avoid these past couple of years in terms of trying to help ukraine fight off russia on its own. so there's that angle, too. >> such important, weighty complications. they have handed president biden another couple good campaign issues here as things start to heat up for 2024. we're always grateful for darlene superville for the associated press when she can join us. thank you so much. and thanks for all of you for getting up "way too early" for us. "morning joe" starts right now. this week we will vote to impeach homeland secretary alejandro mayorkas for his willful and systemic not enforcing laws. >> a deliberate, thoughtful and fair investigation. >> there is no greater impeachable offense than for an officer of the united states to violate their oath. >> you have a short time coming. you can honorably resign, or we

are going to impeach you, and it's happening very, very soon. >> on this vote the yeas are 214 and the nays are 216. the resolution is not adopted. ♪♪ >> you know, i have to say the season took an unexpected turn last night. willie, one of the more surprising but really good introductions to the season, who knew mike johnson would star as a happless speaker of the house who couldn't even get an impeachment through. >> all we're missing is the slow push in on his face. that was truly -- we have four hours, luckily, today to go through one of the most humiliating days in the house of representatives. they couldn't pass their own impeachment of mayorkas, couldn't get through an israel bill.

they did find time to pass a resolution that says donald trump did not commit an insurrection around january 6th. want to make sure they protect him on that. they're getting ready to have a vote today, a procedural vote to turn away the senate immigration bill they've been asking for for two generations. the list goes on and on. israel and ukraine have no funding. the crisis at the border has not been fixed. in their efforts to scramble to protect donald trump, house republicans are failing. >> you know i like to watch cable news. >> yes, i do. >> so you were busy zooming or whatever, and i had to rewind an entire hour because i thought, what just happened? >> i walked into the room, and i said, can you believe they lost on the israel funding? >> i had it on as background noise. he had to rewind. it was incredible. this on top of the big news yesterday about donald trump not being immune -- >> yeah that is big news.

i do want to say, though, a really good point brought up at the end of "way too early," willie, again, i don't think all republicans in the house understand what a dangerous game they're playing with vladimir putin. he invaded georgia in 2008. we did nothing. he invaded ukraine in 2014, we did nothing. he's invaded ukraine again, we fought, we pushed back along with the west and, of course, the brave ukrainian soldiers and citizens who have given so much and they don't understand. if the west buckles on ukraine, if donald trump is elected, then that's the end of nato, that's the end of any deterrence with vladimir putin. he'll sweep across eastern europe, go through the balkan states. he'll do all of these things,

and you see in sharp relief a republican party that is now doing vladimir putin's bidding. donald trump always did. but the republican party now in the house is doing vladimir putin's bidding and somebody that we know, that we used to know, going over doing vladimir putin's bidding, attacking western journalists, saying if only western journalists would have come over here and tried to even report fairly on the war. well, there have been western journalists that have gone over and tried to report fairly on the war, and they're in jail, in gulags right now because vladimir putin doesn't want willie western journalists going over and asking honest questions, fair questions.

he'll let puppets talk to him but nobody else. >> he'll let a certain kind of journalist in for an interview but not the ones who ask the questions. and i assure you nbc and every other news organization in the western world has a request in for an interview with vladimir putin, so it's not for a lack of trying, that's for sure. it was striking again yesterday to see republicans across the board, and maybe some of them are doing vladimir putin's bidding, but really they're doing donald trump's bidding, which is vladimir putin's bidding, which is they've put themselves in a place when your north star is what donald trump wants, and he is the voice that controlled everything. you put yourself in the position yesterday, failing again and again and again, and putting in jeopardy aid to ukraine, aid to israel even, and doing nothing about the crisis at the border, which they've been talking about, rightly, for a long time. >> chaos on capitol hill late into the evening yesterday. the republican-led house failed

in its attempt to impeach homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, falling one vote short. republicans ken buck of colorado, tom mcclintock and mike gallagher voted against the measure. vice chair blake moore then flipped his vote to no seconds before the vote closed, so the party can bring the articles of impeachment back to the floor at a later date. democratic congressman al green had missed votes on the issue early in the day because he was in the hospital recovering from abdominal surgery, but he was able to show up at the last minute for the final vote. republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene suggested that was a sneaky move. >> they hid one of their members watching to see our votes trying to throw us off on the numbers

we had versus the numbers they had. yeah, that was a strategy at play tonight. >> oh, got it, got it. >> i don't even know what to say about that. >> just nuts. >> he voted. you're supposed to vote. there's nothing sneaky about it. >> it's his job. >> got a voting card, i'm here, vote. >> a spokesperson for mike johnson says republicans will bring the articles of impeachment back to the floor when the house has enough votes to pass it. so this is what they're doing with their time. the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. deputy managing editor of for politics at politico, sam stein. msnbc contributor and author of the book "how the right lost its mind," charlie sykes, and nbc news capitol hill correspondent julie tsirkin is with us. >> julie, tell us what in the

world happened. >> i mean, you saw it. i'm glad you had to go back and rewatch c-span because we were all glued to c-span. it was stunning and it was a bad week for republican leadership in the house and the senate because of the everything with the border bill. speaker mike johnson and his leadership team spend a long time on the floor trying to pressure mike gallagher to vote for impeaching alejandro mayorkas. he said he would not. the same effort with ken buck, the republican who said he is retiring from congress, so he doesn't have any reason to flip and go with what republicans want on this because he said that this -- alejandro mayorkas' impeachment does not rise to high crimes and misdemeanors. they're going to try this again, guys, and steve scalise has been out for cancer treatment. he's going to come back at some point in february to try and get

this done. the question is, under house rules, how many days do they have to bring this up again? the republican majority feels confident they can do it, but it is quite embarrassing, and i can't remember the last time, if ever, they pursued impeachment, the cabinet secretary, which hasn't been successfully impeached in 150 years and this happened where they just didn't have the votes on the floor. >> so, charlie, they're bringing up a bs impeachment, articles of impeachment, voting on it, failing, losing, trying to get other funding through. they're failing on those votes. they bring up a resolution to try to polish off what donald trump did when he committed insurrection. we go down the list. he remained deeply troubled, though, they leave the border open as a political strategy, and they allow vladimir putin

his dream of possibly one day being able to march into kyiv because they won't fund ukraine, and you do wonder. i do wonder when they're going to stand up and speak out and say we let putin take georgia in 2008, so he went into ukraine in 2014. he went in again a couple years ago. and after we sit back and give him ukraine, he'll then go after poland. he'll then go after the balkan states. and, in their eyes, they'll have donald trump in the white house who will gladly let putin do that. this is the worst invasion since world war ii on the continent of europe. and republicans are saying, take it. >> i am so glad you're connecting all the dots because, of course, that was a clown car

we saw yesterday. we really -- yesterday was peak republican dysfunction. but the collateral damage is going to be immense with the border, with ukraine, with israel. with our image in the world, with our relationship with our allies, so on the one hand you're seeing that's bad performance artists like marjorie taylor greene and you see the ongoing audition for the favor of donald trump. but, meanwhile, there are real world consequences to all of this. that was an embarrassing day. it was a humiliating day. it was a shameful day but, unfortunately to your question, i'm not sure that, you know, this party has the capacity to say, hey this is just wrong. this is not who we are. i have to admit that, like everybody else, i was surprised by that vote. i was surprised mike gallagher finally found a backbone and decided to stand up against him.

i imagine the pressure on him will be absolutely intense between now and next week on the mayorkas impeachment. you can't unring a bell. you can't undo the humiliating embarrassment yesterday. the dysfunction and inability of the republican party to be a serious governing party was on full display all day yesterday and we're going to get a replay of that again later today as well. >> we're going to get a replay of that, jonathan lemire, on the immigration question with the cloture vote expected to fail. they're not allowed to debate on this bill. yesterday, as we mentioned, there was a vote after the failed impeachment vote on stand-alone israel aid. again, this was a republican idea, a republican bill. that failed, too, and by a wide margin. this house not exactly covering itself in glory yesterday, and more to come today. >> more to come today. and just a complete abandonment of trying to actually govern

here, that right now unless something is a completely startling turnaround, there will not be aid to ukraine. we saw national security officials saying russia was on the verge of its first victories in the war, taking new ukrainian territory since bakhmut. we're seeing the tide of war turn and ukraine is going each and every day without the weapons and money they need and we seem unwilling to stand it that way. sam stein will hand a couple of significant issues, point at republicans and say they abandoned ukraine. they are the ones not securing the border. the president said he'll be on the campaign trail making those arguments. speaker johnson now, especially after this failed impeachment vote, his grasp on power that much more tenuous. he will have to do donald trump's bidding. >> it's hard to see johnson turning around and putting up a

bill that gets the majority democrat support. his position is incredibly weak this morning, much weaker than it was yesterday, and it was pretty weak yesterday. i'm sort of you with here, jonathan. my assessment of yesterday was the mayorkas vote was obviously an abject humiliation but ultimately on a substantive level i don't think it was as significant as the defeat of the border bill in the senate that is coming today. 9 for that reason, two reasons, mayorkas' impeachment was never going to happen even if the house recommended the articles of it to the senate. the trial would have been quick. they would have dismissed it. we would have gone on with our lives. it's a show, more or less. the border bill really, you know, that is the key to unlock a whole host of foreign policy priorities. i think the dysfunction in the senate is to a degree more significant than the house.

we expect house republicans to operate this way, the expectation would operate slightly differently. if someone put it in a headline i thought was pretty remarkable, i'm summarizing here, senate democrats fail to persuade republicans to pass conservative border bill. that's essentially what happened. this is a conservative border bill the democrats were saying you should pass and they said no, and because of that we will not likely have ukraine aid, israel aid, taiwan aid, aid for palestinians. >> julie, we'll get back to you in a moment on the latest, but house republicans are hurting the party, hurting the country all for donald trump. a federal appeals court has rejected donald trump's claim he is immune from prosecution in

his election interference case. the three-judge panel court of appeals ruled unanimously yesterday there was no basis for trump to assert former presidents have blanket immunity for any acts committed as president. the 57-page ruling states former president trump is no longer the president and has become citizen trump for the purposes of criminal prosecution. trump had argued in part that, quote, criminal liability for former presidents risks killing presidential action while in office and opening the floodgates to meritless prosecution. the appeals court found that risk appears to be low. trump reacted on his social media platform writing, quote, a nation destroying ruling like this cannot be allowed to stand. calling the ruling, quote, so bad and so dangerous. the former president is expected to appeal to the supreme court

soon. i think he has until monday to do so in a bid to prevent the trial from going ahead as scheduled. the time he has to file was cut down. he has until monday. >> former litigator elise reuben and contributor chuck rosenberg. chuck, first of all, let's talk about the fact how this was a unanimous ruling, and people were wondering why it was taking so long. talk about how maybe that delay was caused by wanting a unanimous ruling. >> yeah, joe, first of all from my perspective having litigated in the courts of appeal, it didn't take all that long. it was a little bit less than four weeks.

i know that's slow in journalism world. i get that. i think in lawyer world, that's relatively quick. second to your point, the judges wrote one opinion, meaning for the court, of the court. they all joined a single opinion. it's 57 pages long. i read it yesterday. it's thoughtful. it's forceful. and the fact they were unanimous and of one voice, i think, lends some heft to their opinion. and so taking a little bit more time to get it right, because you know this opinion will be subject to enormous scrutiny, i think is well worth it. unanimity was important, the forcefulness of opinion was important, the fact it took longer than folks might have liked,my view, doesn't matter all that much. >> so for it to be granted you have to have four justices, is that correct, chuck? >> yes. >> and i would guess, and, lisa, chuck, tell me if i'm wrong, i would guess the institutionalist

in john roberts is thinking, we want to stay out of politics. we want as little to do with this as possible. we're already handling the colorado case. i'm curious if you think roberts wants to find the six members of the court who will deny cert. maybe he's talking to brett kavanaugh, amy coney barrett, to keep this away. what do you think? >> what's important for our viewers, it takes four votes to grant cert here but five to grant a stay. it essentially says donald trump has until monday to file a motion for stay.

if he has four votes that means without a stay the court of appeals issues its mandate, it kicks the case back to the judge. so trump could get supreme court review but also have pretrial proceedings and allow the judge to move forward making the court review meaningless if she's empowered to forge ahead. >> it was a couple days ago the march 4 trial date was vacated waiting on the immunity decision. >> the judge said it was important to her to grant the parties about seven months. it seems to me she is committed to giving trump that same

seven-month period not including the periods of time during which the case has been stayed. if the supreme court were to deny the stay application from trump and/or deny cert quickly, she would then probably take that up on that day and add eight or nine weeks, however long we've been delayed, her adding that back on to the trial calendar. she may shorten it, but this is a judge who earlier this week contemplated she could be in trial in august at a january 6-related proceeding for another of the 1,300-plus defendants already charged for that day. claiming to be out of the country in august. however, i could be on trial, referring to this case. in the july, august, september range she could be trying this case.

>> chuck, that's getting so close to the election. it would be in everybody's best interest in the court system for this case to be expedited. if trump needs five justices, what are your thoughts if, let's say, roberts decides he wants to just affirm the d.c. circuit ruling, who is more likely to go his way? do you think he's talking to amy coney barrett to find that fifth vote to deny stay? >> the court of appeals decision was thoughtful and forceful. excuse the pun, but unimpeachable. i think it will not be reviewed

by the supreme court. at least not right now. i don't see a path there. the only party who benefits from delay is mr. trump . whether he gets five justices or four to grant a petition of certiorari to hear the case, that's mr. trump's path. i think whether you're a textualist, an originalist, or just a thoughtful, smart justice of the supreme court, you read the d.c. opinion. it denies absolute immunity. it counters the notion that double jeopardy was implicated in the case, and the best thing to do, the smartest thing to do, the lawful thing to do is to send this back to the judge and let her try it. i think that's the path forward joe.

