moderate electorate. that being said, if south carolina happens, especially after what we saw in nevada, and the writing is on the wall that donald trump is the republican nominee, it is hard for me to see how the rest of the republican electorate would overwhelmingly back nikki haley if the momentum is on trump's side. >> national politics reporter for "the hill," julia manchester, covering a lot of ground for us this morning. we appreciate it. thank you, julia. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. the footage of the president unable to recall simple facts must have been brutal to watch. >> james webb. >> i don't remember the names. i don't remember the name. i don't remember ever buying something for myself. >> do you recall what years you were married to ms. maples?

>> um -- i don't remember that. as good as my memory is, i don't remember that. but i have a good memory. >> you don't remember saying you have one of best memories? >> i don't remember. [ applause ] >> i'm sorry. that was the wrong -- that was the wrong footage. that's the high-functioning candidate from nine years ago, unable to recall if he has a good memory. >> okay. you're going to have to rewind that because we're going to play that again. willie, he doesn't remember -- good morning, willie. welcome, everybody. >> good morning. >> "morning joe." he doesn't remember saying that he has one of the best memories. he doesn't remember who james webb is. he doesn't -- there's so many things the guy doesn't remember. again, it's like everything else, the double standards are just so egregious.

yet, you have donald trump, again, over the weekend thinking he is running against barack obama and confusing it. >> yeah, i know. it's bizarre. he doesn't even know the day of the week sometimes when he's at an event. he doesn't know who he is running against, doesn't remember the details of his time as president. it is -- and the fact is, his gaffes, if you want to call them that, tend to be much weightier than joe biden's, which is to say -- >> right. >> he'll say, like, "oh, yes, i'd make the nato countries pay protection money or i'd let russia attack them," for example. might be a little worse than a slip of the tongue. so the idea that these are smoi somehow being presented as equivalent is preposterous. by the way, it was nice to see jon stewart in the chair again. >> he'll be doing the monday shows ahead of the presidential election. here, we'll have the latest from capitol hill where house republicans will again try to

impeach the homeland security secretary. in a special election in new york today, it's an important one because it could shrink the gop's majority in the lower chamber, as long island voters decide who is going to replace george santos. along with me, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. "the weekend's" michael steele, former chairman of the republican national committee. and news analyst john heilemann. congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany. t.j., do we have it cued back up? >> yes, sir. >> cued back up? okay. for everybody now that you're here, watch this. >> the footage of the president unable to recall simple facts must have been brutal to watch. >> james webb. >> i don't remember the name. i don't remember the name. >> i don't remember ever buying

something from myself. >> do you recall what years you were married to ms. maples? >> um -- i mean, i don't remember that. as good as my memory is, i don't remember that. but i have a good memory. >> you don't remember saying you have one of the best memories in the world? >> i don't remember. [ applause ] >> i'm sorry. that was the wrong -- that was the wrong footage. that's the high-functioning candidate from nine years ago, unable to recall if he has a good memory. >> yeah. john heilemann, we've seen examples over and over again of donald trump just losing it on stage here. you had the whole political world come to a stop. first of all, for some reason, you had the guy, the special counsel, asking, "hey, what year did your son die?"

supposedly, he didn't remember what year his son died. this was the most damning thing. i said this yesterday, and, i don't know, maybe it's just older people, we've lived a busy and active life, but nobody is closer to me, nobody has been closer to me in my life than my mom. if somebody asked me in the middle of a deposition, "what year did your mom die?" i'd go, i don't know, 2017, 2018, 2019? i don't know. i can tell you everything about it. i can tell you my final words. again, same thing with mika and her dad. the fact, first of all, that he was asking that question. secondly, that, somehow, that's the most damning thing, and the trump people are now saying the white house is like an old folks' home. they need to look inside their own glass house because inside that glass house, if the biden administration -- or the biden white house and the political

team know what they're doing, that's a glass house, the trump glass house, that's going to come crashing to the ground. there's clip after clip after clip of this guy not even remembering, you know, the most basic things. >> yeah. look, earlier, willie made some comment about how donald trump doesn't know what day it is. i was like, yo, simmer down. a lot of us have a problem with what day of the week. i can sort of remember, maybe, that the chiefs won the super bowl, but even that is fading fast for me. the fairest thing to say about this, joe, and this is, of course, our politics, so nothing will be fair about this, but both of these candidates are over the optimal age at which we would want a president to be. they are. if we had -- if we could rule this race by rationality, if we say, we'll have donald trump and joe biden, we should acknowledge the fact that they are, as the

special counsel unfairly said, biden got a shot, but they're elderly gentlemen. one is one already, and one will be soon, but they don't have the best memories. lemire remembers things most of the time, and i won't speak for michael steele. but we're all imperfect. if we're going to have battles of video tape between the candidates, pointing out that each one is not at their -- has lost a few miles an hour off their fastball from when they were at their best, joe biden is in a reasonable place to win. they have the same failings, but what joe biden doesn't have the propensity to lie pathologically about everything in the world, nor does joe biden have the tendency to say things that donald trump was saying, where he threatens to let vladimir

putin to attack nato allies, all the democracy-breaking things trump did. if you want to play on that battlefield, biden is in as good a place as any to take trump on. >> i'll tell you what else, as you're looking at those two pictures, michael steele, another big difference, one of those people actually know foreign policy. one of those people have no idea. one of those people spent the past 50 years getting the know every leader across the world. the other guy just goes around blowing things up. people may go, hey, that's cool. no, it's not really cool. we have spent the past 75 years creating the american century. there is a reason why over 75 years, america is stronger now than it has ever been militarily, why our economy is the strongest in the world, on and on. but you talk to both of those guys over an hour, both of those guys may forget a word, may

forget -- may stumble around. the difference, though, between those two people when it comes to memory, knowledge, and their mental capacity, is one of them doesn't know policy. one of them just blows things up and goes out ranting and plays fat elvis on stage because it's all he can do. he can't talk policy. joe biden, i've done it. you can sit down with him for an hour, and you can go around the world and ask tough questions around the world about what's going on. not only does he keep up, he knows more about it than any senator on capitol hill. he knows the ins, the outs. he knows the players. yeah, he doesn't talk to you like a 40-year-old woman or a 40-year-old man would talk to you. he talks to you like a guy who has been around a very long time and knows this stuff better than anybody else.

and a good parallel is warren buffett, who has been around a long time. people still hang on every word because, well, they'd like to get rich like warren buffett who is still active and still investing. that's the difference between these two. i'll say it, i've said it before and i'll say it again, with biden, it is presentation. it's, you know -- and the question is, why was he allowed to talk for five hours the day after the hamas terrorist attack, for five hours? it just didn't serve him well. it didn't serve the white house well. i'd even say it didn't serve the investigation well. >> so there's a number of things to unpack there, joe. i'll start with our friend, john's point, about we've passed the optimal point for having someone this age as president. i don't know. this is the first time we've

been here. we didn't seem to have a problem with reagan as an older presidential candidate and president. i think there are a number of variables that go into that. i think we're discovering for the first time what that limit may be. so having said that, here's where we are. can we get around the noise of how old the two men are? that's not changing between now and november. they're getting older, not younger. that's what we've got. voters had a choice when both men stood on the stage at their respective times running for president, and they were chosen by primary voters. let's get over that. to the point of how these individuals are performing, you are spot on. you are making the most critical point that the democrats continue to fail to make about their own candidate. that is, don't worry about whether or not he remembers something that happened 30 years

ago. listen to what he's telling you today. listen to how he's talking about and framing the arguments for this hour, oz we're confronting an explosion in europe because our republican senate and house members want to light the fuse for putin. listen to how he's talking about helping the nation recover from covid, from a downturn in the economy, from a loss of hope in jobs and opportunities. listen to how he's trying to move the nation off of the authoritarian, anti-democratic behavior of the other party. and so you do have some very clear contrast. >> hey, michael? >> as you said -- yeah, go ahead, joe. >> look in their bank account. why don't they do that, too? >> yes. >> for all these rich people that are bitching about how he's a socialist, and i heard another story about it last night.

people around the table, this guy has millions and millions of dollars, all he's doing is bitching about, oh, biden is a socialist, is surrounded by socialist. because he is a wealthy guy, nobody at the dinner table was saying anything to him. then a woman i know was telling me about how she said, "wait a second, how is biden a socialist?" well -- name one policy. name one person in his administration. well, i just know he is. well, he must know because he listens to fox news, fox business, or newsmax, stuff like that. that's what willie and i talk about all the time. you want to know how biden is doing? look at your 401(k). if you're one of these rich country club types that drive your ferrari or your maserati to country club and bitch about how horrible the economy is, look at your stock app and see how much

money you're making every hour. because there's not a crazy lunatic in the white house, there's somebody who actually respects the rule of law. there's actually somebody who respects american democracy. and, yes, there's actually somebody that respects american capitalism and what keeps it stable. these freaks, i'm not exactly sure what they think they're going to get from donald trump, but they'll get none of that. just look right in front of you right now when trying to figure out, michael, whether he's up for the job or not. your 401 suggests he is. >> i couldn't agree with you more. it's that type of evidence that still puzzles me that people plow through fast to get to the age of joe biden.

the next part of this was the point you made about putting him in situations that do not help that narrative, that, in fact, enhance the anti-biden narrative that republicans are going to run with. i don't understand the-- still to this moment, the political operation that allows some of the things that have happened with joe biden to happen, that do not take advantage of the very things that you're talking about. you sit the president down. when taylor swift is the "it" girl for the super bowl, and you have not just a recognized but a highly recognized, sizable uptick of young voters, particularly women, tuning in to watch the super bowl because of her, that's a political opportunity to have a conversation with those voters. so you tell the president, we're going to put you in something, have you looking cool, and sit you down and have a

conversation. i don't understand why they're so tone deaf to those moments, joe. you know, jonathan lemire reports on it. jackie reports on it. what's the -- i don't get the narrative here. i don't understand. what is it they're not getting about this man? let him be grandpa joe on super bowl sunday. let him be, you know, that comfortable sweater, if you will, to poke a little fun at himself, talk about the game, and show that, yeah, he's got his cognitive abilities in place, but he's also a guy who is trying to do things for people. that's going to be a critical test for this team going forward, as to whether or not they can get on the other side of these narratives. right now, joe, they're just backing themselves into the corner, and the republicans aren't the ones necessarily doing it every time. >> yeah. willie, a lot of people saying that he should have spoken, you know, if he had time for an interview in the super bowl.

you have 123 million people watching. that is an opportunity most politicians would not pass up. >> yeah, we learned yesterday, we'll talk more about this, the largest single audience in the history of broadcast television. 123 million. if you got a fraction of that, it would have been a good place to push out that message. let's turn to what's happening right now at this very moment in the united states senate. senators are voting on the final passage of the $95 billion foreign aid bill that includes support for ukraine, israel, and taiwan. the bill currently has the support of 60 plus senators which should guarantee its passage. some senate republicans are opposing the bill and gave hour long speeches overnight to delay the inevitable passage. why? because the legislation did not include border provisions. stronger than the border protection package they rejected last week.

that was bipartisan, of course. house speaker johnson already throwing water on this bill for foreign aid, saying congress needs to address border security. before the senate vote, speaker johnson wrote this, quote, "the mandate of the national security supplemental legislation was to secure america's own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world." again, the senate had a carefully crafted, bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill that was killed by senate republicans last week at the urging of former president trump who hopes to run on the issue of the border. so, jackie alemany, we'll get into that in a second. what is the status of the vote happening on the floor as we speak? does it look like they have the 60 to at least get it through the senate even if it is dead in the house? >> willie, from one geriatric pillow fight to another on the other side of washington, this is about to finally get through

without border deals or border amendments. there are lawmakers who flipped overnight. that was senator rish and senator bozman. they're now supporting the bill. at the end of the day, this is going to go to the house and either fail or get through and make house speaker johnson lose his job, potentially. but there were a number of really interesting and illuminating comments that happened while you were sleeping over the course of the last 12 hours. from frustrated senators, republicans who are trying to navigate this months long debate that has culminated with this overnight vote, who are frustrated with their colleagues who have, time and time again, called for border provisions to secure the border, who worked for months to negotiate this bipartisan border package which would have been the toughest in really modern history if it had

passed, and now are tanking it. furthermore, they're voting against providing any aid to our foreign allies in a time when they need it most, when ukraine is about to run out of ammunitions. so there are a number of isolationists, people who ultimately didn't come around and didn't support the vote. between democrats and republicans, there is enough support to get this through to the lower chamber. >> joe, i hope you don't mind, i'll borrow one of your phrases. this is so dumb, it makes your teeth hurt. let's listen to republican senator lindsey graham now changing his position on foreign aid. he's long been a hawk, talked about how important it is to support ukraine. now changing his position. guess why? donald trump said so. in a statement, senator graham announced he'd vote no on the senate's bill to provide the aid to ukraine, israel, and taiwan, instead, express support for a new plan put forth by donald trump. the south carolina republican wrote in part, "the supplemental aid package should be a loan to

the countries in question, as suggested by president trump. a loan on friendly terms allows america, who is deeply in debt," he writes," a chance to get our money back and changes the pair dime of how we help others. president trump is right to insist we think outside the box." trump wrote, "going forward, the united states should never provide aid to other countries unless there are," quote, "strings attached." there it is in a nutshell, joe, lindsey graham, a defense hawk, has talked a lot about how important it is to support ukraine, to be a stalwart against russia in europe, now because donald trump puts out this post on truth social, has completely reversed on everything he ever believed. particularly on this bill, joe, to listen to somebody like speaker johnson say, "we are not going to pass it in the house until you do something about border security." of course, as we just said, the senate did something it hadn't

done on a bipartisan basis in a generation, which is to provide over months of discussion and deliberation a bill on border security. >> oklahoma republican james lankford put together in a bipartisan way the toughest border security bill in the past 30 years. some say the toughest border security bill ever. they were going to pass it. then donald trump told them not to pass it, and so lindsey graham went from wanting to pass it to not wanting to pass i. now, lindsey graham completely betraying his past. completely betraying the memory of john mccain. completely betraying the people of ukraine. completely betraying the people of israel. completely betraying the people of taiwan. why? why? all because donald trump told him so. can you imagine being that weak? i can't. i can't imagine being such a

political coward that you would betray everything you ever believed because a failed reality tv show host told you to. and let's just be really clear here. because donald trump is sounding like, as usual, a complete idiot, and lindsey graham knows better than to accept the idiot's argument on giving money to ukraine, to israel, to taiwan to defend themselves. it was lindsey graham and other republicans who always said, you give this money to help our allies because it's better to fight them over there rather than over here, is what lindsey would always say. i'm not going to give you a history lesson, but this same type of idiocy was going around after world -- well, after world

war i, and so america retreated. wouldn't go in the league of nations. ended up giving us hitler. ended up giving us mussolini. ended up, by america's isolationism, allowing hitler to rise. what did that cause? caused a war. and america, because they didn't invest a little bit up front, because they didn't stay engaged, america had to start -- had to go to war after being attacked, a war that millions and millions and millions of people lost their lives in. and so here we are after that war -- again, please forgive me. this is relevant to this moment -- a lot of the same republican isolationists wanting to just go home. that's when harry truman got together with republican senator

who was a former isolationist, arthur vanderberg, and they worked together. they passed the truman doctrine. they passed the marshall plan. they invested in europe because communism was knocking on the door of western europe. yeah, they gave europe billions of dollars. and what happened? it created american century. those countries built their economies up, traded with america, and we were the first among equals. so, richard haass, let me bring you in here. it created the american century. without getting ahead of ourselves, what does everybody think is going to happen at the end of the russia-ukraine war? ecuador is not going to be

rebuilding ukraine if ukraine is free and turns into a westernized, democratic nation. venezuela is not. the united states will be there. united states businesses. united states contractors. united states you name it. you will be in there helping rebuild ukraine, and american will be making a lot of money off of it. let's be blunt. when lindsey graham says we need a loan because we ain't getting anything out of it, that's the backward thinking donald trump always had, that would have meant, if we followed the trump playbook, there would have never been a marshall plan. there would have never been the type of foreign aid that we invested across the world that allowed american businesses to grow and that created the american century, richard.

