insurrection to me. i mean, armed, when you hear armed, don't you think of firearms? >> uh-huh. >> how many shots were fired? i'm only aware of one. if that was a planned armed insurrection, man, you are a bunch of idiots. i'm sitting back in my office, watching video of the armed insurrectionists staying within the lines inside the capitol. a bunch of people milling about. it wasn't until i saw the video in the trial that you really saw what was happening and how officers got injured. >> to call that an armed insurrection, it was the most pitiful armed insurrection could ever possibly imagine. the one guy in the senate chambers there, he had plastic wrist ties. what was he expecting to do? literally go up to mike pence and capture him?

. >> take him under arrest. citizens arrest. >> um, that was republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin asking whether an armed insurrection even happened january 6th. just to remind people, people recovered a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition from seven people who were arrested over their involvement in the riot at the capitol that left at least five people dead. senator johnson should read his own state's paper, the "milwaukee journal sentinel." 14 people tied to the january 6th attack. and two are facing federal charges. he was calling it a pitiful armed insurrection and questioning whether it was an insurrection at all and

wondering what people were going to do with the plastic ties they were holding. in is that the game plan? are we really -- >> to play incredibly stupid. >> is that where they end up after this is all over? >> yeah. . >> pretending this did not happen? had we have the video. we have the video. . >> did he not watch? . >> we have the video of police officers being beaten. some within inches of their lives. beaten with an american flag. we have the stories of the law enforcement officers lying on the ground while trump terrorists were beating them. and then thinking to themselves that they had four children and wondering if they would ever see their children again. we heard the chants. we saw the nooses.

we heard the terrorists scream, hang mike pence, hang mike pence. we saw them destroying the capitol and defacing it in every way. we've seen the three cops, the three law enforcement officers, the faces of those who died following the attacks. two so traumatized that the capitol that they took their own lives. this is a mob that may have just killed ron johnson or any member of the house or senate they saw that day. so i just wonder, as there are republicans feverishly trying to reframe the political party, mee dhaka, i'm just wondering if

mitch mcconnell's vision of the republican party moving forward is ron johnson's vision of the republican party. because you can use mitch mcconnell's own words against ron johnson and prove that ron johnson is lying to the people of america. ron johnson is not worthy to be a united states senator. . >> with us we have washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay with us. president of the council on foreign realizes, richard haass. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner joins us as well. house speaker nancy pelosi is heeding calls for the creation of a september 11th style commission to investigate last month's deadly riot at the u.s. capitol. in a letter to house democrats yesterday, pelosi said congress will establish an independent

commission to investigate and report on the attack as well as interference in election proceedings. pelosi also said the house will appropriate additional funds to boost security at the capitol. while multiple congressional committees are already in the process of scheduling hearings to investigate the riot, the "washington post" points out that supporters of the commission say such an initiative will have broader authority than those to pursue testimony in trump's orbit, those who were not part of the impeachment inquiry and that the commission will not be under the same time constraints of the committee investigations as it proves the findings. the very people who might have been involved in inciting the deadly riot. . >> well, it has to be done for a

variety of reasons. first of all, we need to make sure that the center of american democracy is never, never as compromised as it was on january the 6th. i know there are idiots on other cable news channels that will say, well, this mom and pop store was vandalized during the summer riots and that's just as bad as the united states capitol. no. no, actually, jack as, it's not. the capitol of the united states is the center of american democracy. and while i am a fierce believer in people's right to defend their private property, i'm not going to confuse a taco stand with the united states capitol. i'm not going to confuse the selling of tacos with actually moving through a constitutional process that is laid out in the

united states constitution for members of the house and the senate to actually perform their constitutional duties. no. no, no, no. property damage does not equal insurrection. you have to be really stupid, and i have heard a lot of really stupid people over the last month trying to make that argument. and it doesn't cut it. i will say there are a few republicans, even republicans who acted shamefully who are calling for a 9/ 1 style commission. and richard haass, you actually, from the very start, you said you weren't so sure that impeachment was a proper way to go because you predicted how it was going to end. you predicted it would lead to even more frustration. you predicted that donald trump would be able to take a victory lap and say he was acquitted yet again. and his allies would be able to

say he's acquitted yet again. you said an 9/11 style commission would be a better. why is this 9/11 commission style commission so important? . >> well, joe, it's so important in part because of the limits to what we just experienced with impeachment. you didn't have witnesses. it was rushed. it was wildly politicized, still in the heat of the moment. and 9/11-like commission will probably take something of a year. can subpoena all sorts of witnesses, dig into all sorts of things. it could take a large purview. look at the back drop, look at law enforcement and intelligence issues. it could go beyond the immediacy of january 6th. and look at the domestic terrorism threat, the white nationalist threat, a question of norms in american politics. and so, one, it can uncover a

whole lot. two, it could be an extraordinary teaching moment. countries need history. we need narratives. we need stories. this is now. i'm sad to say a really important part of the american narrative. we can't afford to lose this as a teaching moment. lastly, it can make all sorts of recommendations like the 9/11 commission did. so i actually think this is an extraordinary moment. >> katty kay, richard brought up not just white nationalism but also more generally domestic terror. something that was not going to be investigated at great length during an impeachment trial but over the course of the year they can really dig into. the threat is out there. it grew expo nemly during the trump years, and it's still with us.

>> yeah. this is what the fbi has been warning about repeatedly. the biggest threat is not outside terror groups by domestic white terror groups. if you have some kind of commission and ideally you have bipartisan ship associated with the commission as you did with the 9/ 1 commission, then this report some gravitas. i think one of the most important parts of this report will be the idea that this must never happen again. and that is not just holding those people who attacked on january 6th accountable but looking at the security failings around the protection of the capitol as well. ron johnson, by your definition, is one of those people who rather stupidly is making the comparison between what happened last summer and some of the looting and associated with some of those protests with what happened on january 6th.

i think if you have the gravitas of a 9/11 style commission that has some bipartisan ship to it, and you will remember where we are. it became blockbuster summer reading. people were gripped by that report. this could have the impact of taking some of the sting of trumpian style partisan ship out of this. how did it happen on the day and how do we prevent it from happening again. . >> and the backlash continues against the republicans who voted to convict the former president. the north carolina republican party voted unanimously to censure senator richard burr saying it believes that the impeachment of a former president lies outside the u.s. constitution. burr responded, it is truly a sad day for north carolina republicans, my party's leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the republican party and the

founders of our great nation. the pennsylvania republican party is now planning to meet to discuss possible censure for senator pat toomey. he has already been censured by several county parties in his state. here is the washington county republican party on why toomey should be censured. >> we did not send him there to vote his conscience. we did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever -- >> so we did not send him to washington d.c. to vote his conscience. we did not send him to washington, d.c. to do the right thing. there you have somebody sounding more like a soviet-style apparatchik than an american citizen trying to do the right thing. you must support the party.

you must support fearless leader, you must support joseph stalin, you must support fidel castro, you must support noriega. you must support -- fill in the blanks. that is the state of play in republican parties across america. and, yes, independent voters, swing voters in pennsylvania, look at that. can we hear that again? i just want you to know this is the mortgageal grounding of the republican party all across moral now. a run party that devolved into a personality cult instead of an constitution that actually began to free the slaves. let's see where the party of abraham lincoln has devolved in this time. >> we did not send him there to

vote his conscience. we did not accepted him there to do the right thing or whatever you -- >> richard haass, we're hearing this all over america from republican apparatchiks, soviet style apparatchiks. i'm not overstating that. this is what you would hear from an east german party member. you're not to do the right thing. you're to follow the party. you are not to vote your conscience, do what the soviet polit tells you to. a former tv host and loser of a presidential candidate, who destroyed the republican party. this guy destroyed the majority in the house in 2018, destroyed the republican party's majority in 2020, and the executive branch at the same time. and yet they are saying don't

vote your conscience. we're not sending you up there to do that. we're sending you up there to be blindly loyal to fearless leader. . >> joe, you know, listening to him, not a lot surprises me anymore. when i hear something like that, it does surprise me. the connection between the two things we talked about, what happened january 6th. you and i often talk about budget deficits. that people would take violence into their own hands to stop the counting of electoral votes. now this guy talking without the slimmest understanding whatsoever that we have a representative democracy. and what we do is precisely, we accepted people to washington to do what they think is right. we don't ask them to poll constantly their constituent. these people so don't understand

the dna of their own political system. this is a real warning to us. the essence of american democracy is being lost. and it's got to become a national priority in this country to resurrect it. otherwise, january 6th, what this character just said, these are not the exceptions. >> you're right. we have a massive budget deficit that you and i have been talking about a long type. we have also been talking about the civics deficit, americans not understanding. what i'm concerned about is for younger americans, younger people who identify themselves as conservatives having no idea the four, five, six years what conservatism really is, what it is supposed to be, who russell kirk is, edmond burke, what conservatism is about. they don't understand that. instead, again, it's a personality cult.

it has much more to do with, again, soviet sometime politics where you just you're blindly loyal to one man and what that one man says becomes your reality. and that's what has happened here. again, i'll repeat that quote which, again, you are hearing across america. . >> yeah. >> which is they're not sending republicans to washington, d.c. to do the right thing. they're not sending republicans to washington, d.c. to vote their conscience. they're sending republicans to watching washington, d.c. to be soviet-style apparatchiks. and when you have far too many republicans, well over 100 republicans voting to throw out votes from the 2020 election, when you have ron johnson, the clip we played at the top of the show, lying through his teeth,

about how there wasn't an insurrection. there was nothing to do worried about. when he has seen the videos of cops getting beaten by american flags. and when you hear party members, whether it's in north carolina, pennsylvania, wherever it is, all moving to attack people for voting their conscience and then saying we don't want them to vote their conscience. we don't want them to do what is right. well, that tells you everything you need to know about where the republican party is in 2021. >> there is one potential bright spot. there are some unofficial calls by republicans in utah to condemn mitt romney, they said in part the differences between our own utah republicans showcase a diversity of thought. in contrast, to the danger of a party fixated on unanimity, a

thought, there is power in our differences as a political party. and we look forward to each senator explaining their votes to the people of utah. . >> well. . >> so a little bit of a difference there. somewhat hopeful, you would think. >> actually the way american politics used to be, or at least how parties set themselves up so people would think they were that way. so they would allow the difference of opinion especially on something like this, an insurrection. you would think the person supporting the insurrectionists would be the ones catching the heat. but, again, not in this republican party. steve ratner, richard haass and i have been talking about debts. we have been concerned with what we have been hearing on this covid relief bill, until $2 trillion despite the fact that the cvo says it will grow at a

