entrance poll, would show that 30% of people believed that felonies would be disqualifying was the most ominous news for trump. the suburbanites were gone, number one. then, the folks who are still in the party or at least willing to participate, they said they are not going to vote for a felon on election day. that to me was the biggest takeaway from iowa. >> you know what you call 14% of registered republicans in iowa? you know what you call that? >> caucus in a phone booth? >> you call that a busy friday

night at the red bar -- >> a little reference -- >> good line, man. good line. take a number. >> as he been up all night? >> no, that's 30a stuff right there. >> you have been up all night? >> no, but it feels like it. jonathan lemire, we need to take you to the red barn at some point. it could be the best place in america there. this god thing that donald trump is pushing, right? it plays for the cult. but you don't win in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania and georgia playing to the cult. he has ben carson out there, you know, comparing him to the second coming of jesus, too.

like, it just -- alex, do we have that ben carson thing -- >> oh, my gosh. >> he refers him to king david, a man after god's own heart. play it. >> well, you know, you think about the bible and king david. most of those people probably -- if they were alive back in those days, they would have said oh, what a horrible guy, and the episode with beersheba and the other things he did, and yet he was a man after god's own heart. god uses people for different hearts. you need somebody with a manhattan business type of personality to deal with the administrative state. you know, there are some real wolves in that manhattan business environment, and to succeed in that, you don't just be a flower nice person necessarily. that doesn't mean he can't be. i have seen him.

when he's not being attacked, he's a wonderful person and everybody would love him. >> just to be clear, you are comparing him to king david? >> i -- >> for the record, you are comparing him to king david and that worked out well for king david and this is another king david, right? >> i don't know about him being king, but certainly he has some policies that are worthwhile. the other thing that must be mentioned, if the left is allowed to use the doj to hurt him and to eliminate him from the process, then that's when we lose democracy. >> see, this is what -- >> wow! wow. >> frame that. this is a little bit of a shift. a little shift. he goes from donald trump is like king david, a man after

god's own heart, and cavuto says, okay, so we are comparing him to king david? is that right? and then he goes, well -- >> i can't really hear you. >> well, you know, his policies in a quantitative easing -- he played it from a man after god's own heart to i like some of his policies. maybe that's the perfect interview, and the clip that we showed before, jonathan lemire, to show that this donald trump is jesus [ bleep ] -- >> oh, joe, come on. >> i think we can say, yeah -- i have to clean up what just happened there. >> thank you. >> yeah, carson and the king david, yeah, he was strong and opposed to the weaponization of government. we know that.

carson is right about that. but to the larger point, the truism about trump that gets lost ever so often as we focus on the base, that base stays with him. he absolutely has a very high floor for politicians and he also has a very low ceiling. these arguments are not going to win over the suburban voters of milwaukee, atlanta and philadelphia. they are not going to be into him being compared to the almighty, i would guess. this is somebody who is facing a series of criminal trials that will be in court later today as a defamation suit connected to a sexual assault case. this is somebody who fueled an insurrection, and this is somebody the biden campaign is taking the opportunity to paint as dangerous to the fabric of the and somebody calling himself the

chosen one and calls himself the retribution, that's a scary combination for a lot of voters. the democrats will have to get their own base out, and that's their concern right now. none of this, as the lincoln project ad does a good job showing none of this will win some over. >> yeah, evangelicals did overwhelmingly go for donald trump, and apparently some of them are buying the argument that he's the chosen one. look ahead for us to new hampshire. nikki haley is making the pitch that she got the ticket out of iowa even though she came in third, and ron desantis is skipping and going to south carolina. what do the next couple of weeks look like? >> you have to separate the next two contests because they are

fundamentally different races, and they go to the heart of donald trump's strength. the fact is new hampshire does not look like the rest of the republican primary, because it doesn't look like today's republican party. all right? it will be full of moderate voters, and unaffiliated voters can participate, and much more secular, and a lot more educated and upscale. to borrow a recent primary, this reminds me of 2000 where mccain got a brief reprieve in new hampshire, because of those kinds of voters, and once you are back to the nominating process, that's going to be nikki haley's challenge, and the challenge in south carolina, once you are back to talking about republicans and conservative ones and blue-collar ones at that, and that's going to be the base. it's going to be hard for her

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trump was in court yesterday for jury selection but left before opening statements. he has already been found liable for defaming carroll in 2018 while he was president for mocking her sexual assault claim against him, which he was found liable for. in this trial jurors will be asked to figure out how much money trump will have to pay in damages. carroll's team is asking for at

least $10 million. she's expected to testify today. willie? >> joining us now, former lit greater and legal analyst, lisa ruben, who has been covering this for us. this is the penalty phase, and the judge already determined -- >> yeah, the judge determined liability, and trump was fined for comments he made. think about this trial as a messy defamation sandwich, if the last trial was the filling, this is the bread. these are for statements trump made while president in 2018, and carroll's attorneys are seeking punitive damages, even including up to yesterday when on truth social he posted about her as many as 22 times in the leadup -- >> 22 times in a day in the

hours leading up to his defamation trial, he continued to defame e. jean carroll. >> he was there for jury selection, but then left? >> yeah, jury selection took us through a delayed lunch break at around 2:00 p.m. when we came back from that break donald trump was nowhere to be found. he stayed for the entirety of the jury selection, and the way this particular judge jury selection is by asking perspective questions, and if their answer is yes they need to stand up and explain. former president trump was engaged in that process, often times turning around in his seat to look at the jurors, and sometimes he nodded in assent, and other times he shook his

head. >> he has said he will be back in court today, meaning he will be listening to e. jean carroll when she testifies. what do we expect to hear from her? >> she can't testify about the sexual assault, but she can testify to the person she was before and what her career looked like before the defamation, and what her life and career now look like after, and particularly in the wake of his initial comments in 2019, you will remember e. jean carroll published a portion of the book, and he went on the attack, and it's those two segments on what she will testify, where the contracts were cut and her life changed in

