louder than anything that was said in the press conference, john. >> he has great reporting and insight as well as a clever wit. our hans hans nichols, we appreciate it as always, sir. thank you for being here. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪♪ i was really being tough, and so was he. we would go back and forth, and then we fell in love. okay. no, really. he wrote me beautiful letters and they're great letters. we fell in love. >> looked like it -- >> i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. >> doctored maps and love letters from a dictator. >> i don't know, i don't know, i don't know. yeah, that's my sharpie. yeah, i don't know. >> what other documents did donald trump squirrel away after losing the white house?

can you imagine this? >> willie, it is still hard to believe, you get a map and you pick like who is the most repressive dictator on the -- come on, you got to pick north korea, kim jong-un, right? the stories are incredible. of course, here is a picture of kim jong-un with dennis rodman. no, wait! that's the other story. that's the map with the sharpie. you got to love the sharpie, too. you say bill karins -- i know bill karins is a little worried. >> yeah. >> maybe this guy is deciding he is going to be a meteorologist in the future. i can't, look at that. he draws that arrow. it could have gone into alabama, it could have. you can't take it away from him. it could have hit alabama. >> it blows the mind all over again to look at it. he sketched it on there to prove his point, his incorrect point. joe, you have been to all of the

great presidential libraries from george washington forward and you see the incredible keepsakes presidents have. >> i'm getting chills. i'm getting chills, willie. >> at the donald trump library you will have that map in a frame and the love letters from one of the world's worst dictators in the donald trump library. >> and people actually cheer, like, in the audience, they used to cheer when he had big audiences. they would cheer whenever he would talk about his love letters with kim jong-un and, you know, remember not so long ago bill o'reilly asked him like who were his favorite world leaders to deal with. and like, you know, kim jong-un was one of them. who else did he say in did he say xi and putin? i don't know. it was like -- it certainly wasn't anybody that was elected democratically. you actually heard when they said kim jong-un, you actually heard some clapping. i heard a hound dog barking in

the back because everybody wanting their. some dogs before running wild in the back. you had a couple of chicken koops people had brought in because you had extra space in the arena. but there were people who were actually applauding the kim jong-un shout-out. i'm sitting here going, okay, wait, what -- why, why? i still don't get it. >> cult members. >> help us out here, willie. >> why, why, why? >> there were plenty of seats still available at those events. people up in the rafters, please do move down the front like they do at the nets' games when i was growing up. >> cluster to the front. >> come up front. he talked about kim jong-un, he talked about putin in that comment and he would get a smattering of applause. he used to get big cheers at the rallies. they were talking about his affinity with dictators. the men have two things in common. the first is they are dictators. the second was they knew to

shower praise on donald trump to win his affection and his allegiance. >> the national archives confirms it had to retrieve 15 boxes of presidential records from mar-a-lago last month that should have been handed over at the end of the trump administration. >> they probably just got packed up. i mean golf clubs. he didn't know what he was doing. >> "the washington post" was first to report that the letters between donald trump and north korean leader kim jong-un and a letter left by former president barack obama -- well, he wanted to hold on to that. he felt sentimental. were among the records found at the former president's residence. >> you know, hasn't he been saying nice things about obama lately. >> this is just the weirdest thing ever. >> i think he has. >> can you imagine like -- >> your dad stealing stuff, like camp david stuff and taking it to the farm house. >> a copy of the camp david accords "the new york times" matched that account and reported this doctored hurricane

map that we showed was also among the material in violation of presidential records act. you may remember when trump presented this weather map to reporters in the oval office in 2019 after he had drawn on it to match a wrong prediction he made on twitter about the storm's path. >> these are two of the things you might know about. the fact is there are probably more records there that were never handed over. in a statement released to nbc news a spokesperson for the national archives says the agency was told by trump aides they're still searching for more records that belong to the government. >> good lord. >> and records, i guess, willie, he hasn't torn to shred yet. he appeared to get up from meetings and just start tearing stuff up. people would go behind him and try to tape it together. the old dog ate the homework excuse, he thought he was going to use that one. obviously he knew he was breaking the law because, you

know, he -- when nancy pelosi tore up his speech he, of course, said, oh, my god -- >> that's illegal. >> -- that's illegal. there's a federal law that says you can't destroy government property like that. >> yeah, and not just torn in half, torn to shred and a staffer knew to get in the garbage can and tape it together piece by piece. >> jonathan lemire, it appears there were two approaches, either to shred them to pieces or put them in a box to return to mar-a-lago. the national after archives putting them together and retrieving them. >> there's no punishment attached here so it is not clear anything will happen to the former president with walking off with the mementos. one wonders what else he came up with. we remember when he had his summit with vladimir putin in

helsinki, and he said, wow, that's bugged, but it went back on air force once. remember also the orb that was presented to him? one wonders if it was part of this. that hurricane map, as funny as it is now, the president then because he was so upset he got -- he was wrong about his twitter prediction and then changed on the map a government agency, the national weather service went back and revised its prediction to prove him right. they reverse engineered it and it was a moment of -- maybe an inconsequential one largely, but a moment he tried to use the leverage of government to prove he was right, something foreshadowing what would come a few years later with the election. >> mika, we're talking about, again, objects, things we know about. obviously those -- what's important in those 15 boxes would be anything that shed light on what happened on january 6th. >> yes, and we also have with us a member of "the new york times"

editorial board, mara gay. mara, that's where i will go with you. while some of these are amusing you wonder between shredding and tearing up documents and scurrying things away to his house in mar-a-lago, you wonder what else the former president is hiding, the one who lost. >> exactly. i may be becoming cynical but when i read our piece in the post and the piece in the time my first thought was i don't know what he is trying to hide versus what he is going to try to sell. my first thought was we would see it on auction, you know, all of these pieces that really ultimately belong to the american people. you just can't put anything past him. it is comical but, of course, it is kind of scary because we don't know what's missing, especially with january 6th. it is going to require a big dig. what i would love to hear more

about actually, i'm hoping for more reporting on this in the coming days is really the nitty-gritty of how that handover took place. you know, i kind of in my head imagine the national archives having to send a swat team into mar-a-lago. but really i think in all seriousness it is just one more point of investigation that's required. >> yeah. we will be following this. i think you make a very good point there, that there's probably much more to reveal there. a growing number of republicans are keeping their distance from the rnc's censure of representatives liz cheney and adam kinzinger and the characterization of january 6th as a, quote, legitimate political discourse. nbc news spoke to several gop lawmakers yesterday. take a listen. >> i talked to ronna, she's a good lady, and the statement. she doesn't -- she was talking

about things other than violence. and, you know, i think all of us up here want to talk about forward, not backward. >> we've got issues that we should be focusing on besides censuring two members of congress because they have a different opinion. >> do you agree with the action actually censuring cheney and kinzinger? >> you know, it is not my job. but they said in the resolution, they wanted republicans to be unified. that was not a unifying action. >> anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us. >> wow. that was a very good compilation of some fair assessments of what happened. i mean not unifying, and also silencing anyone's voice. it doesn't make any sense. nbc news tried to ask minority leader mitch mcconnell about this. he wouldn't engage, but it is

sure to come up at his weekly press conference later today. >> yeah, and, willie, it is interesting. again, you do have -- i brought it up yesterday, brought it upend of last week. you have republicans starting to speak out more, speaking out against, you know, that's stupidity but also speaking out about things donald trump said a couple of weekends ago. you are starting to hear them saying, come on, all of this nonsense about the last election is distracting from the next election. that's what a sane, rational party would say. it is not what this republican has been saying but you are hearing more and more people talking about it, including mitch mcconnell. >> yeah, some are. then when you ask the follow up question, would you support donald trump running in 2024, they will say, i will support whoever the republican nominee is, and if he runs again it likely will be donald trump. we will see the push back,

jonathan lemire, but it seems it would have been an easy question. what was we saw on january 6th discourse? which part of the day was legitimate, trying to overturn the election? where was the legitimate discourse in there? it was a question some republicans we just showed answer, but most don't want to talk about it, namely kevin mccarthy. >> it is a throw-back to where he would say or tweet something outrageous and the reporters would go and say, did you see this be, and he would say he didn't see it. it was a clumsy way of trying not to engage. we are seeing more of that now. a few republicans have been willing to speak out at least on parts of this, criticizing the

censure of cheney and kinzinger or to say, hey, look, it was not legitimate discourse, it was violence. we should not condone it in any shape or form. a lot of republicans are steering clear of them, even though so many of them, a growing number i have spoken to agree with what joe said a second ago, where they feel like -- as much as they want to turn the page to 202 and they feel really good about their chances in the midterms, and, of course, 2024, donald trump won't let them. he is fixated on 2020. they also know he is still the by far the loudest, biggest, angriest voice in the party. they're afraid to defy him much. >> i mean that is idiocy of all of this, mika. again, the last thing -- so the reason republicans didn't want to have a 1/6 hearing is because they wanted to move forward. they didn't want to talk about what happened on january 6th. what do you have? the republican national committee talking about january 6th. as mitt romney said, it is a stupid thing to do. so you have got a president, a

former president who has to look back because if he looks forward then everybody understands in the party that he's admitting what we all know, that he lost, and he doesn't want to do that because he thinks then the parade just moves on. >> right. >> so he is literally trying to drag the party back and continuing to fight a battle that was over long ago instead of looking at what's in front of him. just, again, not a shock, but for his own self-interest. certainly not for the interest of the party and they all know that. all they have to do is look at chuck schumer. he runs the senate now. why does he run the senate now? because donald trump really did more to get in the way of mitch mcconnell being majority leader than anyone with the way he behaved during the georgia run-offs. >> right. >> donald trump helped elect two democrats to the united states senate and made chuck schumer the leader of the senate.

it is all on him. >> not only is it republican self-sabotage that we've all witnessed many times over, but the problem is that it would be great to move on. nobody wants to move on more than practically everybody covering this or in it. but when we are talking about issues pertaining to, like, the core of our democracy, it is kind of hard. you have to -- i mean a guest yesterday on our show said, please, don't let up on the outrage because it can't continue. it leads america in a very bad direction. >> yeah. >> unfortunately, stupid republican talk is what we have to cover. republican hypocrisy is what we have to cover. republicans pretending january 6th didn't happen is what we have to cover. republicans censuring two of their own for using their voices in defense of our democracy is

what we have to cover, and it is getting very boring and repetitive. >> mike pence calling out donald trump is also something we have to cover because it was a big moment. >> it was. former south carolina -- nikki haley is calling out mike pence. she took issue with him saying this. >> president trump is wrong. i had no right to overturn the election. >> look, mike pence is a good man, he is an honest man. i think he did what he thought was right on that day, but i will always say i just am not a fan of republicans going against republicans because the only ones that win when that happens are the democrats and the media. >> yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes. nikki haley is definitely not a fan of republicans going after republicans. >> no, don't do it. >> no way.

