added only very rarely, for momentous occasions. keep in mind, a lot of people celebrate halloween, a lot of people celebrate valentine's day but you still have to show up for work. >> cincinnati schools were off today, win or lose. sadly, the young bengals' fans can stay home to com miss rate. i will say that the nfl season keeps expanding. there's talk if they add an 18th game, which is rumored, it would push super bowl one more week which would make super bowl monday president's day. thank you for being here. thanks to all of you for getting up way too early with us on super bowl monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. this is the 15th play of the drive. four runs. ten passes. second and goal. pass. caught! got it. touchdown.

>> and the l.a. rams are super bowl champions, beating the cincinnati bengals, 23-20 last night to earn the franchise's first nfl title since the 1999 season and the first representing los angeles since 1951. >> wow. >> what a game. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, february 14th. happy valentine's day. >> happy valentine's day, mika! >> i love my presents. with us we have the host of "way too early" jonathan lemire who says he is bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. author and award-winning sports columnist mike lubicka is with us as well. >> let's get to it. the rams capped off a 79-yard drive late in the fourth quarter and a one-yard touchdown reception for cooper kupp for what would be the game-winning score. l.a. was aided on the final

drive by a ton of penalties in the last two minutes, after only two flags were thrown over the first 58 minutes. penalties against cincinnati put the rams in position for the go-ahead touchdown that would ultimately determine the champion. that and the offensive effort by kupp, who had four receptions, 39 yards and a seven-yard run to convert the fourth down during that championship drive. kupp adds super bowl mvp to offensive player of the year award. he finished for a total of eight receptions, 92 yards and two touchdowns, despite being double-teamed for much of the game. that after fellow wide out, odell beckham jr, who scored the game's first touchdown went out with a knee injury in second quarter. his absence slowed the l.a. resever higgins hauled in a 75-yard pass for a touchdown giving cincinnati their lead for the first time, which they would

hold until the final minutes. you got to give a lot of credit to the rams' defense, which applied nonstop pressure to the bengals. quarterback joe burrow, a super bowl record-tying, he had a minute and a half to try to get cincinnati in field goal ranges but the bengals failed on three attempts to get one yard from the rams' 49. >> fourth and one. morris calling the defense. final right there. it will go from the gun. p. ryan, the back field. burrow, trying to keep it going. gets spun down. gets it away! and incomplete. it looks like p. ryan might have had a shot to make the grab, but the rams now running down to celebrate with a defensive play. >> you just can't say enough

about aaron donald, one of l.a.'s biggest starts on the defensive side, getting to burrow, forcing a pass and with it a turnover. with it the rams got possession, took a knee, ran the clock out and began celebrating the championship victory. l.a. the second team in a row to win the super bowl in their home stadium after tampa bay did the same thing a year ago. mike, you had texted me during the game, a text i saw about 2:30 this morning. you texted me during the game saying, cincinnati, they just don't want to put this game away. they keep getting the chance to put this game away. the trophy was right there. the lombardi trophy was right there for them to take it, and you know what? maybe it is because he is such a young guy, but burrow wasn't able to do it. >> you know, joe, ernie, the

great giants' general manager made the eli manning trade said this, can he take the team down the field with a championship on the line. at the end of the night last night matthew stafford did that. obviously he is a lot more experienced than joe burrow, and joe didn't. joe, didn't you feel like in real-time for two hours the bengals were one drive away from putting the game away and donald and vaughn miller and that defense just wouldn't let them. that's why if they had given the mvp to aaron donald last night instead of cooper kupp i think everybody would have been fine with that. >> yeah. >> that 15-play drive, it was -- joe, how many times in all of those lost seasons in detroit did matthew stafford wonder if he would ever have it in him to do what he did last night? and when asked to deliver, that's exactly what he did. >> and i must say, jonathan

lemire, yesterday afternoon somebody asked me who i thought was going to win, i said i think the bengals probably will pull it out because joe burrow is just used to winning. you know, he beat nick saban in college, he beat clemson for the national championship. i mean the guy just knows how to win. on the other side of the ball you have matthew stafford, a guy who learned to lose in detroit year after year after year. winning is a habit. losing is a habit. it just is. anybody in sports will tell you that. matthew stafford though last night showed an old dog can learn new tricks. that's just a hell of a drive. that is, that's what makes the great ones. i always tell the montana story, driving down the field against the bengals for a reason. because some quarterbacks rise to the occasion under the worst of circumstances and some don't. last night matthew stafford did. >> yeah, the bengals had a team of destiny field them for a while there and they won in kansas city.

burrow beat patrick mahomes on the road and you felt he was going to do it again last night. but apparently in the second half the pressure from the rams' defensive line was immense. burrow had no time to show. it was money on the last drive for stafford. couper kupp, best receiver in football, no question. with beckham out, they had no other questions. the bengals knew he was throwing to kupp every time and he still got there. credit to stafford, who spent more than a decade, as you say, in detroit. you know, tough season after tough season. when he finally got the stage, he pulled through. i wouldn't say it was a great game. it was compelling, it was close. it wasn't all that well played. there was a stretch i felt like it was three and out, punt, three and out, punt. you can't ask for more than a game coming down to the final minute or two. >> yeah. >> it looked like the bengals were one first down away from getting on the out edge of field

goal range, but the rams' defense held. credit to them. >> i have to say i agree with you, mike. the rams' defensive line should have been the mvps collectively. you give it to donald, to the defensive line. all night they were the ones that stepped up time and time again. >> joe, joe burrow got sacked 70, 7-0 times this season. he got sacked in one playoff game nine times and survived. he got sacked seven times last night and there were all of the other rushes. we saw in the last super bowl, patrick mahomes looked human because nobody blocked for him. as great as burrow has been, he's a wonderful kid to watch, he had a chance to pull off that triple crown, national championship, heisman trophy, super bowl. if he doesn't have time to throw, he has no chance. joe, you are right. it was a cheesy holding call on logan wilson on third down down by the goal line. >> oh, yeah. >> if they don't call that it is

fourth and goal for stafford and the rams and maybe we are having a different conversation this morning. >> all right. so speaking of this morning, football season is over. college football is over. the nfl season is over. >> okay. >> now we can avert our eyes to america's sport. that is, of course, major league baseball. i want to know what those clown are doing in negotiating right now to make sure that all the small towns and cities across america who depend on that month or two of spring training revenue, what are they doing to get back on to the field and start practicing so we can have a regular season after two covid-shortened seasons? >> joe, spring training was supposed to begin this week, and coming off, you know, a tremendous world series and right after all of the good

will. then they went all of that time during the off-season without negotiating. now major league baseball has put a new plan on the table. stop me if you heard this one before. there is great enemity between these two sides. you hope at some point everyone will get into the room and say, "we cannot push back the start of this regular season after what has happened over the last two seasons" because this is -- joe, you are right. this is supposed to be such a sweet time for baseball. in florida and in arizona, the stories were supposed to have begun already. if they don't have spring training games going on in a couple of weeks, it would be so devastating for this sport. >> yeah. >> no doubt. >> there is real concern among those in major league baseball. there's gratitude the nfl season was longer this year, provided them some cover. people were really talking about baseball yet. they still have the olympics going on but it is a different

story. they met saturday, the two sides, joe, and people i talked to close to it say a little progress was made, but only a little. they've got a long way to go. >> come on. >> they're not close on a number of core issues. there's no next negotiation session set. there's some hope it could be this week, but they have huge gaps to bridge and right now there's little to no chance spring training will start on time. you will lose workout, potentially lose spring training games. opening day, the moment -- they still have time to get opening day settled too. if it is pushed back and you lose regular season games, as devastating as it will be to lose spring training games, far, far worse to lose regular season games. particularly coming out of the pandemic, there won't be much appetite among the public for a billionaires versus millionaires battle. >> i was going to say, i hope the billionaires and

millionaires have enjoyed the winter break because they haven't been sitting down talking to each other. they haven't been negotiating. they're basically saying, the hell with the fans, let's just whatever park you go to, there are people who work all year to be able to take their kids to see three, four five baseball games. these billionaires and these millionaires who are fighting each other didn't even -- couldn't even break a sweat to sit down and negotiate this so we had spring training and so we have a regular season. it is a disgrace. they need to get to work. mike, thank you so much. >> thank you, mike. >> your new novel, incredible. number one with a bullet, co-written with james patterson. it is called "the horsewoman." >> love it. >> this thing is at the top of the charts on every single best sellers list. what an incredible book. thank you for being with us. let's get to the top

headlines this morning. a strong diplomat push was occurring over the weekend. president judo spoke to ukrainian president zelensky by phone yesterday reaffirming that the u.s. and its allies would respond, quote, swiftly and decisively if there's an invasion. according to the white house the two leaders agreed on the importance of continuing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence in response to russia's military buildup on ukraine's borders but things don't look good. the call came with zelensky a day after biden again spoke with russian president vladimir putin, which did not result in any break through. this as the u.s. is concerned that russia will stage an incident in the coming days that would create a false pretext for an invasion. >> we cannot perfectly predict the day but we have now been saying for some time that we are

in the window and an invasion could begin, a major military action could begin by russia in ukraine any day now, including this coming week before the end of the olympics. of course, it could take place after the end of the olympics or it is still possible, we believe, that russia could choose the diplomatic path. but the way they've built up their forces, the way they maneuvered things in place makes it a distinct possibility there will be military action very soon. >> meanwhile, some airlines have cancelled or diverted flights to ukraine and asian stock markets fell today while oil prices rose amid concerns of a possible russian invasion. all of this as moscow continuing with its military buildup, now amassing more than 130,000 troops right along ukraine's border according to the associated press. >> let's bring in former nato supreme, four-star naval

admiral. also news director, michael weiss. admiral, let's begin with you. i was bombarded by people suggesting military action anywhere basically has war crime stamped all over it. the other side, of course, was that joe biden is not doing enough. he should send troops to ukraine, he should do whatever it takes to stop russia from going into ukraine. of course, that could start world war iii. my question to you is this, what else can the biden administration do? what else can nato allies do, short of deploying troops into nato -- i mean into ukraine. short of deploying troops into ukraine, what else can we do to avert an invasion? >> well, joe, you are the guitarist. you know the old song, "send lawyers, guns and money," that's