>> absolutely, joe. when historians look back at the last 75 year, they'll see it as a kind of golden era. what the people on the hill are doing, the republicans on the hill and donald trump, it's almost as if they're taking away the oxygen that has made this world possible, kept it alive for 75 years, and we take so much of it for granted, joe. there hasn't been a great power war. when else was that the case over the course of 75 years? wealth has increased orders and orders of magnitude. the average person on this planet lives several decades longer. more and more people are democratic or living in partially democratic countries than ever before. it didn't just automatic. it isn't the natural way of things. it was because of american leadership. the institutions we fashioned, the alliances we buttressed. people can disagree with joe

biden about this or that policy, but he believes in this architecture. what we now have with donald trump and his followers are people who want to destroy the architecture, who want to destroy the edifice of what has worked for 75 years, and they have absolutely nothing to put in its place. when it's gone, it's going to be gone. that's when people are going to notice the lack of oxygen. >> lindsey graham is not alone. republican senator ron johnson says the united states needs to accept that, quote, ukraine can't win its war with russia. in an interview yesterday for a far-right website, the wisconsin lawmaker was asked about an interview that former fox news anchor, tucker carlson, did with russian president vladimir putin in moscow last week. take a look. >> listen very carefully to the tucker interview. understand, take things with a grain of salt, but a lot of the points vladimir putin made are

accurate. they're obvious. so many people here in washington, d.c., are just ignoring that, making people believe that ukraine can win. ukraine can't -- putin won't lose. putin will not lose. he's not going to lose. you have to accept that into the reality if you're going to deal with this thing effectively, to bring this war to an end. >> first will note, ron johnson is president biden's least favorite senator. joe, think of the confluence of events here. we have putin expressing real confidence in his chances to continue to make ground in ukraine. we have donald trump speculating over the weekend, not only that he wouldn't support nato, but he'd encourage russia to invade nato countries and not come to their defense. now, we have republicans not just in the house, but in the senate, parroting putin talking points and abandoning the quest to supply ukraine with aid. even as that bill seems likely to pass the upper chamber, it has now passed, it seems dead on

arrival in the house unless speaker johnson reverses course. if he does, it'll cost him his job because he'll defy donald trump. you can safely bet he won't. >> he likely won't. john heilemann, this is a moment where we need to stop and realize that, yes, everybody has been desensitized by the insane ramblings of donald trump through the years. by his crazy actions. this is the time to stop, though. for people to realize, and, my god, i hope people who once supported donald trump will move away from him and realize that this is -- donald trump is not talking about putin and russia invading our european allies. he's not saying that for no reason. he's not talking about how great orban is, a guy who attacks

western democracy, and donald trump says, "you know what? i'm going to be a dictator from day one, and america needs a strongman." these ramblings, they're made with a very clear intent. to let voters know what he is going to get after he is president of the united states. after he's the president of the united states and crushes constitutional norms and probably ignores supreme court rulings -- i think that's next -- and just completely trashes the u.s. constitution, he'll say, well, this is what i ran on, and this is what you all voted for. but this is a moment where you have republicans parroting vladimir putin. you have the republican nominee, likely nominee, saying, "yes, putin, invade europe. russia, invade europe." you have all of these things happening at the same time. it's not an accident. and i've got to say, even i am

shocked that republicans on the hill haven't stood up to donald trump, saying that russia should invade nato allies. but they haven't, which means, again, this is a moment in time everybody has to stop and recognize that not only is american democracy on the line, but freedom across the globe on the line. donald trump is siding with xi. donald trump is siding with putin. donald trump is siding with kim jong-un. these are the people that he wants to make alliances with and he wants to turn his back on a free europe. >> right. read the writing on the wall, joe. all that is true about trump. we have talked now for the last, you know, six, seven years about the way in which the republican party has capitulated to trump and become a party unrecognizable from the republican party that you joined when you were a wee one in the northwest florida and in fwachlt

georgia and other places where you grew up. you hear donald trump saying the things he is saying about putin. at the same time that's happening, that trump is saying those things, giving a permission slip, encouragement to putin and saying, you know, "if the nato allies don't pay their bills, their dues, whatever, please, i'd encourage you to go in and invade those countries," you have tucker carlson over in moscow, sitting in front of vladimir putin, doing a softball interview with vladimir putin. then you have ron johnson, these are just, like, the points that you kind of connect, connect these dots. here's ron johnson who sounded in that clip like the senior senator saying, we have to tell the american people the truth. there's no stopping vladimir putin. he says without a tone of regret. he's in awe of putin, you can't stop him. there is no way ukraine can win this war. forget neville chamberlain and

appeasement. this is a guy in the grandstands, not cheering hitler on, but he's like, man, that guy hitler, he's got a lot of strength, a lot of power. you can't stop him. we have to give it up here. lindsey graham, incredible spectacle of mendacity and buffoonery and self-abasement. would you imagine you would have ever heard lindsey graham, whatever you thought of him back in the day -- >> no. >> -- saying, as donald trump suggested -- not only is it a trump line, but throughout the prepared statement, it's peppered with these bouquets that he is throwing to trump along the way. it's not enough to take trump's position. you have to, along the way, every third sentence, sort of acknowledge that it's trump's position. it's that, the cultishness of the republican party toward trump is on vivid display here. what that amounts to in the context of world affairs is now increasingly something that comes close to being a cult to vladimir putin. i mean, that's where we are

drifting now. >> it is. it is. the cult is moving. it is moving -- well, a cult on the far-right started with orban, who hates western democracy and hates everything that has made this country great. it's really unbelievable, willie. with lindsey graham, you have him self-fulfilling his prophecy from years back. he said, if the republican party nominates donald trump, they'll be destroyed and they'll deserve it. here is a republican party that cozies up to vladimir putin, the leader of communist china, the leader of communist north korea, who wants to abandon an ally fighting against a russian invader because they want freedom. they want to be like us.

they want to look westward instead of looking towards moscow. lindsey graham is abandoning them. ron johnson is abandoning them. tom cotton is abandoning them. ted cruz is abandoning them. all these so-called conservatives who are anything but are abandoning the freedom fighters whose very not only live lives are on the line, but those country's freedom is hanging by a precarious thread right now. it's the republican party of ronald reagan cutting that thread. >> and it's all in the service, obviously, of donald trump. as john said, that three sentence statement from lindsey graham had trump's name in it twice. as donald trump said. as president trump has said. he wants to make sure donald trump hears that, to stay in his good graces, to become secretary of state? i don't know what. let's remind people what

republican senators are defending here. this is donald trump speaking at that rally on saturday about what he would do if he were president to our nato allies in their relationship with russia, if russia wanted to attack, followed by senator roger marshall, a republican, reacting. >> one of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, "well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by russia, will you protect us?" i said, "you didn't pay? you're delinquent?" he said, "yes, let's say that happened." "no, i would not protect you. in fact, i would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. you have to pay. you have to pay your bills." [ applause ] >> i'd encourage people not to overreact. i've learn add long time ago not to overreact to what president trump says or what he tweets. people should take everything he says seriously but not literally. vladimir putin is scared to death of donald trump. he treats joe biden like his boy, like his puppet. >> we are from poland, sir, and

those comments really caused shockwaves in our country and in other countries in our region. how can we rely on a president who claims that he will let russia do whatever the heck think want? >> that is inaccurate reporting on what president trump was saying. >> what would you say to those countries who are now panicked about what he just said? >> yeah, they need to get over it. they need to stand up and be tough. >> unclear what he's talking about, inaccurate reporting. we played the bite. you hear it for yourself, what donald trump said. if anything, michael steele, these last couple of days have reminded us, and really put the spotlight on the fact that these republicans will do anything for donald trump. doesn't matter who they are, what the issue is. they find themselves scrambling to defend him even when he's talking about allowing our allies to be attacked. which tells you, if he is put back in the white house, it is a blank check. it is carte blanche. there is nobody who is going to stand in his way.

>> yeah, willie, you play the clips back-to-back, and you hear the idiocy. what else is he going to say? he's not going to sit there and do what, you know, a senator from 20, 25 years ago in the republican party would do if a president said, "i'll let russia roll over europe." there would be outrage up, down, in and out of the party. now, it's applauding the idiocy of donald trump. as joe put it, a salesman who got lucky and got a television show and suckered everyone into believing he was an actual businessman. that's what we're dealing with. the basement of the republican party by its own members is stunning. from the humiliation of the rnc chairman to the absolute embarrassment of the words coming out of lindsey graham's mouth and others, you sit here

and wonder if you are an american citizen about to vote. okay, yeah, i don't think i really want that, but that's not the case, is it? poll after poll is showing donald trump beating joe biden because they think this lunacy, this lunacy that you just played, the idiocracy that is now in the republican party is going to be a better solution for whatever problems they think they have or may really have, than what joe biden is doing right now. trying to hold the course for the country's economy and protect the nation from having to get into a larger conflict in europe, to stabilize the unstable moment in the middle east. they think this, what you just played, is a better solution.

and they think these people who are feeding this are going to be -- are the best leaders for this country right now. so the american people have to do a lot of deep soul searching here, folks. y'all have to get your heads out of wherever it is and understand what's in front of you. the man told you he wants to be a dictator. what the hell do you think that means? he's not going to provide you with popcorn or make life better for you. dictators don't do that. pick up a damn history book and read it. understand exactly what he is telling you he is going to do. and the people around him, that are perpetuating this, that are pushing this out, they need to be unelected. do not risk the future of your children and grandchildren to this stupidity. it's not worth it. we are better than this. but here we are, joe and willie. here we are, right?

>> yeah. listening to those senators, they're all prepared to go along were the ride. speaking of supporting our allies, the foreign aid bill in the senate passed by a vote of 70-29, jackie alemany. it does clear the senate. about $95 billion between ukraine, israel, taiwan. humanitarian aid to gaza, as well. it is through the senate. the threshold was 60. they got to 70 votes there. now, it moves to the house, where, as we said earlier, jackie, speaker mike johnson says, forget about it, unless we do more about the border, which the senate just did last week. >> yeah, willie. it's unclear when the house is exactly going to bring this up or whether they'll bring it up at all. as house speaker johnson said in a statement yesterday, he does not want this to make the floor. he realizes his job is on the line if he does bring it up. people like congresswoman marjorie taylor greene and other parts, the faction of the america first wing of the party that makes up a significantly

larger portion of the house gop conference in the house than it does in the senate, has threatened to initiate a motion to vacate yet again, repeating this cycle we already saw with former house speaker kevin mccarthy. there are a few other options that are being debated at the moment. some senators were talking to my colleagues overnight about the potential to work around speaker johnson, help him keep his job, and work with democrats to have democrats have a discharge petition, which would require four signatures from republicans who were supportive of this funding in order to introduce it and get it onto the floor. ultimately, that would require 218 votes. unclear whether or not those votes exist. as we also know, there are a handful of democrats who are opposed to this funding. you had people like senator welch, bernie sanders, and one other democrat in the senate who ultimately joined with the 29 to vote against this package in the

senate. that number might be a bit bigger in the house with some of these anti-israel, far-left democrats. so we'll see what happens. there are a number of options, and it could go any which way with a house this divided. >> all right. "the washington post"'s jackie alemany, thank you so much. of course, we're also going to be following the possible impeachment of secretary mayorkas later today. again, as jackie said, now that it's passed the senate in overwhelming manner, now it goes to the house. there is something called the discharge petition. four republicans sign it. believe me, there are four republicans who want to get aid to ukraine and israel. then that is a discharge petition, puts it on the floor, and then you have the vote on the floor. that's something that johnson can do nothing to stop. so there is that possibility for

it to pass. let's hope there are four republicans who have the courage to actually stand up to this pro-putin yammering we're hearing from certain corners of the republican party. richard haass, i want to end with you. first of all, let's just -- i mean, i've got to -- we got to bring up the absolute hypocrisy of donald trump lecturing anybody on paying their bills. talk to anybody who worked for donald trump in new york city. he never pays his bills. he'll sue you and try to pay 50% of what he owes. that's been his life plan, to never pay his bills. so he's lecturing europe on paying their bills. then you had marshall, senator marshall say that europe needed to do something, that they needed to get over it or whatever. i mean, i've got to say, that's tommy tuberville territory right

there. that's not a positive thin for senator marshall. i'm surprised anybody would say something so ignorant. europe has already passed a bill. the eu has already sent, richard, $54 billion to ukraine. now, it's our turn to send $60 billion to ukraine. so vladimir putin and russian troops don't march into kyiv. >> yeah, joe, it's hard to know where to begin because it's ignorant about where an alliance works. when you unpack it, it's almost as if none of these people is either able or willing to understand that we get more out of this than we give. the europeans, by helping maintain security in europe, this is something that we get. foreign policy isn't philanthropy. it's not all give, no get.

we get an enormous amount from this. not one american has lost his life in ukraine at last check. >> richard, richard, not one american has lost their life, and the russian military has been degraded to such a point that it will take them a generation to rebuild. and the russian military was still ranked as the second most powerful military in the world behind the united states before this war began. they have been destroyed as a fighting military unit in a significant way, and not one american has died. >> absolutely. this has been an accomplishment for the american foreign policy. the biden administration deserves credit here. what is also interesting, joe, is all these characters stand up and talk about the threat from iran, which is real, or they talk about the potential threat from china. guess what?