unh-unh. >> your rino governor brian kemp. >> i think president trump has been opinionated. just because he left being president that is not going to stop. >> he said mcconnell is a dour, sullen. >> for all asking about 2020, i am not running for 2020. i look forward to supporting the president in the next election. >> jeff flake was a chairman of a committee and paul ryan also retired this cycle. why do you think it is? >> in jeff flake's case it is me. pure and simple. i retired him. i am proud of it. >> if he runs again in 2024, will you support him? >> yes. >> you don't criticize republicans, she's against it. so ronald reagan's moral --

ronald reagan's 11th commandment, republicans don't criticize republicans. but she never once criticized donald trump from attacking republicans i don't think. >> it is remarkable. nikki haley's transformation i would say in some ways complete. i was actually on the ground in south carolina when -- after that horrific attack on the church there and really, you know, a hate crime that took place. you know, it is amazing because there was so much pressure on nikki haley at the time to take down the confederate flag from the state house, and ultimately she didn't do that. it is hard to even square these two nikki haleys at this point. of course, the culture wars have become so much more intensified now, you know, after donald trump, four years of trump. but it just goes to show how far

even those who were moderates in the party have benched their own dignity to the will of donald trump and the most extreme parts of the republican party. you know, it is disappointing and, frankly, the american public can expect more from people who call themselves leaders. there has to be some level you would hope at which the people would say, i would rather lose my seat than continue on with this charade. but there seems to be no bottom, and we keep saying this. mika, it is boring. it is boring, but it is, of course, still important to be vigilant. >> it is sad. yeah, absolutely. >> joe, read you a quote from one year ago right now, last february from "politico." tim albert's great piece about nikki haley. she said this of president trump a month after january 6th. we need to being a knowledge he let us down. he went down a path he shouldn't have. we shouldn't have followed him, we shouldn't have listened to him and we can't let that ever happen again.

that's nikki haley, a quote from her. she, of course, backtracked later when she drew criticism for that. donald trump said once famously, every time she criticizes me she uncriticizes me 15 minutes later. that's the state of the criticism in the republican party of donald trump. >> i don't understand it. >> it is too -- >> i mean i just don't understand. >> who keeps going back? >> like, again, we could go back to lindsey. >> yes. >> it looks like lindsey's flopped now, flip-flopped, flip-flopped. he's flopped back, and now he's tried to speak truth to power. but you look at gary -- what did trump call the -- >> steve? >> kevin. >> steve. >> steve, yeah. >> you look at steve, donald trump's majority leader and steve, again -- i mean, again, i just wonder. it is not like, you know -- it is not like i've never been there before.

i wonder how you step up to a microphone and you make a definitive statement like that for the whole world to see on the house floor, and then you crawl back in the corner and you are just a sniffling coward. all of these people, what -- what do they say to their constituents? what do they say to their family? i mean what do they say to their friends? i don't understand it, the behavior. you are right, trump's right here, too, about nikki, who, you know, we've known from the beginning. >> i thought she was a really talented politician at the very first debate. >> i liked her. she was really talented. >> she was running for governor. >> but, yeah, they just flip-flop, they change. they attack trump, get a little heat and suddenly on trump's side. it is so brilliant going back and looking at that tim alberta article because you're right.

she said, we have to move past this guy. it was a mistake. she was a lot harsher on donald trump than mike pence this weekend. >> yeah, if you read the entire piece, no uncertain terms how she saw donald trump in that moment. that was a time, remember, like lindsey graham, a lot of republicans put their toes in the water, maybe we can walk away from this guy. january 6th was so bad, maybe it is the moment we break free. when it became clear to them most voters in the republican party said, no, actually we're okay with that, we like donald trump, they flopped right back. >> yeah. >> that's why whenever we hear criticism of donald trump from republicans it is to be taken with a massive grain of salt. >> the other thing is again -- i don't want to be too simple here, but when i disagreed with my constituents, i didn't change my mind. i went and had town hall meetings and said, hey, this is why i believe what i believe, let's talk through it. most of the time, most of the time, at least over half would go, okay, i get it, yeah, i

agree with it. the other half would be like, thank you for coming and talking to me about it. i don't know why these people don't try that more and have a little more faith in themselves and in their constituents so they can go and tell them the truth, but they haven't done it. they're scared. they're always running forever. still ahead on "morning joe," president biden vows to bring an end to a major gas pipeline if russia invades ukraine. but will that threat be enough to deter putin? plus, from coast to coast, a growing number of states are easing up on mask mandates. we will talk to the president of the american federation of teachers about what that means for kids in the classroom. and this former new york governor, andrew cuomo, eyeing a political come back? >> looks like it. >> we will have that new reporting ahead. also ahead, a major announcement about next month's

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wow, look at times square there, willie. it is like, you know, vj day. i mean it is just packed. >> you look closely, there's a soldier dipping a nurse for a kiss. >> i'm looking. i'm looking because i know it has to be happening down there, but let's just say it is really beautiful there. really beautiful. i wish i were there.

so, willie, we're hopefully moving through the covid. i was just looking on my phone through apple news. i wanted to find a story that didn't have donald trump's name in it. >> that's good. >> and i found a good one. >> oh. >> that's good for me. it is how to find and keep friends. >> ah. >> a guide for middle age. they linked up to the "wall street journal." i was looking through the li at some of these things. how to fend a friend. just ask. i kind of feel vulnerable about that. create a routine. i think i'm going to start going to publix maybe and hang out in the produce section. >> or just ask. >> these are nice rutabaga.

>> is this real? >> you just ask for somebody ton a friend. >> what else? >> like strangers? >> i don't know. maybe it is asking strangers. >> in covid? >> it seems like a good way to get in trouble. i could do that, i guess. i need friends. be social. create a routine, going to publix. i can do that. >> that's good. >> this is the one that scares me, willie, because i'm old, as you know. >> yeah. >> i'm not very tech savvy. it says, try a friendship matchmaking site. >> no, no, no. >> no, because the thing is -- >> no. >> i don't know how those things work. >> you are not doing that. >> i swipe the wrong way, i end up with a pet tarantula delivered to my house. >> no. >> no. rethink the hangout. okay. i can do that. it finally says book time. so instead of just saying, hey, we should get together sometime. >> that's true. >> just actually book time and

say let's do it on this day. the problem with that, willie, is if you do that you will actually have to do something with somebody. i don't know if i want to do that. >> no. >> willie, so it is like this vicious cycle i'm in right now. do you have any suggestions, willie? >> i need to read that article because it sounds like all of those are not going to happen for you or for me or for most people. i like the book time, we should get together, i can't wait till covid is over, but you have to make a plan to see people. >> yes. >> you have to be vigilant about it. as you watch your parents grow up and get older, you say, boy, i hope i have a group of friends later in life i have built and can count on when your working life stops and all of that. i guess i will try the first couple. i think today i will go to the parking lot of the target. >> there you go. >> when people are loading their cars i will go up and tap them on the solder and just ask. >> just ask. >> hey, do you want to be friends? and see how it goes.

>> trader joe's. >> i like that. go to trader joe's. hey, can i help you? by the way, you want to go bowling -- i'll go back to your place. we can unpack the grocery. >> no, joe! that's so creepy. stop. >> that's what the "wall street journal" is saying you should do. >> like buffalo bill did with the couch in "silence of the lamb." just ask somebody, can you help me with my couch, get in the van. >> sure, i can help with the couch. >> coming up for debate -- >> wait, mika, i need a friend. we're trying to get me a friend. >> i'm your friend. >> that's all i need. >> you're right it is. >> okay. really, never mind. i won't be seen in the parking lot at trader joe's. i'm set for life. all right, yay. go, mika. >> the debate over whether it is too soon to lift mask mandates for schools, we will talk to the leader of the nation's top teacher union. and a leading doctor who says it

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willie, one other thing while i'm rambling. i mean we have a three-hour show so i got a little bit of time to ramble. >> sure. >> can i just ask you a personal question? >> oh, boy. >> this is a deeply personal question. do you have "new york post" breaking news on your iphone so you get the "new york post's" breaking news alerts? >> i don't love a push notification from anyone, but i do follow the "new york post's" so i am aware of most of thaem coverage. >> i don't like push notifications myself. >> what are you doing? >> about six months ago i said, i'm going to put the "new york

post" breaking news headlines on my push notifications. the first one, swear to god, i wake up at 2:30 in the morning. >> uh-oh. >> bleary eyed. i look at my phone, "new york post", david lee roth announces retirement. i was like, sweet jesus. >> what? >> this is the push notification i was born for. >> wow. >> these people have the best push notifications. elderly nun sentenced for gambling away elementary school funds. >> not good. >> not funny but it is a "new york post" push notification. >> okay. >> i like this one right here. 18 people rescued from ice floe on lake eerie. they are all great. anti-vaccine protesters detained after storming amc theater in midtown. bible teacher accused of abrasive lesson. this is seriously, if i had to

pray to god for a push notification site, this is the "new york post" push notifications, they are the best. when you start though -- i got to say, when you start your first push notification is david lee roth announces retirement, it is really like heroin, right? you are always chasing the first hit. i still am. >> joe. >> i will admit that, but they're so great. what do we have on the post today? what's in the print page? >> hanging up the chaps for good. i hope there's a comeback in the offing. maybe like tom brady who suggested he would keep his mind open. today the post is aggressive in its coverage of the fact mayor eric adam may not actually be a vegan, he eats fish from time to time and they're on it this morning. >> oh, no. >> okay. >> that's where we're driving today's coverage in "the post." >> fantastic. >> what do you call it again? it is like you eat fish -- >> sounds looking a good idea.

>> it is something like that. i don't know. >> let's get to other headlines making news this morning. >> episcopalian, i don't know. whatever you call it. let's get to the headlines. several democrat-led states announced an end to indoor and school mask mandates. effective this friday delaware will no longer require masks indoors. the state's governor made the announcement yesterday the same day that california health officials declared an end to the mandate there too. >> check. >> meanwhile, officials in oregon say the state's indoor mask mandate will end no later than march 31st. maybe sooner. >> we're in february now. >> as for schools, connecticut is set to lift its requirement on february 28th followed by new jersey in early march and oregon at the end of next month. delaware school mask mandate was temporarily extended yesterday, but is still set to expire before april. despite the statewide mandates being lifted, school districts

will still have the power to require masks if they choose. joining us now, the president of the american federation of teachers, randy weingarten. practicing internist dr. lucy mcbride joins us. state attorney for palm beach county david aronberg. it is good to have you on. willie. >> randi, let me begin with you, the cover on the "new york post", "free the smiles" because we had the domino effect in the last couple of days. you had delaware, new jersey, connecticut yesterday saying they're ending the mask mandates in schools. do you think it is a good idea? >> i think we have to be talking about the off ramp for masks, and we asked for that conversation that's based upon science instead of politics back in november before omicron. the governor in new jersey made some pretty -- was pretty good

in terms of the basis for it. he said that vaccinations are up in new jersey, that the numbers, community spread is really low now, and the spread in schools is really low. >> yeah. >> so, you know, what we asked for in november, and i'm glad you have lucy on as well, is a metric that was based in science so that we could ultimately have an off ramp for masks. no one wants masks in schools, not teachers, not students. but, you know, it is time in this covid pandemic to actually do a little bit of planning based upon science as opposed to just announcement by announcement. >> we have two years of science now, so we know it made a lot of sense early on to have masks on in schools. we didn't know how dangerous this was, how it was transmitted in children. we have learned now since, while every death of a child obviously is a horror, that percentage of overall deaths is infinitesimal