3.75 clip, despite the fact that you even look at financial times this morning and you see this, pumping $2 trillion in the economy of relief bills of last year would actually move us above what the trend lines were pre-covid for this economy. and you're hearing a lot of people in washington, quite a few economists suggest, well, we never have to worry about inflation again. we never have to worry about the debt again. i don't know republicans don't give a damn about debt and deficits unless there is a democrat in the white house. inflation is a relic from a different age, that we need never worry about again, they say. i'm curious what your thoughts

are? >> on inflation, there are concerns. but when you look into things like expectations, surveys, where treasury rates are beginning to move to, things like that, you can commodity prices have gone up for many, many commodities. that's often a signal of inflation. i'm not here to ring the bell and say we're good to have massive inflation. but i think you are starting to see the beginnings of that. most importantly, as you said, joe, the package is huge. just to put it into some kind of context, in 2008, 2009, we put about $2 trillion into the economy to rescue ourselves from great financial crisis. we have already authorized $4 trillion for the same type of rescue. and this bill would add $1.9 trillion on top of that. a package roughly three times the size of what we did during

the great financial crisis. we also, by the way, still have about a billion dollars from the 4 trillion that's already been authorized that hasn't been spent yet. and so it is a huge amount of money. and it does run the risk of putting more money into the economy than it needs at the moment. people have not been spending as much because of the lockdown. here is another fun fact. personal income last year actually went up 5%. and that is because obviously a lot of people are out of work. it's because so much of government transfers from the stimulus we have already passed. meanwhile, people weren't able to spend. therefore you have $1.6 trillion in people's bank accounts and things that they have not been able to spend yet. and then there are specific issues with the package itself, which i'm happy to get into. all in all, the more you look at this, the bigger and a little bit scarier it starts to get. . >> and, richard, we have talked about this as well. there's almost a unanimity among

democrats, among economists, newspaper editors, almost a fear to speak out and say, wait a second. we're going to sign this check and going to move this covid relief bailout to $6 trillion. if you ask any questions about it, about whether it's excessive, about weather it may cause even more pain and suffering in the long run, you're dismissed as a cold-hearted shrew. but there are then -- democrats are going to vote for this. it's going to go through. but obviously in saner times, there actually would be more of a debate, would there not, over whether this is excessive. . >> well, of course. joe, every time we had this

conversation we have had it several times now, you and i both get savaged in social media. it will happen again today as sure as clockwork. because this is signaling so much of it. we had a lot of powerful arguments on it. it's been taken as we don't care. no, one cares, obviously. and the country does need targeted help. so let's take that issue off the table. of course we need targeted help. the problem is a lot of this aid package, relief package is not sufficiently targeted. it's enormous. it is another 10% of the american economy together with $6 trillion out of a $20 trillion economy. this is extraordinary. there is an argument for keeping some of your powder dry, to see how we get out of this recession. again, there is probably going to be an argument for certain targeted moves. but this is essentially

untargeted. and i think we will come back in some ways to regret at least elements of it. . >> yeah. it is untargeted. and if you say anything, asking any questions how you make the bill smaller, more targeted, obviously you get attacked just like the trump tax cuts were massive, ridiculously targeted to the wealthiest of americans. and all the warnings we gave on this show and got attacked from conservatives saying there were going to be massive stock buybacks, that people weren't going to use the tax relief to grow their businesses came true. and then you had politicians coming out afterwards complaining that b that, republican politicians. katty, i read in the financial times also that there are some european leaders who were actually envious of the united states taking such a big swing at the plate if we can use an

american baseball analogy there. and fearful that the eu may not move dramatically enough out of this economic crisis. . >> yeah. i was just thinking when you were talking about it, joe. we are hearing the same message from the international monetary fund based here in washington that this is the time for governments to be spending big to tackle the pandemic. and the argument is two-fold. we have an absolute crisis. we have to get the pandemic under control. if we don't get the pandemic under control, you're not going to get economies rebounding anyway. and also that interest rates are low, so this is a good time to be borrowing. at the same time you're having the european leaders say we agree with the american approach and we wish we could do as much as the biden administration is hoping to do, you are also starting to get stories in the uk, for example, about how some of the spending in previous packages has actually gone to waste and hasn't been targeted enough.

it satisfies the biden administration's political ambition to be seen to do something big approximate bold, which it clearly wants to be. but doesn't come back to bite us in in six months' time or a year's time like we are hearing in the uk, the stories of waste built into the program. is it possible to do that in this time frame while trying to act very fast? >> no, i don't think realistically it's possible to do it -- it's certainly possible to do it, not just possible to do it in this time frame. it is set to expire march 14th. both the house and the senate are moving quickly. the house is likely to pass. it's the full spending bill sometime in the next week or so. so this is a train that is

leaving the station very fast. it is interesting to watch. maybe you thought sensible people are getting involved, they would cut the price down a bit, make it more targeted. there is nothing in here for infrastructure or climate and so forth. it is simply pouring money at the problem. only 1% of this $1.9 trillion bill is actually going for vaccines. the rest is going for things like checks to individual americans. and even under the revised house proposal, something like 85 or 88 percent of americans will get some kind of stimulus check, not always the full amount but a significant stimulus check for no particular purpose when most americans are still doing pretty

well. it is the ones who lost their jobs and suffered from this are the ones we should be folk under the circumstancesing on. . >> steve ratner, thank you very much for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe", new poll numbers from politico. president biden's approval rating is sitting north of 60%. we'll show you what republican voters are saying whether they want former president trump to play a prominent roll in the republican party. plus, one of the house impeachment managers for trump's second trial. congresswoman stacey plaskett will be our guest this morning. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. ight back.

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a rocket attack yesterday at a u.s.-led military base in northern iraq killed a civilian

contractor and injured five others. the incident was the most deadly attack to hit u.s. led forces in iraq for almost a year. four of the wounded civilians are americans. the government in baghdad said it is forming a committee with the kurdistan regional government to investigate the attack because it believes the rockets were launched from an area that is not under the control of the kurds. now to the situation in afghanistan. for months, the taliban has been encroaching on key cities, pushing the country to its breaking point. the brazen offensive puts the biden administration in a dangerous bind, political bind. as the white house weighs whether to withdraw or to stay. in may it would end the two-decade long war. according to the "new york

times", if they honor the withdrawal date, they fear the taliban could overwhelm what's left of the afghan security forces and take control of major cities or a broad surrender by the afghan government. "the times" also notes if the u.s. delays it's withdrawal deadline, the taliban would most likely consider the deal with the united states void, which would lead to renewed attacks on american and nato troops, drawing the united states deeper into the war to defend afghan forces. >> it was a rushed deal in the first place. from the trump administration. and, richard, i'm just curious whether the biden administration, who joe biden was there in 2011 when america withdrew from iraq. and he was there when he saw the rise of isis in that void.

obviously the biden administration understands their influence continues to grow. there are elements of isis throughout that country. if we abandon afghanistan, it will actually go from bad to worse. i'm curious, what's your opinion on afghanistan? i stated mine. and what do you think the biden administration will ultimately do? >> look, the choices are bad at this point. but let's just put one fact on the table. a year ago the united states and the taliban signed a bilateral agreement described as a peace agreement. it is not. it is a cover for u.s. military withdrawal. we have subsequently reduced our presence there. as we are seeing, the taliban have no interest in peace. they're not laying down their arms. they're not going to get rid of all the terrorists in the country. so if we honor the agreement and pull out the rest of your troops, it is likely the

government will collapse. afghanistan would likely become a major venue for international terrorism. the human rights consequences for girls and women, by the way, would be horrific. people don't talk about that, but that's part of it too. i think there is a policy here which i believe the biden administration should do and is likely to do. you keep a modest presence like we've got now, a few thousand people. you sign onto long-term economic, diplomatic intelligence and military support for the government. you don't win the war but you don't lose the war. sometimes in history the best you can do is manage the situation. i don't think with we can solve afghanistan. the history of afghanistan suggests you can't. but bad situations can get worse. if we leave a bad situation, it will get worse in afghanistan. terrorism will get worse. plus, it will be another sustain on u.s. credibility similar to what we did, say, with the kurds

in the middle east two or three years ago. . >> well, there is of course an american first philosophy, isolationist philosophy. but for those of us who actually read history and study history, we understand, richard, that after world war ii, after the second world war started in the 20th century by the germans, we left troops in germany. after the korean war, we left troops in south korea to protect it. we have been looking, and i'll blame myself. before 2011, i kept asking the question when are we going to bring the troops home? after the rise of isis it became evident that if there are some countries where we want to stop terrorist attacks from our

allies and the united states, the 2,500 troops, 5,000 american troops as part of a larger international peacekeeping force, that is a policy against future 9/11s. i hope that joe biden and i hope that america's leaders, republican and democratic alike, will start explaining this the way you were explaining it. >> i dislike the phrase forever wars. it's pejorative. as you rightly said, we have had it 70, 70 years in parts of europe and asia. we have kept the peace and at a

modest price. we will not keep the peace in afghanistan. there is no peace to keep. while it is imperfect, it is far preferable to the alternative. people seem to forget that 9/11 was carried out by people who were trained in afghanistan. so there is a history here. yes, it is easy to pull your troops out and the short one will save money and the like. but we shouldn't kid ourselves. we are not immune to developments there. and we will once again pay a price for long-term gain. >> and then we have to go back in. >> we get out of iraq. by the way, a move that i supported at the time. then we had to go back in.

a tremendous human cost to everyone in that region. so hopefully we'll learn lessons from the recent past. . >> richard haass, thank you very much for being on this morning. coming up, republicans who voted in favor of impeaching former president trump aren't only facing backlash from fellow lawmakers. in the case of congressman adam kinzinger, the heat is from his own family. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming ri back