terms of physical threats and she's a distinguished writer, and this is a person that had a real career that ended in the wake of donald trump's defamation. >> is there a lot of precedence -- even putting aside that he is a former president for this kind of trial, repeated defamation, and then for the person to be sitting there during jury selection, and then also while she's testifying, so he is able to -- you know, that's an intimidating presence for jurors and e. jean carroll? >> that's absolutely true. i am not aware of cases in which you got the same plaintiff and the same defendant litigating successive defamation. usually the first damage award is enough to stem the tide, but a civil defendant has every

right to participate and be present in their trial, and the aggravating fact is twofold, the threats to e. jean carroll and the defamation, what it's about, sexual assault. and i will talk about e. jean carroll's posture, and donald trump was sitting behind her, and the way the courtroom is set up, the plaintiff's table goes first and the defendant's table is in back, and e. jean carroll knowing trump was in the courtroom sat straight and on the edge of her seat almost inched forward as to inch herself as many millimeters away from him as she could, and if trauma had a seated position, that was is. >> how does the ongoing comments on truth social affect this? he does it 15 minutes before he walked into the courtroom? >> it's a argument for punitive

damages and it's a factor jurors are entitled to consider for damages, and how repepant? some could seek an injunction, and that's not what i understand e. jean carroll's lawyers will do, what they are trying to do is find an award that feels like a punch in the stomach to donald trump and makes him think twice about making comments, and how much will it take to make him shut up. >> a lot, apparently. he has already been punished and does it day in and day out -- >> well, the difference between $5 million and silence is probably a big gulf, and that's what they are trying to find out. >> former litigator and msnbc

analyst, thank you. >> thank you. ed loose breaks down his new piece when "morning joe" comes right back. ck >> woman: why did we choose safelite? we were loading our suv when... crack! safelite came right to us, and we could see exactly when they'd arrive with a replacement we could trust. that's service the way we want it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ only at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner. our financial planning tools and advice can help you prepare for today's longer retirement. hi mom. that's the value of ownership.

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the united states has carried out another strike against the houthis in yemen. yesterday's attack destroyed four missiles that the pentagon says posed a threat to ships traveling through the red sea and nearby waters. this marks the third attack since last week when the u.s. and its allies hit dozens of targets in yemen. the white house then warned the militant group to stop attacking ships in the red sea or risk further action, but the houthis have ignored that warning, continuing to fire missiles at ships, including a u.s.-owned vessel. joining us now, richard haus.

at this point what are the options for the administration? warnings are one thing, and what is next? >> there are not a lot of options, which is usually the case. we could continue to hope they destroy more missiles they import from iran, and you can interdict the missiles going there, and the s.e.a.l.s were doing that, and two lost their lives. there is's a question as to whether or not you can get the chinese to help. it will raise the price of oil, potentially. china is a major importer of oil, and it's unlikely this would be happening without iran's approval. groups like the houthis have a degree of independence, but i don't think you can exaggerate

it. >> what is the overall strategy? you have iran working through the houthis, and you have iran, obviously, launching attacks through third parties in iran, in syria, all across the region. what is the -- what's the grand strategy here? >> the -- >> what should it be? let me ask you, what should it be? i saw that look on your face. >> what it might be? >> what it should be? settle the rest of the middle east so we can focus on iran. it's iran and its nuclear program, and the half dozen or so militias from hezbollah to the houthis, what have you. what we want to do is isolate that, and in order to do that you need israel and the arab world working in concert, and as we have learned over the last 100-plus days, you only have a chance of doing that if you deal with the palestinian issue among other things, and that ought to be our strategy and we should be leaning much more to bring the

war in gaza to an end and not the war to expand to lebanon, and to get a palestinian political process under way, and then we can get the saudis to normalize with the israelis and try and build a regional coalition to isolate the iranians, and if need be, take them on. >> what a fool's errand to think you can make middle east peace while ignoring the palestinian crisis. "the new york times" talks about the scope and quality of the gaza tunnels awe israelis, and you have 450 miles of tunnels underneath, an extraordinary network. the "wall street journal" has a story about perils for israel, the refugees are growing impatience against israel's growing, and joe biden's patience, not with the israelis

but with benjamin netanyahu running out fast. >> it should run out fast, and it should have run out already. bibi netanyahu wants to see the war going, and he thinks it makes it difficult for people to move against him politically. there's three options, joe. we can introduce resolutions, isolating to some extent, and we can condition the arms, which is what bernie sanders wants to do. he needs to go over the head of the government and talk to the israeli people and israeli politicians, and guess what, you are seeing an israel to the post politics emerge, and people say we are never going to eliminate

hamas 100%, and we are not getting the hostages out, and who is going to occupy gaza? how are we going to get gaza rebuilt? we don't have the money to do that. you are beginning to see for the first time politics emerging, and the united states ought to be a participant in that debate. coming up, our next guest says it's a delusion to believe that donald trump will go away. "vanity fair"'s piece, straight ahead on "morning joe." i was stuck. unresolved depression symptoms were in my way.

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morning papers from across the country. in missouri the "kansas city star" reports multiple people in saturday's chiefs and doll tpepbz playoff game were hospitalized due to the extreme

cold. during the game temperatures dropped to minus 6 degrees with a windchill of minus 27, making it the coldest chiefs game ever. according to the city's fire department, 15 people at the stadium were hospitalized, including seven for hypothermia, and three for frostbite. >> willie, i was watching the game, and it was really -- it was just terrible even watching, you know. >> too cold. >> we always talk about the ice bowl and history, and it looks so cool on tv. man, it just looked painful. you know, when you have mahomes putting his head down and his helmet breaks -- >> ah. >> yeah. >> nobody wants to put off a game, that's dangerous. >> yeah, minus 27, i knew as diehard as the chief's fans are, there were empty seats.

minus 27 is unsafe, as we learned in that report. >> yeah, no. >> mahomes, his helmet shattered and there was a lot going on in that game. >> in philadelphia, jason kelce decided to retire, pointing to the toll of more than a dozen seasons in the nfl. also, jonathan lemire, travis kelce gets all the attention because of his relationship with taylor swift and what a great player he is, but jason kelce -- >> he's more than just taylor swift's possible future brother-in-law. he's going to be an eagles hall-of-famer and i think pro football player, and he is a

team leader, and he and his brother have that podcast, and if he wants a future in media, he will have one. and a smart guy, and even knew when it was time to hang it up even after a disappointing end to the season. >> great guy. an absolute great guy. >> good career. >> good football player. >> let's go to california, "the desert sun," parental rights groups argue parents should get to decide their children's activities and say it gives children a source of exercise and community. governor gavin newsom may hand him a win, and in a statement yesterday he said he would veto a bill with an out right ban on youth tackle football. >> jonathan, what do you think of that? >> personally as a parent, i don't want my two sons to play

tackle football, and it's a decision we have made, and they play flag football and they both won their league titles this year, thank you very much. and in my opinion, it's every parents decision as to what to do. coming up, the next guest that says the coation that elected joe biden is exhausted, divided and falling apart. we explain why when "morning joe" comes right back. ack. 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.