to children in the larger population, that it doesn't spread easily in schools, that so many teachers have been vaccinated or at least had the opportunity to be vaccinated, now kids have the chance to be vaccinated. so at what point do we just say, okay, it is time to get rid of the masks? isn't there enough science available already? >> that's why i'm saying if we -- you know, we believe in no off ramp. i asked dr. cardona and dr. wilensky to start planning for an off ramp in november pre-omicron. then you had the omicron surge and then the masks were back on and then the k95 masks were back on. so the question becomes how do we make sure that people can plan for it and what are the measures so that everybody knows, so it doesn't feel like it is based upon politics, it feels like it is based upon making sure that there's no transmission in school. it feels like the four or five different factors, which is what new jersey used, are vaccination

rates. that's what massachusetts uses. low community spread. thank god omicron is down to like 3 percent or so in new york and new jersey. low hospitalizations. i'm just asking the cdc to actually weigh in here so that we have that kind of guidance around the country. >> so, dr. mcbride, what has the cdc said? what more should it be doing and do you agree as a physician with the decisions in these states based on the data they have in their states about transmission in schools, community spread and everything else that the masks should come off the kids? >> so i think randi is exactly right. as conditions evolve, policy should evolve as well. then we need to root our policy in evidence. here is the plain truth, is that there's no convincing evidence in the real world that masking children in schools makes a significant difference in transmission in schools. we also know right now that everyone over the age of 5 has

widespread ability to get vaccinated, that vaccines are the way to take the claws and the fangs away from the virus and turn it into a more manageable disease, that kids face a much lower risk from covid than adults do. and with omicron receding, you know, in a patchwork fashion around the country, it is really time to start lifting mitigations whose benefits are unclear at best and whose harms are mounting. we have seen, as you know, that the aap and the surgeon general have declared a mental health emergency for teens and children in this country. we cannot wait longer to think about lifting restrictions that are causing more harm than doing good. we need to have these restrictions in place at some point down the road we may need them. right now is the time to really balance the risk of the covid disease itself against the harms of the mitigations. >> randi, we understand the

concern over safety for teachers and kids obviously, but take chicago a few weeks ago which the teachers were out for a few days. 90 percent of the teachers in that union there were vaccinated. with those vaccination rates, what dr. mcbride just told us about masks not particularly being effective for teacher, what is the argument against taking off masks in schools? >> well, the argument is that you have -- let me just say this. i am in favor of an off ramp on masks. >> right. >> the real issue becomes are -- is the spread low enough so that there's no dissemination or transmission in schools. it is not the teachers transmitting to kids. it is more kids, and kids particularly in elementary schools right now. and so the question really becomes do we have -- that's why i like what massachusetts has done, because what they've said is that on a school-by-school

basis, they said if there's 80 percent vaccination rates then those schools can lift the mandates. so the question -- remember, lucy is a doctor. i am not a doctor. i listen to the doctors in terms of what we should do, but the bottom line is at the same exact time that this is going on you have lots of parents who are still afraid. you have lots of people who are still afraid because we've just gone through omicron. that's why i think it is important to have a science-based metric that people can plan for it. that's what it seems like governor murphy has done. i think that's what governor hochul is trying to do. >> how do you weigh these decisions, randi, with the concerns about children that dr. mcbride presented, that it is not good, it is not good for socialization, it is not good for learning to have these obstructions with these masks, we know about the mental health crisis with these children that it is going to take a generation to unwind perhaps.

how do you weigh the safety of teachers who have had every opportunity to be vaccinated and most of them have, thank goodness, with the well-being of children? >> well, let me just be clear. this issue is much less about teachers as it is about our entire communities. there's a whole bunch of people who are still concerned that omicron or the virus is spreading and that these masks -- i have a kn94, that these masks have helped to stop transmission. you have in an elementary school kids -- you know, you can't really social distance in an elementary school. so the question really becomes have the masks helped. there's a lot of evidence -- this is the only place i disagree with lucy, there's a lot of evidence that the masks have helped stop transmission, but i agree with lucy that, you

know, that it is impeding learning, socialization to have them. as an asthmatic, i labor in breathing all the time. so, you know, the issue really became how do you balance -- and lucy said this. how do you balance the risks? and that's why the vaccination issues like in massachusetts, the more vaccinations we can get -- not just the availability of vaccination but the more vaccinations, the better. the bottom line is we all want an off ramp for masks. the question of when for us is just will the scientists weigh in and give us the metrics as to when. >> so, dr. mcbride, certainly there has been some frustration with the lack of guidance from the federal government and the biden administration suggested that may come in the weeks ahead. i want to get you actually on. take a 30,000 foot view, if you will. factoring in where we spend at this moment with the pandemic, with vaccinations available for

children and, of course, there are some who have preexisting health conditions where masks perhaps may have been helpful, but on the whole, taking the physical but also mental toll of now two years of this for children, my second grader has now had three years of his school, three academic years touched by this pandemic. have we on the whole done right by our kids? >> i think we owe our kids a debt of gratitude for putting an undue burden on them for protecting vulnerable adults. you know, it is not march 2020. in almost march of 2022 we have abundant evidence that kids face a much lower risk than adults do with covid-19. we have widespread availability of life saving vaccines. people who want to mask, who are at high risk or who just aren't comfortable yet unmasking, which is, of course, understandable, can use a well-fitted kf94, kn95 or n95 mask. one way masking does a good job

protecting the wearer around does not depend on the behavior of other people. i'm not saying we should never mask again. i'm saying we should lift a restriction that is issued by the federal government when kids are suffering from learning loss, from the lack of social connections to their peers. you know, joe was talking about how to make and maintain friendships in the segment before, and one way to do that is to see people's faces, to see smiles on their faces. kids need to be with one another, unrestricted in school. there's a reason why the world health organization never recommended masking children under the age of five. they're at the highest risk for learning loss, kids with special needs, with disabilities are particularly suffering. i think it is time to be intellectually honest about the lack of data. the norm is seeing faces. the burden of proof is now on the intervention. if first goal of medicine in public health is do no harm. >> and that's the challenge and the concern, i think the

frustration with a lot of parents, randi. if you waited for every person who is still nervous about covid, and many rightly are, if you waited for the vaccination rates to get where teachers or other groups want them to be, you will be waiting forever because the vaccination rate is never going to get -- with these kids it is so low right now. especially with younger children. you will never get to a place where you could say we've met the threshold, you could have kids in masks forever. isn't that the right approach dr. mcbride talks about, if you feel you need to wear a mask for yourself, do it, protect yourself, but don't force everyone else to wear them? >> look, in pre-delta, pre the american pediatricians coming out and saying the masks will really help in terms of delta, we were walking into this school year with lots of places not having mask mandates. i don't disagree with, you know, what lucy just said about -- and lucy and i have had these

conversations about, you know, what it does to kids and how it impedes learning. i mean that's why, again, we wrote the cdc in november asking for this kind of off ramp and the metrics for it. so i don't disagree with anything any of you are saying. the issue becomes -- and, you know, i heard your interview with one of the doctors, you know, an hour ago or so. the issue becomes how do we make sure that the entire community in a school feels safe and welcome. i don't think that we -- when you get to covid, there's no no-risk. the real issue becomes how do we make sure that everybody feels safe. so if we don't have a mask mandate in a school, we have to make sure that kids and teachers are not stigmatized for wearing masks, and we better do everything we can to make sure the ventilation is working in

classrooms so that there's fresh air and that we're doing everything in our power to make sure that this virus is not transmissible. but, yes, we have to get the masks off. we just have asked for the scientific metrics rather than the politics. >> before i let you go we have to underline something we were talking about in the break and say it on the air, which is that teachers from day one, february, march of 2020, have been absolute heroes. >> have been amazing. >> -- of this pandemic. when the story of the pandemic, they and the nurses and the doctors will be the heroes. >> right. >> we have all watched what our kids pulled off, their teachers pulled off on zoom. somehow i told you about my son's gym class doing squats with soup cans at home. talk about the teachers, what they've been through, how exhausted they are and what heroes they've been. >> thank you. if you let teachers be teachers,

which is essentially what happened in march 2020, meaning nobody had the rules of the road for this. >> right. >> there were no top-down dictates. teachers had to figure it out. they had to "macgyver" everything. frankly, that's what they've been doing from the beginning to now. what they've asked for is just some grace and some sense of give us the latitude and the support that we need to teach. they've wanted to be in schools. they've taken -- over 90 percent of them vaccinated voluntarily. >> yeah. >> and they've taken -- you know, they were willing to take the risk of saying, we want to be back in school. we knew that remote learning did not work for most kids. but teachers want to connect with kids, and what they've asked for is to stop the politicization of all of these decisions. they've said, just let us have

what we need to do to help our kids and stop making it harder for us. i think that the politicization, the stopping teaching of honest history, the mask debates, putting them into being mask police, all of this, they are exhausted. it is the hardest year. we not last year was hard. this is the hardest year ever. if you take a teacher anywhere, high school, junior high school, elementary school. teachers are out, they've been sick. a teacher is covering somebody else's class. they're "macgyver"ing it as i said every single day. they're amazing. i'm so glad that you see it. >> this have our eternal gratitude. >> absolutely. >> randi weingarten en, dr. lucy mcbride, thank you both for being here. mika. there's still the legal angle to this and we will talk to david aronberg about that. still ahead if donald trump

doesn't run for president in 2024, who is the front-runner for the republican party? it is the question many are debating right now. ahead on "morning joe," we look at the former president's lack of interest in finding a successor. it is a big topic in the new book by "new york times" reporter jeremy peters. he joins us at the top of the hour. plus, florida governor ron desantis is refusing to take sides in the trump/pence clash over the 2020 election that is dividing the gop. is it because desantis doesn't want to upset the man who claims credit for getting him elected? we will be right back with that. ♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪

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member of "the new york times" editorial board, mara gay. joining the conversation we have professor at princeton university, eddie glaude jr. msnbc and nbc news national affairs analyst, executive editor of "the recount" and host of "the hell and high water" podcast john heilemann is with us. "new york times" reporter jeremy peters. his new book, "insurgency: how republicans lost their party and got everything they ever wanted" is officially out today. congratulations on that. we will begin with the growing number of republicans who are keeping their distance from the rnc's censure of representatives liz cheney and adam kinzinger, and the characterization of january 6th as, quote, legitimate political discourse. nbc news spoke to several gop lawmakers yesterday. take a listen. >> i talked to ronna. she's a good lady. you know, the statement, she

doesn't -- she was talking about things other than violence. and, you know, i think all of us up here want to talk about forward, not backward. >> we've got issues that we should be focusing on besides censuring two members of congress because they have a different opinion. >> reporter: do you agree with the action actually censuring cheney and kinzinger? >> you know, it is not my job, but they said in the resolution they wanted republicans to be unified. that was not a unifying action. >> anything that my party does that comes across as being steeped is not going to help us. >> you know, john heilemann, quite a few republicans also -- other republicans spoke out, just saying it was stupid, that they should be focusing on the democrats and not each other. this is a bit of a change. people have marched in lock step for sometime. mike pence obviously this

weekend did not. republicans attacked donald trump for statements he said a couple of weekends ago. this is a bit of a change. >> i think it raises the question, it definitely does. i would like to have a talk with senator romney about whether he is aware of who the republican party was, they have a bit of a blood relation, he was calling someone in his family stupid. aside from that, it raises the question which we can raise with jeremy, what all of this says about the status of donald trump's power and what is happening with the donald trump stock in the republican party. you know, all of this is tied together in one big bundle. there's no way the republican national committee does what it did censuring these two congress people and saying the thing about legitimate political discourse if it is not for donald trump and the pressure that he has placed on the party over the course of the year to submit to the big lie. so if there's a crack in the facade, and we'll see how long that crack lasts or how deep it goes, but if it is happening