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it is 45 past the hour. a live look at the white house as the sun comes up over washington. joining us, white house reporter

for "the associated press", jonathan lemire. and white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "the playbook" eugene joins us this morning. talk to us if you can about president biden's first trip as president pushing the stimulus plan. where is he going? what's the strategy? >> good morning, mika. the president has an eventful week, the first of a couple trips. he will be heading to wisconsin for a townhall which he will put right to the voters themselves and explain the need of this massive covid relief bill, which of course he is working, he and his team, trying to get through without a lot of bipartisan support. they have made overturing to republicans. there is hope that they could sign on. they are fully prepared to go it alone. to make it a strictly party line

vote. later in the week, he's heading to misch to tour a pfizer plant there as part of what the other focus of course. beyond the relief bill isening maing the pandemic. the key to that is this vaccine. we're going to see him be on air force one for the first time as president, be out there traveling the country. white house aids say he will start to ramp up some travel. the other thing is he's not going to talk about impeachment and the verdict. they avoided the trial as best they could. >> it is really an approach that has worked extremely well for joe biden not just during the transition but during his first several weeks in the white house. and you have poll numbers that

show, it seems to really have worked for him. >> yeah. we have some new polling out this morning from political morning consult where you see 62% of registered voters on prove of president biden right now. and, you know, he promised to have this kind of temperament where he focuses on covid relief, talking about making sure they get more money to people, and making sure they get more shots in people's arms. there was this flurry of activity in recent weeks that got rid of the most controversial pieces of executive actions that he put into place. it seems americans are looking at what happens happening in the biden white house. they are like that's something we can get with and we are expecting more. weather that holds is going to fend whether or not this covid

relief bill, how big it ends up beings and how much people get in their pockets. . >> we were obviously earlier in the show talking about our concerns about the size of the covid relief bill. yet you look at polling. three out of four americans, they support the covid relief bill as joe biden has put out there. so chances are good. even if he passes it as-is, economic concerns aside, that will be a big win for the american people as well. let's talk about donald trump. what is your polling show about his continued hold on the republican party? is it just as strong, or does it seem to be slipping a bit? . >> yeah. so there was a question in the polls should trump u still play a prominent role in the republican party. overall, people say 25% of people say he should play a major role. when you drill down and look into republicans, 59% say major

role and 18% say minor role. this is still the party of former president trump. up until january 6th we were kind of seeing -- after january 6th we were seeing republicans start to maybe distance themselves from him a little bit, and that has changed. they have still yet to decide how to -- whether to continue to embrace president trump as their leader or exercise the politics of content. and another thing that we saw is that who would you vote for in the gop primary in 2024? 53% said donald trump, right? so, again, this is the party of trump. and what -- it makes it very hard for the other people, mike pence, nikki haley, ted cruz, donald trump jr. possibly because he is still dangling this possibility of being a contender. and that means everyone who wants to run has to continue to embrace him. they can't speak out against

them because of how much of a hold he still has on the republican party. they spent four years who said anyone who doesn't have this undying loyalty to former president trump now is, you know, a traitor to the party. and how can you run against someone like that? until president trump makes it clear whether or not he's running in 2024, they're kind of in a limbo there >> 53%, he's sitting at. if the same question were asked by barack obama about democrats afterwards, the number would be in the 90s. i'm not sure one of two people say he should play a major role they would vote for him in a primary is necessarily a positive thing for him. i want to get back to what eugene was talking about joe biden's approval rating. 62%. you followed the white house day in, day out. that is a number he did not have on election day, 2016. that's a number he didn't get close to having, didn't get

within 12 points of having during his entire presidency. and obviously not a number he was close to in the 2020 election. this is actually what do you see for an approval rating. donald trump never approached that. even the high water marks. he never even came near 50% most of the time. it feels like a lifetime ago. talking to the biden aides, they are heartened by this number. they attribute it to a few things. first of all, just simply a change of pace, change of tenor, a sense that americans were simply tired of the chaos that surrounded donald trump day in, day out. and certainly the event of january 6th exacerbated that feeling. they feel biden aides point to

broad bipartisan support that the covid relief bill has. they believe the government needs to do something. there is a question how big the package should be as discussed earlier in the hour. aides have taken to this polling that this is bipartisan. even though republicans haven't yet gone on board with the lawmakers gone on board with the relief package yet but republican voters have. and they feel like this is something that america recognizes. and also as a final point, america tends to rally around its president in a time of crisis. that is what we have seen. george w. bush after 9/11 is the most recent extreme example of that. and this is the nation is in a time of crisis. the health crisis because of the pandemic. the aftermath of the reckoning on racial justice. it wants to rally around its president. donald trump in many ways blew that opportunity.

the pandemic presented itself as a moment where he could have brought the nation together, he could have had widespread support, and he frankly blew it. his mistakes led americans to back away from him, rather rally towards him, which is the natural instinct. >> it is a natural instinct. we said it so many times. if donald trump had just talked about the economy, if he could have stayed off twitter, if he could have taken the high ground. of course that's like saying if i could fly to mars in a volkswagen. he couldn't do it. if people are wondering why there is such a massive disconnect between donald trump and the numbers that he got and joe biden's number, so much of it was sheer exhaustion that even republicans felt. people are now they're having

dinner at night and they're not having to talk about politics. most americans. . >> they're not worried about what's going to happen next. . >> there are a lot of really angry people in some of these parties. but most americans aren't having to worry about the latest crazy thing said by an american president. . >> that's worth a lot. >> the most crazy things tweeted by an american president. there is a return to normalcy. and i suspect that's helping joe biden. will he still be having that effect, feeling that effect in the polls six months from now? most likely not. but certainly, mika, that helps explain what's going on right now. . >> that's a big number. >> eugene daniels, great to have you on the show this morning. last week we told you about prosecutors in georgia. opening a criminal investigation into former president trump's attempts to overturn election results in the state.

now it turns out that a phone call by senator lindsey graham is part of that probe. let's bring in the state attorney for palm beach county dave aronberg. who did lindsey graham have the call with? what did he say? . >> hi, mika. he had the call with the georgia secretary of state. and according to the georgia secretary of state raffensperger, he asked if he had the power to throw out counts where there is a nonmatching signature rate. that really bothered raffensperger. it doesn't seem to be enough to match a crime. first, there is no recording. recording is a prosecutor's best friend. jurors love recordings. without it, it is just a he said/he said situation. that brings reasonable doubt and

reasonable doubt brings an a quilts. secondly, there's less evidence of intent here. in the trump call to the secretary of state, he made that infamous line that i want you to find me 11,780 votes to be exact. there is ambiguity. in georgia line, you need intent to show solicitation of election fraud or the misdemeanor crime of trying to get an election official not to do his duties. and so you have a lot of missing elements here. it will make it very hard for prosecutors to bring charges and prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. still, more investigation is needed. >> yeah. and certainly there was an aide who expressed shock at what lindsey graham was asking the secretary of state of georgia to do. katty kay is with us. she has a question for you. dave? >> yeah, dave.

if we don't have the basis for proving intent on graham's behalf, where does this go? does it have some political ramifications for lindsey graham himself even if it doesn't have a legal ramifications? what kind of position does it put raffensperger in? a slew of republican state officials have come out sensoring people for criticizing trump. raffensperger is one who actually stood up for the process of democracy and the process of free elections. does it have any impact on him, this revelation and this investigation? . >> well, katty, based on what we have seen lately, it probably puts raffensperger in more jeopardy than lindsey graham. graham was just elected for another six-year term. raffensperger could face consequences at the polls when he was up for re-election in

georgia. had graham gone further and said i want you to destroy votes, i think you should toss votes, that would be different. then you could really consider filing criminal charges here. right now i think the most that the prosecutor can do is open a criminal investigation. but i don't think it's going to go anywhere. i think there is a great chance of filing charges against rudy giuliani because he made false statements to local and state governmental bodies. and the d.a. in atlanta said that she is expanding her investigation to include the making of false statements. they didn't say rudy by name, but we know who she was referring to. when they said 10,000 dead people voted or suitcases have been counted, that will give you

a lawsuit. >> dave aronberg, thank you very much for being on this morning. it is the top of the hour now. the bbc's katty kay and the a.p.'s jonathan lemire are still with us. and joining the conversation we have professor of history at tulane university, walter isaacson. co-founder of punch bowl news anna palmer, associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc analyst eugene robinson. and doni deutsche is with us as well. great to have you all on board this hour. it is the top of the hour. >> do we not call donnie an advertising and marketing guru. >> we just call him donnie deutsche. republicans voted to convict the former president. the north carolina republican party voted unanimously yesterday to censure senator

richard burr saying it believes that the impeachment of a former president lies outside the u.s. constitutional. burr responded, it is truly a sad day for north carolina republicans. my party's leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the republican party and the founders of our great nation. the pennsylvania republican party is now planning to meet, discuss possible censure for senator pat toomey. he has already been censured by several county parties in his state. here is the chair of pennsylvania's washington county republican party on why toomey should be censured. >> we did not send him there to vote his conscience. we did not accepted him there to do the right thing or whatever. >> all right. they don't want him to vote his

conscience and they do not want him to do the right thing. that's not republican. >> that's not what republicans do. >> senator ben sasse has been censured by several republican parties in nebraska. the state party is considering action when it meets next month. the republican party of maine tells the bangor daily news it is prepared to hold an emergency meeting. >> oh, this is important. >> to discuss whether to censure senator susan collins. and in louisiana, the party quickly censured senator cast by shortly after his vote to convince. walter, you spoke with senator cassidy on why he voted to convict former president trump and howe a vote to acquit did not follow conservative ideals. take a look. >> you say that putting trump above the constitutional is not really wrong. you say it is not conservatism.

it is not republicanism. >> no, not at all. conservativism is, again, constitutional conservatism is about putting the constitution first. but there's many aspects in this whole process which were anti-conservative. the president trying to override state officials. it's against states rights and against federalism. i could go on. suffice it to say, i feel so conservative at this moment. and i wonder about those folks putting trump above the constitution why they feel so conservative. >> well, he should be feeling conservative. there is nothing conservative about donald trump and there hasn't been the past four years. he's been extreme and radical. walter, i want to talk about senator cassidy in one moment.