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welcome back. before we announce more great speakers for the 30/50 summit in march in abu dhabi this morning we have a big announcement regarding forbes and know your value's 50 over 50 list which recognized women who have achieved significant success after the age of 50. well after. women are shattering age and gender norms all around the world. and last night we released our

third annual 50 over 50 asia-pacific list. it comes on the heels of our u.s. list and our europe, middle east and africa lists, which came out just last week. here to tell us more editor of forbes women maggie mcgrath and vice chair of the know your value 3050 summit huma abedin. maggie, this year's honorees come from 14 different countries and territories and work across 28 different sectors. give us an overview of the diverse list and also one of our main sort of callouts in this group includes a tech entrepreneur who introduced digital maps to india well before google. who is she? >> that's absolutely right, mika. the overview, thanks to our colleagues in forbes asia we have uncovered 50 women who are uncovering fashion, finance, science. we have the incoming head of the

hong kong stock exchange, bonnie chan and we also have one of our eldest ever listees, that is 112-year-old celine morada, an vironmental activist in india, she had angioplasty in the fall, when she came out of the hospital she said she wanted to plant more trees. in india is the woman that you referenced that, 67-year-old rashmi verma. it's better known as map by india and it's like google maps but she and her husband co-founded it in 1995. that's a full ten years before anyone knew what google maps were. she started by mapping india's cities by foot and to date she has tracked more than 6.6 million kilometers of roads, 18 million locations. >> wow. >> the company is worth $1.4 billion. it's free to consumers, but it makes its money by licensing its data to its corporate clients.

>> impressive. and, huma, also making the list was 96-year-old actress lisa lue. many of us know her from "crazy rich asians." tell us why she made the list. >> you keep telling us that our runway is long and forget 50. >> it is. >> at 96 she has spent five decades in an extraordinary award-winning acting career. as you reference "crazy rich asians" which was a global phenomenon a few years ago. she also appeared at 66 in "the joy luck club." i was a teenager when that film came out. she didn't start acting until she was 31 and was so intent on perfecting her craft she became known as one-take lisa. it's an example of, you know, you can -- and i try to do this intentionally, mika, because i freak out all the time that i don't have enough time and you keep reminding me we have to

keep looking at stories like this could be inspired. >> absolutely. maggie, another honoree on the asia-pacific list, 55-year-old australian singer kylie minogue. going through an incredible career resurgence. talk about her impact. >> if you have had the song stuck in your head at any point over the last seven months you are well aware of her impact, but it's true, she is 55 years old and having a career resurgence. that song came out over the summer, it hit the uk's radio one play list and she became the first woman over 50 to have a song on that play list. it's her first number one hit in over a decade, it earned her a grammy nomination in november and also in the fall she embarked upon her first ever vegas residency. when tickets went on sale in august they immediately sold out. she is hotter than ever. she has said as much as this

moment means to her, she hopes it means a lot for women who experience age bias themselves and she has said i think we're in a moment where it's not cool to be ageist. people are over it. mika, i think you, huma, and i would agree with that statement. >> absolutely. and let's turn now -- i mentioned our third annual cross-generational 3050 summit which will take place in march in and around international women's day, which is march 8th. we've already announced great speakers, including personal finance expert i'm obsessed suzy ormen, actress meg ryan. today we have a few more names ready to be announced. who are they? >> we've been looking forward to this day all three of us in all of our teams at forbes and know your value. the first is sophie trudeau, she is an author, a mental health and emotional literacy advocate. i think many americans know her in her role as the former unofficial first lady of canada.

sophie's story and one of the reasons we're very excited to have her join us as a speaker at the summit is she has a book coming out this spring called "closer together." she's been talking about mental health for the past 20 years, well before it was a sexy topic, certainly in america and around the world, and being very honest about her own challenges with eating disorders and anxiety, growing up as a young woman. she really champions this notion of emotional literacy. that, you know, she teaches us that we teach our children math and languages and science growing up, but do we talk to them about how to deal with their emotions and feelings and when they feel pain, how can you sit with pain and not be overwhelmed and that some of the root causes, she tells us that 70% of our mental health challenges start when we're children and how to address that. and the second speaker we're very, very excited to announce,

we're very actually honored to announce are 2024 lifetime achievement award recipient hostlen johnson surleaf. every little girl should know she is the former president of liberia, she made history as the first democratically elected female head of state in africa. one of the reasons she's so important for this year, mika, is we're surrounded by conflict globally. she became president after a decades' long civil war in her country. she led the country through reconciliation and rehabilitation, she was an extraordinary leader for her country and she was awarded the nobel peace prize in 2011 for her work and continues to be a global champion for women around the world, particularly women in africa and we cannot wait to have her join us on stage in abu dhabi in march. >> and believe it or not there are more amazing speakers to be announced to come in the next week or so. maggie mcgrath and huma abedin,

thank you so much. read more about all the women who made the 50 over 50 lists and get more details about our 30/50 summit. head over to forbes.com and knowyourvalue.com. we are now about a minute into the fourth hour of "morning joe" now. today donald trump is again expected to attend the second defamation trial against him. he's complaining about that, even though he's not required to be in court this week and the only reason he's there at all is because trump won't stop defaming this woman that a jury found him liable of sexual assaulting. nbc's garrett haake has the latest on that and the remaining republican field trying to make next week's new hampshire primary competitive. >> we now have our eyes on a very special place, do you know what that place is? new hampshire. >> reporter: it's game on in the granite state with donald trump

slamming nikki haley in his first rally since his dominating iowa win. >> as you know, nikki haley, in particular, is counting on the democrats and liberals to infiltrate your republican primary. >> reporter: the former president joined for the first time by former rival vivek ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race after finishing fourth in iowa. >> i would endorse donald j. trump for president of the united states. >> reporter: mr. trump arriving in new hampshire after spending the day in court in new york city, attending jury selection in the second defamation case filed bens him by writer e. jean carroll, in which he denies any wrongdoing. mr. trump was found civilly liable last year for sexually abusing her in the '90s and later defaing carroll. with new hampshire's first in the nation primary less than a week away and the next major contest in south carolina a month later, mr. trump's remaining rivals trying different strategies to gain ground on him. >> we're putting iowa in the rearview mirror.