>> we know from the beginning this was the one case that stood a chance, built for speed was the phrasing. is there any recourse, any options to speed this along? >> before this went to the d.c. circuit, jack smith moved for something called cert before judgment. he asked the supreme court to leapfrog the d.c. circuit and review it. inevitably the case is going to be reviewed being and so i'm going to ask you, supreme court, given that this guy doesn't like the decision, why don't you take it now and take it fast. and they denied his application within 11 days of his making it. however, i do think jack smith, when trump files that motion on or before monday, if trump

doesn't, do it fast, as fast as you possibly can. make it possible for this case to be tried in the public's interest because, as you know, jack smith and even merrick garland have said, the public has an interest in this case moving to trial speedily. >> in this 57-page ruling, the panel refers to donald trump as citizen trump saying, effectively, you're not president anymore. any executive immunity up may have enjoyed while president is gone now, which raises the question if donald trump is re-electeded and does, in fact, become president again, the suggestion there is there may be some form of executive immunity. does that sound right to you, if he waits this out long enough, gets back in office, he can claim executive immunity in some of these cases? >> willie, that's right. delay is to his benefit. imagine the case is not tried, there's no judgment from a trial court. mr. trump is re-elected, at the very least the department of justice has a long-standing policy that sitting presidents

cannot be indicted or tried. moreover, mr. trump would have controls over the levers of the executive branch of the government including, presumably, his attorney general who could dismiss mr. smith and the charges. if mr. trump can get back into office without a verdict, without a trial, without a judgment against him, he enjoys certain executive immunity but all the powers of the presidency. that's why jack smith wants to move quickly and the american voters, whether you love or loathe mr. trump, ought to have a verdict before the election. former u.s. attorney juk rosenberg and former litigator lisa reuben, thank you for your insight this morning. a lot more to come on those cases and on the civil cases as well. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> wait, i have to say, let's stop for one second.

we have to stop everything. >> i did have another question. >> we have to stop everything. >> i had another question. >> because the news that came out yesterday -- >> yeah. >> -- about the fraud trial -- >> that's not even yesterday. >> two days ago. >> about the monitor and the $48 billion they can't make sense of. that's what i wanted to ask lisa about. >> like james brown, stop. i need somebody to put a robe on. >> lisa! lisa! >> yes, mika? >> $83.3 million to e. jean carroll, has he posted bond? what's the status of him handing over money? and, secondly, tell me about the monitor in the civil fraud trial who became extremely confused as they were trying to monitor trump's organization and found this chicago building loan, $48 billion, but it's not really a loan, but is it? >> i don't believe trump has posted bond yet.

a judgment has to issue from the trial court. i don't believe we've seen that happen yet. if i am wrong, hopefully i can correct myself on air. >> you have four hours. >> with respect to the letter from the monitor it's a 12-page letter saying since she was appointed after judge en g oron, there are 12 pages of irregularities she's reported to him saying i am in charge of overseeing financial reporting at this organization. and here are all the things i've noticed that don't add up n. a footnote one of the things she says is we have long understood there was a $48 million loan that concerns the chicago property that trump owns and was the subject of the case. that loan was made to trump personally from a business entity. when i asked for documentation of the loan, i asked repeatedly. i still never got it and the trump organization when it

responded said, no, no, we told retired judge jones, the monitor here, we told her that loan had been extinguished and attached a one-page, one paragraph memo to file from december of 2023 essentially saying that loan has already been paid off. that doesn't answer the question. where is the documentation of the loan in the first place? if there was never any $48 million loan to donald trump but it was instead a gift, he has been misreporting that for years, not only misreporting that but to his lenders and presidential and candidate, he files disclosures with the federal office of government ethics, it was on his form as recent lip as april of 2023. somebody has to explain what happened to the loan, if it existed. if it never did, that's just one

more straw that judge engoron can consider in this years long fraud that the trump organization, led by donald trump and others, have perpetrated with respect to the financial markets and their lenders. >> wow. >> weisselberg called back in, because they believe he lied under oath. >> he has a lot on his mind, this candidate. thank you, lisa. thank you. after months of talks and negotiations minority leader mitch mcconnell is essentially calling the bipartisan border deal dead on arrival. the latest from capitol hill. several igrants arrested after being accused of attacking two police officers. we're following those developments and breaking down the nevada gop primary results where most voters chose not to pick a candidate at all rather than support nikki haley.

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no mask. no hose. just sleep. inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com we had a very robust discussion about whether or not this product could ever become law, and it's been made pretty clear to us by the speaker that it will not become law. >> it is doubly outrageous for them to now oppose the very bill they begged us to craft. a group of us spent four months working every day through the holidays, through the weekends to satisfy the demands republicans made.

we followed the republican instructions on how to get a bipartisan border deal and aid to ukraine unlocked. and within 24 hours of unveiling that agreement, they abandoned bipartisan border reform for one reason, because donald trump asked them. >> in the open and relentless pressure campaign to kill the bipartisan border deal, senate republicans now are set to block a procedural vote today that effectively will sink the legislation entirely. the kentucky senator mitch mcconnell now says the bill stands no chance of becoming law. quite an about-face. the foreign aid component of the bill may still stand a chance. majority leader chuck schumer expected to move forward with a stand-alone bill later today on that participate of the package.

let's bring julie tsirkin back in. julie, majority leader schumer says today we're still going to have this cloture vote to begin debate with no expectation it will get the 60 votes needed to pass. republicans standing in the way, again, of the bill they demanded. what happens from here? >> schumer played this smartly when he initially set up the procedural vote on the bill including the bipartisan border security bill as a part of it. he was vague in the way he set it up so that just in case republicans about-faced on the border, which, let's be clear, they did. i want to talk about that briefly after this. he did that so he could bring up the bipartisan supplemental without the border security piece of it, means just funding for ukraine, the endo pacific, humanitarian assistance and keep off the fend off fentanyl act, a bipartisan piece of legislation, a huge topic. that's going to stay as part of the second attempt, which i

don't know if it will pass because there's so much souring on ukraine aid, so many republicans yesterday who said they should be separate issues and blamed all of this mess at the feet of leader mcconnell. i want to start off with a fact check on this, though. they keep saying this is mcconnell's fault, the folks who really have soured on mcconnell in the wake of his relationship falling apart with the former president. they said it was mcconnell who tied it together. it was kevin mccarthy in september who tied ukraine and border security, that was echoed by speaker johnson who embraced that approach. now when you have republicans railing why are these two issues tied this is like ground hog day all over again. we've been living through it for the last four months. this is something schumer is planning to do today. the house has made it clear they're not interested in ukraine aid.

it certainly is making things more interesting here. >> sam stein, we heard from president biden forcefully yesterday urging passage of this. that seems deeply unlikely, and he said if it didn't, he would go around the country and blame donald trump and maga republicans for killing the bill. we know -- we talked about the implications ukraine is deeply worried. to this point it's been a winning issue for them. do you think this is a moment that could change? with donald trump nakedly saying i want the issue run upon, therefore, the border will stay open for a while, do you think the democrats could take it to an advantage or negate the republicans' advantage? >> you don't think it will pass today, jonathan? >> i've been doing this for a little while, and i'm going to say no. >> probably not. i think the answer to your question is it's unlikely to change the politics in totality.

i think it is a losing issue for biden. it has been for three years. it doesn't mean it can be made less bad for biden. you want to reduce your margins on these issues. they do not have a logical way around or through this issue until they were practically gifted one by republicans. it's not that hard to say we tried to craft a bill you wanted and you killed it. that's not an unpersuasive argument to make. talking to democrats about this yesterday, the way you go about making this case, one, in a stained way. an ally of the president was saying biden should go to the border and make the case republicans have made it impossible for him to address this. i don't know if biden will go that far.

advocates say he should couple it with executive actions, not necessarily actions republicans would love but because they've begin him the green light on the issue of migration and immigration. the broader scheme of things, if you are making the case on the border, operating on conservative. the democrats want to talk about things like abortion and democracy and probably not immigration. >> exactly. sam is so right. maybe this helps republicans -- or democrats neutralize the issue a bit more than if they had not had this battle. and when you have the union coming out -- and we'll talk about the border patrol coming out in support for this bill -- that is certainly something joe biden can bring up in debates, on the campaign trail.

charlie sykes is talking to some pretty smart people last night, smarter than me. it's a low bar, i understand, but there are a lot of republicans that said we said last night to me, we did joe biden a big favor here because if you look at the nbc news poll, going through the poll and biden's numbers are just hellacious with the young voters, with progressives, traditional democrats. they've moved away from him f. europe sitting at 35, 36, 37%, you're not down there because maga republicans don't like you. you're down there because your party hasn't come home yet, which i believe they will come home. but the argument these republicans made, and it's three dimensional but makes perfect sense, is it mike johnson to joe biden the biggest favor ever.

if joe biden had signed the harshest border bill, security bill ever, then the same democrats that have abandoned him, because they think he's too tough on the border, they think he's too tough in going with netanyahu going into gaza, they think he's too moderate, too conservative, then that would have been hung around his neck politically. now it's very cynical but the republicans said he has the best of both worlds. he can say, i tried. trump said he wanted an open border, and he doesn't have to worry about his own base coming after him for the next six months. >> mike johnson is playing three dimensional chess for idiots. i don't know if this was planned out that way but that is the way that it ends up. just stepping back from the

horse race, think about the implications of a continuing border problem but the abandonment of ukraine. whether the poll numbers move or not, the ukrainians are dying today. we are about to see vladimir putin has scored a victory in american politics, a victory he could not obtain on the battlefield until now. it will be a historical inflection point when the united states watches vladimir putin depp feet ukraine because the republican party decided they were going to abandon our allies and this brave democracy fighting against tyranny. i don't know how this is going to play out, but, again, the deep unseriousness, the recklessness, the way the republican party has not shifted

so much on ideology as much as has decided it's all in on whatever the helps donald trump, whatever buys them access to this particular cult. so it's -- there's a lot of naked cynical politics here, but, also, we are about to see a very, very ugly moment on the world stage. >> we are. it's been unfolding for years. donald trump, of course, is praised repeatedly, the man who invaded ukraine and the man who jails americans, jails american journalists while others go over there lying, saying if american journalists would only have been interested in this war and reported on it fairly, well, they have been and they get thrown in jail by vladimir putin. i know, again, there have to be

republicans in the house caucus concerned about the fact by letting vladimir putin storm across ukraine, take over kyiv, the message they are sending, not just to our allies but, more importantly, to people who consider the united states their enemy, president xi, who donald trump can't stop praising, kim jong-un, who donald trump can't stop talking about how he's in love with him. these people see the weakness in america. and these same republicans who are weak on ukraine, these same republicans who are being weak on israel, the same republicans who are weak on our own southern border, they're going to be the ones bitching if xi makes a move on taiwan. but they're the ones as

republican chairman said, they're the ones sending the message to xi that house republicans in america don't have the fight in them anymore. they're going to bow down to donald trump, a man who praises autocrats, who praises tyrants, who praises dictators, and they're taking their lead from him. as charlie said, the consequences are absolutely staggering. they're unfolding right now in ukraine. >> in real time. charlie sykes and nbc's julie tsirkin, thank you very much. sam stein, thank you as well. good to see you all. coming up, for the first time a parent is being held criminally responsible for a mass shooting committed by their child. we'll break down yesterday's landmark verdict in michigan. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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51 past the hour. a parent of a convicted school shooter has been found criminally responsible for their child's deadly actions. a michigan jury yesterday found jennifer crumbley guilty of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of four of her son's classmates in 2021. nbc news correspondent maggie vespa has the latest. >> reporter: an unprecedented verdict. >> we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. >> reporter: guilty on four counts, one for each student her son killed. leaving the courtroom in handcuffs as the first parent in the u.s. ever convicted for their role in a mass school shooting committed by their child. the jury forewoman speaking out to nbc news. >> it was very difficult. it wasn't an easy decision. the thing that really hammered it home is that she was the last adult with the gun. >> reporter: after the verdict, family members of those four students hugging prosecutors. the moment you heard the

verdict, what went through your mind? >> well, i can breathe. >> reporter: craig shilling lost his 17-year-old son, justin. >> he'll have life and he deserved to live. >> reporter: the historic verdict following seven days of emotional testimony. culminating with crumbley taking the stand in their own defense. >> i wish he would have killed us instead. >> reporter: prosecutors suggested she was a negligent mom who ignored mounting red flags about her son's behavior. >> she did not give him the help he wanted. >> reporter: the defense arguing crumbley was an engaged parent. >> no one could have expected this including mrs. crumbley. >> reporter: legal experts say this case may have implications far beyond this courthouse. >> does this open the door for parents to be held accountable for mass shootings, school shootings in the future? >> it absolutely does. i believe this will be used as persuasive president dent.

>> reporter: for steve st. juliana justice for his daughter hana. anything you want to say to the jury? >> just thank you for using common sense. >> maggie vespa reporting from michigan there. joining us now msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. this is a fascinating judgment by the jury here. because of what maggie referred to, which is this could now become not legal precedent but some kind of precedent for juries to say the parents are responsible if they saw warning signs, if they provided a weapon, say. >> it is a spirited precedent. for most of american history, we did not hold parents automatically criminally responsible for the crimes of their children and, also legally, historically, an intentional ak was often enough to cut off the responsibility of somebody else's negligence. but it appearance that in america, when it comes to school shootings, there's a growing trend, and we're willing to disregard that prior history and

say, hey, this is an exception. when it comes to firearms, when it comes to mental health, when it comes to red flags, we, as americans, as a society, may be comfortable with this kind of liability, which is an exception to the general rule that we simply don't always hold parents criminally responsible for the crimes of their children. >> it is -- i guess the question, what was persuasive, do you think, for the jury in this particular case? because, as i said, the parents did provide a weapon to the child, and the jury effectively said you know your kid, you know there was something wrong there probably but giving him a gun wasn't the best idea, including on the day of the shooting, the parents were called in to the school because of something disturbing the shooter had written in class. later that day, he committed the crime and killed those four children. so what do you think was decisive here? >> the prosecution had overwhelming evidence in the form of text messages and other red flags. that was the key to their case. red flag evidence. they put that on and said look

at all these incidents where the parents knew or should have known that their son had problems, and they recklessly ignored that and recklessly allowed him access to a firearm. and that's why the defense's needled the threat, called the client, she didn't get on the stand and say, knowing what i know now or, oh, i see now all these red flags. had she done that, that would have made the prosecution's case. instead she had to get on there and say, look, i wouldn't do anything differently because, as i look at that now today, it was still, for example, the whole thing about the poltergeist in the house, that was a running joke. the house was haunted. we were seeing that as part of the running joke. when he says the dishes are flying off the wall. the clothes are flying off the wall. that was a joke between parents. it's a hard sell. by the way, if your defense at trial is it was a joke, that is often a difficult sell for a jury. so i think probably the jury saw

that as her being cavalier about her son's mental health and he had access to a firearm, which she also testified was kind of a healthy activity for an otherwise maybe reserved child. you and i were talking about it. there are much more other healthy activities if there may be mental health issues than firearm ownership. i'm part michigander, firearm ownership is a big thing. i was probably the only kid in my high school who didn't own a firearm, didn't hunt, didn't fish. i think the message here is not all parents beware, you will be held liable -- i think there were a lot of parents of gun owner children who watched this and said, look, that's not me. i'm not that kind of gun owner. what she did was reckless. >> so, danny, because this is -- this decision is a first, potentially precedent setting, does that set up an appeal here? what do you think the argument would be, and could it be

successful? >> there are a couple different legal issues for appeal. there are issues about the trial, what evidence came in, what didn't. there might be legal issues, for example -- and, by the way, the defendant raised substantially when she tried to throw the case out of court, went up to the michigan court of appeals, but you may see some iteration of, look, when it comes to the intentional acts of another person -- as i said at the top, historically we don't hold others responsible unless they encouraged it. there is precedent for holding parents responsible where they encouraged their child's crime, send them out with a lock pick, hey, go burgle this house. it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. it's conceded the parents didn't want the child to do this but instead they recklessly permitted it to happen. so you may see an issue on appeal of what's called causation. did this recklessness actually cause the independent intentional criminal act of another, their child? >> and the shooter, now 17 years

old, in december pled guilty. he is in prison for life without the possibility of parole. his victims are justin and madisyn, tate, and hana. msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos, appreciate it. still ahead, back to the fail europe of house republicans to impeach homeland security alejandro mayorkas. former senator claire mccaskill joins us with her analysis. plus, democratic senator brian schatz will be our guest on the battle over the border bill which now is likely dead. we're back in two minutes. with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. why do dermatologists choose dove? the dove beauty bar, is gentle. it not only cleans, it hydrates my skin. as a dermatologist, i want what's best for our skin. with 1/4 moisturizing cream, dove is the #1 bar dermatologists use at home.