actually a pretty good way to think this. i think the administration has kind of done that. the lawyers are the diplomatic piece of this. the guns are pretty obvious. we have to continue to flood the zone with meaningful military weapons that are defensive but lethal. so that's javelin missiles, that is stinger missiles to go after air and armor respectively. the money, joe, that's the sanctions. show the russians what the pain will be. so i think they've done all of that. if i were going to put a bow on it and add a couple more things, i would get very aggressive in cyber. at the end of the day the first thing that goes across that border ain't going to be missiles, aircraft tanks. it is going to be electrons. it is going to be a cyberattack that will go after the grid of the ukrainians. so helping them prepare for

that, showing the russians a little bit of offensive, cyber made make sense. i will close with this. you know the admiral is going to say it, look to the sea, look to the black sea. get our destroyers up there, not in a confrontational way, but get them positioned to keep top of mind to the russians that there are other venues here, cyber and maritime as well as what we're all correctly focused on, the land. >> so, michael weiss, if the lawyers, guns and money are all in place, why does russia keep pushing the envelope? >> well, i think for putin, you know, this is more than just about nato enlargement and relitigating the end of the cold war. ukraine cannot afford by his likes to become a functioning democracy. it cannot afford to become a pro western country. he tried by hook or crook beginning in 2014 by trying to

abort this revolution and annexing crimea and starting the dirty war, he has tried to forestall this. he has failed. he cannot achieve it in his mind by politics and diplomacy, so now it is guns pointed at kyiv. he wants regime change and he wants ukraine to become a part of his sphere of influence in perpetuity. >> michael, it suggests failure on putin's part. it suggests failure internally inside of russia. >> yes. >> it suggests failure even in ukraine that he actually had ukrainians, some ukrainians who were pro-russian. now they've all turned against him. i would guess if he were doing better at home he would not be looking westward to go into ukraine. >> that's absolutely right. i mean one of the ironies of the whole conflict is he made the ukrainians rediscover their

sense of people hood, their sense of nation hood. also another irony, but the territories russia annexed and is now occupying, these are the most historically pro russian areas of the country. ukrainians will tell you we will fight to the end to liberate all of our territory but they will wink and nudge and say, by the way, he has pinned up the fifth colonists and one of the reasons our country has developed politically, socially over the last years is we don't have the rogue elements influencing the trajectory of our nation. so in a way ukraine has inadvertently done a huge favor -- i'm sorry, mr. putin did a huge favor to the country of ukraine and i think he realizes it that it has strategically backfired. >> speaking of strategically backfiring, admiral, there can't

be anything they like about watching nato troops and u.s. troops moving into poland. we received reports out of there that u.s. soldiers, gis were walking through polish villages and being treated as liberators. they were being pugged. they're like basically, where were you in 1940, you know, 1939, where were you? oh, my god, you are here now. so the pols are thrilled. others are thrilled they're seeing american presence, nato presence. it seems to me this would be the last thing vladimir putin would want. so my question is this. how do we turn up the pressure if he does invade? how many more troops do we send to poland? how many more troops do we send to other central and eastern european countries? >> i like the way you are thinking. i will add another shrimp on the barbie, which is think about how

it is playing in two other countries that are not nato members but have incredibly capable militaries right next to russia. that would be finland and sweden. neither of them have chosen to join nato over the years. they are utterly competent. those soldiers served under my command in nato. boy, would we love to have them. we watched ukraine with the years-long process, i say to the swedes and the fins, tell us when you want to join nato on wednesday and we'll have you in on friday. in terms of u.s. troop presence, don't forget we have 50,000 u.s. troops still in europe. we sent another 3,000, plus 3,000. so i think the u.s. is kind of where we need to be. i would add more western european troops going to eastern europe. get the brits to send more. get the french to send more. get the italians, the spaniards

to send more. show that unity of effort in the alliance. reach for other allies, swedes and fins. continue to show vladimir putin your point, the irony of how it is going to backfire on him ultimately. >> yeah. admiral, i guess my question is this. those 50,000 troops in western year, how many of those troops should joe biden move from western europe into poland, western europe into other countries moving closer? again, not because we want to provoke anybody but just because we want to say, "listen, if you are going into ukraine how do we know you are not going to continue going west"? . >> exactly right. you could pull the troops out of italy, out of western germany and move them into bulgaria, poland, romainar, estonia, latvia, lithuania.

again, show vladimir putin his bad behavior will be rewarded on the other side of the coin. last thought, we haven't mentioned it but there's another audience at play here. that is china. both sides are signaling to china and in particular putin's play here is a signal to xi that he, putin, is a big actor on the international stage. that's another reason nato should be standing strong in the face of this because there are challenges elsewhere in the world as well. >> so, michael, the white house for a while now has been sending pretty ominous warning of a possibility of invasion and that escalated on friday. you were in ukraine for a week or so. give us a contrast as to what you heard there and why do you think zelensky is so quick to go the other way and to really try to tamp down the threat? >> well, for president zelensky this is about not sowing panic.

he says we will do russia's bidding for them if we go into a perpetual war footing, it will affect our economy. you have seen commercial airline companies have not been ensured, they're cancelling flights. some might say it is being too naive, it is the politics of thes on stitch. i would call it the politics of those who defended the international airport. their argument is we have been at war for eight years. what putin wants most is political destabilization in kyiv. in january there's a massive cyberattack which took down several government ministries. the week i was there and this wasn't widely reported, there were bomb threats issued to schools including kindergartens outside of kyiv. i had to meet an ambassador at a cafe, why? because several embassies

received threats while i was there. ukrainians think, look, we are not blind to the troop buildup. we understand the manpower, the fire power putin has amassed all around our borders, belarus in the east. we think he is playing a psychological game, guns pointed at kyiv forcing us to make concessions we don't want to make, we cannot make politically. the people will turn against us if we cave on dom bass and the reincorporation of the people's republic. i spoke to an ambassador who was skeptical the russians would move in for many, many months, but he is now less skeptical. he said they're leaking every scrap of intelligence from the russian side to telegraph to putin's regime, we know what you are thinking about, don't remember. remember, putin is a former kgb officer, counterintelligence matters to him. the american policy of

deterrence which is being litigated through the press. we are all talking about this imminent or inevitable invasion which is showing him that he is running a leaky ship. you can't trust your own people because we have sources in your government telling us what you are doing. >> we will have more on this later. admiral james stavridis and michael weiss, thank you for being on this morning. also, the debate inside the biden administration over how to roll back covid restrictions. plus, a vital trade link between the u.s. and canada reopens after being blocked by protesters for almost week. inside mitch mcconnell ease campaign to take back the senate and thwart donald trump. we'll break down how it is going so far. trump stumbled into the white house after launching a presidential campaign to help his brand. now a news report shows how he's cashing in on that political

fame. you are watching "morning joe." we will be right back. we will be right back.

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31 past the hour. here is a look at other news making headlines this morning. a u.s./canada border is back off after a blockade of protesting truckers kept it close. the ambassador bridge is a key trade point between ontario, canada, and detroit. the six-day stoppage caused millions of dollars in trade and disrupted already shaky supply chains. windsor police chief pam mizuno

told reporters sunday before the bridge reopened there had been 25 to 30 arrests. no one had been injured as a result of any police interaction. the protests began late last month when a group of truck drivers, angry with covid vaccine mandates, parked by canada's parliament and refused to leave. those protests eventually expanded to include the bridge convoy. canadian president justin trudeau has said everything was on the table when asked how the government will handle the protesters. we will be following that. now to the controversy at the winter olympics involving russian figure skating star kamila valiyeva. the 15 year old has been cleared to compete in this week's individual event despite failing a drug test in december before the games. the court of arbitration for the sport released ruling -- released its ruling less than 12 hours after a quickly arranged hearing yesterday, saying

valiyeva does not need to be professionally suspended ahead of a full investigation. according to the "ap" the court gave her a favorable decision in part because she is a minor, known in olympic jargon as a protected person, and is subject to different rules from an adult athlete. russian officials say valiyeva has passed two drug tests since the one in question. for now, it sets her up for an attempt at a second gold medal in beijing. valiyeva and her fellow russian skaters can also aim for the first podium sweep of women's figure skating in olympic history. the event starts with a short program tomorrow and concludes thursday with the free skate. yesterday's decision pertains only to whether valiyeva can continue to compete, not the outcome of the event. the ioc says it will not hold a medal ceremony for the team

figure skating event during the beijing games because of the controversy. it also won't hold ceremonies for the women's individual event if valiyeva wins. complicated. >> that doesn't make it -- jonathan, lamire, i don't get it. if she is doping it is okay because she is 15 years old, if she is doping after, of course, the entire russian team was banned from the olympics because, like, they -- the organization like was a doping factory. i don't quite understand this. what are they talking about? king solomon trying to split the baby here. explain this to me. >> yeah, joe, is it even the olympics without a russian doping scandal? apparently not. it is unclear what happens here. the ioc also announced today were she to win or her team to win going forward a medal, they wouldn't do a medal ceremony. which, again, suggests, well, like, what is the point here? if you are going to say her victory is tainted to the point where you are not going to

celebrate it, why is she being allowed to compete? their argument seems to be, look, she was 15, maybe she was given this medication, this drug without her consent or knowledge. that seems to be the idea here, that they're trying to take it easy on her, not punish her for the mistakes of others, for the mistakes of adults. but the russians certainly don't deserve the benefit of the doubt here in terms of doping. it has become a part of their olympic program. now it calls into question not just the team event from last week but going forward. if she is allowed to compete, how can the other skaters feel like it is a level playing field or in this case playing ice. >> it is preposterous. first of all, either there was doping or there wasn't. there was doping, then you have to disqualify the russian team. i would say, to say we're just not going to hold a medal ceremony. >> that's weird. >> and say, by the way, we're

going into individual events but because she doped and she is under 15, we're not having medal ceremonies either. she is either in or out. can you believe the ioc is screwing things up? holy cow. >> coming up, sarah palin versus "the new york times." how the former governor's lawsuit is testing a key component of libel law. plus, how to prevent the shh lacking that he experienced. you are watching "morning joe." we will be right back. we will be right back. ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪

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20 minutes before the top of the hour. a live look at the capitol. a beautiful morning coming up in washington, d.c. former alaska governor sarah palin took to the witness stand last week to tell a jury she was at the mercy of a goliath against which she felt powerless when she first learned a 2017 "new york times" editorial suggested her campaign rhetoric helped incite a mass shooting. palin accused the paper of deliberately fabricating lies that hurt her reputation, the basis of a lawsuit accusing the paper of libel. she sued "the times" for unspecified damages in 2017, alleging the paper damaged her career as a political commentator and consultant with the editorial about gun control. the editorial drew a link between palin's political action committee and the 2011 shooting that wounded several people

including congresswoman gabby giffords and killed six people. the piece stated the shooting took place after palin's pac shared a map placing 20 democratic lawmakers, including giffords, in stylized crosshairs. in a correction two days after the publication, "the times" said the editorial had incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting and that it had incorrectly described the map. the paper's lawyers have argued palin's brand has not suffered from the episode, pointing out she still appears on television and gets hired for speaking engagements. palin conceded she never asked "the times" for a correction, retraction or apology before she filed the suit. let's bring in legal affairs reporter at "politico", josh

gorstein and josh savalas. >> josh, we don't usually get these cases at this level. the law is fairly settled. what makes sarah palin's case against "the new york times" different? >> i think you have some conservative lawyers who believe they have a vehicle, or believed at one time they had a vehicle here to really challenge the basic presumption, joe, the basic actual malice standard so many of us have grown up with. that it is very, very hard if you are a public figure to recover any damages against a newspaper. you know, in the last three or four years you had justice thomas, you had justice gorsuch and some other federal judges say that they think that should be looked at again. so there is some momentum to do that. whether it is enough to actually make a serious run at it i'm not sure, but these lawyers seem to think that it is in play.

>> and is there, do you think, along with those justices do you think that there is actually a move by many americans who want to see this standard altered a bit? >> well, i mean i can think of one very prominent american that repeatedly called for this standard to be altered and said it was too hard for public figures and politicians to sue over what he called lies in the media, and that's former president donald trump. so there definitely is some audience for changing this standard. whether there are enough people like that on the federal bench at this point to actually bring about that kind of change i'm not sure. the other thing that's happened, as in much of the country, you have sort of a response by more liberal politicians, and in this case new york's legislature passed a law in 2020 that enacts the actual malice standard as the law of the state of new york regardless of what the u.s. supreme court does. so that kind of throws a wrench into this plan by these

conservative lawyers who we might mention were the same lawyers that went after gawker in that famous suit on behalf of hulk hogan and basically brought down that entire news organization, or at least that entire media organization. >> yes, and i guarantee you that former president would have at least one lawsuit on his hand if the standard had been lowered, and that would be from a certain talk show host he accused of murder 12 times when he knew it was a lie. but he was able to do it because he hid behind this law, because all lawyers said because he was a public figure and that i was a public figure that he could basically accuse me of murder, which seems fairly preposterous to me. but that's what i'm told the current standard is. danny, where are we in this case? does sarah palin have a chance of prevailing? >> well, considering what the jury has already been told about what they have to decide, they have to decide that the

defendant was reckless in -- and by that i mean recklessly disregarded the truth of the matter and additionally was reckless about whether or not it would defame sarah palin. that's a pretty high burden to meet for a public court. the supreme court, prior to 1964 the standard was just negligence. that's a very low standard by comparison. first they started with public officials and then it was extended to public figures. now if you are famous that's the standard that you have to meet. and, you know, additionally you have the element that you look at the language of this column, this editorial, and it was essentially the link to political incitement was clear. even the word incitement, "the new york times" might have some wiggle room there in their defense. finally, they're arguing that, well, sarah palin wasn't really damaged by this. she appeared on tv. arguably you could say she was back into the spotlight after having been relatively quiet for a while. >> danny, great to see you here. talk to us though about the

broader implications if palin was to prevail in this case. what would that mean not just for "the new york times" but the media industry at large. >> it doesn't matter if sarah palin prevails because whatever her legal burden is, practically speaking the damage to "the new york times" has already been done. the jury and the world has seen the inner workings of what the newspaper does when it is on a deadline. this is a universe that we're familiar with, crashing a deadline, but to regular lay people it might seem operating at too much of a break-neck speed to be careful. when in reality during the playback process, as josh can tell us about, the editor sends it back to the writer, and in this case there was a little bit of maybe someone should have read it a little more before it went out. but, look, that's the process. that's crashing a deadline. you know, my thought is i wonder if a jury will lay people might see this and say, geez, this was maybe not reckless but pretty

darn close. it is a close call in that sense. it is a trial. anything can happen. but if you are just playing the odds, "the new york times" should be safe. however, it could potentially really damage if it goes up to the supreme court, and i do think this is a court that would take on this issue and would take on "new york times" v. sullivan. if you had asked me that two years ago i would say, no, right leaning justices are the opposite of activist justices. i no longer think that. i think it is a case they would be interested in taking if they had the opportunity. >> josh, let's talk about the media culture danny was talking about, how it changed over the past decades since this editorial was written. that's when what used to be "the times", the "wall street journal", other dailies, they would have time to sit back, research this, make sure they got it right. suddenly everybody was rushing for deadline, to get something online as quickly as possible. i can tell you on this show we

would get information and we would put it up, later find out it was wrong and have to correct it. there's a story right now that we were going to go with this morning and we're taking another day and we're studying it. in part, we are studying it because what we've learned over the past decade. talk about media culture in 2011. talk about media culture in 2022 as it pertains to what danny is talking about, that the media is learning time and again the cost of this crash-and-burn culture. you know, it is one of those things. i don't want to sound like a grandpa, but if you don't know the answer and if you are having to rush to the deadline, that means slow down, check your sources two, three, four times and get it right the first time. >> right, joe. that's almost exactly what james bennett, the former editor of

"the times" said, he wish he had slowed down. it is so quaint compared to so many other people out there on the internet generate content on a daily, hourly, minute and second basis. they said this editorial went through nine hands, nine sets of ice and nobody caught this mistake. we are not even talking about the news section of "the new york times," where you could see that they would be on some kind of urgent deadline to try to keep up with everybody else. this is the editorial section that was, if they were rushing, rushing to comment on the day's news events. it did seem kind of absurd to me it was held up as some kind of carelessness or recklessness. sure, they didn't follow some of their procedures, some people didn't read their e-mails or messages, but the layers of review don't apply to so many news organizations, media

outlets and random individuals sitting out there on twitter pushing out content. former presidents, all kinds of people are not doing the level of fact checking that "the times" almost at all times does. >> i have to say it is important to underline that point because so many of the clowns out there right now bashing "the new york times" that have newsletters or that are tweeting, they spit out lies every single day. they don't have, as you said, the quaint fact checking process that "the new york times," the "wall street journal", "the financial times," "washington post," other papers, "politico", where you have layers and layers of fact checking. even with that, sometimes you get it wrong. sometimes we all get it wrong. it does happen. but, again, for these people with newsletters that are constantly bashing "the times" and bashing the media, that get things wrong, you know, over and over again, yeah, it is just rank hypocrisy.

>> josh gerstein and danny savalas, thank you for being on this morning. we appreciate it. we will be following this. still ahead, are we seeing evidence of a weakened donald trump? the growing signs that the former president's once unchallenged hold on the republican party is waning. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right "morning joe" is coming right back day-in, day-out that's why dove men body wash has skin-strengthening nutrients and moisturizers that help rebuild your skin. dove men+care. smoother, healthier with every shower. welcome to the eat fresh refresh at subway wait, that's new wait, you're new too nobody told you? subway's refreshing with better ingredients, better footlongs, and better spokespeople. because you gotta you gotta refresh to be fresh (music)

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ivan wrightman, the influential filmmaker behind some of the most watched comedies has died. his family says he passed away peacefully in his sleep on saturday night. reitman first rose to prominence with national lampoon's "animal house" which he later produced. he later directed hits like "kindergarten cop" and

"ghostbuster," which grossed $300 million during its run. he also produced "beethoven" and "old school." his son, also an accomplished director helmed "ghostbusters: after life." when asked about following in his father's footsteps, he said it was completely intimidating. i was lucky enough to do it sitting next to my dad. ivan reitman was 75 years old. last night, the rams won the battle with the bengals for super bowl lvi. but the nfl is still fighting a culture war amid renewed attention to the league's lack of diversity and calls for change. that conversation is straight ahead on "morning joe." t ahead on "morning joe.