i wanted to get your reaction over these other republicans across the nation who have said, much like the county chairman out of pennsylvania, that he didn't want pat toomey to do the right thing. he didn't want pat toomey to vote his conscience. and i said it sounded like some apparatchik out of the old soviet union or some party leader out of east germany saying follow the pulit bureau and what's right doesn't matter. you have to blindly follow the leader. and that's exactly what the republican steering committees, that's the message they are sending america right now. >> you know, we created a republic, a representative democracy. and it was supposed to be for these very purposes. when i talked to cassidy, it was so clear. i said, hey, there's no upside

to the politics of what you just did. it's down here in louisiana. it's not going to help you. and he said that wasn't my calculus, and he went through methodically that trump had said incorrectly that he had won the landslide election. went on to go even further and further and deny there should be a peaceful transfer of power. how constitutional can you get? that's almost the essence of a constitution, that there are peaceful transfers of power. and then to send his mob down to the capitol when he knew it was about holding up for stopping a peaceful transformation of power and not doing anything when they broke into the capitol. he said each is appalling but there was a clear motive, to subvert the constitution. whether you're a liberal or conservative or whatever, if you believe in the constitution, you've got to say, no, this is

something america can't have. the essence, ever since george washington put down his pen and picked up his plow and went back, you know, to mt. vernon, that's what the constitution is all about. >> it is. john adams lost four years later, peacefully gave up power. and it's happened time and again throughout history until donald trump. so this should have been an easy vote for every member of the united states senate. it obviously was not. tell me -- i don't want to sound cynical here, why did senator cassidy do what he did. we have had him the show where he said in explicable things about donald trump and the republican party. he seemed clear eyed and focused from the beginning of this impeachment process. i'm just wondering what spatered

him separated him from mitch mcconnell, john thune. >> i even put mcconnell in there. we know how mcconnell felt from when he says, you know, privately and certainly what he said in that speech on the floor slamming donald trump after he had just voted to acquit donald trump. and bill cassidy said, no, this isn't a political calculus. this isn't why would i do it to help my political career. clearly if he wanted to help his political career he would have laid low. he said this is the whole essence of what we're supposed to be doing here. he did say he was surprised by the number of people he talked to now. okay. i get it. you're right. trump was guilty of all that. you're right. and they're kind of confused about, you know, the politics of

voting this way. bill cassidy is a doctor. he said here's the office. i went step by step by step. it was an obvious call for him. he's an ernest person. he is not like mitch mcconnell who can go through pretzels to twist himself into a logical way of getting out of a hole. cassidy just said this is pretty simple. we should do the right thing. >> well, speaking of pretzels, mitch mcconnell has an op end in the wall street journal. "a quilts vindicated the constitution, not trump." his supporters stormed the capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world's largest megaphone. his behavior during and after

the chaos was also unconscionable. i was as outraged as any member of congress. but senators take our own oaths. the senate's first and foundational duty was to protect the constitution. impeachment is not some final moral tribunal. it is a specific tool with a narrow purpose. restraining government officers. the instant donald trump creased being the president, he exited the senate's jurisdiction. our job was to defend the constitution and respect its limits. that is what our acquittal delivered. he went on to speak to the paper on the 2022 election and the potential influence on it by president trump.

i personally do not care what kind of republican they are, what kind of lane they consider themselves in. i care about electability. he paused before answering, i don't rule out the prospect that he may well be supporting good candidates, mr. mcconnell said. i'm not assuming that, to the extent the former president wants to continue to be involved, he won't be a constructive part of the process. anna, i am trying to figure out where mitch mcconnell started and ended his thought process as he led up to the impeachment vote that he delivered. because a lot of what he said, he held until after. and i wonder why. >> yeah. i think there's a lot of people questioning, particularly on the democratic side, where mitch

mcconnell is on this issue. he said he wasn't going to, you know, tell people where he was going to vote. he held off on that. but he clearly could have moved the process further when he was majority leader before the transfer of power if he felt so strongly and had this conviction around the president needed to be in office in order to be impeached the note in the wall street journal has more to do with what mitch mcconnell wants which is to become senate majority leader and have the senate be backing the power of republicans. so lexability is something that he is not going to have a litmus test of who should be a republican and who isn't a republican. it's all about winning. that is clearly stated in that article. >> yeah. and so, donnie deutsche, i'm curious what your thoughts are. how important was it that the senate republican leader said

that donald trump made unhinged unconscionable behavior and was morally responsible for the insurrection and even had his own words quoted by joe biden. was that significant that he said that regardless of his vote? >> i think it was very significant. one thing, whether you love mitch mcconnell or hate mitch mcconnell, he is a transactionalist. you talked about a political poll. there is a quinnipiac poll that says to republicans, do you want donald trump to play a prominent role in the party. 60% of americans said, no, we don't want to see donald trump again. that's clear that donald trump is a loser. joe, you point this out over and over again. since he showed up, he lost the house, the senate, the

presidency, lost governorships. a republican party that is branded a trump party is a losing proposition. mitch mcconnell understands that. republicans don't understand that so far. and they will have to go through another election cycle of losing to understand that. but preinsurrection, prethe most damning thing that ever happened to donald trump, he is not electable on a national stage. that was pre. we see that mitch mcconnell, the transactionalist. he is authentic. what you see is what you get. he understands that tkrbg -- remember "marathon man," is it safe yet, is it safe yet? mitch mcconnell understands he needs to be safe to start coming out and moving away from donald trump. nikki haley understands that. they are not living in this polaroid second. they understand moving forward that has to happen. and if you are nancy pelosi, if you are chuck schumer, joe

biden, donald trump is your best friend. you want him to continue to be the face of the republican party because it's a loser. >> well, gene robinson, your new column is entitled "let's leave the 45th president behind and focus on what's ahead." the time is come to leave the sins and wickedness of the 45th president to the criminal justice system and to turn attention and energy to the challenges and opportunities that face the 46th. allowing ourselves to be held captive to the last four years serves no one except a self-obsessed ex-president. gene, nobody want to turn the page more than the media who he targeted, but the consequences he should face lest we find

ourselves in this situation again. >> absolutely. in the political sphere, you know, the -- congress attemptd to hold him accountable for all that he has done. and i'm starting to get the feeling, i don't know. this is a hunch, that republicans are not going to hold donald trump accountable. they are simply not going to do it. as senator burr explained, the question of whether the senate actually had the right to try trump after he was out of office was settled by the senate. the senate as a body was an ultimate authority and decided, yes, it had the jurisdiction. therefore, those senators who were now saying, oh, we're

sorry, we couldn't do it. of course they could have. because that was the vote of the senate, the constitution says they're supposed to live by that. but they're not going to hold them accountable. let prosecutors do it. let the criminal justice system do it. i know speaker pelosi wants a blue ribbon commission to investigate january 6th. that's all fine. but, meanwhile, as you said, 60% of the country wants to move on. and needs to move on. because there are massive challenges that we face. we're not when we talk about an ex president acting out scenes of cote sunset boulevard" down at under law going. that's not the tpaeufp. >> walter isaacson, i wanted to

circle back and talk a little bit about mitch mcconnell. people were shocked and enraged by the kentucky two-step he did with his vote and floor speech. i was not surprised only because i have seen party leaders who want to vote a certain way. then when the caucus moved the other way, they understood at the end, you know, they went along with the caucus. i have seen chief justices of the supreme court do the same thing where they switched sides on an issue when they know they will be outvoted so they can shape that issue more effectively. as you see mcconnell operating on saturday, what your thoughts were about -- i think it's strong words. i stand a lope in hi household

thinking those strong words made a difference and were important for the republican leader of the senate to say. i'm just curious what your thoughts were that day. >> i agree with you. it would be nice if a whole lot of other republicans said that, it was a free and fair election, joe biden won. trying to undermine the vote was wrong. we or people who voted to not certify made a mistake. i also think you're right about mcconnell. i suspect, and i have no inside knowledge but i'll bet some of your intrepid reporters will find this out in a week, he consulted around other republicans. if he had been able to find 14 or 15 other republicans who would have gone with him to vote for conviction, he would have voted for conviction in a heartbeat. he just did not want to do it if he couldn't get it so there would be a vote in favor of conviction. they get the 67 votes.

so he was, as you say, not being a leader but being a follower of his caucus partly so he doesn't lose total control of the narrative and tries to reassert control of the narrative by having it both ways. it was a pirouette the way he kept trying to spin around. it makes him feel inauthentic but a great contrast to bill cassidy. maybe i'm proud of cassidy because he is a louisiana senator, somebody i haven't stkpraed with on many issues. at least he didn't try to do all sorts of clever twists and turns. he just said what's the right thing to do? it was so amazing when mika was saying, well, we didn't send him up there to do the right thing. i suspect in the end voters will

judge people on whether they were straightforward, honest. man, they will get judged a whole lot better than people who kept playing political games. lindsey graham is going to go down in history as the most odious of them all. and so will cruz. and people like mitch mcconnell have to be careful. because the way they are playing this game is they are playing it too much like they are playing a game. >> walter, appreciate the evocative imagery there. anna, he did what he thought he needed to do to maintain control of the caucus. let's talk about the republicans who defied him or voted to convict president trump. we are seeing them being rebuked and censured by local state parties. what is their future here? are any of them -- only murkowski faces voters any time soon. are we risking having it

diminished. how do they go about changing anyone else's minds, whether it's colleagues or constituents? >> in some way i think it really gives them more of a mantel. look at mitt romney, ben sasse. and the senator from wisconsin has become a figure that if he had voted with the rest of the party, he would be a no-name from nebraska that people wouldn't be able to pick out of a lineup. the most important thing is do they take this vote and start to use their power, finding a way in the middle to actually work with joe biden, who clearly wants to find republicans who will side with him, work with some of these other big covid relief and kind of bills that right now the republican party, we errored this morning in punch bowl news a.m. -- pretty much no

one will vote for this covid relief bill. can joe biden work with those republicans where it's not just about impeachment anymore but actually getting some things done. >> katty kay. >> yeah. donnie, i was just looking at the numbers of around the country and the republican party. it seems to me you've got this massive schism of some people who are under senior, establishment, speaking out a bit like mitch mcconnell did after the acquittal vote saying what donald trump did was wrong and those who censured. i don't see how it marries the two brands. it is turmoil and raging down there at many of the state levels. and massively pro trumpian.