>> reporter: in new hampshire nikki haley trailing trump narrowly in some state polls appearing with the state's popular gop governor, casting the race here as a two-person showdown between her and the former president. >> we have to leave the negativity and the baggage behind and go forward with new solutions for the future. >> reporter: while ron desantis who finished a distant second in iowa took his campaign to south carolina tuesday, a state where trump has led in polls and where haley served as governor. >> haley, look, she was governor here for six years. can you name major achievements under her tenure? >> reporter: all while president biden mocked the gop field overnight. >> i'm still the only person that ever beat donald trump and i'm looking forward to it again for the good of this country. all right. that was nbc's garrett haake with that report. jonathan lemire, mike barnicle and eddie glaude jr. are back with us and joining us former chief of staff to the dccc and senior aide to the hillary

clinton and biden presidential campaigns adrienne elrod and special correspondent at vanity fair and host of the fast politics podcast molly bass. she's out with a piece titled "donald trump isn't going anywhere." in the new piece molly writes in part, quote, if there is one fantasy we in american political life are the most guilty of, it's the delusion that donald trump will simply go away. i remember the first time someone suggested to mehat trump would magically disappear. it was shortly after the election that he was surely going to lose. do you remember the 2016 election? right? well, new york friend who knew trump told me he would hate being president. he would hate d.c. wh its lack of glamour and, yes, golf. four years later after trump decively lost the presidential election to joe biden and an mouse senior republican official was still in fantasy land, infamously telling the

"washington post," what is the down side for humoring him for this little bit of time? it's not like he's plotting how to prevent joe biden from taking power on january 20th? in fact, plotting was exactly what trump was doing. nonmaga republicans could have killed off any chance of a trump political come back by impeaching him for inciting the insurrection, but of course they let him off the hook, perhaps thinking heould vanish in mar-a-lago. so there is no wishing trump away. joe biden must beat him again like he did in 2020, and even then we have to pray that trump will finally abstain from polical life and shrink quietly off to golf and palm beach for the rest of his days. i actually doubt even that, molly. this is what we're talking about, just about an hour ago, like why -- why -- why these republican senators, not even going to deal with the house, but some of them are pretty

elder statesmen in the party, why they can't take him on. i mean, it's not like there isn't a long list of things that might connect with even maga republicans as wrong. >> yeah, and he's humiliated a lot of these people. that's the other thing. but you see them all falling in line. and i think that, look, they are still scared, right? mitt romney spent so much money on private security and i think that these senators are just don't want to face him. they don't want to get the scary death threats, they don't want to be swatted, right? we saw that. and so -- and they back down and just hope he will go away. this is really been their position since 2015, you know, that if you ignore him he will go away and, in fact, that is not a successful way to rid yourself of a president. >> well, adrienne elrod, to an extent is your end harder for

democrats supporting joe biden? it's almost like they have to do the republicans' jobs for them. any republicans serving in congress or in the rnc trying to elect a republican leader, they're not doing their job if they are supporting a four-time indicted, multilawsuit plagued former president who tried to steal the election and incited an insurrection. >> yeah, i mean, mika, you will recall back in 2016 when it became apparent that donald trump was going to be very quickly apparent i might add that he was going to be the republican nominee in the primary in the presidential primary, he would be the general election nominee, and right around that time you could see a lot of republicans who had been criticizing him, who is this guy? he shouldn't be our nominee. why is he, you know, doing so well in some of these early states? what is going on here? he is not one of us. slowly started to embrace him. i remember being on hillary clinton's campaign, having a conversation with jennifer

palmeri who was on the show earlier and saying at some point this is going to come back to bite them. at some point these republicans are not going to know what to do with themselves when they've embraced trump so aggressively early on and that is all what's happening now. we're seeing this play out in realtime where a maga-backed opponent in a primary wins and then that person cannot win the general election. so, you know, i wish we had more mitt romneys out there who were speaking out and pushing back, but the reality is the republican party today has embraced trump, they have embraced maga extremism. there are a few outliers of course but this is the republican party today and they are the ones who are going to have to figure out how to move forward as a pardon embracing somebody like donald trump. >> so, eddie, molly makes a good point, there was a moment where republicans could have broken from trump after january 6, that second impeachment trial, had mitch mcconnell whipped enough senators to vote to convict

trump wouldn't be able to hold office again. there was another, though, after the 2022 midterms where trump was at the low water mark, a lot of his candidates lost. those who wanted to challenge him for the republican nomination left him alone, they didn't go after him. yes, we have seen in recent months particularly post-indictments attacking trump has not worked out for these candidates, we can ask chris christie about that. wasn't there a moment when he was vulnerable? wasn't there a moment where republicans to have turned the page and had they showed the guts then to go after him maybe we have a different primary race right now? >> perhaps but the reality of the matter is that they accepted the view that the only way they could win nationally is if they had to turn out those voters, those white voters who had traditionally to the participated in the political process. whenever trump is on the ballot they turn out in droves. so the strategy was this is what we have to do. we have to in some ways stroke grievance, stoke fear to turn out those folks who wouldn't ordinarily turn out.

