i don't think he should mention donald trump. he doesn't need to. a strong defense of democracy, of kitchen table issues, growing economy for all people, draws a natural contact to donald trump. i've been with the house for 25, 30 years. i'm an institutionalist. tonight is not a campaign speech. let the contrast of the issues work for itself. it'll be clear that you're also isolating donald trump and his vision for the country verse yours. >> president biden will hit the campaign trail right after the speech tonight. he's got stops in battleground states of pennsylvania and georgia the next couple of days. more travel planned for next week. certainly, a high stakes speech tonight, one that his voters believe can help change some of the narrative around biden and, as you say, david, draw contrast with maga republicans. former maga republican david jolly of florida, thank you for joining us. we'll be reading your piece for msnbc.com. come back soon. thank you, david. thanks to all of you getting

up "way too early" on this thursday morning. we'll have coverage of the state of the union tonight. "morning joe" starts right now. january 6th was a disgrace. american citizens attacked their own government. they used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they didn't not like. fellow americans beat and bloodied our own police. they stormed the senate floor. they tried to hunt down the speaker of the house. they built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. they did this because they'd been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth. because he was angry and lost an

election. former president trump's actions preceded the riot for a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty. >> therefore, i am endorsing donald j. trump. you know, the one thing we cut off there, and maybe it's not fair to mitch, is that at the end of it, right after that, he broke into a rousing tune, had a band, "happy days are here again." it was like the '32 convention. i couldn't believe it. yeah, a little discordant. the song didn't go with the message but, you know, that's mitch. >> mitch mcconnell there, 2021, a month after january 6th, blaming donald trump for the insurrection, the attack on the capitol squarely. yesterday, mitch mcconnell endorsed donald trump for president. >> who saw that coming? >> we should add donald trump relentlessly attacked in a

racist way mitch mcconnell's wife. he said, you know what, i said for a long time i'll endorse whoever the nominee is, even if it is the guy i blame for an attempted coup against the united states government. >> we say a lot of bad things about ted cruz sometimes here, but there is a difference between mitch mcconnell and ted cruz. >> all right. >> if donald trump had ever attacked ted cruz's wife, ever called her ugly, ever struck out at her in the most personal of terms, that is texas tough right there. >> that is a real man. >> no bs. >> you can't cross that line. >> you cross the line with ted, you might as well have crossed the rio grande, my friend. >> on the way to cancun? >> yeah. >> you can't -- look -- >> the retrieval of memories. >> call ted cruz's wife ugly or say his father assassinated jfk,

he won't support you. >> at least for a couple months. >> not at the convention. >> a few months later, he'll do a phone bank for donald trump. >> well, lindsey graham is -- >> another, yeah. >> there is a guy, though. >> no. >> i mean, that guy. >> profile in courage. >> mr. spine. >> go on the floor. >> enough is enough. i'm out. then three red necks and a hound dog chase him around reagan national. >> it's not like someone puts his cell phone out there. >> yeah. >> i think we need a compilation. start with chris christie in the mcdonald's episode. >> on mcconnell, though, i will say, the two moments that led to donald trump's comeback post january 6th. one is mccarthy heading to mar-a-lago, beginning the rehabilitation tour. the only is mcconnell not choosing to convict trump in the second trial, pushing it until after the inauguration. having it in february, believing things would cool off.

voting to acquit himself. had he voted to convict and whipped others to do so, trump wouldn't have been able to run for office again. mcconnell chose not to do that. here we have the door open for trump. >> there are a lot of things mitch did that we saluted on this show. he stood up. he stood up to trump at very important times, yet, at the time, if you want to take this endorsement at the end of his career, basically, or what happened the end of that process, there was a question. could mitch mcconnell have gotten enough republicans to convict donald trump in the impeachment proceeding. he made the call, we'll let the courts play out. mara, we saw where that led us. >> part of being in leadership is showing on leadership and attempting to do what you think

is right. we all have political minds, talk about strategy, but there's such a thing as right and wrong. the end of the day, it sounds like a lot of people have forgotten why you go to washington. it's supposed to be to serve americans. it's supposed to be to be a public servant. this looks like it's about power. it's shameless. >> yeah. >> americans understand that. they see that that's part of why so many voters are deeply demoralized and cynical about this process. >> right. >> at this point. >> it's shameless but also bizarre. i mean, here's a man -- how old is mitch mcconnell? >> old enough that it opportunity matter. >> old enough -- >> exactly. >> i'm old enough that it doesn't matter. >> right. why not go out and just say what you think? he did say what he thought on that -- for that brief, shining moment on february 13, 2021, where he said not only the stuff we just saw on tape. >> right.

>> he said, there's a criminal law in this country. he was endorsing jack smith before jack smith was even appointed. >> right. >> he was saying that the man was a criminal, that he did cause these people to engage in violence on the hill and that one of the remedies could be criminal prosecution. so where is he today? >> yeah. >> and for what? he's done. >> well, for what? and i'm sorry, i'll ask, and i say this of cruz, of lindsey, of all of them. i say it of just all the people trump insulted. what man -- i say a man, but or a woman, but as a man, what man would put up with that? i had a very powerful republican slander a friend of mine. 20 years later, 20 years later, he pulls me aside before a speech and begs me to stop.

he says, jesus christ, joe, it's been 20 years. it's been 20 years. i said, you shouldn't have said that about my friend. it's going to be 20 more years. i mean, that's what we would all do. well, except for my friends. >> but -- >> hold on, except for my friends, when donald trump said i was a murderer and should be executed, a lot of them voted for donald trump. but the rest of us here. but that even raises a question, willie. what is it about donald trump? >> it's his brilliance. >> someone can assault someone's wife or husband, or in mitch mcconnell's case, continue racist slurs against his wife. >> yeah. >> they're just fine with it. i just -- that's not -- i'm not even looking at donald trump there. i'm looking at these people. i'm looking at my former friends. like, yeah, he called you a

murderer, but i'm voting for him anyway. regulations, you know, they'll be down under trump. >> yeah. >> crazy. >> you and i talked about this on and off the air. what are those looks in the mirror like in the morning or at night for lindsey graham, ted cruz, any of the guys with personal pride. not talking about politics. if you have any personal pride, how do you swallow all that down and go out and support the guy who attacked you relentlessly? he attacks lindsey graham in his home state during the primary. >> liberal. >> the crowds -- >> gets the crowd to boo lindsey. >> takes their support for granted, and he should because there's nothing he can do to them that they wouldn't call in line anyway. but it is, again, it's not politics, as a person who has personal pride, how do you do it? i don't know. i don't know. >> lindsey's first words of, hey, y'all. my first two words if somebody did that to me would be markedly different. i don't think i'm outside of the

norm here, lemire. again, this is so bizarre. i want to underline, again, mitch mcconnell insulted repeatedly, said this guy tried to basically destroy american democracy, has watched his wife be attacked with racist creeds repeatedly, and says, i endorse him. >> it is cynical and based out of fear of trump. mcconnell, who is stepping down from leadership, is not running again, he'd seem to be the person who doesn't have to do this. >> exactly. >> yes, he does want republicans to have the majority in the senate again even if he's not going to be the leader there. >> but donald trump took that from the helm twice. >> yes, twice. >> he would have been senate majority leader over the past four years, except over one person and one person alone. >> the two men haven't spoken in years, yet mcconnell still backs this. he defended it by saying yesterday, well, you know, february 2021, just days after that speech, i said i'd back

whoever the republican nominee was. >> why? >> because he's putting party before country. that's what he is doing. the party before personal pride, too. >> george, that's an old custom that i understand when it is george h.w. bush, ronald reagan, john mccain, pick your -- mitt romney. >> bob dole. >> george h.w. bush. >> right. >> stakes aren't that high. >> you said this is a man who may face criminal prosecution because he led an attempted coup against the country, so change it for this one case. >> it's not just the nation. if he cared about the republican party, he would have said, we have to get rid of trump long ago. even if he wanted to sacrifice himself just for his party, i mean, why not do that? >> we have -- just to try to balance things here, as we always do, we have somebody here from a remote location that is going to be defending not only mitch mcconnell -- hold on --

>> try that again. cut that. all right. here we go. ready? you know, we try to be fair. t.j., we're cutting that out, right? >> yeah. >> okay. we always try to be fair at "morning joe." let's bring in sam stein. he believes that what mitch mcconnell did was -- [ laughter ] >> -- quote, a proud, honorable, manly thing. sam, explain. >> sorry, what? >> true patriot. >> you called him a true patriot, the paul revere of our day. >> i appreciate the setup. thank you. look, i'm not totally surprised. i don't think we actually are surprised by this. >> no. >> this was coming a long way away. he always said he was going to support the nominee. it was baffling to a degree because of precisely the criticisms he had already registered. look, there's nothing really more to add on what you're saying. he obviously -- republican politics is basically dictated

by a fear of trump and his base. i think that's the fair assessment throughout this. frankly, if you're being utterly cynical about it, you know, the people who have stood up to trump, who have followed their personal convictions, have paid a political price for it mostly. those who voted to impeach him in the house, the republicans, many of them, if not all, have been ousted. the people who voted for conviction have either left or are leaving or are now, you know, scampering away. mcconnell, what stood out to me here about mcconnell is all of the things you said, but also the fact that this guy is a self-proclaimed institutionalist. what he did after january 6th is he took the political power that he possessed, and he forfeited it. he said, i'm not going to use it. i'll kick it to a different branch of government, the judiciary, and let them decide.

here's a man who is known to be a sort of machiavellian, ruthless practitioner of politics, utterly powerful, who, in that moment, in that critical moment, decided he was going to just not use it. i thought that was always an extraordinary decision on his part. ultimately, we're now left with him leaving leadership and trump potentially being sent back to the white house. >> the sad part, as sam said, is the inevitability of this. joni ernst endorsed trump. governor youngkin in virginia endorsed trump along with a list of others. george mentioned the part of the speech we didn't hear in february 2021, so just a little over a month after january 6th, where he said, donald trump could face and should face criminal prosecution. >> president trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of limitations is run,

still liable for everything he did while he was in office. didn't get away with anything yet. yet. we have a criminal justice system in this country. we have civil litigation. former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one. >> how do you reconcile your trump endorsement with the fact that you called him tactically and morally responsible for january 6th and the fact that he insulted you and your wife repeatedly? >> february the 25th, 2021, shortly after the attack on the capitol, i was asked a similar question. i said i would support the nominee for president even if it were the former president. >> leader mcconnell, in april of last year, you indicated you didn't really directly answer the question as to whether or

not you were comfortable with mr. trump if he was in the middle of criminal trials and indictments and he was the nominee. i presume that means you're comfortable with him? >> i don't have anything to add to what i just said. i said in february of 2021, shortly after the attack on the capitol, that i would support president trump if he were the nominee of our party, and he obviously is going to be the nominee of our party. >> george, to answer your previous question, mitch mcconnell is 82 years old, on his way out of leadership. >> he was a patriot that day by calling out donald trump. i think he truly believed that he didn't have to take the step of barring trump from public office. but it didn't work.

why not, as a parting shot, not for himself but for the country and even his own party, say, this is a bad thing? i just -- it is beyond my comprehension. look at nikki haley the last few weeks. she's not perfect. she could double back. but she seemed liberated, happier, to be able to speak truth. not the full truth, but she was getting there. she's leading people toward the truth, and it's liberating. >> but where does that story end? i hope nikki has become liberated and understands the republican party that i used to be a member of desperately needs somebody like her carrying the torch in these dark times. but what are the odds that at

the end, she will find her way to endorsing donald trump, even after -- and we'll show, even after the insults continued last night. >> it doesn't look good. i mean, we almost need a psychologist here at this point. >> oh, we do. >> to understand how an 82-year-old man like mitch mcconnell feels the need to continue to express this fealty to someone who has done nothing but destroy the country and the institutions that mitch mcconnell has served. you know, i'm honestly to the point where i just want to say, what is it? is it about money? are you trying to make money when you leave office? you're 82 years old. do you want to be friends president trumpers at the country club and don't want to be shunned? what is it? >> that's lindsey. i remember john mccain telling me near the end of his life, he said, "you know, we've already lost lindsey."

this was actually maybe not -- i think this was in february of, what was it, '17 maybe? he said, "lindsey is so excited to golf with the president of the united states, he'll do anything. but mitch mcconnell, he ain't going golfing." why? it's not like he doesn't understand history. he knows how he and trump will be painted in history. does that not matter, what your children and grandchildren and people think of you after you're gone? >> it's also embarrassing for all americans to see this. this is not what we want from people who are supposed to be serving. we're supposed to be different in this way. it's not supposed to be about a cult of personality. >> yeah. >> there's something very dark about it, and i think, you know, people like vladimir putin are going to be watching this with a smile. >> you know who else will? donald trump's guest at mar-a-lago today, orban.

or that's friday. >> hmm. >> he'll be looking at it. as donald trump tries to model himself into a position to be the next orban right here in the united states. when we come back, we will show you donald trump's response to nikki haley saying, hey, maybe donald trump, maybe you can work to gain some of my supporters as you move toward the november election. donald trump, his response, more insults. we'll show you when we return. the future is not just going to happen. you have to make it. and if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future. a future where you grew a dream into a reality. it's waiting for you. mere minutes away. the future is nothing but power and it's all yours. the all new godaddy airo.