does that suggest that as we get closer to an actual election day that it is possible, is it possible that the last year for a lot of these republicans was a cost-free exercise in indulging donald trump, but as they get closer to the midterms they start to realize indulging donald trump may have political costs and there are some forces of the party that may now be willing to buck him, not just on this but other things. we'll see about that. >> a lot of republicans are looking to see which way the wind blows in this feud. florida governor desantis is refusing to take sides in the trump/pence clash. at an event in miami desantis dodged a question about where he stands. >> reporter: where do you follow between pence and trump -- >> i'm not -- i've -- i've -- you know, had a great relationship working for four -- actually, i was governor

for two years with the trump administration. >> jeremy this ties into your book "insurgency: how republicans lost their part and got everything they ever wanted," out today. a must-read. what do you see based on your reporting for this book between donald trump and mike pence? >> i see how fundamentally donald trump has changed the character of the republican party. i spoke to trump about a possible successor. he had absolutely no interest in entertaining the subject. in fact, when we did talk about other republicans who might be up and comers in the party he started taking credit for their victories. that includes ron desantis. he said, i've helped ron at a level you've never seen before. it was interesting because over the course of our conversations that came in my second interview, which was several months after the first. so he had been able to stew for a while in this idea that there were republicans who were maybe gaining traction. look, i have read a lot of national review editorials over the years that have condemned

trump and said the republican party needs to change the page. i've heard a lot of republicans who have criticized trump, who are ordinarily 99% there with him when they vote. it has always reverted to the same place, and that's that they are afraid of their voters because right now their voters are with trump. you know, just turning to january 6th for a moment, because i get into this toward the end of the book. i asked a lot -- especially social conservatives, was it worth it? given everything that we saw happen over five years, was it worth it in the context of january 6th especially? every single one of them said yes. i got quotes like, oh, we take the bitter with the sweet, like any president we judge the full spectrum. i think most republicans -- and this doesn't just include evangelicals and social conservatives but most republicans can come -- they learned how to compartmentalize, as one of them explained it to me.

they're not -- just like trump is not willing to dwell too much, as he told me, on what he heard that day, the rioters shouting about executing his number two, these republicans aren't interested in dwelling on the fact that they really haven't at all, and they want to sweep it to the side and look at trump's record and how good it was for conservatives, especially when you consider the court and all of the issues from gun control to abortion that it is going to take up, and they're just ready to move on. >> yeah. well, eddie, that's the problem. they're ready to move on. donald trump isn't. because if they move on from 2020, then they are acknowledging publicly all together that donald trump lost, something that, of course, donald trump knows and everybody else knows. but, again, trump has this vested interest in making sure that everybody stays obsessed with 2020 because, as the "wall street journal" editorial page said yesterday, he's a three-time loser.

he's the only one-term president since herbert hoover who lost the white house, the house and the senate. so he can't move on. he is literally willing to sacrifice the entire republican party and he has ronna mcdaniel at the rnc doing the same thing, sacrificing the future of the republican party by having them look backward when all they want to do is look forward to the next election. >> joe, i think you're right in a number of ways, but i also think that focusing on 2020 also is a way of activating and keeping going grievance, resentment, hatred. so 2020 is just a kind of latest instance. see, this is what they're doing to you through me and the like. this is a question i would have to ask jeremy. you used the language that trump changed the republican party. is it changed or did he activate a recesssive gene. >> good, you caught me in a nice contradiction there. because in the beginning of the book i say that trump didn't really bring anything inside the

big tent that wasn't already there. i think that that's really true. you can, you know, go back to barry goldwater when you start excavating the stuff of where were the first strands of trumpism that we see. i start with pat buchanan in 1992, and i spent a lot of time talking to pat. what you see there when you start excavating this is there was always that element of us versus them, that racial grievance especially, because what people forget, what i describe here, is pat buchanan's '92 campaign wasn't all about immigration and trade and building the fence on the border. he got into the race running against george h.w. bush because he was upset about affirmative action. that's what pushed him into the race. he wrote this in an unpublished memoire i describe in the book, and it is a very interesting moment because, you know, it shows you that as much as things change, they kind of remain the same with this republican party. it took trump to give them a choice, as buchanan said to me,

or give him a loud enough voice, as bee canan said to me. trump is kind of the indispensable man as far as this movement is concerned. he gave them that voice. he said, "i am your voice." now, the problem is now he just seems to be that voice for himself, that voice arguing this this was taken from me. the reason he appealed to so many people who could set aside his -- you know, his intemperateness and all of that is they felt he spoke for them. i don't know as many voters will feel today like trump is speaking for them because it is just me, me, me, i did this. the republican party owes me their victories because -- because i'm the indispensable man. >> yeah. see, it is the obsession, john heilemann. it is the obsession with donald trump which, again, in, you know, 2016 he was able to convince people that he was been

put upon by the media and by the establishment just like they were. but, yeah, there does seem to be more of a separation now. pat buchanan did have a moment in '92, did have a moment in '96. that moment passed. i think buchanan though is really a great place to trace trumpism too. but i understand there always has been that recesssive gene in the republican party, but it has been a recesssive gene. it has been the minority. it has been the one-third. all we have to do is look at, you know, what happened in 2006 when you had every single republican vote to reauthorize the voting rights act and now you can't find one that will go on the record saying they're willing to do that. this is a party that has changed radically, even in the past 15 years because of donald trump. but i will say though, i agree

with what buchanan told jeremy. trump is the person who carries this. it is not desantis. it is not mike pence. it is not nikki haley. i think the moment has passed. i have been wrong before about donald trump, but i think that 2016 moment has passed. i don't think there's anybody else that can pick it up, just like the reagan regulation wasn't transferable and obama's coalition has yet to be transferable. >> right. so there's a large question looming in all of that -- jeremy, your well-placed answer. if you think i covered buchanan in '96, it evolves constantly. when trump came along it looked incredibly familiar to me. it was almost like the issues were exactly the same, racist, xenophobic, white grievance, the china issues, the mexican issues and the made-up -- because

buchanan was more of a social conservative in fact than trump is. but that is a recesssive gene, i agree with you, recesssive. but no question, from 1996 to today that portion of the party has gotten bigger, stronger, louder, more central to republican nomination politics. pat, the set of issues and the grievance at the court of it, the basic white grievance core of it and the party has gone down scale. it is less educated than it was 20 years ago. it is the party of the white working class now. and the question is, so maybe trump isn't the leader for it going forward and maybe joe is right there isn't another donald trump out there. but is the genie out of the bottle to the point where this has become the dominant gene in the party and everybody -- maybe it is not a trump wannabe, but that anybody who hopes to be the republican nominee has to tap into that part of the party because it is now so big and strong? so energize. and have the commitments to democracy, the rule of law,

another thing let out of the bottle tends towards authoritarianism and autocratic rule. is that where trump leads them or not? >> i would take it another step. the distortion of events around us and the mischaracterization of them, that's what the republican is right now. >> right, the big lie party. >> is this the party of marjorie taylor greene or the party of donald trump? right now marjorie taylor greene has a saying and it is an accurate one. i am the voter, right. she is not every voter, but she is a lot of voters out there. trump is in this interesting situation right now where a lot of his base has gotten to the right of him. this is the story of the republican party. like this is the story that i tried to trace in the book starting back in 1992, is every time the gop establishment -- let's not forget trump is the

establishment now as the leader of the party. every time they try to use and coopt this insurgent energy it backfires on them, from sarah palin to the tea party. you can go on and on. pat buchanan even. the george h.w. bush people in 1992 let him speak at the convention, and what did he do? he gave the most memorable convention speech in modern times that absolutely eviscerated establishment republicans. >> i mean and that's a problem. john heilemann, some back bench congress man, congress woman can say, i am the voter. yeah, they're the voter for a small sub set of their state, but have one of those people run statewide and they get absolutely demolished. extend it out nationwide, they would be absolutely demolished. there are people who are very good at being back benchers, raising $5 million, $ million

by saying shocking things, but this is the party without donald trump. donald trump figured out a way to win in 2016, even though he didn't think he was going to win in 2016, even though he still lost by 3 million popular votes, and that was at high tide. >> yeah. >> the problem with trump, if this becomes the dominant gene, that dominant gene is a 40% gene in america. that's why if the republican party has a future, it is not with one of these trumpists, it is with a glenn youngkin. it is with a republican that actually knows how to win statewide, who knows how to win swing voters. donald trump lost. by the way, again i understand that right now they think they can sort of run this obstacle course and somehow get to 270.

republicans have lost the national popular vote, what, six out of seven times. six out of the last seven elections. i understand democrats, demographics aren't braying this same identical way the way the democrats would want but they're breaking the democrat's way. this is a losing long-term formula. i know everybody has their hair set on fire and running around in circles in the blogs on fear, but this is just a formula for losing if this is the dominant gene in the republican party, and they know it. >> well, i have not -- i think some of them know it and yet they're in the short term, because politics as you know, joe, is driven by short-term politics. they say, i understand, but if i am going to get pry married -- but as jeremy said, is this the

party of donald trump or marjorie taylor greene. if that's the debate, that's not mainstream versus crazy, if that's what the party is deciding, which one of those losing formulas for the party in the long run, that's a dangerous proposition. i will say this. jeremy, i'm not sure, i don't think it got into your book because it was probably too late for you. i think when you write the sequel for the vote, the moment donald trump sat on the stage with bill o'reilly and touted taking the booster shot he got booed. >> exactly. >> that will be a seminal moment in the trajectory of the republican party. you could tell trump was a little stunned that that was not a couple of cat calls. >> no. >> it was a loud wave of boos, that the party was now, you know, genie out of the bottle, runaway train. he thought this party is more

looney than me, and for him though think that, you know. >> yes, we have seen him over the course of his career make slipups on that. he did it on abortion but he changed his tune and people were forgiving of it but i think this is fundamentally different. to put a finer point on that. >> put a fine point on the fine point. >> toward the end of the book, it is a trump pollster, tony fabricio, who runs a survey every decade or so where exactly the republican party electorate is. in 1997 he had something like 5 percent to 10% of the electorate calling themselves progressives. that's unthinkable today. now 2021, '22, 10%, fully 10% of the republican electorate he classifies as info wars republicans, which means they not only believe in one theory that qanon espouses but in several. this was tested. that's 10% of the gop

electorate. >> a vast majority believe that the election was stolen, that donald trump should be president. there's so much rich nuggets of the book. i want to ask you about the moment that donald trump made up his mind to run for president. you have a scene on january 1st, 2013 when roger stone calls him, says happy new year, mr. trump, and trump goes on a riff about mitt romney. oh, by the way, i just trademarked "make america great again." had he made up his mind to run for president at that time? >> i don't know if he fully made it up because with trump he changes his mind, he vacillates back and forth, but he was serious enough to trademark. guess what, a trademark costs money and donald trump doesn't like to spend money needlessly. so you knew at that point he was serious because that's when you see -- and i think this is what really drove home what was happening in the gop for me and with that anecdote. you have this combination of donald trump who back then was more of a fox news reality