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this is the 15th play of the drive. four runs. ten passes. second and goal. pass. kupp! got it. touchdown. >> there is no joy in mudville. >> the l.a. rams -- >> the mighty casey struck out. >> -- are super bowl champions, beating the cincinnati bengals, 23-20, last night to earn the franchise's first nfl title since the 1999 season. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, february 14th. >> happy valentine's day, everybody. >> guys, you need to remember it is valentine's day. >> it is valentine's day's day. >> don't forget, okay? >> come on. >> jonathan lemire is still with us. joining us now, the host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the national action network, the reverend al sharpton. also with us, sports editor of

"the nation" dave cyron." author of "the kaepernick book." >> great to have you with us. jonathan lemire, everybody i knew were rooting for the underdogs, rooting for the bengals, just a success story. you know, they did very well for three quarters. they hung tough, and just at the end once again had their hearts broken like they have before, like, you know, montana did to 'em and now it is stafford and kupp. >> yeah. the bengals never won a super bowl championship. i was rooting for them as well. it would have meant so much to the people, the fan base there of southern ohio. the rams' defensive line were the story the second half.

burrow, a great young quarterback, and this bengals team have a future ahead of them. they will have another shot. the defensive line was immense. give credit to matthew stafford, stuck in nfl perg torrey of detroit for a long time, purgatory perhaps being kind, was terrific down the line. you don't see teams do this much. they bet big. they traded away all of their top round draft picks. we are seeing probably aaron donald the best defensive player in football. odell beckham jr did get hurt but made an impact before he left the game. they went all in on a one or two-year window. it paid off. you know, they did it in front of their home crowd. i don't think it will go down as a classic super bowl, but it was good. it was a competitive game with a pretty terrific halftime show

aimed squarely at gen x, a game we will remember going forward. >> yeah. dave, this isn't a team that actually played well under pressure down the stretch. they were ahead 17-0 against the niners last game of the season. the niners blew past them to get into the playoffs. they were ahead of brady, 21-3. almost blew that. that game had to go into overtime as well. this game, stafford and the rams came through in the fourth quarter like champions do. >> came through with a ten-play drive i think we will be talking about for as long as there are super bowls. it was absolutely epic. doing it without a number two receiver in odell beckham, i mean it totally changed the game when odell got hurt. in that regard i'm glad the rams pulled it off, because otherwise a lot of people would be talking about it was two super bowls,

the pre and post beckham getting hurt. 58 minutes in, third down and gold, the cincinnati bengals were called with a rather phantom holding call that led to a first down inside the far yard line by the l.a. rams. just a brutal way to lose a game at that point. absolutely brutal. i understand why the bengals' fans this morning are a little more than sore about what went down, but at the same time it was hollywood. it was the los angeles rams winning in los angeles with all of l.a. there to see it. so they wanted to script that ending, and the ending, even if it was not intentionally done so, it was in the end of the day scripted. >> yeah, and a little -- i won't even say controversy. i will just say a little twitter scuffling going on over the halftime show. we get reports, dave, that the nfl told eminem he couldn't

kneel at halftime. eminem kneeled at halftime. then the nfl said, "we never told eminem he couldn't kneel at halftime." so twitter and the tabloids have something to write about this morning. >> oh, and i got to say this was very predictable. i mean here is the national football league, which has a reputation for bathing in black culture but not necessarily supporting that with black employment in positions of power. this is the crux of what the nfl's pr problem is right now with america. you know, as the expression goes they want all of the rhythm of black culture but none of the blues. so they're in this position where they -- they do this halftime show that is very much this expression of, hey, this is hip-hop, we're the national football league. we are down with the youth, even though the youth is more people like my age given some of the acts that were on display. but at the same time they're in

this position where they're facing this lawsuit by brian flores about hiring practices and about how things happen behind closed doors in the national football league. so right now they're in a position where they're both trying to be everything to everybody while at the same time trying to not push away a young audience that is more demographically diverse and less tolerant of intolerance than any generation in the history of the united states while at the same time trying not to lose their, for lack of a better term, red state appeal and continue to be -- and it is difficult to do in this incredibly polarized country, but they want to be the closest thing we have to a mono culture in the united states. the top 100 shows watched last year, 75 of them were nfl games. it is remarkable a country as sliced and diced as we are from an entertainment perspective. >> no doubt about it, dave. no doubt about it. rev, i couldn't help but think while i was watching the halftime show the front that the

nfl was trying to put out, and yet they have one black nfl football coach. of course, no black owners. you just sat there going, man, there is a real dissonance here that even a halftime show can't clean up. >> dave described it, yeah. >> no, and i enjoyed the halftime show. most of the acts i know well for years, mary j. and snoop and all. but it really at some level is a picture of where we are with the nfl. we can entertain people but we cannot do business with them. we're not owners. we only have now two black coaches out of 32. few of us in the lead national civil rights organizations met with roger goodell last week and said, "you do realize even while there are attitudes on the right that say you are doing too much for blacks, you look at the

facts, you are not doing anything." the fact of the matter is the rooney rule has not brought about the change that it was projected to do, and you are doing this all with public money. the thing that i think your people do not realize is that many of these teams survive because of public money. the local county, local cities put in money to help with the stadiums, help with what goes on, and in many ways black taxpayers are helping to underwrite teams that they can't own and they can't get their children to have top jobs in. so i think the conversation and the controversy was put into the public taxpayer investment, there are very few corporations that could have the lack of diversity and yet go to the counties and cities and get the kind of public taxpayer investments that the nfl gets. >> so to follow up on your

point, rev, that some on the right are saying the nfl is doing too much for black athletes and for the black cause and, dave, to follow up on your suggestion that the nfl is sort of -- they're caught here, trying to be all things to all people. they seem to be failing on both sides. they saw an "l.a. times" article that actually jumped out at me, mika, because of what i had heard from republican pollsters in the 2020 campaign. >> well, amid a cloud of controversy over how the nfl handles the hiring of black coaches, a new poll shows just how split the country is on race as it pertains to the league. here it is, "the los angeles times" and survey monkey asked whether the nfl is doing too much or not enough to show respect for its black athletes. the poll found a fifth of respondents feel the nfl is doing too much. it is a number driven by

republican respondents. 45%, nearly half of those polled that identify as republicans, say the league is doing too much to show respect for black players. >> look at that. hold that up on the screen for a second. dave, i would love to say it was just one poll, but as we look at this graphic on the screen i can tell you that during the 2020 campaign i would call people running the democratic party and the republican party and i would say, "well, what are the issues, give me your top three issues." one of the top republican pollsters i know said to me, "well, joe, one is defund the police, we are using that." you can take the screen down now, guys. one is defund the police, i get that all the time. two were the covid shutdowns,

the covid lockdowns, people are really reacting to that. three is the nfl. the nfl is just a gift that keeps on giving. i am sitting here thinking about all of these political issues. i go, the nfl, what do you mean the nfl? he said the nfl. he is like white guys across this state said, we don't even ask the question, they bring it up. so this has become for republicans a cultural hotbed. talk about that. >> yeah, and there's a racism that undergirds this, that goes back in the sports world since the day of the boxer, jack johnson, which is this idea that black athletes are there to be seen and not heard, that they are there to entertain but not say what they actually think about the world and that they should be grateful -- that's the word that is always used, grateful for the opportunity to entertain and play a game for money, as if they're not workers for the multi-billion dollar

corporation where the average career is only 3 1/2 years and contracts aren't guaranteed and also where head injuries and injuries are so prevalent. the idea the nfl does too much for black players was met with peals of laughter in the locker room when it was discussed. when you consider what the nfl does or doesn't do for retired players, who are disproportionately black, it is an upsetting poll. the poll question itself feels like a very racially loaded push poll, where they're asking people basically like, does the nfl do too much for black people. so the poll question is disturbing, and the response reveals where we are in this country and in the culture of backlash. instead of listening to what some of the players have to say about their world and about the opportunities they have in the league, there's an immediate shutdown. the mere fact that they're

talking disqualifies them from having an opinion. >> jonathan lemire, the only thing i would say about the push/pull aspect of this is that i would suggest since people are volunteering this information to republican pollsters during the 2020 campaign that it is actually a much bigger problem than that. the problem is that you do have an overlying number of republican voters who believe the nfl is doing too much for black players, the nba is doing too much for black players, other leagues are doing too much for black players. you hear it, you see it, you read it in these polls. >> if republicans feel like nfl -- the nfl is doing too much for black players, they haven't voted with their eyeballs. they haven't turned off the games. they haven't stopped watching. nfl ratings were huge this year. we haven't got them from the super bowl last year, but the

playoffs were setting records. they're certainly not, at least for now, quitting the product. reverend al, i want to ask you as we go into this. i know you talk a bit with coach flores. what the next steps there may be for that case? we heard from president biden over the weekend and there's an interview with lester holt also expressing dismay how few black coaches there is in an nfl league that is 65% black. commissioner goodell acknowledged it was a problem but didn't offer solutions. what is the coach saying next in terms of the next steps in the lawsuit, and what do you think can be done in the short term to start fixing this? >> i think that the coach said he is pursuing this as a class action suit, so it is not just him. in the lawsuit they said that you have to do certain things on a broad level. i understand and we were told by commissioner goodell they're not going to try to string this out like they did kaepernick. they're going to have to deal with this. on the civil rights side, we

intend to have some of the municipality government bodies call them in and have a hearing saying, why should we continue to put money in here, which means they will be forced to give time tables and goals to maintain public funding. this is not going to just linger now. we're going to follow this up immediately. i think when people say in polls we're doing too much for athletes, the question is, okay, what do you think they're doing too much of. they can't answer that because there's nothing there. if somebody says you're doing too much, okay, what is that? i think if we really look at it in the whole question of american history, there have always been people that accepted blacks to entertain them but not to be able to engage and do business with them. they can accept our being the entertainers but not the owners, not the ones that can be in the front office. that is reflected in the biggest sports in the business, football

and basketball. we've got to break through that. those cultural breakthroughs are as important as the political breakthroughs. >> you know, rev, we can talk about coaches all day. we can talk about needing more black coaches all day, but who is going to be hiring the black coaches? it is going to be the white owners. >> right. >> so the question is why you have -- you have, what, 32 nfl teams? i hope i'm close. you have a lot of nfl football teams and not one black owner. you have to start at the top. >> that's right. >> that's how the culture of an organization changes, where somebody brings in a coach and they're not going, okay, i'm going to be paternalistic here and pat somebody on the head, i will be a good guy, get me good press for a year or two. if it doesn't work out, i will fire him and bring in a white coach.