iran and china are watching what is going on here. ukraine is not in a different universe. what is at issue here is american willingness and ability to be reliable, predictable, to be there for its friends and allies. guess what? if we show we are unwilling to stand by ukraine, which is only defending itself, no more than that, if we show unwilling to do that, our friends are going to basically come up with -- they'll have to appease or decide they need nuclear weapons of their own. how will that work for us and the world? china and iran will press against us. all these people who claim to be responsible national security hawks, guess what? they are putting in motion trends that will increase the amount of violence and conflict in the world dramatically. that is the consequence of pulling the rug out from under ukraine. >> for now anyway, that bill, the foreign aid, $95 billion, has passed the united states senate just moments ago by a

vote of 70-29. speaker johnson, again, says it has no chance in the house. we'll keep an eye on this. richard haass, thanks so much. we appreciate it. still ahead this morning on "morning joe," the latest on donald trump's legal troubles, including the supreme court's new involvement in his immunity fight. and another closed door hearing today related to trump's handling of classified documents. also ahead, nikki haley launches a new attack against trump after he questioned the whereabouts of her husband. we'll show you her new remarks. and new york's third congressional district is holding a special election today to replace ousted republican congressman george santos. steve kornacki will join us to break down the national implications of that vote today. as the rain and now snow begin to fall in times square in new york city. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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live picture of reagan national airport, 6:53 in the morning. a little precipitation. snow on the way, we're told. donald trump's legal team yesterday asked the supreme court to put on hold a ruling from a federal appeals court. last week, the three-judge panel rejected the argument that trump has presidential immunity for his actions in the lead up to and on the day of the january 6th insurrection. if the supreme court denies trump's request, the case would go back to washington-based judge tanya chutkan. earlier this month, she delayed the march 4th trial date until the question of trump's immunity is decided. let's bring in former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. good morning. good to see you. >> hi, willie. >> trump's team go to the supreme court with this question. what's your sense of how it'll play out? >> first of all, the question as

you correctly noted was that trump wants a stay from the supreme court, which would mean not letting the case go back to judge chutkan for pretrial proceedings and preparation for a trial that would take at least several more weeks. my inclination is that is not going to happen for a couple of reasons. one, in order to get a stay from the supreme court, you have to make a very specific showing. you have to show that you have a likelihood of winning your appeal and you have to show you'd be irreparably harmed by the case going forward. in both cases, i think trump will fall short of the five votes that he will need to get a stay. it's ordinary supreme court math that you need four justices to grant review but five justices to grant a stay. it's hard for me to see how he gets that, particularly given my review of this petition. >> what would be the time line on this here? >> anything the supreme court wants it to be. this is a supreme court that can move with all deliberate speed

when it chooses to. the supreme court decision of bush v gore, and it could be four days, and that's brief and oral argument. or they could grant a stay and ask for briefings on a cert petition, taking weeks and weeks, schedule oral argument far out, perhaps even beyond june. i don't think that's going to happen, but the timing here, john, is entirely in the supreme court's hands. >> certainly the trump team rooting for delays. let's turn to the other trump legal matters. there are so many. there's a closed door hearing in the trump classified documents case in south florida this morning. what's your sense as to what's going to happen there? >> yesterday, judge canon heard from both sides but separately. she heard from the special counsel's office. they had three hours to talk about what information they wanted to hold from former president trump and

co-defendants. yesterday, she seems to have heard a lot from the trump said and then from the special counsel. today, she's bringing together the special counsel's office with lawyers only for trump's co-defendants, walt nauta and deolevera, ordinary citizens, and whether they have access to the documents. lastly, georgia. tell us what the judge decided yesterday. there is another hearing scheduled for thursday. preview for that, as well. is there a chance the district attorney might have to relinquish the case? >> there is a possibility she does. it all depends on a name our viewers and you will not recognize. terrence bradley. he was nathan wade's close friend, business partner, and later divorce attorney. he will be the first witness at that evidentiary hearing. depending on what he says, judge mcafee said he might rule to keep out testimony from willis

and nathan wade, but he might allow it because terrence bradley is expected to testify he knows that a relationship between willis and wade was going on far longer than either one of them has admitted and the state admitted in the papers. he also says they were co-habiting, something they denied, in a safehouse paid for by fulton county. some of those will be relevant to the judge. he couldn't decide yesterday before hearing from mr. bradley whether or not their testimony ultimately will be relevant to whether there was a financial conflict of interest that would disqualify district attorney willis. >> thank you, lisa. we'll get updates on the war in hamas, and the senate just passed a standalone bill for both countries. we'll be right back. countries we'll be right back.

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it's snowing for real at coney island. it begins to come down harder now. 7:00 on "morning joe." jonathan lemire is joining the conversation, mike barnicle. the host of the podcast "on brand with donny deutsch," donny deutsch. and member of the editorial board, mara gay. on capitol hill, the senate just voted to pass a$95 billion foreign aid bill including support for ukraine, israel, and taiwan. the standalone bill comes after republicans in the upper chamber tanked a border security and foreign aid package last week. the bill now heads to the house where it faces an uncertain future, to be generous. mike johnson says congress needs to focus on border security before foreign aid. they already did that, but we'll put that to the side for a

moment. here's what majority leader chuck schumer said about the passage of this morning's bill. >> today, we make vladimir putin regret the day he questioned america's resolve, and we make clear to others like china's president xi not to test our determination. and we send a clear, bipartisan message of resolve to our allies in nato. with the strong bipartisan support we have here in the senate with this vote, i believe that if speaker johnson brought this bill to the house floor, it will pass with the same strong bipartisan support. >> joe, 70 votes is a sizable chunk of the united states senate, passing this foreign aid bill. $95 billion. ukraine, israel, gaza humanitarian assistance, and, also, taiwan and other partners

in the pacific. what we've heard from some of the senators is that they want border security before they want to help foreign countries. they just participated in a process in the united states senate where republican senators james lankford gave them just that. now, the house says it will not pass, at least speaker johnson does, it will not pass this bill that just passed this morning in the senate because he wants border security addressed, which the senate just did last week. >> right. well, it's mind-boggling. you have in the united states senate one of the most conservative senators, james lankford, pass the toughest border security bill -- or put together the bipartisan plan to pass the toughest border security bill in well over a generation. a tougher bill than republicans could ever dream of getting in the future.

and republican senators said no because donald trump told them to say no. you have the senate passing overwhelmingly a bill to rescue ukraine from russian foreign invaders. lindsey graham votes no because donald trump tells him to vote no. i could go down the list of republicans. it's not even worth it. we heard roger marshall doing his best tommy tuberville imitation, saying, you know, european allies should just get over it when donald trump said that he's going to allow an invasion of their country by put putin, that he is going to encourage it. this is the same donald trump, remember, again, these dots all connect, this is the same donald trump who, of course, said after the invasion that vladimir putin was brilliant. that the invasion was brilliant. that he is a very smart man. so you have all of this going on, but this is where we find

ourselves now. yes, i became a republican, i think, when i was 20, 21, 22. i forgot the year i became a republican. but i became a republican and worked and fought in a republican party that fought -- i can only speak for myself -- for balanced budgets. we balanced the budget four years in a row for the first time since the 1920s. only time in 100 years that's happened. now, you have donald trump republicans who spent more money and raised deficit and debt more than anybody else. we not only fought to balance a budget and balance a budget four years in a row. we also fought hard to push back on communist aggression, whether that communist aggression was coming from china, whether the communist aggression was coming from north korea, whether that

aggression was coming from russia. which wasn't as much of a problem back then. i flew 19 hours to send a message, along with other republicans, to china, to see the first democratically elected president of taiwan. i flew 19 hours to taiwan. i stayed in taiwan for about, i think, ten hours, and then i flew 19 hours back because i was on the armed services committee. i wanted to send a strong message, along with other members of the armed services committee, together, collectively, to send a message to communist china. keep your hands off taiwan. we're here. we're going to do what it takes to defend democracy in taiwan. mara gay, this morning, that party's gone. >> yeah. >> you have a party now that is encouraging the invasion of

europe, a party right now whose senators are saying europe should just get over it. a party being every bit as isolationist as charles lindbergh. i wouldn't put them in the category of neville chamberlain because he was an honest man. he just made a bad decision. these people are more vladimir putin. as david frum tweeted, "putin's last hope is speaker mike johnson." think about that, mara. vladimir putin's last hope, this war criminal in russia, his last hope is the republican speaker of the house. i know you don't have to love the republican party or ever have loved the republican party in the past to say, well, they're kind of less dangerous

when they pushed back on communist thugs and balanced budgets. that time is long gone. >> well, it's amazing because, you know, i am old enough to remember when john mccain was the republican nominee who was, of course, a war hero and a patriot. the fall has been rapid. the decline of the party. i actually think that vladimir putin's last hope is seeing donald trump in office again. as horrific as it has been to see ukraine, you know, having to fight for its life essentially, to see the horror and the war since october 7th and on october 7th in israel and in gaza and the suffering is just unimaginable, it's also incredible to me that we aren't hearing more on the campaign trail about what all of this could look like if donald trump

were actually in the white house right now. it's very clear that it would be unimaginably worse. i mean, donald trump is somebody who has open admiration for dictators, including vladimir putin. he's also somebody who is very supportive of bibi netanyahu, who i think is not our friend in this instance. >> not our friend. >> not so sure about bibi netanyahu. so i actually wonder, too, just when you talk to voters, because i've been out on the trail talking to voters, you hear a lot about anger toward the u.s. policy in israel and gaza. some of it is understandable. but there's not a lot of discussion of what this might look like if donald trump returns to the white house. do we think that he's going to show our friends more compassion

or solidarity? do we think that he's going to care about palestinian children? i'm going to say that's a no. >> yeah. >> what we've seen the last two days is a reminder that republicans will go right along with it. jonathan lemire, president zelenskyy of ukraine out with a statement as this 70-29 vote, this aid made its way through the senate. he said he is grateful to senator schumer, leader mcconnell, and every united states senator supporting continued assistance in ukraine as we fight for freedom, democracy, and the values we all hold dear. he reiterates that it is american assistance that's helping them, that's keeping them alive in this fight, as he calls it, to fight russian terror. it means that life will continue in our cities and will triumph over war. american assistance brings just peace in ukraine closer and restores global stability. he goes on thanking america again and making the point, perhaps to those sitting in the house of representatives, about

how critical and how crucial this aid is, not just to ukraine's survival but for the stability of the west. >> yeah. zelenskyy certainly very grateful in that message. hitting a lot of the same themes we hear from president biden all the time, who from the early days of this war has said it is the u.s. obligation to step forward and help ukraine to repel russia, to protect a fellow democracy. there is a sense that if this bill were to get a vote in the house of representatives, it stands a fairly good chance of passing, but speaker johnson said he won't allow it, the house has to find its own way, he said in a statement last night. mike barnicle, if this bill goes in defeat and ukraine is left alone, we know the catastrophic consequences it could leave to ukraine. it also seems europe is already anticipating that, a, that could happen, or, b, preparing for a post joe biden america, which could be the return of donald trump. reporting in recent days is europe, which already passed legislation to aid ukraine, is

suggesting that it needs to bolster defenses and toughen alliances because they can't count on america anymore. that would reshape the global. >> jonathan, 11 minutes past 7:00 in the morning. it's snowing outside. it's a gray morning. i've been around the block a few times in my life. i've seen a few things in my life. i am trying, god knows i am trying to keep a smile on my face. i am trying to be optimistic because i'm optimistic by nature. but the nature of our politics right now at this moment is so negative, so depressing, that i find it difficult to stay in the game with a smile on my face. i mean, we have a republican party, and it used to be not that long ago, on any major issue, that you could count on a majority of people in the house, a majority of people in the senate, of both parties, who when given the choice between country and party, would choose country. they'd go with the country.

what the country needs, okay. idealogically, i have an issue with this, but it's for the country, i'm for the country. now, it's the country versus trump. you've got nearly an entire political party, the republican party, choosing an individual, not ideology, an individual donald trump over the united states of america. so, i'm sorry i'm depressed. i'm sorry i'm upset about it. but it's the fact of our lives. >> well, and, donny, it's a fact that a lot of americans are there. they want to elect a guy that's said he's going to terminate the constitution, that said he is going to be a strongman, that said he'll be a dictator on day one, a guy that has said that he shouldn't be arrested if he gets

s.e.a.l. team six assassinating his political opponents. just go down the list. and a guy who told vladimir putin to invade europe. there you have it. that's the reality. a lot of americans are still with him. i will say this, everybody, if you have a paper bag at home, get it. open it up. put it to your mouth. breathe into it. exhale, all right? or just take deep breaths. it's february. let me say it again. it's february. so, donny, instead of being seals that are barking at the waves crashing, we can actually change things. we americans who believe in democracy at home, we americans who believe in democracy abroad. we americans who support, you know, i'll speak for myself, balanced budgets.