and those like mitch mcconnell who are saying we have a future which is a more establishment republican party. i don't see how the party mothers those two going forward. >> it's broken. you know, 40% of the -- 30% of the party, just this is all you need to know how you can't put this party together. 3 out of 10 republicans believe in qanon, that the democrats are being run by hollywood elites, pedophiles and children in basement. if you did a focus group, out 106 republicans, three of them are there. forget trumpianism. with qanon, how do you put that together in a way that i was talking about mitch mcconnell getting electable candidates. so they are a party that i don't want to say is looking at extinction. but they are a long, long distance away from being able to

put the piece the back together. the only way that will do it. we study democrats and republicans through history. you need some basically transcended candidate. a power, the same way trump had a cultive personality, you need the presence of a barack obama, ronald reagan that turns the country around. it's not there. >> yeah. you know, gene robinson, i'm reminded this moment of what happened in the leadup to the 2014 midterm elections. the tea partiers had their moment in 120, continued in 2012. and the candidates continued to get more extreme. continued to push further and further. i don't know if right is -- applies. they just got crazier and

crazier. and i remember there was a special election in the lead up to 2014. it was bradley burn against one of these fringe candidates. at that point the koch brothers threw their hands up, tkhapl better of commerce threw their hands up, republican establishment threw their hands up and just said, enough. no. we are not going crazy. and they piled their support behind more mainstream candidates and saved 2014 from being a disaster. i wonder if what we are seeing in mitch mcconnell is the sort of process. of course it couldn't be done in 2020 because donald trump was there. and eclipsed absolutely everything that was happening. but i wonder if this is what mitch mcconnell and the republican establishment are hoping to do right now, hoping that 2022 is a replay of 2014.

but it's a good year with mainstream republicans instead of crack pots and conspiracy theorists. >> i think that's their goal. that would be their ideal. we'll see if they can get there. but the problem of course is that trumpism is the reigning philosophy of the republican base. to the extent that there is a philosophy. and that's crazy. so the elections that are coming up ream won't be -- they won't be left versus right. they will be noncrazy versus crazy. and in that sort of matchup, noncrazy is going to do very well with most of the country wanting to get back to something more like normal. most of the country not belonging to this cult of donald

trump. i think it will likely take one or two more big defeats of the republican party before it can actually start to reform itself. i'm just not sure it can do this on the fly. i'm not sure it can come up with a slate of frankly electable candidates by next year. >> right. eugene robinson, anna palmer, donnie deutsche, thank you all. walter isaac son, thank you very well. today is mardi gras. so we are imagining a very different type of celebration in this pandemic. how is it looking down there? . >> i'm going to put on my scarf and i'm going to go out. it is getting sunny. the sun is just starting to rise. people are walking past the balcony here on royal street. the bars are closed. the mayor was very strict, and that was a good thing. she said no bars open for mardi

gras day. we don't want people to get drunk and crowded and spreading the new variants. people have picked up a new tradition, which is they are decorating their houses like floats. and you go up and down and there may be 3,000 of them, beautiful homes, with music-themed floats, neville brothers on them, food-themed floats with the late great leah chase. everybody is walking around the french quarter in order to just see how people have turned their homes into house floats. so it's always creative down here even in the time of the plague. >> awesome. all right. walter, wear your scarf and your mask. thank you. still ahead on "morning joe", house impeachment manager stacey plaskett joins the conversation after republicans voted to acquit former president trump again. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. ching "morn. we'll be right back.

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and something else -- i'm scratching my head -- is as tragic as all the deaths were, as tragic as the death was of officer sicknick, for over a month we were told, unrefuted in the press, that he was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. if there was no blunt force on officer sicknick, month how did he die? >> more shameful comments from rob johnson, alluding to some sort of conspiracy theory around the death of officer sicknick.

from the u.s. virgin islands and impeachment manager in the second impeachment of donald trump, democrat stacey plaskett. stacey, good to see you. great to see you on the show. >> good to see you. isn't that an amazing statement? . >> well, he never ceases to amaze and embarrass americans. >> the case laid out by you and the other managers, they couldn't find a way to be moved. where do you think the request goes from here as it pertains to accountability for donald trump not only because of potential crimes committed but also to prevent a repeat in the next four, six, eight years? >> sure. well, i believe that we did an amazing job in terms of laying out who exactly donald trump was.

and what he used the presidency for. brian sicknick died and the cause of his death was the president of the united states using a mob of insurrectionists to attack the capitol to try and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power for his own fascist designs. that's how brian sick particular died. he and so many other police officers who were injured that day. and i think the american public saw in very clear overwhelming evidence who the president was. and it's our belief that that evidence and showing that information will in fact, keep him from ever holding office in the united states again. >> well, daniel goldman, who served as lead counsel during the first impeachment hearing has a new piece in the washington host entitled "lack of witnesses at trump's trial is not the problem. witness intimidation is."

and he writes in part this. house managers indicated that republican members of congress and individuals close to trump and pence had refused to cooperate for fear of retaliation and retribution. trump's propensity for witness tampering, intimidation and retaliation is well-known and began long before the 2020 election. his stop the steal campaign has created a loosely coordinated group of domestic terrorist organizations ready to inflict harm at his command. he may have lost the ability to issue a mean tweet, but his threats now come with violent supporters appended to them. in the aftermath of the capitol riot led by armed groups operating at trump's direction, the former president's words and threats take on new meaning. threats of violence are no longer an tract. with this back drop, trump's

consistent record of intimidation is grave concern for any other mechanism intended to hold him account in the future. is it if a commission is set up, is it in the court system? will we be able to hear from these witnesses? where can we hear from mike pence? where can we hear from people inside the white house? where can we hear from those who were there who know what happened and can add value to the case against donald trump on what platform can we hear from them? >> well, let's hope many jurisdictions throughout the united states, which are bringing up charges against the president, district of columbia, for inciting violence, georgia for witness -- for election tampering and intimidation. new york, going back to his finances. we were never able to find out

issues related to sreulgzs of the emoluments clause while the president was in office. all of those things will continue to move forward. mika, you're aware we are still in court battling through the court system to try to get the testimony of mr. mccann from the first investigation and impeachment one. that is still an ongoing investigation by the house. so mr. goldman knows very well what the president is capable of. and that just to me highlights how incredibly brave jamie herrera butler, liz cheney, adam kinzinger, and these other americans, senator cassidy and the others who stood up to the intimidation of donald trump and his followers the quest for power of the minority leader, mitch mcconnell, and others who at any cost and by any means necessary will obstruct and

cause our republic and this union to potentially be at risk for their own design. >> congresswoman, it's jonathan lemire, great to see you again. >> good to see you. . >> i wanted to get your take on mitch mcconnell. you listened toeufpl after the vote in which he denounced the former president and gave a speech which sure sounded like to most a cry for conviction. yet he delivered of course just a few minutes after he voted to acquit. just give me your reaction to the republican leader as he spoke. and we understand the political calculation behind it. doesn't it just wreak of hypocrisy? >> it completely does. i mean, he basically took the script out of our office, the impeachment manager's conference room, and used those as crib notes for the speech that he gave after voting not to convict the president. it goes to showing that we had demonstrated by overwhelming

evidence what was in fact, true. i mean, jonathan, i saw while speaking members on the republican side, the senators, shaking their head in disgust at the things the president had done. some tearing up over the information we gave them, nodding their head in agreement. yet mitch mcconnell makes this calculation for the retention of his own leadership to what he believes will assist them and take gaining the majority in the next election to acquit this diabolical individual that was embodied in the presidency named donald trump. >> katty kay. >> ms. plaskett, thanks for joinings. i'm sure you're disappointed by the result. i wonder if nancy pelosi's proposal should be a 9 /11 style commission on what happened

january 6th to investigate not just what happened on that day but the security failures and to try to prevent it from happening again. for you does that take some of the sting out of the disappointment? is that something you feel is not just necessarily but could be potentially useful and meaningful for the country? . >> i think that's looking at security reufpbgs are very important. but i have to tell you, katty, one of the things that struck me during the time we were preparing for the trial was the parallels this insurrection had in fact, to the civil war and the aftermath of the civil war here in the united states where there were those portions of the american public, and particularly elected officials who continue to say let's move on, all is for given, seditionists, who tried so us is seed, go back to their

plantations and begin the violation and terror on african-americans and individuals who were former slaves. without a reckoning, without an accounting of what had happened during that time. and my concern, and one of the passions that i had going into the impeachment and my presentation, was that we are at that same kind of reckoning again. holding donald trump accountable is holding some of the worst elements in our country, the hatred, bigotry. we need to call it what it is and it needs to be accounted for or else it will continue and grow. my fear is we go into a second phase of jim crow in this nation where those who feel emboldened by what the president did. my hope is that a panel, this commission that the speaker is so right in putting together would also look at what are the elements that allowed this to

happen with donald trump and how do we curtail that from happening again. >> the u.s. virgin islands, representative stacey plaskett. thank you for coming on this morning. . >> thank you very much. president biden's approval rating appears to be quite the opposite of president trump's. wow! look at those numbers. more on that straight ahead. plus, new york governor andrew cuomo in defense over his handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes across the state. what he is saying now about the delay in releasing data. "morning joe" is coming right back. ning joe" is coming right back