television star, princess kind of guy, heckling from the sidelines. but he was of the fox news style of conservative politics, which is all about performance and anger and ripping the other guy's face off. that's what voters didn't see in romney. that's what trump didn't see in romney and, ultimately, what republicans got four years later. >> they thought he was fighting for them. you're right, he doesn't like to spend money. just ask every electrician in atlantic city or his own voters who are paying his legal bills right now. the new book is "insurgency: how republicans lost their party and got everything they ever wanted." it is such a great read. we just scratched the surface here today. jeremy, great to see you. congrats on the book. >> thank you. still ahead, research shows the alarming impact social media is having on teenagers including increased anxiety, depression and poor body image. if there's anyone who

understands the impact of social media, it is francis haugin. she joins us next here on "morning joe." she joins us next "morning joe." (music) ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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25 past the hour. last hour we discussed the number of states beginning to lift mask mandates in schools, and the issue is playing out in the courts as well. in virginia the state supreme court has dismissed a lawsuit challenging an executive order, which makes mask wearing optional in schools. the court tossed out the suit from a group of parents yesterday who argued against the order, signed by republican governor glenn youngkin last month. that order allows parents to override individual school district policies and choose for themselves whether their children wear masks in schools. a judge halted the order last week until a separate lawsuit from seven virginia school boards is decided. let's bring in state attorney

for palm beach county, dave aronberg. what do you make of the governor's position on this? >> the governor could cheer he won the case but it was on procedural grounds. it was a technical win. the underlying case is in play so it is a hollow victory. in fact, the court said we're not making a decision on the underlying merits of the issue. the state supreme court allows the lower court in a separate case to go ahead with the ruling that put a hold on the governor's executive order. the governor's executive order has not been implemented statewide because you have this stay-court in arlington, virginia, that said that the governor's order violates state law and the state constitution. it is up to the governor to appeal that ruling, and i think that the parents have the right argument here. i think they may win this because the state law in virginia changed last year to

say that school districts must follow the cdc guidelines, and the cdc guidelines still say that students over the age of 2 should wear a mask. the governor's executive order contradicts that. plus, you have the virginia constitution that gives local school boards and not the governor the authority to oversee schools. you know, governor youngkin may not be familiar with the long-held gop principle of local control. we have seen this before with governor desantis here in florida, that as soon as these guys get the keys to the state car they run over local officials. that's what is happening here. >> so is there anything -- i heard randi weingarten saying earlier in our show it would be nice if they had some clarity from the cdc. could the cdc help with this in terms of sort of a uniform, sort of guidance on masks for children? >> yes. i think all eyes point to the cdc and the current guidelines are that they should wear masks. you have a state like virginia

that says you have to comply with the cdc guidelines. so that's why the governor is stuck here. not only is he facing this case, but, as you said, he has another case under the same theory that's filed by seven different school boards against him. so he's not out of the woods yet. even though he won at the state supreme court he has a lot of other problems ahead. he even high school a federal case filed against him by the aclu that says his executive order violates the rights of students with disabilities. even if the cdc changes its guidelines you still will see litigation over these matters throughout the country. with governor youngkin it is interesting because he is a conservative governor in a blue state. so there may be buyer's remorse in virginia. virginia is the only state that doesn't allow governors to run for two consecutive terms. so his audience may not be the voters of virginia but rather a republican primary audience for president of the united states in 2024. if that's the case, desantis is

watching. >> yes. dave, really quickly though again, from what you say the constitution of the state of virginia gives precedence in these matters to the local school boards, right? if that's the case, this should be -- i mean, game, set, match for the local school boards when it is ultimately decided on its merits, correct? >> you would think so, joe. but in florida we have something similar in our state constitution and it didn't stop the state appellate court from ruling for governor desantis. you see the ideology of judges get in the way sometimes. they're supposed to be above politics, but sometimes you have judges who are conservative, they're appointed by republicans and they rule the way of the conservative governor. >> state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. sometimes we see photos of

politicians posing with others with them not wearing masks. a memo to democrats to stop taking maskless pictures. he writes in part, whether we like it or not optics is politics. since some of you don't seem to understand why these pictures in particular are so bad, let me lay it out for you. it gives off an air of elitism, as if the rules apply only to regular joes, not to the glorious statesmen and women who stoop to mingle with them. two, it undermines the fundamental message politicians should be promoting in regard to masking, that it is part of a communal sacrifice to protect the vulnerable and frontline workers bearing the brunt of the pandemic. three, it plays right into the hands of the opposition party, which has centered its entire brand on performative populism in an attempt to wrestle away

cross-pressured voters who may have other views but brifl and progressive social pieties. >> isn't that the truth, edie glaude. you have so many out there playing dime store elitists who are trying to be man of the people. so they see something like this happen and this is -- it is a great opportunity for them to go after everybody from gavin newsom to boris johnson. so, yeah, if there's a mask mandate, and especially if you put the mask mandate in place, wear a mask. it is not that hard. >> absolutely. you know, there are two things going on at once, right. one, there's the kind of virtue signaling. this is what you must do. we are the good people here. the other is this attempt, joe, to keep track of hypocrisy, to

keep track of contradictions. once the hypocrisy or contra decision is revealed you now own them. in order to avoid the latter, the emptiness of the former, put on the mask and keep it on. >> exactly. all right. as the covid pandemic continues into another year, parents, teachers, doctors and mental health professionals are sounding the alarm about the devastating impact on social media on children and teens. >> tonight an anfield mother is suing two popular social media sites after her 11-year-old daughter died by suicide. >> several local high school students say they're upset about a page created to purposely harass and bully other students. >> an oregon mother has filed a lawsuit against instagram's parent company and snapchat over her daughter's mental health. >> social media can be toxic for teens and the research and data that shows that comes straight from facebook itself. >> online use during the

pandemic is leading to more cases of cyber bullying, and it is not just teens being victimized. cyber bullying attacks are involving kids who are a lot younger. >> our next guest was in the national spotlight last year after she revealed information and testified before congress, claiming that facebook was prioritizing company profits over the safety of its users. >> especially younger girls. >> ceo mark zuckerberg denied the accusation. joining us now, facebook whistleblower and advocate for public oversight of social media, frances haugen back on the shoef. good to have you. >> frances, before we talk about the details of this, let's talk about facebook over the past week. they've lost about a third, a third of their value. the stock plummeted 25 percent in one day. it has continued to drop this past week. it is almost as if they are not

immune from the laws of gravity, that years of bad behavior may be finally catching up to them. >> you know, i came forward because i was deeply concerned that facebook's actions and the information they were hiding from the public was hurting people, and now it has caught up with them. you know, now it is also hurting people's financial lives because, remember, that stock slide isn't like a very dramatic graph. it is people's pensions, it is people's retirements. so facebook hiding this information from the public has real consequences. >> well, and facebook, of course, tried to explain away their own internal documents, they were like internal documents from tobacco companies back in the 1950s and 1960s. >> yeah. >> and yet i swear, we look every day and we see another teen suicide, we see another suicide from an influencer, if it is on tiktok or instagram or

some other social media outlet. you know, we were saying social media for teenagers was an epidemic before the pandemic. >> yeah. >> it seems like covid -- >> now imagine. >> -- has turned into a mental health pandemic because of facebook, instagram and other social media outlets for our teenagers, especially young girls and young women. >> one of the things that i frequently point out to people is when children don't have meaningful in-person social experiences and opportunities to have those and they turn to having an online, a social life via social media it opens them up to extreme danger because these algorithms pull them into rabbit holes. they reinforce mild interests, like you might look for healthy recipes and literally be led by clicking on that content to anorexia content. we need to look at the holistic

health of our kids. >> i'm curious what you think about the ability of people to sue a platform like facebook, section 230 which is the question of whether publisher or platform, this debate that's ongoing. do you think these companies like facebook, have a responsibility, a liability, if something terrible happens, god forbid to a child or anyone? >> so i'm a strong proponent for maintaining protection for the hosting of contents under section 230. it is very, very important we maintain those protections, but i believe we need to think seriously about product choices oral goe rhythm choices where facebook had options. they could have chosen safer options and they chose not to. i think that will be part of the unfolding part of those lawsuits. so, for example, there's content that shows up in your feed you never asked for, it is only there because, say, a friend liked it, should that content be something facebook is responsible for when facebook knows it is much more to be

extraneous information. >> this is eddie glaude. given the effects, what needs to take place to prevent our young people from being harmed in the ways that we see that they're being harmed? >> i believe we need to push for reforms of the platforms. but while we are waiting there are things that parents can do today. on the individual level such as between a parent and a child, sit and have a conversation, what is your media consumption plan. that means things like installing software on your child's phone that limits the number of hours a day they use social media. i think we can all agree kids probably don't need more than social media time, but the most vulnerable kids are the ones that end up doom scrolling at midnight, ruining their sleep. >> yeah. >> this is hard. i want to be very clear, this is hard for parents. this is a new skill they didn't

have to do 20 years ago. i think the second thing is parents can talk to, say, their ptas because a lot of things that need to happen are community interventions. it is not enough for one parent to say, i'm going to put limits on my child's social media. it is a thing where as a school if parents come together and say, we're all putting some limits on our kids' social media, three hours a day is enough, it makes it easier for every other parent and for all of the kids, too. >> well, advocate for public oversight of social media, frances haugen, we really appreciate your speaking out. hope to see you again soon. thank you for coming on this morning. coming up, it is all about the '90s from curt cobain and tupac to "the titanic" movie and the beginning of the 24-hour news cycle. a look at events that helped to push our culture into the 21st century. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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♪♪ ♪ pop up video ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ at this point it is still a fairly laid-back situation. a dangerous situation -- ♪♪ >> i'm flying. >> that's some of what the 1990s gave us. let's bring former "new york times" ethicist chet closterman, the author of "the ninthies."

chet, my god, this checks all of the boxes for me as a guy who believes the '60s started with the beatles landing at jfk, ended at altamonte, i have always thought the '90s started -- you know, '91, a couple of years later bands with guitars were showing up on radio. it seems like the whole decade was really defined in large part by that album. talk about -- never mind how it began the ninthies and what followed. >> there is a conventional believe that the nineties began with the fall of the berlin wall in '89, and yet it seems as though 1990 in many ways seems like the '80s on autopilot in terms of the cultural value, sort of the way society was presented at least through media forms. it was in 1991 when nirvana's second record came out that all of a sudden the texture of the

time sort of shifted, and almost the stereotype or caricature of the nineties begins at that inception point, anyway to understand that period of time and the immutable values of the period have to be done through how kurt cobain looked, what he thought about, how he acted. it wasn't the music so much as the music culture it sort of pushed forward. >> well, the counterculture went mainstream. i mean, again, you could talk about the record industry where everybody was running around for the next ten years looking for the next nir vanna, but also you could just see it actually play out in, you know, middle class america, fashion, everything else. >> well, it is interesting that you say the counterculture went mainstream. a lot of people may have felt that happened in the late '70s and the early '80s, but the

difference there was it created a tension between what the counterculture had meant in the late '60s and how it was kind of being performed in the 1980s. a movie like "the big chill" or "family ties" dealt with that problem. it was the idea of taking the counterculture and making it into a mainstream product. the ideology of a lot of groups, at least on the musical side and on the film side, independent film in the early '90s, what they were represented is they had ideas that once belonged to the undercurrent of society or the underbelly, the idea that it wasn't, you know, commercial entertainment and then it became a commercial item. so the '90s are a counterculture built into a mainstream culture. >> chuck, that counterculture includes hip-hop culture. hip-hop music, you write a lot in the book of tupac.