we americans who support a strong southern border. we can change things, donny. but i'm sure you've, as an advertising legend, i'm sure across your career, you've had a product that you believed in that the people who hired you also believed in, and you put it out there and it didn't sell for whatever reason. it didn't sell. so in this case it's not so much selling joe biden, or maybe it is, but how do we crack this code? how do we get americans to understand the dangers of donald trump? right now, the majority of americans, maybe 48% of americans, not only do they not

find him to be a dangerous force, they say they're going to vote for him. >> part of the problem is getting people to pay attention. you know, so many people i'll talk to, you know, the democrats and the border, democrats and the border. i'll explain, well, have you been paying attention? do you understand that the democrats put forth -- bipartisan, was put forth the strongest border bill in our lifetime, and the republicans shot it down? they kind of have a blank look on their face. the things we talk about every morning, i don't know if the average person is registering it. they're just trump, biden sucks, biden is a socialist. are they paying attention? do they even understand that the ex-president got up there and said, "yeah, if some of our nato allies don't pay it, carte blanche, just go invade them, russia, my friend vladimir putin." so the message is one thing. but we have a country that is

just not paying attention to what's going on. and so part of it is that. the second part is the message. you talked a lot in the earlier hour about biden and, you know, is he too old and everything that's happened there. they have to take the bubble wrap off. he should have done the super bowl interview. he can't hide. he's got to get out there and punch. he's got to say the things i was just saying, and let the chips fall where they may. but i'm worried. joe, i called you on the phone yesterday, i'm concerned. part of it is we have a nation that's just got their heads up their blanks and just don't know what the hell is going on. >> mike, a poll from abc this week, and i'm sure i misread it, i may not have, though, but i went back and looked at it again. i think the poll from abc news said that 86% of americans think that joe biden is too old to run for president again. of course, the majority of

americans believe donald trump is too old to run for president. but more so on the biden part. the question is this, do you agree with donny, that the bubble wrap needs to come off and joe biden needs to get out there a lot more, or does joe biden need to keep doing what he is doing, working on -- you know, the guy is slammed on one foreign policy crisis after another. he is campaigning some. what's the best approach? do they need to put him out a lot more, as donny said? >> well, i think they will. jonathan can probably tell us more about that than anybody here at this table. i think they will. i think that's the plan. right now, look, he's the president of the united states. just think of being president. none of us can imagine the weight of that job on an hourly basis each and every day. but he does it. joe, you have spoken to people. i have spoken to people on the issue of age and president biden. you know and i have heard the

same thing, they have sat at tables in the situation room or the white house, and he has given them a seminar on world issues, global issues, leaders, foreign leaders who are both pro-american and anti-american, the issues confronting country by country by country as he went around the globe explaining things. all of it without notes. all of it right on point. i'm less worried about his intellect and his ability to do the job than i am about what is around him. what are they doing to move him out into the country? to get people to see the joe biden that you know, joe, that i have come to know, that people around him know. i mean, he's great with people. they haven't done that. part of it is the fence that's put around any president. the security issues. i would venture to guess, i think with some sense of knowledge about it, that the threat level on the president of the united states, not just because it's joe biden, is literally off the charts each

and every day with all dangers that are out there. so there is a protective element about the president that prevents him from really getting to the country the way you could maybe ten years ago. >> that's part of the nature of the office these days. there are debates now within the white house as to how to approach this issue in the wake of the special counsel report. they're pushing back on the report itself. we saw the white house spokesman go through it line by line at the briefing the other day, rebutting it. there's debates about seeing if they can release the transcript. the classified documents part of it, they think it could show biden was much more with it and answering the questions forthrightly than hur presented in his summary. in terms of putting him out there, yes, there are plans to do that, but they haven't acted on it yet. there's certainly second-guessing in the white house about that impromptu, hastily called press conference when president biden angrily denounced the report and got into a contentious back and forth with reporters.

aides wish that had gone differently, either they staged it differently or waited until the next morning perhaps. there was second guessing, to donny's point, about not doing the super bowl interview. the president appeared yesterday with the king of jordan but didn't take questions. showing more of the back and forth to assuage doubts in voters' minds about whether he's up for the job. i think we'll see more of him in the days ahead. that includes friday when he finally makes the trip to east palestine, ohio, for the train crash. he might deal with a hostile crowd. that'll be a moment, too, people will be watching. >> joe, republicans think they have their issue now for the election. "axios" is reporting they want to have hearings about joe biden's mental fitness, about his acuity, and call robert hur as a witness to go through the transcript and talk about the answers and make this a weeks and perhaps months long thing that takes us all the way to the election. so this is all people are talking about, at least all republicans are talking about. >> well, i mean, i think the end

of the day, that's great. t.j., can you get the jon stewart clip lined up? i mean, i think that's great because what you're going to have in that situation is you're going to have donald trump actually looking -- you'll have joe biden forgetting a word here or there, mumbling around a little bit, maybe stuttering some, which he has been doing since he was a young kid. then he'll clean it up because he'll recognize what's going on. donald trump, you've got a guy who will get in the middle of the speech and his brain will just freeze. he'll go, ah -- and he'll keep talking, trying to remember joe biden's name, and then go back to barack obama. he believes that he ran against barack obama. he believes he beat barack obama. he believes that he's running against barack obama right now. this past weekend, he again eluded to the fact that barack obama was president of the united states. that continues. he did the same thing with nikki

haley. nikki, nikki, nikki, trying to remember nancy pelosi's name. he can't remember nancy pelosi's name, so he goes back to hail nikki haley. this happens time and again with trump. if i'm the biden white house, i want this. you want to fight on these grounds? okay. that's fine. we'll fight on these grounds anytime and win. here's jon stewart. jon stewart back, of course, "the daily show" one day a week. he had a doozy of an opening last night. take a look. >> the footage of the president unable to recall simple facts must have been brutal to watch. >> james webb. >> i don't remember the names. i don't remember the name. i don't remember ever buying something for myself. >> do you recall what years you were married to ms. maples? >> um -- i mean, i don't remember that.

as good as my memory is, i don't remember that. but i have a good memory. >> you don't remember saying you have one of the best memories in the world? >> i don't remember. [ cheers and applause ] >> sorry. that was the wrong -- that was the wrong footage. that's the high-functioning candidate from nine years ago, unable to recall if he has a good memory. >> yeah. now, he doesn't recall who the sitting president of the united states is. donny, i'm sorry, there's a lot to work with there. >> there's a lot, lot to work with. you know, you've got to -- for some reason, donald trump gets graded on a curve as far as his age, as far as his insanity, and, to your point, joe, yes, joe biden will stumble a little bit. joe biden, since he was a kid, he has a stutter. the other guy, not only is the other guy old, the other guy is

insane. the things that come out of his mouth, it's not just a stutter. it is dangerous insanity. beyond getting biden out there more and letting him punch, you've got to show that contrast. right now, we have a binary choice. you have one guy who, yes, he's old, and, yes, he stutters a little bit. we have another guy who is old and, on any level, is dangerously sociopathically insane. >> yeah. >> that's the contrast. that's the choice. >> you have two old dudes that are running for president of the united states. one of them is old, deranged, crazy and wants to be a dictator. there you go. i've spent time with joe biden, as willie eluded to, at length. and anybody who has, especially about foreign policy, understands he's more on top of foreign policy and leaders and what to do than any politician

i've met in washington, d.c., on the hill. it's just the truth. there are people here that we have on the show who are very good and understand what's going on right now. joe biden has 45 years of experience. he knows most of the leaders on the globe personally, from his time as vice president of the united states. and he uses all of that, whether he is working in the middle east right now, trying to figure out a way forward with a two-state solution, or whether he is working in ukraine, working with russia, trying to figure out how to move forward in that situation, as well. same thing with china. he and xi knew each other when they were both the number two people in their country. it makes a difference. we saw that at the san francisco meeting. that experience makes a difference. the big lie of experience, we'll talk about a big lie there, that a president doesn't need experience, that donald trump

can just wing it and throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks and what doesn't stick, it is extraordinarily dangerous. we saw that. it ended in a riot on january 6th. ended in a riot. are we really going to do that again? well, you know, there have been questions about joe biden, and questions arose especially after the release of robert hur's report on president biden's handling of classified documents. it's amplified scrutiny about the president's age. in a new exclusive interview with vice president kamala harris for "the wall street journal," two days before the hur report came out, harris says she is, quote, ready to serve. the general writes, quote, "there is no question about that. harris responded bluntly. everyone on the job walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead." lest bring in right now reporter

for "the wall street journal who conducted the interview. thank you so much for being with us, tarini parti. what was your takeaway from the vice president. >> thanks for having me. the vice president is ready to serve. of course, this question normally doesn't come up as much for vice presidents, but this is something she is having to face because she is vice president to the oldest president. now, with this hur report, this is going to keep coming up for her as republicans try to make this an issue on the campaign trail. the other thing that was interesting from my interview with her and i spent a lot of time talking to her about abortion and the way she's talking about abortion rights. this is an issue that, a rare issue that democrats have an advantage on that we've seen in polls, and it is way she's talking about is it especially interesting because she's not really holding back. she's getting into pretty explicit details in a way we don't usually see elected officials do. she said part of that is trying to get people to feel some

empathy and to see what is actually going on in these states. she's using that sort of former prosecutor background. she's worked on sexual assault cases to really get her message out. you know, i asked her if she feels like she needs to convince voters she's ready, and she shut that down and said she feels ready and thinks voters can see it while she's on the campaign trail, on this issue of abortion rights. >> tarini, mara gay with "the new york times." the president has been on the trail a lot lately. do you expect you'll see a different role for her if joe biden does win re-election? is she doing anything special behind the scenes, too, that maybe the public isn't aware of to prepare in the eventuality that she would have to step up, god forbid? >> we have seen her take on more of a national security type portfolio. she has been involved in, you know, advising the president on the war in the middle east.

she's been on calls with benjamin netanyahu. she has been pushing the administration to adopt sort of a more empathetic posture towards palestinians. and to focus more on a post-war gaza plan. we know she's talking about that more. she gave the big speech in dubai a few weeks ago. she's taking on more of a national secure portfolio. she's also now leading the white house office on gun violence prevention. they are trying to give her more visibility as these questions about the president's age keep coming up. of course, now with this special counsel report, they're going to become an even bigger campaign issue. >> tartarini, as we've been talg about how much or how little we'll see joe biden himself on the campaign trail given all these questions about his performance and age and all of that from some people, do you get the sense from vice president harris herself or from people around her, from the

campaign, that we're going to be seeing much more of her perhaps in places that the president won't be? >> i definitely think so. she told me she plans on being everywhere. she said she rested up in december because she knew she was going to be on the road constantly between now and november. we've seen her do a lot of that. she has been traveling a lot. i was with her in georgia and in wisconsin. right now, she's focusing more on abortion rights. like i said, that is an issue that is one of the few issues that can energize democrats right now. she's also talking about, of course, gun violence prevention and, you know, other issues that democrats can get excited about, especially voters who are more progressive, minority voters, younger voters. these are the types of demographics that the white house feels she can especially appeal to in a way that maybe the president can't.

>> national politics reporter at "the wall street journal," tarini parti, thanks so much. we appreciate it. donny deutsch, thank you, as well. >> willie, before i go, just a second, i want to pick up where joe was. >> go ahead. >> democrats have to get pissed. joe biden has done a great job. joe biden has overseen the best economy in my lifetime. he has overseen getting nato together and defending ukraine. handling israel deftly, keeping this country coming out of covid. he's done everything right. the other guy is insane. joe biden is 80 plus years old. yes, he is. he has been a competent, effective leader. the democrats need to get pissed and start fighting. >> all right. from your words -- from your mouth to their ears, donny deutsch, thanks so much. ahead on "morning joe," president biden's re-election campaign officially launches a tiktok account. new polling may explain the reason behind that move. plus, the world health organization warning about a rise in cases of measles.

we'll talk to a health expert about that growing concern. also ahead, our next guest is taking a look at the deep divisions in america today and how people can find common ground with their neighbors. pulitzer prize winning author david finkle joins us next with his new book. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. at bombas, we're obsessed with socks. tees. and underwear. because your basic things should be your best things. one purchased equals one donated. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. i told myself i was ok with my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel,

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country he put his life on the line to protect. joining us now, national enterprise editor at "the washington post," david finkle. he is author of a new book titled, "an american dreamer, life in a divided country," this follows brent cummings' journey since coming home from the middle east. glad to have you with us. congratulations on the book. >> thank you. >> tell us about brent. he is someone you've been following quite some time. in particular, these years, this book covers the years of 2016 to 2020, in particular, the trump years. tell us how that impacted brent. >> well, if you look at the book title, the subtitle, i'll start with you, is "life in a divided country," which is no surprise to any of us. life has been feeling like you're living in the middle of a fire alarm for eight years now. i wanted to write a book about what that feels like. not for politicians who, in many ways, are pulling the fire

alarm, not for extremists who might scale the walls of the capitol building and suddenly become insurrectionists, but i wanted to write a book about the rest of us. brent was the guy i settled on. i met him in 2007 in iraq. he spent a year living next to each other when his battalion was over there in the surge. i watched this guy, and i got to know him. when it was time to write a book about someone trying to deal with what the country is becoming, almost a moral reckoning, i'd seen the way this guy behaved. he was a natural character to write about. what happened to brent, he watches the country these days, there's a very strong sense he survived one more only to find himself on the edge of another one. he was my guy. >> so that clip, you know, we had trump mocking the disabled reporter, that's just one of many. that came a few months after he mocked john mccain, saying he preferred war heros who hadn't

been captured. talk to us about the toll that moments like that, the degradation of someone seeking the presidency, took on brent, who risked his life overseas? >> i want to be careful. it is not an anti-trump or pro-trump book or anti-biden or pro-biden. those books are out there. this is about the slow, corrosive effect on a guy who -- i think if brent were here, he'd describe himself this way. he is a little more republican than democrat. he's a little more conservative than liberal. he's this man in the middle. that makes him an appealing character to me because what was bothering him, it's not trump's policies as much as trump's behavior. the vulgarism, the lies. brent was brought up in a certain way to believe that if you act decently, if you're a moral person, you have a chance at a pretty good life.

good things happen to you. at the same time, trump was being elected. and brent's father, so much of the man he turned out to be, brent's father was dying of cancer. brent was watching this. as trump was going up and his father was going down, brent had been taught, if you live a good life, you're going to succeed. here his father was dying, and this guy who brent doesn't really like very much was ascending to the highest office in the land. brent was thinking, what's going on here? i was taught that bad people fail, and he's not failing. >> brent's country, david, is his front porch, his pickup truck, driving on a saturday morning to a gun range to shoot decoys, and he does very well at it. he goes back to his front porch in a country that's changing around him. he wore the uniform of the country, fought for the country.

where is he today mentally? >> he's still trying to figure out what the country is becoming, as are we all. it's so fraught and it's so loud, and i think his porch offers him a little respite from the noise going on, where he can try to slowly make some sense of what his country is becoming. i don't want to keep harping on this, but that was a tough deployment he was in. the whole unit, it was difficult. >> high casualty rate. >> against that, this is a guy who acted so decently. a quick example. sorry to talk about something so long ago, but it matters. there was a day, for instance, when an iraqi national who was serving as an interpreter in the unit went off the fob, back to baghdad to see his family, and suddenly, he's on the phone, calling brent. he's panicked. he doesn't know what to do

because there was a huge, huge truck bomb that blew up yoit outside his apartment building, wrecked the building. this wonderful guy, izzy, was outside on the street. daughter in his arms. she was bleeding. he didn't know what to do. he had nowhere to take her. he was asking brent, what do i do? what do i do? brent, this girl had no standing on american military base, but brent figured out a way to get izzy out of that part of baghdad, into the eastern edge where this fob was. he worked the phones so that when the guy got there with his daughter, he could come inside. he ran out to meet izzy. sun is setting, everything was about to be locked down. brings izzy in, gets him to the medical area, and he's just sitting there with -- brent and izzy are sitting outside. inside, i mean, they're pulling this huge piece of glass out of her head and saving her life. izzy is saying, "thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." brent is just saying, "i haven't

felt this good since i got to this hell hole." that behavior is what guided him through the four-year period i followed him, 2016 to 2020, when he was trying to make sense of what to do. now, brent lives next door, for instance, to a guy named michael. they're next door neighbors. they get along. michael, total -- he is a great guy. he is a total maga guy, in as deep as you can get. brent was thinking, how do i find common ground with this guy? early in brent's life, earlier in brent's life, brent has two daughters. the second one was born with down syndrome. the day she was born, he was saying to his father, what do i do? his father said, you're going to love her. brent has loved her. he's trying to bring that same thinking into his other relationships. for instance, with his neighbor, michael. >> david, just looking at brent's experience and the community he lives in, do you

see a way out of trumpism in his experience? >> well, i think he is learning how you get along with -- there are other things going on in brent's life, and also michael, the neighbor's life. michael fell out of a tree 20 years ago and is a functioning quadriplegic. he has a gun on his ankle, another on his wheelchair. when hillary clinton won, for instance, he was terrified because he thought he was going to lose his guns and the ability to protect himself. here's michael navigating his life. brent with all the other things going on in his life. it's not just politics at the center. but there is that division between them. there was a day, in fact, when they got into it a little bit. they both realized, if they kept going, this is going to cross the line. they both pulled back. they've continued as close neighbors and friends to some extent. now, the question becomes, is that willful ignorance, or is there a lesson in how we all get

along? >> the powerful and important new book titled "an american dreamer, life in a divided country," by david finkle. thank you for being on with us this morning. >> thank you. coming up here on "morning joe," defense secretary lloyd sus tin is expected to resume his full duties today after he was hospitalized again over the weekend. we'll talk about his prognosis with a leading health expert, straight ahead on "morning joe." sleep more deeply. and wake up rejuvenated. purple mattresses exclusive gelflex grid draws away heat, relieves pressure and instantly adapts.