get your business online in minutes with the power of ai. president biden and former president trump both had huge nights. now, it is pretty much certain we'll have a rematch between biden and trump. at this point, the only thing that can stop them is a flight of stairs. after the results came and both guys threw big victory parties with confetti made from classified documents, it was

touching. nikki haley officially suspended her presidential campaign. but here's the good news for haley. she's only 52, meaning she can run for president at least eight more times. she's got that. >> if you do the math, he might be right about that. jimmy fallon last night upstairs here. november rematch between joe biden and donald trump essentially set this morning following nikki haley's decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. haley did not endorse donald trump in her speech yesterday. one big question is now, though, where will her supporters go? haley says that is up to donald trump. >> it is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. i hope he does that. at its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. and our conservative cause badly needs more people. this is now his time for

choosing. >> how did he choose? >> that was a nice outreach. >> it was, yeah. >> you can grow your base. donald trump responded during haley's speech, while she was saying that, with this on truth social. quote, "haley got trounced in record-setting fashion." he invited her supporters to join the maga movement. trump previously said, anyone who contributes to haley's campaign would be, quote, permanently barred from the maga camp. meanwhile, president biden welcomed haley's supporters into the fold, writing in a statement, "donald trump made it clear he doesn't want nikki haley's supporters. i want to be clear, there is a place for them in my campaign. i hope and believe we can find common ground." a biden campaign official said the finance teams for biden and the democratic national committee have been reaching out to haley's donors. additionally, the biden campaign has been studying haley's performance in the primaries, watching the moderate and independent voters who say they will never vote for donald trump. on super tuesday, the biden campaign focused on where those

voters are located to target them, potentially persuade them to vote blue this november. it was a sizable margin, depending on the state, not only that voted for nikki haley. we can talk through some of the numbers. obviously, she won vermont. even the places she lost, 20%, 30%, 40% of republican voters, and a percentage saying they'll never vote for donald trump. will they vote for joe biden? will they stay home? it's up in the air right now. >> sam, if you are an incumbent, and donald trump basically is a three-time incumbent now, a bleak, bleak message, losing 20%, 30%, 40% of primary voters before you go into a general election. yet, the media seemed transfixed over the uncommitted in michigan or wisconsin or whatever. the numbers were about the same as barack obama before he trounced mitt romney. what do you make of how each of

these candidates go into the general election? >> i mean, i think they each have their own set of vulnerabilities, right? trump, it's fairly obvious, nothing is really changing in terms of the script. he has little to expand his coalition, though his team would say, we're trying to reach out to black and hispanic voters, union workers. but more or less, stylistically, trump is not going to soften the edges. he'll assume republicans will go back home, and he'll do very little to try to earn over those people who gravitate to nikki haley because they were frustrated with his presidency or repulsed by how it ended. with biden, it's a different case. for him, there's a lot of angst among the progressive base. i think that's fair to say. there's angst over his handling of the israel-hamas war. but he has made and will continue to make overtures to expand toward the nikki haley voters. he is, as we've seen the past couple weeks, trying to soften his approach to the war in gaza in an effort to round out his

support among the base. i just think it is -- stylistically, it is totally different presidents going at it. you know, it is to be seen, how the coalitions are built. >> biden has to bring voters home. needs to bring young voters home, people of color home. they've faded maybe 10%, 15% there. obviously, israel/gaza is having an impact. what does joe biden need to do between now and labor day to start consolidating that base? >> i thought a lot about this. i've been traveling, talking to voters in several states, and it is clear that he needs to be much more visible. he needs to be talking not only about his victories, and he's got a lot of accomplishments to discuss, but also telling voters he understands their frustration. he understands their weariness. he understands that, for some of

them, the economy is not so great right now. the rent is high. wages still haven't caught up with inflation. he needs to speak to that. people are still paying a lot of money in student loans if you're a younger american. we talked about this on the show. if you're under, you know, 40, 45 years old, you know, you're starting to wonder, can i afford to have kids? can i afford to buy that house? he's got to really speak to those concerns. then, of course, he's got to be able to speak even more movingly about the plight of palestinians, i believe. and what he is going to do to ensure their human rights are protected alongside israeli's. he needs to do that, but he needs to be much louder. >> the president has an opportunity to do it tonight in the state of the union. he's spoken little about the war in gaza since the initial weeks of the conflict. i think that'll change tonight as he tries to frame exactly

what is going on there. reports out this morning that cease-fire talks broken down there in cairo. they may not get that in place for ramadan as they hoped. george, we've seen the president, he's been on the road a little more lately, talking to the media a little more. they know tonight is also a moment to try to show his vitality for the job. there's questions about that. we see the polls about his age. i think tonight, certainly, he'll draw contrasts with donald trump, whether or not he mentions him by name, but he also needs to make a positive case for the next four years. that's something democrats say he hasn't really done. what would you recommend? >> i agree with everything mara said. he has to be empathetic, has to be himself. he, i think at the end of the day, he doesn't have to do a hard sell. he does have to get out there. he just has to be normal. the reason that's all he has to do is trump won in 2016 because hillary was the issue.

in 2020, trump was the issue. 2024, trump will lose again because he will make himself the issue. he cannot help but make himself the issue. what biden needs to do is just basically say, that guy is crazy. he doesn't have to refer to him by name. he just has to say, the guy is nuts. let's be normal, america. that's the theme of this campaign, i think. >> to that point, joe, "wall street journal" op-ed page, the top, "gop's third gamble on trump. republicans are elevating the one man who could lose to biden." getting at exactly what george is saying. biden may step back and let donald trump do his thing. >> exactly. by the way, very interesting, let's be normal, the original lyrics to prince's "let's go crazy." >> wow. >> last-second in the studio, he switched it. said, i think this may have a bit more of an edge. >> probably a good tweak. >> hard to dance to, "let's be

normal." unless you dance like that. so it's crazy, it's crazy that that that's where we are, that it is such a low bar, to be normal. but that's what donald trump does. again, that's what nikki haley warned about. "the wall street journal" editorial page time and time again. the republicans selected the only guy that can lose. but he can. but i think it is going to be important. people don't understand. people -- there's just such a -- it's such a short attention span. i think he does have to hammer some of the things he's accomplished, and he does have to show the contrast. you talk about student loans. people are frustrated. interview people, "well, he promised he'd cut it." explain how trump's supreme court overruled him. he's still trying to get student loan relief. there are black voters who are upset about the civil rights act

not being passed. he needs to explain, it was the senate that refused to do that. go down the long list. i mean, it's a study of contrasts. in that study of contrasts, you have to line it up for the people. we're for this. they're for that. if most dramatic example is abortion rights. >> i mean, that is going to be number one issue for many voters this november. i do think that if the biden campaign can do the job right, things are going to shift over the summer. most voters, you know, most general election voters are not really engaged at this point. so over the summer, that usually changes ahead of the november election. once democrats, especially younger, and i believe black voter, progressive voters, non-white voters, once they start seeing more of donald trump and remembering what that

experience was like from the escalator and talking about mexicans as rapists, down to killing americans in a pandemic, they probably are going to come home, i believe, and turn out. you know, the anger and frustration that many of them feel about biden being too old in their eyes, not listening to their concerns, i do believe that many voters at the end of the day are going to put that aside with donald trump on the ballot. you just don't want to take that for granted. >> right. and it is the biden campaign's responsibility. if the issue is gaza, explain, okay, yeah, we've been trying, trying to do everything we could do to get -- to get netanyahu and the government to pull back. we're continuing to do that. by the way, the other guy, he's saying, just finish them off. finish them off. the other guy, he supported a

muslim registry. if you were a muslim, you and your child would have to register with the united states government and law authorities. we're on the anniversary of his revised muslim ban. this isn't a close call. it is up to the biden team, though, on the campaign trail, to make sure people see that very clear contrast. >> by the way, the humanitarian aid the biden administration is trying to get into gaza is hung up by the house of representatives that won't pass the bill that also has foreign aid in it. george conway, always great to have you here. just be normal. that's the phrase of the day. >> he can't do it. we have a packed show ahead of tonight's state of the union address. hakeem jeffries will be our guest. as well as national co-chair of the biden campaign, congressman james clyburn of south carolina. we'll also be joined by white house press secretary karine jean-pierre. plus, the new effort launched by former republican

congresswoman liz cheney to keep donald trump out of the white house. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> here, we're playing -- >> "let's be normal," a classic. >> yeah. wealth-changing question -- are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible? high taxes can erode returns quickly, so you need a tax-optimized portfolio. at creative planning, our money managers and specialists work together to make sure your portfolio and wealth are managed in a tax-efficient manner. it's what you keep that really matters. why not give your wealth a second look? book your free meeting today at creativeplanning.com. creative planning -- a richer way to wealth. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? book your free meeting today at creativeplanning.com.

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the barbados flag bolt carrier was part of the response to the american-british aggression against our country, they said. houthi infrastructure was struck both on land in yemen and at sea in retaliation back in january. joining us now, president emeritus of the council of foreign relations, richard haass. author of "home and away," available on substack. >> change midlife. >> "home and away?" >> amazing. >> it does. >> reduces male pattern baldness, helped my backhand in, what's the sport, pickleball? >> does anybody play that? >> it's the hottest thing going. >> that's what everybody keeps telling me. i don't know. >> it's good. like wiffle ball tennis. >> why not just play wiffle ball or tennis? >> tennis requires athleticism. >> speaking of wiffle ball, i'm telling you, if we move this out, home plate is actually over here. >> yup. >> hit this way. >> that's the monster over

there. >> yeah. >> first, second. this is easy. alex, we'll have a wiffle ball tournament in here. when should we do that? >> opening day? >> we have four hours. anytime you want. a full nine-inning game. >> pitch clock. >> we can do a double-header. >> nerf football championship this way. >> that's fun. >> check our insurance writer. >> yeah. i have a lot of pent-up frustration right now. so, richard, "home and away," it's changed my life. >> i think your life maybe needed some changing. >> trust me. listen to the pot. so what's happening, richard, with the cease-fire? i think we may have wanted it too much, or maybe i read that in "home and away." >> i think you may well have. the houthis aren't interested. >> i'm not talking about them. >> hamas. >> it's not always what the

pictures show. >> okay. >> sometimes you have to listen to what i say. >> do i have? >> you do if you want to stay on my show. >> morning, joe. >> what about -- >> let me clarify that. >> hamas, we were talking about this before, it's kind of hard to have a cease-fire with a terrorist organization, when the terrorist organization knows you want the cease-fire more than they do. >> also when you talk about hamas' modus operandi. they like having, honestly, civilian deaths. in this case, what is better than during ramadan to put the israelis in a situation where there are pictures throughout the arab world showing muslims, palestinians, essentially, being attacked during the holiest month of the year? from hamas' point of view, why necessarily would a cease-fire now be desirable? also, again, it underscores, what, hamas took the hostages. this wasn't a sideshow. it was a central part of the strategy. they studied israeli history,

saw how much hostages matter to the israeli public, put pressure on the government. the idea they'll give up what they see as the biggest leverage, not going to happen. this underscores this is a long war. this is not about to end, whether you get a cease-fire now or some other point. at most, it'll be temporary. joe, we'll be talking about this not for weeks or months but longer. >> what's left in the toolbox for the biden administration? obviously, criticizd heavily for what is happening in gaza. not doing enough. putting pressure on prime minister netanyahu. they started the air drops. they can say the humanitarian aid we're trying to get through is being held up in the house of representatives. what else might the president say tonight about it? >> the air drops are a drop in the bucket. you can't feed millions of people by meals ready to eat. it is symbolic more than anything. i think the most important thing is what the president says tonight and subsequent public statements. does he signal real differences

in american foreign policy, distance between the united states and israel? does he condemn the settlement structure in israel? if you want a two-state solution one day, there is less and less territory to put into the palestinian's side. >> why wouldn't he do that? why wouldn't he criticize, let's talk about the west bank, and call the settlements what they are, illegal settlements that have been going on now for years, deliberately meant to undermine a two-state solution. why shouldn't he say that in the clearest, most unequivocal terms? >> he absolutely should. the united states looked the other way too long. the israelis have been doing this, doing this, and we should call it, you're right, for what it is. we should also start thinking about ways to back up those words. on the previous administration, i think i have this right, we stopped labeling goods coming out of the occupied territory. we said they come from israel. why don't we say they come from the occupied territories? say the goods produced in settlements that are exported to

the united states, why don't we put a special tariff on them? why do we encourage them? condition military aid. if we're going to send -- either we don't send large ordinance or say, "israel, you can't use it in population centers." why don't we, the president, articulate the parameters of a peace plan. then go to the united nations. for years and years, the fundamental document that guided all was resolution 242. why don't we update it? why doesn't the united states articulate what should be the principles on both sides, palestinians and israelis alike, that ought to shape the next year of peacemaking? >> why doesn't the united states work with the saudis, uae, jordan, and other arab neighbors who want peace there, and instead of just reacting, jonathan, and always voting no to somebody else's u.n.

resolution, we actually put a tough one on the floor ourselves that we can vote yes for? >> to this point, the administration simply hasn't been willing to cross that bridge. maybe that will change. >> why that? >> the president's instinct has been to side with israel. this is something, for decades -- >> well, of course, we can side with israel, but we don't have to side with benjamin netanyahu doing whatever he can to stay in office. this is about him holding on to power. if it had anything to do with israeli security, these extra steps, i would be supporting him. but this is not about israeli's security. this is about netanyahu's power and his security from prison. >> yeah, that's a decision from the president himself, not to do that yet. maybe that'll change. maybe that'll begin with the state of the union. right now, it is the private pressure. he's not gone publicly after netanyahu like this. we should also note the israeli government says cease-fire talks will pick up next week, but it doesn't mean they'll be in place for ramadan.

richard, can we shift to ukraine for a minute, too? yesterday, a russian missile strike in odessa came within a couple hundred yards of hitting zelenskyy and greece, a nato country. speaker johnson will be perched behind biden during the state of the union. what case can he make to the american people? >> traditionally in foreign policy, the executive branch, the president has enormous leverage or latitude, for better and for worse. this is one of those rare cases you cannot do american foreign policy without the congress. it has a price tag on it. he has to keep talking and educate and ree mind people why this matters. also, attack the underlying ice isolationism. the idea that what we're spending on this is small. the percentage of our gdp, national security, is half the cold war average, that our

problems at home are not because we're not spending. he needs to attack the isolationism writ large. make the case that what we have done in the world is a good investment for us. and russia and ukraine, if we don't have something here, we're undermining the cause of freedom, the representation of the united states, and sending vladimir putin a signal that europe is his. the president ought to talk in stark terms about this. >> richard, many americans going back to gaza for a moment, many americans are frustrated and want to see president biden take a much harder line with bibi netanyahu, yet, as jonathan pointed out a moment ago, he's chosen, the president has chosen to take a more private route. is there any sign the private pressure is working? how do you measure that? >> the only thing is the israelis let a little aid in. essentially not. it's hard, joe asked a second ago, why isn't the

administration being tougher? it is hard psychologically for the president generationally. he is of an age. yeah, he came into politics half a century ago. i get it. israel was still david. it wasn't goliath. joe biden became president after the six-day war. all the arab armies were against israel. it is hard to pivot. israel is seen now more as goliath rather than david in the world. it's tough. >> again, think about the time you had '67, '72 in munich, the plo assassinating the israeli olympic athletes. you had '73. that was bam, bam, bam for a lot of people. some of us younger, the first impression of, what are palestinians? >> exactly. that was the framing. >> that was the framing. i will tell you, it was the framework for decades. >> exactly. >> he lives under that

framework. >> it's a generational thing. for people in their 20s and 30s, the only thing they've really known, joe, is bibi netanyahu. >> right. >> an israeli government that's not interested in peacemaking, is interested in settlement building. it is attacking civilians really in a cavalier way. there's a real generational divide, which is, again, what worries me. if you care about israel and you care about this relationship, how short-sighted is this israeli government? >> well, it's benjamin netanyahu, again, in large part. the same benjamin netanyahu who knew where their illegal funding was from in 2018, looked the other way. i can't say this enough. that guy on the screen sent his representative to doha, and qatar said, "do you want us to continue giving hamas funding?" three weeks before the attacks. netanyahu's government said yes. they had the secret attack plans a year before. they had, as you said before, last time you were on, they had

warning that it was coming. hamas terrorists were throwing away their sim cards. they were preparing for battle. they did absolutely nothing. took ten hours in some cases to go rescue women that were being raped, children that were being brutalized, parents that were being shot in front of their kids. grandparents, people being burned. it is time to bridge the gap, willie. i will tell you, if you love israel, if you believe that israel needs to exist, then you have to worry about the severe damage benjamin netanyahu is doing to the cause of israel in the united states, young americans and across the world. >> president biden is feeling the pressure. as this debate goes on, the hostages are toiling now into their fifth and sixth months, and the suffering in gaza continues. richard haass, thank you very much. always good to see you, mara. thank you, as well. still ahead, we now have a

verdict in the "rust" movie trial for the armarmorer who had alec baldwin a gun that led to the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set. danny cevallos joins us next.