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open in a bid to get more americans insured as the

coronavirus pandemic stretches into the second year. they will allow new signups at the same time democrats in congress are hoping to get subsidies in their covid relief bill to trafficly cut the costs for americans. the biden administration, are expected to release an immigration reform bill later this week, multiple sources tell nbc news. the u.s. citizenship act of 2021 proposal includes an earned pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, expands the refugee resettlement program and deploys more technology to the southern border. other protections being considered in the legislation include asylum processing in home countries for minors, expanded benefits for dreamers and ending the public charge rule. the biden administration's goal is to break the legislation into pieces in order to get more

parts of immigration reform passed quickly, starting with legalizing farm workers and dreamers and then moving toward a bigger overhaul. let's bring in pbs news yamiche alcindor. could it be successful? >> well, the biden administration really wants to try to get immigration reform done. and they realize that this is something that has failed both democrats and republicans in the past. so it makes sense in some ways they might want to break this down into chunks in order to get individual parts passed. remember, there is a more sympathetic part of the immigration population and that is dreamers and daca recipients. americans over and over again show they do want some sort of path to citizenship for those who came here as minors and brought by their parents. of course you have their parents. you have so many other undocumented immigrants, about 11 million of them, that have all sorts of statuses that will

have to be dealt with. this is democrats and the biden administration trying to at least get some bipartisanship and movement from democrats on this issue. >> hey, yamiche. i know you were on the hill for a lot of the trial last week wek and saw the moving and harrowing video, security footage and of course you watched the reaction of those in the senate, republican and democrat alike. we know the white house is desperate to turn the page. certainly he has a robust week ahead, which will not include much in the way of impeachment. how successful do you think he will be on turning the page when it is clear there is such aftershocks from this verdict and the republicans pointing fingering at each other, democrats still enraged. walk us through how he can do

this and how successful he will be. >> president biden has to contend with this stained legacy of former president trump. sitting in that chamber, you got the sense just how partisan within things are. within ten minutes of being on the hill, i realized, oh, this idea that this is all really just a political show and that house republicans and house democrats that they are in some ways always going to be at each other's odds and the same way with senate democrats and senate republicans, i talked to three republicans in short order that said of course my mind isn't going to change no matter what house democrats say. what foreshadowed what president biden may be working with. it is not a coincidence that the same names of republicans that voted to convict president trump they are the same new group of moderates that have a lot of power in washington and will be likely the people that go over

to the white house maybe trying to work with president biden. but you have the majority of the caucus looking at president biden as a political opponent and isn't going to be wanting to play ball with him in many ways. that's why you see the white house putting their support behind that process where democrats can pass a large bill without having problems because they realize republicans did -- they don't really want to work with them in the way president biden wants to work with republicans because they have much different agendas. i think impeachment and the partisan we saw on display there, it will be a foreshadowing of all the other things we see as the president focuses on so many other things. you will just see this over and over again. >> that 63% approval rating that we have been talking about all of this morning, what are they thinking about in the white

house? obviously this is somewhat of a honeymoon period and maybe to some extent whilest we had tim peachment going on there has still been a focus on donald trump and that could help joe biden because he's such in contrast to the previous president. what does he need to do? 63%, beyond the covid relief, is it getting executive orders done? is it trying to get bipartisan legislation through congress on things like immigration or gun control? what do they need to get their approval ratings high and give them leverage? >> it is a great question. and the answer that i get when i talk to them about, well, how are you going to sustain the energy that got president biden elected? it really is the covid response. it really is them thinking we need to fix the biggest thing that is upending the lives of americans and globally. that is trying to fight this

virus. they feel like they are against borrowed time. they came into this office, and all of the sources i talked to say most think it is worse than they thought it would be. there is no vaccine. they were going to dump it into the states and let the states figure it out. now you have a biden administration desperate to make sure they get shots in the arms of americans. there are the other things americans are thinking about after the virus. i have to say after the virus because nothing can happen until we get rid of the pandemic. today the biden administration is talking about extending the moratorium on evictions. you see him each step of the way even if he's talking about the economy or the pandemic, they really feel like they need to get this pandemic under control and then they need to focus on the agenda that biden talked about on the campaign trail. that was fighting systemic

racism. it was climate change. it was infrastructure, immigration, all the things democrats have been wanting to do for a long time that they have not gotten to do. >> thank you so much for your reporting. and now this. republican congressman adam kin singer battle to remove donald trump from the party is getting personal. some of the congressman's own family members are lashing out after he voted to impeach trump for the january 6th riots. in a letter they made public, nearly a dozen members of the congressman's family wrote, oh, my. what a disappointment you are to us and to god. we thought you were smart enough to see how the left is brainwashing so many "so-called good people" including yourself and many other g.o.p. members. president trump isn't perfect, but neither are you or any of us for that matter.

it is not for us to judge or be judged. msnbc has not yet verified the letter or spoken with those involved. he isn't phased by his family's personal attack and he doesn't plan to apologize for his position. and he isn't the only republican facing backlash. nearly all of the republican senators who voted to convict former president trump are now facing potential censure votes in their home states. more on the new plans for a 9/11 style commission to exam the attack on the capitol. why nancy pelosi says this is the next step after trump's acquittal. we're going to dig into that on "morning joe."

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the fact of the matter is this didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me.

when you think of armed, don't you think of firearms? here is the questions i would like to ask. how many firearms were confiscated? i'm only aware of one. if that was a planned insurrection, you are really a bunch of idiots. they were staying inside the lines of the capitol. i'm seeing a bunch of people milling about. it wasn't until i really saw the video in the trial that you really saw, you know, what was happening and how that officer got injured. >> to call that an armed insurrection, it was the most pitiful armed insurrection anybody could possibly imagine. the one guy in the chambers had plastic zip ties. what was he going to do? go up to mike pence and capture him? >> citizen's arrest.

>> that was republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin questioning whether an armed insurrection even happened on january 6th. just to remind people, police recovered a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition from seven people who were arrested over their involvement in the riot at the capitol that left at least five people dead. senator johnson should read his own state's paper, the milwaukee journal sentinel which reports 14 people tied to the attack are facing federal charges related to bringing or using dangerous weapons inside the building and two are facing charges according to the u.s. attorney's office for the district of columbia. joe, he was calling it a pitiful armed insurrection and questioning whether it was an insurrection at all and wondering what people were going to do with the plastic ties they were holding there.

>> is that the game plan? are we really -- >> to play incredibly stupid. >> is that -- is that where they end up after this all over? >> yeah. >> pretending this did not happen? when we have the video. we have the video. >> did he not watch? >> of police officers being beaten, some within inches of their lives, beaten with an american flag. we have the stories of the law enforcement officers lying on the ground while trump terrorists were beating them and thinking to themselves that they had four children and wondering if they would ever see their children again. we heard the chance. we saw the nooses. we heard the terrorists scream,

hang mike pence. >> we saw them destroying things. >> we saw them destroying the capitol and defacing it in every day. we've seen the three cops, the three law enforcement officers, the faces of those who died following the attacks, too, so traumatized that american terrorists would storm the capitol that they took their own lives. this is -- this is a mob that just may have killed ron johnson or any member of the house or the senate that they saw that day. so i just wonder as there are republicans feverishly trying to reframe the political party, miikka, i'm just wondering if mitch mcconnell's vision of the republican party moving forward

is ron johnson's party of the republican party. because you can use mitch mcconnell's own words against ron johnson and prove that ron johnson is lying to the people of wisconsin. ron johnson is lying to the people of the america. ron johnson is not worthy to be a united states senator. >> with us, we have bbc world news america, katty kay with us. president of u.s. foreign relations richard haas. and steve ratner joins us as well. house speaker nancy pelosi is heeding calls for the creation of a september 11th style commission to investigate last month's deadly riot at the u.s. capitol. pelosi said congress will establish an independent commission to investigate and report on the attack as well as

interference in election proceedings. pelosi also said the house will appropriate additional funds to boost security at the capitol while multiple congressional committees are also in the process of scheduling hearings to investigate the riot. "the washington post" points out that supporters of the commission say such an initiative will have broader authority than those committees to pursue testimony from those in trump's orbit, voices that were not part of the impeachment inquiry. and the commission will not be under the same time constraints of those committee investigations as it produces its findings. so they will take their time to really lay out the case of what happened, joe, using the very people who might have been involved in inciting the deadly riot. >> well, it has to be done for a variety of reasons. first of all, we need to make sure that the center of american

democracy is never, never as compromised as it was on january the 6th. i know they're idiots on other cable news channels that will say, well, his mom and pop store was vandalized during the summer riots and that's just as bad as the united states capitol being vandalized. no. no. no, jackass, it's not. the capitol of united states of america is the center of american democracy. and while i am a fierce believer in people's right to defend their private property, i'm not going to confuse a taco stand with the united states capitol. i'm not going to confuse the selling of tacos with actually moving through a constitutional process that has laid out the united states constitution for

members of the house and the senate to actually -- to per narm their constitutional duties. no. no. no. property damage does not equal insurrection. and somebody -- you have to be really stupid, and i have heard a lot of really stupid people over the past month try to make that argument and it doesn't cut it. i will say there are a few republicans, even republicans, who have acted shamefully over the past month who are also calling for a 9/11 style commission. and richard haas, from the very start you said you weren't so sure that impeachment was a proper way to go because you predicted how it was going to end. you predicted how it would lead to even more frustration. you predicted that donald trump would be able to pay a victory lap and say he was acquitted yet again and his allies will say he was acquitted yet again. you said a 9/11 style commission

made a lot more sense. you still believe it is the proper thing to do and a lot of republicans believe with you. why is this 9/11 style commission so important? >> joe, it is so important because of the limits to what we just experienced with impeachment. you didn't have witnesses. it was rushed. it was wildly politicized still in the heat of the moment. a 9/11-like commission will probably take something of a year, can subpoena all sorts of witnesses, dig in to all sorts of things. it could take a very large pursue. it could look at the backdrop. it could look at law enforcement and intelligence issues. it could go beyond the immediacy of january 6th and look at the white nationalist threat. it can look at the question of norms in american politics. and so, one, it can uncover a whole lot. two, joe, what might be as important as anything, it can be

an extraordinary teaching moment. we need narratives. we need stories. this is a really important part of the american narrative. we can't afford to lose this as a teaching moment. and then lastly it will take all sorts of recommendations. i actually think this is extraordinarily important. >> katty kay, richard brought out not just white nationalism but also domestic terror, something that was not going to be investigated at great length during an impeachment trial but something that over the course of the next year this 9/11 style commission can really dig into because obviously the threat is out there. it grew exponentially during the trump years and it is still with us. >> yeah. this is what the fbi has been warning about repeatedly, that the biggest threat the united

states faces at the moment is not from outside terror groups but domestic terror groups. if you have some kind of commission, and ideally you have some kind of bipartisanship associated with that commission as you did with the 9/11 commission, then this report could have some gravitas. one of the most important parts of this report is the idea this can happen again. that isn't just one of those people that hold january 6th accountable but the jurity failings as well. ron johnson is one of those people who rather stupidly is making the comparison between what happened last summer and some of the looting with what happened on january the 6th: i think if you have the gravitas of a 9/11 style commission that

has some bipartisan ship to it. we all remember where we were when that came out. it came blockbluster reading over the summer. this could have the same impact of that, of taking some of the sting of trumpian style partisanship out of this with what happened. >> still ahead, backlash against republicans who voted to convict donald trump including from a pennsylvania party official who condemned senator pat toomey for voting his conscious and doing the right thing. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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the backlash from state republican parties continue against the republicans who voted to convict the former president. the north carolina republican