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your potential with force factor. not quite snowing raining at the white house. defense secretary lloyd austin

is expected to make a full recovery. he transferred his duties to kathleen hicks after being hospitalized to treat a bladder issue. he was put under anesthesia for nonsurgical procedures. last month secretary austin was in the icu to treat an infection stemming from prostate cancer surgery. joining us now dr. vin gupta. always great to see you. so, what is your sense of the anesthesia for a, quote, nonsurgical procedure? do we have any sense what that means in the secretary ace case? >> great to be here. here's what's likely happening. it's an important conversation because prostate cancer is the most common cancer against men in the country. complications are unfortunately somewhat common. what we -- this is speculation because to see degree there is only so much we know what is happening with secretary austin's course. what is likely happening are

either incontinence, because there has been injury to the tube that can then allow our bladder to empty. so that's either causing urine leak or there is an obstruction. those are the most common potential consequences or complications from this procedure. he had his prostate removed in the end of december and that's likely causing and can cause recurrent complications. that recurrence is less common. he had this complication back in january, that first that we heard about. the fact that it happened again needs to be a little bit more clarity. is there an obstruction or discontinuity in the tube that allows his gladtory empty? is he having a leakage? the fact that he is expected to return work today is great sign. >> yeah, expected to resume full time duties today. more transparency this time around than last time, of course, when the secretary went to the hospital, didn't even tell the white house tore three days. another store rit.

public health official concerned about a recent spike in cases of measles in the united states and around the world according the world health organization measles cases worldwide rose by 189% from 2021 to 2022 due to declining vaccination rates. in 2022, 83% of children received one dose of the measles vaccine by their first birthday. that is the lowest rate since 2008. dr. gupta, is this what it seems, all the conspiracy theories around the covid vaccine leading to skepticism about all vaccines? >> well, willie, it seems like it. my swief a pediatrician. we see this before our eyes in washington state across the west coast. what's really behind this is exemptions. we know this. we have kiddos at home. the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine is a mandated vaccine. one dose for kiddos in preschool, two doses for k through 12.

that's the expectations in every zip code across the country. we are seeing a movement towards non-medical non-religious exemptions. ten states exemptions. there is a lot of unvaccinated individuals, children specifically, that may travel to an area where measles is epidemic or worse internationally, bring it back. that's what's driving this and frankly we don't see any decline to at trend in those states, ten states we expect that number to rise, but that's what's driving this. >> dr. gupta, can you speak as a physician and maybe even your wife, her point of view as a pediatrician, about the frustration in the medical community about these disease it is that we had licked, frankly, talking about measles, talking about polio, thanks to that medical research, thanks to doctors, thanks to these vaccines, now sort of rearing hair heads again because of vaccine skepticism? >> well, willie, the frustration knows no bounds.

we are seeing a 30 fold increase. this has real consequences. in the united states a measured increase in hospitalizations. in europe a 30 field increase in hospitalizations. a spike five times increase in deaths. i mean, this is having real consequences on people. it doesn't just restrict itself to childhood infectious diseases or viruses for which there are preventible vaccines. adult vaccines which we saw higher up takes like flu, persistent declines in the flu vaccine. that's having impacts for the cold and flu season. we are seeing it across the board, a pediatrician, adult pulmonologist, our health system can't tolerate this dynamic and we don't see any decline to this trend. >> skepticism for vaccines that have been proven effective and safe in generations in some cases, accident skim coming their way. big picture on covid. we are coming up here shortly an

that period in february and march of 2020, four years ago, the world changed forever. how are we doing here in the united states with covid which is still around? >> it is. today is an interesting day. the cdc moved towards redefining in a pretty big way isolation rules if you test positive for covid-19. frankly, the streamline, returning to work. and i think it's their -- their movement towards acknowledging what we see happening around us, which people test positive and frankly resume normal life within a matter of a few dies, not five days. what is that emblematic of? of covid-19 not rearing nearly the same impact in hospitalizations. we are seeing flu come down. we are seeing the worst of covid. it affairs to have abated. hopefully, it looks like we are past the worst of it. i will say there is encouraging, hopefully, encouraging signs optimistic signs for next cold and flu season.

we are seeing this movement towards at home flew vaccines. hopefully, astrazeneca is looking to actually allow us to get easier access to flu vaccines at home. hope flew that's helpful. combination vaccines. hopefully, helpful. there are bullish signs ahead maybe we can get past some of this hesitancy, but a lot of work to do. >> we will thak as good news. medical contributor dr. vin gupta who has been our guide these last four years. great to see you. thank you. >> thank you. still ahead, voters today will choose a replacement for ousted republican congressman george santos in a special house election in new york. we'll talk about the national implications with the chair of the d triple c as democrats try to win back ounce of those battleground districts lost in 2022 that denied the party a majority in the lower chamber. "morning joe" is coming right back. orning joe" is coming righ back

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the footage of the president unable to recall simple facts must have been brutal to watch. >> james webb. i don't remember their names. i don't remember their names. i don't remember ever buying something for myself. >> do you recall what years you were married to miss maples? >> umm. >> i don't remember that. as good as my memory is -- >> you don't remember -- >> i don't remember. [ cheers and applause ] >> all right. that was the wrong footage. that's the high functioning candidate from nine years ago unable to recall if he has a good memory. >> okay. you are going to have to rewind

that because we are going to play that again. willie, he doesn't -- good morning, willie. >> good morning. >> he doesn't remember saying that he has one of the best memories. he doesn't remember who james webb is. there are so many things the guy doesn't remember, and again it's -- it's like everything else. double standards are just -- are so egregious, and yet you have donald trump again over the weekend thinking he is running against barack obama, confusing it. >> yeah. yeah. i know. it's bizarre. he doesn't know the day of the week, he doesn't know who he is running against, the details of his time as president. it's -- it is. and the fact is, his gavs, if you want to call them that, are weightier than jonas brothers, which is to say -- >> right. >> oh, yes, i would make the

nato countries pay protection money or let russia attack them. for example, might be a little bit worse than a slip of the tongue. so the idea that these are being presented as equivalent is pretos rouse. nice to see jon stewart back in the chair last night. >> it was great. he is going to be doing the monday show through the presidential election. ahead here, we will have the very latest from capitol hill where house republicans will again try today to impeach the homeland security secretary. meanwhile, in a special election in new york today, it's an important one because it could shrink the gop's majority in the lower chamber. as long island voters decide who is going to replace george santos along with me we have the host of "way too early" jonathan lemire, co-host of msnbc's "the weekend" former chairman of the national republican committee, michael still. nbc news national affairs

analyst john highland and congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post" jackie. i'm curious, t.j., do we have it cued back up? >> yes, sir. >> okay. for everybody now that you're here, watch this. >> the footage of the president unable to recall simple facts must have been brutal to watch. >> james webb? >> i don't remember names. i don't remember the names. i don't remember ever buying something for myself. >> if you recall what years you were married to miss maples? >> um -- >> i don't remember that. as good as my memory is, i don't remember that, but i have a good memory. >> so you don't remember saying -- >> i don't remember. [ cheers and applause ] >> all right. that's the wrong footage. that's the high functioning

candidate from nine years ago unable to recall if he has a good memory. >> yeah, john highland, we've seen examples over and over again of donald trump just losing it on stage here. and you had the whole political world come to a stop. first of all, for some reason you had the guy, the special counsel asking, hey, what -- what year did your son die? and supposedly he didn't remember what year his son died. this was the most damning thing. i said this yesterday. i don't know. maybe just older people. we have lived a busy and active life. nobody is closer to me -- nobody's been closer to me in my life than my mom. if somebody asked me in the middle of the deposition my mom died, i don't know, 2017, 2018, 2019. i can tell you everything about it. i can tell you my final word --

but again, and same thing with mika and her dad. so the fact -- first of all, that he was asking that question. secondly, that somehow that's the most damning thing and the trump people are now saying the white house is like an old folks home. they need to look inside their own glass house because inside that glass house, if the biden administration are -- or the biden white house and the political team know what they are doing, that's a glass house, the trump glass house, that's going to come crashing to the ground because there is clip after clip after clip of this guy not even remembering, you know, the most basic things. >> yeah. and i think -- i mean, look. earlier willie made comments about how donald trump doesn't know what day it is. simmer down over there. a lot of us have a problem with what day it is, what day of the week. i can sort of remember maybe when the chiefs won the super bowl. even that's fading fast for me.

these -- the fairest thing to say about this, joe, this is of course our politics, nothing will be fair about this, but both of these candidates are over the optimal age at which we would want a president to be. they are. and if we have -- if we could rule this race by ranchality, we have donald trump, we have joe biden, the two of them should -- we should acknowledge the fact that they are -- as the special counsel unfairly said a biden -- took a shot when he wrote it, you know, elderly gentlemen, they are, they are elderly gentlemen. one is an octogenarian already, the other will be shortly. they will not have the best memories. we are joking but to the truth is be doesn't have the best memories. willie's memory is worse than ours last time i checked. lemir, michael steele. we are all imperfect. and the reality is if we are going to have battles of videotape between the candidates

pointing out each one is not at their -- has lost a few miles an hour off their fastball from when they were at their best, that's a battle that joe biden is in a reasonable place to win because they have a lot of those same failings. but what joe biden doesn't have is propensity to lie pathologically about everything in the world nor a propensity to say the kinds of things donald trump was saying saturday where he threatens to have -- let vladimir putin attack nato allies, et cetera, et cetera, the democracy breaking things trump did. if you want to play the game on that battlefield, biden is in as good a place to take trump on. >> i'll tell you what. what else, you are looking at those pictures, michael, another big difference, one of those people actually know foreign policy, one of those people have no idea. one of those people spent the past 50 years getting it to know every leader across the world. the other guy just goes around

blowing things up and people may go, hey, that's cool. no, it's not really cool. we spent the past 75 years creating the american century. there is a reason why over 75 years america is stronger now than it's ever been militarily, why our economy is the strongest, and on and on. you talk to both of those guys over an hour, both may forget a word, may forget -- may stumble around. the difference, though, between these two people when it comes to memory, knowledge and their mental capacity is one of them doesn't know policy. one of them just blows things up and goes out ranting and plays fat elvis on stage because that's all he can do. he can't talk policy. joe biden, i have done it, you can sit down with him for an hour and you can go around the world and ask tough questions around the world about what's

going on. and not only does he keep up. he knows more about it than any senator on capitol hill. he knows the ins, the outs, he knows the players, and, yeah, he doesn't -- he doesn't talk to you like a 40-year-old woman or a 40-year-old man would talk you to. he talks to you like a guy who has been around a very long time and knows this stuff better than anybody else. and a good parallel is warren buffett who has been around a long time and people still -- they hang on every word because, well, they'd like to get rich like warren buffett who is still active and investing. that's the difference between these two. i said it before. i'll say it again. with biden it's presentation. it's, you know, and the question is, why was he allowed to talk for five hours the day after the

hamas terrorist attack for five hours? it just -- it didn't serve him well. it didn't serve the white house well. and i'll even say it didn't serve the investigation well. >> so, there is a number of things to unpack there, joe. i'll start with our friend john's point about we passed the optimal point for having someone at this age as president. i don't know -- this is the first time we've been here. we didn't seem to have too much of a problem with reagan as an older presidential candidate and president. so i think there are a number of variables that go into that. so i think we are now discovering for the first time what that limit may be. so, having said that, here's where we are. can we get over the noise how old these men are because that's not changing between now and november. they are getting older, not younger. so let's live with what we got. voters had a choice. they had a choice when both

these men stood on the stage at their respective times running for president and they were chosen by primary voters. so let's get over that. to the point about how these individuals are performing, you are spot on. and you are making the most critical point that the democrats continue to fail to make about their own candidate. and that is don't worry about whether or not he remembered something that happened 30 years ago. listen to what he is telling you today. listen to how he is talking about and framing the arguments for this hour as we're confronting an explosion in europe because our republican senate and house members want to light the fuse for putin. listen to how he is talking about helping the nation recover from covid, from a downturn in the economy, from a loss of hope

and jobs and opportunities. listen to how he is trying to move the nation off of the authoritarian anti-democratic behavior of the other party. and so you do have some very clear contrasts. >> hey, michael. >> yeah, go ahead, joe. >> look at their bank account. why don't they do that, too? all these rich people that are -- about how he is a socialist, and i heard another story last night. people around the table, this guy that's got millions of dollars, all he is do is -- oh, biden is a socialist, surrounded by socialists and because he is a wealthy guy nobody at the dinner table will say anything to him and then a woman i know told me -- was telling me she said, hey, wait a second, how is biden a socialist? >> well -- >> he is just -- name one policy. well -- name one person in his administration. i just know he is.

you must know he is because he certain shows, fox news, newsmax, something like. that's the thing willie and i talk about all the time. you want to know how biden is doing? look at your 401(k). if you are a rich country club type, that drive your ferrari or maserati to the country club and bitch how bad the country is, look at your stock and look how much money you are making every hour because there is not a crazy lunatic in the white house. there is somebody who actually respects the rule of law. there is actually somebody who respects american democracy and, yes, there is actually somebody that respects american capitalism and what keeps it stable. but these freaks -- i'm not exactly sure what they think they are going to get from donald trump, but they are going to get none of that.