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most reliable 5g network. sure is a lot safer than becoming a stuntman for money. get a free line of unlimited intro for a year when you buy one unlimited line. visit xfinitymobile.com today to learn more. live picture of the white house at 6:53 in the morning. the president getting ready for his state of the union address tonight. a new mexico jury found the armorer for the movie "rust" guilty of involuntary manslaughter. hannah guitierrez-reed faces up to 18 months in state prison. the nearly two-week criminal trialcentered on the accidental shooting on the film set in 2021. haylna hutchins was killed by a live round from a prop gun held

by alec baldwin. baldwin claim he is didn't pull the trigger. he faces involuntary manslaughter charges, as well. his trial is set for july. let's bring in legal analyst dan danny sa valess. any surprise with the verdict? what does it mean for baldwin later this year? >> yes and no. the state's case, generally speaking, this was not a strong case, but if there was a stronger case, it was against the armoarmorer. she was acquitted of the tampering with evidence. some of the evidence was, somebody saw a bag of a white powdery substance, never tested, and it was supposedly cocaine. not a surprise, an acquittal there. here's the thing, a guilty verdict for the armorer is good baldwin. an acquittal for the armorer was good for alec baldwin, as well. baldwin's team got a free look at the entire theory of liability against the armorer and a lot of the state's evidence. no matter what, that's a win.

but a guilty verdict here means that alec baldwin's team can basically take the state's case and make it their own, as they point at other people responsible. whether it's the armorer, who was found guilty, whether it is david halls who took a plea agreement, or the supplier who supposedly supplied the props, equipment, and allegedly, according to the defense here, possibly even the live rounds. that's all good for alec baldwin in this case. an acquittal would have meant the overall case wasn't that strong. because if they couldn't convict the armorer, how are they going to convict the actor? >> alec baldwin looked like he'd be under criminal charges, then dropped it, and now he's indicted on involuntary manslaughter. however you feel about alec baldwin, whoever worked on a movie set or from hollywood said, it is not the job of the actor to know what's in the gun

that he was handed. it's the job of the armorer to assure you that this is what i have. let me show you what's in the chamber. these aren't live rounds of ammunition. what's the case against him look like? >> alec baldwin's defense case is a strong one for so many different reasons. number one, the reason you said. an actor on a movie set, that is probably the one place where you could say that the rules of gun safety are a little different. everyone who handles a gun learns the number one rule, never point a gun at something you don't want to destroy. but on a movie set, a gun is not a gun. a gun is a prop. a gun is a toy. i don't say that -- i don't want to sound glib because guns aren't toys, but if you're told something isn't a gun, you're handed it and you are an actor, you are entitled to believe it is not a gun. if this was a science fiction movie set in the future, and you were handed a ray gun, you'd similarly be able to believe it's not going to shoot a laser once i pull the trigger. so the biggest witness against

alec baldwin in his case is alec baldwin. he gave an interview where he made two really, really bad statements. number one was the "i didn't pull the trigger." you didn't need to say that. central in this case, that was not central in this case, will be technical stuff about there is a half cock, a full, and what happens if the trigger can be pulled. that'll be a factor. worse for alec baldwin is when he said, "i, as a smart actor, know that i would never, never, never point a gun at anyone." this was really stupid. i'll tell you why. because he should have sat back on the idea of, i'm just a dumb actor. if you could imagine, if this was a 12-year-old actor on some other set, they would never be blamed for thinking that a prop handed to them, that they were told was not a gun, was not a gun. now, alec baldwin is on record saying, "oh, i'd never, never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger." bad idea. instead, say, "look, me just

actor. me know nothing." >> sounds like a defense. the prosecution does seem to have it out for him, even in this trial. they're calling baldwin a prima donna who ignore td rules of a movie set and didn't listen. we'll see how it goes for his trial in july. danny cevallos, thank you so much. coming up next, new york governor kathy hochul joins us in studio to talk about her new action to reduce crime in new york city's subways. plus, white house press secretary karine jean-pierre will be our guest ahead of president biden's state of the union address tonight. we're back in two minutes. in t. made my life a lot harder. but the picture started changing when i started on vyvgart. ♪♪ vyvgart is for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are anti-achr antibody positive. in a clinical trial, vyvgart significantly improved most participants' ability to do daily activities when added to their current gmg treatment. ♪♪

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president biden will deliver his state of the union address. he's been practicing for weeks. not his speech, staying up past 9:00. >> welcome back. >> me, too, by the way. practice staying up past 9:00. >> way past my bedtime. >> it'll be tough. >> yeah. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's thursday, march 7th. jonathan lemire still with us. bringing into the conversation, let's bring in president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. special correspondent for "vanity fair" and the host of "fast politics" podcast, molly jong-fast, an msnbc political analyst. rev, what do you need to hear from president biden tonight? >> i think he needs to really lay out in a very unequivocal

way what he has brought us from when he went into office and where we are now. i've said publicly, and i was at the white house yesterday on other issues as president of the national action network. i gave some unsolicited advice to some of the senior staff because we were there on other issues, but a minor part. own what is being used against him. as an old man, i passed the inflation reduction bill, infrastructure. compare me to the other old man. let's do a comparison of two old, white men. >> right. >> that would change the whole course of this conversation we're having about his age. we have two old men. one does a walk that he has because of doctors explaining he walks a certain way. the other does a perp walk to

the next arraignment. which walk do you want to have in the white house? >> yeah. i mean, politics is about contrast. the contrast between these two, not great in age, but, molly, on issue after issue after issue, on comportment, respect for the law, respect for the constitution, this is pretty easy to sell. what does joe biden need to do tonight? >> i think it is important to note, you should start with donald trump is out on bail, right? we forget, right? he is on bail still. i would say that, look, i think the top line should be the inflation reduction act reduced inflation, right? republicans said it would increase inflation, and they were wrong. so i think that's pretty good. good policy makes good politics, right? he has good policy. you know, a lot of this stuff has really worked. there are bridges being built in north carolina, in different states. there are -- there's infrastructure happening. people are seeing it in their

lives. so i think if you brag about a lot of these legislative accomplishments, that's a really good start. he has the attention, now he can sell the policies, which are already happening. >> just generally, compare the sorry state the country was in when donald trump left to where it is now. for the first time since the 1960s unemployment is under 4% for two years running. crime stats, despite the fact some cities still haven't gotten it right, crime stats are near 50 year lows. jobs, wages, everything going in the right direction economically. >> yeah, the metrics are there. a lot of people don't like to think back about the covid pandemic, but that's where the biden administration begins the success story of pulling a nation out of that, dealing with the resulting inflation. yes, prices higher than people like, but inflation has certainly cooled. >> 3%. >> it's certainly cooled.

>> 3.1%. >> the stock market is booming. blockbuster job report after blockbuster job report. the strength of the economy is there. he certainly faces challenges. there are two hot wars overseas. he's limited in what he can do to address them. certainly, you know, the issue with the southern border and, tonight, aides tell me it'll been an opportunity for him to turn this on republicans. say, look, i was ready to sign that bill. they're the ones who blocked it because the guy who is running for president in their party told them to. i think we'll hear a lot tonight about the familiar but still important themes about defense of democracy, and whether he uses trump's name or not is irrelevant. he'll suggest the stakes of this election this november are so high, the future of the republic itself and what we think of as the american democracy is on the line. he's going to talk about that and talk about the idea of freedom, particularly with reproductive rights. he has a number of things he has to do tonight. of course, it's a speech about policy and also performance. aides privately acknowledge, last year, he hit a home run, the spontaneous moment with

republican lawmakers in the back. they'd love something like that again tonight to prove his vitality, which is partially why house speaker johnson was telling members of his caucus, behave. don't shout. >> good luck with that. >> let's go to the white house. joining us now is press secretary karine jean-pierre. >> hey, good to see you. i was going to say, i don't think you need me. i was just listening to the commentary. i don't think you need me this morning, but it is good to be on. >> well, we'll ask you anyway, let's talk about the contrast that you seek to draw. clearly, it's been a two-man race for some time now but almost officially now after super tuesday that it is going to be donald trump as the republican nominee versus the president. how will you draw a contrast while talking about your own record with your opponent? >> well, again, willie, good to see you. thank you so much for having me. look, tonight is obviously a very important night. the president is looking forward to not just being in front of congress but talking directly to the american people.

just think about it. he'll be talking to folks who are sitting on their couches, sitting around the kitchen table, and letting them know how he sees the vision for our country. talking about how he's going to build on these accomplishments that has delivered gained for the american families. look, he's also going to talk about who he stands for. who he stands for. if you think about this, middle class over tax giveaways for the rich. think of lowering costs over greed, corporate greed. if you think about women's health care over these extreme bans that we have been seeing across the country, and on abortion and ivf, as well. when you think about american democracy, standing up for that over the hateful, violent rhetoric and the attack of our rule of law that we have been seeing. if you think about standing for ptients over big pharma. you'll see the president lay all that out. don't want to get too far ahead

of him, but that'll be the contrast. it'll be important for the american people, as he knees it knows it and understands it and you've been talking about, to hear about his vision. what he's done in the last three years. he's done more in the last three years, willie, than most presidents have been able to do there their two terms. so that is going to be important for the president tonight. >> karine, good morning. it is jonathan. you laid out what he is doing to say about what he's accomplished already. tell us more about what he is going to promise for the future. you know, the vision for a second term. i know you guys are putting out information on potentially raising corporate tax rates. tell us a little about that, corporate tax rates, tax hikes on the rich. >> yup. >> how is president biden going to sell what the next four years are going to look like? >> look, as you talk about, corporate tax rate, making sure we're standing up for the middle class family, that's always something that the president has talked about. you think about the economy, growing an economy from the bottom up, middle out, right? making sure the middle class is not forgotten. making sure communities that

feel they've been left behind are not. that's what you've seen the president do the first three years. look, here's what i would say. when we talk about 14 million jobs created, unemployment under 4%, wages have gone up, that did not happen by accident, right? that happened because of this president's policies. he wants to continue that over the next, obviously, several months going into the second term, right? he wants to continue delivering those gains for the american people. look, there's drug prices, right? we have to make sure that seniors aren't paying thousands of dollars a month, right? that's why the inflation -- i heard someone talk about the inflation reduction act. let's not forget what that was able to do. it allowed medicare to negotiate with big pharma, right? it allowed to make sure that insulin was capped at 35 bucks for seniors. all of those things we need to continue and those historic pieces of legislation that obviously are now law, we have to implement them. we have to protect them.

you have republicans that want to repeal the inflation reduction act. the president wants to continue that process. there are 46,000 projects, infrastructure projects, that came out of the bipartisan infrastructure law. we've got to continue that, get those projects going. and let's not forget, he is going to talk about his unity agenda. there are issues. there are issues that both sides care about. you know, ending cancer, fighting for veteran families and those are important. getting fentanyl out of the country. the president got 400 bills passed and signed, signed more than 400 bills that have been bipartisan. you'll hear him talk about all of those things tonight, as well. >> karine, two of the issues that are burning in this country, among others, is the right of women to choose and where we are in terms of the racial gaps in this country.

the president has taken a stern position of pro choice, and he's made some deep inroads in closing -- i think we have the closing of the race gap between whites and blacks, has now shrunk more than it has in the last few decades. black unemployment record lows. i remember last year, the state of the union, he had the parents of tyre nichols, who was a concern for us at that point, who had been beaten to death by police. will he address women and women's rights directly and the continued fight in the black community where some are saying that blacks have become more -- say, less than enthusiastic about his campaign? even though i notice it's not a campaign address. >> you're exactly right. thank you so much for the question, reverend. look, you are going to hear the president address how our democracy is under attack, how our freedoms are certainly under attack. he's going to speak to what

we've been seeing across the country as it relates to women's health care and the radical, extreme bills that we're seeing on abortion, on ivf. you'll hear the president be very loud and clear about that. and we know voting rights is an issue here the president has spoken to, has spoken to very clearly, even took an executive action very early on in his administration, to see what we can do on the federal level to deal with, to make it easier for folks to vote. you'll hear him certainly lean into that, as well, tonight. look, it is important, we belief, that as the president -- let's not forget, when he first ran, decided to run in 2019, he talked about the soul of this nation and really fighting for the soul of america. that didn't end with the president being elected, obviously, in 2020. that continues. that continues. it is important for this president to continue to talk about our freedoms and how they are under attack.

they are. in extreme ways by extreme republicans. he's going to continue. you'll see whose side he is on. he is on the side of the american people. he'll continue to fight for the american people. tonight is going to be a really important night to hear directly from the president on these critical issues. >> we will do that about 14 hours from now. >> yes. >> on capitol hill. white house press secretary karine jean-pierre, thanks so much. appreciate it. >> thank you, willie. appreciate it. alabama republican governor kay ivey signed a bill to protect in vitro fertilization services into law. the move came after weeks of backlash following the supreme court ruling that equated frozen embryos to children. supporters of the measure were hopeful it'd be a short-term solution, allowing clinics in the state that halted services to reopen for ivf. the legislation does not define or clarify whether, under state law, frozen embryos created via ivf do have the same rights as children, though. instead, it protects doctors, clinics, and other health care

personnel who provide ivf treatment and services by offering such workers civil and criminal immunity. late last month, republican senator cindy hyde-smith of mississippi blocked passage of legislation in the united states senate that would provide federal protection for ivf. senator hyde-smith pointing out the alabama supreme court decision did not ban ivf and argued the bill before the senate was a vast overreach, she said, that was full of poison pills. molly, obviously, republicans know that this is a huge problem for them. i mean, abortion, there are moral objections to it. obviously, there is debate and conversation around that. there's not a whole lot around ivf. this is not a republican, democrat, conservative, liberal issue. this is the miracle of life being brought to anybody who needs it and who wants it. >> one of the great scientific advancement of my lifetime. you know, i had two kids via ivf. so did mike pence. that's probably the only thing

we have in common. but, yeah, i mean, this is such a dumb hill for republicans to die on. nobody in the world thinks five frozen cells is a person. the math is not mathing. so i do think they have a real problem. i was really shocked at what -- you know, there's also just, like -- it's also a case of republicans being bad at legislating. like, this did not have to happen. they really set themselves up for this. again, with the legislation that they passed, you know, they just said, if you destroy an employee, you can't be prosecuted. they didn't say, five frozen cells isn't a person. i think you've now opened the door to a legislative nightmare and also a legal nightmare. i mean, you have ivf all throughout this country. >> right. i was just going to say, the point that you made is the inconsistency in this bill. they don't say it's not life.