party voted unanimously yesterday to censure senator richard burr saying it believes that the impeachment of a former president lies outside the u.s. constitution. burr responded with a statement, quote, it is truly a sad day for north carolina republicans. my party's leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the republican party and the founders of our great nation. the pennsylvania republican party is now planning to meet to discuss possible censure for senator toomey. here is the chair of pennsylvania's washington county republican party on why toomey should be censured. >> we did not send him there to vote his conscious. we did not vote him there to do

the right thing. >> so we did not send him to washington, d.c. to vote his conscious. we did not send him to washington, d.c. to do the right thing. there you have somebody sounding more like a soviet style than an american citizen trying to do the right thing. you must support the party. you must support fearless leader. you must support fid dell castro. you must support -- fill in the blanks. that's the state of play in republican parties across america. and, yes, independent voters, swing voters in pennsylvania, look at that. can we hear that again? because i just want you to know this is the moral grounding of the republican party, not just in pennsylvania. this is the moral grounding of the republican party all across

america now, a republican party that actually has evolved in a personal cult instead of an institution that actually began to free the slaves. let's see where the party of abraham lincoln as devolved in this time. >> we did not send him there to vote his conscious. we did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever you -- >> and richard haass, we're hearing this all over from america from republicans, soviet style, and i'm not overstating that. this is what you would hear from an east german party member. you are to follow the party. you are not to vote your conscious. you are to follow what the soviet bureau tells you to follow. that's what's happening here

except it is one person, a failed reality tv host and a loser of a presidential candidate who destroyed the republican party. and, richard, that's what i don't get. this guy destroyed the republican party, destroyed the senate in 2020 and destroyed the republican party's control over the executive branch at the same time. and yet they're saying don't vote your conscious. we're not sending you up there to do that. we're sending you to be blindly loyal to fearless leader. >> joe, you know, listening to him, not a lot surprises me anymore. there is a connection between the two things we have talked about this morning, what happened on january 6th and that. and you and i often talk about budget deficits. we've got a civics deficit in this country, that people would take matters into their own hand to use violence to their own

agenda, to stop the counts of the electoral votes. now this guy talking. what we do is precisely, we send people to washington to do what they think is right. we don't ask them constantly to poll their constituents. we ask them to use their judgment. and the fact that there could be these examples that people so don't understand the dna of their own political system, this is a real warning to us that the essence of american democracy is being lost, and it's got to become a national priority in this country to resurrect it. otherwise, january 6th, what this character just said, these will not be exceptions. >> coming up, the debate over covid stimulus could go into backfire in the home of high prices for consumers. that conversation is next on "morning joe." t on "morning joe."

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steve ratner, richard haass and i talking about debts. we have been concerned for some time with what we're hearing coming out of washington, d.c. on this covid relief bill,

almost $2 trillion, despite the fact cbo says the economy is going to grow at a 3.75% clip this year, despite the fact that you even look in financial times this morning and you see that this -- that pumping $2 trillion into the economy after the relief bills of last year would actually move us above what the trend lines were pre-covid for this economy. and you're hearing a lot of people in washington, quite a few economists, suggest, well, we just never have to worry about inflation again. we never have to worry about deficits again. we never have to worry about the debt again. i know republicans don't worry about debt unless there is a republican in the white house. it is interesting to hear these economists suggest that for some reason that inflation is a relic from a different age that we

need never worry about again. i'm curious what your thoughts are. >> well, look, on inflation, i think there are beginning to be some concerns about inflation. it is not yet evident in the monthly numbers that we see. but when you look at the kinds of things like inflationary expectation surveys like where treasury rates are beginning to move to, things like that, commodity prices have gone up. that's often a signal of inflation. i'm not here to ring the bell to say we're about to have massive inflation, but i think you are starting to see the beginnings of that. but most importantly, as you said, joe, the package is huge. just to put it in some kind of context, in 2008, 2009, we put about $2 trillion in the economy to rescue ourselves from the great financial crisis. we have already authorized $4 trillion for the same type of

rescue, and this bill would add $1.9 or $2 trillion on top of that. so a package that's roughly three times the size of what we did during the great financial crisis. we also, by the way, still have about a billion from the $4 trillion that's already been authorized that hasn't been spent yet. so it is a huge amount of money and it does run the risk of putting more money into the economy. people have not been spending as much because of the lockdown. here is another fun fact for you in a sense. personal income last year went up 5%. that is because obviously a lot of people are out of work, but it is because so much in government transfers from the stimulus we already spent. you have money in people's bank accounts that they have not been able to spend yet. and then there is specific

issues with the packet itself which i'm happy to get into. but all in all, the biggest and scarier it starts to get. >> still ahead, the push to get students back inside the classroom. we'll talk to one of the nation's leading pediatric and infectious disease doctors next on "morning joe." introducing voltaren arthritis pain gel. the first full prescription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel...

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if you smell gas, you're too close. leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. covid's still a threat. and on reopening schools, we know what happens when we don't put safety first. ignore proper ventilation or rates of community spread, and the virus worsens. fail to provide masks or class sizes that allow for social distancing, and classrooms close back down. a successful reopening requires real safety and accountability measures.

including prioritizing vaccines for educators. parents and educators agree: reopen schools. putting safety first. if you see wires down, treat them all as if they're hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. this morning the signs of hope in the united states coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations rates have all gone down. nbc news miguel almaguer reports. >> reporter: for the first time in months, the deadly winter surge seems to be tailing off. the u.s. is now averaging fewer than 100,000 daily infections down from 239,000 just a month

ago. the improving numbers come as more schools across the country are reopening for the first time since the start of the pandemic. in los angeles, elementary schools got the green light to allow in class learning as early as this week. officials in north carolina also plan to reopen their schools. >> the decision to return is with safety first. >> reporter: but even as the head of the cdc says, now is the time to double down on safety measures, some states are easing restrictions. montana just joined iowa, eliminating its statewide mask mandate. indoor dining is back in many places, too. next week the bar clay center in brooklyn welcomes back nba signs. signs of promise on the vaccine front. more than 52 million doses administered. new federal vaccine sites like this one in east los angeles now

open, even as long lines and shortages continue to frustrate seniors. >> made it all the way to the line upfront, and that's when they told us we couldn't use them. >> public health workers are scrambling to adapt. in houston, a power outage forced officials to administer 8,400 vaccine doses right before they expired. students at nearby rice university among the lucky last-minute recipients. >> i got everything on and sprinted here and apparently everything else had the same thought as me. >> reporter: one critical number is trending in the wrong direction. over a thousand of cases of people with highly infectious covid variants have been confirmed in 40 states, a wild card that could alter the course of the pandemic yet again. >> joining us now, director of the vaccine education center and an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases

at children's hospital of philadelphia. he's also a member of the fda's vaccine adviory panel. let's start with the wild card, the variants. what are the concern levels in terms of the variant obviously spreading very quickly and the vaccine applying to the variants? >> that's the critical question. i mean, you have this so-called u.k. variant that's now more contagious and spreading across the country. the critical question is the immunity or the immunity that's being adduced by the pfizer and moderna vaccines, is that going to protect you against this variant? by that i mean protect you against hospitalization, icu admission, death. so far all the evidence is, yes, it does. that also appears to be true for the other variant, the south african variant. and that's the critical question. i think a line gets crossed.

if you see people who are fully immune that nonetheless when exposed to any of these variants are then hospitalized, that's when we have to think about a different strategy then for at least augmenting our current vaccine strategy. that hasn't happened. that hasn't happened in the world yet, so a line hasn't been crossed yet. >> and how is the country fairing in terms of getting the vaccine to the people? it feels like the president has moved the bar up a little bit. and i'm hearing april. i'm hearing this summer. what is your best estimate from the data that you have? >> right. it's -- you know, we're trying to do something for which we don't really have a public health system in place for that. which is to say geared toward mass administration of vaccines to adults. we're learning to do that and mass distribute this vaccine. i think we're getting there.

we're a little over one-and-a-half million doses a day. i think we're at three million doses a day to reach our goal of trying to get this pandemic in hand by the summer. i'm optimistic that can happen. you have to be really impressed by the fact that here it is mid-february and this winter respiratory virus which should be raging right now isn't. we had a decrease in cases, decrease in hospitalizations, decrease in deaths. why is that? it will make a big difference of what we will see over the next few months. one possibility is we're having some evidence of herd immunity. we list roughly 28 million people in this country have been affected. that's just the number of people tested and found to be infected. many people that were asimilar toematically infected never get tested. to find out how many people have really been infected is to do antibody surveillance studies. that number is found to be off by a factor as four.

it could be as many as 80 million people that are already exposed to this virus. plus, as you just said, 50 million doses have been administered. it is another 10%. you're at 35% of the population. that's good. if it's just the reason why, it will get better. the weather will get warmer and i'm choosing to be optimistic here that we're starting to see a light at the end of the donald. >> all right. katty kay has the next question. okay. all right. we'll get katty's audio going in just a moment. for now we will turn to jonathan lemire for the next question. >> i'll try to step into her shoes. doctor, this is your specialty, pediatrics and we opened this segment here talking about schools. i want to get your assessment right now as to how that's going in terms of the reopening of schools. we're seeing more districts do

so across the country, even if it is just once or twice a week and to get you to weigh in on the biden white house's plan. it took some criticism early on for perhaps not being assertive enough. tell me how you think the reopening of schools are going and what needs to be done still to ensure that more and more students can go back to school and go back to school full-time. >> in the philadelphia area where i live the parochial schools are back and they're back safety. the public schools are less equipped to do that. we need to get the money to those schools to allow them to do that. i think we need to go back to school. i can tell you in philadelphia virtual learning is not nearly as good as onsite learning, especially for the younger children. we need to go back to school. i certainly agree with the

doctor at the cdc that teachers don't need to be immunized first before we go back to school. they're essential workers, so we need to go back to work and figure out the best way to do that. i really like the biden plan to do that. >> katty kay, let's try this again. >> i loved your optimism on where we are in terms of getting some immunity with perhaps community affected. but dr. fauci has gone from something like 65% to 80% of the population. if we don't hit that target of dr. fauci's 80%, 25% of the population having been vaccinated. is that a disaster? can we live with that? can we resume a normal life short of that or is that where

we need to be? >> usually to figure out what percentage of the population needs to be immunized, there is two factors that need to be considered. one is the con tagousness of the virus and the efficacy of the vaccine. the efficacy of the vaccine is excellent. it's in the 95% range, which is great. if you plug in the numbers, you need 75% of the population immune. i really do think we'll get there. it does worry me the anti-vaccine. if they're able to through their misinformation on the web able to convince people not to get vaccinated and there are a number of health care workers even in our city that choose not to get vaccinated. that worries me. if you are going to run up where people are simply choosing not to get vaccinated and that that really causes an erosion in herd immunity, that would be tragic. >> thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.