just look right in front of you right now when trying to figure out, michael, whether he is up to the job or not. your 401(k) suggests he is. >> i couldn't agree with you more. and it is that type of evidence that still puzzles me that people blow past to score the point against joe biden on his age. and so the reality to the next part of this was the point you made about putting him in situations that do not help that narrative, that, in fact, enhance the anti-biden narrative that republicans are going to run with. i don't understand the political -- still to this moment, the political operation that allows some of the things that have happened with joe biden to happen, that do not take advantage of the things, the very things that you are just talking about. you sit the president down.

when taylor swift is the "it" girl for the super bowl and you have not just a recognized, but highly recognized sizable uptick of young voters, particularly women, tuning in to watch the super bowl because of her, that's a political opportunity to have a conversation with those voters. so you tell the president, we are going to put you in the cart and -- we are going to have you looking cool and sit you down and have a conversation. i don't understand why they are so tone deaf to those moments, joe. you know, john -- you know, jonathan lemire reports on it, you know. jackie reports on it. what's the -- i don't get the narrative here. i don't understand what -- what is it that they are not getting it about this man? let him be grandpa joe on super bowl sunday. let him be, you know, that comfortable sweater, if you will, poke a little fun at himself, talk about the game,

and show that, yeah, he has got his cognitive abilities in place, but he is also a guy trying to do things for people. so that's going to be a critical test for this team going forward, whether or not they can get on the other side of these narratives because right now, joe, they are backing themselves into a corner and the republicans aren't the ones necessarily doing it every time. >> coming up, a recap of donald trump's day in a florida courtroom. our legal correspondent lisa ruben has the latest in the classified documents case when "morning joe" comes right back. k [coughing]

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♪♪ house speaker mike johnson already throwing cold water on this aid bill for ukraine, israel and taiwan saying congress needs to address border security. in a statement issued yesterday, before today's senate vote, speaker johnson wrote this. quote, the mandate of the national security supplemental legislation was to secure america's own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world. again, the senate had a carefully crafted bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill killed by senate republicans last week at the urging of former president trump who hopes to run on the issue of the border. joe, i hope you don't mind, i am going to borrow one of your phrases. this is so dumb, it makes your teeth hurt. lindsey graham now changing his position on foreign aid. he has long been a hawk. talked about how important it is to support ukraine.

changing his position. guess why? donald trump said so. he announced he would vote no on the senate's bill to provide that aid to ukraine, israel and taiwan. instead expressed support for a new plan put for the by donald trump. he wrote in part, the supplemental aid package should be a loan to the countries in question, as suggested by putt. a loan on friendly terms allowed america a kbhans to get our money back and changes the paradigm how we help others. president trump is right to insist that we think outside the box. end quote. lindsey graham. in a social media post yesterday, trump wrote, going forward the united states should never provide aid to other countries unless there are, quote, strings attached. so there it is in a nutshell. a guy lindsey graham who built his career and being a defense hawk talked a lot about how important it is to support ukraine, to be a stalwart against russia and europe.

now, because donald trump puts out this post on truth social, completely reversed everything he ever believed, particularly this bill, to listen to somebody like speaker johnson say we are not going to pass it in the house until you do something about border security. of course, as we just said, the senate did something it hadn't done on a bipartisan basis in a generation, which is to provide over months of discussion and deliberation a bill on border security. >> republican james langford put together in a bipartisan way the toughers border security bill in the past 30 years. some say the toughest border security bill ever. and they were going to pass it and then donald trump told them not to pass it, and so lindsey graham went from wanting to pass it to not wanting to pass it. now lindsey graham completely betraying his past, completely betraying the memory of john mccain, completely betraying the people of ukraine, completely betraying the people of israel, completely betraying the people

of taiwan. why? why? all because donald trump told -- can you imagine? can you madge being that weak? i can't imagine being such a political coward that you would betray everything you ever believed because a failed reality tv show host told you to. and let's just be really clear here. because donald trump is sounding like, as usual, a complete idiot, and lindsey graham knows better than to accept the idiot's argument on giving money to ukraine, giving money to israel, giving money to taiwan to defend themselves. it was lindsey graham and other republicans who always said, you give this money to help our allies because, you know, it's

better to fight them over there than fight them over here, is what lindsay would always say. and i'm not going to give you a history lesson, but this same type of idiocy was going around after world -- well, after world war i. so america retreated. gave -- wouldn't go in the league of nations. ended up giving us hitler. ended up giving us mussolini. ended up, by america's isolationism, allowing hitler to rise, and what did that cause? caused a war. and america, because they didn't invest a little bit upfront, because they didn't stay engaged, america had to start -- had to go to war after being attacked. a war that millions and millions and millions of people lost their lives in. and so here we are after that

war, again please forgive me but this is important and relevant to this moment. a lot of the same republican isolationists wanting to just go home. and that's what harry truman got together with republican senator who was a former isolationist, arthur vandenberg, and they worked together, and they passed the truman doctrine, they passed the marshall plan, they invested in europe because communism was knocking on the door of western europe. and, yeah, they gave europe billions of dollars. and what happened? it created american century because, guess what? those countries built their economies up. they traded with america and we were the first among equals. so richard hoss, let me bring you in here.

it created the american sentry. and without getting ahead of ourselves, what does everybody think is going to happen at the end of the russian/ukraine war? who is going to re -- ecuador is not going to be rebuilding ukraine, if ukraine is free, and turns no a westernized democratic nation. venezuela's not. the united states will be there. the united states businesses. united states contractors. united states -- you name it. we will be in there helping rebuild ukraine and americans will be making a lot of money off of it. let's just be really blunt right here. so when lindsey graham talks about betraying ukraine and we need a loan because we ain't getting nothing out of it, that's the sort of, richard, backward thinking donald trump always had that would have meant, if we followed the trump playbook, there would have never

been a marshall plan. there would have never been the type of foreign aid that we invested across the world that allowed american businesses to grow, and that created the american sentry, richard. >> absolutely, joe. i think when historians look back at the last 75 years, they will see it as a kind of golden era. and what the people in the -- on the hill are doing, republicans on the hill and donald trump, it's almost as if they are taking away the oxygen that has made this world possible, kept it alive for 75 years, and we take so much of it for granted, joe. there hasn't been a great war. when else was that the case over the course of 75 years? wealth has increased orders and orders of magnitude. the average person on the planet lives several decades long early. more and more people are democratic, living in partially democratic countries than ever

before. it didn't just map. happen. it wasn't automatic. it's not the natural way. we didn't do it alone. it happened because of american leadership. you mentioned it. the institutions we fashioned. the alliances we buttressed. and people can disagree with joe biden about this or that policy, but he believes in this architecture. and what we now have with donald trump and his followers are people who want to destroy the architecture, who want to destroy the edifice of what has worked for 75 years and they have absolutely nothing to put in its place. but when it's gone, it's going to be gone, and that's when people are going to notice the lack of oxygen. >> and lindsey graham is not alone. republican senator ron johnson says the united states needs to accept the, quote, ukraine can't win its war with russia. in an interview yesterday for a far right website, the wisconsin lawmaker was asked about an

interview that former fox news anchor tucker carlson did with rune president vladimir putin in moscow last week. take a look. >> listen very carefully. that tucker interview, understand things -- but a lot of the points that vladimir putin made are accurate. they are obvious. and so many of our people here in washington, d.c., are just ignoring that, making people believe ukraine can win. ukraine can't -- putin won't lose. putin will not lose. he is not going to lose. the reality, if you are going to deal with this thing effectively, to bring this war to an end. >> ron johnson is president biden's least favorite senator. joe, think of the confluence of events here where we have putin expressing real confidence in his chances to continue to make ground in ukraine. we have donald trump speculating over the weekend not only he wouldn't support nato, but encourage russia to invade nato

countries and not come to their defense, and now we have republicans not just in the house, but in the senate parroting putin, talking points, abandoning the request to supply ukraine with aid and even as that bill seems likely to pass the upper chamber, has now passed, dead on arrival in the house nlt unless speaker johnson reverses course which if he does will cost him his job because he defies donald trump so he likely wouldn't. >> john heilemann, this is a moment we need to stop and realize that, yes, everybody has been desensitized by the insane ramblings of donald trump through the years, by his crazy actions. this is a time to stop though and for people to realize, and i, god, i hope people who once supported donald trump will move away from him and realize that this is -- donald trump is not talking about supporting putin

and russia invading our european allies. he is not saying that for no reason. he is not -- he is not talking about how great orban is, a guy who attacks western democracy and donald trump says, you know what? i'm going to be a dictator from day one and america needs a strong man. these ramblings, they are -- they are made with a very clear intent. to let voters know what they are going to get after he is president of the united states, and after he is president of the united states and he crushes constitutional norms and probably ignores -- probably ignores supreme court rulings. i think that's next. and just completely trashes the u.s. constitution. say, well, this is what i ran on and this is what you all voted for. but this is a moment where you have republicans parroting

vladimir putin. you have the republican nominee, likely nominee saying, yes, putin, invade europe. russia, invade europe. you have all of these things happening at the same time. and it's not an accident. and i have got to say, even i am shocked that republicans on the hill haven't stood up to donald trump saying that russia should invade nato allies, but they haven't, which means, again, this is a moment in time everybody has to stop and recognize that not only is american democracy on the line, but freedom across the globe on the line. donald trump is siding with shady, donald trump is side being putin, donald trump is siding with kim jong-un. these are the people he wants to make alliances with, and he wants to turb his back on a free europe. >> right. and read the writing on the wall, joe. all that's true by trump.

we talked for the last, you know, six, seven years about the way in which the republican party is capitulating to trump and becoming a party unlike -- unrecognizable from the republican party that you joined when you were a wee one in the northwest florida and georgia and other places where you grew up. look at -- i mean, you hear donald trump saying the things he is saying about putin. at the same time that that's happening, that trump is saying those things, saying giving a permission slip to putin, if nato allies don't pay their bills, i encourage you to invade those countries. you have tucker carlson is over in moscow sitting in front of vladimir putin doing a softball interview with vladimir putin and then you have ron johnson -- these are like the points -- the points that you kind of connect -- connect these dots here is ron johnson, who sounded this that clip like the senior senator from -- he says, no, hey, we got to tell the american

people the truth. there is no stopping vladimir putin. ef says it not -- even with a tone of regret. he sort of is in awe of putin. you can't stop him. there is no way ukraine could win this war. this is like, you know, forget chamberlain and appeasement. this a guy in the grandstands not exactly hearing hitler on but saying, wow, man, you know, that guy hitler's got a lot of strength, a lot of power, you can't stop him. he got to give it up here. lindsey graham, incredible spectacle of mendacity and buffoonery and self-abatement. would you imagine you would have heard lindsey graham, whatever you thought of him back in the day, saying as donald trump suggested? not only adopting the trump line, but throughout that prepared statement it's peppered with these bouquets that he is throwing to trump. not enough just to take trump's position. you have to every third sentence sort of acknowledge that it's trump's position.

and it's that, the cultishness of the republican party towards trump is on vivid display here. what that amounts to in the context of world affairs is increasingly something that close to being a cult to vladimir putin. i mean, that's where we are drifting now. fords. >> coming up, our next guest says donald trump is helping joe biden just when the president needs him most. peter baker joins us with his analysis from "the new york times" when "morning joe" comes right back. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up, i've got symptom relief. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor

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♪♪ donald trump's legal team yesterday asked the supreme court to put on hold a ruling from a federal appeals court last week. the three-judge panel rejected the argument that trump has presidential immunity for his

actions in the lead up to and on the day of the january 6th insurrection. if the supreme court denies trump's request, the case would go back to washington-based judge tanya chutkan. she delayed the march 4 trial date to the question of trump's immunity is decided. former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. good morning. so trump's team going to the supreme court with this question. what's your sense of how it will play out? >> well, first of all, the question, as you correctly noted, was that trump wants a stay from the supreme court, which would mean not letting the case go back to judge chutkan for pretrial proceedings and preparation for a trial that would take at least several more weeks. my inclination is that's not going to happen for a couple of reasons. one is that in order to get a stay from the supreme court, you have to make a very specific showing. you have to show that you have a likelihood of winning your appeal, and you have to show that you would be irreparably

harmed by the case going forward. and in both cases, i think trump will fall short of the five votes that he will need to get a stay. it's ordinary supreme court math you need four justices to grant review, but five justices to grant a stay, and it's hard for me to see how he gets that, particularly given my review of this petition. >> what would be the timeline on this here? >> timeline is anything that the supreme court wants it to be. this is a supreme court that can move with all deliberate speed when it chooses to, time between florida supreme court decision in bush v. gore and the united states supreme court decision is four days, and that includes briefing and oral argument. on the other hand, this supreme court could hold on to this case for some time. they could grnt a stay, for example, and then ask for briefing on a cert petition, taking weeks and weeks, schedule oral argument far out, perhaps even beyond june. i don't think that's going to happen, but the timing here, john, is entirely in the supreme

court's hands. >> let's turn to some of the other trump legal matters. there are so many. there will be closed door hearing in the classified documents case in south florida this morning. what's happening there? yesterday judge cannon heard from both sides, but separately. and she heard even last week from the special counsel's office they had three hours alone with her to talk about what classified information in particular they wanted to withhold from former president trump and his 2-2 co-defendants. yesterday she heard a lot from the trump side and then from the special counsel. today she is bringing together the special counsel's office with lawyers only for trump's co-defendants walt nauta and carlos de la vera. the government was expected to argue that should have access to the 5,000 plus pages of classified information in that case. >> lastly, georgia. tell us the fulton county case there, tell us what the judge decided yesterday.

there is another hearing scheduled now for thursday. preview thaz well. and is there a chance that the district attorney might have to relinquish the case? >> there is a possibility she does. i think it depends on a name that our viewers will not recognize as a household name, terrence bradley. he was nathan wade's close friend, business partner and divorce attorney. he will be the first witness at that evidentiary hearing. depending on what he says, judge mcafee said he might rule to keep out testimony from willis and nathan wade, but he might allow it because terrence bradley is expected to testify. he knows that a relationship between willis and wade was going on far longer than either one of them has admitted and the state admitted into their papers. he says they were cohabiting something they denied a safe house provided by fulton county. he couldn't decide yesterday before hearing from mr. bradley whether or not their testimony ultimately will be relevant to whether there was a financial

conflict of interest that would disqualify district attorney willis. coming up, our next guest runs the operation to elect house democrats next november. congress wan delta air lines has an update on that effort when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles to help me out.