>> right. >> because they know they'd get in trouble with their base. so without -- if they're not saying it, then we are to assume they think it is life. so they're saying it is okay to destroy that life because it is politically unpopular, but the inconsistencies across the board, especially for those that say life begins at conception, things get very, very muddled. then you look in the united states senate and see that republicans can't even pass a bill to protect ivf. >> yeah. and, i mean, tammy duckworth, you know, immediately when this happened, she came out and said, let's codify ivf. by the way, this is not controversial legislation. this is a popular thing. >> right. >> millions of dollars in this country are spent on ivf. doctors who do it, i mean, they're a really powerful group. >> but it points out the extremism of republican's position. >> yeah. >> you look at overturning roe.

for decades, 70% of americans told gallup they were against the overturning of roe. roe overturned. there are republicans who are extreme who want to go after contraception next. clarence thomas talked about going after contraception next. talked about going after marriage equality, saying that these -- none of these should be constitutionally protected. this is where the republican party is going. they are getting more and more extreme on all of these issues. >> and going after contraception is such a loser. i mean, nobody in this country is like, we shouldn't have contraception. it's crazy. and they've opened the door to this with the idea of embryonic personhood. now, we're down a rabbit hole, and it is impossible to stop. >> willie, it is hard to overstate how bad this is for

republicans. you look at the states that control, whether it's florida's six-week ban, look what's happening in texas and the extreme positions. you look at what's happening across the country. you know, a very, very progressive judge won a statewide contest in wisconsin, in large part because wisconsin republicans still embraced an 1849 total ban. that's how extreme they are. it's why they're going to keep losing. >> abortion rights are passing in places like kansas and ohio. we're seeing these crossover, sort of transcendent issues. like i say, i mean, there's a lot of debate around abortion and moral reasons why are objected to it. everyone understands that. but ivf, i mean, it's like, people who cannot have the miracle of life, if you're the party of life, get the miracle of life. the people who created ivf won the nobel prize because it is one of the great innovations in

human history. >> i'd also say one of the things about abortion that we're seeing is that the people who are really having these horror stories, that are coming out, are not women who are trying to get abortions because there is an abortion pill. it's women who are pregnant, right? who had a miscarriage and now need to take the abortion pill, and doctors won't treat because they're scared of being prosecuted. we're seeing that in texas. these are people, they're not necessarily pro choice, but they don't want to bleed out when they have a miscarriage. i think that is really a bad look for republicans. >> you can bet we'll hear about some of this tonight in the state of the union address. special correspondent at "vanity fair," molly jong-fast, great to have you. ahead on "morning joe," house republicans invited hunter biden back to capitol hill. >> boy. >> for a public hearing. >> they just want -- >> hot stove, joe. >> they just want to keep burning their hand on the hot stove. this guy embarrassing them every time. >> and their star witnesses all seem to either be on the run or

indicted. not going well. we'll talk to house minority leader hakeem jeffries about the gop's continued push to impeach president biden despite the utter lack of evidence. first, new york governor kathy hochul is here in studio with us to discuss her plan to boost subway safety amid a recent uptick in crime. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. hi, i'm greg. i live in bloomington, illinois. i'm not an actor. i'm just a regular person. some people say, "why should i take prevagen? i don't have a problem with my memory." memory loss is, is not something that occurs overnight.

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and a man needed four stitches after another passenger slashed him with a box cutter. joining us now is the democratic governor of new york, kathy hochul. governor, thanks for being with us. >> first of all, look at the headlines. newspaper of record, as reverend al likes to say, for "morning joe," "the new york post." boots on the ground. "the daily news," "soldiers in the subway." >> no governor takes it lightly, the decision to get national guard and put them in harm's way. what led you to send them to the subway? >> i want to send reinforcements to the mayor of new york, who has primary responsibility for policing the subways. but the subways are vast, and we have seen a number of crimes. again, not statistically significant but psychologically significant. >> thank you for saying that. people will say crime is at a 50 year low and everything is

wonderful. willie will say, why is it all my friends say, don't go on the subway, or i go to a cvs store and the toothpaste is behind plastic? so thank you. it's not just numbers on the page. >> no. >> it's psychologically, do new yorkers feel safe? >> that is exactly what we're trying to fight here. i can show you all the statistics in the world and say, you should feel safe because the numbers are better. but you're the mom on the subway with your baby in a stroller. you're the parent putting your kid on the subway to go to high school. you're the seniortor appointmen. you're anxious, i'm the governor of the state of new york, i'm concerned about it. if you feel better walking past someone in a uniform to make sure someone doesn't bring a knife or gun on the subway, that's exactly why i did it. i want to change the psychology around crime in new york city because we are the safest big city in america. >> right. >> i want people on the subways. it is safe. but i'll make sure people feel safe. >> it is far and away the best way to get around new york. still ride the subway all the

time, one train. but i was saying to you in the break, the last couple years, you do notice that, rev, when we take the subway, always stand up on the yellow line, look over to see if the train was coming. everybody stands back. they're against the back wall or the post because of the stories we hear about getting pushed in front of a train. it doesn't happen a lot statistically, but it happens. i guess for me, this is the response to a problem, but what about the root of the problem? why is there a little uptick in subway crime? >> we're still not at full capacity. we had 4 million passengers a day. it is usually 6 or 7. when there are trains that are emptier, people feel more at ease to interact with others, sometimes in a violent matter. when we can get the platforms full again, crime goes down. during the pandemic, there was a spike because not many people were on it and the criminals feel at ease, no one is watching

them. but they're watching. part of my plan, every subway train is now going to have cameras on it. that was not the case. i sped up the process. now, even our conductors booths will have cameras in there. we don't know who the perpetrator is of the person who slit the neck of a conductor just a week and a half ago. i talked to the doctor who saved his life. what a great guy, to be on the train and save the life of a conductor. but that is not the norm. i don't want people to think that is going to be normalized on the subways in the state of new york. we're going to make sure we take back our subways, making you feel safe again. no stop and frisk. this is not punitive. this is a deterrent. >> the f-train, my local. but your move here received applause from unlikely sources. senator tom cotton of arkansas cheered this. some pushback from civil liberty groups in new york city who worry about the idea of the national guard being on the subway. explain a little more exactly what the purview is. >> why are they worried? i'm confused. >> the idea that they don't think the national guard, soldiers, should be on the

subway. that's their argument. >> why? >> because they think it's a step too far. >> to what? not necessary for what? i don't understand. >> you'll have to take it up with them, joe. i'm relaying it to the governor. >> you know, i'm tom hanks in "big." i don't understand. i don't understand. >> i think there is a sense amongst some that, they believe, soldiers, their place is not on new york city streets or subways of an american city. the governor made that decision. can you tell us a little bit more about what their purview will be? how many soldiers? how long? what will the jurisdiction be? >> their job is to protect the primaries, the nypd, but i'll give help as long as help is needed. i have 1,000 individuals. i don't have to keep them there long. i may keep them there a long time. i'm not telling the criminals the day i'm stopping this because then they'll be back the next day. that's not a good crime prevention strategy. also, to the naysayers, i'm reading articles where people are saying, hochul is saying

it's one of my plans that if you committed a crime on the subway, you've harmed another passenger or conductor, you should not be able to take the subway again, right? i don't want to sit next to someone who just, you know, harmed someone last year and got out. the people are saying i'll be harassing people and going to be stopping them. that is not the objective at all. i'm here to protect people. particularly people in communities of color who are riding the subways in high proportion because they don't have the luxury of vehicles, getting to low-wage jobs. i want them to be safe. that's why i'm doing this. people criticize everything we do. get in line, i say, as the governor of new york. they're always saying something. my job is to protect the people of the state, and i'll do it. i'll also demonstrate that democrats fight crime, as well. this narrative that republicans have said and hijacked the story that we're soft on crime, that we defund the police. no. we care about civil liberties. we don't want overpolicing. we want to make sure the police operate within certain restraints, protect our

citizens' rights, but by god, i'm protecting their lives and their sense of safety and security here in the state of new york. >> governor, first of all, it is good to fight crime. certainly, those in communities of color are the disproportion disproportional victims of crime. but this is not going to lead to stop and frisk. >> no. >> and the national guard will not be interfering directly on the subways. because when we deal with the jerome neely cases and others, we don't want overpolicing, but we need people protected. how do we protect and don't go back to stop and frisk and violating people's civil liberties, but at the same time, relax people like brother joe and i, that we're fighting crime? >> i take the concerns you raise seriously. that is why they are a deterrent. they're standing there as a deterrent. the police will be inspecting bags, every other person. i'm not going to say what it is. but there is a scheduled stop of

individuals to look at their bags based on numbers, not who the person is, not how they look. there is a thought out process to make sure we're not selecting individuals or profiling people. none of that is going to happen. if it does, i'll stop it, because that's not the objective. the objective is to restore the sense of safety and security in our subways, make people know they're going to get to their destination in a -- without any harm, and these individuals are not even going to the bags. the national guard are not going through your bags. they're there as a port function. that is it. i think it'll do a lot to calm down the fears right now, the anxiety, which is running high. that's important to me. it doesn't have to be permanent. let's just see how long we need to do this. >> let many ask you about bail reform. it's been a big debate for several years. seem we read stories in the paper all the time. somebody commits a crime, they're out the next day. commit another crime. where are we in that debate?

for new yorkers that want a tougher bail system, that maybe they think we overcorrected, what do you say to them? >> i've corrected the bail system. back in 2019, my predecessor, the legislature at the time, did a series of reforms. i'm sure they were well intended but we've seen the effect of what happens with the high rate of recidivism because people are being cycled in and out, in and out. i want to protect people's rights. they have rights. i as the governor, i'll protect them. but here's the bottom line, i changed the law last year. with a lot of resistance. i held the budget up one month late to get the changes i wanted to give judges the discretion that they had had taken away from them, to look at the whole body of evidence. did this person do this before? are they repeat offender? what is the likelihood? consider all these factors. we changed it starting last may. i guarantee you're going to see different outcomes in statistics this time next year on the

recidivism rate. people are not going to be cycled in and out. also, there is a whole system here, joe, it's the d.a.s and judges. i'm seeing a disparity between upstate new york and the city of new york. the law is correct. the judges have the tools they need. it's how it is being applied. i'm calling them out on this. >> on that point, the nypd put out numbers yesterday. 38 individuals arrested for assault in the transit system last year were linked to 1,126 other crimes across the city. 542 people arrested for shoplifting, committing 7,600 crimes in the city. mayor adams saying, we don't have a surge in crime but in recidivism. for people who can't follow all the ins and outs of the bail system in new york city, what do you say? how do we get the people committing crime again and may commit a crime on the subway today and be back in the subway tomorrow? how do you stop that? >> the mayor is absolutely

right. we're in full alignment. it's not -- there's a small number of individuals. we get them held, crime is going to drop dramatically. that's our objective here. that's why i fought so hard to get the laws changed. i need the judges to apply them. i need the district attorney to know i've empowered them to stop these individuals from cycling in and out of our system. it doesn't make sense that this has been the way it was. that's why i had to stand up and fix it. now, we'll see the proof in the next year or so. we only literally changed it a few months ago. >> 750 members of the national guard. 250 state troopers additionally in the new york city subway. >> thank you, governor. >> kathy hochul, governor, thank you for being here. >> great to see everybody. we'll talk to democratic members in the leadership in the house as president biden prepares to address the nation tonight. representative hakeem jeffries and representative james clyburn join us ahead on "morning joe."

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live picture of the united states capitol. 7:40. the president will give his state of the union address tonight. the republican-led house oversight committee, meanwhile, invited hunter biden and three former business associates to testify at a public hearing on march 20th as part of its ongoing impeachment inquiry into his father, president biden. a source familiar with hunter biden's legal strategy telling nbc news, republican committee chair james comer is, quote, desperate to keep alive an impeachment inquiry that died when hunter biden testified for almost 7 hours last week, end quote. meanwhile, the house of representatives passed a set of funding bills needed to avoid a partial government shutdown. the bills now head to the senate where the upper chamber is trying to reach an agreement to pass them in time. house speaker mike johnson said he's pleased with the legislation because it allowed him to make spending cuts. >> we also advanced, as you've seen the summary, cuts to some

of the agencies we believe are really overreaching and have been turned, in some ways, against the american people. we are going to cut 3% from doj. 7% from the atf. 6% from the fbi. 10% from the epa. that's just a start. we have a lot more priorities and things we need to advance, but the reality is, as we all recognize, is we have to grow the house majority, take back the senate for the republican party, and win the white house. i'm here to tell you, the reason we're optimistic is we believe those things are going to happen in november. we can't wait. that day can't get here soon enough. >> what happened to my former party? you have a speaker bragging about defunding the police. he's bragging about defunding the top law enforcement agencies in america. he's bragging about defunding the agency that is responsible for stopping gangs. responsible for stopping terrorists at home and around the world. he's proud of that? seriously?