you bring in a black owner, you change the culture of that organization. >> and the only way you can get a black owner is that the owners vote to decide who is allowed into the clib. into the club. you have to have a certain amount of them. you and i, joe, talk about the music industry. i remember james brown used to tell me when i would ride around with him that in his early days he would perform at venues where literally he and the band would have to get dressed on the bus because they were not allowed to use the dressing rooms in the venue they were going to perform. run on the stage where they were going to perform, go out sweaty and have to get dressed again in the bus. which means that people wanted to see us perform but they didn't see us equal. that reminds me of the setup that some of the mentality of our owners are. you get out there in the field now and throw that ball for me and catch that ball for me, but you can't be in the office, and don't ever think you can be my

equal as an owner. we have to break through that. particularly again, i keep emphasizing, since we are paying for it with tax dollars. >> yeah. dave, people look at big contracts here, big contracts there, but your nfl -- not for long -- really struck me. i will be really blunt. i over the past several years have been watching the nfl less and less because at times i think, wait a second, i'm not even letting my -- i grew up playing football. i started when i was 9. i played in my brother's league. he was like, 12. football was our life. it was our life. i don't let my kids play. so a lot of times i'm looking out on the field. i am looking at these kids, and they're kids -- shows how old i am -- and i see how much damage they're doing. it is like car accidents every time there's a massive hit. you know, it does to their brain what a car accident would do to their brain and i sit there and i think, my god, it is almost

like gladiators. it is harder for me to watch the nfl than it is even college football right now. so, yeah, i don't see this as any great bargain for black players who are able to play. they make money, they make good money a lot of times. fine, but at what cost? >> exactly. >> a terrible cost. i will never forget one nfl player said to me that this is the only job when you retire, you retire in your 30s to early 40s and you go straight from being a young man to elderly. playing in the nfl denies you the right to a middle age because of the toll it takes on your body. >> oh. >> which is all of the reason having a stake in the industry, whether management or whatever, is an important issue for the nfl players because they want to feel like they're more than pieces of meat rolled on to the field on sundays. >> all right. this conversation absolutely continues. sports editor for "the nation" dave zirin.

thank you very much. we will be looking up for your upcoming film "behind the shield: the nfl at the crossroads." there is a new push by former president donald trump to capitalize on his name and brand. thoroughly blurring the lines between his political ambitions and his business interests. "the new york times" reports that since leaving the white house trump has undertaken a wide ranging set of money making ventures, trading repeatedly on his political fame and fan base in pursuit of profit. according to "the times", quote, no former president has been more determined to meld his business interests, from chocolate bars to real estate to a tech startup, with a continuing political operation and capitalize on that for personal gain. he has gone on an arena tour with former fox news host bill o'reilly, where a backstage

"v.i.p. package" sold for more than $7,500. he has published a $75 coffee-table book, after being paid a multi-million dollar advance by a new publishing company co-founded by his eldest son. he has turned an online trump store into a maga merchandiser. his wife melania has gotten into the act, auctioning off online collectibles and scheduling her own big-ticket event in naples this april. a tulips and topiaries high tea with v.i.p. packages reaching $50,000 and an undisclosed portion going to charity. >> meanwhile, there's a new report in "the washington post" titled a weakened pump. it is co-written by national political reporter at "the washington post", michael shearer. he joins us now. michael, first of all let's just

talk about ex presidents making money. this is nothing new. i remember nancy reagan stops talking to her long-time friend mike wallace when you brought up a $3 million speech reagan was making in japan and the obamas are raking in a lot of money. i think this is just tackier, chocolate bars. maybe because he's also an active political candidate poenl poenl possible for 2024 rankles some people. >> and because it is direct to the consumer, he is going back to the trump steaks, trump mattress model he used before he became president. normally a president will give a speech to a private equity fund or a foreign group of wealthy people and make quite a bit of money. trump is selling tickets. the high-end tickets go for

$7,500, but you can get into the events -- he did an event in texas and you can get in for $20 if you want. i think that's the difference, that trump is sort of returning to what he was actually very good at before he got into politics, and it leads to all of the unusual things. it leads to people getting e-mails from trump that they think that look like political fundraising e-mails but they're actually for his private company. it is not really clear who is making the money. they hear about an invite for an event. they think it maybe for a political fundraiser. he sounds like a political fundraiser, but if they don't read the fine print they may be going to something that is making him money. >> michael, your story, it is a fascinating story. it is almost like a reset. it is like we've gone to the way-back machine. this remind me of march 2016 where you have the teaming masses supporting this, you know, reality tv host, but you have all of the officials behind

closed doors grumbling and grousing, some even saying the quiet part out loud. we are back to the point where the establishment starting with mitch loathed donald trump and aren't afraid to say it, yet you have the rank and file behind this guy. >> that's right. you also have concerning poll numbers. one of the things driving the concern is while registered republicans still have very favorable views of trump, two things have shifted over the last year. the first is that the percentage of republicans who say they are very favorable has gone down considerably, about 20 points. the second is that republican-leaning independents have basically walked away from trump. they're no longer on the trump train. >> yeah. >> that is a concern for these party bosses because they need these republican and independent voters to come out. the other historical parallel i think is worth mentioning is

2010 with the tea party. i was in michigan to report this story, in northern michigan, a small county. it feels very much like it did in early 2010 when you had this uprising of grassroots support that was against the party bosses. they thought the party itself was corrupt. in this case what they're debating is whether the party has covered up a thrown election. the election wasn't thrown but they believe it was. back then it was about the losing our freedoms. back then maybe glen beck was leading the tea party but there wasn't leadership of it. now these people are rallying around donald trump. i think it is possible we have a midterm season that echos that. where you have the tea party people, grassroots people get through into office. some of the trump endorsees will win but some will lose. >> reading from your report, "a

weakened trump as some move away." clashes between the republican leaders and the candidates trump has embraced have been playing out across the country with a growing ferocity in recent months, a chaotic sign trump's one unchallenged roll on the party and rank-and-file supporters is waning, even if by degrees. the growing split is rooted in di verging priorities. trump has pursued a narrow effort to punish those who challenged his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, while also working to put people in power who would be more sympathetic to him should he try the same thing again. other republicans are more focused on finding palatable candidates most able to win in november. as a result trump and his endorsees find themselves fighting against some elected gop leaders, donors and party officers intent on navigating

the party slowly away from him and his false election claims. i mean are we seeing a bit of a crossroads here for republicans, joe? >> jonathan lemire, i know you have a question for michael but let me go to you first. i know you picked it up in your reporting. i certainly have seen it not only in my reporting but in my personal life. a lot of people who were intensely supporting donald trump now seem exhausted by him. they recognize he lost the presidency, he lost the senate, lost the house. they want to look forward. he's still looking back. you really are starting to see that friction there. now, of course, the democrats in their mind, they're doing a terrible job on cost of living, they're doing a terrible job on crime, a terrible job at the border, so they're still going to vote for whatever republican runs. but i do sense a growing kpaugs with donald trump's looking back at 2020. >> yeah, certainly there are pockets of the republican party that are still very much devoted to donald trump.

we know who they are, the true maga world characters. but there are a lot of other republicans who, you know, perhaps would be willing to vote for him in 2024, but are tired of it right now. who want to move to 2022, who want to turn the focus eventually to winning back one, if not both houses of congress. certainly looking at the white house in '24. president biden, at least for the moment, has sort of pretty suspect poll numbers, although there's certainly lots of time for that to change. but trump won't let them turn the page. he keeps talking about 2020, and there's a growing sense in the republican party that's going to hold them back. michael, great story here. i can certainly tell you at trump tower here in new york city the bar there has become a shrine to the 45th president, even more than it was. talk to us about the republicans' efforts to try to create some space between themselves and trump heading into these mid terms, particularly for mitch mcconnell and the senate, trying to get candidates there who could win

for republicans, give mcconnell majority again but who aren't so devoted to the lies surrounding the 2020 election. >> again, i would go back to that tea party comparison i made earlier. you know, if you go back in 2010, 2012, 2014, republicans shot themselves in the foot. they came out of the primaries as very anti-establishment people who held not very wide-spread views. in a lot of places they ended up losing general elections because they had the wrong candidate on the ballot, not because the state was not wanting to vote for a republican. that is the concern of mitch mcconnell. the dynamics in the house and senate are very different this cycle. the house looks almost certain to flip at this point but the senate is still very suspenseful. it could come down to which candidate there is in new hampshire, in arizona and in pennsylvania-over-whether republicans have control.

mitch mcconnell has been very bold, increasingly bold in trying to lead his party and the senate, republican senate and being able to stand up to trump. the reason i think is really expeditious. he is trying to create the space to give himself a better chance of winning. the problem he has had is that it is pretty tough to recruit candidates in this environment. there's still significant concern in the republican party about, you know, coming out and actually speaking out against trump if you don't yet have power. it is deadly in a primary. if you are running as a republican you make the contest about trump. he has had some frustrations in new hampshire. he may not get doug ducey in arizona, which is the candidate many republicans want to run for senate there. he has a problem in georgia where there will be a republican primary for governor that could once again scramble the dynamics in the general election by turning off some republican voters in a senate race there.

so, again, that's an uphill battle for him. >> "the washington post" michael scherrer, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," blue state governors have already begun easing mask mandates, but what about the biden administration? what we've learned about the internal debate now underway. plus, mitch mcconnell was hoping that popular republican governors would help him retake the senate, but so far that plan doesn't seem to be working. >> again, it is because who wants -- >> what we were just -- >> -- to be dragging donald trump around wherever you go. >> we will explain just ahead on "morning joe." "morning joe."ucose control®. it's clinically shown to help manage blood sugar levels and contains high quality protein to help manage hunger and support muscle health.

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as sun has come up over washington. in what may be a setback in the covid vaccination effort, pfizer is delaying its application for fda approval of its vaccine for children under 5 years old until early april. the drugmaker says it is postponing its request to gather more data on the effectiveness of a third dose. pfizer believes three doses, quote, may provide a higher level of protection in this age group. this is the last age group in the u.s. that isn't eligible for vaccination. we will follow that. meanwhile, the white house is weighing when and how to begin lifting covid restrictions. nbc news reports the biden administration began holding a listening tour last month with outside experts and lawmakers on a new strategy to handle the coronavirus. administration officials announced the development of a new covid strategy on wednesday,

saying it was part of biden's efforts to move the country into a new phase of living with the pandemic. the effort comes as a growing number of governors are moving forward on rescinding their mask mandates. administration officials said those moves were expected and the federal government will follow with its own announcements. coming up, from combatting climate change to reforming our electoral system, our next guest is out with a possible playbook on how to take on challenges that seem impossible. "morning joe" is coming right back. " is coming right " is coming right back! (wife) hi, honey! (man) like what? (burke) well, you'd get a discount for insuring your jet skis... and boat...rv...life... ...home and more. you could save up to forty-five percent.