there's another point about the issue that you bring up, molly, and that is the legitimate crisis that trump has caused. even if he loses, even if he loses, he gets killed at the ballot, 20% of his voters will believe that he actually won -- that he actually lost, that biden won? there is a deep sense of distrust, a lack of confidence in the administrative function of our electoral process and so we're going to face that in 2024. will people view the outcome if he doesn't win as legitimate? and that's a big question we have to confirm. >> on the trump thing, who he is, what about this theory that his opponents, the culture, the media, we've always sort of not gotten to the core of who he really is. he is like a gang leader or a highly skilled criminal who has practiced over and over how not

to get caught at the theft that he's continually pulling off, the theft of democracy, and the people in his gang, he's turned them into cowards out of fear, fear of their leader. there's nothing more complex than that, i think, in part of this as we look at donald trump. >> it does seem like people are addicted to not holding him responsible for the things he does, right? like they constantly -- like those two impeachments we're constantly seeing sort of him get special treatment. >> why do you think they're so afraid of him? why? >> and they are beholden to his voters. they fear that if they go after trump they'd lose those voters, joe and mika. again, it's too late now. i think there was a moment of vulnerability where they could have gone after trump that is correct ship has sailed. we will see what kind of attacks nikki haley and to a lesser extent ron desantis launch in the days before new hampshire but it feels like a last stand and frankly the clock is rapidly

ticking. >> i think they've demeaned themselves and hurt their own campaigns by saying things like, i don't kick sideways at a man who steals nuclear documents. i don't kick sideways at a man who started an insurrection. i don't kick sideways at a man who says he grabs women by the you know what. i don't kick sideways against a man who takes dirt on a political rival from a foreign leader and takes millions and millions of dollars from foreign companies to his personal benefit while he's president. you don't kick sideways? why don't you punch that in the nose because otherwise you don't have any credibility. you're not going after it. >> but, you know, the fact is these politicians are simply reflecting the overwhelming majority of republicans that put them in office in primaries. >> yeah, that's exactly right. i mean, i'm not even going to really go there, but there was a

line that -- i guess i will go there -- that hillary clinton got in trouble for in 2016 when she used the term "deplorable." but that is kind of where we are, right? and i think it's now coming to -- we're seeing the fact that there are a lot of folks out there in america who this is what they believe in, this is what they want, and you certainly see that in the republican party where you have -- you do have some republicans out there who i think are still very much struggling to find a home. you know, is there a moderate republican left that i can vote for? and sometimes you do see those republicans in primaries, but they almost always lose to the maga extremist if they are running against a maga republican and then that turn oftentimes, especially in swing districts, more often than not loses in the general election. so it's something the republican party will have to grapple with. again, i remember in 2016 knowing that some day this was all going to come back around and the republicans were going to have a really hard time trying to figure out how to move forward as a party while they

embrace this maga movement and here we're seeing this play out in realtime now. >> i don't know if everybody is aware of this, but since then donald trump's republican party has lost in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and now they're lining up to do it again in 2024. i just -- i just want to remind everybody that in iowa -- in iowa, 12% -- i think it was 12%, 14% of registered republicans in iowa, right, registered republicans -- what is that, maybe 30% of the electorate there because, you know, a lot of independents. you have about 14% of one-third of the electorate in iowa. now, listen, iowa is likely

going to go republican, it's been trending that way since 2012. that said, there are millions of republicans, and i know many in my family that voted for donald trump who are desperately looking for somebody else to vote for because they are not going to vote for donald trump. there are a lot of people out there like that. >> i don't even discount the maga voters -- >> they're looking for a home. >> to put a pin on what was said, the behavior of this former president has been deplorable, beyond deplorable, and his followers are vulnerable to disinformation and also to his cult-style leadership. let's bring in political columnist for new york magazine jonathan chait, out with a new piece entitled "do you remember the em teas ecstasy of electing joe biden?" you write in part, quote, it's

imperative to keep trump out of the oval office -- >> the imperative. >> the imperative. many issues have strained the alliance of convenience between biden and the left, but what has caused this schm between biden and the left to crack, wide open, is the conflict between israel and hamas. political passion is all on the side of extremism, normalcy feels spent, innervating, and this has inn krajd former members of the anti-trump coalition to gravitate toward other concerns that animate them. an important number of americans who once found trump intolerable have either forgotten how awful he is, or have some strange craving for his return. biden is often described as lacking energy, but it is not the president who is exhausted, it is us. >> i wonder, jonathan, jb lass wrote in the bulwark that the more people see donald trump the

more they're reminded of donald trump. i will say i think the more they see this donald trump that they haven't seen in four years and that's for those of us that don't talk about politics for four hours a day or write about it 12 hours a day, they're going to see actually a more radical, more exhausted, more tired, more spent donald trump playing the hits from eight years ago. i'm not so sure that's going to age too well. maybe i'm whistling past the graveyard. i don't think so. but you bring up a great point, really great point, about what the israel-hamas war has done to the base of the democratic party. >> right. and not just that, there's this very paradoxical response that's come out of this crisis, which is that the most pro-israel moderates and the most anti-israel leftists have all decided that what they want from this is to elect donald trump.

the left is saying we need to punish joe biden for supporting israel, and we're going to elect donald trump and we'll live with that. a lot of israel hawks kind of in the political center are also saying, see all these leftists who hate joe biden, that means we have to elect donald trump to punish them how. so somehow people with opposite views are all driving towards this same outcome of donald trump. i think that's symptomatic of this broader phenomenon i'm trying to identify which is that people have gotten tired of the central imperative of keeping donald trump out of the white house and are sort of marinating in these smaller grievances. >> let's talk about young voters especially. i mean, if you look at tiktok it is absolutely cluttered with what i consider to be misinformation about the israel-hamas war. i think a lot of progressives may not feel the same way. jonathan, aren't you fairly confident that as we move closer to the election, and, again,

donald trump is saying more and more radical things, that whether it's tiktok or instagram reels or whether it's x, whatever social media younger voters get their information from, it's actually going to be jam packed with clips of donald trump saying "i was the one who terminated roe v. wade." "i'm the one this." "i'm the one that." you know, talking about vermin and all of these statements with fascist overtones? >> yeah, i mean, i'd certainly take your point. look, there are ten months to go until the election so i couldn't say where we are now is where we will be in november, but i think we have to be realistic about where we are now. you know, it's not a tight election. trump is winning in the swing states, you know, the last poll i saw in georgia he was up by, what, eight points in georgia and five, six points in places like michigan. where we are now is trump

winning. so what i try to do is assess the kind of cultural political moment of what's happening now, what brought us to this point now. and then you can try to figure out what's going to have to happen between now and november to change that. >> you know who agrees with the concept that president biden has a base problem, president biden's reelection campaign. they're pretty candid, molly. they actually feel pretty good about where they are with independent and swing voters, which is not usually where an election is fought this far out. that's where usually that's where the contest is. right now they feel like those voters aren't going to break back to trump. they are worried about turnout and base. >> yeah. >> young people, voters of color, progressives. what's your read on that? are those people -- they're not going to vote for trump but they might stay home. >> right. >> do you think biden can do enough to get them to turn out again come november, whether with some positive message or just scaring the crap out of them about donald trump? >> they're going to need to. this is the do you want to have elections election.