like, drug cartels, he's bragging about that. >> he's bragging about it. >> so he's helping drug cartels, like, drug lords are thrilled to hear he's cutting funding for these agencies. putin is thrilled to hear he continues to stand in the way of helping ukraine defend itself. mike johnson, friend of drug cartels and put nmsz. that is hard to put on a bumper sticker when running for re-election. >> also, the bipartisan immigration reform also would hurt the drug cartels and human trafficking. >> the republican party commits a self-inflicted wound at the behest of donald trump who falsely accused the doj of being weaponized against him. >> hakeem jeffries of new york joins us. leader jeffries, thanks for being with us this morning. a lot to talk about. let's start with the cuts

proposed in this funding bill. do you think doj, atf, fbi, epa, you think it'll see the cuts in the end? >> we fought hard to avoid the type of dramatic cuts that the extreme maga republicans wanted to visit on the doj, the fbi, the atf, whose primary job is to try to confront the massive amount of guns that are flooding our communities and resulting in people being killed in classrooms and movie theaters and in malls. the type of so-called cuts that speaker johnson is talking about are largely cosmetic in nature, compared to what they wanted to do if they had their way. which was to cut hundreds of millions of dollars, if you can believe it, from the department of justice or the fbi or other law enforcement agencies. >> leader jeffries, do they not understand that these are the very agencies that crack down on drug cartels? these are the very agencies that

protect americans from terrorists, whether we're talking about terrorist attacks in shopping malls, whether we're talking about terrorist attacks in train stations, whether we're talking about terrorist attacks at airports? do they not understand that? are they too stupid to understand that? or are they fine with it because donald trump wants it? it's just like the southern border, i guess. donald trump says, let fentanyl flood across the southern border another year and blame it on me. people are saying, let hijackers have their way, drug cartels have their way in the united states because, well, donald trump told us to do it? is that how congress runs now? >> well, it seems to be the case in terms of whenever one is trying to figure out how to explain the unexplainable, the simple answer is always that when the low energy maga king, donald trump, says to jump, the extreme maga republicans in the house of representatives respond, how high? that's the reason why they continue to block a bipartisan,

comprehensive border security bill necessary to stand with our democratic allies. whether that's in ukraine or israel or the indo-pacific. certainly in the midst of the defense of democracy and freedom and truth against authoritarianism, tyranny, and propaganda, we are continuing to see the republicans do the bidding of donald trump and undermine the best interests of the united states of america. >> leader, what is it like listening to these republicans carp year after year after year about the need to pass a tough border security bill, and then a conservative like james lankford gets together with democrats in the house and the senate, gets together with republicans in the senate, gets together with the president, and they come up with the toughest border security

bill ever, and mike johnson and maga extremists kill it? >> we clearly have a broken immigration system and real challenges at the border, and under the leadership of president biden partnering with house democrats and senate democrats and, of course, republican senators like lankford, we are ready, willing, and able to try to find a way forward to establish a safe and strong, secure and humane border, while trying to also, at the same time, find legal pathways toward citizenship so we can continue to be a thriving nation of immigrants. that's a competitive advantage for us. but, again, the republicans don't seem interested in solving problems on behalf of hard working american taxpayers. we need less chaos in washington, d.c., more common

sense. common sense suggests that we have to address these challenges in a bipartisan way. we are willing to continue to do that. we just need partners on the other side of the aisle. >> leader jeffries, we just had the governor of new york here talking about crime in the subways. i know it's been brought out all over the country that some migrants have engaged in crime. even though i think it's been blown way out of the data that we've seen. even in light of that hype, you're telling me that with many concessions to the republicans, to the border control bill, that in many cases they had represented and they had written, that your conversations with speaker johnson dramatically changed when donald trump said, "no, don't vote for the bill," even though the bill had many of us questioning it and saying it was giving too much to the republicans. they wouldn't vote for their own bill under the orders of their

presidential nominee-to-be, donald trump? >> well, this is a group right now in terms of the extreme maga republicans where, far too often, facts don't matter. hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior. they believe shamelessness is a superpower. we've seen it issue after issue after issue. we are going to continue to do everything we can to put people over politics. from the very beginning of this congress, we've said, as house democrats, that we will find bipartisan common ground with our republican colleagues on any issue, whenever and wherever possible, to order to make life better for the american people. joe biden has led in that way. joe biden will continue to work toward building a healthy economy, lower costs, better paying jobs, safer community, address the issues at the border. in the context of a divided government, we need traditional republicans to step up, work with us, and reject the maga

extremism that is poisoning the republican party. >> leader jeffries, good morning. want to get your reaction to something we talked about earlier in the show. hunter biden testified before closed doors a couple weeks ago. he is now set to do so in a public setting in the house later this month. just give us your sense as to what your colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing. >> well, from the very beginning, this effort to try to impeach president joe biden was clearly a directive that came from the former president, donald trump, of the united states of america. despite the lack of evidence that there has been an impeachable offense, there is no evidence that president biden in any way, shape, or form has broken to distract from the fact that this do-nothing republican majority in the house has done nothing to address the issues of

the economy, nothing on housing affordability, nothing on public safety, nothing on national security, nothing on the border, and so they want to distract the american people. it's unfortunate, and it's going to crash and burn because it has no basis. this impeachment inquiry and effort, in law or in fact. >> hakeem jeffries, the state of the union is in the building you're standing in right now tonight. what do you think the president will say tonight? what have you spoken to the white house about? >> it's my understanding that the president is both going to talk to the american people about the progress that has been made with respect to how things started, a once-in-a-century pan pandemic. the economy turned around, and he's restoring good-paying jobs. we see gas prices coming down.

that's an important context for the american people to understand, but i think the president will also make clear that we know we have to finish the job, that there are still affordability challenges that we have to address on behalf of everyday americans. we're willing to do that in a bipartisan way, but president biden has a vision to grow the middle class, to put everyday americans first in the wealthy and the well off and the well-connected last in the context of how we prioritize public policy in the united states of america. >> house minority leader congressman hakeem jeffries of new york. leader jeffries, thanks for your time this morning. we always appreciate it. >> thank you. let's bring in one of leader jeffries' colleagues, jim clyburn of south carolina. he is a national cochair for the biden re-election campaign. congressman clyburn, great to have you with us. i'll put the same question to

you. from your point of view, from your district, the people of south carolina, what do they want to hear from the president tonight? >> well, thank you very much for having me. i think that leader jeffries is right on point. people will be interested in the president tonigh drawing a contrast between what was, what is, and leaning into the future with a vision of what this country can be. president biden has done a great job of bringing this country back together, of lifting people out of a quagmire. he has driven gas prices down, driven inflation down, and has raised the incomes of people all over the country, and i think that what he needs to do tonight is to continue to show his vision for how we're going to build upon that for the next four years. i might give you one example.

student loan debt relief, he has already eliminated $140 billion in student loan debt relief, but going forward, his administration has made it possible that every two months for the next four years, another 75,000 people will be eligible to have their debt eliminated, if not, relieved, and that's what this is all about. not just what he's already done, but what his policies will do going forward. so president biden has to lean into the future in a way that everybody can see this vision and can feel it in their lives in their communities. >> jim, it's always great to have you here and great to see you, buddy. >> thank you. >> i wanted to ask you about -- something that has to be so frustrating to you and i know it's frustrating to president biden as well.

there will be -- some democrats will criticize joe biden for not doing enough on student loans. you just talked about the things he was doing, but they'll overlook it was donald trump and republicans and donald trump's supreme court that killed more comprehensive student loan relief. same thing with voting rights acts. the john lewis voting rights act. you had the president of the united states and democrats in the house and senate for it, but republicans and donald trump were against it. every voting rights act that would help people of color to have more access to voting, donald trump has been against it and has stood in the way of it. how does joe biden get that message out to the very people he needs the most to get re-elected? >> i think you've hit the nail on the head there, joe. that's exactly what i'm talking about. i just left selma. last weekend we were there for our annual pilgrimage.

this is the 59th year, and we were talking about what this administration has done. now selma is in dallas county, alabama, right next to shelby county where the supreme court 11 years ago virtually neutered the voting rights act of 1965, and we have been trying with this president to get the house and the senate on the same page. now we've passed the john lewis advancement act three times in the house. each time it was filibustered in the senate. that's not joe biden's fault. he has to really show tonight this is what my vision is. this is what i have done. i'm being stopped by a senate that continued to filibuster this issue, and the senate is on the ballot. one-third of the senate will be on the ballot come november. give me a senate that will not

filibuster these bills. give me an opportunity to appoint people to the supreme court, who will not find it unconstitutional to eliminate student debt. this president has taken lemons and made lemonade time and time again. trump university was one of the first universities that put people in debt, did not give them the education that was promised to them, and left them with that debt. joe biden came in, eliminated that debt that they incurred at these fly-by-night institutions that included trump university. he also eliminated the debt for people on disabilities, and then he redid the system for students who are now graduated. they're going in the public

service, and they paid over the last 20 years and still owe money, eliminated the rest of that. so i think joe biden has a tremendous record. he has demonstrated what is good about this country, and he is making it possible for the greatness of this country to be accessible and affordable for all of his citizens. >> right. >> that's what i'm lookin for tonight because that's the record he has. >> one thing he has to be clear about, rev, everything joe biden was for, donald trump was against. it's a clear, clear contrast with these two men. >> he was actively against it and no one has represented that better than congressman clyburn who continued to do what john lewis did every year. he convened everybody saturday, and i think that we need to really show when joe biden said election night, black america, you had my back, i will have

yours, he needs to show tonight he has had that among the other issues he needs to address, and he wouldn't have been able to do that without this man, jim clyburn who turned the tide for him in south carolina. i was there. >> no doubt about it. all right, jim. thank you so much for being with us. it's always a great honor. national cochair for the biden campaign, congressman jim clyburn, the man who helped get joe biden elected. thanks for being with us. coming up, senator mitch mcconnell's endorsing donald trump for president despite the fact that trump continued to make racist comments about his wife. the minority leader was pressed about that on capitol hill. we'll show you his response, and we're looking at the fight to win over nikki haley's voters now that she's out of the 2024 race. we are back in 90 seconds. of t4 race we are back in 90 seconds. the .

they tried to hunt down the speaker of the house. they built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice

president. they did this because they'd been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he lost an election. former president trump's actions preceded the riot and it was a disgraceful dereliction of duty. >> therefore i am endorsing donald j. trump. you know, the one thing we cut off there, and maybe it's not fair to mitch is that -- at the end of that, right after that, he broke into a rousing tune. he had a band. happy days are here again. it was like the 32 conventions. i couldn't believe it. a little discordant. the song didn't go with the message. that's mitch. >> that was in 2021. that was about a month after

january 6th, blaming donald trump for the insurrection, the attack on the capitol. squarely. yesterday, mitch mcconnell endorsed donald trump for president. >> who saw that coming? >> we should also add in that donald trump has repeatedly attacked in a racist way, mitch mcconnell's wife, but he said, i will endorse whoever the republican nominee, even if it's an attempted coup against the government. >> we say a lot of bad things about ted cruz here. there is a difference between mitch mcconnell and ted cruz. if donald trump had ever attacked ted cruz's wife, ever called her ugly, ever struck out at her in the most personal of terms, that is texas tough right there. >> that's a real man. >> you cross a line with ted, you know what? you might as well have processed the rio grande, my friend.

>> all the way to cancun? >> yeah. you can't -- >> the retrieval of many. >> he assassinated -- he said ted cruz's father assassinated jfk. he won't support you for at least two months. >> there's a guy, you know, lindsey graham -- >> mr. spine. >> go on the floor. >> enough is enough. >> i'm out. >> i'm out. and then three rednecks and a hound dog, let me in. >> it's like somebody doxxed him and put him cell phone up there. >> i think we need a compilation. we could start with chris christie in the mcdonald's episode. >> the two moment that is led to donald trump's comeback post-january 6th, one is house

speaker mccarthy, soon-to-be wanting to be speaker mccarthy, heading to mar-a-lago to begin that rehabilitation tour. the other is mcconnell not to convict trump pushing it until after the inauguration, having it in february, believing things would cool off. voting to acquit himself, and had he voted to convict and whipped others to do so, trump wouldn't have been able to run for office today. mcconnell chose not to do that, and here we have trump. >> there were a lot of things that mitch did that we saluted on this show, and he stood up. he stood up to trump at very important times, and yet at the end, if you want to take this endorsement at the end of his career basically, or if you want to take what happened at the end of that process, where there really was a question. could mitch mcconnell have gotten enough republicans to convict donald trump in that impeachment proceeding? he made the call.

we'll let the courts play it out, and we see where that's led us. >> part of being in leadership is showing some leadership and at least attempting to do what you think is right. i mean, you know, we all have political minds. we talk a lot about strategy, but there's also just such a thing as right and wrong and at the end of the day, it sounds like a lot of people have forgotten why you go to washington. it's supposed to be to serve americans. it's supposed to be a public servant, and this just looks like it's about power. it's shameless, and americans understand that. they see that that's part of why so many voters are deeply demoralized and cynical about this process. >> right. >> at this point. >> and it's shameless, but it's also bizarre. here's a man -- how old is mitch mcconnell? >> old enough that it doesn't matter. >> old enough -- exactly. >> i'm old enough that it

doesn't matter. >> that's right. i mean, why not go out and just say what you think? and he did say what he thought for that brief, shining moment on february 13, 2021 where he said not only the stuff we saw on tape. he said there's a criminal law in this country. he was endorsing jack smith before jack smith was even appointed. he was saying that the man was a criminal, that he did -- he did cause these people to engage in violence on the hill, and that one of the remedies could be criminal prosecution, and so where is he today? and it's -- for what? he's donald. >> and for what? and i'm sorry, but i'm just going to ask and i say this with cruz. i say it of lindsey. i say it of all of them. i say it to just all the people trump insulted. what man -- i say man, or woman, but what man would put up with

that? i had a very powerful republican slander a friend of mine. 20 years later -- 20 years later, he pulls me aside before a speech and begs me to stop, and he says, joe, it's been 20 years. it's been 20 years. i said, you shouldn't have said that about my friend. it's going to be 20 more years. i mean, that's what we would all do. meanwhile, except for my friends. except for my friends, when donald trump said i was axecute, a lot of them voted for donald trump, but that even raises a question, willie. what is it about donald trump? >> it's his brilliance. >> people can insult someone's wife or husband. in mitch mcconnell's case,

continuing racist slurs against his wife, and they're just fine wit. -- with it. i'm not even looking at donald trump there. i'm looking at these people, my former friends. regulations, they're going to be down. it's crazy. >> yeah. you and i have talked about this on and off the air. what are those looks in the mirror like in the morning or at night for lindsey graham or for ted cruz or any of those guys? if you have any personal pride -- not talking about politics here, but if you have any personal pride, how do you do it? how do you swallow all that down and support the guy who's attacked you relentlessly? he attacked lindsey graham in his own state during a primary. they take the support for granted and he should because there's nothing he could do to them that wouldn't fall in line anyway, but it's again -- it's

not politics as a person who has personal pride. how do you do it? i don't know. i don't know. >> lindsey's first words were, hey, y'all. my first words if somebody did that to me would be markedly different, and i don't think i'm outside of the norm here, lemire. i just -- again, this is so bizarre. i want to underline again, mitch mcconnell insulted repeatedly, said this guy tried to basically destroy american democracy. he has watched his wife attacked with racist screeds repeatedly and he said, i endorse donald trump. >> it's so deeply cynical and it's based all out of fear of trump, and mcconnell of all people who has announced he's stepping down from leadership and not going to run again, he seems like a person who does not have to do this. he wants the republicans to have the majority of the senate even if he won't be the leader there. >> donald trump took that from the -- >> of course, he did. >> twice. he would have been senate majority leader over the past

four years except for one person and one person alone. >> the two men have not spoken in years, and yet mcconnell still, still backs this, and he defended it by saying yesterday, well, in february, 2021 just days after that speech, i said i would back whoever the republican nominee was. >> why? >> and that of course, became -- because he's putting party before country. that's what he's doing. party before personal pride too. >> that's an old custom that i understand when it's george h.w. bush or ronald reagan or john mccain. mitt romney -- pick -- whoever. >> bob dole. george h.w. it's not that high. >> this is a man who may face federal prosecute because of a coup against the government, and maybe you could change the tradition for this one case. >> he's not doing it for the country. if he only cared about the republican party, he would have spoken out and said, we got to get rid of trump long along even if he wanted to sacrifice himself just for his party, i

mean why not do that? >> we have -- to just try to balance things as we always do, we have somebody here from a remote location that's going to be defending not only mitch mcconnell -- hold on. >> let's try that again. >> cut that. cut that. we'll do that -- okay. you know we try to be fair. we're cutting that out, right? >> yeah. >> okay. you know we always try to be fair here at "morning joe," and we have sam stein. he believes what mitch mcconnell did was quite a proud, honorable, manly thing. sam, explain. >> sorry, what? >> a true patriot. >> a true patriot. the paul revere of our day. >> i appreciate the setup. thank you. look. i'm not toally surprised. i don't think we are surprised