i am of the generation that i grew up in the suburb of the late '80s and early '90s, and the mainstreaming of tupac became mainstream. how important was tupac to it and who else do you point to as pushing it toward middle america? >> well, you know, when tupac was murdered there was an idea even at the time somehow it would be discounted in the future, that there was an awareness that this was a meaningful event to this ascending culture, rap music, that was overtaking rock as the mainstream understanding of hot music for young people. but there was an idea that somehow it would never be taken seriously, that it would always be seen as something that was outside of itself. i think time has kind of proven the opposite. the thing that you mentioned though about growing up in the '90s, that is kind of one of the interesting problems in doing a book this way. i realize there's a huge percentage of the people who read this book and they'll remember the '90s very vividly, like it just happened to them. like it will almost see as

though i'm describing their life to them. where another person who was born into the '90s or born later, they will see these events no differently than the moon landing or some historical event that predates them. it was complicated to figure out how to present the information in a way it would be cultural criticism for people who experienced and exposition for people who have not. >> you know, john heilemann, looking back on david brooks' book, "bobos in paradise," it was the merger of the bohemian culture and, again, something that started with never mind where studly you had people going to coffee shops, thinking they were doing something fairly radical, buying $9 espressos. it really -- you did have

counterculture, the culture merging together in the '90s. >> i think there's so much to try to investigate here. chuck, along those lines, one of the things that i'm curious about in the book, you are you essayist and each one of the takes that you have in the book is engrossing. i'm curious whether you feel like there is an overarching thesis to the book in the sense that the '80s is the decade that people understand in a clear way, it is the me decade, the '60s has a clear identity. does the '# 0s have an identity of that kind where you can stitch together all of these pieces and create a whole? one of the things i wonder about is at the center of all of this is the center of technology, it is the decade in which the web happens, in the end the web breaks down mass culture and you start to see that in the '90s how what was once a homogenous

mass culture in media, politics, music, film, we get all this teeming genres and subgenres that you're exploring but it's the big story of what happened over the course of the decade at least in my mind. >> i mean, what you're asking is a really kind of complicated thing. >> yes, i know. i'm sorry about that. >> the natural inclination when writing about like recent history, writing about, say, the '60s or '70s, any decade like that, what are the caricatures or cliché of that time and say they actually were not time. there was a book about the '50s, they thought the '50s were languid but they are not. we look back at a period and three to sort of upset the apple cart of what the perception s what is strange about the '90s is that that is more difficult to do because it was a very self-aware period. >> right. >> and the understanding of the generational concerns or whatever did not seem as -- to the people experiencing them as

this thing that was being kind of oppressed upon them, but it's something that they just sort of kind of accepted that, well, this is how we were perceived, maybe that is an accurate categorization of how we live. so i was very careful with this book not to do one of those situations where i look back at a period through the lens of modernity. the way we think about the '90s now, how these things mean now, i'm not going to pretend that's how it was when they were actually transpiring. my attempt was to try to recreate how the '90s felt when they were actually happening which is a complicated thing to do because you get a -- mentally time travel. >> this is eddie glaude. thank you for the book. i'm fascinated by the '90s in this sense, what is the conception or idea of the public good that ee energies from this period? i'm thinking about robert putnam's classic "bowling alone"

which is published in 2000s which is in some ways an assessment of the decade prior to. that something happened in terms of our relationships to each other. you get the perception of authenticity, you can talk about the conspiracy theories of x files, you can talk about clarence -- what happens to a public perception of the good in this decade? >> you know, there was this sort of window from, i guess, we were looking at about '92 up until, you know, '97, '98 where there were some ideas that were common to express that had sort of been unpopular to say out loud in the past and almost impossible to say in the present. i referenced the film "reality bites" at one point. it is a good snapshot of a certain kind of '90s culture from the middle of that period. there is a character in that film who looks into the lens and says, you know, i am under no responsibility to make the world a better place. i think a young person hearing that now thinks, well, that

seems insane. that's a problematic thing to decry. an older person, you know, maybe the -- who had lived through the '60s and '70s would see that as an enforced kind of apathy that is glorified, but in this strange period it was acceptable to sort of see yourself as separate from society. you could sort of have your own ideas and it wasn't your obligation or your social responsibility to be part of a collective in any way. you could actually be separate. i think that informs a lot of the things that come out of the '90s, this idea that this was a period where you were -- where like individualism was seen as not some kind of political act but more an artistic act. i can work on myself, not even -- not even work on myself, i can just be myself, you know. >> yeah. i'm wondering, chuck, so we talked about the beginning of '90s, i always looked at two

movies that were so of the '9 09s, so of los angeles but also sort of at the end of it, all "fight club" and "the matrix." bringing the decade to a close. for you culturally what do you see as the winding down of the 1990s? >> i sort of view the '90s actually going up until september 11th, that the early part of the 21st century is still sort of a '90s mindset. in terms of the films you're talking about, those are two good candidates for trying to understand a period through one, you know, piece of art. i think "the matrix" collateral has proven to be something that now sort of has transcended the limitations of film and has become a way to sort of describe a lot of people's discomfort and alienation with society and with technology. the idea that we're living in a simulation, the idea that --

that there are two pills you can take and one will give you the truth and one will provide you this illusion that you can keep living within, that's kind of a conversational technique now within the political world. so i think that over time "the matrix" will probably be the most important movie from this period even people who haven't watched it. it has sort of moved out of that class. >> all right. the new book is "the nineties." chuck klosterman, thank you so much. appreciate it. great conversation and what a great book. appreciate it. up next, can the president of france broker a deal with russia to ease tension on the ukrainian border? we're going to talk to a former senior director on the national security council, fiona hill. plus, nikki haley continues to twist herself in knots over donald trump. this time saying mike pence was right when he protected our democracy, but wrong for talking about it. we will explain ahead on "morning joe."

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live look at the white house. top of the hour. beautiful day in washington. welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, february 8th. joining us now we have the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, and in an effort to ramp up pressure on russia president joe biden is vowing to bring an end to nord stream 2, a major european natural gas pipeline if moscow invades ukraine. biden's promise came yesterday during a meeting with german chancellor olaf scholz where both leaders tried to project unity as russia continues its military buildup along ukraine's border. while scholz declined to take a firm stance on the fate of the pipeline he said germany is

acting together with its allies. >> if russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the -- the border of ukraine, again, then there will be -- there will be no longer a nord stream 2. we will bring an end to it. >> translator: it is part of this process that we do not spell out everything in public because russia could understand that there might be even more to come. >> he will be united. we will act together and we will take all the necessary steps and all the necessary steps will be done by all of us together. >> president biden did not give details of how the pipeline, which is not under u.s. control, will be suspended. nord stream 2, which bypasses ukraine to deliver russian gas directly to germany, is a key project for the kremlin and will boost the russian economy.

it has emerged as a potential point of leverage for the u.s. and its allies to deter russia from invading. biden also warned that it would be wise for americans and other essential diplomats to leave ukraine as tensions persist. >> so, richard, give us your -- give up your latest take on not only the meeting with the german chancellor, but also with where we are in preparations, in trying to stop a russian invasion. >> meeting with the german chancellor was okay, the fact that he wouldn't specifically commit himself to ending the pipeline deal and also there's ending a pipeline deal and there's ending a pipeline dee, joe. imagine the russians come across with 50 or 100 tanks and they only stay there for a week -- only, but they were to stay there for a week or a month, i can imagine germany saying now that they've withdrawn or now that it was a limited intervention, we're going to go ahead with the pipeline after

suspension. so i don't think this is a decisive development yesterday. i don't think mr. putin also is all that impressed. the price of oil and gas now is so high, he's got this enormous cushion, his foreign currency reserves are probably at an all time high, he has china and other places he can offload energy to. so, again, i don't think yesterday does away with the fact that all 30 nato countries are not exactly on the same page. the larger story is the same, there's one guy who largely hyped this crisis, essentially manufactured it, vladimir putin. i think he is relishing the attention. i think he's relishing kind of toying with the president of france and others, and we'll see. i mean, all along it's been his decision to make and i don't think that fundamental has changed. >> let me ask you something. it's one thing for him to grab headlines, which he loves to do, which he loved to do during the five years during trump's

campaign and the presidency. the pr they got was astounding, considering -- considering everything, but getting the attention, getting the world's attention is one thing, but actually going in is quite another. with u.s. troops going into poland, u.s. troops going into bordering countries of russia, this is not all going exactly as he would like to see it go, and i would suspect that an invasion would bring -- well, let's just say would bring about some realities in his neighborhood that would be a big loss for russia. i just -- again, i don't -- i don't see how this is anything about self-defeating in the end if he invades ukraine. >> i don't disagree with anything you said, joe, and i think what he's done more than anyone else could have done is created a separate anti-russian

political and cultural identity in ukraine. he is the guy who published the paper about how ukraine and russia organically are together, he has done more than anyone to separate that. you're right, enhanced increased nato force deployments in poland are a strategic setback. i think putin has miscalculated here. i thought he was doing judo rather than chess. he was thinking one more ahead to put us off balance which he did by this buildup. he wasn't thinking three moves ahead. what about the sanctions, the force increases. i think for him the question is how does he potentially get away with this or get out of this in a way that he saves face, that doesn't look like a humiliation and to me the real question is, again, does he do something limited and declare it a significant victory, or does he take some diplomatic outcome? that's where the macron thing is interesting. he might like the idea of working more with the europeans because the idea of dividing the europeans from the americans, us from the germans on sanctions, us from the french on diplomacy,

that plays into his long-term goal which is weakening the american role and influence and presence in europe. i still don't rule out a diplomatic outcome that he would say this is good enough. >> and, by the way, their goal, richard, at the end of the day is not necessarily to get troops into ukraine as you suggest, their goal is to push the united states just a little, as much as they can, off center stage. so it is not a world order that is dominated by the united states of america. if they can make alliances obviously with china that, you know, both of those super powers want to push us a little further off the stage, if they can get macron to come in and play peace maker, that's a win. if they can get the germans to hesitate, that's a win. this is not about ukraine so much as it is doing anything to

get the united states off center stage in the world order. isn't that the great resentment and isn't that at the end of the day the goal for putin? >> i think it's two big goals. that's one and that's where the chinese-russian statement the other day was so interesting, joe. this kind of coming together with their strategic aims. i mean, just one slight digression, china for the last 70 years always says the principal aim of their foreign policy is not in the interference of internal affairs of other countries. guess what was missing the other day? that. somehow russian interference into ukraine is okay. you had this strategic meld of russia and china and they do want to reduce the u.s. role in europe and the world. they want to also perpetuate their own rule. they say the u.s. not simply as a strategic threat but an existential threat. putin and china, xi jinping, are worried about the let that democracy and democratic examples pose to their continued rule, to their systems. that's the real threat from ukraine, that's the real threat

from the united states. it's why he interferes if our political processes, he wants to keep us off balance there. you're right, he wants to reduce our footprint in the world. they want this post-post cold war era to be much more about authoritarian primacy than american primacy. >> a nice warm welcome again by due tin to a world leader with a table that seats 30 sitting at opposite ends. might want to take a few leaves out of that table. >> social distancing. >> taken to the extreme. let's talk a little bit more about that russia/china alliance. we saw at the beijing games putin making a show of flying in, meeting with president xi and sitting at the opening ceremony. what is the move there from putin? >> a way of decreasing his vulnerability to western sanctions. he is a he po tension alley got a chinese partner, but also it's a kind of i will look after your interesting if you look after mine. who opposed the n conversation the other day about ukraine?