according to a new poll from cnn, a majority of americans want to see a verdict in the january 6th case before they vote in the election. it's vitally important we find out whether the former president did what we all saw him do on television or not. >> welcome back to "morning joe."

it is wednesday, february 7th. jonathan lemire is still with us and joining the conversation we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, nbc news and msnbc political analyst, former u.s. senator, claire mccaskill. she and jen palmeiro how to win 2024. with us former republican congressman carlos carbello of florida, a political contributor. >> claire mccaskill, how are you holding up? >> is claire okay? >> i have my red on. i have my red on. >> it's going to be okay. >> how are you feeling? >> i feel pretty good. a little drama with the tony situation, but it really feels like we are still the underdog, and that is a good thing. we are playing lights out when we're the underdog. we did in both of the games leading up to the super bowl. i have my faith in our defense

and the unbelievably effective andy reid under pressure. >> what is the tony situation? >> well, he was supposedly hurt and then he said he wasn't hurt. he lashed out on social media and so now there's a little drama over there about that. and mckinnon is questionable. first they said he might be back and now he won't. but, all in all, we are pretty healthy and ready. >> she is following every detail of this. >> willie, yeah, claire is in the weeds -- >> she hasn't mentioned taylor. >> talking about taylor and kelce and everything. >> a lot of people will watch because of taylor. >> i was watching yesterday -- mika keeps cable news on 24 hours a day, it seems. >> why? why? >> my back ground noise. i also like to see -- well, never mind.

lies. >> i'm walking through a room, and a guy is explaining why he can't vote for donald trump after supporting donald trump in 2016 and 2020. >> yes. >> right? >> this was fascinating. thank you -- you're welcome. you're welcome. go on. >> for what? >> you have this story on. >> you having the tv on all day? ugh. the guy talks about taylor swift. >> mm-hmm. >> and we lost willie there. >> no, i was looking at prop bets about taylor swift on draft kings. go ahead. >> fair enough. fair enough. >> so what did he say, joe? >> this guy tells a reporter -- >> yes, swear to god he did. >> in south carolina that after voting for trump in '16 and after voting for trump in '20 and after wanting to vote for trump in 2024 in the south carolina primary, he just can't do it because during the super

bowl week donald trump has been critical of taylor swift, and he says, and i quote -- >> yes. >> -- and i quote, my daughter likes taylor swift, and i'm just sitting there thinking, what am i going to say to my daughter when she comes home? and i'm thinking, okay, wait, taylor swift, okay, what about how horribly he treats women? how about the sexual abuse verdict? how about a judge saying he's a rape -- no, no, none of those things -- none of those things made the guy go -- >> can't do it. >> how could i tell my daughter i voted for a guy judge said was a rapist, was a rapist, and a jury of his peers hit him for almost $90 million because he kept attacking the woman the

judge said he raped. but, no, that wasn't it. it was that donald trump was mean to tay-tay. it's a little much. >> i have to start watching these shows you watch. it sounds exciting. >> it's cable news. cable news. like us but other people. >> when your hands were soaking in palmolive, you're soaking in it right now, willie. you're in cable news. >> i'm in it not looking back at it, luckily. >> remember those commercials? >> i do, i do. sorry. >> the anti-taylor swift thing is obviously so dumb and so misguided, right on par -- right on par with ron desantis taking on disney in his own state. let's take on these beloved institutions, start a fight with them. yeah. as you were talking about his -- what he was going to say to his daughter, i had the same thought you were saying, this is the

thing that broke -- that you're going to have to explain to your daughter and not the last, oh, i don't know, ten years of things that have accumulated? >> this seems to be evidence, the strength of the nfl, taylor swift, travis kelce conspiracy theory. they're right. they were right. this was a plant. the whole year was rigged to turn voters one by one starting with this gentleman in south carolina, mike. >> you should stop trying to oververy long or overanalyze this. just accept any and all slow awakenings that anybody has in the country about donald trump. >> exactly. no, i always say, mike -- >> and thank taylor. >> we're always open to conversions. mike, i do wonder, though, do you think the deep state, the next sports franchise, they decide to get involved in for a conspiracy theory to toss an election, do you think the deep state could look, i don't know, toward yawkey way and maybe get involved in conspiring to make

the boston red sox spend more than $15 and two proof of purchase seals on their starting pitcher? >> we're beyond the cia stuff. >> they are bigger than anything you can think of. bigger than any conspiracy you could dream of. yawkey way, they're putting together a formidable series of assets that will require maybe several months for the red sox to be as competitive as we want, but they will get there. >> okay. >> they will get there. >> they are putting together, jonathan lemire, a formidable, whatever he said, of assets that exclude the crown jewel. right? we're going -- we're going to buy -- oh, let's buy the pga. we don't have money for the red sox. let's buy the penguins. that building is bright and shiny. let's buy it. we were fed, boston red sox

fans, were fed the lie they lost $40 million last year on the red sox, so they can't afford to spend any money on having pitchers that go past two and a half innings. the fact is they're shelling out how many hundreds of millions for the pga and, again, once again, the red sox, i can't remember, how many times have they finished in last place? >> four out of five times. >> to be sure. they all came before the five seasons, unfortunately. >> oh, my god, mike -- mike, you're sounding like a yankees' fan. we used to win world series. we used to win world series, duh. no, we want to win world series this year, lemire. i don't care about 2018. donald trump was president in 2018, lemire. >> i've heard that. >> it's a little early to be like this. >> it's never too early to get angry about the red sox.

>> it's always appropriately timed to be angry about the red sox. yeah, they haven't spent -- we documented it. no one is taking away what the super bowl has done for this team. i would have traded anything for one world series. they've given us four. that said this is a fan base that cares. they live and die every day, mike. you know that better than anybody. >> yes. >> and it's hard to see a team without a clear plan, without real messaging, messaging concerns. >> they have a clear plan. it's just that you don't like the plan. >> what is the plan then? to not spend money? >> the plan is to lose. >> speaking of, perfect segue -- perfect segue to our top story. >> buying australian football. you're related to mike lowell. let's get a mike lowell in there. come on, man. >> we can relive the glory days. you don't have to be so angry. think back to '07, mike lowell world series mvp.

they swept colorado. let's get happy here. >> we yankee fans would like to thank the deep state for sending us juan soto in the off-season. the silent nudge of the deep state pushing the yankees up the a.l. east standings, maybe even third place this year. >> that would be awesome. >> at one point in this ridiculous conversation someone said liking to lose, speaking of, an embarrassing blow to house republicans and speaker mike johnson. the effort to impeach homeland secretary alejandro mayorkas has failed. >> how did that happen? >> i don't know. it went right past me when it happened. nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. >> reporter: republicans narrowly failing to impeach homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, a big defeat after the house speaker laid out the case against the biden cabinet secretary. >> i don't believe there's ever been a cabinet secretary who was

so blatantly, openly, willfully, and without remorse, did exactly the opposite what the federal law requires him to do. >> reporter: accusing him of allowing millions of migrants to cross into the u.s. at least two republicans joining democrats opposing it. >> it lowers the grounds of impeachment to a point where we can expect it to be leveled against every conservative supreme court justice, every future republican president and cabinet member. >> reporter: conviction, which requires two-thirds of a senate majority, would be unlikely. it comes at the same time we've learned congressional republicans have effectively killed the $118 billion bipartisan security funding package, that included new measures to beef up border security. gop critics say it's not tough enough to solve the migrant crisis. but president biden placed the blame squarely on opposition from former president trump. >> every day between now and

november the american people will know that the only reason the border is not secure is donald trump and his maga republican friends. >> reporter: republicans argue it's democrats who are playing politics. >> the objective of this bill was, number one to do nothing, to do zero to secure the border, but to let every democrat running for office say, gosh, i wanted to secure the border, but those mean republicans wouldn't let us. >> reporter: senate democrats telling us they'll still hold a vote on the bill. >> what extraordinarily bad faith on the republicans. i'm sorry. i can't go past that press conference. just lying through their teeth. mike lee putting out a statement talking about how horrible this bill is. they didn't even read the bill, and you've got -- if you read the bill -- >> it has a 19-page summary, if you don't have time to read 370 pages. >> it's a james langford bill that goes bit by -- and i'm

wondering -- >> i think you know james langford. >> are they really saying he's a lefty? it's just not true. they're lying through their teeth, all because they're subservient to donald trump and not the people of their states. they want to be a representative of what? they want to be a representative of donald trump. and so the hell with the people of their states who want the border closed. >> but here is how we know this was never about securing the border for the republicans. the border patrol union, which endorsed donald trump in both 2016 and 2020 came out this week in support of the border deal. yesterday we heard from the group's president on fox news even as republican house leadership continued to dismiss the union's backing of the bill. >> i understand politics, and i can understand why republicans would go against this for political purposes. i get that. there is that aspect to it.

this bill transcends administrations. this will go beyond biden, trump, beyond the next president. so i'm looking at this from the standpoint of we need something that is going to continue to go past and not just executive orders. >> there are plenty of weaknessness here but there's also a lot of strengths, and when you look rightow what we're currently dealing with, this is a slow month and we're dealing with 6,700 apprehensions on a daily basis. this would cap it to where we couldn't take anything more than 5,000. now this does not say that we're going to release 5,000 people into the united states. in fact, it's the exact opposite. it says that we will hold single adults in custody. they will not be subject to release. >> i know a lot of republicans are against it because donald trump is against it, but here is the problem for you guys, the border patrol union came out and the acting cbp chief came out and said it's not perfect, but

this is the best thing we've seen in decades, so are republicans going to say that the border patrol union and the acting cbp chief are wrong? >> well, look, they can have their perspective, steve -- >> it's their jobs, tom. >> and it's our job to actually make sure the laws will accomplish what we're seeking to do. >> it's unbelievable. i guess it's not unbelievable. i'm sorry. this is not unbelievable that this bill was moving towards passage and then donald trump said kill it because it will make the situation better at the southern border, and that might hurt me politically, just like donald trump said he wanted america to be plunged into a great depression. so now we find out after all these years -- i have to say this is so foreign to me. this would never have happened to the people that i served with

in congress. it just never would have happened. if there was something important for the country and people came around, tom delay came around whipping it for the other side or whoever here, tell them to go to hell. no. back off. we're going to vote for this bill because it's good for america. we don't care if it's not good for the republican party or the republican leadership. claire mccaskill, you would think, of all the issues, the border issue would be the one issue that if the republicans were going to grow a spine on, when you have the men and women who are fighting every day at the border to bring order to this chaos and this humanitarian disaster. when their union says we need this bill passed, republicans, please pass this bill. it's the toughest bill we have seen in decades. and yet they still cynically

say, no, and then tell the border patrol to go to hell. >> yes, it's pretty obvious what they're doing. they do not want to address a crisis. and, by the way, this all happened because they insisted this is their bill. and the way they're hanging jim langford out to dry is unbelievable to me. they all work with him. they know how conservative he is. we have "the wall street journal" and border patrol union saying, take this bill. help fix this problem. there's never a bill that's perfect. they're just saying lies about it. they're making stuff up about it so they can justify not allowing us to make progress on a border that is killing people right now. do you know what's in this bill? a big section on fentanyl. allowing the border patrol to buy additional equipment that

tracks fentanyl coming across. additional punishment for fentanyl trafficking. there is a huge part of this bill that addresses a killing agent in this country. no, we want donald trump to be able to campaign on it, so it's really bad and is great what schumer will do today, call up the vote. we'll see how many of the trumpers fold. we'll see how many stick with mcconnell and langford. and then right afterwards, he's going to call up the foreign aid bill, israel and ukraine, and will call a vote on that without the border because originally that's why they got hooked together. the republicans wanted it hooked together. let's see how many will vote for putin today, too. >> carlos this is -- you served with a lot of these men and women in the house, interesting for your perspective, but this is, in many ways, almost the

fantasy bill that conservatives have wanted on immigration for a generation -- at least a generation. you have, as claire and joe just said, senator lankford, very conservative, leading these negotiations for months and months and months, got the text written and before it was even sent over to the house you have the speaker of the house, let alone all the individual members, it's dead on arrival. we want nothing to do with it. take us inside the caucus, some of these rooms. is this as obvious as it seems, donald trump is on the phone saying, you'd better not support this bill, even though it's the bill you've been asking for for a generation? >> catch and release, that's a phrase you've heard conservatives complaining about for decades. it's related to our asylum laws. our asylum laws are one of the big magnets for illegal immigration. this would reform laws to make it harder for people to simply get admitted into the country. they would actually have to show that they have a legitimate and

credible fear of persecution and would have to provide evidence. that is a massive change, something republicans have been calling for for decades, and democrats have been fighting them on. but look, this isn't the first time, willie, that republicans would choose the politics of immigration over the solutions for immigration. but i think this time it might actually backfire. the american people are starting to learn more, know there's a crisis at the border. the biden administration had been denying that for a long time, to be fair. no one can deny that anymore. it is an emergency. there is a concrete solution, a good solution, frankly a conservative solution on the table. and for republicans to say, hey, donald trump told us we can't do this, we want to make sure we win the next election so we're not going to pass good policy on

purpose, i don't know if that's a tenable position. i think it is going to backfire as people learn more and more about this. >> as republicans bow to the man with 91 counts against him, a federal appeals court denies donald trump's immunity claim ruling the former president can stand trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. nbc news senior legal correspondent laura jarrett has the details. >> reporter: former president donald trump dubbed citizen trump by a three-judge panel in washington ruling mr. trump is not immune from prosecution. the court saying, we cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. the trump campaign saying he'll appeal the decision. trump himself bemoaning the ruling saying, a president of the united states must have full immunity in order to properly function and do what has to be done for the good of our country. special counsel jack smith

charged mr. trump last summer for his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results and stop the peaceful transfer of power. >> we will never give up. we will never concede. >> reporter: mr. trump's legal team has been trying to get the charges tossed out for months arguing he should be completely immune from prosecution for any acts he took as president. the court unpersuaded, saying we cannot accept former president trump's claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power. the recognition and implementation of election results. the trump campaign capitalizing on the court's decision with a fund-raising plea as the republican front-runner frequently uses his legal setbacks as fuel for his latest white house bid. >> if you have a president that doesn't have immunity, he's never going to be free to do anything, because the opposing party will always indict him as soon as he leaves the white house. >> reporter: with the ruling, mr. trump's only hope at

avoiding trial is for the supreme court to find he is immune which would have major implications in the other legal cases he faces as well. >> joining us now, nbc news legal analyst andrew weisman. andrew, i guess he has until monday to appeal. how do you think this plays out? >> well, the first thing i comment on is that we get so in the crazy. this is the 50-page decision, no disrespect to the judges, says, guess what, presidents can't commit crimes. the idea we're all saying, oh, this is a wonderful opinion. of course it is, and it reaffirms what it means to be a nation of laws. but it's also obvious. no one has ever thought that there would be a president or former president who would take the position that they are free to commit crimes.