by this. this is coming a long way away. he said he would support the nominee. it was baffling to a degree precisely because of the criticisms he had already registered. look. there's really nothing more to add on what you are saying. republican political politics is basically dictated by a fear of trump and his base, and i think that's the fair assessment throughout this, and frankly if you are being utterly cynical about it, you know, the people who have stood up to trump, who have followed their personal convictions, have paid a political price for it mostly. those who voted to impeach him in the house, the republicans, many of them, if not all, have been ousted. the people who voted for conviction have either left or are leaving or are now, you know, scampering away, and mcconnell, what stood out to me about mcconnell is all the things you said, but also the fact that this guy is a self-proclaimed institutionalist, and what he

did after january 6th is he took the political power that he possessed, and he forfeited it. he just said, i'm not going to use it. i'll kick it to a different branch of government, the judiciary, and i'll let them decide, and here's a man who was known to be sort of a ruthless practitioner of politics, utterly powerful, and in that particular moment, he decided just to not use it and i thought that was an extraordinary decision on his part, and ultimately we're now left with him leaving leadership and trump potentially sending back to the white house. >> the sad part is the inevitability of all of this. he wasn't alone yesterday. joni ernst endorsed donald trump. we heard a speech back in february of 2021. just a little over a month after january 6th, where he said

donald trump could face and should face criminal prosecution. >> president trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen. unless the statute of limitations has run, he's still liable for everything he did while he was in office. he didn't get away with anything yet. yet. we have a criminal justice system in this country. we have civil litigation, and former presidents are not immune from being accountable about either one. >> how do you reconcile your trump endorsement with the fact that you called him practically and morally responsible for january 6th and the fact he insulted you and your wife repeatedly? >> after the attack on the capitol, i was asked a similar

question, and i said i would support the nominee for president even if it were the former president. >> leader mcconnell, in april of last year, you indicated and didn't really directly answer the question as to whether or not you were comfortable with mr. trump if he was in the middle of criminal trials and indictments if he was the nominee. now that means you're comfortable with it. >> i don't have anything to add to what i just said. i said in february of 2021 shortly after the attack on the capitol that i would support president trump if he were the nominee of our party and he obviously is going to be the nominee of our party. >> so george, to answer your previous question, mitch mcconnell is 82 years old, and likely out of leadership and likely out of the united states senate. he had a lot to lose, and there could be a moment where you show a little bit of courage. it's not really courage -- >> he really was -- other than the acquittal that day, he was a

patriot that day by calling out donald trump, and i think he truly believed that he didn't have to take the step of barring trump from public office, but it didn't work. so why not -- as a parting shot, not for himself, but for country and even his own party, say, this is a bad thing? i just -- it is beyond my comprehension. i mean, look at nikki haley over the last few weeks, okay? i mean, she's not perfect. i mean, she could double back any time, but, you know, there were certain -- she seemed liberated. she seemed happier to be able to speak truth, not the full truth, but she was getting there. she's leading people toward the truth, and it's liberating. >> but where does that story end?

i, you know -- i hope nikki has become liberated and understands the republican party that i used to be a member of desperately needs somebody like her carrying the torch in these dark times, but what are the odds that at the end, she will find her way to endorsing donald trump even after -- and it will show, even after the insults continued last night? >> it doesn't look good. we almost need a psychologist here at this point. >> oh, we do. >> to understand how an 82-year-old man like mitch mcconnell feels the need to continue to express this fealty to someone who has done nothing but destroy the country and institutions that mitch mcconnell has served. >> yeah. >> and i'm honestly to the point where i just want to say, what is it? is it about money? are you trying to make money when you leave office? i mean, you're 82 years old. is it you want to be friends with the trumpers in the country

club and you don't want to be shunned? to justify your decisions? >> that's lindsey. i remember john mccain telling me near the end of his life, he said, you know, we've already lost lindsey. this was actually maybe not -- i think this was in february of, was it '17 maybe? and he said, lindsey's just so excited to golf with the president of the united states and do anything, but mitch mcconnell, he ain't going golfing, so why? it's not like he doesn't understand history. he knows how he will be painted in history. he knows how trump will be painted in history. does that not matter, what your children and grandchildren and people think of you after you're gone? >> it's also just -- it's embarrassing i think for all americans to see this. this is not what we want from people who are supposed to be sering -- we're supposed to be different in some way.

it's not supposed to be about some cult personality. >> no. >> i think people like vladimir putin will be watching this with a smile. >> do you know who else will? donald trump's guest at mar-a-lago toda -- or friday. he'll be looking at it and as donald trump tries to model himself into a position to be the next orbon right here at the united states. when we come back, we will show you donald trump's response to nikki haley saying, hey. maybe donald trump, maybe you can work to gain some of my supporters as you move towards the november election. donald trump, his response, more insults. we'll show you when we return. re insults. we'll show you when we return. e. each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response. uniquely designed with carbsteady. glucerna. bring on the day.

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going to have a rematch of biden and trump. the only thing that can stop them is a flight of stairs. both guys came in with victory parties made of shredded classified documents. it was touching. nikki haley officially suspended her presidential campaign. here's the good news for haley. she's only 52, which means he can run for president at least eight more times. >> if you do the math, he might be right on that. jimmy fallon upstairs here. a november rematch for donald trump and joe biden essentially set. nikki haley decided to step out. she did not endorse donald trump in her speech yesterday. one big question is now though, where will her supporters go? haley says that is up to donald trump. >> it is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and i hope he does that. at its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause,

not turning them away, and our conservative cause badly needs more people. this is now his time for choosing. >> how did he choose? >> that was nice outreach. >> that's very nice. >> this is a time you can grow your base. well, donald trump responded during haley's speech while she was saying that with this on truth social. quote, haley got trounced in record-setting fashion. he then invited her supporters to join the maga movement. he said, anybody that tributes to haley's campaign will be permanently barred from the maga camp. however, joe biden said, donald trump made it clear he does not want nikki haley's supporters. i want to be clear. there's a place for them in my campaign. i hope and believe we can find common ground. the democratic national committee have been reaching out

to haley's donors. the biden campaign has been studying her performance watching the more moderate and independent voters who say they will never vote for donald trump. on super tuesday, the biden campaign focused on where those voters are located to target them, potentially persuade them to vote blue this november. it was a pretty sizable margin depending on the state. obviously she won vermont, but even in places she lost 20, 30, 40% of republican voters and a big percentage of those saying they will never vote for donald trump. so will they go out and vote for joe biden? will they stay home? that's what's up in the air right now. >> i mean, sam, really if you are an incumbent, donald trump is basically a three-time incumbent now. a bleak, bleak message losing 20%, 30%, 40% of primary voters before you go into a general election, and yet the media seemed transfixed over the

uncommitted in michigan or wisconsin or whatever. numbers were about the same as barack obama before he pronounced mitt romney. what do you make of how each of these candidates go into the general election? >> i mean, i think they each have their own set of vulnerabilities, right? trump, it's fairly obvious nothing's really changed in terms of the script. he does very little to expand his coalition and say, hey. we're trying to reach out to black/hispanic voters. we're trying to reach out to union voters, but more or less stylistically, he's not going to soften the edges. he assumes republicans will go back home and he'll do little to win over those who gravitate towards nikki haley. with biden it's a different case. for him, there's a lot of angst among the progressive base. that's fair to say. there's a lot of angst over his handling of the israel/hamas

war, but he has made and he'll continue to make overtures to expand toward those nikki haley voters and he's trying to soften his approach to the war in gaza in an effort to round out his support among the base, and i think it's stylistically -- it's like totally different presidents going at it and it's to be seen how the coalitions are built. >> so biden has to bring voters home. he needs to bring young voters home. he needs to bring people of color home that may have faded maybe 10%, 15%. obviously israel/gaza is having an impact. what does joe biden need to do between now and labor day to start consolidating that base? >> i thought a lot about this. i have been traveling, talking to voters in several states, and it's clear he needs to be much more visible. he needs to be talking not only about his victories, and he's

got a lot of accomplishments to discuss, but also telling voters he understands their frustration. he understands their weariness. he understands that for some of them, the economy is not so great right now. the rent is high. wages still haven't caught up with inflation. he needs to speak to that. people are still paying a lot of money in student loans, if you are a younger american. we've talked about this on the show. if you are under, you know, 40, 45 years old, you know, you're starting to wonder, can i afford to have kids? can i afford to buy that house? so he's got to really speak to those concerns, and then, of course, he's got to be able to speak even more movingly about the plight of palestinians, i believe, and what he's going to do to ensure that their human rights are protected alongside israelis, and i think he's started to do that, but he needs to be louder.

>> right. >> much louder. >> the president has an opportunity to do that tonight in the state of the union. he's spoken very little about gaza. i think that will change tonight as he tries to frame what's going on there. ceasefire talks are broken down there in cairo, so they might not get there in time for ramadan as they had hoped. the president has been on the road more lately. he knows tonight is a chance to show vitality for the job. we see the polls about his age, and i think tonight, certainly he'll draw contrast with donald trump, whether or not he mentions trump by name, but he also needs to make a positive case for the next four years, and that's something that some democrats say isn't really done. how would you recommend it? >> i just think -- i agree with everything mara said. he's got to be empathetic. he's got to be himself. he, i think at the end of the day, he doesn't have to do a hard sell and he doesn't -- he does have to get out there. he just has to be normal, and

the reason that's all he really has to do is trump won in 2016 because hillary was the issue. trump lost because he was the issue, and trump will lose again because he will be the issue. he will make himself the issue. he cannot help but make himself the issue, and what biden needs to do is just basically say, that guy's crazy. he doesn't have to refer to him by name. he just has to say, the guy's nuts. let's be normal, america. that's the theme of this campaign, i think. coming up, the united states military has flattened targets in yemen, but militants there continue to attack ships in the region now with deadly results. richard haass weighs in on the escalating conflict when "morning joe" returns. escalating conflict when "morning joe" returns. (vo) 26 people will go all-in. (woman) yes! (vo) this family will get two bathrooms. and finally, one vacationer will say... (man) yeah, woo, i'm going to live here...

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and stay connected to the things you love. ah, they'll be like this for hours. hello dad, hello dad, hello da. uh-oh. good bunnies. ahh! three sailors have been killed in a houthi missile strike in the gulf of adan.

four people were injured in yesterday's attack. three of them now in critical condition. in a statement, u.s. central command wrote in part, these reckless attacks by the houthis have disrupted global trade and taken the lives of international seafarers. this marks the sixth death since the houthis began launching attacks on ships over the what in gaza. they say this is part of the response to the american/british aggression in our country. they're striking houthi infrastructure both on land and at sea back in january. joining us now, president emeritus, richard haass, author of the weekly newsletter "home and away." >> it's changed my life. reverses male pattern baldness. it's helped my backhand in whatever -- what's that game you play? >> pickleball. >> pickleball. who plays that? doesn't somebody play that? >> it's the hottest thing.

>> that's what everybody keeps telling me. >> it's like whiffleball tennis. >> why don't you just play tennis? >> that requires athleticism. >> speaking of whiffle ball, if we move this stuff out, home plate's actually over here. >> yep. >> that's the monster over there. first, second. this is easy. all right, alex. we'll have a whiffle ball tournament in here -- when should we do that? >> opening day? >> opening day. >> we have four hours. we could have a full nine-inning game. >> we can come play, like, nerf football championship this way. >> that's fine. >> we'll check our insurance provider. >> a lot of pentup frustration right now. so richard, "home and away," it's changed my life. >> that's good.

i hope your life needed something. >> what's happening, richard with this ceasefire? we may have wanted it too much, or maybe i read that in "home and away". >> you might well have. i think the houthis aren't really interested. >> stay with me, richard. >> we're moving. it's not always what the pictures show. sometimes you have to listen to what i say. >> do i have to? >> you do if you want to stay on "morning joe," my show. so what about hamas -- >> clarified that. >> hamas, we were talking about this before. it's kind of hard to have the ceasefire with a terrorist organization, when the terrorist organization wants the ceasefire more than they do. >> you also think about hamas' -- their modus operandi. what do they do? they have had quite many civilian deaths and in this case, what would be better than during ramadan, to put the situation, where there are pictures throughout the arab world, showing muslims,

palestinians being attacked during the holiest month of the year. from hamas' point of view, why necessarily would a ceasefire now be desirable? also again, it underscores, hamas took the hostages. this wasn't a sideshow. this was a central part of their strategy. they had studied israeli history, and saw how much hostages mattered, and put pressure on the government, and they see this as their biggest leverage. it's not going to happen. this is a long war. this is not about to end, whether you get a ceasefire now or at some other point. at most, it's going to be temporary. i think, joe, we're going to be talking about this not for weeks, but for months or even longer. >> so what's left in the toolbox for the biden administration. obviously being criticized for what's happening inside of gaza, putting pressure on prime minister netanyahu. they started these air drops and they can say the humanitarian aid in the house of representatives.