china. it could be we will help you, china, we're going to continue to block any international investigations into the outbreak of the covid virus. we're going to support you on taiwan, but in return here is the things you can do for us. here is what you can do for us on ukraine, here is what you can do for us on other issues, and, by the way, we will stand together. above all, against, quote, unquote, what they would say western liberalism. the first few pages of the document, it's orwellian, it's all about democracy. they have redefined democracy as what they do and they are trying to diminish and discredit what it is we stand for. >> richard, i'm curious, you brought up china. talking about an invasion that would be self-defeating for russia and for vladimir putin. i'm struck by the massive contrast between the 2008 games in beijing and the '22 games now. in 2008 everybody that went to -- not everybody, but a lot

of people that went to china would come back and, you know, we started at the beginning of those games making fun of the smog. i remember we'd say who can run in that smog? but we heard one story after another, oh, the chinese are going to overtake us, it's incredible. you should see their airports, you should see what they're planning for -- it was one positive statement about china that was on the rise after another. now all we're hearing are stories about inedible food, lack of training equipment, small spaces, complaints from one olympic athlete after another, a tennis star who disappeared, accused somebody of sexual assault on twitter, who disappeared, coming back, having a staged interview. this -- this olympic game -- this has been the opposite for beijing, the opposite for china as it was in 2008. again, you look over the past

couple years and i'm just struck by how self-defeating one move after another move has been for this chinese regime. we can just talk about hong kong. everybody wanted to move to hong kong, you know, at least spend some time there if they were in the finance world. now nobody wants to go there. people are -- even people that have a lot of business in china, i ask them -- >> ain't going there. >> how many times are you going to go over to china this year? not if i can help it. i'm telling you, these olympics they are book ends -- i'm sorry to go on and on -- i am just struck by the advantages that xi has given up over the past two to three years from what we heard in 2008 to what we're hearing now. >> you're right. i don't know how to say be careful what you wish for in mandarin. he was hoping that these games would be a great showcase and that the whole idea is to tee up his getting a third or fourth

term leading the country. instead they highlight the economic problems in china, enormous financial bubbles, massive waste of government resources and then obviously covid. they don't have a vaccine that works against omicron, they don't have a formula for essentially reopening china. what they have is a formula for locking in tens and tens of millions of people. so this is not the run up to the fall meeting that he wanted where he was going to get anointed. more broadly your point is exactly right. we would have trouble at times designing a chinese foreign policy more likely to galvanize western solidarity. all these new groupings in asia were largely brought about by the chinese. the real question for us is whether we take advantage of them. whether we, for example, get involved in asia economically and the like. but what we're seeing is a real change in views of china, joe, around the region and around the world and the gloss is off, the positive take is off. the idea that their model is superior, nobody is saying that

anymore. >> and notice what richard just said, mika, vladimir putin's actions over the past couple months has done what? done more to bring nato allies together than anybody else. you look at what china has done over the past two or three years, done more to bring together alliances in asia than anybody else. again, the phrase is self-defeating. >> it doesn't -- >> it is self-defeating. it is self-isolating. it makes no sense for the long run. >> and let's bring in former senior director for europe and russia at the national security council, dr. fiona hill. dr. hill, what do you think this is about for russia, for vladimir putin? there are some that believe that it's about the pipeline. >> well, i mean, i think, you know, we've already had quite a discussion about this with russia and richard. there's many different things on the table for putin here. ukraine is one of them. he certainly wants to get a grip

on ukraine, he doesn't want ukraine going west. absolutely the pipeline and returning russian energy dominance in europe for as long a period as he possibly can. there's demands against nato, european security arrangement and the u.s. this is an opportunity putin thinks to take advantage of what he perceives is a period of u.s. weakness and disarray among the european allies to basically try to roll back some of the u.s. presence in europe. so there's quite a lot of things riding on this for putin. >> fiona, let's just follow up on that about what's riding on this for him. how worried do you think he is that he has to, quote, unquote, get enough out of this so he doesn't lose face at home and an entire crisis that was meant to strengthen his domestic position could actually weaken it? how do you think he calculates that and what would that likely lead him to do? >> there will definitely be concerns about this because putin has to be reelected in 2024. we may not think about that

because he does have a presidential election. although he has given himself to ability to stay on until 2036 he has to go through the motions but also get sufficient votes to move that he's legitimate and still popular. if he does have some kind of major foreign policy loss that would be a blow because he's trying to present himself as this elder statesman right now. on that score he has had a few things already, so it depends on how he spins this and what happens next. first of all, we've been watching president macron of france and a whole parade of other world leaders coming to visit him. he's been in beijing with president xi reflecting, you know, the glory of rising china, although as joe has just suggested that's a little bit tarnished right now, but vladimir putin has also got our full and undivided attention, everyone is focused on him. he has ukraine and the rest of europe on edge. he has caused the ukrainian economy to tank right now, that's why we've seen president zelensky of ukraine trying to talk down the implications of an invasion or even the eventuality

of an invasion because he doesn't want to run on the currency and a run on the economy. so in many respects right now president putin is still in the driving seat. i mean, we've seen this contrast between him and macron in the press conferences. he's still pressing his agenda. so for now he seems to have actually had something of a success. it's really what happens next as you are suggesting that's going to really matter. >> and that's my question, dr. hill. if he is in the driver's seat, where is he headed with this, with the west putting some obstacles in his way, troops into nato countries, also the threat of sanctions, the end of in order stream 2. where does this go in your opinion? >> well, certainly for the next couple of weeks he's continuing to mobilize and deploy his troops. the people who are looking at this very closely think he is about a week, week and a half to maybe two weeks out from really having the full force posture that he needs for a large-scale invasion of ukraine. clearly he wants us all to think that that's what he's going to do.

he may well be doing that. then there are all kinds of other things that he already has done that we should be extremely concerned about over the longer term. he's got a very firm grip on belarus to the north of ukraine. a year or so ago alexander lukashenko the leader of belarus got into trouble after a flawed presidential election and mass protests against him, he has run back to moscow. many of these military exercises and the placement of forces on belarusian territoryterritory. he's hoping to squeeze europe and squeeze the united states, put pressure on businesspeople through the prospect of these energy sanctions, for example. he knows that the sanction right side not popular in certain economic and private sector communities in europe and the united states. he's hoping that there will be a lot of resistance to that. he's basically hoping to make us fold. so we can't tell yet whether we

are going to or not. we have to be unified and we have to be basically pushing back against him over this very critical period in the weeks ahead. >> all right. fiona hill, thank you very much for being on with us this morning. her recent book is entitled "there is nothing for you here: finding opportunity in the 21st century." richard haass, thank you as well. it's always good to have you. still ahead on "morning joe," new reporting that andrew cuomo says in hindsight he would not have resigned. inside a new effort by the former new york governor to revive his public standing. >> is he going to run for attorney general? >> we will be right back. run fo attorney general attorney general >> we will be righing you do, which is a lot. so take care of that heart with lipton. because sippin' on unsweetened lipton lipton. stop chuggin'. start sippin'. if you have this... consider adding this.

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23 past the hour. former new york governor andrew cuomo and his aides are intensifying an effort to revive his public standing, including discussing how to make his first

public appearance since resigning in august. people close to him tell the "wall street journal." cuomo and his aides have reportedly been calling former allies and political operatives to complain about new york attorney general letitia james who oversaw the investigation that found cuomo sexually harassed 11 women. cuomo has denied touching anybody inappropriately and said the investigation was politically motivated. the journal reports cuomo has been attempting to determine the right forum for a speech or appearance that would mark his return to public life. while some political operatives who have spoken with mr. cuomo or his aides said they think he is considering a run for attorney general this year against ms. james, a spokesman for the former governor denied he is interesting in running for attorney general. didn't he give her that investigation to do? coming up, last year former

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former south carolina governor and u.n. ambassador under donald trump nikki haley is calling out mike pence. she praised the former vice president for not overturning the election, but took issue with him for saying this -- >> president trump is wrong. i had no right to overturn the election. >> look, mike pence is a good man. he is an honest man. i think he did what he thought was right on that day, but i will always say i just -- i'm not a fan of republicans going against republicans because the only ones that win when that happens are the democrats and the media. >> yeah. >> 11th commandment. >> nikki haley is definitely not

a fan of republicans going after republicans. >> don't do it. >> no way. huh-uh. >> your rino governor brian kemp who is has been a complete disaster on election integrity. >> i think president trump has always been opinionated, just because he loves being president that's not going to stop. >> donald trump blasted mitch mcconnell as a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack who doesn't have what it takes. >> for all of you that are going to ask about 2020, no, i am not run forg 2020. i'm promise you what i will be doing is campaigning for this one. i will look forward to supporting the president in the next election. >> jeff flake was a chairman of the committee and paul ryan retired. whose fault it is? >> in jeff flake's case, it's me, pure and simple. i retired him. i'm very proud of t did i the country a great service. >> if he runs again in 2024 will you support him? >> yes. >> just like that. >> you don't criticize -- she's

against it. ronald reagan's 11th commandment, republicans don't attack republicans. so she's criticizing mike pence, never once criticized donald trump for attacking republicans i don't think. >> it's remarkable. nikki haley's transformation is, i would say, in some ways complete. i was actually on the ground in south carolina when -- after that horrific attack on the church there and really, you know, a hate crime that took place, and, you know, it's amazing because there was so much pressure on nikki haley at the time to take down the confederate flag from the state house and ultimately she did do that. it's hard to even square these two nikki haleys at this point. of course, the culture wars have become so much more intensified

now, you know, after donald trump, four years of trump, but it just goes to show how far even those who were moderates in the party have benched their own dignity to the will of donald trump and the most extreme parts of the republican party. and, you know, it's disappointing and frankly american public can expect more from people who call themselves leaders. there has to be some -- some level you would hope at which the people would say, i would rather lose my seat than continue on with this charade, but there seems to be no bottom and we keep saying this. mika, it is boring. it is boring, but it's still important -- >> sad. >> -- because you have to be vigilant. >> absolutely. >> i'd like to read you a quote from one year ago, last february from "politico," tim alberta's piece about nikki haley, she said this of president trump, a month after january 6, we need

to acknowledge he leapt us down, he went down a path he shouldn't have, we shouldn't have followed him, shouldn't have listened to him and we can't let that happen ever again. that's nikki haley. she backtracked later. donald trump said fay housley every time she criticizes me she uncriticizes me 15 minutes later. that's the state of the criticism in the republican party of donald trump. >> i don't understand it. i mean, i just don't understand -- >> who keeps going back like this? >> again, we could go back to lindsey. >> yes. >> it looks like lindsey has flopped now, flip-flop, flip-flop, he has flopped back and now he's kind of speaking truth to power, but you look at gary -- what did trump call the -- >> steve. >> kevin. >> steve. you look at steve, the majority leader, donald trump's majority leader and steve -- again, i

just wonder -- it's not like, you know -- it's not like you've never been there before. i wonder how you step up to a microphone and you make a definitive statement like that for the whole world to see on the house floor, and then you crawl back in the corner and you're just a sniveling coward. all of this people. what do they say to their constituents? what do they say to their family? what do they say to their friends? i don't understand it. the behavior -- and you are right, trump is right here, too, about nikki who we have known from the beginning -- >> i thought she was a really talented politician at the first debate. >> liked her. she was talented. >> when she was running for governor. >> but, yeah, they just -- they just flip-flop, they change. they attack trump, get a little heat and then they are suddenly

on trump's side. it's so brilliant going back and looking at that tim alberta article because you're right, she said we have to move past this guy. it was a mistake. she was a lot harsher on donald trump than mike pence this weekend. >> yeah, i mean, if you read the entire piece she's no uncertain terms of how she saw donald trump in that moment. that was a time, remember, like lindsey graham a lot of republicans put their toes in the water of maybe we can walk away from this guy. january 6 was so bad, maybe this is the moment we break free. when it became clear to them that the voters, most voters in the republican party said, no, actually we were okay with that is correct we like donald trump, they flopped right back. so that's why whenever we hear criticism of donald trump from republicans it's to be taken with a massive grain of salt. coming up, each morning parents have been packing masks along with their kids' lunch boxes and homework, but is that part of the morning routine about to end? that's next on "morning joe." ed that's next on "morning joe.