these are crimes that fundamentally change what it means to be an elected official where you're saying i can actually obstruct people's power to vote me out of office. so the court, of course, was right, and it presents a conundrum for the supreme court. there's no question that donald trump will try to get the supreme court to rule on this, and if many ways you could imagine why the supreme court would want to affirm what the d.c. circuit did so they could say the law of the land from the supreme court, not just a court of appeals, is that, of course, donald trump is wrong. there's no way the supreme court would ever take this case and reverse the d.c. circuit. the problem with them taking the case, of course, is that there's a time clock here. we're all entitled to a speedy trial. we, the people, are entitled to a speedy trial with respect to these charges. that is something that is statutorily given to the public, not just the government and the

defense, but we have that right. and so if the supreme court were to take this case and stay judge chutkan scheduling a trial, they could de facto be giving donald trump immunity because he wouldn't be tried on this case. so i think that's the conundrum for them. mip bet on that is that they will not issue a stay and will allow judge chutkan to go forward with the trial, and she clearly is going to schedule a new date and go forward. >> so, andrew, within your answer that you just gave, there is, i think, in many people's minds, what's the difference between the law and common sense? i mean, you just outlined a pretty common sense response to the decision yesterday, that the president or anybody, really, doesn't have immunity from walking out of his office and killing people and say, hey no,

i'm immune. so what would the reaction be on a common sense level, do you think, instinctively, among the members of the supreme court? >> so ideally the law and common sense should be the same. you don't want a situation where the law is doing something that everyone goes, that makes absolutely no sense. i don't think with respect to the supreme court donald trump will find five votes, which is what he needs, five out of the nine, to say the d.c. circuit is wrong. there is no precedent at all. everyone likes to talk about how donald trump is sort of unprecedented person, but in this situation, in order to prevail, he needs to be able to rely on precedent, that is prior cases, prior law, that would support his position. and here this decision is really

bullet proof. it goes through one by one all of his arguments. yes, it's something that i think anyone in grade school would come to the same obvious conclusion. anyone who took a class would come to the same conclusion but in a polite, legal way, going through each argument and refuting each one one by one. if it was anyone else, any other defendant raising this, there's not a snowball's chance that the supreme court would take this case. it's a frivolous argument to say anyone can go ahead and kill people and not be subject to the criminal laws. and the court, by the way, refutes donald trump's claim you just played that, gee, any president would be deterred from taking tough positions and says that's historically absolutely not true. there has been no presidential immunity and, guess what, until

donald trump, everyone has had no problem making tough decisions and no one has been charged because no one has committed crimes like this. >> so, to sum this up, you've got more bad news for donald trump in the legal realm. every day something new happens, and these are three-judge panels or juries of our peers, not the doj, and he's already been found to be a massive fraud, and yet republicans still keep running around in circles for him and behaving destructively at his whim. what do you make of this? >> mika, in terms of the ruling, it's good news. it means the united states isn't cuba, venezuela, nicaragua. we have laws, the rule of law. we don't have strawmen. we have leaders and they are held accountable. what it means for republicans, they don't really agree with that. they want to reward this past

behavior because someone happens to be popular with a minority of the population. and at the end of the day politically, it means there's a lot of risk here. i know republicans feel good about the polls today, but think about that coalition that has come together three general elections in a row to oppose donald trump. and close to the election that coalition is going to be reminded about who donald trump is, what he did, the damage he did to our country. so, aside from the moral question here, there's also great political risk for republicans in continuing to follow donald trump. >> former congressman carlos curbelo, thank you very much. nbc news legal analyst andrew weissmann, thank you as well. and still ahead on "morning joe," we have more on that immunity decision when former attorney general eric holder joins the conversation. plus, a live report from tel

aviv amid secretary of state antony blinken's meeting with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. we'll take a look at where a potential hostage deal between israel and hamas stands this morning. also ahead, the supreme court will hear oral arguments tomorrow in a case that could have a major impact on the november election. we'll have a preview of that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back. that's great. i know, right? i've been telling everyone. baby: liberty. did you hear that? ty just said her first word. can you say “mama”? baby: liberty. can you say “auntie”? baby: liberty. how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪ there's nothing better than a subway series footlong. except when you add on an all new footlong sidekick. we're talking a $2 footlong churro. $3 footlong pretzel and a five dollar footlong cookie. every epic footlong deserves the perfect sidekick.

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wielded by the party hoping to stay in power. joining us now former u.s. attorney general eric holder. he is chair of the national democratic redistricting committee which b challenges to gerrymandered redistricting maps. he's been focusing on many of these showdowns. we talked about wisconsin. but you are also looking at louisiana. tell us about the situation there. >> well, in louisiana a bunch of citizens brought a lawsuit we supported that challenged the way in which the districts were drawn that had a negative impact on the black residents to have the full degree of political power to which they were entitled and which violated section 2 of the voting rights act of 1965. based on allen versus milligan case, an alabama case we won before the united states supreme court, a very conservative united states supreme court, we

said there's a basis to draw another black opportunity district in louisiana. in the south you have places where you have racially polarized voting, and as a result of the allen versus milligan case, the lawsuit we have brought, another black opportunity district has been created in louisiana as well as in alabama. >> so, i want to get a sense of the importance of this work across the country, even the implications of the case you were talking about. could it impact how the states deal with this question across the country? >> the case we won before the supreme court will have a nationwide impact and enhances the ability to use section 2 of the voting rights act to go after states that are trying to dilute the power of citizens of color with regard to their representation. but we've been bringing lawsuits

on other parts of the country. in wisconsin, ohio, north carolina. we brought a number of cases all trying to make the system more fair. the reality is gerrymandering is cheating and deprives the american people of the ability to have representatives who really represent their policy desires. it also, if you want to look at this immigration bill, that is not going to get voted on, one of the reasons it will not, people, republicans in particular, fear primary challenges. and that's what gerrymandering does. it makes you safe in a general election and the only thing you're really worried about is a primary challenge and, therefore, you don't want to compromise with people across the aisle. that invites a primary challenge. it has an impact on a whole range of things and why we decided to fight for fairness in

our redistricting process. >> can you tell us more, if you will, about the ongoing impact donald trump and his big lie has on this process which has fueled voting rights changed, restrictions, a number of republican-held legislatures, and the idea it's not just what he did about 2020 but is still out there pushing the big lie and is the most dominant figure in republican politics. >> by pushing this lie we have a voting system that is unfair, that is somehow corrupt, it allows republicans to put in place measures designed to keep certain people away from the polls. unnecessary photo i.d. laws, purging of voter roles, things based on these lie that is are perpetrated by the former

president. we have to fight for a fair system. it's what i've tried to do as the head of the national democratic redistricting committee, not to fight for partisan advantage but i think if that's the case democrats, progressives will do just fine but we face that headwind that comes from the former president and his acolytes saying there is, in fact, voter fraud, when, in fact, the brennan center did a study and said you're more likely to be hit by lightning than cast an in-person fraudulent vote. these are the kinds of things we have to push back against. >> eric, i want to you address another thing the former president has done and that's delegitimize the department of justice and the fbi. i don't think people realize the percentage of people who work for the department of justice and who work for the fbi that are the very definition of

nonpolitical. i don't think people realize the vast majority of those employees are people who came to those institutions because of the work they wanted to do without any kind of political prenotion of how they could affect politics or policy. could you speak to that and the damage he has done to these really important institutions in terms of the rule of law? >> that's exactly right. the notion that the justice department or the fbi employees who have political leanings and who do things on the basis of political favor is totally inconsistent with how the department of justice is run, how the fbi is run. there is a way in which people in the department interact with one another where political things are not raised. i was a young lawyer in the justice department a long time ago, and a person i tried my first case with and who i had a great relationship with, i just

assumed was a democrat, i assumed he was a democrat. and after getting to talk to him over the years, i realized he was a pretty conservative republican. i never understood that. never knew that. it is something that is not discussed in the justice department. the career employees, that's something people need to understand, these are career employees who serve for 15 and 20 years, do so in an apolitical way, don't do anything on the basis of politics. and the way in which the former president and too many republicans have attacked those institutions has had a negative impact on their ability to do cases that are in the political sphere when they're doing political corruption cases but also has a negative impact on the way in which juries look at people from the fbi when they are testifying in nonpolitical cases. so there's a negative systemic impact, institutional impact, these lies have had. >> mr. attorney general, good morning. as you know a three-judge panel

at the d.c. court of appeals ruled donald trump does not have immunity, as he has claimed, and these federal cases against him can move forward. are you surprised at all by that decision, and what's your expectation now for how soon the trial, for example, about the election interference around 2020 might proceed? >> what i will say is, first off, that was a good, thorough opinion, but it wasn't a tough case. the claims made by the former president were pretty far-fetched. the claims were pretty absurd. i think those judges reached the right decision. the question now is what is the supreme court going to do? on the basis of the ridiculousness of the claims and the comprehensive nature of the opinion done by the judges in the d.c. circuit, any other case, i think that the supreme court would not take the case. and that would be my hope here

as well. the supreme court, i think, has a responsibility to protect the system. and among the things that is critical to our american judicial system is the right to a speedy trial. a defendant has the right to a speedy trial. the government has the right to a speedy trial. that is codified in our law in title 18 of the united states code. so my hope would be that they will look at the case, look at the nature of the claims, and make the determination they are not going to allow further delay. because although the former president lost on the merits yesterday, he actually has won because the case against him has been delayed, and that's what he's fighting for. he's fighting for delay. i hope the supreme court will look at this case in a realistic way and understand the deladens the american people of a bit of information that they need, a substantial amount of information before they make a very important decision come early november. >> absolutely.

former u.s. attorney general and chairman of the national democratic redistricting committee, eric holder. thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. all right, coming up, for democrats to have the same success this year they had in the 2022 midterms, our next guest argues they are going to have to, quote, take the gloves off and beat republicans at their own game. that conversation is straight ahead on "morning joe." pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? ( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) emergen-c crystals.

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♪♪ a live picture of a beautiful morning here in new york city. 7:49 on a wednesday. it's the 2024 campaign taking shape, president biden and his party are aiming to re-create their surprisingly strong 2022

performances in battleground states, according to our next guest, democrats were able to win big in those midterms by playing a strategy often used against them, going negative. >> for you, herschel walker wants to ban abortion. >> no exception in my mind. i believe in life. there's not a national ban on abortion right now. i think that's a problem. >> herschel walker paid for an abortion for his then girlfriend. >> i supported a radical plan that could cut south carolina and medicare while giving massive tax breaks to millionaires like himself. mehmet security. mehmet oz, he's no senator. he's a snake. >> tudor dixon -- >> that's one of 13 states with so-called trigger laws that would make abortion a crime for doctors. >> you make it illegal and you punish the doctors.