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now, i'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shelacking like i did last night.

i'm sure there's easier ways to learn these lessons. >> that was former president barack obama back in 2010. remember that, after suffering a shlacking during the mid terms, he is working to help democrats avoid a similar fate this time around. in a private meeting last week obama advised how democrats to recognize the pain and struggle american families are experiencing as lawmakers campaign this year. in the virtual meeting on thursday, he told democrats it has been a tough couple of years for americans who have navigated the pandemic, interrupted schooling and inflation. he encouraged democrats to connect with voters and avoid focusing on what the party has been unable to accomplish. that's a very big message for democrats. as for the republicans, there is new reporting on senate minority leader mitch mcconnell's campaign to take back the senate. the new york time's jonathan

martin writes this. as mr. trump works to retain his hold on the republican party, elevating is a slate of friendly candidates in midterm elections, mr. mcconnell and his allies are quietly, desperately moving to thwart him. in conversation with senators and would-be senators, mr. mcconnell is blunt about the damage he believes mr. trump has done to the gop, according to those who have spoken to im. privately, he has declared he won't let unelectable goof balls win republican primaries. no names were mentioned, but candidates like christine o'donnell in 2010 and todd aiken in 2012 come to mind. mcconnell has worked to recruit governors who have been unafraid to stand up to donald trump, but that effort so far has come up short. maryland governor larry hogan and new hampshire governor chris sununu have both declined. while arizona governor doug

ducey, who has said he won't run, will reportedly make a final decision soon. according to "the times", mcconnell's message to ducey is that donald trump is losing political altitude and should not be feared in a primary. >> you know, jonathan lemire, i have had republican friends who were talking about running statewide for some races call me up and say, "what do you think? do you think i should do it?" i said, "that's obviously up to you, but you do understand that you are going to be dragging donald trump around wherever you go and, you know, if you feel like you have worked hard your entire life and you have built a good reputation and a solid brand, that could go away in a couple of days because you either bow to the king maker, as he likes to think of himself, or he destroys you." suddenly you are getting insulted wherever you go for the

rest of your life, you know, you will have people looking at your suspiciously. so if you are a successful governor like chris sununu or larry hogan and you are sitting with a 70% approval rating or you are a successful business person, why do you -- why do you want to risk that, where one wrong move, where you lift your eyebrow the wrong way donald trump is accusing you of being a murderer or is accusing you of being a communist or is accusing you of whatever stupidity he accuses you of? it actually has impact with a small but very aggressive, stupid segment of the population. >> yeah, that's the challenge that mcconnell is facing right now, in trying to find more moderate republicans, republicans willing to distance themselves from trump. you mentioned sununu. i was going to bring up governor hogan in maryland who is extremely popular in his state,

who has flirted with the idea of a senate run and reported he now is not going to do it. that has led mcconnell to sort of have to bite his tongue and go along with the trump-backed candidates. her shell walker is one that comes to mind, where mcconnell will back the former football star despite questions about his background, despite questions about whether he lives in the state of georgia, but mcconnell's hands are tied there. this will be a fascinating dynamic to watch, though certainly democrats will say we have a lot of time between now and november, virus cases are dropping, the economy is looking at signs of improving, although, of course, inflation looms large. they still feel they have a shot at the mid terms. the house will be tough. historical trends show it will be hard to keep that. the senate is one they can do. that's why you are seeing mcconnell frantically cast about for candidates he thinks can win because his fear, according to people close to him, is he will

end up with a 50/50 margin g or potentially lose a seat because he got saddled with radical trump candidates. >> think of the swing states. you have arizona, you have wisconsin, you have pennsylvania. >> right. >> i mean you could just go state by state by state. georgia. all of the swing states from 2020. you know, if biden's approval ratings go up, and they will have to go up to make the races more competitive, if they do go up over the next six to eight months then the wrong candidate loses it for republicans. >> yeah. well, now to the question of what makes a successful social or political movement. our next guest is taking a look at how radical ideas are implemented to spark lasting change and the role of social media, for better or for worse. joining us is gal beckerman, senior editor for books at "the

atlantic" and author of the new book entitled "the quiet before" on the unexpected origins of radical ideas. gal, thank you very much for coming on the show. first of all, just what were you -- what is the big takeaway of the book in book in terms ofe conditions for the beginning and the growth of the social movement? >> look, what motivated me to write this book is that i feel over the last few years we've talked a lot about the ways that social media has affected us as individuals, the way that it makes us frazzled and unfocused and it's hurting the esteem of young girls and we talked about how it's affected democracy and how it's made us more divided and exacerbated outrage. but the one thing that we don't seem to be talking about enough is how social media is affecting

social movements, how they build and how they grow. i came to understand that social media has given activists this wonderful means for bringing. everyone to the street very quickly. >> let me ask this, this is al sharpton. i'm really impressed with what you just said because obviously i've been involved in social movements all my life and one of the things that i've seen in the last several years, let's say couple years around the george floyd movement, is that people have been able to generate a crowd but con sustain it. they had to end up folding back into those of us who had organizations because there's no sustaining of it. in your book how do you look at

how social media can have more than just generate an immediate kind of reaction but have a sustaining reaction because i've seen that as some of the flaws that i've seen in some of the movements that i've seen of late that end up flowing back in and evens so media influences i've seen have not been able to sustain their own brand and their open career. >> to be honest, i think social media's the wrong tool to use. it's one tool in the tool box but what i did is i looked historically. i looked before the internet at the different forms of communication, the different types of media that organizers use, that dissidents used when they wanted to come together and what those forms of communication had in common is that they provided a kind of intimate space where people could debate and argue in a way

where they wouldn't be shamed amongst themselves and begin to refine their ideas, begin to set their goals, set their strategy and i think that we need that today. we need to find those spaces so that when those viral moments, those moments when a hashtag goes crazy and people end up in the streets that movements have a sense half they want to achieve, they know who they are, they have their organizational structures. none of those can be done in the big, public, loud, fast-moving, bombastic media that social media is. i'm not saying it shouldn't be used for certain purposes. it's incredible that people have this bull horn now. but the problem over the last ten or 15 years is an over reliance on it in the sense that this is all you need in order to make your ideas sort of not just move into the world but begin to

change reality. >> the new book is "the quiet before on the unexpected origin of radical ideas." gal beckerman, thank you very much. and reverend al sharpton, thank you as well for being on this morning. this morning we're looking at new questions at the surprise death of bob saget after the autopsy report suggests he suffered a head injury. the report said the injuries were consistent with someone who had been hit in the head with baseball bat or had fallen 20 feet. we'll dig into that straight ahead on "morning joe." t straigt

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still ahead, the latest on the escalating crisis in eastern

europe as the white house warns russia may invade ukraine any day now. former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, joins us. we'll have that and much more straight ahead. we're back in just 60 seconds. that help rebuild your skin. dove men+care. smoother, healthier skin with every shower.

it is the top of the hour. look at the sun coming up over new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." it's valentine's day, monday, february 14th. get those flowers. the official holiday of valentine's day and the unofficial holiday of being the morning after the super bowl so everyone's tired. and that is where we will begin. the l.a. rams are super bowl champions this morning, winning it all in front of the home crowd yesterday against the cincinnati bengals.

tom yamas has the details. >> pass, caught! got it, touchdown! the rams were built to win the super bowl and they have sealed the deal. >> reporter: on football's biggest stage, the rams shone the brightest. quarterback matthew stafford kinding finding cooper cup. >> how confident were you he was going to catch it. >> i was pretty confident. >> the playoffs and the super bowl basically came down to the last minute moup did you get your team mentally prepared and ready for the final seconds of this game? >> these guys did it. they're a mentally tough group. >> reporter: this wasn't easy despite their star-studded

roster and home advantage. >> it's rocking here. the rams fans on their feet as the rams are marching down the field. they had to overcome losing beckham jr. to a knee injury. bengals fans are going nuts. you can see all the orange jumping up and down. >> reporter: but this warm february night belonged to l.a. hip hop royalty taking center stage. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: but in this close-fought contest, the rams' defense made the difference, sacking bengals' young star quarterback joe burrow a super bowl record seven times. >> obviously it stings but we had a great year. didn't come out this last game the way we wanted to but i think we still have something to celebrate.

>> reporter: rams' defensive star aaron donelle shutting down cincinnati's final drive, emotional after the game. >> i'm so happy. i wanted this so bad. i dreamed this man. >> reporter: some celebrations in los angeles going too far with vandalism downtown. but inside the stadium, all smile, especially for winning quarterback stafford, capping off a harrowing journey for his family, his wife, kelly, overcoming a tumor and brain surgery within the last three years. the victory for the family now that much sweeter. >> ah. and it's not to early to start looking ahead to super bowl xvii. >> it is to early. >> it's a little early. >> the odds makers have kansas city at 13-2 followed by buffalo at 7-1, the rams 10-1 and the

bengals are the 12-1 and the tom bradiless bucks are 18-1 and the new england patriots sit at 25-1 and the texans and jets are 200-1 to win the super bowl next year. >> maybe glendale, if i were putting money on anybody, it would be the bills who seem to be going their way. the night really did belong to l.a. that was story book. that was hollywood. did i hear this is the first time the city of los angeles has won a football championship since 1951? >> for the rams. the raiders -- the l.a. football teams have moved around a lot. the raiders won in st. louis.

the rams did win in the early 80s beating the washington team. l.a. has not had a lot of success in the football but they have a magnificent stadium. it is way too early to be thinking about next year's football. but there's the idea that tom brady may not be totally retired and may be eyeing one last season with his hometown boyhood team, the san francisco 49ers. florio reported it saying it's being actively talked been within the nfl. >> okay. let's move to the news now. u.s. officials warning russia could invade within days. the state department ordered most embassy staff to leave

ukraine. chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the latest. >> reporter: armed and capable of redrawing the map of europe, russia continues to build up weapons and troops around ukraine's border. officials say russia has well over 100,000 troops around ukraine's border and they could invade in the coming days, including during the winter olympics. russia denies it will invade ukraine and calls vocal concerns from washington and nato allies warmongering hysteria. president zelensky said again he doesn't expect an take. some communities are making matters into their own hands. just across the city of russia, some ukrainians are preparing.