they're going to need to fight for those voters. i do think that there is an opportunity -- look, biden has tried with student debt, that's a really big iron issue to a lot of people. i think they will be able to get back there to those voters and i think they will get there and it is ten months. i would say when you look at turnout, if we're going to talk about the iowa caucuses, trump did really well but it's 70,000 less people turned out than they did in 2016, right, so it was about 100,000 people voting for him and this is a guy who won on turnout, on turning out voters who don't usually turn out. so i think it's worth thinking like this is a guy running on the zeal of the base and if the base is like not going to go out because it's snowing in iowa where it usually snows, i think that's worth thinking about. >> yeah, it really is. talking about the base, the zeal of the base, the zeal of the

democratic base is mainly progressive and, eddie, you know, i'm an old, old-line conservative and yet i've noted over the past four years on this show progressives who are usually attacked in the media, mainstream media as sort of having their heads in the clouds and, you know, being marxist, this, that the other and not being realistic, i've noted that progressives both in congress and across america, an extraordinary amount of discipline, hanging tight with joe biden, hanging tight with whether it's speaker pelosi or whether it's schumer. when the party moved noticeably to the center. and i guess the question is, and why i think jonathan's article is so important, is the real question is will progressives who have already shown a lot of discipline over the past four

years, will they continue that over the next year and deliver the political death blow to donald trump? >> my gut, joe, is that they will, we will, but there has to be organizing. it's not enough just simply to put forward policies, right? there has to be organizing on the ground. there has to be a flood of gotb money in areas where -- so that we can turn out young voters and voters of color as it were. the internal debates around what's happening in gaza, the internal debates around student loan forgiveness and a range of progressive policies, that's going to happen, but i think this question around, you know, the fate of our democracy, the state of the republic, that looms large and i think the progressive wing of the party understands the stakes and they're going to act accordingly, but that doesn't come without critique, without trying to push the biden

administration in a certain direction and hold it accountable to its promises. and that's to be expected. but i do think we, i, let me speak for me in this moment, i understand the stakes of the moment. >> right. yeah. and jonathan chait, i will ask you the same thing in closing. you know, the biden administration had listening sessions actually inside the white house with younger workers who had real concerns about israel and gaza. i'm wondering what does joe biden -- what does the biden administration need to do to get the progressive base energized since that's where the -- that's where the real ground game comes from in november? >> it's a very tricky problem. first of all, i think president biden is conducting his foreign policy on foreign policy grounds, he is not conducting his israel policy as an election issue. i think he actually cares about the issue and is trying to do what he thinks is best, whether

it's right or wrong. second of all, but analyzing it politically, he is in a vice because to the extent he moves closer to what the base wants, he moves further from what the center wants. so he really is facing demands to move further from the center of public opinion on political grounds. i'm not really sure there is a political solution for him, except to the extent that he can actually put this war to rest and get it out of the headlines and get it out of people's heads and get them focusing more on issues where i think he has a more solid chance of unifying his coalition. >> new york magazine's zon than chait, thank you for your insight and "vanity fair's" molly fast, thank you as well always. coming up on "morning joe," a new survey just released from axios finds a majority of americans are very happy with their finances. >> they think things are going well today? and are going to get even better tomorrow. >> we will dig into how that might impact the 2024 race.

you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. ce you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back.

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half past the hour, a live look at denver, the sun comes up. >> you know, people are happy. with their economic circumstances. we've been saying this for a long time that the majority of americans say that they're doing really well. >> i think there are some that are struggling in certain sectors into yeah, there are. >> this new survey finds the majority of americans are currently quite happy with their finances. the axios vibes survey reports 63% of americans rate their current financial situation as good. that includes 19% who say it's very good. in addition, americans' outlook for their financial futures also

rosy. 66% think 2024 there been better than 2023. >> let's bring in u.s. national editor of the financial times ed luce. there has been such a split between polls, one poll after another, showing that americans are happy, content with their financial situation and think the future is going to be even better. here two out of three americans say, hey, next year is going to be even better than this year and almost two out of three said this year was pretty darn good. how do we explain the difference between what people are saying about their own economic situation and their hostility towards the biden administration's economic policies? >> that's a very good question and one that nobody has yet solved. clearly the tag line bidenomics is not working. this isn't just a messaging problem. look, i think it's only in the last few months that people at the median income, the average

household's income has caught up with where it was in 2019 before the pandemic so there's been several years that have inflationary shock to people's incomes that is not biden's fault, but it generally tends to be blamed on the incumbent. so biden took the rap for that. now we're going to get falling interest rates, inflation has come way down, wage growth pretty healthy. if biden is fortunate, people are going to really start feeling that in 2024 and you need a couple of quarters before the election for it to have an impact on the way people vote. right now it looks like that's on track. so hopefully biden will be fortunate on this. >> certainly those around the president have cautious optimism about that, but there's some concern even if people start feeling better about it, will the president get the credit? ed, you're also writing about something we were discussing last block, your latest piece

titled "biden's invisible palestinians." tell us what you mean by that. >> well, there is, i think, a very understandable tendency to look at the death toll in gaza which is now -- it's claimed more than 10,000 children, 24,000 total, and to look at the lack of pressure, at least in public, that biden has been putting on netanyahu to change course, let alone to talk about the day after. netanyahu refuses to do that. and i think the perception across the middle east, but also amongst many younger voters in the united states, and amongst arab-americans in crucial swing states like michigan where trump is ahead, they see this as asymmetric, if you like. biden is deeply concerned, quite rightly, for the 100 or so