>> blake masters, too dangerous for arizona. >> those are the ads from the last cycle in 2022. and our next guest, co-author of the book "hit kwrepl where it hurts." great to see you. >> it's so great to be back on the set of "mo jo." >> in football, they say a good offense starts with a good defense. in american-style politics, it's the exact opposite. why is the grand old party a step or three ahead of democrats when it comes to shaping public opinion, crafting effective narratives, with an agenda that overtly threatens freedom, health and safety of everybody

in the country, and why the hell do swing voters keep falling for that. what do you think democrats should be doing as we go into the year? >> to understand contemporary politics, when people are making a vote decision, i could know nothing about them, black, while, small, old, young, and i would be able to predict their vote choice perfectly because partisanship is what shapes it. it's grounded in your partisan identity, and it's about how you feel about the opposition party, and in our system, which is a two-party system, that opposition is clearly defined and not split up against multiple coalitions, and what you do is -- what republicans

figured out after '04, there was a lot of power into tapping into the fear of the opposition, and you could create the messaging that solved the two bucket issue, and one message drives your base and also pushes swing voters away from going to the other party, so instead of trying to sell a candidate with a biolike val demings. we culture people to not care about politics or like it so it's easier -- you are not trying to sell a toyota, right, you are trying to sell something people don't want to buy. >> let's talk about the

presidential, and the negative model, look how well i have done with the economy? >> you can do both, but it's about contrast. here's what the democrats have done for you or want to do for you but can't because republicans will block it, like the immigration bill, right? if democrats are smart, if they block that bill they will spend the voters this is the third time they have blocked comprehensive immigration reform, right? and one thing to tell voters abstractly that democracy is a threat, you have to make that concrete to people. and the roe v. wade repeal issues is so valuable in that way, and i say in the book all the strategic shifting we did in the party, it would not have helped as much without the roe v. wade. >> sadly, i would submit that

most people -- your average person, your average family don't really pay attention to politics until maybe the two weeks prior to a big election. and sadly, even sadder now, the american political landscape, i would submit again, since 2015, the arguments on both sides have been driven by fear. >> yeah, i mean, you know, the thing is the democrats have been slow to pivot to fear, mike. i have to be honest with you, and that's why i had to write the book, right? in 2020 we had an incumbent president, and he was killing people every day with the covid response, and democrats would have wedged that and made an issue down ballot, so biden running against trump and mismanagement, and the down ballot did not have that conversation. it has been slow to get democrats to embrace the

strategy because it's so against the liberal ethos to be mean and outlandish. it's not like people are reading the headlines, and not the maga people, but they don't know what we know. >> we tick down the list, and senator kelly, these are examples of '22 where democrats used the negative partisanship, and part of that, though, and you write that it's really hard to sell legislation to voters, to convince them, hey, we did good things and are helping your lives, and that's something this president has a problem with, and his legislative record is robust and he's not getting

credit for it and his approval ratings are low? >> there's a strong movement in the party, it's about the contrast. it's not just that he gave seniors $35 insulin, but it's every maga extremist republican, it's a mouthful, i say it every time, extremist republican, i say it every time with the candidate's name so i can reband them, and you need to name it over and over and repeat it. >> so speaking of candidates, i think we are ignoring that our peril is two important senate races this year. we do not control the senate until we win either florida or

texas. it doesn't happen. so let's talk about going after rick scott and ted cruz. you talk about a field that is full of flowers to pick in terms of contrast. what about that, rachel? how aggressively can we go after these two guys in order to hold on to the senate, which is so important to the country? >> claire, i am so glad you are highlighting that. it's the truth. texas or florida will have to replace our west virginia and the three-way race in arizona, and it's a must-win situation. when you think about something like rick scott, this is a man that proposed eliminating social security and medicare, and a tax on middle class families, and he has the charisma of deadwood, right, and if i was running the florida senate strategy, you have to do the bio ads, and most

of the money will have to be spent running a campaign against rick scott, and that's a far more likelihood to pick that seat up than doing the old strategy of old partisanship messaging. >> the book is "hit 'em where it hurts." welcome back. >> good to see you. still ahead, declaring citizen trump is not immune from prosecution, and we will go to nevada to explain why republicans held a primary yesterday but tomorrow will hold caucuses. the landmark verdict in michigan for the first time a parent was held criminally responsible for a mass shooting committed by a child. we're back in two minutes. minut.

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with the ultimate speed, power, and reliability the xfinity 10g network is made for streaming live sports. because it's only live once. join xfinity rewards on the xfinity app or go to xfinity1stand10gs.com for your chance to win. impeachable offense. >> you have a short time coming. you can honorably resign or we are going to impeach you, and it's happening very, very soon. >> on this vote the yeas are 214 and the nays are 216, and the resolution is not adopted. >> i have to say that took an unexpected curb last night. one of the more surprising and good introductions to the

season, who knew mike johnson would star as a guy that couldn't get an impeachment through? >> that was truly -- we have four hours, luckily today, and one of the most humiliating days in the house of representatives, it's fair to say, they could not get through an israel bill. they did find time to pass a resolution that says donald trump did not commit an insurrection around january 6th, and want to make sure they protect him on that. they want to have a procedural vote that will turn away the senate immigration bill they have been asking for for two generations, and the list goes on and on and on. israel and ukraine has no funding and the crisis at the border has not been fixed. so even in their efforts to protect donald trump, republicans are failing. >> i like to watch cable news,

and you were busy zooming and everything, and i had to rewind an entire hour, because i thought what just happened? >> i walked into the room and i said, can you believe they lost on the israel funding -- >> she goes, really? >> yeah, i had to rewind. and on top of the big news yesterday about donald trump not being immune -- >> yeah, that's big news. >> i want to say, though, there's really good points brought up at the end of "way too early," and i don't think how all republicans in the house understand what a dangerous game they are playing with putin. he invaded ukraine in 2014 and we did nothing. he invaded ukraine again and we fought and pushed back with the west and the brave ukrainian

soldiers and citizens that have given so much, and they don't understand, i mean, after -- if the west buckles on ukraine, and, of course, if donald trump is elected, that's the end of nato, and that's the end of nay deterrence with vladimir putin. he will sweep across eastern europe, and he will go through the balkan states, and he will do all of these things. and you see a republican party that is now doing vladimir putin's bidding. donald trump always did. >> yeah. >> but the republican party now in the house is doing vladimir putin's bidding, and somebody that we know, that we used to know, going over, doing vladimir putin's bidding, attacking western journalists saying if only western journalists would have come over here and tried to even report fairly on the war.

well, there have been western journalists that have gone over and tried to report fairly on the war. they are in jail right now with the person because vladimir putin doesn't want, willie, western journalists going over and asking honest questions, fair questions. he will let puppets talk to him but nobody else. >> yeah, he will let a certain kind of journalist in who ask certain kind of questions, and i assure you everybody in the western world has a request in for an interview with vladimir putin, so it's not a lack of trying. that's for sure. it was striking again yesterday to see republicans across the board, and maybe some of them are doing vladimir putin's bidding, but really they are doing donald trump's bidding, which is vladimir putin's bidding, which is they put

themselves in a place when your north star is what donald trump wants, and we saw that yesterday again and again and again, and putting in jeopardy, aid to ukraine and israel and doing nothing about the crisis at the border which they have been talking about rightly for a long time. chaos on capitol hill late into the evening yesterday. the republican-led house failed in its attempt to impeach homeland security secretary, alejandro mayorkas, falling one vote short. republican conference vice chair, blake moore, then flipped his vote to no seconds before the vote closed so the party can bring the articles of impeachment back to the floor at a later day, and al green missed

votes earlier in the day because he was in the hospital recovering from abdominal surgery, but he was able to show up at the last minute for the final vote. republican congresswoman, marjorie taylor greene, suggested that that was a sneaky move. >> they hid one of their members waiting to the last minute watching to see our votes, trying to throw us off on the numbers we had versus the numbers they had. yeah, that was a strategy at play tonight. >> got it. got it. >> i don't know what to say about that. >> nuts. >> he voted, and there's nothing sneaking about it, got a voting card and i am here, vote. >> and a spokesperson for speaker mike johnson says republicans will bring the articles of impeachment back to the floor when the house has enough votes to pass it. this is what they are doing with their time. let's bring in the host of "way

too early," jonathan lemire, and deputy managing editor at politico, sam stein, and author of the book "how the right lost its mind," charlie sykes, good morning, and nbc news capitol hill correspondent, julie circuit. >> you guys saw it and i am glad you had to go back and watch c-span, and i think we were all glued to c-span. it was a bad week for house leadership, and this was absolutely stunning on the floor. actually, speaker mike johnson and his leadership team spent a long time on the floor trying to pressure mike gallagher, one of those nos, trying to get him to flip to vote for impeaching

alejandro mayorkas, and he said no. and he said that this -- mayorkas' impeachment doesn't rise to the high crimes, and steve scalise will come back at some point in february to try and get this done. the question is under house rules how many days do they have to bring it up again? the house majority, the republican majority feels confident they can do it, and it's quite embarrassing, and i can't remember the last time everywhere they pursued the impeachment, especially the cabinet secretary that has not impeached in 150 years, and it didn't happen where they didn't have the votes on the floor. >> they are voting on the articles of impeachment and

voting on it and losing and trying to get other funding, and they are failing on those votes. they bring up a resolution to try and polish off what trump did when he committed insurrection. you can go down the list, but then they leave the border open as a political strategy and allow vladimir putin, his dream of possibly one day being able to march into kyiv because they won't fund ukraine. you do wonder -- i know there has to be serious house republicans in there, and i do wonder when they are going to stand up and speak out and say we let putin take georgia in 2008, so he went into ukraine in 2014, and he went in again a couple years ago, and after we sit back and give him ukraine, he will then go after poland and

he will then go after the balkan states, and in their eyes they will have trump in the white house that will gladly let putin do that. this is the worst invasion since world war ii on the continent of europe, and the republicans are saying, take it. >> i am so glad you are connecting all the dots, because it was a clown car that we saw yesterday, and it was peak republican dysfunction. the collateral damage will be immense with the border and ukraine and israel, with our image in the world and our relationship with our allies. on the one hand we are seeing the bad performance artists like marjorie green spending her time on this sort of thing, and you see the ongoing audition for the

favor of donald trump. that was a humiliating day and shameful day, and unfortunately, to your question, i am not sure that this party, you know, has the capacity to say, hey, this is just wrong, and this is not who we are. i have to admit that like everybody else i was surprised by the vote. i was surprised mike gallagher finally found the backbone and stand up, and the pressure on him will be intense between now and next week on the mayorkas impeachment. you can't unring a bell and undo the dysfunction and the inability of the republican party to be a serious governing party was on full display all day yesterday, and we are going to get a replay of that later today as well. >> we are going to get a replay of that, jonathan lemire, with the vote in the senate expected

to fail. yesterday, also, as we mentioned, there was a vote on standalone israel aid, and it was a republican idea and that failed, too, by a wide margin. this house not covering itself in glory yesterday and more to come today. >> yeah, more to come today. an abandonment on trying to govern here. there's not going to be a border security deal, and there will not be aid to ukraine. we saw yesterday national security officials saying russia was taking new ukrainian territory since bakhmut, and they are going each and every day without the money and weapons. sam stein, going to hand president biden a couple

campaign issues and he will be able to point at republicans and say they abandoned ukraine and did not secure the border, and he can be out there on the campaign trail making those arguments. speaker johnson, especially after the failed impeachment vote, his power that much more tenuous, and he will have to do the bidding of donald trump's work. >> yeah, his position is incredibly weak this morning, much weaker than yesterday. it was pretty weak yesterday. i am with you here, jonathan. my assessment of the mayorkas vote was a rejection of the house majority leadership. it was not as significant as the defeat of the border bill in the senate that is coming today. that's for two reasons.

mayorkas' impeachment was never going to happen, the trial would have been quick and the senate would have dismissed it and it was a show, more or less. the border bill, really, that's the key to unlock a whole host of different foreign policy priorities, and the dysfunction in the senate among republicans there is to a degree, more significant than the house. we expect the house republicans to operate this way, and it's the bigotry of law expectations, and i am struck by -- somebody put it in a headline that i thought was pretty remarkable and i am summarizing, but senate democrats fail to persuade republicans to pass conservative border bill. that's what happened, right? this is a conservative border bill that democrats said you should pass, and they said no. because of that we will not likely have ukraine, israel,

taiwan aide, aid for palestinians -- >> unbelievable. our next guest, he weighs in on the future of donald trump's immunity claims now that an appeals panel has laughed that argument straight out of court, and that conversation is ahead on "morning joe." arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can be serious for those over 60, including those with asthma, diabetes, copd, and certain other conditions. but i'm protected. arexvy is proven to be over 82% effective in preventing lower respiratory disease from rsv and over 94% effective in those with these health conditions. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems

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a federal appeals court has rejected donald trump's claim that he is immune from prosecution in his election interference case. the three-judge panel of the d.c. circuit court -- court of appeals ruled unanimously there was no blanket immunity as acts committed as president. the 57-page ruling states that

donald trump is no longer the president and has become citizen trump for the purposes of criminal prosecution. trump argued in part that, quote, criminal liability for former presidents risk chilling presidential action while in office, and open the floodgates to meritless prosecution, and trump reacted on his social media platform writing, a nation destroying-ruling like this cannot be allowed to stand. calling the ruling so bad and so dangerous. the former president is expected to appeal to the supreme court soon. i think he has until monday to do so in a bid to prevent the trial from going ahead as scheduled. the d.c. circuit panel cut the time trump has to appeal significantly, and it's usually a few months and he has until monday.

>> u.s. former attorney and msnbc contributor, chuck rosenberg. chuck, let's talk about the fact that this was a unanimous ruling and how people were wondering why it was taking so long. talk about how maybe that delay was caused by wanting a unanimous ruling? >> joe, first of all, from my perspective in having litigated in the circuit court, but it didn't take long at all, four weeks, and in reporter world, that's long, but not in lawyer world. they all joined a single opinion, and it's 57 pages long. i read it yesterday and it's thoughtful and forceful. the fact that they were

unanimous and of one voice lends heft to their opinion. taking more time to get it right, because you know this opinion will be subject to enormous scrutiny is well worth it. unanimity was important, and the forcefulness of the opinion was important, and the fact that it took longer than folks might have liked, in my view, doesn't matter all that much. >> for en cirt to be granted, you have to have four justices, right? >> yes. >> and i would say the institution of john roberts is saying we want to stay out of politics and have as little to do with this as possible, and we are all handling the colorado case. i am curious if you think roberts wants to find the six

members of the court that will deny cirt, so maybe he is trying to get the sixth vote to keep it away and affirm the lower court ruling? what do you think? >> i defer to lisa. >> one of the things that i think to point out for the viewers is yes, it takes four grants to grant cert here, but it takes five to grant the stay. donald trump has until monday to file a motion for stay pending the court's review of his petition. if he can't get the five votes, and even if he has four votes to review it, that also means that without a stay the court of appeals issues its mandate, and that's a fancy way of saying it kicks the case back to judge

chutkan, so president trump could get pretrial reviews and allow chutkan to go forward, and that would make that meaningless if judge chutkan is allowed to power ahead. >> given that this decision came down a day later, how soon do you think she can get the case back on the docket? >> judge chutkan wrote a decision where she said she was ready to grant the parties seven months to prepare for the trial, and she's giving trump that same amount of time, and if for example the supreme court were to deny the stay application from trump or deny cert relatively quickly, she would then probably take it up on that day and add eight or nine weeks,

however long we have been delayed, you can see she adds that back on the trial calendar, and she said yesterday she could be in trial in august for the 13-plus defendants, and she said i am planning to be out of the country on august, but there's a possibility i could be on trial, referring to this case. it's within her contemplation that sometime in the july, august and even september range she could be trying the case. >> chuck, obviously that is getting so close to the election. it would be in everybody's best interest from -- just the court system, the judicial branches and the justice departments for this case to be expedited. i am curious, if trump needs five justices, i am curious, what are your thoughts if, let's

say, roberts decides he wants to just affirm the d.c. circuit ruling. who is more likely to go his way? do you think he's talking to cavanaugh, amy coney barrett, to find that fifth vote to deny his stay? >> yeah, and it's hard to know for sure, joe. here's my sense of it. the court of appeals decision was thoughtful and forceful, and i think solid, and forgive the pun, but i think unimpeachmentable, and i think that may not be reviewed, and i don't see a path there. the only party that benefits from the delay is mr. trump. whether he gets five justices for a stay, or they hear the

case, that's donald trump's path, and if you are a thoughtful and just justice of the supreme court, the best thing to do and the smartest and lawful thing to do is to send it back to judge chutkan and let her try it. i think it will be before the election, and i think that's very much on the table and in the cards, but i think that's the path forward, joe. >> donald trump, of course, railed against this decision saying we are on the verge of losing our country, lisa, and we know from the beginning that this was the one case that stood a chance of coming to trial and potentially having a verdict for the election, and built for speed was how the phrasing was. is there anything now that jack smith can do, with that in mind he's trying to build this for speed, and does he have any

recourse to speed this along? >> usually it's the party seeking review that asks for the speed, and before it went to the d.c. circuit, jack smith went and asked the supreme court to leapfrog that d.c. circuit and review it himself. he was not the losing party before judge chutkan, but he said this case will be reviewed so i will ask you, supreme court, take this now and take it fast. they denied his application within 11 days of his making it, however i think jack smith when trump files that motion on or before monday, he will say if trump does it, do it fast, as fast as you possibly can, and as you know jack smith and merrick garland has said the public has an interest in the case moving to trial speedily. >> they said to trump,

effectively, you are not president anymore, and any executive immunity you may have enjoyed as president is gone now. if donald trump is re-elected and becomes the president again, the suggestion there is there may be some form of executive immunity there. does that sound right to you? if he waits this out and gets back in office and he can claim executive immunity in some of the cases? >> yeah, the delay is in his benefit, and if mr. trump is re-elected, and at the very least the department of justice has a long-standing policy that sitting presidents cannot be indicted or tried, and he would have control over the levers over the executive branch of the government, including presumably his attorney general who could dismiss mr. smith and chose charges, and if mr. trump can get back in office without a

verdict or judgment against him, without a trial, not only does he enjoy certain immunities and privileges, but he has all the powers of the presidency. that's why jack smith wants to move quickly, and that's also why the american voters, whether you love or loathe mr. trump, they ought to have a verdict before the election. coming up, our next guest was left gob smacked by the reversal on the border bill. morning joe is back in a moment.