basic training for the whole family, learning first aid to treat gunshot and shrapnel wounds. this 79-year-old is a retired accountant and a great grandmother. you're about my mother's age and i can't picture my mother laying down on the concrete learning how to fire an assault rifle. do you think you would actually be doing this. >> reporter: yes, i think everybody person should be able to shoot from the window or the street if the enemy comes. down the firing line, no ammunition, just learning to point, shoot and use the safety. >> reporter: how are you both feeling right now? >> as for me i'm scared a

little. that's why i'm here. but still i hope that nothing will happen. >> let's bring in former u.n. ambassador to the ukraine, bill taylor and editor at the financial times, ed lewis. ambassador taylor, they say one. reasons for pushing the envelope is they can't afford for ukraine to be on the road to democracy. but hasn't nato and the u.s. made it clear that they can't afford to not become a democracy? why do they keep pushing this when very clear messages have been sent? >> so this is important for a principle and the principle is sovereignty and nations get to decide. sovereign nations get to make their decisions. it important for nato, ukraine

and the united states and the entire way we look at it around the world. when russia says they want to deny ukraine the ability to even apply for membership in nato, they're infringing on ukraine's sovereignty and that goes with the concern that ukraine might become a normal democracy that is making it in europe. that would threaten president putin's regime, threaten the whole idea of the way he operates if ukraine, a christian, slavic, brotherhood country, this would be a challenge for putin because the russians would say if the ukrainians can do it, why can't we? >> so this really has been a battle, has it not,

ideologically, mr. ambassador, since 2004, since ukraine started looking more aggressively west? and i would -- i'm just wondering your thoughts, the fact that vladimir putin is now threatening invasion, considering invasion, may in fact invade ukraine suggests, just how badly he's lost that ideological battle. >> you're exactly right. president putin relies every day, every month ukraine gets father away from russia and closer to europe and that is a challenge to him and he's running out of time to to that. the other thing that's running out of time is his economy is based on oil and gas and that fund his entire government and most of his gdp and that's going down. right now it's pretty high but

that's going to go down. so time is not on putin's side. >> yeah. ed, you wrote an op-ed that we consider to be fascinating in our household because you're talking about what jimmy carter and dr. brzezinski did to the in 1908 to stop the russian invasion of poland. let me ask you, of all the things that carter brzezinski did in 1980 to stop that invasion when poland was surrounded much like ukraine is vouned today, what else does the biden administration need to do to match the actions of 1980? >> thanks for mentioning that, joe. persuading the soviets that the price was too high.

it not cuba '62, it's not munich '38 and it not even 2014 in ukraine, it that 1908 situation. and broadly speaking, i think the biden administration is following that play book. they have managed to get something approaching western unity in the face of this russian buildup. even the germans now with the german chancellor going to moscow tomorrow to see putin, and he's in ukraine to see zelensky. even the germans, who are the weakest link are showing unity on their position and there's ukrainian local opposition and resistance. it gives putin the idea the cost

is prohibitive. he might have early successes if he invades in the coming days, he undoubtedly would, but as time goes on, the cost to russia, it would become a pleading wound that would drain russia and weaken putin. i think that's the 1980 play book. >> ambassador, describe the tick tock of events that putin will see the minute an invasion begins. >> the first thing he'll see is very dramatic economic sanctions on possibly him, certainly the people around him but also on the three largest russian banks. and this will have an incredible effect on the russian economy. sad to say it will affect russian citizens, russian people, not just putin. it will affect the entire russian economy and will do it immediately. these three russian banks are

responsible for credit card transactions, mortgages, payments. the immediate economic effect -- but another immediate effect will be the number of russian soldiers killed in ukraine. when they come back to their villages in russia, the towns in russia and they're buried, people in russia will ask why are we doing this? why is mr. putin attacking a country that we feel good about? and our brothers and fathers and sisters are dying. i think mr. putin has that immediate concern if he does invade. >> what is the reason that mr. putin is giving to people that he is amassing troops at the border? what will be the reasoning? >> he has a hard time explaining this. apparently he's concerned that the ukrainians at some point will join a defensive alliance,

nato. nato has never threatened russia. nato is designed, is built, its whole foundation is to protect against russia's attack. that we have to invade them to keep them out of the alliance. tom freeman said putin is telling ukraine marry me or i will kill you. that's not a winning strategy. >> happy valentine's day, ukraine. >> i was bombarded earlier this morning by emails from sort of these paleotons are i don't know what to call this many, who thinks anything we do outside of our border constitutes automatic war crimes and then have married themselves up with useful idiots

for putin in russia. that was one side of my e-mail exchange that was maddening. the other side was those that said that joe biden is not doing enough being that he must send troops in western ukraine, he must go in further and go in faster. and i would just like you to explain what would happen if u.s. troops -- i'm not suggesting this would happen because i personally am opposed to world war iii. what are the consequences of american troops and nato troops going into ukraine? >> look, this would be a really dramatic escalation. this would be a game of chicken that, as you say, could lead to direct confrontation between the world's two by far heaviest nuclear armed countries, russia and the united states. 90% of the world's nuclear

stockpile is controlled by moscow and washington. it would be an act of supreme recklessness and justify some of putin's rhetoric about the threat to russian security and therefore we'd lose the propaganda war, even if it didn't lead to a hot war. i think the paleocons or nice people who bombarded your e-mail is alice in wonderland. the war provocation is coming from russia. the idea that america is always the best or always the worst, is that everything bad in the world comes from the united states is just on its face absurd. so you've got a blocking

mechanism on your e-mail, joe. i'm sure you're using it. i have no doubt you know how to use that. >> jonathan. >> a little bit of breaking news. just a little bit ago, lavrov counselled the continued diplomatic talks with the west and putin signalled ascent. but if there is still a path for diplomacy here and a way out of here before a sort of shooting war erupts, what would it be? what is the off ramp that could be provided to putin so this could end without any lives lost? >> the answer there is there is an off ramp. there is clearly an off ramp and we're starting to see more of it. the russians and lavrov talking to putin, they have been saying

for some time -- first of all, they've been saying we're not really going to invade ukraine. they tried to put that out. we know that's not the case. they've got all the capability there. but they've also been saying we need to have conversations they've also been saying we need to convince the west that we have real security concerns and we've finally done that, finally convinced them and they're willing to sit down and negotiate our security and nato security. now we're starting to see exactly that. they're looking for negotiation, they're looking for an off ramp. we should definitely take advantage of that. >> mr. ambassador, final quick question, just a side note. there's a story in the "times" this past weekend talking about how ukrainians have been scratching their head for some time that there's not a u.s. ambassador to ukraine. do you know why we don't have a

sitting ambassador to ukraine as well? >> turns throughout are several countries that don't have an ambassador as well. there is a very well qualified person considered and has been selected and the ukrainian government is doing their normal checks. so i would anticipate there to be a u.n. ambassador in there soon. let me say the sarget is doing a very good job be a the nuance will do a good complement and will take over where she left off. >> former u.n. ambassador to ukraine bill taylor and ed luce, thank you very much. >> and tell me about the blocking mechanisms on emails. instead of the blame america

first crowd. they can e-mail somebody else. >> and new questions surrounding the death of kmeed bob saget. he he reportedly died of an accidental head trauma. we'll explain next on "morning joe." we'll explain next on "morning joe. i see what it does for my patients and it's exactly what i want to do for my family. as a dermatologist i want what's best for our skin. who doesn't want soft, clean, fresh smelling skin. with 1/4 moisturizing cream dove is the number one bar dermatologists use at home.

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25 past the hour. there are more questions than answers after an autopsy report on the probable cause of death of comedian bob saget. the medical examiner's office found the actor died after a significant blow to his head, one that fractured his skull in several places and caused bleeding across both sides of his brain. the report doesn't exactly say how sage it was was hurt so badly but describes an

unmistakely serious set of injuries that would likely have left him confused if not unconscious. if he was to have struck his head in just the right place and with enough force, it possible the fractures would have extended across his skull. as a concussion expert says, quote, it's like an egg cracking. you hit it in one spot and it can crack from the back to the front. however, dr. gavin britts, neurosurgery chair at houston methodist says this is a significant trauma, this is something i find with someone with a baseball bat to the head or who has fallen from 20 to 30 feet. the report echos what saget's family said, that the comedian died as a result of head trauma.

joining me is dr. jason freeman, the director of the stroke program in washington, d.c. dr. freeman, looking at the medical examiner's report, does it raise questions to you? >> good morning, mika. thanks for having me. i want to say the opinions i offer are my own, not of my former employer. i think the autopsy does raise a number of questions about the nature and extent of the injuries. we typically see slip and falls usually that occur in the bathroom, someone hits the back of their head in the shower or on the bathroom floor. these injuries seem to go beyond that. this is where some of the medical professionals begin to speculate about what could have caused the actual injuries. >> and there's the report

that -- and one doctor in the "times" talked about what disturbed him the most is you had a skull fracture and the orbital and suggested this is what he typically saw when somebody fells 20 or 30 feet. would you agree with that? >> i would agree that the injuries as described do typically form because of significant head trauma. so again, when someone slips and falls and hits the back of their head, there's actually room for the brain to shift between the back and front of the head and cause some of the injuries as described in the up a report. but the degree of those fractures, especially of the orbit al or frontal bones is typically seen with high-him pact trauma that you might see in a motor vehicle accident or blunt force tram a and someone particularly falling from a

height. was there more than one fall? did he fall backwards and then forward in an unprotected manner? and what was found beside what was found in the autopsy report? >> is it possible one blow could have caused all the damage in his brain in. >> i think it is within the realm of possibility. the autopsy report as described just shows extreme findings. and i think that's why people began to question whether or not there's more to the story. but it is possible. >> good morning. the reports about his death said he hit his head and then gone into bed and fallen asleep and simply not won't up. but the reporting here suggest he would have been very confused, if not unconscious. would he have been able to to make the decision to get himself to bed and pass out? how did this play out? >> i think it is quite possible that he got himself to bed.

sometimes after neurologic injuries, people have luce it thoughts where they may be clear but within a relatively short time period they lose consciousness and in this case he was unlikely due to regain consciousness due to the extent of his injury. >> all right, dr. jason freeman, thank you very much. we'll be following this. some questions definitely remain open here. coming up, back in 2012 sarah palin famously hesitated when she was asked which newspaper she read. she is suing "the new york times" now. we'll discuss what's hyped her new course case next. and as we go to the break, a look at the white house north