hostages that are still being held by hamas in gaza, but we're not seeing nearly enough public anguish and pressure on netanyahu over what i think the white house has once or twice called indiscriminate bombing, the indiscriminate bombing of gaza. >> so, ed, what happens, what does he do, what does the president of the united states do about the turmoil that is going on in the middle east, the lit fuse that begins in gaza and has spread throughout the entire region, when he is confronted with perhaps a fact that his principal ally is perhaps also his enemy, bibi netanyahu? >> mike, it's a really good question. look, he has two points of leverage on netanyahu, one is the bully pulpit and he hasn't been using that much. no daylight between israel and

the united states and i don't think the historic record backs that up. but secondly the military leverage, you know, the conditions that the united states could put on further military aid to israel is there at his disposal. we've had now more than 100 2,000-pound bombs transferred from the united states to israel since october 7th. these are bombs designed for the battlefield, not for precision targeting of terrorists in urban environments. i think conditions can be imposed and a lot of biden's colleagues, including chris coons, his closest friend in politics said in davos conditions should be imposed on u.s. military aid to israel. most of israel would be delighted to see the back of netanyahu and i think for biden's own political prospects,

he should be willing the means to that end as well. >> all right. u.s. national editor at the financial times ed luce, thank you so much. >> eddie glaude, let's follow up on what we were talk being last block about progressives. how important is it for the biden administration to put distance between themselves and netanyahu, more aggressively, and to say publicly because the word coming out of the white house is that's exactly what they're going to do, but how important is it that biden go ahead and do that? >> i think it's absolutely central, joe. and of course still some progressives will not be satisfied even with that, but i think it's really important for the biden administration to understand the necessarily of recognizing that 10,000 children, 10,000 children, have been killed. under no condition is innocence justified to be -- you know, to be wiped off the planet in this instance, right?

so i think that's really important. i also think it's important for us to understand, too, the impact of this particular orientation, joe, in terms of the u.s. reputation and relationship with the ground sound. we are taking a black eye across the globe in an interesting sort of way. not only do we have problems with our -- he has problems with our base here in the u.s., i think he has problems with our moral standing across the globe it seems to me, unless he becomes more forceful in his critique of netanyahu and more forceful in his defense of innocents who are bearing the brunt of netanyahu's policies. >> all right. coming up next, just when you thought it was safe to go back to the aquarium, a 10-year-old maryland boy is recovering this morning after surviving an attack while participating in a so-called shark tank expedition at a bahamas resort. also breaking news out of london, the princess of wales, katherine, has just come out of surgery.

>> at a private hospital in london and the operation on tuesday was successful, says the bbc and katherine will remain in the hospital for a 10 to 14 days. >> she's canceled all engagements until after easter. >> yeah. until after easter. so obviously a very significant surgery. we will have more information about that coming up. "morning joe" shall return. comp "morning joe" shall return ok with my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq is different and may help. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling in ra and psa. relieve fatigue for some... and stop joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal;

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it's a pretty big deal. kinda like me. order in the subway app today. 42 past the hour, time to take a look at the morning papers across the country. >> los angeles is out there somewhere. >> yes, it is. >> there is a fog upon l.a. >> the "los angeles times" is highlighting new data that shows remote employees are less productive than those working in-person. >> who could have ever seen that come sng. >> the paper cites widespread studies that show fully remote workers are 10 to 20% less productive than those working on site. we need to do a big segment on this. however, those same studies show

that employees on a hybrid schedule were just about as productive as those who a or fu. that's the future. >> you've been talking about a hybrid schedule for quite some time, especially for women. >> yeah. >> but i think for all employees. >> i think remote is bad for women, actually. >> a hybrid -- you say hybrid schedule is really good. >> for everybody. the orlando sentinel leads with a judge blocking jetblue's purchase of spirit airlines stopping what would have been the biggest airline merger in over a decade, this is a major victory for the justice department which sued to stop the merger saying it would hamper competition and lead to higher fairs. the airlines declined to see if they would appeal the decision. and in washington state the folksman review reports on efforts to bypass the u.s. congress and ditch daylight savings time in the state. in 2019 the state passed a law to remain permanently in daylight saving time but federal

law bars states from doing that, just that, and they can't change it without congressional approval. now more than a dozen state senators are putting forward a bill that would allow washington state to remain permanently in standard time which doesn't need congressional approval. and now to the 10-year-old boy who is in stable condition this morning after being bitten by a shark. the attack occurred not in the ocean, but inland at a resort in the bahamas. nbc news correspondent emilie ikeda explains. >> reporter: it's one of the top destinations for visitors to the bahamas, but this morning a 10-year-old maryland boy is recovering after what witnesses say was a terrifying experience at the atlantis resort on paradise island. police not saying where the attack happened but confirmed a shark bit the boy on his right leg while participating in an expedition in a shark tank. >> we saw the shark hone in on

him and then just like a pool of blood afterwards. >> reporter: michael and torrey massey say they were in the tank when it happened. tan an underwater encounter called walking with the sharks run by an outside company and seeing this atlantic promotional video. it's described on the rye sort's website as easy and fun with no swimming experience necessary. allowing visitors to see caribbean reef sharks and nurse sharks up close. the masseys say the experience started out fine, with guides leading them into the tank which seemed serene and peaceful at first. >> once the little boy came down it just kind of like took like a -- like a dark turn. >> reporter: they say after one of the sharks bit the boy, everyone rushed out of the water while the screaming child and his parents were taken to a nursing station. nbc news reached out to both the atlantis resort and blue adventures by stewart cove the company which runs the experience and has not heard back. >> i'm a little surprise that had there haven't been more of

these accidents. >> reporter: this shark expert said attacks in the wild are incredibly rare but in a tank where sharks are restricted they could be more aggressive when stressed. >> people should remember that these are not pets. they are not trainable. these are wild animals that are contained in an aquarium. >> reporter: the masseys now back from the bahamas say they signed a waiver and knew there were risks going into the tank but believed more should have been done to protect everyone involved. >> we felt this child and his family. >> nbc's emilie ikeda with that report. that is not good. >> i don't -- i don't understand going into a tank with sharks. coming up, we're going to go inside the new thriller "the woman in the wall" inspired by the harrowing legacy of some catholic institutions for unwed mothers in ireland. actress ruth wilson is live in studio to discuss the new tv