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discussion about whether or not this product could ever become law, and it's been made pretty clear to us by the speaker that it will not become law. >> it is doubly outrageous for them to now oppose the very bill that they begged us to craft. a group of us spent four months working every day through the holidays and through the weekends to satisfy the demands that republicans made. we followed the republican instructions on how to get a bipartisan border deal and how to get aid to ukraine unlocked. within 24 hours of unveiling that agreement, they abandoned bipartisan border reform and ukraine for one reason. because donald trump asked them.

>> in the face of donald trump's open and relentless pressure campaign to kill the carefully negotiated bipartisan border deal, senate republicans now are set to block a procedural vote today that effectively will sink the legislation entirely, just as donald trump demanded, despite minority leader mitch mcconnell initially putting his stamp of approval on the package, and he now says it has no chance of becoming law. quite an about face. chuck schumer expected to move forward with a standalone bill on that part of the package. let's bring julie back into the conversation. chuck schumer says they will have a vote with no expectation they will get the votes it needs to pass, and republicans standing in the way of the bill they demanded.

what happens from here? >> well, as part of it, they were vague in the way they set it up, so just in case republicans did an aboutface, which they did that, and he did that so he could bring up the national security supplemental without the border security piece of it, and that means funding for ukraine, endo pacific, and israel, and they will keep the fend off fentanyl act, and that will stay as part of the second attempt, which, i don't know if it will pass because there's so much souring on ukraine aid. there were so many republicans yesterday that said they should be yesterday issues and blamed all of the mess on leader mitch mcconnell. they are saying this is mitch mcconnell's fault, they being the folks that soured on

mcconnell on the wake of his relationship fall apart with the former president, and it was kevin mccarthy who tied ukraine and border security, and that was echoed by speaker johnson that embraced that approach. now you have republicans railing on why are these two issues tied? this is like groundhog day all over again, and this is something schumer is planning to do today. we will see if it works. the house made it clear they are not interested in ukraine aid, but it's making things more interesting here. coming up, a live report from israel where secretary of state, antony blinken, met this morning with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. what that means for the ongoing war in gaza, straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪

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now we can do something about it by voting yes on prop e. a common sense solution that ensures we use community safety cameras to catch repeat offenders and hold them accountable. vote yes on e. classmates in 2021. nbc news correspondent, maggi vespa, has the latest. >> an unprecedented verdict. >> we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. >> jennifer crumbley found guilty on four counts, one for each student her son killed and leaving the courtroom in handcuffs as the first parent in the u.s. convicted for their role in a mass shooting committed by a child. >> it was not an easy decision. the thing that hammered it home is she was the last adult with the gun. >> after the verdict, family members of those four students hugging prosecutors. >> the moment you heard the verdict, what went through your

mind? >> well, that i can breathe. >> he lost his 17-year-old son, justin. >> he loved life and deserved to live it. >> the days of the emotional testimony, and crumbley taking the stand in her own defense. >> i wish he would have taken our lives instead. >> she did not give him the help. >> the defense, crumbley was an engaged parent. >> nobody could have expected this, including mrs. crumbley. >> this case may have implications far beyond this courtroom house. does this open the door for parents to be held accountable for mass shootings? >> i believe it does.

>> anything you want to say to the jury? >> just, thank you for using common sense. >> maggie vespa reporting from michigan there. joining us, nbc legal analyst, danny savala. this could now become not legal precedent, but some kind of precedent for jurors to say in a school shooting the parents are responsible if they saw warning signs or provided a weapon, per se. >> we did not hold parents automatically responsible for the crimes of their children, and also legally, historically, an intentional act was often enough to cut off the responsibility of somebody else's negligence, but in america when it comes to school shootings there's a growing trend and we are willing to disregard that prior history and say, hey, this is an exception,

when it comes to firearms and mental health and red flags, and we as americans, as a society, may be comfortable with this kind of liability, which is an exception to the general rule that we don't always hold parents criminally responsible for the crimes of their children. >> i guess the question is what was persuasive, do you think, for the jury in this particular case? as i said, the parents did provide a weapon to the child and the jury effectively said you know your kid and something was wrong and giving him a gun was not the best idea, and including the day of the shooting the parents were called into the school because of something disturbing the student had written in class, and later that day he killed four children. >> this is a case where the prosecution had overwhelming evidence in the form of text messages and other red flags,

and they said look at all these incidents where the parents knew or should have known their son had problems, and they recklessly ignored that and recklessly allowed him access to a firearm, and that's why the defense's needle to thread was so narrow, and then she said, i see the red flags, and had she done that, that would have made the prosecution's case. she got on and said i wouldn't do anything differently, and as i look at that today it is, for example, the poltergeist in the house, that was a running joke that the house is haunted, and he said the dishes are flying off the wall and the clothes are flying off the wall, and that was a joke between parents. if your defense at trial is it was a joke, that's often a difficult sell for a jury. i think the jury saw that as her

being cavalier about her son's mental health and the fact that he had access to a firearm. she also testified it was kind of a healthy activity for an otherwise maybe reserved child. you and i were talking about it, there are much more healthy activities that you can get your child involved in if there are issues than getting them a firearms. i was the only kid in my high school that didn't own a firearm and didn't hunt or fish, and th. what she did was reckless. >> coming up, our next guest is writing about family, memory and the america we once knew. author patty davis is here with her new book reflecting on her parents ronald and nancy reagan. that conversation is just ahead on "morning joe." on "morning joe.

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tonight fashion and politics collide with the goal of bringing attention to the gender gap in the fashion industry and beyond. the equal rights amendment coalition is teaming up with fashion brand kzk studio to host an event tonight ahead of the start of the new york fashion week this weekend. the event and fundraiser will include a panel featuring leaders in fashion and gender equality discussing the intersection of the equal rights amendment and arts and culture. the era coalition is an organization comp posed of nearly 300 groups all with the same goal, to pass the equal rights amendment, which was originally introduced more than 100 years ago and would constitutionally guarantee gender equality for men and women. joining us now the president of the era coalition, zakia thomas

and form were new york congresswoman carolyn maloney. thank you for being on the show this morning. congresswoman, first, where does era stand in the grand scheme of things across the country? >> well, it's extremely important, particularly after the dobbs decision, which showed us that our rights, abortion rights, could be taken away and, mika, that shows that any of our rights could be taken away, but there's been a string of elections and court decisions across the country that are an indicator of what's to come and when we put the era with abortion rights, it is an absolute election winner. we're hoping this year we will get a vote in the house and the senate, hopefully passing it. if we don't pass it, then at least we will know where people stand and can certainly take that out to an election. i can't understand why anyone should be in the united states congress if they don't believe in equality of rights for men and women.

>> tell us about the coalition's work and also teaming up with kzk studios and the motive and the message for tonight. >> so the era coalition is made up of over 300 partner organizations as you mentioned, but we represent over 80 million people across the country all working towards equality. our goal is to bring people together to recognize and uplift the equal rights amendment and fact that we don't have constitutional equality and without it our rights are very tenuous. one of the new discoveries in the last few days has been that the -- the pennsylvania supreme court has used their state era to support abortion rights. and today we were talking with kzk about the importance to have an equal rights amendment to protect pay equity for women across the board. >> carolyn maloney, obviously you and i both have been fighting for equal pay for as long as we have had a platform to fight with. how would the era just kind of

jump start all of our efforts where still after, i don't know, ten years that i've been in the game we're still not paid equally to our male counterparts. >> just in that we would be able to enforce equal pay for equal work. we passed legislation saying that we should be paid equally. you can't enforce it because right now you can discriminate against women. this would ban discrimination against women. you would have a uniform treatment towards women across the country. i think it's outrageous that some states have taken away abortion rights which would -- women's rights should be uniform across the country and you can write legislation that will make it even stronger. they would not have been able to repeal the access to abortion which i thought was a constitutional right, i was shocked when they did it, i couldn't believe it, or take away our rights. they are threatening to do it and if we don't fight back they will keep coming at us. it's this simple, if women are

in the constitution, then our rights are protected. we're half the population and when you combine equality of rights, the era, with abortion rights it polls at over 75%. it's an election winner. it's the right thing to do and it's never too late to do the right thing. 100 years is long enough. this year let's pass it. thank you so much, mika, for having us and if i could ask you to sign our petition to show concretely that women and men are equally and that you support it. it's sign number 4 equal rights.org and we hope to have millions so that we can show the weight of public opinion supporting equality of rights. >> consider it done. zakia, tell us what's going to happen tonight, sort of the pregame to fashion week and why the connection with fashion week is actually quite significant. >> well, as we all know arts are

very important in our culture and they help to transform culture across our country. so we are looking to combine the arts world, that's fashion, that's with our project that we had last no he have to show and highlight this is an issue across sectors and we make sure we are addressing issues. women in the fashion industry make less than men and the men are the ones in positions of power and we need to change that. we need to make our systems more equitable so everyone has a seat at the table and they're able to be their fullest selves. >> fabulous. zakia thomas, carolyn maloney, thank you so much. you can read more about the gender gap and the fashion industry in our latest know your value piece, it's online right now. ladies, thank you. and the fourth hour of "morning joe" starts right now. this historical evidence is overwhelming that the founding fathers intended impeachment to be used to deal with the

commission of inn difficultable crimes and the abuse of power. >> the trump/putin mega faction headed up by the distinguished gentle lady from georgia has been given this worthless trinket of a consolation prize. the opportunity to bring this slapstick impeachment drive against a cabinet men member of unimpeachable integrity who has obviously committed no treason, no bribery, no high crimes, no misdemeanors, nothing indictable or even inn difficultable. >> a major set back for house republicans as they failed in their much hyped attempt to impeach homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas. we will go through how the drama unfolded on the house floor. meanwhile, republicans in the senate are bending to donald trump's will and killing the bipartisan border deal. democratic -- brine schotz posted, quote, just gobsmacked.

i have never seen anything like t they literally demanded specific policy, got it and then killed it. senator schatz will be our guest in a few moments. also a live report from israel on the latest on the proposed hostage release deal possibly coming together, hopefully coming together. plus a federal appeals court has ruled donald trump can face trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. the three-judge panel yesterday rejected the former president's claim that he is immune from prosecution. trump's legal team is expected to appeal the decision to the supreme court within days. he has won in some ways, though, by buying time. let's bring in former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance and neal katyal, jonathan lemire and mike barnicle are back with us as

well. joyce, i will start with you. has donald trump won in effect that he has bought a lot of time for himself? this could push the trial date to an area that goes beyond the election? or do you think the supreme court might act quickly? >> right. so i think this is all in the supreme court's hands now, mika. as you point out, although donald trump loses resoundingly, he does not have presidential immunity that prevents his prosecution, for trump it's a matter of days and weeks and months and putting this case off until it can't be tried and he can't be convicted before the election. so the supreme court has options here and one would be when trump files his request that they continue to prevent anything from moving forward in front of the trial court while the appeal is under way. he has until monday to do that. the supreme court could treat that as his request for them to hear the appeal, they could act on t they could set an expedited

briefing schedule and we know that the supreme court can move quickly when it wants to. it's doing that tomorrow morning when it hears the 14th amendment argument from colorado. so short answer, it's up to the court. >> neal katyal, same question to you. also donald trump of course responded saying this was nation damaging and all sorts of things. just like in his civil cases where it was a jury of his peers, explain how this three-judge panel one ruling that they co-wrote is actually significant and nothing like what he is saying. >> yeah, so, first of all, on donald trump's claim and his latest tweet, which is if presidents aren't absolutely immune, then every president is going to be indicted when they leave office, i think that's the real indictment of donald trump. i mean, trump can't even imagine a presidential administration that could function without leaving evidence of a crime, which as the court of appeals pointed out yesterday, we've had