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welcome back. several democrat-led states have announced an end to indoor and school mask mandates. effective this friday delaware will no longer require masks indoors. >> good. >> the state's governor made the announcement yesterday. the same day that california health officials declared an end to the mandate there, too. >> check. >> meanwhile, officials in oregon say the state's indoor mask mandate will end no later than march 31st. maybe sooner? >> we are in february now. >> as for schools, connecticut is set to lift its requirement on february 28th followed by new jersey in early march and oregon at the end of next month. delaware school mask mandate was temporarily extended yesterday, but is still set to expire before april. despite these statewide mandates

being lifted school districts will still have the power to require masks if they choose. joining us now the president of the american federation of teachers,i weingarten, dr. lucy mcbride joins us. good to have you on board this morning. >> let me begin with you on the question, free the smiles, because we have had this domino effect in the last couple of days. you had delaware, new jersey, connecticut yesterday saying they're going to end the mask mandates in schools. do you think that's a good idea? >> i think we have to be talking about the off-ramp for masks and we asked for that conversation that's based upon science instead of politics back in november before omicron. the governor in new jersey made some pretty -- was pretty good in terms of the basis for it.

he said that vaccinations are up in new jersey, that the numbers, community spread, is really low now and the -- the spread in schools are really low. so, you know, what we asked for in november and i'm glad you have lucy on as well, is a metric that was based in science so that we could ultimately have an off-ramp for masks. no one wants masks in schools, not teachers, not students, but, you know, it's time in this covid pandemic to actually do a little bit of planning based upon science, as opposed to just announcement by announcement. >> we have two years of science now so we know -- it made a lot of sense obviously early on to have masks on in schools, we didn't know how dangerous this was, how it was transmitted. in children we've learned now since that while every death of a child obviously is a horror, that the percentage of overall deaths is infinitesimal to children in the larger

population, it doesn't spread easily in schools, that so many teachers have been vaccinated or at least had the opportunity to be vaccinated, now kids have the chance to be vaccinated. so at what point do we just say, okay, it's time to get rid of the masks? isn't there enough science available already? >> that's why i'm saying if we -- we believe in an off-ramp. i asked for -- i asked dr. cardona and dr. walensky to start planning for an off-ramp in november pre-omicron, but then you had the omicron surge and the masks were back on and the k-95 masks were back on. so the real question becomes how do we make sure that people can plan for it and what are the measures so that everybody knows, so it doesn't feel like it's based upon politics, it feels like it's based upon making sure that there's no transmission in school. and it feels like the four or five different factors, which is what new jersey used, are vaccination rates, that's what massachusetts uses, low

community spread, thank god omicron is like down to 3% or so in new york and new jersey, low hospitalizations. and so i'm just asking the cdc to actually weigh in here so that we have that kind of guidance around the country. >> so, dr. mcbride, what has the cdc said? what more should it be doing? and do you agree as a physician with the decisions in these states based on the data they have in their states about transmission in school, community spread and everything else that the masks should come off the kids? >> so i think randy is exactly right, as conditions evolve policies should evolve and we need to root or policies in evidence. here is the plain truth, that there is no convincing evidence in the real world that masking children in schools makes a significant difference in transmission in schools. we also know right now that everyone over the age of 5 has

widespread ability to get vaccinated, that vaccines are the way to take the claws and the fangs away from the virus and turn it into a more manageable disease. that kids face a much lower risk from covid than adults do. and with omicron receding, you know, in a patchwork fashion around the country, it's really time to start lifting mitigations whose benefits are unclear at best and whose harms are mounting. we have seen, as you know, that the aap and the surgeon general have declared a mental health emergency for teens and children in this country. we cannot wait longer to think about lifting restrictions that are causing more harm than doing good. we need to have these restrictions in place at some point down the road, we may need them. right now is the time to really balance the risks of the covid disease itself against the harms of the mitigations. >> randi weingarten and dr. lucy nick bride, thank you very much

for being on this morning. coming up, a major announcement about the next global event for international women's day. forbes and know your value are bringing a huge name to the table, among many others. we will tell you who they are next on "morning joe." you who next on "morning joe." ♪♪ you pour your heart into everything you do, which is a lot. so take care of that heart with lipton. because sippin' on unsweetened lipton can help support a healthy heart. lipton. stop chuggin'. start sippin'. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching... stop chuggin'. the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff,

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i believe that now on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence. it is time for us to say here in beijing and for the world the hear that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights. fe this is one message that echoes forlt from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and

women's rights are human rights, once and for all. >> hillary clinton in 1995. an drasz that had lasting effects on the power of women and girls around the world. it's with brave moments like that in mind i am thrilled to announce that hillary rodham clinton will headline the next month's inaugural event from forbes in partnership with your know your value platform will bring together generations of women to mark international women's day, and exactly one month from today i will interview secretary clinton as she receives the forbes international women's day lifetime achievement award to honor her leadership and influential voice on the global

stage in advancing the cause of women and fighting for gender equity. joining us now, we have chief content officer with forbes media randall lang. also with us, adrienne elrod, senior aide aide to clinton in 2016's presidential campaign, and washington bureau chief for "usa today" susan page. joe, a month from now we'll be in abu dhabi and that interview will take place live on "morning joe." >> what an exciting announcement. but susan, i wanted to go back and talk about that 1995 speech because i remember it's one of those rare speeches that really had a profound impact. i think about bobby kennedy's speech in cape town, south africa, speaking out against apartheid. but this speech in '95 was such an extraordinarily important

speech, i really look forward to her following up and talking about it a month from now. >> it was controversial when she agreed to deliver that speech in china. there were critics saying whether this was appropriate. she made this speech and that statement, and i think pretty much silenced her critics. it's remarkable to think a quarter century ago it was controversial to say that women's rights were human rights and human rights were women's rights. that is a statement that would gather no controversy today because of the way things have changed thanks to speeches and stances like that. >> adrienne, you have been fortunate to work with her. we could talk about that 1995 speech. we could talk about what she did while secretary of state. we could talk actually also about her campaign in 2016. you go back, look at the debates, the warnings she gave

the world. shewarned americans what would happen in the next four to five years and she was exactly right. she's been on the cutting edge for decades. >> yeah. and, joe, we could talk about all the incredible things she's done from a public posture her entire career going back to her wellesley commencement speech in 1969 where she dedicates a large portion of her speech to women. let's also talk about some of the incredible work she's done behind the scenes. being a senator from new york for several years, she focussed a lot of her time on helping women in a very quiet way. most recently, joe, the testament to who hillary clinton is and her character, if she was working diligently behind the scenes to evacuate women and children from afghanistan, procuring planes, you know, working with ngos and other organizations to get as many people as she could out of afghanistan. to me it's a testament to her

character. i'm so grateful and excited she'll be receiving this honor because she deserves it. >> at the same time, she'll be able to send a message to the world on an international stage, one in which she has a lot of experience with, traveling to hundreds of countries as secretary of state, also running for president. >> and susan page, again, we talked about her warnings during the campaign, during the debates. you talked about the criticism she received going to china. she's now going into a region that, again, is a region that has had real challenges with women's rights and some countries are trying to make more progress than others. so this is once again going to be a message, going to a region that quite bluntly would be kind of like billy graham going to the soviet union. not everybody's going to be receptive to the message, but it

needs to be said. >> yes. and of course this is a region with which the united states has long and complicated ties. it's also i think a moment when we're curious about whether hillary clinton's next chapter will be since the 2016, that stunning loss. she withdrew a bit. that's certainly understandable. wrote a book, has worked behind the scenes. but i wonder if this signals a more public stance that she will begin to take in public life again. mika, i look forward to your interview with questions about that. >> i gotcha. thank you. good tip. randall lane, let's talk about this, and also we have other speakers and performers lined up for the 30/50 summit, our inaugural 30/50 summit, in and around international women's day. hillary clinton is just the beginning. >> it is. we've been talking about this being the greatest gathering of

global women embodying international women's day. we have it. it's coming together. we can announce today cathy woods coming, on the cover of forbes just a few months ago. here's somebody, one of the most influential women in finance in the world, so we'll hear from her live. we mentioned a great entrepreneur with ulta beauty worth over a half billion dollars. it's multigenerational. the key is multigeneration, people like lexi underwood from hulu, lawrence o'donnell gray, a tiktok star. so it's this coming together of influence, of business, of politics and world leaders all coming together in one place for international women's day. >> and we're getting a great response. i mean, we have the right now nominations open for the women's 50 over 50 list, so nominate

yourself or someone well over 50 really stepping into their power and no lying up like last year. but the response to this list globally make this event obvious at this point that there is this gathering of women who can really connect and mentor each other and also lead the place we're going -- leave the place we're going to just a little better. >> about giving. we have a fashion show where we're bringing together women from africa, from the middle east, from the u.s. we have a supermodel and her voice has been so strong about being over 50. we have a doctor who leads the idea in his fashion coming from africa bringing five african designers. this will be big. we have a party in the desert, an opening party at the presidential palace. the idea this is a true

embodiment of international women's day. >> lost randall there. the forbes 30/50 summit is just 26 days from now. you can register yourself, or a lot of people are sending members of their teams. it's a great way to lift up over women. visit forbes.com for more information to register and we will see you all there in a month. a lot of people signed up already. >> this is fantastic. thanks for being with us. and susan page, really quickly, just again, the political person in me, i can't help but go back to what you were saying. there has been more talk, more chatter, especially in washington, about hillary clinton looking at 2024 again. talk about that. >> well, i am myself skeptical she'll run for president again, but that doesn't mean she could not emerge as a significant force in the democratic party in the nation, in our debate as we move forward. and that's what i'll be looking

for. i'll be watching for what her plans are and whether she is ready to kind of step out in a more public area. i think even this award may be a sign that she is ready to do something a little different from what she's done in the past five years. >> all right. and thank you very much. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. i'm stephanie ruhle. we have a lot to get to, so sit down, relax sh and let oogs get smarter. a major move to the fight against covid. multiple states announcing that will drop mask mandates as cases and hospitalizations drop. breaking news at the white house,