what might he say about it? >> the air drops are quite literally a drop in the bucket. you can't feed millions of people by meals ready to eat. it's symbolic more than anything. the most important thing is what the president says tonight and subsequent public statements. does he signal some real differences in american foreign policy, some real distance between the united states and israel? does he condemn the ongoing settlement construction in israel which is fore closing diplomatic solution down the road? there's less and less territory to put into that palestinian state. >> why wouldn't you do that? why wouldn't he do that? why wouldn't he criticize -- let's talk about the west bank, and call the settlements what they are, illegal settlements that have been going on now for years deliberately meant to undermine a two-state solution. why shouldn't he say that in the clearest, most unequivocal terms? >> he absolutely should. the united states has looked the other way too long, and the

israelis have been doing this, and doing this, and you're right. we should call it out for what it is, and we should start thinking about ways to back up those words. the previous administration -- i think i have this right. we stopped labeling goods coming out of the occupied territories. we they come from israel. why don't we say they come from the occupied territories? the goods that are exported to the united states, why don't we put a special tariff on them? why do we want to encourage them? we should condition military aid. we should say, either we don't send large ordnance or say, israel, you can't use it in population centers. why don't presidents start articulating the parameters of a peace plan and go to the united nations? you know, joe, for years and years and years, the fundamental document that guided all peacemaking was u.n. resolution 242 after the war in '67. why don't we update it? why doesn't the united states start articulating what ought about the parameters and principles on both sides? israelis and palestinians alike,

that order shape, the next year of peacemaking? >> why doesn't the united states work with the saudis, uae, the uae, jordan, and other arab neighbors who want piece there, -- peace there, and instead of reacting, jonathan, and always voting no to someone else's u.n. resolution, we put a tough one on the floor ourselves that we can vote yes for. >> yet to this point, the administration simply hasn't been willing to cross that bridge. maybe that will change. >> why is that? >> the president's instinct has been to side with israel, something for decades. >> of course, we can side with israel, but we don't have to side with benjamin netanyahu doing whatever we can do to stay in office. this is about him holding onto power. if it had anything to do with israeli security, these extra steps, i would be supporting him, but this is not about israel's security. this is about netanyahu's power, and his security from prison. >> i mean, that's a decision

from the president himself to not do that just yet. maybe that will change. maybe that will be the state of the union. now it's the private pressure. he has not gone after netanyahu like this. the ceasefire talks will pick up. richard, can we shift to ukraine? just yesterday, a russian missile strike in odesa came within a couple of yards of hitting president zelenskyy as well as the prime minister of greece, a nato country. what does the president need to say tonight? there's ukraine aid bogged down in the house. how does he make that case to the american people? >> i don't know what he can do, you know, that he hasn't. traditionally in foreign policy, the executive branch, the president has enormous leverage of latitude for better and for worse. this is one of those -- one of the rare cases you cannot do american foreign policy without the congress. you can't provide the aid because it's got a price tag on

it. i think he just has to keep talking about it and educate and remind people of why this matters and also, i think, attack the underlying isolationism, the idea that what we're spending on this is small, that the percentage that we spend on our -- of our gdp, we spend on national security is about half the cold war average, that our problems here at home are not because of -- we're not spending. he needs to attack the isolationism writ large, and what we've done in the world is a good investment for us, and he has to talk about russia and ukraine, that if we don't do something here, we're undermining the cause of freedom, we're undermining the reputation of the united states and we're sending vladimir putin a signal that europe is his, and i think the president ought to talk in really stark terms about this. >> going back to gaza for a moment, many americans are frustrated and want to see president biden take a much harder line with bb netanyahu, yet as jonathan pointed out a moment ago, he's chosen -- the

president has chosen to take a more private route. is there any sign that that private pressure is working? how do you measure that? >> the only thing we've seen at the margins is the israelis will allow a little bit of aid in. to answer your question, essentially not. it's hard. joe asked a question ago, why isn't the administration being tougher? it's hard psychologically for the president generationally. he is of an age. think of the politics half a century ago. i get it. it was david. it wasn't goliath. joe biden became a senator just a couple of years after the six-day war. israel was seen as, you know, he had all the arab armies against him. i think it's hard for him to pivot. where to many, israel is seen as goliath more than david. it's tough. >> you think of the time. it was '67. it was '72 in munich, assassinaing the olympic

athletes. you had '73, and so that was bam, bam, bam for a lot of people of that age, and some of us, younger. >> yeah. >> the first impression of what are palestinians? that was the framing, and i will tell you, that was the framework for decades. >> exactly. >> and he lives under that frame -- well -- >> it's a generational thing. for people in their 20s and 30s, the only thing they've really known is bb netanyahu. >> right. >> and the israeli government that's not interested in peacemaking, interested in settlement-building, and attacking civilians in a cavalier way, and it's a generational divide. what worries me, if you care about israel and you care about this relationship, how shortsighted is this israeli government? coming up, we lay out five things president biden needs to do at the state of the union. susan page joins us with her list when "morning joe" comes right back. er list when "morning joe" comes right back

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where you could say that the rules of gun safety are a little different. everyone who handles a gun learns the number one rule is you never point a gun at something you don't want to destroy. but on a movie set a gun is not a gun. a gun is a prop. a gun is a toy. i don't want to sound glib, because guns are not toys. if you're told something is not a gun and you're handed it and you're an actor, you're told to believe this is not a gun. if this is a science fiction movie and you're handed a ray gun, you would similarly believe it's not going to shoot a laser once i pull the trigger. alec baldwin gave an interview where he made two really, really bad statements. number one is i didn't pull the trigger. central in this case is going to

be a lot of technical stuff about how these colts have a half cock and a full cock. alec baldwin said, i, as a smart actor, know that i would never, never point a gun at anyone. this was really stupid. i tell you why. he should have sat back on the idea that i'm just a dumb actor. if this is a 12-year-old actor on some other set. they would never be blamed if a prop they handed them told them it was not a gun. but he said, i would never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger. bad. instead say, i'm just an actor, me know nothing. >> even in this trial they're calling baldwin a prima donna who ignored the rules of the movie set and didn't listen.

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after reporting their first sales decline in seven years, target is launching a new paid membership club called target circle 360. not to be outdone tj maxx announced they're launching a new fight club. >> wow. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6 a.m. on the west coast, 9 a.m. in the east. >> that was deliciously random. >> we like that. >> it's great. >> i think that illustrates where this hour is headed, random, but entertaining, we hope. president biden is set to deliver the third state of the

union address where he'll lay out the issues facing voters ahead of the general election. gabe gutierrez reports from washington. >> reporter: with the race for the white house kicking into high gear after super tuesday, this morning president biden is preparing to deliver perhaps the most significant address of his presidency. >> the president will outline an agenda that is building on the progress we have made over the last three years. >> reporter: the president expected to hammer several themes in the state of the union address, improving the economy, reproductive rights and preserving democracy. despite trailing mr. trump in recent polls on securing the border, president biden is expected to highlight his immigration policy. still, he faces a slew of challenges as election season ramps up, persistent concerns about his age, the israel/hamas war and high food prices due to

inflation. >> check my office. i'll give you a copy of the proposal. >> reporter: last year, some republican members of congress interrupted his address. this year, the white house says -- >> you saw him literally do that last year. >> reporter: the stage coming as the general election rematch takes shape after donald trump won almost every super tuesday state, his rival nikki haley suspended her campaign. >> it is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. i hope he does that. >> reporter: the former president securing the endorsement of mitch mcconnell, who had sharply criticized him over his conduct on january 6th. recent polls show mr. trump leading president biden within the margin of error and after skipping gop primary debates, mr. trump is calling on president biden to debate him any time, anywhere, any place. >> he's the worst president in

the history of our country. >> nbc's gabe gutierrez reporting. joining the conversation this hour, washington bureau chief at usa today susan page, former msnbc host chris matthews and staff writer at "the atlantic" mark leibovich. >> chris matthews, what does joe biden need to do tonight? >> he's going to face the enemy. clearly we have watched mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham and you talked about it this morning. everybody in this audience is magaed up. totally with maga. they've all agreed to endorse trump. they're going to be adamantly opposed to anything on the border. any time the president takes any kind of shot at the republicans for not supporting the deal they original were for at the

leadership level, he's going to get attacked. it's going to be a brutal night for him. these guys are in the tank with trump all the way, and they're going to show it tonight. i think it's going to be like adam schiff's victory speech the other night in california. there's going to be a lot of heckling. it's going to be very difficult for the president. >> susan, you've written that the president needs to do five things. tell us about those. >> some of them are standing up to his opponents, as chris just said. one of them is demonstrating his own vigor, his mental acuity. he did that last year with that exchange that you showed part of just a moment ago where he took advantage of republican heckling. he turned that to his advantage last year. a moment like that would serve him well tonight. he also needs to kind of reset where he is on immigration. we now see immigration outdistancing the economy as the issue that is top on voters'

minds. at the moment, donald trump has something like a 30-point advantage in handling immigration. president biden needs to show that he has policies on immigration that will do more to secure the border. i believe we're going to hear some of that tonight. >> mark, you've written about this town. this is one of the key events in washington, d.c. you never really know how these things are going to go. from my personal experience, bill clinton came in and for the first year he talked about school uniforms. we all laughed. it worked, that line. he said the next year the era of big government is over. we laughed even harder. it connected with a lot of working class and middle class voters. and then i'm sure you remember

this. sort of the peak of the monica lewinsky scandal, he went and delivered the state of the union. hillary clinton got a rousing ovation. bill clinton got a rousing ovation by democrats. again, every time bill clinton rose to the occasion, some of those speeches were so long i would leave, go into the cloak room, sleep for 45 minutes, come out. he'd still be going! i said this can't work. it's so unpredictable. that's really the last big bully pulpit. bill clinton figured out a way to make it work for him. what does joe biden need to do this year? >> what's interesting about the state of the union is it's been a set piece for a long time. in more recent years it's become more chaotic and unpredictable.

biden can do that so that sort of couples with the whole, well, the president has to show vigor, which in itself becomes a part of the narrative. one, biden hasn't said much publicly. this has been looked to like he's been saving up a lot of his message for tonight. and, two, can he parity the unpredictable things coming from the audience? as i said recently, the decor decorum of letting the president speak has been lost. there have been more rogue actors in the gallery and you never know how it's going to look. >> many of these people exist to heckle. jonathan, let's talk about the objective here for the white house. this is not supposed to be a political speech. this is the annual address about the state of the union. but it is the biggest audience

that the president will have now as we've turned the corner after super tuesday to what clearly is a two-man race. >> it will implicitly be a political speech. chris matthews, it comes just two days after donald trump locked up the gop nominee. just needs a few dozen delegates to go to make that official. how would you recommend biden deal with the elephant in the room, which is donald trump. should he call him out by name? does he go after him directly, or does he talk more obliquely and try to create a contrast between him and his november foe? >> you know, i wish lgic would work. mitch mcconnell said all the right things after january 6th, about how the police were attacked from this mob, how it was an insurrection, how there was criminality involved. all that truth came out.

where did that truth go? if he could somehow bring back that truth of the attacks on the cops and the way they were treated in this moment of insurrection. i think he has a moment here to teach people in their own words really what they believe themselves, that they were running for their lives, not just mike pence and nancy pelosi. i wish mitt romney was out there speaking tonight, but they're afraid. i think he has to call them out and get the people to think who are these people that represent us, are they leaders, are they followers? are they just following trump? i wish he could talk to them. i was thinking the hardest thing about giving the state of the union is who are you talking to? when you talk on television, you sort of know who your audience is. you've sort of gotten to know it over the years. who is that person you're talking to? it's not a billion people.

it's not 123 million people like at the super bowl. it's somebody you know that's not too smart about the details but is a smart person. always overestimate the brains of your audience and underestimate the knowledge they have. help them a little bit on the knowledge. speak to them as if they're intelligent. we all know what happened on january 6th. talk to those people as if it happened. i wouldn't be branching off into 40 different issues in this speech. our constitution was a threat and these people in this audience are going along with the guy who caused the threat. i know it's going to be tough. he's going to have opposition out there. he has to talk truth to the american people. if biden gets reelected, it's because we remember january 6th. i really think it's that. it's not going to be gun control or something else. it's not about the border. these people want their jobs so

bad they'll say anything to keep their jobs. it's just like in "profiles in courage." they love being u.s. senators. they'll do anything to keep those jobs. he has to somehow get that truth out. these people in the audience here have been bought and paid for, because they love their lifestyle. somehow talk to them. i don't know if they'll even admit what he was talking to, but the american people need to be reminded of january 6th. >> willie, from the president's vantage point when he's speaking tonight, it would be really easy for him to point directly ahead of him, say i am staring right now in front of me at the very doors that rioters tried to break through to kill members that are inside this chamber. we can never forget how far we've come as a nation since

those rioters tried to break through those doors that members, republicans and democrats alike and capitol security guards were pushing furniture up against there to try to stop the rioters from coming in and killing elected members of congress. and since that time, not only have we had a revitalization in democracy, but we've done something that hasn't been done in 50 years. we've had unemployment below 4%. you just go down that list. and say the state of the union could be better but it's pretty darn good and it's actually great compared to what it was just three short years ago. it's such a contrast. his speech is right in front of

him and those doors where guns were drawn and where republican members were yelling at him to back up and who now, of course, have completely changed their tune. but that was the scene. that was the scene that donald trump left america on his way out of the white house. fears of covid, just a crippling recession, unemployment high and just one crisis after another. my gosh, what a contrast between where we were and where we are now. >> and how striking, as chris says, that many of the men and women in that room who knew their lives were in danger that day will be sitting here tonight supporting, having all endorsed donald trump, the man who sent the rioters to the capitol, the man most responsible for that day. mitch mcconnell endorsed him

yesterday. governor youngkin of virginia from the outside endorsing him. the party is falling back in line with the man who brought us all of this. speaking of that race now with nikki haley having dropped out yesterday, there are questions about where her voters will end up. mark thiessen argues in the "washington post," trump need haley voters to win back the white house. the issue facing him is not never trump voters, it is not trump again voters who are open to his policies and might have voted for him before but don't like how he behaved particularly after the 2020 election and supported haley in the primary. trump has to go out and persuade them. trump can't take back the presidency without bringing the not-maga republicans into his fold. we heard yesterday after nikki haley dropped out of the race, the biden campaign very quick to

begin to court some of those voters who said i will never vote for donald trump. i voted for nikki haley. i know she lost. i'm not voting for donald trump. biden making a play for that set of voters. >> i think the contrast and the reaction is how president biden needs to proceed, including the speech tonight and that he's one that wants to be a unifier. he'll take the high road and let the contrast be that trump can't get over his own ego and his own need to say malicious things and dismissive things. i couldn't agree with joe more. he needs to talk about what happened in that room. one of the things i learned as a preacher, if you're doing a sermon that's broadcast, don't preach to the 300 people in front of you. he needs to talk to america. using the marjorie taylor greenes and others as a

backdrop, and if they start acting up, rope-a-dope them and you keep speaking to the masses about what you want to accomplish and the contrast will destroy them. he should almost hope they disrupt so he can show he's the adult in the room and he knows how to handle naughty children and will send them to daycare sooner or later, i want to take care of america. talk to the millions of americans, don't talk to those misbehaving children in congress in front of you. >> it would be hard for me not to mock those republicans that were running for their lives on january 6th. pictures of many of them crouching down in the seats, worried about their life are here as we see pushing back at rioters who were trying to break in, telling them what a disgrace they were, now, of course saying

oh, it's much ado about nothing. this is a scene that of course maga republicans, extreme maga republicans are quite fine with. i guarantee you people in the suburbs aren't. i'm not saying to just focus on january 6th, but you're sitting there in that chamber and what a great contrast about america on january 6th and america after january 6th, how far joe biden has taken this country, taken this economy and, yes, even taken the presidency where you no longer have a president who looks at violence being committed in his name in front of a tv set for hours and refuses to call off rioters who were trying to kill nancy pelosi, trying to kill mike pence, trying to kill members they get a hold of.