45 other presidents, none of them have needed this absolute immunity. he's the first. so it's awfully suspicious. on the conversation you are having with joyce, i think what we are looking at with this d.c. circuit court of appeals opinion yesterday is really the last word on absolute immunity. i think these are words that are likely going to force donald trump to be looking at a criminal trial for the january 6th insurrection and to be looking at that trial before the election and i think, you know, underlying this opinion yesterday is the idea that the american people need to know and that no person is move the law. to go to the supreme court it's going to take four justices of the nine to agree to hear the case and five justices to stop what's going on in the lower court and stop the trial. it's possible that they could get -- trump could get those five votes but when i read this opinion it looks like the kind of opinion that the supreme court won't touch with a

ten-foot pole. it's thorough, it's well-written, it's unanimous, and most importantly, it's obviously correct. this is an opinion that i think shows the legal system working at its best and the law being back finally. it's three judges with dramatically different political and judicial philosophies that are coming together, one of the judges is judge karen henderson who is a very conservative well-respected judge and she signed every word of this opinion. >> so, neal, you just said that you expressed some confidence there that this trial, the federal election interference trial, the january 6th trial for short would take place before the election. tell us why you think that because certainly as legal experts have said there are ways this could slow down. the supreme court could agree to hear it but maybe not until october and there are other machinations that this could still slip and slip and slip. why do you think it won't? >> it's going to take five justices on the supreme court to

say that and in order for five -- of course, anything can happen and, you know, trump has the point that the supreme court has never squarely said that presidents have or don't have absolute immunity from the criminal law. he's right about that. the supreme court has never squarely said it one way or the other. the reason they have never said it one way or the other is because it's a crazy claim as donald trump's own lawyer basically admitted to the court of appeals saying that under their trump view the president could go and send out navy s.e.a.l. team 6 to go kill his political opponent and then go presumably kill the senators who would decide whether he could be impeached or not. that can't possibly be the law. so, yes, there is a gap in the supreme court's precedent, they have never squarely said t but that's because some things just don't need to be said. i think that's likely the way the court is going to review this and maybe one thing if there was some sort of very modest claim that donald trump

was making, but this is a claim of, you know, basically kingsmanship and that's not our constitution. >> it would be the second election case if they took it up, tomorrow the supreme court will hear oral arguments on the appeal of colorado supreme court's decision to remove donald trump from the state's primary ballot. nbc news senior legal correspondent laura jarrett explains what's at stake. >> reporter: christa capers a conservative columnist who voted for donald trump in 2020 but says she won't do it again. >> former president trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million americans. how did he do that? he tried to overturn an election. he fomented violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power. >> reporter: caper and five other voters in colorado managed to get the republican front runner kicked off the state's primary ballot in 2024 for what happened on january 6, 2021. >> through his actions and his actions alone, donald trump has

disqualified himself from ever holding office again. >> reporter: trump says he did nothing wrong, predicting chaos and bedlam if the u.s. supreme court doesn't rule in his favor, saying this about the justices he appointed to the bench. >> i fought really hard to get three very, very good people in there. great people. very smart people. i just hope that they're going to be fair. >> reporter: to understand how we got here you have to start with the legal word salad that is section iii of the 14th amendment to the u.s. constitution. quote, no person shall hold any office who having previously taken an oath as an officer of the united states to support the constitution of the united states shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. english translation, if you took an oath and you break that oath by engaging in an insurrection, then you won't e. don't get to

hold public office in the future. a view that's been embraced by some leading conservative legal voices. >> it's not president joe biden, it's not the democrats, it's not the anti-trumpers, it's the constitution of the united states. >> reporter: the 14th amendment's framers wanted to make sure that after the civil war ex-confederate monuments leaders wouldn't get voted back into office, but the text that went into effect in 1868 raises a bunch of tricky questions now at the heart of the legal fight in 2023, like is the president an officer of the united states? if so, why not say so. did trump engage in an insurrection or rebellion? even if, he didn't break into the capitol himself. and who exactly is supposed to enforce this part of the constitution anyway? congress? or the courts? in the wave of lawsuits to ban trump from the ballot most

courts dodged these questions or ruled in his favor, until colorado, where the state's highest court found him inn eligible for office. the case now on the u.s. supreme court's docket where the ultimate result for colorado and the rest of the country is far from clear cut. >> joyce, what's your sense of this legally and culturally? you have the 14th amendment, you have the word "insurrection" and then you have a cultural norm this this country called voting people on or off office, the ballot. what's your sense of this when it comes to the court dealing with it? >> well, that's exactly the conflict, mike, because the law says one thing, but we have this democratic value around voting, and i guess the challenge for the court, which consists of conservative members who are strict constructionists, that means that they believe we should follow the literal language of the law and

especially the constitution when it's plain, they're going to have to put those two competing values into effect tomorrow when they hear argument. on the one hand this is a court that won't be eager to jump into the thick of an election and remove what's perhaps and most likely the republican nominee from the fray. also when they take this on, although this case is specific to colorado, there are implications in other states perhaps nationally to consider. but at the same point in time the clear language of the law would seem to apply to trump and allow he has depending on who is doing the counting about five reasons why section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't apply to him, there are arguments that say things like, well, the president alone and everyone who serves in government isn't an officer of the united states. that's an argument that barely passes the smell test. or some of the arguments are along the lines of, well, the

constitution might say that i can't hold office, but it doesn't say that i can't run for office. that's a sort of let's kick the can down the road argument that the supreme court is unlikely to fall for. but they will face this problem, i think it's unlikely that they will remove trump from the ballot. they will take one of these procedural off-ramps. nonetheless, they will have to contort themselves intellectually based on their affinity for following the laws in a strict fashion in order to get there. >> so, neal, a couple of questions. does the supreme court really want to have two election cases on its hands? if it does take time to figure out whether or not to take this case about immunity or just to let the three-judge panel's ruling stand, how long could that drag out? if they take it up, how long could that drag out because it seems to me trump wins if he pushes this down the road and a lot of time is taken trying to

figure this out because he can get beyond the election. i will let you start there and then i have another question. >> yeah, so for the absolute immunity cases basically here is the timeline, the court of appeals gave trump until monday to go to the u.s. supreme court. he will undoubtedly do that because every day of delay is a delay he wants. so it will go to them on monday. i think the supreme court will issue what's called an administrative stay, this is typically what they do, that's a temporary pause while they wait for all the papers to come in. the last jack smith, the special counsel to respond to trump's petition, they may give him a week or something like that, it wouldn't surprise me if jack smith files that piece of paper early saying, look, there's nothing here, you don't have to take this case. the court will then be teed up to decide the case very soon, within a week or two as to whether they want to stop the trial or not. so i think we are talking about a decision by the end of february, by the united states supreme court, as to whether this trial is going to happen or

not. i don't think it's going to have to take much longer than that. and as you point out, the disqualification 14th amendment case will be pending at the same time. i do disagree a little bit with the set piece that was describing the 14th amendment as a word salad and things like that. i very much want to associate myself with joyce's comments here. 14th amendment is very clear. now, yeah, it's true, donald trump is trying to read the language of this amendment forged after the civil war, he's reading it like the tax code, he's trying to look for a loophole here, look for a loophole there. he's obviously been good at that in other contexts but i agree with joyce that legally there's one right answer here. it's a hard thing for the court to do, but, you know, remember our constitution doesn't just, you know, allow anyone to run for office. you have to be 35 years old, you know, my kid can't run, you have to be a natural born citizen so i can't vote for arnold schwarzenegger or jennifer granholm or someone like that,

those are off the table in our democracy as is voting for an insurrectionist. >> makes sense to me. my other question could be for both of you. is there a precedent for a defendant that has this many counts, whether it's civil or legal going at the same time and doesn't end up in ruins? i have actually lost count of the cases against him. neal, can you think of anyone or are there lots of people who have multiple civil and federal indictments going at the same time? >> there's certainly white-collar criminals and others who have faced multiple indictments, this is pretty extraordinary. i'm not aware of any political figure, certainly not a former president who is facing 91 different counts in so many different jurisdictions. notably these are janet yellen by prosecutor's say-so, there are grand juries involved in these cases and the like, peers, saying this guy is more likely

than not a criminal. >> joyce, have you ever seen anything like this? >> you know, as neal says you do from time to time in the white collar arena but certainly not with a former president. as a justice department lawyer at the time when you indict a case and while the trial is under way you're obligated to point out every time you talk about the case that the indictment isn't evidence against the defendant, that he's charged, but he's innocent until he's proven guilty. but the reality is when you see these sorts of charges brought by a very careful special prosecutor against donald trump, just the january 6th case alone is really damning when it comes to the former president's conduct. when you look at all 91 of the charges against him, it seems very unlikely that if the trial process works as it's intended to, if our courts are able to get these cases in the queue and to trial in front of juries that

consist of americans before donald trump has the ability to do anything about it, abusing the power of the presidency again, then there will be convictions, there will be accountability among other things for his role in january 6th and interfering with the election. >> all right. former acting u.s. solicitor general neal katyal and msnbc legal analyst and co-host of "sisters-in-law" the podcast, joyce vance. thank you so much. after facing virtually no opposition president biden easily won the nevada democratic primary, putting him one step closer to formally securing the party's nomination for an expected rematch against donald trump. the next democratic primary will take place in michigan on february 27th. meanwhile, in the republican nevada primary republican presidential candidate nikki haley finished behind none of these candidates in the

presidential primary in which donald trump didn't participate. the former president wasn't on the same ballot since he opted to compete in the nevada caucuses instead set to take place tomorrow and puts him on the path to claim all of the state's 26 delegates. let's go live to las vegas. former white house director of communications to president obama jennifer palmeri is there, she and claire mccaskill are co-hosts of msnbc podcast "how to win 2024." how is it looking in vegas, jen? looked like nikki haley and donald trump are just on completely different planets. >> it's super confusing but i think that there are some things to learn from what happened yesterday and then the republican caucuses tomorrow. so the way i look at it is people in both parties here don't think that this is a competitive primary, right, but

still biden doesn't have a lot to prove in nevada, he won nevada last time. donald trump is the one who needs to get his organizational skills up in nevada. what happened yesterday, democrats had a primary, more than 100,000 people turned out, republicans had a primary, there were only 60,000 people turned out. nikki haley got 20,000 votes. none of these candidates -- it wasn't none of the above, the actual choice is none of these candidates, dallas what's written on the ballot, got more votes. a lot of people that i heard from nevada independent, a lot of people turned up expect to go see donald trump on the ballot, didn't see him so they voted for none of these candidates. tomorrow will be the republican caucus and the question for trump is nikki haley got 20,000 votes, it's possible, you know, i saw john raulston last night, he thinks it's possible that the republicans won't get 20,000 people to turn out for their caucus in which case donald trump may actually get less

votes than nikki haley and less votes than none of these candidates. so that -- he's going to be the nominee, but it does suggest that the organization in nevada -- the rnc had their winter meeting here just this week, just in the past week that they were here for that, but that the organizational skills are not such that they can get more people to turn out to show support for him what does that tell you about nevada in the general election. right now trump polls well here, but, you know, nevada is all about turnout. the read machine, the famed harry reid machine did such a good job for democrats so that's what i'm looking for for what happens tomorrow. trump is coming here tomorrow night, he's going to do a victory party at treasure island, but he hasn't been here for a while. >> jen, we should first note that none of these candidates remains undefeated so far this cycle and we should also note that really what people are talk being in las vegas is the super

bowl that is a few days away. you should give us your pick before you go. i'm going with the chiefs. i wanted to go more on the general election because the biden campaign folks have said to me they are more worried about nevada this time around than the last, it's a transient population in the state, a difficult one to predict. they feel that arizona also a southwestern state, harder this time around, border politics definitely play a role in both states. in an election that's forecast to be this close, nevada only has a handful of electoral votes but it could be the difference. give us your pick and also give us more about what you're seeing in that state in november. >> i'm a big 49er fan, i grew up in miami, my family are huge 49er fans, we lived in the bay area during the glory years. that is my hope. that is not my expectation. you just can't -- it's ridiculous to me that here in vegas still the chiefs -- it's still they're picking the niners to win. i'd love that.

i don't get it. but on your other question one thing i did yesterday, i think you're right about the concern about nevada. same concern we had in 2022, democrats had in 2022 that senator catherine cortez masto would not pull it out. she did. that ground game for democrats remains really strong. i went to a focus group last night with young hispanic men, we hear all the time that biden has a problem with a dropoff with hispanic voters who supported him. i heard them from last night, these young men all voted for biden in 2020, so it was good to get into the details. they do not like trump. i mean, they really don't like him. it was very animated about discriminatory was the word one used, the whole group was animated in responding to that about trump. they're not hostile to biden, they just think that he had plans and he didn't deliver on all of them. of course, he did get a lot done, these young men didn't know about it. the question is, you know, if they hear more about what biden has done, will they be for him?

at the end of this focus group the majority of these young men did come back around for biden, so you see like what is -- you can see clearly at least the work that they need to do, but another thing we look at south carolina and nevada results, they are small, turnout is like 14%, 15% on the democratic side because it's noncompetitive, but black turnout high in south carolina, hispanic turnout high proportionately in nevada. there's nothing in these numbers that suggest a problem with black and hispanic voters, you know, as much as you can discern in february. >> all right. jennifer palmeri, thank you so much for coming on this morning. we will see you again soon. secretary of state antony blinken is in israel right now meeting with prime minister benjamin netanyahu and other officials there. they're discussing the latest framework proposal to release the remaining hostages in gaza.

yesterday qatar announced the response from hamas is, quote, positive and that the group is open to negotiating. according to a counterproposal seen by reuters hamas is pushing for a three-stage ceasefire that would last 135 days and includes the release of all of the hostages, both dead and alive. hamas wants this to eventually lead to the end of the war. joining us now from tel aviv, nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley. matt, how is israel reacting to this counterproposal and what do we know about the status of the remaining hostages? >> reporter: yeah, well, it sounds like we haven't heard any official reaction yet from israel but i spoke with somebody who was close to the prime minister's office, actually hired by the prime minister's office, and this person was telling me about conversations that this person was having with higher ups and said that this is almost a nonstarter as far as

israel is concerned because the time limit is so long, we're talking about 135 days, the deal that was hashed out in paris about a week and a half ago that was going to be seeing maybe something like a six-week-long pause or maybe a two-month-long pause, this would be four and a half months long and it would require all of the idf troops and all reconnaissance planes to remove themselves from the gaza strip. that's a nonstarter for israel. in fact, this person that i was speaking to said they might not even submit this proposal to the war cabinet, which is the first step that any proposal for any negotiation would take, then the war cabinet would put it to the full cabinet. it might not get even that far, that first step to the war cabinet because it's considered not realistic. another thing they were saying is it looks like hamas is going to be trying to get the freedom as part of this exchange for some of the hostages who are in the gaza strip, the freedom for some of the actual perpetrators of the october 7th attack, the hamas operatives who killed so

many israelis, 1,200 of them on october 7th. again, this is something that is just a nonstarter as far as the israelis are concerned. they will not release any of those palestinians who were implicated in the attack that started off this latest round of fighting. so we're kind of almost back to the drawing board and this is going to be very disappointing to the palestinians in the gaza strip who have endured now four months of attacks by the israelis and there's now nearly 27,000 of them who have been killed according to the hamas-run gaz gazan ministry of health. this is going to be disappointing to antony blinken who is in town to negotiate this treaty. >> matt, there's so many questions that still need to be answered when you talk about 27,000 palestinians dead and still no answers as to why it took the israelis seven hours to respond to this in the first place. in some cases longer. what else is secretary blinken trying to accomplish on his

fifth trip now to the middle east? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, there's a long list here and we are talking about this hostage negotiation, that obviously is the biggest one, the most immediate issue and in many ways it's the reason he was here, but there's other things, too. he's trying to tamp down concerns that the war could spread beyond the gaza strip into the wider middle east, even as the u.s. retaliates against iranian-backed groups in syria and iraq because of those three american servicemen who were killed in northeastern jordan just, i think it was just about a week and a half ago as well. and continuing attacks by the u.s. and the uk against the houthis in yemen. so he's trying to basically assuage the concerns amongst the wider middle east, especially u.s. allies, because this isn't justice real that blinken is visiting, he will be in qatar, egypt, saudi arabia and he's also trying to push ahead with a plan, an ambitious one, to maybe recognize for the u.s. a future palestinian state. that's going to be a tough one,

it has alluded a lot of past presidents. >> nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley live from tel aviv, thank you very much. and coming up on "morning joe," house speaker mike johnson takes two losses on the same night. they were whoppers. his caucus falls short in its effort to impeach the homeland security secretary and fails to pass a stand-alone aid bill for israel amid the battle over a bipartisan border bill in the upper chamber. we will talk to democratic senator brian schatz about the republican dysfunction that has paralyzed congress. you're watching "morning joe." paralyzed congress you're watching "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ next. next. stop.