we have an update now on the controversy in new york state where governor andrew cuomo is now acknowledging that his administration mishandled the response to coronavirus deaths in nursing homes. nbc news's anne thompson has the story. >> trying to tamp down a growing scandal over covid deaths in new york nursing home, governor andrew cuomo tried to separate political spin from facts. >> the new york state doh has always fully reported all covid deaths in nursing homes and hospitals. >> last week revelations that one of the governor's top aids told democratic state lawmakers nursing home death data was delayed saying we froze, fearing the numbers would be used against us by the trump administration. state lawmakers were told it was

put on hold while the federal government was addressed first. the nursing home death toll is nearly 15,000, almost 50% higher than the administration initially claimed. >> we should have provided more information faster. we were too focussed on doing the job and addressing the crisis of the moment. i take total responsibility for that. >> but before the crisis had even ebbed, you mow wrote a book about his leadership. >> they just need to own up to some of the mistakes that were made. >> losing loved ones and some faith in government. anne thompson, nbc news new york. >> jonathan lemire, a lot of questions there because, first of all, cuomo really was lauded for doing such a great job during the pandemic. then he wrote the book. but i don't understand. like how do you not release

numbers that are existing? and what's the mind set that the numbers ultimately won't come out? >> right. the book from the beginning seemed like an ill-advised idea. we were still in the teeth of the pandemic when he wrote it. you know, he stopped short of a full apology there. but i think that will come. a small consolation, particularly to the families of those who died in nursing homes across new york state, you know, and who are now still trying to get answers as to what's happening. we have seen now in addition to the state attorney general but we're seeing other lawmakers call for further investigation into how the cuomo administration to handle this. this is certainly not going to be a story line that goes away any time soon for this governor who you're right, who was hailed for his initial handling of the pandemic and now is receiving some real sharp criticism. >> all right. up next, dr. anthony fauci

reveals he was concerned about personally contracting covid-19 while works inside former president donald trump's white house. keep it right here on "morning joe." some say this is my greatest challenge ever. but i've seen centuries of this. with a companion that powers a digital world, traded with a touch. the gold standard, so to speak ;)

it's time for the ultimate sleep number event on the sleep number 360 smart bed. can it help with snoring? i've never heard snoring... exactly. no problem. and... done. and now, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 24 months. only for a limited time. former president obama said this week when asked who should be running countries that if women were in charge, you'd see a significant improvement on just about everything. senator warren, you would be the oldest president ever

inaugurated. >> i'd also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated. >> that was then presidential candidate senator elizabeth warren, landing one of the biggest debate mic drops of the presidential election cycle. sa within kamala harris was sworn in as the first woman, black woman, south asian woman, vice president of the united states. and as women inch ever closer to becoming the next commander in chief a number have already paved the way, running historic campaigns for the oval office, and what did several of those women have in common? they were all over the age of 50. why over 50? know your value as teamed up with forbes for a specialist to celebrate the women who have achieved significant success after that age. to showcase the women shattering misconceptions about gender and age well after 50, there are,

incidentally, more women over 50 in this country today than any other point in history. let's bring in chief content officer of forbes media, and editor of forbes, randall lane. on the heels of presidents' day this morning we are looking at the women over 50 who ran for president, not all of them but some that we've picked out specifically for this list, this day. randall, of course we start with hillary clinton who over the age of 50 had many first female to do this, first woman to do that. what are they, and in some ways she really sort of paved the way for many others. >> she did. i mean, there was a woman in 1872, victoria woodhall, almost 50 years before women could vote who ran for president on the equal rights party line, losing to u.s. grant and horace greeley that year but think about then, six women, including four sitting senators running last year and it really was hillary

clinton who made that nothing unusual. she was the first woman ever to be on the top of a major ticket. she was the first woman senator out of new york, the 30th woman who was secretary of state. she talked about that ultimate glass ceiling she didn't break but she did break many glass ceilings and made it normal so last year we had six women, including four senators, running for president. >> and katty kay, looking at women on both sides of the aisle. you're next. >> let's talk about carly furina from the republican side of the ticket, hard to imagine somebody who would be more qualified in business. started out her life as a secretary, rose up through the ranks, named in five consecutive years in a row as one of the most important businesswomen in america and then she gets up onto the debate stage and, you know, famously gets criticized for donald trump for how she looks. i mean, to me in some ways,

carly furina's experience epitomizes what women have to go through when they run in politics, particularly perhaps older women. >> she felt, you know, kind of the wrath of trump in this area, almost before anybody else in the political arena. this is somebody who survived breast cancer, a john mccain surrogate and she ran for senator. she had experience but then when trump made that comment about her looks, she's somebody who became kind of a never trumper member. she was -- ted cruz picked her when he was running head to head against trump in 2016 to be his vice president. she had a strong debate at one point and was getting a good look and she wound up of course last year backing biden. here's somebody who, again, faced those arrows, and came through and became, you know, i think stronger for it. >> jonathan lemire, i'm bracing

myself for the viewer tweets coming for this name. jill stein ran for president in 2016, the number of votes she gained were more than the margin of difference between donald trump and hillary clinton and therefore has been blamed by many democrats for costing hillary clinton the white house but speak to her importance here, why is she someone who, you know, is still active in politics now, why is she someone who should be noted and her accomplishments be considered? >> i mean, in some ways it shows the normalcy. you had, arguably, again, a woman who cost another woman the presidency. she got over 1% of the popular vote and she was more than the margin of difference in wisconsin, pennsylvania, et cetera. and whether you want -- you can debate that all you want but net/net you had two women drawing, you know, just over a point, and hillary clinton of course winning the popular vote. so there was -- and nobody was really talking about that in terms of a woman taking votes

from a woman. it was a green party taking votes from a democrat. in some ways there's some normalcy there, which again i think shows us that, you know, now we have a woman vice president that we are getting there as a society. we are getting there. >> and then on this list we have an unsung hero, randall. carol moseley brawn, talk about her. >> we love unsung heroes on this 50 over 50 project, first policewoman woman who ever served in the u.s. senate and she ran for the u.s. democratic nomination, ran as a proud woman, talking about how women can fix the mess men have created, the idea that women are practical, the idea that women are -- embrace partnerships, the idea that women are committed to making the world a better place because they understand the needs of children. it was a very important run, a serious run, didn't make it even to iowa but it was a signal you

had a black woman running who was qualified, taken very seriously and was running proudly as a woman. >> yeah. forbes randall lane, thank you so much. if you know a woman, by the way, who is shattering age and gender norms and would like to nominate her for our 50 over 50 feature be sure to let us know, go to knowyourvalue.com or forbes.com and blik on 50 over 50 to learn more and by the way you can nominate yourself and you should. finally this morning a couple of new pieces of sound from dr. anthony fauci's new interview with axios on hbo, here he is on being concerned with his own personal health while working inside the trump white house. >> i think you have to be oblivious not to consider the fact that if you get infected that you are already in a category of someone who has a high risk of having a serious

outcome. i didn't fixate on that, but it was in the back of my mind because i had to be out there, i mean particularly when i was going to the white house every day when the white house was sort of a superspreader location. i mean, that made me a little bit nervous. >> all right. jonathan lemire, i mean, first of all, i thought that, just the way they did their events all squashed together on stage, they were not recognizing any social distancing for quite some time there. and a lot of these people were in a vulnerable age. >> you and me both, dr. fauci, someone who's in that white house many days during the pandemic while president trump was in office. i mean, reporters would also have to have masks, two masks at a time, you know, in order -- and had real concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. the white house was a site of several outbreaks during the year, including one on election night, including the one that got the president sick himself

from the supreme court news conference in the rose garden. there was multiple occasions where many people got sick in that white house and certainly dr. fauci has said he was really concerned he could be one of them but that whole interview wasn't all just dire and fears of the virus. there was also one particularly fun moment here, dr. fauci learned a new dating term from margaret tallow of axios. >> there's a term in dating now called fauciing someone? >> what does that mean? >> it means cutting off a relationship if you don't think that other person is serious enough about social distancing and taking the pandemic seriously enough. i faucied that guy. >> i'm going to fauci you. >> oh, my god, okay, well, it is a new normal. i don't know, katty and jonathan lemire, but i've noticed when i do see people i stay far away from them. there's no shaking hands.

will we ever shake hands again, let alone follow rules like fauciing people? >> yeah, i mean, and i walk down the street and if somebody's not wearing a mask, i sort of frown at them. i've become a scowler because we do expect people to abide by the protocols. up until now the white house didn't do very much under trump to enforce it. it was up to us. now with the biden administration we're going so 'a change in more leadership on the top of things like social distancing and mask wearing and fauciing, if that's a thing. >> jonathan lemire, more on that and what are you looking at today? >> i'm also struck by the change in mood from dr. fauci, that he seems lighter, much younger, much less of a burden on him now that he works for president biden rather than president trump. president biden heads to a town hall in wisconsin to make his case to the people why the nation needs a massive covid relief deal. >> he does look like a happy

guy. things have changed. that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> stand by, here we come. >> hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is tuesday, february 16th, let's get smarter. just a few hours from now president biden will make a public push to get relief to struggling americans. traveling to milwaukee on his first trip as commander in chief. the goal, to get away from the republican roadblocks in congress and build support for a plan that most of the country and most state and local leaders already want. but time is of the essence. more than 10 million americans are still unemployed, thanks to this pandemic. millions more have simply given up looking for work entirely. a lot of the americans who are trying to make ends meet are currently doing it with the help of federal unemployment benefits, and those very benefits are set to run out 26 days from now.

let's d