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you know, there had been questions about joe biden. questions arose especially after the release of robert hur's record on president biden's release of classified documents. it's amplified scrutiny about the president's age. in a new interview with vice president kamala harris two days before the hur report came out, harris says she is, quote, ready to serve. the journal writes, quote,

there's no question about that, harris responded bluntly. let's bring in right now reporter for the "wall street journal" tarini party, who conducted the interview. >> the vice president was pretty clear she is ready to serve. now with this hur report, this is going to keep coming up for her as republicans try to make this an issue on the campaign trail. the other thing that was interesting from my interview with her is i spent a lot of time talking to her about abortion rights. this is a rare issue that democrats have an advantage on that we've seen in polls. the way she's talking about it

is especially interesting, because she's not really holding back. she's getting into pretty explicit details. she said part of that is trying to get people to feel some empathy and see what is actually going on in these states. she's using that prosecutor background. i asked her if she feels like she needs to convince voters she's ready. she shut that down and said she feels ready and she thinks voters can see that while she's on the campaign trail on this big issue of abortion rights. >> the vice president has been out on the trail a lot lately. do you expect you're going to see a different role for her if joe biden does win reelection? is she doing anything special behind the scenes that maybe the public isn't aware of to prepare

in the eventuality that she would have to serve, god forbid? >> she has been involved in advising the president on the war in the middle east. she's been on calls with benjamin netanyahu. she has been pushing the administration to adopt sort of a more empathetic posture towards palestinians and to focus more on a post-war gaza plan. we know she's talking about that. she gave that big speech in dubai a few weeks ago. she's leading the white house office on gun violence prevention. they are trying to give her more visibility as questions about the president's age keep coming up and, of course, now with this special counsel report are going to become an even bigger

campaign issue. >> how much or how little we'll see president biden on the campaign trail, do you get the sense from vice president harris or from people around her in the campaign that we're going to be seeing much more of her perhaps in places that the president won't be? >> i definitely think so. she told me she plans on being everywhere. she told me she rested up in december, because she knew she was going to be on the road constantly between now and november. she had been traveling a lot. i was with her in georgia and wisconsin. right now she's focusing more on abortion rights. that is one of the few issues that can energize democrats right now. she's also talking about gun violence prevention and other issues democrats can get excited

about, especially voters who are more progressive, minority voters, younger voters. these are the types of demographics the white house feels she can appeal to in a way maybe the president can't. coming up, steve kornacki is standing by at the big board. he will break down the state of the race for president and for control of congress. f the race for president and for control of congress. it was announced abc will air the first ever season of "the golden bachelorette." if you like old men competing for a big prize, get ready for the 2024 election. g prize, get r the 2024 election. shopify's point of sale system helps you sell at

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try to lay your hand flat against a surface. if you can't, you may have dupuytren's contracture. talk to a hand specialist about your options, including nonsurgical treatments. the greatest president in my lifetime, she says. i will never run against him. then she comes to see me at mar-a-lago, sir, i will never run against you.

she brought her husband. what happened to her husband? what happened to her husband? where is he? he's gone. he knew. he knew. >> he showed that with that kind of disrespect for the military, he's not qualified to be the president of the united states, because i don't trust him to protect them. >> now, let's make one thing clear. donald trump's never come anywhere near a military uniform. apparently he had bone spurs, and that's why he couldn't serve. the most harm he's come across is whether a golf ball hits him on a golf cart. >> republican presidential candidate nikki haley at a campaign event yesterday in south carolina continues to respond to donald trump's mocking her husband and where he is. he is deployed, serving in the united states military overseas is where he is. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." 6 a.m. on the west coast, 9 a.m.

in the east. we've heard donald trump mock military service from the very beginning with comments about john mccain in july of 2015, his comments to generals, to fallen soldiers and military cemeteries, saying they were suckers and losers. but here again, throwing up the question maybe in some conspiratorial way, who knows, maybe some rumor about nikki haley or something, where is the husband? again the answer is, he's overseas serving in the united states military. >> it's not the first time trump has said something about someone in the military or rancid comments about human beings. what's the most concerning aspect? is it that he said these things?

or is it that people shrug their shoulders at these terrible insults and say, oh, it's just trump being trump? >> yeah. trump is still on it well after midnight. he took to truth social, again went after nikki haley, again made a comment about her husband. we know, as nikki haley just said, that donald trump opted out of military service because he had bone spurs. he was asked on the campaign trail in 2015 which foot. he couldn't remember. perhaps that's a sign of him forgetting things, or perhaps these bone spurs never occurred. we know his insults about soldiers infuriates president biden behind closed doors.

it's these sort of things that trump is saying that so many believe that when people start paying attention again to this race this summer and fall, these are the kind of comments that are going to draw applause and laughter even at trump rallies. but voters who decide elections want no part of it. >> laughing and cheering along at his rallies aren't one-offs anymore. back on capitol hill this morning, the senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package for ukraine, israel and taiwan. the final vote was 70-29 with 22 republicans voting yes. senate majority leader chuck schumer spoke after the bill passed. >> if we want the world to

remain a safe place for freedom, for democratic principles, for our future prosperity, then america must lead the way. and with this bill, the senate declares that american leadership will not waiver, will not falter, will not fail. with this bill, the senate keeps its word to ukrainians in desperate need of supplies and ammunition, to innocent palestinian civilians in need of relief, to israelis in need of support and to u.s. service members on patrol in the indo-pacific, the red sea and around the world. >> the senate-passed bill now heads to the house, where speaker mike johnson has said it is all but dead on arrival.

joining me now, correspondent julie cirkin. speaker johnson and others on the republican side in the house have said this is effectively a nonstarter until the congress does something about the border, which we can remind people the united states senate just did last week with that bipartisan legislation rejected by republicans. >> exactly, willie. my sources tell me that with the senate moving ahead with this $95 billion aid package to ukraine and israel and the indo-pacific and humanitarian aid as well, the border effort is dead. republicans are split between following what former president trump is saying and waiting until the election to vote their way out of the problems on the border, with some republicans who want to see aid sent

overseas but want that tied to meaningful legislation. all that said, they are just too split to make a difference on this. zelenskyy made personal pleas in washington, d.c. over the last few months, praising the senate passage of this. but it's unclear what state it has in the house. chuck schumer told me in a private meeting between speaker johnson and mitch mcconnell, the speaker could not give any assurances. there's a growing choruses of hard-line voices in the house questioning the need to send aid to ukraine entirely, putting johnson in a precarious position when it comes to keeping control of the gaggle. later today the house is going to come back, trying once again to impeach the homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas after failing last week about 12

hours after the senate passed this aid package with 22 republicans passing leader mcconnell, saying history will record that the senate did not blink. of course, he had hard-line republicans to deal with in the senate himself, but certainly with those 22 republicans, nearly half the conference ended up voting for this bill. mcconnell won out in this battle, but we'll see what happens in the house. >> this bipartisan legislation got 70 votes, not just democrats. republican tom tillis of north carolina said the speaker is going to have to decide where he wants to be in this chapter of history, talking to speaker mike johnson, his fellow republican, saying this legislation needs to pass. you mentions secretary mayorkas.

steve scalise is back now. he was getting cancer treatment during the previous vote last week. do you get the republicans will have the votes to impeach secretary mayorkas? >> reporter: today is their last shot at this, potentially because of that crucial election in that new york district that george santos used to wield power over. it could give republicans one less vote to work with, or it could give them that necessary number they need, of course, still a very slim majority. but with steve scalise back after undergoing cancer treatment, they are pushing for this vote tonight because it comes the same day as the election in new york is set to take place. it remains to be seen if they have enough votes. speaker johnson said they would try again when they have the

votes. presumably scheduling this vote means they have it. but the weather could affect attendance. the house is flying back today. it remains to be seen if they do have the votes to pass. but that effort will most likely be dead in the senate where democrats have control. the impeachment trial of secretary mayorkas, would be the first time in 150 years. >> that's a good point about today's special election. we'll have more on that election in new york with steve kornacki in a minute. capitol hill correspondent julie sir kin, thank you so much. joining us the "new york times'" peter baker. i want to read from your new piece in the times titled "trump

steps up helping biden just when the president needs him." i'll let you fill us in, peter. this is pegged to something we've been talked about, which is the comments over the weekend about president trump at rallies suggesting that nato allies would have to pay protection money. otherwise, he would step aside and let russia have its way with them. how is the biden camp looking at this? >> it's a gift to the biden camp, absolutely. let's put aside the geopolitical implications of what trump said. let's put aside president biden's age. as a matter of politics, this came along at exactly the moment that president biden needed it to. instead of focusing so much on the special counsel report last week talking about his poor memory, the biden camp was able to turn the channel basically and say look at what this guy is

saying. not only would he abandon nato allies, he would encourage russia to attack those allies. so you may not think president biden is young enough to be president, but look at the alternative here. is it getting a few dates wrong, versus somebody who is readily going to up end the national order. they're kind of grateful to president trump for jumping in like this to take the heat off. >> president trump simply can't stand ceding the news cycle to anyone even when it would be to his benefit. the white house is still trying to combat the findings of that special report. we should underunderscore it foo

wrongdoing. how would you recommend they go about refuting it? should we be seeing the president more? >> i do think we should be seeing the president more. they should not be giving the sense that they're hiding him, that they're keeping him cloistered. they should have him out there and he should be allowed to be joe biden. he is immensely knowledgeable. he is 81 years old. you know, these are just facts. so two older men are running for president. how that happened is a whole long story, but here we are. i do think they need to put him out there a lot more. i want to make one point about

peter baker's excellent piece. i think he's absolutely right on the politics of this. but i would get into the geopolitical implications. the republican party led by trump is upending the world order that has kept the peace since world war ii. i think we can flat out say that is happening. you know, as a moscow correspondent, as somebody who follows foreign affairs, what are the implications of that? and this seems to me to be a really big deal. >> absolutely i agree with you. i didn't mean to diminish the geopolitical implications. i wrote a whole separate article just about the geopolitical implications. you're absolutely right. there's no question this is a big dead. put aside the politics.

he's essentially pulling the rug out from under the whole concept of nato and the whole concept of alliances, the american security umbrella that has done so much to provide a security guarantee to so many countries that are friends of the united states. he doesn't have to pull out of nato if he becomes president again to basically destroy the alliance, because if you cannot count on the article v guarantee, the provision that says an attack on one is an attack on all and we would come to the aid of our allies. that's the thing that has been the most important, the deterrent effect of knowing that there is this guarantee of american help if you got in trouble in europe or other allies around the world.

that's an enormously consequential moment. a lot of americans say we should be more isolationist, but we shouldn't underestimate the consequences of what he's talking about. >> the geopolitical implications of the republican party completely folding on a security structure that created the strongest economy in the history of the world, created the strongest military force in the history of the world. here we are all these years later. i know trump republicans like to trash the country. they do. extreme maga, they fly their flags upside down, talk about how horrible things are, talk about how they insult our men and women in uniform, and talk

about how weak and woke the united states military is, despite the fact that our military is stronger relative to the rest of the world than it has been since 1945. and yet the attacks keep coming. they call joe biden a socialist. he's a marxist. they're such idiots. he's a communist. well, baby, if this is how communism works for the stock market, there are a lot of billionaires and millionaires voting for donald trump calling joe biden a socialist while they're making millions of dollars every single day, because the stock market is soaring, the economy is doing better than ever before. our jobs numbers are better than they've ever been. more inflation numbers come out today. we're doing better tamping down inflation post covid than any major industrial power in the world. we are pounding china's economy.

starting in 2007 people would come on whining about china's going to overtake us, america's so weak. bullshit. i'm so tired of people trashing america. i'm so tired of it. i've heard it my entire life. i heard it in the late 1980s. it was japan that was going to take america over and turn america into japan's granary, because we were behind on computer chips. then intel said, hold my beer, and we crushed them economically. japan, an ally, but japan who was going to turn america into its granary, they went into a lost decade. america's economy grew. it's continued to grow. we heard the same thing about china. our economy is crushing china's economy right now.

california has the fourth largest gdp in the world. russia, which we got republicans saying they want our military to be more like, they have collapsed, they've been destroyed. this ukraine war has set them back 20 years militarily. they have a gdp now smaller than the size of texas. and yet the whining continues. the hatred for america continues from the extreme maga trumpers. why? why do they hate america? why? why do they fly their flags upside down? biden a socialist? don't tell traders on wall street that. don't tell industrial nations

across the world who look at our numbers and say how are they doing that? how does america continue to thrive even in the hardest of times? there are entire news networks that are dedicated to spreading the lie that america is weak, dedicated to spreading the lie that the united states military is not the strongest in the world. those are lies. militarily we're more powerful than we've been since world war ii. we're more powerful than all of our allies and enemies. culturally, that soft power thing that makes such a difference has never been bigger or stronger in the world than we are right now.

yet, one sick, diseased man, who so desperately wants to get in the white house that he admits that he wanted the economy to crash, and he says let's keep the southern border in chaos for another year and says you can blame me. okay, donald, i'm blaming you. we had a solution for the southern border. you said no. you said no. we want the fentanyl -- donald trump says keep the fentanyl flooding in for another year. keep the illegal immigrants flooding in for another year. keep the humanitarian crisis growing for another year and making the lives of people who live on the border hell, a living hell. oh, and by the way, donald trump

tells our border patrol, the men and women who put their lives on the line every day and really are fighting an unwinnable battle right now because they're not getting the resources they need from politicians in washington, d.c. they begged republicans to pass this bill. republicans, what do they tell them? drop dead. because they want chaos on the southern border. they want fentanyl flooding in across the southern border. they don't want the problem fixed. there's nothing patriotic about that. that's sick. i served in congress long enough to be able to say this. this group of extreme house maga republicans are the most unpatriotic i have seen in a long, long time. i say that as a small government

conservative. you know, why did donald trump say this outrageous thing about nato and about putin? during a news cycle, the worst news cycle of the biden white house's time over the past three years. why did he do that? well, he wanted to change the conversation to that, because donald trump understands if the conversation stays on joe biden's age and joe biden's memory, donald trump understands at the end of the day he loses, because that whole strong man act this reality host puts on

every day, it collapses when you look at the guy stumbling on stage. he can't even remember who the president of the united states is, can't even remember who the speaker of the house is, gets dates confused. watch jon stewart from last night, his debut on "the daily show" this second time around. this is why donald trump doesn't want you or me talking about presidents' memories. >> the footage of the president unable to recall simple facts must have been brutal to watch. >> james webb. i remember the name. i don't remember the name. i don't remember ever buying something for myself. >> do you recall what years you were married to ms. maples?