>> yeah. i mean, january 6th creates all kinds -- i hate to say it, but it's a really compelling contrast for what biden wants to do tonight. on one hand, you have the profiles in cowardice who will be right in front of him in the room. you also have the enduring image of the president sitting in his dining room eating a cheeseburger and doing nothing on january 6th. it creates a contrast. literally the country that donald trump left behind in january of 2021 was -- i mean, store fronts were closed. you had 25,000 national guard troops in the streets protecting the capitol from the president's own supporters. they weren't just rioters, they were the president's own supporters. as much as you can put in the speech as a contrast to the

normalcy that joe biden has presided in the last years, i think he can be very effective and also without hitting everyone over the head with these atrocious memories, really assert these people caused this chaos and this is the person who knows what he's doing. >> show the clips of january 6th again. right there, that's donald trump's america. that's donald trump's riot. that was what donald trump wanted. he called into washington. he said come on january 6th, it will be wild. and then he gave a speech telling them they had to go up to the capitol, couldn't be weak. and then he tried to go up and there was an altercation in his

car, because he wanted to go up and march on the floor with the rioters. he had his children. he had his staff. he had his lawyers. he had his friends on fox news telling him to stop this. and yet, what did we find out? he sat and watched this for almost three hours in the president's dining room, and he would actually stop and rewind so we could look at the most violent parts. why am i telling you that today? because there are millions and millions of people who are being told every day by donald trump and being told by cable news networks and being told by extremists that this was all much ado about nothing. no, no.

this is the fact of the matter, that this was donald trump's america. this is what donald trump had brought america to after four years. pretty damn easy to contrast where joe biden and the country is today economically, militarily, socially and politically compared to this, willie. >> somewhere in those pictures, officer michael fanone is being beaten within an inch of his life and having a stroke as he pleads with those rioters to spare him because he has children, another cop being beaten with an american flag. that all happened in america based on a lie that trump shouted with a megaphone. and many of those people he will pardon if he is reelected and let them out of prison.

it is these two men. it is a rematch. how are you viewing the way this is going to play out with some legal trouble mixed in for donald trump as well? >> that's all true. i don't know how these cases are going to work out. some of them may not even take place before the election. i tell you how brutal it's gotten. this morning they ran one of those ads making fun of joe biden and how he fell on the stairs for air force one. they have kamala harris laughing in the picture while he makes his fall. this is going to be one brutal campaign. if you're at all hesitant about talking about january 6th, don't be hesitant. the major networks have to remind people that's the room where all hell broke loose, where people came in to kill congressmen. and mitt romney had to hide and

an african-american guard had to misdirect the crowd away from them so he could survive. there was life-and-death business in that room. the other side is going to be vicious. they're going to have kamala laughing. this is going to be rough as hell. it's going to start tonight. i think biden has to go in there and recognize that some of the country is not going to be with him no matter what he says, no matter how brilliant he is and no matter how logical. it doesn't matter to them. they are genuflecting to trump like some weird, strange kind of secular religion. it's popularity about the country club. it's about popularity back home in your districts. it's real. it's a real fight. he's got to win it and he has to begin winning it tonight. >> we'll be watching tonight.

that capitol police officer eugene goodman, according to democrats and republicans, saved untold lives and bloodshed on january 6th. chris matthews, mark leibovich, thank you for being with us. a long time republican who voted for donald trump twice now says he is no longer supporting the former president. straight ahead on "morning joe." here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost.

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no man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. he is unfit for any office. >> part of the closing argument and a warning from former

congresswoman liz cheney at the final january 6th committee hearing in december of 2022. now cheney is launching a new pac called the great test. she explained on social media, quote, the gop has chosen. they will nominate a man who attempted to overturn an election and seize power. we have eight months to save our republic and ensure donald trump is never anywhere near the oval office again. our next guest points to the events of january 6th, the work by that house select committee and the writings of liz cheney as reasons for abandoning donald trump. jim young writes in a new piece, trump has somehow convinced millions of americans that he is a victim of political persecution by his opponent. the committee findings in the doj indictment, i do not understand how donald trump can possibly be considered as a legitimate candidate for the most important job in the world.

frankly, i don't understand how he's not in jail right now. i will go no further than to implore you before you cast a vote for donald trump, please take the time to read liz cheney's book, or the committee findings or the doj indictment. the future of our country depends on it. jim, appreciate your time. thanks for being with us. explain a little bit of your personal history, because i think it is important and constructive. conventional republicans. we understood what that meant from george w. bush and romney and mccain all the way up the line to donald trump. you voted for him once. what did you see in 2016? and ultimately, what flipped you the other way? >> i think donald trump did some things right in his first term. whether he gets credit for it or

should get credit for it or not in terms of a relatively stable economy, low inflation, reasonable regulatory environment, i would say. i think he probably deserves a little bit of credit for that. one thing i want to clarify is that as soon as i saw what happened on january 6th, i was absolutely appalled. i wrote donald trump off in my mind from ever wanting to support him again. but then just a couple of months ago i happened to pick up liz cheney's book. i actually downloaded it to my ipad and read the entire book. i was just so impressed with her

presentation. she really goes into tremendous detail about the whole process of setting up the investigation committee. so i was very impressed with the book. i have a good friend who is a very successful attorney here in oklahoma city. we like to have friendly debates about politics from time to time. i told him about the book, told him that i wish i could contact liz and tell her how impressed i was with her book and her message, impressed with her, i guess her courage, her honesty, the way she laid out the argument against trump and how it just really confirmed and

cemented in my mind just how serious a problem we have from a standpoint that this was donald trump's show, unfortunately. it's very frightening, frankly. i don't know how i can present any more clearly than joe and chris matthews did just a few minutes ago. i certainly can't compete with them. but that was the message. her book was clearly important in my thinking process. >> jim, susan page has a question for you. you have to stop and say we're talking about liz cheney. donald trump says she's the rino now, liz cheney, whose serve rating, i'm sure, is quadruple

of what trump could be. she's the outlier now. >> he's from a pretty republican state. oklahoma is pretty red. i'm wondering, sir, if you think trump is unfit for the presidency and your choice is trump or biden in november, how will you vote? will you vote for one of them or vote for a third party? >> that's a really good question. i don't know the answer to it right now. it would be extremely difficult for me to vote for joe biden, frankly, but we can't have donald trump as president. we just can't. >> all right. the new piece for the oklahoman is titled, "i voted for trump twice, liz cheney's book and the january 6th indictment changed

my mind." thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you know, my brother was in a position where he voted for donald trump. january 6th changed his mind. now, a lot of republicans i've talked to have been that way. you know, democrats will say you've got to vote for joe biden, right? some people are just not going to vote democratic. they just aren't going to do it. but what the biden campaign is counting on is, they stay home. that's what beat donald trump in 2020, as the senator from wisconsin ron johnson, explained on hidden camera, that he got 56,000 less votes than all the other republicans on the ballot statewide and that's why he lost wisconsin. that will be the key, whether a

lot of those trump supporters vote for biden or not, if they stay home or leave that top line empty, that's basically a vote for joe biden. >> we've talked about that in these primaries, whether it's beginning in iowa going forward, the turnout, the lack of enthusiasm in many places, his deepest supporters are with him. it remains to be seen if, given everything we've just discussed and the images of january 6th, if they're willing to come back out for him this time. >> every metric suggests the support for donald trump is less. he's doing much smaller events. it's fundraising. he's facing a real deficit in terms of cash on hand compared to what president biden and the democrats have. we don't know the impact yet of the criminal trial coming in a

few weeks, rev. they will not vote for donald trump, these republicans. some of them between now and november may decide to hold their nose and do it anyway. but if enough of them stay home or a few of them brace for president biden, that's enough for him to win. i think there's a real question how enthusiastic republicans are for trump. >> i think the key is in terms of a biden victory is that he must show how really across the line trump is to where many republicans, many that voted for trump before just i can't come out and vote. i'm not going to vote for biden, but i'm not voting. if he could dampen some of that turnout and then work on the turnout of his base, bring back out people of color, blacks,

young people and women. he needs to bring out his base and he needs to hope that the base that trump had continues to dwindle. the reason i say i agree with you, joe, is he doesn't want to convince people who never vote for him is he sacrifices his own base. he needs to stay with his base and just let people keep seeing trump for who he is, because many of those people are decent people who feel it would be an indecent thing to vote for donald trump. >> right. i think chris was so right on that point. there are some people who are never going to vote for joe biden ever. some people are going to stay with donald trump until the bitter end. don't try to convince those people. i've gotten quite a few texts. chris matthews has talked about

an ad the trump super pac has been running on joe biden regarding whether he's mentally fit to still be president. i suspect you're going to see a response from the biden campaign at some point showing him mixing up nikki haley and nancy pelosi and still thinking barack obama is president of the united states. i suspect -- i don't know. i wouldn't be going there if there was this clip of me out there. well, there is. >> we are a nation that just recently heard that saudi arabia and russia will -- [indiscernible] >> i'm sorry. i was on the phone. could you play that again really quickly? >> we are a nation that just recently heard that saudi arabia and russia will -- [indiscernible] >> oh. >> okay. you're really calling out

somebody else's ability to complete sentences? >> that was like an episode, a medical episode. >> wait a second. i just got a text. >> we are a nation that just recently heard that saudi arabia and russia will -- [indiscernible] oh. [ laughter ] >> and you think joe biden is weak on this point? >> let me tell you something. these are serious times. i will tell you i have known both of these gentlemen and known them pretty well for some time. i will tell you there's only one of the two that actually understands just how dangerous things are in the world right now, whether you're looking at what's happening in ukraine, vladimir putin wanting to sweep across eastern and central

europe. you look at what's happening in israel and what's been happening since october 7th. willie, these times call for steady hands. so many lives are on the line across the middle east, across europe, across the world. we have the threat of taiwan being invaded. this is no time to have people who, again, would sit and stare at riots for three hours. >> the world is too serious right now. the issues are too important. listen to what the two men are saying, not how they're saying it. let's turn back to the news in just a minute here. ceasefire hostage negotiations between israel and hamas have stalled. plus, the families of one of the american hostages will be

attending tonight's state of the union address and joins us next. union address and joins us next. emergen-c crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? ( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) emergen-c crystals.

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today marks five months since october 7th hamas terrorist attack in israel. this morning, negotiations to release some of the remaining hostages have stalled. 134 people are still being held captive inside gaza. that includes eight americans. joining us now, the father and stepmother of one of those israel american hostages, jonathan and jillian. their 35-year-old son was captured by hamas terrorists on october 7th while trying to protect his neighborhood. tonight, jonathan and jillian will attend president biden's state of the union address as guests of two members of congress. thank you both so much for being with us. we're so terribly sorry for what you've gone through, this or

ordeal of the last five months. what are you hearing from the state department about how your son is doing? >> well, really the only thing we know about his condition is rather old information. in late november/early december, there was a hostage release, about 100 hostages, women and children. of those, 40 came from our kibbutz community. some were able to tell us they had seen my son in the tunnels be belw gaza.

>> if you could tell us a little bit about your thoughts on how the israeli government is handling the situation. do you think enough is being done to prioritize bringing the hostages home? are they able to be helpful to you in any way? >> i'll speak to you about the first part and i'll have my husband speak to you about communication with the israeli government. there are a lot of players here and we are pushing every country, every player, anyone involved in the negotiations to do more, to do everything they can to bring all of the hostages home alive. at this point that's all that we can do is just keep pushing and advocating for the israeli government to prioritize the hostages, for the american administration to keep pushing the issue of the hostages coming home and pushing that with

hamas. you can speak to the issue of communication. >> yeah. look, the fact of the matter is that until all of the hostages, those that are still alive -- and we don't know. we don't know if our son is still alive and in what condition he is. but the job will only be done for the israeli government and for all of those who would like to see this crisis over and for the war to end, of course, it will only be done when all of them living and, unfortunately, deceased are back home. it's rather binary. the israeli government will have done enough when all of the hostages are home, regardless of the conduct of the war on the ground in gaza. >> jonathan, this is conduct of ground in gaza. >> jonathan and judy, this is susan page, we're also sorry and we hope for the best for your son. you're going to be at the state

of the union address tonight, what would you like to hear from president biden tonight? >> i think we want to hear what we've been hearing, and we want to continue to hear it. we want the issue of the he or she -- hostages, not just the american hostages, all of the hostages, we want that issue to be raised up front and center. we want to hear that they will be tireless, the american administration, continue to be tireless in their pushing for negotiated, if it's cease fire that requires the release of all the hostages, we want to hear that that's still a priority with the administration as it's been since october 7th, which we've been really grateful for. >> jonathan, there's really a stunning chapter to this story as well. the last time we spoke to you se gee's wife pregnant with their

couple's third child. that beautiful baby since has been born. what can you tell us about the baby? >> well, their third daughter is a marvel. she brings us little rays of light in this horrific time, but the name itself, her name itself i think is really -- it's double edged because her name in hebrew means dawn. in some ways it's hopeful for the future. but she was also named after the daughter of dear friends of ours who was murdered along with two siblings, their parents and the grandmother on october 7th on our kibbutz. so we embrace her. we love her. she joins our large and ever expanded family, and so it's a blessing but also a reminder every day of what has been lost and what still needs to be done. i would only add, if i may, about the state of the union. i think it's quite remarkable

that of the seven families that are going to be represented there, all u.s. citizens, the invitations that were issued are wall to wall from congressional members, and i think obviously the biden administration or it needs to be said, the administration itself has been remarkably transparent with us and helpful, but the fact that there's wall-to-wall support amongst congress people, enough so that even within our family there are vast differences in the political orientation of those congress people who invited us, it's a sure sign or as much of a sign as anything can be of the solidarity in congress and i hope among the american people for the beneath -- need to get these hostages home. the eight remaining americans there and the other 127 other hostages: israel will never be whole again, and we cannot allow hamas to win this fight simply by having all of the hostages die in hamas captivity.

>> jonathan and jillian, obviously people's attention spans are not as long as they used to be. we're in an age of social media where it seems that people's attention span's about 14 seconds long. what would you -- what would you like americans to focus on, not just tonight while the speech is going on and we're talking about your son and the other hostages, but in the coming days and weeks, what do americans need to focus on and keep close to their hearts about your son and the other hostages? >> well, i would say this. it is -- on the one hand we feel a great deal of support from congress people as we've said, from the administration, and from some groups. what i think we find strange is

that there isn't more outrage in the american streets and among american people about what actually happened on october 7th. we can have our differing opinions about israel's conduct of the war. that's legitimate. even within israel there are differing opinions about how the war is being pursued. that being said, the fact that there are eight americans still being held hostage and that free civilian people were ripped from their homes and young people ripped from a concert about love and peace by a savage terrorist organization and 1,400 people were slaughtered that day, i think that mere fact is -- it has to be -- it has to be in our consciousness because it is a very bad sign for all humanity if an event like that -- again

regardless of what we think about the war its -- if an event like that is simply pushed aside and ignored because of pre-existing opinions about the conflict in general in the middle east. this is really a watershed moment, i think, for the world that seeks some kind of justice and some kind of humanity. >> and if i could just add quickly, the word hostage or hostages can become -- we can become so numb to it. it's a word. it's a category. it's not real, there aren't people connected to it, and i hope that people will really say their names, understand that these are individuals, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons. these are people who are real people who have real lives and real loved ones. they're not just a category of hostage, american, israeli, it doesn't matter. and that we need to keep that

humanitarian understanding and issue really up and front in our hearts. and we've had that connection across positions, across political, the political spectrum. we've had that ability to really connect with people when we look at it as a human issue. >> his name is sagui, he's within held for five months today. one of eight americans and 134 total hostages being held by hamas, jonathan dekel-chen, and jillian, we continue to hope and pray for the safe return of your son. thanks for being here today. >> thank you. >> that does it for us this morning, we will see you right back here tomorrow morning. josé diaz-balart picks up the coverage after a quick final break. a quick final break. the aclu showed up. various: see you in court. the aclu already making good on that promise... the aclu is currently engaged in litigation... ...in response to a 2018 lawsuit filed by the aclu... the aclu is prepared to preserve our democracy

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