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former alaska governor sarah palin took to the witness stand last week to tell a jury she was at the mercy of a goliath against which she felt powerless when she first learned a 2017 the "new york times" editorial suggested her campaign rhetoric helped incite a mass shooting. palin also accused the paper of deliberately fabricating lies that hurt her reputation, the

basis of a lawsuit accusing the paper of liable. she sued the "times" for unspecified damages back in 2017, alleging the paper damaged her career as a political commentator and consultant with the editorial about gun control. the editorial drew a link between palin's political action committee and the 2011 shooting that wounded several people, including congresswoman gabby giffords and killed six people. the piece stated the shooting took place after palin's pac shared a map placing 20 democratic lawmakers, including giffords, in stylized cross hairs. in a correction two days after the publication, the times said the editorial had incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting and that it had incorrectly described the map. the paper's lawyers have argued palin's brand has not suffered

from the episode pointing out that she still appears on television and gets hired for speaking engagements. palin conceded she never asked the "times" for a correction, retraction or apology before she filed the suit. let's bring in legal affairs reporter at politico josh gerstein and danny savalos. thanks for joining us this morning. >> josh, we don't usually get these cases at this level. the law is fairly settled. what make sarah palin's case against the "new york times" different? >> well, i think what you have is some conservative lawyers who believe they have a vehicle here or believed at one time anyway they had a vehicle here to really challenge that basic presumption, the basic actual malice standard that so many of us have grown up with, that it's very, very hard if you're a public figure to recover any

damages against a newspaper. in the last three or four years you've had justice thomas, you've had justice gorsuch and other federal judges say they think that should looked at again. whether or not it's enough to make a serious run at it, i'm not sure but these lawyers seem to think it's in play. >> and do you think along with those justices, do you think that there is actually a move by many americans who want to see this standard altered a bit? >> well, i mean, i can think of one very prominent american that repeatedly called for this standard to be altered and said it was too hard for public figures and politicians to sue over what he called lies in the media and that's former president donald trump. so there definitely is some audience for changing this standard. whether there are enough people

like that on the federal bench at this point to actually bring about that kind of change, i'm not sure. the other thing that's happened as in much. country you have sort of a response by more liberal politicians and in this case new york's legislature passed a law in 2020 that enacts the actual malice standard as the law of the state of new york regardless of what the u.s. supreme court does. that kind of throws a wrench in this plan as the conservative lawyers, the same that went after the suit of hulk hogan and brought down that media organization. >> i guarantee you that former president would have at least one lawsuit on his hand if the standard had been lower and that would be from a certain talk show host who he accused of murder 12 times when he knew it was a lie, but he was able to do it because he hid behind this law because a lawyer said

because he was a public figure -- and i was a public figure -- that he could basically accuse me of murder. it seems preposterous but that's where the current standard is. does sarah palin have a possibility of winning? >> they have to decide that it was reckless and defamed sarah palin. the supreme court prior to 1964 the standard was just negligence. that's a very low standard by comparison. now if you're famous, that's the standard that you have to meet. additionally you have the

element, you look at the language of this column and the link to political incitment was clear. and finally they're arguing that sarah palin wasn't damaged, she appeared on tv and arguably could say she was back into the spotlight after having been relatively quiet for a while. >> danny, great to see you here. talk to us about the broader implications if palin was to prevail in this case. >> it doesn't matter if sarah palin prevails. practically speaking, the damage to the "new york times" has already been done. the jury and the world has seen the inner workings what the up in does when it's on a deadline. to regular lay people it might seem operating at too much of a breakneck speed to be careful. when in reality, during the

playback process, as josh can tell us about, there's the editor sends it back to the writer and in this case there was a little bit of maybe someone should have read it a little more before it went out but, look, that's the process. that's crashing a deadline. and my thought is i wonder if a jury of lay people might see this and say, gees, this was maybe not reckless but prt pretty darn close. it trial. anything can happen. but if you're just playing the odd, "the new york times" should be safe. however, it could potentially really damage if it goes up to the supreme court and i do think this is a court that would take on this issue and would take on the "new york times" vncht sullivan. if you'd asked me that two years ago, i would have said no. right leaning judges are the opposite of activists judges. i no longer think that. >> thank you both very much for being on this morning.

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. ivan reitman, the influential filmmaker behind some of the most watched comedies has died. his family says he passed away peacefully in his sleep on saturday night. reitman first rose to prominence with national lampoon's "animal house" and later directed "kindergarten cops" and "ghost busters," "twins" and "dave" and he produced "beethoven" and "old school." his son, also an accomplished

director, hailed the latest installment of ghostbuster. jason said "directing "ghostbusters after life" was completely intimidating, i was lucky to do it next to my dad." ivan reitman was 75 years old. coming up, lincoln dilemma. a new look at the president, the complicated man and the context of his times." morning joe" is coming right back. g joe" is coming right back can you be free of hair breakage worries? we invited mahault to see for herself that dove breakage remedy gives damaged hair the strength it needs. even with repeated combing hair treated with

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the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. lincoln was caught between two poles of the republican party, those who demanded emancipation and those who insisted on reunification first, even at the cost of preserving

slavery. some compared him to a famous aerialist named charles blonden. >> he wentz back and forth across niagara falls 1,200 feet, no net, and a lot of cartoonists suddenly realized this is lincoln. on one side, lincoln was being called a dangerous radical who was going to cause a racial reversal in america. on the other side, he was being called too cautious, too slow on slavery. >> that was a clip from "lincoln's dilemma," which re-examines the life and legacy of america's 16th president. it features the voices of bill camp as lincoln and leslie odom jr. as frederick douglass. the narrator of the new series is actor jeffrey wright, and we hope to have him on in just a moment. while we wait for the technicalities of that to come

together, jonathan la mere, give us the latest on president biden's scotus pick. is he close? >> he's getting there, mika. he's narrowed it to a final three. of course the world focused on russia and ukraine, the president is working hard at home on this, a significant pick for him and his administration. he has said he wants to get it done by the end of this month, and, well, that's only two weeks away. so time is narrowing. he's expected to have interviews this week. we know the fbi has already launched background checks on some of the prospective candidates, and there should be meetings with senators as well. two names to watch here, ketanji brown jackson considered washington district court judge, the favored. the president has not made up his mind, but she is considered the leader in the clubhouse. there's also michelle childs

from south carolina who has received some bipartisan support including from lindsey graham, although some wonder if she would be the pick that president biden should save if republicans get control of the senate, and therefore he can point and say, look, if he's able to have another seat to fill, this jurist has received some republican support. therefore, you should go with her. >> we'll see which direction he goes. also fascinating this morning, the breaking news from 30 minutes ago about foreign minister lavrov going to president putin saying let's continue the diplomatic track, because we've been hearing for quite some time behind the scenes and some people publicly that this white house was expecting the invasion to perhaps go wednesday or thursday. this is an interesting development, is it not? >> it is. all the usual caveats apply when it comes to vladimir putin. but it did seem like a signal

towards diplomacy. just in the last hour he met with foreign minister lavrov in moscow. and lavrov suggested support for continuing talks with the west and to not begin any sort of war at this moment, any sort of invasion. putin seemed to nod assent. that is different from what we heard from jake sullivan, making the rounds over the weekend on the sunday shows, saying an invasion could happen at any moment as soon as perhaps tuesday or wednesday of this week. at least for now, it seems like the russians are willing to give diplomacy a little more time. >> yeah. and, joe, what we heard from a lot of our experts today is that, you know, russia is really trying to push back against ukraine and their road to democracy is a threat to russia because the people of russia will say why don't we have what they have? having said that, isn't it also about finding a way for putin to

save face if he's going to pull back? and are we any closer to that? >> i mean, that's a great question. the white house has been suggesting that the invasion is going to go forward. it is interesting, though, that the russians have repeatedly said that we are hyping the possibility of invasion, the ukraine president has said the same thing, trying to keep people calm. >> tensions down. >> trying to keep tensions down. so, it is hard to say exactly what's going to happen, but jonathan, i guess this is the thing i just haven't been able to work through is how this invasion makes sense for vladimir putin when you look at the long-term costs. i believe it was ed luce this morning that said this morning russian soldiers were going to die no matter how quickly they rolled over the country.

russian soldiers would die. and when they're being buried in their villages, people would be asking the question what americans ask, why are we in afghanistan? why are we in iraq? all that said, of course vladimir putin, we always talk about where president putin was in 1989 as an ex-kgb agent in eastern germany, having to burn records, but we also know that if you look what happened in afghanistan with the russians and how the united states and a certain dr. brzezinski started an insurgency there. what's important to the united states, that's still fresh in his mind just like vietnam, iraq, and afghanistan will be influencing history for years to come. ip i just don't know if this is as ignatius as a porcupine that'

hell want to swallow. >> a painful image. for sure, why do these russian soldiers die? what did they die for is the answer he'll have to answer. we know his public standing at home is the weakest it's been in a while. there have been far more demonstrations against in the last year or two he ever faced during his time across the kremlin. we've been watching the olympics as a possible marker. that has another week to go but the u.s. suggested maybe they're pushing pause on that, whether he can, in fact, sell this. one might argue he's accomplished his mission. the world is talking about russia again. ukraine has been destabilized. even if he never goes over the border, perhaps he has a win. >> i agree with that. perhaps that helps with, mika, the question you asked -- how does he get out of the corner? how do we skillfully work with the russians diplomatically to

try to make this look like it is not a retreat for vladimir putin if he doesn't invade ukraine and we avert another european ground war, which is obviously all of our hopes. >> this could be quite a week ahead of us. obviously, we couldn't get the technical difficulties worked out for jeffrey wright but he'll have him later this week. his new dock you seize, "lincoln's dilemma," on apple tv. chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. right now hi, there. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. it is valentine's day, monday, february 14th. we've got a lot to cover. the l.a. rams are champions this morning after winning super bowl lvi over the cincinnati bengals. with game mvp