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she's not right in the head. >> i heard about some of the things that you do when you sleepwalk, kind of violent things, no? >> what business is that of yours? >> i'm the one asking the questions, lorna. >> i think my daughter is alive. i have to find her. >> lorna has something to do with all of this. >> that's not good. sorry, jesus. >> tread very carefully. >> i'm just trying to find my

child! >> that was part of the new trailer for the new series "the woman in the wall," which was inspired by the true events that unfolded in ireland at catholic-run institutions for unwed mothers called magdalene laundries. actress ruth wilson plays lorna brady who was traumatized at one of these institutions as a teenager after her baby was taken away. she sets out to find her missing daughter, but her search is derailed when she discovers a dead woman's body in her home. joining us now is actress ruth wilson who also serves as one of the executive producers of the series. i'm curious, welcome to the show, what drew you to this and of some of the other true events that inspired this series. >> yeah, i mean, i -- when i first saw this script, it was a subject matter that i knew a little bit about because of films like philomena and there's a film called magdalene sisters,

but i didn't know the depth or the scale of it, and i wasn't really quite aware of it. and i felt like it's a story that still needs to be told, and it's very recent history. i mean, the last mother and baby home closed in 1998, and so it was within my history, it was when i was a 16-year-old kid, i would have been, you know, if i got pregnant out of wedlock, i would have been put in one of these homes. so i felt like it was a story that needs to be told and also what i loved about it is we were focusing or putting through the lens of genre so a wider audience. it's like through horror and psychological horror as well as a crime thriller, so it was like the idea of like we can get this to a wide audience hopefully, get people to understand this story or to sort of become aware of it at least. so that's what drew me to the project. i thought it was something that was important to be talked about and get out there. >> so you're catholic. >> yeah. >> so how do you carry in this portrayal the cargo of guilt and

grief that is so encapsulated in what happened at the laundries over at period of years? >> i don't know how i carry it, but i think being a catholic is that, you know, i've grown up in that world. i understand it. i understand the strength and power of those churches and that religion. i see the benefits of it as well. my dad still goes and how for him it's a ritual. it's a community, it's something that he just loved going to. so i wanted to study or understand where my own history is as well and what i've grown up in. there's a sense of like within this character that she is someone that has been told that she's wrong, that what she did was wrong, and that she is to blame for her actions. she's put into a home at the age of 16 having got pregnant. she then is made to force labor throughout her pregnancy, and then when she gives birth, her baby is taken away from her.

she has literally 30 seconds with her child and the baby is taken away, and she never knows what happens to that child. if she was placed into adoption or at worse, died of neglect or illness, and so her whole life is defined by this one event, but it's kind of denied by the church, by society. she's almost gas lit. how can you have an identity in that world, how can you really know who you really are when something so fundamental has happened to you but people around you are denying you and blaming you for what happened. >> as you dove into this role, the research, as the production was happening, what's been the response in ireland? how are people -- this is obviously such a flash point, what have people been saying? >> it's been sort of mixed actually. in terms of like i think it's such a sensitive piece of material. it's still very new and raw. i mean, only in 2020 was there a public apology to women who went through these institutions three

years ago. so they're still reconciling. the whole community of ireland is still reconciling with these what they put these women through. so it's very sensitive. it's raw. some people -- i mean, the survivors of these institutions have been very grateful for the opportunity to have a platform to actually speak about it and talk about it. but some people are still quite defensive about what happened and so there's a lot of debate, and actually, the greatest thing about this show is that we did spot loads of publications, deep dives into what these institutions were, how they functioned, what's happening now. stories of those survivors. so that was the biggest thing for us to get this story out there, to get people talking about it, to allow those women a place to have a platform to talk and speak about their experiences because the worst thing is for it not to be acknowledged. that's the worst thing, to be denied swept under the carpet, so that's the biggest, you know,

the sort of positive of the show. >> you have shined a bright light on it, and so many people there and around the world grateful because of it. "the woman in the wall" begins streaming on friday on paramount plus, i know what mika and i are going to be doing this friday. ruth wilson, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you for validating their stories. >> thank you. >> all right. hey, let's get final thoughts before we leave here today, and adrienne elrod, why don't you start us out. what's your final thought? >> i think my final thoughts are what happens in new hampshire. does nikki haley pull off a win in that state and how does she actually achieve that? the bottom line is you can see her straddling. is she trying to be the person who's going to win in new hampshire, or is she trying to reserve herself so she can possibly be donald trump's running mate? it will be interesting to see what happens. >> no doubt.

eddie glaude, final thoughts? >> be in st. petersburg, florida, the other day and i was with the national council of negro women, the st. petersburg section, and you know what? as difficult as the days seem, 800 plus people were at a martin luther king breakfast, and they're on fire. they're ready to engage in saving the republic. so even though some days i sound dark, they gave me a little faith, doc. >> so exciting. mike barnicle final thoughts. >> my final thoughts are still and they remain and will remain for quite a while with the detroit lions, hoping they go to the super bowl. it would be great for america. >> la mere, you have five seconds. >> i want a lake erie super bowl between -- between buffalo and detroit. which is close enough to lake erie, the detroit river goes in there. jonathan lemire. >> close us out. >> five hours after you began, why don't you close us out. >> well, i echo that super bowl wish, on new hampshire we actually have breaking news, a poll the boston globe, a good poll of new hampshire just out

has trump up 16 points on nikki haley. that poll conducted in the last two days. nikki haley has got a big hill to climb in the next week. >> a lot of work to do. that does it for us this morning, ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. ahead, the big four at the white house, congressional leaders get an invite to meet with the president with a partial government shutdown days away. and later, wicked cold, 90 million americans under alerts for freezing temps with another winter storm on the way.