>> i don't remember that, okay. as good as my memory is, i don't remember that. but i have a good memory. >> so you don't remember saying you have one of the best memories? >> i don't remember. >> sorry, that was the wrong footage. that's the high-functioning candidate from nine years ago unable to recall if he has a good memory. >> so, peter baker, i would expect the white house to lean into this as they've been leaning into it in the past. and the question is, will the white house be able to do to donald trump what donald trump did to hillary clinton in 2016, which is, to basically neutralize every attack by saying, yeah, but you're just as bad or worse. >> we'll see how effective they are at it. there are some political operatives who are better at trolling the opposition than

others. the biden white house has had its moments. it's a good question. the other one you could point out, for instance on paying the bills of nato, is the fact that president trump was often sued for not paying his bills. he has provided so much ammunition to the other side. there are things in his past that could be brought up like the video that jon stewart showed. a lot of attention the last couple days has been on the fact that trump has said i don't recall so many times in so many different lawsuits. i think people assume he wasn't telling the truth and was trying to get out of answering. he has shown remarkable selective amnesia when it suited him. >> sometimes not so selective

like the time he looked at a picture of e. jean carroll and said, that's marla maples. peter baker, thank you so much. let's turn now to the new inflation reports released moments ago and bring in andrew ross sorkin. andrew, the data looks pretty good. inflation down over the year. you look like you're not so sure. >> i'm not so sure about that. i think on a relative basis what you were saying about other countries is 100% correct. we're doing a lot better. but i don't think the white house is going to be thrilled with this report. you could see even the stock market reacting to this. you have the dow off about 324 points this morning. that's in large part because inflation came in hotter than analysts and economists had been expecting. we did see price hikes for some part of the economy, including

shelter. that means rent and things of that sort. and some food last month as well. it appears prices went up, not down. that's what's going to be concerning for folks around the country when it comes to how they think about the politics of this, but also what the federal reserve is going to do. there had been an expectation that jay powell might try to lower interest rates, which would help with mortgage prices and credit card rates and the like. that may take more time now given how high inflation seems to be. >> we're looking at the annualized rate at 3.1%. i know they want it to be 2%. again, i'm not carrying anybody's water. i'm just giving people history here. 3% inflation is pretty damn good historically, is it not? >> look, i don't think this is anything to be concerned about in the sort of grand historical

context. i think all of this is relative. on a month-to-month basis, the market is reacting to this because of what the expectation is and the fact that it didn't come through. the political question that we've talked about is how do americans feel at any given moment? that's also a relative issue, is how do i feel today compared to yesterday? am i paying more today than i was yesterday? and while inflation has come down remarkably, if you want to give the president credit for that, you can give him credit for that. the issue is that prices in total have not come down. it's just that they have eased going up. so people say, yes, they're not going up as fast as they used to. that's good, but they're not going down either.

>> the earnings potential of americans continue to keep pace with it. it doesn't hurt as badly. prices don't go down unless you're in deflationary time period because that has a lot of problems too. we have to talk really quickly about the nfl. i was taking about soft power, how powerful america is not just with the hard power militarily, but the soft power. you put the nfl, the super bowl, taylor swift, patrick mahomes together, 123.4 million people watching the show, making it the most watched program ever in america across the globe. just how staggering is the nfl right now?

19 out of 20 of the top prime time shows last year, the nfl, 94 out of 100 total shows last year, the nfl. this has become the most dominant pop culture force in america in our lifetimes. >> this is the greatest export, you know, from our country culturally. it is holding entire industries. people talk about the taylor swift economy. the nfl economy over the next decade is going to produce $23 billion. the numbers are staggering in terms of how much this country loves the nfl and the export of the league. you're seeing it in terms of the value not just of advertising on the super bowl itself, but the licensing deals that you're now seeing from streamers and networks. then on top of that, the

valuations of these teams, which just keep going up and up and up. if you'd indulge me for a second, they're going to continue to go up. we're going to see in about six weeks from now the nfl is possibly for the first i'm going to allow outside money -- most teams are owned by families for the most part. it is possible that private equity, pension funds and others are going to get into and start investing in this world. it's going to get very interesting very quickly when you get behind the scenes of that, and the values are going to keep skyrocketing. >> andrew ross sorkin, thank you so much. >> thank you. coming up, voting is you should way in today's special elections to fill george santos' seat. santos' seat

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♪♪ live picture of times square. not too bad out there. residents of new york's third district are heading to the polls today for a special election to fill the house seat of indicted and expelled republican george santos. steve kornacki is at the big board for us. steve, great to see you. let's set the stage for people who are maybe just tuning into this race. what's at stake, how competitive it is, what the race looks like, and for those of us living in the new york area, thank goodness after today those ads will stop. >> the local tv stations in the new york market have certainly made out well with this special

election. here it is. the race to replace george santos, tom swazi is the democrat. he held this seat until 2022. he left the seat. the democratic candidate in 2022 robert zimmermon lost to george santos. the margin was eight points for the republicans. what made that interesting was this district under these lines in the 2020 election had been a biden plus eight district. biden won under these lines by eight points over donald trump. two years later george santos, the republican, won this district by eight points. the dynamics at play here, this is basically taking in a portion of new york city. this is sort of far eastern queens here away from manhattan

and then long island. this is nassau county on long island. 82% of the vote is going to come from the nassau county portion of the district, 18% from the queens portion of the district. with santos victory in 2022 and a host of house races on long island, in fact, you remember democrats actually came surprisingly close to holding the house in the 2022 midterms. one of the big reasons they came close but didn't quite get there was their unexpectedly poor performance on long island. you mentioned those ads running. republicans are leaning into the border, the migrant issue, immigration, basically saying

there's this influx to new york city of migrants because of policies of the democrats. that's been a major issue here. crime in new york city and quality of life is in the headlines a lot. there might be a reaction in the suburbs as well. it's a very interesting test of a district that moved in 2022 toward the republicans even as a lot of other suburban districts stayed more blue in 2022. this one didn't. democrats, if they could claw it back today, they would feel very good certainly given that they had lost this thing in 2022. in fact, they gubernatorial candidate in 2022 kathy hochul lost this district by 12 points in 2022. democrats have been doing very well in special elections like

this because the electorate is very different here. it's older, more college educated, sort of core democratic groups turning out in huge numbers in these special elections. democrats are counting on that and hoping that tide from 2022 has only gotten stronger in the suburbs since then. if they were to happen and pilip were to win this thing, this is a strategy this fall. >> huge practical implications in the house of representatives that democrats would flip that given the margin for republicans in that majority. steve, thanks. joining us now congresswoman of washington state. thanks for being with us. i'll let you set the stakes for this race. how crucial is it to flip this seat? >> this is a special election in a swing district, so no one can take anything for granted.

i feel confident because we have an incredible candidate. the people of new york three really deserve to have a representative they can trust. that person is tom suozzi. he's been a mayor and has focused on getting things done, working with others, gets things across the finish line. people know that. he's been all over the district campaigning, doing an incredible job. the republican is nowhere to be seen, refuses to talk about the issues. we need a strong person to govern. tom suozzi is that person. this is important. it's a vote right now in congress. >> congresswoman, what happened in 2022 in the new york suburbs and long island? if democrats had kept those

seats that it had before, democrats would be in the majority now. was there really that big a switch in the electorate there, or were democrats frankly asleep at the switch? if so, what are democrats doing to make sure that doesn't happen again? >> remember, we went through redistricting in the house, so districts changed. redistricting was more complicated in new york. things got delayed. there were a lot of other factors in there too. i know right now people see the extremism, the chaos, the dysfunction from republicans, especially house republicans. they know how important it is that we have strong leaders. people have also seen in every special election since 2022, we've seen voters turn out strongly to support our rights, freedoms and democracy and definitely reproductive rights. that's critically important and

has played in every special election since last november. >> it's still pretty remarkable that a ruling that threw out the redistricting map of new york made the difference between republicans taking control of the house and democrats maintaining control of the house. that's most likely the main cause. the court has upheld an updated map that's going to return new york state back to a much fairer, equitable redistricting map and democrats are going to most likely pick up quite a few seats all things being equal. but it is pretty remarkable that mike johnson is speaker of the house right now because a judge threw out a redistricting map in new york state. >> you're right.

in new york state alone, i think three seats went the other way because of redistricting. that will hopefully be corrected so you'll have more comfortable and equitable districts set up. congresswoman, in this case, we're talking about a suburban congressional district, largely long island with a part of queens involved. you mentioned the issue of reproductive rights. if you go out into these districts and walk the sidewalks and sit down at a diner and have a cup of coffee, immigration is the only issue in some of these districts. does that worry you? >> well, i was out walking through neighborhoods and knocking on doors over the weekend. folks want to see serious leadership. we know republicans are anything but serious when it comes to addressing the border and the migrant crisis. we have seen lucy and the

football over and over. republicans saying we want a bipartisan deal. we get a bipartisan deal. oh, just kidding. oh, now we don't need any legislation at all. the president should just do it. now we have mike johnson again saying we need a border deal. republicans aren't serious. they haven't been serious about legislating this entire congress. it's been chaos and dysfunction. they're ruled by the most extreme parts of their party, and they listen to donald trump in terms of deciding what to do. folks are going to come together, move bipartisan legislation. we need strong leaders. tom suozzi is willing to come to the table. that's the type of leadership communities need and new york three needs. >> we'll be watching very closely tonight and those 16 other seats you hope to flip from red to blue in the fall.

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this, i believe, is one of the most important sources of america's greatness. we lead the world because unique among nations we draw our people, our strength from every country and every corner of the world. and by doing so, we contin continuiously renew and enrich our nation. we breathe live into dreams, we create the future and the world follows us into tomorrow. thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and

always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. this quality is vital to our future as a nation. if we ever close the door to new americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost. >> ronald reagan in 1989, talking about immigration and how important it is to the united states' greatness and strength. and he's far from the only republican president who had to deal with the topic. among them, abraham lincoln, lincoln's views on immigration are the subject of the new book titled "brought forth on this continent: abraham lincoln and american immigration", its author, harold holzer joins us now. harold, thank you so much for being with us. it is such a -- so great to have you here. >> thank you. it is great to be back after about 15 years, so great to be here. >> let's make this a more

regular occurrence. you know, there is some debate and you can clear it up for me right now, so many quotes we give all the time or lincoln never said it, churchill never said it, but there is a quote attributed to lincoln, if he didn't say it, it applies very neatly to slavery and immigration. it is i walk slowly, but i never walk back. first of all, did lincoln actually ever say that? and secondly, explain how that applies to what he did on immigration. >> he did say it. it is not written, but it was heard by a number of contemporaries. and i think it was specifically about emancipation, once he took the step, he wasn't going to retreat and nobody ought to look for compromise. on immigration, he einvolved kind of slowly, hoping to make alliances with nativists, antiimmigration forces if they could be persuaded to join him

in the fight against slavery. but ultimately, he did and said the right thing during his presidency. he recruited practically a foreign legion to fight for the union. 23% of the union army was either german or irish, swedish, polish, spoke with a foreign accent basically. another 200,000 were first generation hyphenated americans. even in illinois, when he was campaigning for the senate, he had a fascinating quote which i suspect you will like, joe, because he said, looking out at a crowd of germans, he said, i know you -- on independence day, i know you're not descended directly from the founders, but according to the promise of the declaration of independence, you're the blood of the blood of the founders, just as surely as their own descendants. didn't say they were poisoning the blood, he said they were

enriching the blood. >> harold, you just pointed out the number of immigrants fighting in the civil war, couple hundred thousand german immigrants, irish immigrants, directly from their own country into the uniform of the united states of america. you also indicated that at one point lincoln was willing to pay people from foreign countries to immigrate to the united states how would that have worked or did it work? >> it was in his 1863 annual message, the equivalent of the state of the union message, and he simply believed underwriting immigration would be -- create not only new soldiers, which he desperately needed with the casualty and injury rate, but as he frankly told congress, we also have enormous gaps in employment on farms and mines and in factories. it was a bridge too far for congress. and the language they used was pretty racist and nativist.

this will invite the dregs of europe to come here. lincoln signed a bill that would allow private industry to underwrite immigration in return for one year's indenture. did it create a new slave trade or did it create a really big new population? it depends on interpretation. but he was really pushing for it because as he said this is an enrichment. he said immigration is one of those things that providence has created to improve and enrich our country. >> so, harold, again, congrats on the book. >> thank you. >> tell us after lincoln's death what happened next. did his successors pick up this mantle, this view on immigration? >> there was one more bill that kind of cured the lingering problems. lincoln created the first federal bureau of immigration. remember, immigration was not in the federal purview according to

the constitution. feds control natural immigration. so lincoln brought the federal government into it. he thought in a positive way. subsequently the supreme court indicated that under the commerce clause the federal government could control. so that 1865 second immigration reform bill was the last positive legislation for exactly 100 years until lyndon johnson's immigration bill in 1965. otherwise, it was restrict, restrict, restrict, when eastern europeans began coming in, restrict and we know what happened in the holocaust period, when jews were turned away. >> harold, you've spent your life, your adult life studying, writing about, editing books about abraham lincoln. i don't think it is an overstatement. i'm just speaking for myself here. i think we're entering the most

important election since 1864 for this country. i'm curious, what are your thoughts about abraham lincoln's message, what would abraham lincoln's message be to america today? >> i'd like to think that he would urge us to embrace the kind of tapestry of nationalities and races that make up america, to encourage the expansion of the country that he envisioned for after the civil war, an inclusive, energetic country, and, of course, i think that re-election, you noted, joe, which was widely believed one of the most important elections in history said for all time, even in a civil war, democracy prevails. we needed to have a vote of the people, even if half of the -- well, half the territory was a raid against the other half. and lincoln himself said the most remarkable thing about that election was that it occurred.

peacefully. we have to fight for peaceful elections, peaceful acceptance of the result. lincoln was ready to lose that election. he wrote a memo saying i pledge to cooperate with the incoming administration. that's kind of a lost art, would be nice to see it again. >> it would be. the new book is titled "brought forth on this continent: abraham lincoln and american immigration." it is available today. i've already bought it. you should too. historian harold holzer, thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> gene robinson, final thoughts today. >> well, i'm glad we ended with harold holzer and congratulations to him on the new book because it is heartening in these depressing times, looking ahead with dread, and fear toward the coming

election that we have been there before. we have been in much worse circumstances before. and our democracy did hold. so, nothing is impossible. nothing is already lost. but it took work. it took work and commitment and dedication and belief to make this nation survive and we need some of that right now. >> we most certainly do. all right, thank you so much. and that does it for us this morning. thank you for being with us. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. right now on "ana cabrera reports," a fast-moving storm slamming into the northeast. 46 million under winter weather alerts. up to a foot of snow expected. the most some cities have seen in years. plus, polls open in a special election tossup here in new york. who will long island choose to