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you want to see who we are as americans? i'm peter dixon and in kenya... we built a hospital that provides maternal care. as a marine... we fought against the taliban and their crimes against women. and in hillary clinton's state department... we took on gender-based violence in the congo. now extremists are banning abortion and contraception right here at home. so, i'm running for congress to help stop them.

for your family... and mine. i approved this message because this is who we are. i know you said the infrastructure bill is going to pass, but the leader of the progressive caucus in the house, is balking, she said voting on this bill is an arbitrary date,

adding more than 50 members will vote no if you first don't have agreement on the border social investment bill. are you confident the progressive members are going to vote yes even though she says now? >> let me just say we're going to pass the bill this week. i promise that we would bring the bill to the floor that was according to the language that those who wanted this to be brought to the floor tomorrow wrote into the rule. we will bring the bill to the floor tomorrow for consideration. but, you know, i'm never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. >> see, that's a good way to go. mike johnson might want to, i don't know, take a -- take a look at that. i'm never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. that's then speaker of the house nancy pelosi ended up not putting the 2021 infrastructure bill on the floor that week because she knew she didn't have the votes. she would work to secure them. the bill passed the house a month later.

and was signed into law by president biden. compare that to last night when speaker mike johnson brought two measures to the floor that both failed. the first was an attempt to impeach the homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, by the way, for not securing the border, following by the failure to pass a stand-alone bill on aid to israel. of course, they're trying to kill in the senate procedural vote on the border security vote that they themselves asked for and negotiated and would secure the border. this despite minority leader mitch mcconnell initially putting his stamp of approval on the package. the kentucky senator now says the bill stands no chance of becoming law, even though they wanted the bill. it's a bill that has things in it that they really need to secure the border, things they've been working for for a long time. joining us now democratic senator brian schatz of hawaii, he is a member of the senate

foreign relations and appropriations committee. what is going on, senator? >> it's just chaos. i mean, the house sort of outdid the senate in terms of its republican chaos, but on the senate side, i mean, i think there's a tendency among the so-called savvy set to sort of pretend like this was all foreseen and all foreseeable and that this is just normal republican dysfunction. it's actually not. they specifically made demands about james lankford being the lead negotiating and then they made specific policy demands and a lot of democrats were deeply uncomfortable with those policy demands, but we went along with it because we understand that there are challenges on the border, but more importantly, we want to pass this national security supplemental because we think the free world is literally at stake. so we swallowed hard and said, let's all jump in together. as of sunday there were 22 republican senators saying they were going to vote for this and they thought they could get the number up to 27.

one tweet and a few phone calls and the whole thing collapsed. that is not normal to vote against a thing that you specifically demanded. i thought that was enough republican dysfunction for a day, but then the house just sort of said, hold my beer, and did whatever they did yesterday afternoon. >> senator, it was not a day in which anyone on the republican side covered themselves in glory, there is no doubt there. let's ask you about what's next? because you're right, first of all, there is the border issue still unaddressed and we know poll after poll shows americans are deeply concerned about that. we also see reports from eastern europe where russia for the first time in months is making real advances on the battlefield because ukraine is running out of weapons because the u.s. hasn't stepped up. do you see any possibility -- walk us through with shart schumer, he's made announcements as to what he plans to do next -- walk us through what you the democrats in the senate hope to do to get some of that even separately done. >> well, i think the border stuff is dead. we worked very hard and i really appreciate chris murphy and

kyrsten sinema and patti murray and others for engaging in a very, very painful negotiation over a long period of time. they took political risk and a lot of democrats, progressives like myself were willing to swallow things we wouldn't normally be willing to swallow. now that donald trump has declared that this is dead, he's their boss and they have obliged. i think the border stuff is dead. on ukraine, it's important to know leader schumer had a plan, he always has a plan, and procedurally speaking we are in a position to immediately proceed to the national security supplemental without the border stuff, which, by the way, just so we are all keeping score a little bit, is what we demanded in the first place before they said we will not do this without border provisions. but here we are five months later ready to move on a national security supplemental. ukraine is running out of munitions. they are running out of bullets. we have to protect our friends in the asia-pacific region and israel needs resources and as

importantly we need resources for gaza and some of the other humanitarian challenges around the planet. so we intend to move quickly and expeditiously. i've become more cautious about predicting the behavior of republican senators because now it's sort of the caveat, yeah, i'm for this but it depends on whether or not i get a tweet or a phone call. i'm for this, but i need everybody else to be for this. so the center has to hold and i think the next couple of days there's an opportunity for us to move forward on a national security supplemental, but i don't want to move on from how outrageous the actions were of the republican party in the congress. the house and the senate, they have demonstrated an unusual ahistorical level of incompetence and that's what this is. this is not your normal democrats and republicans they're fighting, i can't tell whose quality it is and why can't they get along. we're sitting here ready to compromise, we developed a compromise, we sent it to

legislative counsel to draft the bill, we consummated the bill and then donald trump tweeted and they took orders and killed the thing that they demanded. >> so, senator, the country, this country, our country and the world witnessed yesterday a unique combination of incompetence and dysfunction in the legislature of the united states of america, house and senate. you are on the senate foreign relations committee. my question to you is today what do you figure is going on in tokyo, london, paris, berlin and other world capitals? are they thinking that america is no longer a serious nation? >> i think we run that risk. i don't think we are quite there yet because we still have an extraordinary foreign policy team in biden and tony blinken and secretary austin and so i don't think it's so precipitous

that our international esteem will collapse just because the congress couldn't tie its shoes yesterday, but i think you're right to point out that we are the indispensable nation until we are not. if we take ourselves out of foreign policy, if we take ourselves out of supporting ukraine, if we take ourselves out of the humanitarian objectives that we have, not just in gaza, but in sudan and elsewhere, then we will no longer be the global leader and let's be clear, that's because donald trump doesn't want the united states of america to be the global leader. >> all right. democratic senator brian schatz of hawaii. thank you very much. good luck in there. we appreciate your coming on this morning. coming up, an update on the deadly storm that killed nine people in california. we will tell you what officials are now warning amid new flood and mudslide fears. plus, a look at what's making headlines in morning papers across the country. "morning joe" will be right back. across the country. "morning joe" will be right back

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is 45 past the hour as we look live at san francisco this morning. the death toll from the devastating storms that have ravaged california has risen to nine. officials warn that number could grow once the water recedes. the historic system left a trail of destruction across the region with widespread power outages, road closures and flooding. in just three days downtown los angeles received more than 8 inches of rain. more than half of its annual total, while other areas received more than a foot of rain. as of last night emergency response crews had responded to 475 mudslides across l.a.

we will keep an eye on that. now to a look at some of the morning papers across the country. the florida times union is spotlighting a controversial bill by the florida house of representatives that would lower the age requirement to buy a rifle. republican lawmakers say they want to protect the gun rights of young adults in rural parts of the state by lowering the age to buy rifles and shotguns from 21 to 18. the florida legislature previously raised the gun buying age in 2018 after a 19-year-old shot and killed 12 people with an ar-15 at marjory stoneman douglas high school. the chicago "tribune" is covering the rise in threats on abortion clinics across illinois and nationwide. on monday a man was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to prevent the opening of an illegal -- of an illinois abortion clinic by crashing his car into the building and attempting to set it on fire.

similar violent incidents have been seen across the country since the end of roe v. wade, along with a spike in harassment and intimidation of reproductive health care providers. the poughkeepsie journal is reporting on a recent ruling that would allow mail-in voting options for new yorkers. on monday a state judge upheld a law giving new yorkers the ability to vote by mail instead of in-person in they so choose. the ruling is seen as a victory for democratic lawmakers who passed the bill over republican opposition, arguing that it gives busy voters another way to cast ballots and increases election participation. and the "citizen times" is taking a look at a doj finding of banking discrimination against minority borrowers in north carolina. the justice department announced on monday that first national bank of pennsylvania actively

discriminated against black and latino home buyers for a period of at least four years. the bank will pay $13.5 million to settle that red lining -- the red lining charges. and coming up, former first daughter patti davis tells the story of her relationship with the late former president and first lady, ronald and nancy reagan through a series of personal and touching letters. she's here to discuss her new book "dear mom and dad." that's next on "morning joe." a" that's next on "morning joe. system helps you sell at every stage of your business. with fast and secure payment. card readers you can rely on. and one place to manage it all. whatever the stage, businesses that grow grow with shopify.

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the coffee. >> oh, that's right. you say that our new percolator makes the best coffee in california. >> and suburbs. >> that's what i mean, my electric appliances do everything. >> they're all the things that make mommy's work easier and run

on electricity. like the coffee maker for instance. >> see the wire? >> so does the toaster and the skillet and the refrigerator and the washer. >> tell you what, patty, let's play a game. let's see how many electric appliances we can find around the house. >> that was former president ronald reagan, his wife nancy, and their daughter on general electric theater before they became america's first family. now patti davis is reflecting in a new book entitled "dear mom and dad." patti joins us now. thank you for coming on. >> thank you. >> congratulations on the book. so tell us why you decided to take on this project. >> well, i really can't take credit for the idea. my editor bob wile called me. i was in the middle of writing a novel, and he said i know you're working on another book, but i

have this idea, a letter to your parents. and i thought, wow, that's such a good idea. i never would have thought of that format. and you know, i'd been -- i'd actually been trying to sort of tell this story, this end of the journey of working through the puzzle of my family. i'd been trying to tell this story in a documentary film that i wanted to do that i was titling the reagans before the world moved in. i kept running into the same roadblock with every producer that would be, oh, yes, this is your story. you have control over it, we're going to let you tell it. and a mile down the road it would be like you just sit over there, dear, and we'll take your material and we'll tell your story. so i'd given up. and then when he called and had this idea, i said, well, this is the story that i want to tell of finally getting to the point of looking at my family through a wider lens, through a clearer lens from a bit of a distance,

and you know, with more understanding and more forgiveness and all of that, you know. so that's how it was born. >> so there's a description that you had kind of a case of sibling rivalry with the country. >> yes. for a long time. >> because your parents -- yeah, and it must have been really hard, and you described some traumas that you went through as well. what are you hoping the reader learns about your parents that perhaps they didn't have an understanding of before? >> you know, i hope -- well, two things actually. i hope readers read this and reflect on their own family. i mean, every family is messy to some degree. so i definitely hope that, that what i've gone through in working through things other people can take and maybe go, oh, maybe i should take a step

back and look at things, you know, from a wider perspective. so i hope that. but also i hope that -- i think that people will take from this a more human perspective of my parents. you know, when you're kids, you think that your parents were just born the second they became your parents, but obviously they had lives before that, and i think also for the public people think that a president or a first lady or someone in the public eye -- obviously he was governor before that -- that's just all they are, but they're human beings who have their own histories and their own child hoods. i said to someone not too long ago if you want to understand ronald reagan, actually, i think i said it in the book too, if you want to understand ronald reagan, you have to understand that everything about him bounced off the fact that he was the child of an alcoholic, everything. >> mm-hmm, mm-hmm. >> i read a lot -- go on. >> no, no, it makes a lot of

sense. i'm curious just because you talk a lot about your experience and their experience in this book. i know when i came out with my first book, there was a lot about my parents in it, and they weren't happy. they were from eastern europe, and it was just like you don't share. in this book you share a lot, even about your mother's pregnancy with you and how that came to be. how do you think your parents would feel about this book? do you think they would like it? >> well, i would never have written this book if they were still here because i wouldn't have been able to -- particularly with my mother, i wouldn't have been able to get down to that kind of honesty, you know, in front of her, and, you know, her -- listen, her being pregnant when she got married, this is not breaking news, i mean, everybody knows that, you know, my parents were married in march and i was born in october, so you know, that's -- i didn't break any news there.

but it was something i kind of wanted to look at. my mother was not a careless person. she just wasn't. she was a very deliberate person, and she said something to me at one point that when she was dating my father, he said to her, you know, you shouldn't be renting your house. you're throwing money away. you should buy your house. and she said i didn't want to hear that. i wanted us to get married. i wanted us to buy a house together, right? so she definitely wanted to marry him, and you know, the reason actually that i wrote about the pregnancy and him proposing to her when she said, honey, i'm pregnant, was that somebody said something to me many, many years ago that the reason this person thought we had such a challenging relationship is that i was the flaw in her romantic illusion. not that my parents didn't love each other, they did intensely obviously, but the way all of

that came about it wasn't like, you know, let's go out on a canoe on a pond and here's a black box with an engagement ring on it. it was honey, i'm pregnant, okay, let's get married and i was the result of that. in thinking about that, it gave me some perspective on why our relationship was just so tangled. >> yeah, the new book is entitled "dear mom and dad: a letter about family, memory, and the america we once knew," absolutely fascinating and revealing. patti davis, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. congratulations on the book. >> thanks so much. >> take care. and that does it for us this morning, ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. >> right now on "aa cabrera reports," chaos and dysfunction on capitol hill. a series of stunning setbacks for house republicans who failed to impeach the